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Ali E. Abbas (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He received an M.S. in electrical engineering (1998), an M.S. in engineering economic systems and operations research (2001), a Ph.D. in management science and engineering (2003), and a Ph.D. (minor) in electrical engineering, all from Stanford University. He worked as a lecturer in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford and worked in Schlumberger Oilfield Services, where he held several international positions in wireline logging, operations management, and international training. He has also worked on several consulting projects for mergers and acquisitions in California, and cotaught several executive seminars on decision analysis at Strategic Decisions Group in Menlo Park, California. His research interests include utility theory, decision making with incomplete information and preferences, dynamic programming, and information theory. Dr. Abbas is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He is also an associate editor for the Decision Analysis and Operations Research journals of INFORMS. Email: aliabbas@illinois.edu . Kash Barker (" Decision Trees with Single and Multiple Interval-Valued Objectives ") is an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a Ph.D. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, where he was a research assistant in the Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Oklahoma. His primary research interests lie in modeling interdependent economic systems and decision making for large-scale system sustainment, with research funded by the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Army Research Office. Email: kashbarker@ou.edu . J. Eric Bickel (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus " and " A Simulation-Based Approach to Decision Making with Partial Information ") is an assistant professor in the Graduate Program in Operations Research (Department of Mechanical Engineering) at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition, Professor Bickel is a fellow in both the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy (CIEEP) and the Center for Petroleum Asset Risk Management (CPARM). His research interests include the theory and practice of decision analysis and its application in the energy and climate-change arenas. His work has addressed the modeling of probabilistic dependence, value of information, scoring rules, calibration, risk preference, decision education, decision making in sports, and climate engineering as a response to climate change. Prior to returning to academia, Professor Bickel was a senior engagement manager for Strategic Decisions Group. He has consulted around the world in a range of industries, including oil and gas, electricity generation/transmission/delivery, energy trading and marketing, commodity and specialty chemicals, life sciences, financial services, and metals and mining. Professor Bickel is the vice president/president-elect of the Decision Analysis Society and an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering–Economic Systems at Stanford University. Email: ebickel@mail.utexas.edu . Vicki M. Bier (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a full professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is currently department chair and also directs the Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis. She is also the past president of the Decision Analysis Society and is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Her research interests include applications of operations research, risk analysis, and decision analysis to problems of homeland security and critical infrastructure protection. Email: bier@engr.wisc.edu . Samuel E. Bodily (" Multiplicative Utilities for Health and Consumption ") is the John Tyler Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School. He has published textbooks and more than 40 articles in journals ranging from Harvard Business Review to Management Science. His publications relate to decision and risk analysis, multiattribute utility, forecasting, strategy modeling, revenue management, and eStrategy. Along with Casey Lichtendahl, he was runner-up for the 2012 Decision Analysis Publication Award. He has edited special issues of Interfaces on Decision and Risk Analysis, and Strategy Modeling and Analysis. Professor Bodily has published well over 120 cases, including a couple of the 10 best-selling cases at Darden. He received the Distinguished Casewriter Wachovia award from Darden in 2005 and three other best case or research Wachovia awards. Professor Bodily is faculty leader for the executive program Strategic Thinking and Action. He is the course-head of and teaches in a highly valued first-year M.B.A. course in decision analysis; has a successful second-year elective, Management Decision Models; and has taught eStrategy and Strategy. He is a past winner of the Decision Sciences International Instructional Award. He has served as chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. He has taught numerous executive education programs for Darden and private companies, has consulted widely for business and government entities, and has served as an expert witness. Professor Bodily was on the faculties of MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston University and has been a visiting professor at INSEAD Singapore, Stanford University, and the University of Washington. He has Ph.D. and S.M. degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in physics from Brigham Young University. Email: bodilys@virginia.edu . David V. Budescu (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is the Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology at Fordham University. He held positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the University of Haifa, and visiting positions at Carnegie Mellon University, University of Gothenburg, the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, the Hebrew University, and the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion). His research is in the areas of human judgment, individual and group decision making under uncertainty and with incomplete and vague information, and statistics for the behavioral and social sciences. He is on the editorial boards of Applied Psychological Measurement, Decision Analysis (associate editor), Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition (2000–2003), Multivariate Behavioral Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1992–2002), and Psychological Methods (1996–2000). He is past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (2000–2001), fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and an elected member of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychologists. Email: budescu@fordham.edu . John C. Butler (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a clinical associate professor of finance and the academic director of the Energy Management and Innovation Center in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, the outgoing secretary/treasurer of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society, and an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Professor Butler received his Ph.D. in management science and information systems from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. His research interests involve the use of decision science models to support decision making, with a particular emphasis on decision and risk analysis models with multiple-performance criteria. Professor Butler has consulted with a number of organizations regarding the application of decision analysis tools to a variety of practical problems. Most of his consulting projects involve use of Visual Basic for Applications and Excel to implement complex decision science models in a user-friendly format. Email: john.butler2@mccombs.utexas.edu . Enrico Diecidue (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor of Decision Sciences at INSEAD (France) and holds a Ph.D. from the CentER (Center for Economic Research), Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Since 2001 he has been a resident faculty member at INSEAD, except for 2008–2009 when he was a visiting professor at Wharton and 2010–2011 when he was on sabbatical at the Erasmus School of Economics (the Netherlands). His main research interests are in individual decision making under uncertainty, health decisions, and experimental economics. He is interested in the role of regret, aspiration levels, and time in individual decisions. His current research is also addressing the role of groups in complex and ambiguous decisions. Professor Diecidue's research has appeared in leading journals in economics and management. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Risk and Uncertainty and is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He teaches M.B.A., executive M.B.A., and executive participants on topics such as uncertainty, data and judgment, decision making under uncertainty, risk management, and management decision making. He has won teaching awards at INSEAD and Wharton. Email: enrico.diecidue@insead.edu . Robin L. Dillon-Merrill (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an associate professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Professor Dillon-Merrill seeks to understand and explain how and why people make the decisions that they do under conditions of uncertainty and risk. This research specifically examines critical decisions that people have made following near-miss events in situations with severe outcomes (i.e., hurricane evacuation, terrorism, NASA mission management, etc.). She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security through the University of Southern California's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis for Terrorism Events. She has served as a risk analysis and project management expert on several National Academies Committees, including the review of the New Orleans regional hurricane protection projects and the application of risk-analysis techniques to securing the Department of Energy's special nuclear materials. She is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. Email: rld9@georgetown.edu . Raimo P. Hämäläinen (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor of operations research and director of the Systems Analysis Laboratory at Aalto University, Finland. He received his M.Sc. and Dr. Tech. degrees in systems theory and applied mathematics from the Helsinki University of Technology. His research interests include decision analysis, risk and game theory, and experimental economics, as well as dynamic optimization with aerospace applications. He is widely known for his work in environmental decision making and energy policy. He is the designer of widely used decision analysis software, including the first Web-based value tree software, Web-HIPRE; Smart-Swaps; and the Joint Gains negotiation support system. He has recently introduced the concept of Systems Intelligence, which opens a new perspective to organizational learning and personal growth. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including Decision Analysis (associate editor), European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Group Decision and Negotiation, and EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Dr. Hämäläinen has received the Edgeworth-Pareto Award of the International Society for Multiple Criteria Decision Making. He is also the honorary president of the Finnish Operations Research Society. Email: raimo.hamalainen@aalto.fi . Ralph L. Keeney (" Value-Focused Brainstorming ") is a research professor emeritus at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His education includes a B.S. in engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests are in the areas of decision making and risk analysis. He has applied such work to important personal decisions and as a consultant for private and public organizations addressing corporate management problems, environmental and risk studies, and decisions involving life-threatening risks. Prior to joining the Duke faculty, Professor Keeney was a faculty member in Management and Engineering at MIT and at the University of Southern California, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, and the founder of the decision and risk analysis group of a large geotechnical and environmental consulting firm. Professor Keeney is the author of many books and articles, including Value-Focused Thinking, Decisions with Multiple Objectives, coauthored with Howard Raiffa, and Smart Choices, coauthored with John S. Hammond and Howard Raiffa, which has been translated into 15 languages. Dr. Keeney was awarded the Ramsey Medal for distinguished contributions in decision analysis by the Decision Analysis Society and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Email: keeney@duke.edu . L. Robin Keller (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor of operations and decision technologies in the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. and M.B.A. in management science and her B.A. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has served as a program director for the Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Her research is on decision analysis and risk analysis for business and policy decisions and has been funded by NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research interests cover multiple attribute decision making, riskiness, fairness, probability judgments, ambiguity of probabilities or outcomes, risk analysis (for terrorism, environmental, health, and safety risks), time preferences, problem structuring, cross-cultural decisions, and medical decision making. She is the outgoing Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analysis, published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She is a Fellow of INFORMS and has held numerous roles in INFORMS, including board member and chair of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society. She is a recipient of the George F. Kimball Medal from INFORMS. She has served as the decision analyst on three National Academy of Sciences committees. She has been appointed to the editorial board of the new EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Email: lrkeller@uci.edu . Anton Kühberger (" Explaining Risk Attitude in Framing Tasks by Regulatory Focus: A Verbal Protocol Analysis and a Simulation Using Fuzzy Logic ") is a professor of psychology at the University of Salzburg, Department of Cognition and Development, and a member of the Center of Neurocognitive Research at the University of Salzburg. His research interests include the following areas: judgment and decision making, in particular framing, and the role of risk, ambiguity, and uncertainty in decision making; thinking and reasoning, in particular counterfactual thinking and the notion of rationality; and social cognition, in particular the foundation of the understanding of oneself and others either by a theory of mind or by simulation. In addition, he is interested in the development of scientific methods such as verbal protocol analysis and in understanding the role statistics for the accumulation of knowledge. He is a member of the editorial board of several scholarly journals and currently is vice-dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Salzburg. Email: anton.kuehberger@sbg.ac.at . Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr. (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus " and " Multiplicative Utilities for Health and Consumption ") is an assistant professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis. He received his Ph.D. in decision sciences from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His research focuses on decision analysis, Bayesian statistics, game theory, and dynamic programming. Email: lichtendahlc@darden.virginia.edu . Jason R. W. Merrick (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is a professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has a D.Sc. in operations research from George Washington University. He teaches courses in decision analysis, risk analysis, and simulation. His research is primarily in the area of decision analysis and Bayesian statistics. He has worked on projects ranging from assessing maritime oil transportation and ferry system safety, the environmental health of watersheds, and optimal replacement policies for rail tracks and machine tools. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the American Bureau of Shipping, British Petroleum, and Booz Allen Hamilton, among others. He has also performed training for Infineon Technologies, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Capital One Services. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and the EURO Journal on Decision Processes. Email: jrmerric@vcu.edu . Luis Vicente Montiel (" A Simulation-Based Approach to Decision Making with Partial Information ") is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. His main research interest is mathematical modeling for optimization under uncertainty, with a special interest in decision analysis and simulation learning for optimization. His current research is dedicated to providing a theoretical and practical framework for approximating joint distributions under partial information. Luis has a Ph.D. in operations research from the University of Texas, an M.S. in financial engineering from Columbia University, and an M.S. in management science and engineering from Stanford University. Email: lvmontiel@utexas.edu . Jay R. Simon (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") is an assistant professor in the Defense Resources Management Institute of the Naval Postgraduate School. He holds a Ph.D. in operations and decision technologies from the Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, an M.S. in management science and engineering, and a B.S. in mathematical and computational science from Stanford University. His primary research interest is multiattribute preference modeling, particularly involving outcomes that occur over time, space, or groups of people. His current and recent work includes a prostate cancer decision model, preference models for health decisions, preferences over geographical data, altruistic utility modeling, and multiattribute procurement. He is an associate editor for Decision Analysis and is the webmaster and social media officer for the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS. Email: jrsimon@nps.edu . Christian Wiener (" Explaining Risk Attitude in Framing Tasks by Regulatory Focus: A Verbal Protocol Analysis and a Simulation Using Fuzzy Logic ") received his doctorate from the University of Salzburg, Austria. His first research area was the application of the EEG in connection with dyslexia. Later he moved to the area of social cognition, where his research was focused on framing and especially the simulation of decision-making behavior using a fuzzy-logic expert system. Since the completion of his dissertation, he has been working as a clinical psychologist with developmentally delayed children. Email: christian.wiener@gmx.at . Kaycee J. Wilson (" Decision Trees with Single and Multiple Interval-Valued Objectives ") completed M.S. and B.S. degrees in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Oklahoma in 2012 and 2010, respectively. Her primary interests lie in healthcare operations and reliability-based decision making, and she holds a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Email: kaycee.j.wilson-1@ou.edu . George Wu (" From the Editors: Brainstorming, Multiplicative Utilities, Partial Information on Probabilities or Outcomes, and Regulatory Focus ") has been on the faculty of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business since September 1997. His degrees include an A.B. (applied mathematics, 1985), an S.M. (applied mathematics, 1987), and a Ph.D. (decision sciences, 1991), all from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Chicago, Professor Wu was on the faculty at Harvard Business School. Professor Wu worked as a decision analyst at Procter & Gamble prior to starting graduate school. His research interests include descriptive and prescriptive aspects of decision making, in particular decision making involving risk; cognitive biases in bargaining and negotiation; and managerial and organizational decision making. Professor Wu is a coordinating editor for Theory and Decision, an advisory editor for Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, on the editorial boards of Decision Analysis (associate editor) and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, and a former department editor of Management Science. Email: wu@chicagobooth.edu .

Without a doubt agriculture sector is vital part of modern Ukrainian economy. Agriculture is ranked 3rd largest contributor to the national GDP with approx. 17% in 2018 (compared to 14.4% in 2016) of total GDP, followed with industrial sector (26.3%) and services sector (59.3%). It should be noted that it is very promising field in terms of potential economic growth and both regional and international investment opportunities. Food products being a necessity in everyday life of every person. Food and processing industries are the large industries that are interconnected to agricultural cultivation. These industries have great potential to increase the value of agricultural products due to the added value, as not raw materials are sold but finished products that can be consumed in the domestic market and exported. Meanwhile the global process of urbanization and changes in national politics, have had their impact on Ukrainian economy. The number of urban populations is continuing to increase, while great number of work force is migrating to neighboring countries. Several studies state that number of Ukrainian workers living aboard is around 2.5 million people. In this context we plan to investigate and build general forecast model on how urbanization is impacting agricultural land use and certain factors of its impact on economic development of region. On the other hand, we have examples of modern issues, such as climate change caused by rapid urbanization and the irrational use of natural resources. The study showed that urban development requires substantial land rescue for its expansion. By examining closely spatial data of urban and suburban areas, for example that of Kyiv city, agricultural land in suburban areas is used for new construction sites and infrastructural development. Another indirect effect of urban development is ecological changes to the surrounding areas. The affected areas become much less suitable for agricultural uses, require large financial investment and high technologies to renew the soil fertility.Research work that have been conducted in this area focused mostly on financial resources, international politics, and large agricultural holdings of agricultural land use. A lot of work has been done to highlight importance of advocating open land market in Ukraine. While other researchers in their research analyzed specific crop or certain agricultural industry markets. In general, the focus of previous publications was either on the current agricultural export or land use data in Ukraine. The goal of this research paper is to find, establish connections between urbanization and agricultural land use, while focusing attention on possibilities for economic growth and development of effective land use policies. This paper will consider open land market as future possibility; however, it is relations and impact with urbanization falls outside of current research work scope.With this research we plan to describe the connection between rapid urbanization process and changes in agricultural land use from economical perspective. The author focuses his research work and economical modeling on case Ukraine. We plan to showcase changes of agricultural enterprise income, in case of population migration to large urban centers. Additionally, we will study the cases of effective land resource management, where we will study whether it is more profitable for companies to establish the new enterprise closer or inside urban areas as opposed to farmland regions. In this research we plan to highlight the major economical differences of company's startup and operations costs based on available transportation network, land resources and local agricultural specialization. The research work should introduce possible outcomes for small, medium companies, also separating those that are part of international corporate structure and local business. The research will cover whether local company can benefit from urbanization and what are its effects on individual famers earnings. One of the expected research outcomes is to describe how to increase added value of agricultural products with focus on city markets.For this study we used data mining and analytics approaches. During research work we placed great emphasis on determining, locating, and analyzing statistical data from multiple sources. Important art of the research work is identifying right data in context of our research, the one that has clear connection to urbanization process. Spatial data visualization was used to determine key urban centers in Ukraine, as well as locations of agricultural, food and processing companies. Other types of material used are official notional statistics data, European Union public reports, U.S. Department of Commerce datasheets, Kyiv city council, Municipal Enterprise "Kyivgenplan", private companies report, economists' publications, and Public cadastral map of Ukraine. Mathematical framework was used to build robust forecast model. The methodology of the study employed various mathematical tools, such as statistical analytics, polynomial and linear approximations, mathematical correlation, ratio analysis. Besides profit and utility curves were used for growth modeling and global forecast. Spatial data have been outlined as highly effective for predictions modeling and establishing connections with the existing urbanization growth models. Urbanization processes serve as catalyst for land use change and shift in economic activities . As more population migrate to urban centers, remote villages and towns shrink in size, lose work force and often local enterprise become bankrupt or shut down. There is a consequent indirect effect of urbanization on agriculture land use that is when local community become poor or bankrupt, the farmlands are rented by large agricultural holdings. Many researchers noted that agricultural holdings have no interest in development of local communities or investment in local business. Even though they employ local people, the average income of holdings farm employees is much lesser, then those farmers whose lands are in private use or those working in agricultural sector in neighboring European Union countries. The average salary is important factor when looking at land use by large companies since agricultural holdings business goals centered about exporting raw resources and they are registered as business entities in offshore countries.The scope of current research works is limited to the analyses of medium to large size food and processing companies, that operate in local Ukrainian market, with brief overview of food products export business. To build economical model the existing transport infrastructure in Ukraine and its neighboring European countries was studied and used in system analyses. Author analyzed available human resources, amount of investments, industry type and available transportation connections. As a part of research work, physical geographical placement (distance by road) of food and processing production companies relative to closest and regional urban center positions have been outlined. A large array of economical and spatial data has been processed. It was determined that parts of this data have low correlation levels, which makes it difficult to include for modeling purposes. Author made decision to make the necessary edits, generalization to simplify the initial economical model.To build a research model we will make the following assumptions and data sets. Let us use the city of Kyiv as the main market for food products, i.e. it is the largest city in Ukraine, with a huge number of food products consumers and significant financial resources. We shall label it as an urban center for this research work. It is important to note that new companies and international corporations choose to establish their business in the Kyiv or in the 50-kilometer zone from it. For modeling we will choose 12 enterprises, which are located both in the capital and in different regions of Ukraine - west, south, east and center. We rank the selected enterprises by the number of employees.In the context of our economic modeling, consider the land market, namely: the average cost of rent of 1 hectare per year, the location of the enterprise in an industrial region or in a separate settlement. Note that the production capacity of the investigated enterprises is concentrated in one production site (complex). However, the exception is the corporation "Milk Alliance" which has 5 separate production facilities, we will focus on the largest of them, located in the city of Yagotyn (others are located in Peratyn, Zolotonosha, Bashtanka).It is reported that the total area of land plots in Ukraine is 60.4 million hectares, of which 42.4 million hectares are agricultural land (32 million hectares are cultivated per year), the area of built-up land plots is 2550.4 thousand hectares. Land for industrial purposes, which includes the food industry is 224.1 thousand hectares. The cost of annual lease of land in Ukraine for 2019 population 3518 UAH/hectare per year.At the same time, the statistics by region are as follows: Kyiv - 2694 UAH per year; Kyiv region - 3474 UAH per year; Zhytomyr and region – 4000 UAH per year; Mykolaiv Oblast – 4103 UAH per year; Kharkiv and oblast – 3152 UAH per year; Odessa region – 4065 UAH per year; Lviv region - 4172 UAH per year; Donetsk oblast - 1832 UAH per year. It is planned that in 2020 the total revenues to local budgets from land rent will amount to 185,714,285 UAH per year.To understand the general picture of the relationship and economic performance of enterprises located in Kyiv and different regions of Ukraine, we shall consider Kyiv as a self-sufficient object, both in terms of products sales and production. The largest food retailers have opened more than 575 stores in Kyiv as of 2018, and more than 60 new stores are opened each year. The production of food, beverages and tobacco by Kyiv enterprises is 46.6% of the total industrial production, which employs 1,730,000 people (7.4% of total in Kyiv), and the average wage in industry is from 16,511 UAH/month in 2019. In total, there are 9069 industrial enterprises in the capital, which employ 278,863 people, the volume of products sold by industrial enterprises of Kyiv in 2019 amounted to 892,1765,46.2 thousand UAH. At the same time, there are 7351 natural persons-entrepreneurs operating in the capital (11,877 people are employed, the volume of sold products is 5,622,011.9 thousand UAH) in industry, including the volume of products sold by food industry enterprises – 125,140,998.9 thousand UAH according to 2019 data.It should be noted that in Kyiv the main industrial capacities of food and processing enterprises are concentrated in the following areas: Industrial zone " Degtyarivska Street" covers an area of 17.7 hectares; Podilsko-Kurenivskyi industrial district - 539.5 hectares, Pirogovo industrial zone - 121.9 hectares; Voskresensky industrial district - 107.2 hectares.For economic analysis we focused on comparison of three large enterprises of Ukraine, typical for the agricultural sector and food industry, one of which is in Kyiv – "Astrata", "Sandora" and "Kyivhlib". For calculations of transportation costs let's use the following data, 20 to 22 tons van will charge 27 UAH per km outside of Kyiv, while 10 tons van charges 20 UAH per km outside of Kyiv and 250 UAH per km within Kyiv.The "Astrata" corpopration, a large agricultural enterprise, has 5,470 employees, 230,000 hectares of land (aprox. 1514090000 UAH per yar for land rent), with Net profit of 12,631,155,000, Gross profit of 2,432,488,000 UAH, and a total salary expenditure of UAH 427,597,000 (average per employee 6514 UAH per month). For our research we are using one of the sugar processing factories that is part of Astrata holding, it is in Hlobyne, Poltavska oblast. The distance from Hlobyne to Kyiv center is 287 km, so it will cost 7749 UAH per large van to transport products to Kyiv.One of the largest food manufacturers in Ukraine is "Sandora". It consists of 3230 employees, total salary expenses - 630 128 thousand UAH (average per employee 16,257 UAH per month), have a land area of 1.3646 hectares (aprox. 5600 UAH per yar for land rent) and a unit cost of production - 22.66 UAH per liter of apple. Single 10-ton van will charge 10020 UAH to transport products to Kyiv (501km distance to the city center).For Kyiv study we picked "Kyivhlib", which has 1911 employees, total salary expenses – 168,227 thousand UAH (average per employee 14,019 UAH per month), have a land area of 8 hectares (aprox. 21552 UAH per yar for land rent) and the unit cost of production - 14.9 UAH per kg of rye-wheat bread. It will cost 7500 UAH to transport products within 30 km of Kyiv center by 10-ton van. Distance from the production location to the market is not always proportional to net profit. The research results have proved that it is worth examining the data from the same sub-industries companies in several regions, with focus on large cities as main market for those companies' products. ; The paper is devoted to studying the economic and social connections between the urbanization process and agricultural land use in Ukraine. It is worth noting that both urbanization and agriculture require new lands for their future development. The important part of this connection is ecology and effective use of the available resources, as well as land use in the context of urbanization. After all, the process of urbanization can have a significant negative impact on the state of land resources. The research work determines which economic factors of urbanization are the most relevant to the land use in city suburbs and agricultural regions. The article introduces the notion of economic feasibility of land use by purpose and studies cases of food and processing companies. Food and processing industries were chosen as the main research subjects since they are the most promising fields for the future economic development of each individual region and country as a whole. These industries are centered around both import and export, besides producing added value products. Cities without a doubt are the main consumers of food products and at the same time, they drain labor resources from the countryside. In this research work, we studied the global situation in Ukraine, how 21-century urbanization has affected the agricultural sector in the country. This sector has experienced rapid growth in past decades, as opposed to industrial and manufacturing sectors, and increased the national wide level of land use. While the national wide level of urbanization might not be the highest in modern history (20th to 21st century), it continues to have a wide impact on the national economy. The scope of this impact falls outside of this research work as it consists of multidimensional data and a wide range of interdependencies, including policies and regulations. Research models require a large amount of data and cases, that's why we focused on the food and processing sector in this paper. They proved to be a good test ground to study the urbanization impact patterns as well as make economical modeling more convenient. In this context, the peculiarities of land use models were studied, as food and processing industries use land resources, can be located both inside the city, suburban area, or in remote farmland region. It is evident that cities and businesses form large supply and demand of natural resources, labor, and financial investments.

RIJEČ UREDNIŠTVANa svojoj sjednici 17. srpnja 2003. godine Vlada Republike Hrvatske donijela je Nacionalnu šumarsku politiku i strategiju. S obzirom na sve očitije klimatske promjene koje traže novi odnos prema prirodi i okolišu, na manjkavosti važeće Nacinalne šumarske politike i strategije šumarstva, ali i po našoj ocjeni na neadekvatno uključivanje šumarstva u narodno gospodarstvo, je li i vrijeme za promjene u važećoj Nacionalnoj šumarskoj politici i strategiji? Imamo li uzore? Gledajući šumarske politike u relevantnim zemljama u kojima je šumarstvo značajna grana gospodarstva, razvidno je da se one ne mogu doslovno kopirati. U brošuri Šumarska politika Sabadi (1992) nakon analize Šumarske politike u Njemačkoj i Švicarskoj, navodi kako je očito "da svaka zemlja ima svoj oblik šumarske politike koji joj odgovara s obzirom na gospodarski i politički poredak, filozofiju te utjecaj pojedinaca i grupa na državnu vlast". No, nesporno je da je svaka šumarska politika integralni dio narodnog gospodarstva. Najvažnija faza u stvaranju nacionalne šumarske politike je njezino uključivanje i integracija s ostalim narodnim gospodarstvom u jednu inerakcijsku cjelinu. Isti autor kaže kako kod utvrđivanja Šumarske politike "treba prvo utvrditi ciljeve, a potom sredstva i mjere za postizanje postavljenih ciljeva. Posebnu pozornost treba posvetiti malom seljačkom šumoposjedu (oko 25 % šumske površine)" što je kod nas posebice teško, jer su šumoposjedi mali, a šumovlasnici se teško odlučuju na udruživanja putem kojih se jedino može polučiti uspjeh. Otežavajuća je okolnost da je svako ulaganje u šumu dugoročno i za ulagače premalo profitabilno, ponajprije jer šumarstvo ne sagledavaju kao integralni i vrlo utjecajni čimbenik narodnog gospodarstva. Uglavnom šuma se gleda samo kao izvor sirovine za preradu, dok se zaboravlja općekorisna uloga šuma koja traži širu podršku narodnog gospodarstva. No, ako njenu pravu vrijednost ne mogu sagledati privatni šumovlasnici i općenito poduzetnici, kojima je na prvome mjestu trenutna sirovinska vrijednost, to mora Država, posebice kada je ona, kao u našem slučaju većinski vlasnik. Opći interes treba biti ispred svih drugih interesa, a Država mora kontrolirati i privatne šumovlasnike da se ponašaju sukladno Zakonu o šumama, instrumentu Nacionalne šumarske politike i strategije, koji mora biti obvezan za sve šumovlasnike.Analizirajući da li primjenjujemo ono što je propisano u važećoj Nacionalnoj šumarskoj politici i strategiji i što bi još trebalo propisati, možemo postavljati pitanja i sami na njih odgovarati, jer bi tuđe odgovore smatrali kritikom, najčešće neopravdanom. Ponajprije: da li drvne sortimente prodajemo po tržišnim načelima; da li stvarno vjerujemo da ugovorima o isporuci sirovine pomažemo razvoju finalne prerade drva i povećanju zaposlenosti, posebice inženjera i VKV radnika, ili pak punimo privatne džepove izvoznika proizvoda primarne prerade; ako isporuku drvne sirovine ne usmjeravamo na optimalnu finalnu proizvodnju, nije li to rasipanje nacionalnog bogatstva u kojega je uložen prosječno stogodišnji trud; u isto vrijeme projekt Roswood Centra kompetencija za istočnu Europu, čitamo, daje primjere dobre prakse i inovacija koje se mogu implementirati za pametno i održivo korištenje vrijedne šumske sirovine; da li stvarno ili samo deklarativno kontroliramo sječu na privatnom šumoposjedu, posebice u šumama koje su vraćene bivšim šumovlasnicima; kojim instrumentima i koliko uspješno to radimo; osiguravamo li koristi koje bi od šumarstva trebala imati lokalna zajednica i stanovništvo ruralnih područja, što je jedno od glavnih načela Šumarske politike i strategije EU, koju načelno podržavamo; potičemo li i koliko uspješno suvremenu energetsku uporabu drvne sirovine; da li razmišljamo kako riješiti pitanje sukcesije – ruralna područja ostaju bez stanovništva, i šuma se širi čak do vrtova – nestaju pašnjaci pa i livadske površine unutar šume koje su donedavno košene za pašu i prehranu divljači; da li je istina da nam drvoprerađivači ne želeći osigurati zalihu drvne sirovine, a kada njima to pogoduje "diktiraju" izvlačenje drvnih sortimenata i kada to vremenske prilike ograničavaju (mokar teren) pa nastaju velike štete na šumskom tlu; zašto smo za sitan novac prepustili koncesionarima radnička odmarališta, posebice na moru, koja su izgrađena doprinosom radnika, kojega nisu pretočili u plaće, nego upravo u te objekte; da li smo u odnosu na druge zemlje prevelike površine uključili u Natura 2000; da li smo obavili restrukturiranje Hrvatskih šuma d.o.o. ? Sabadi kaže: "Racionalan put glede organizacije je da se svi poslovi obavljaju u šumariji, a na višoj razini samo oni poslovi koje nije moguće riješiti na šumariji ili njihovo rješenje nije racionalno. U Ministarstvu organizirati službe vrhovnog šumarskog nadzora i one za pomoć malim šumoposjednicima". Da li smo postavili sva pitanja – ne, ali čitatelje potičemo da ih i oni postave i daju odgovor na njih. Ponajprije treba odgovoriti na postavljeno pitanje u naslovu.Nadajući se da nam ova razmišljanja neće pokvariti nadolazeće blagdane, svim članovima Hrvatskoga šumarskoga društva i čitateljima Šumarskoga lista, želimo sretan Božić i uspješnu 2020. godinu.Uredništvo ; EDITORIALAt its session on July 17, 2003, the Government of the Republic of Croatia passed the National Forestry Policy and Strategy. In view of the increasingly pronounced climate change, which requires a new approach to nature and the environment, of the deficiencies of the current National Forestry Policy and Forestry Strategy, as well as, in our opinion, of the inadequate inclusion of forestry in the national economy, has the time come to introduce some changes in the valid National Forestry Policy and Strategy? Do we have any models? A review of forestry policies in relevant countries in which forestry is an important branch of economy clearly shows that they cannot be literally copied. In his brochure "Forestry Policy" Sabadi (1992) analyzed forestry policies in Germany and Switzerland and concluded that "every country has its own form of forestry policy which is in line with its economic and political system, philosophy and the influence of individuals and groups on the state government". It is, however, indisputable that every forestry policy is an integral part of the national economy. The most important stage in the creation of a national forestry policy is its inclusion into and integration with other national economies into one interactive unit. The same author goes on to say that in order to develop forestry policy, "its goals should first be determined, followed by means and measures of achieving the set goals. Particular attention should be paid to small private forest estates (about 25 % of the forested area)". This is very difficult in our country because privately owned forests are small and private forest owners are not willing to merge their estates, which is the only way in which success can be achieved. An aggravating circumstance lies in the fact that investments in forests are of long-term nature and are not sufficiently profitable for investors, chiefly because they do not perceive forestry as an integral and highly influential factor in the national economy. Forests are mainly viewed as a source of raw material for processing, while the non-market forest role, which requires a broader support by the national economy, is overlooked. If the real value of forests is not understood by private forest owners and entrepreneurs in general, whose primary goal is the current value of raw material, then it is the State which should understand it, especially when the State is the major owner as in Croatia. Collective interest should be above all other interests. The State should also make sure that private forest owners adhere to the regulations of the Forest Act, the instrument of the National Forestry Policy and Strategy which is binding for all forest owners.In our analysis of whether we apply the regulations set down in the valid National Forestry Policy and Strategy and what additional items should be incorporated, we should ask questions and answer them ourselves, since we would consider answers by other parties as mostly unjustified criticism. These questions involve the following: do we sell wood assortments according to market principles; do we really believe that with contracts on the delivery of raw material we contribute to the development of final wood processing and increased employment of engineers and qualified workers in the first place, or do we fill the pockets of private exporters of primary processing products; if raw wood material is not directed towards optimal final production, does not this mean that we squander the national wealth in which a hundred-year-long effort has been invested; at the same time we find that the Rosewood Competence Centre for Eastern Europe provides examples of good practice and innovations to be implemented into wise and sustainable use of valuable wood material; do we control felling in private forest estates in practice or only declaratively, particularly in forests which have been returned to their original owners; which instruments do we use and how successfully to accomplish this; do we ensure benefits which forestry should provide for the local community and the population of rural areas, which is one of the main principles of the EU Forestry Policy and Strategy, which we support in principle; do we stimulate and to what extent modern energy use of wood material; do we think about how to solve the question of succession - rural areas are increasingly being abandoned and forests are spreading as far as the people's gardens - pastures and grassland areas within forest, which were until recently mowed or grazed by wildlife, are disappearing; is it true that wood processors do not want to ensure stocks of wood material, and when it suits them "dictate" the extraction of wood assortments even when weather conditions are unfavourable (wet terrain), thus inflicting vast damage on forest soil; why did we allow workers' resort centres, especially those at the seaside, to be taken over by concessionaires for petty cash (these resorts were built with the money which workers allocated from their salaries for exactly this purpose); in relation to other countries, did we allocate too large areas to Natura 2000; did we restructure the company "Croatian Forests Ltd"? Sabadi says: " Rational organisation presupposes that all jobs are accomplished in a forest office, and only those jobs which cannot be performed in a forest office or their solution is not rational should be performed at a higher level. Forest monitoring services and services aimed at assisting small forest owners should be set up in the Ministry". Have we covered all the relevant questions? No, we have not, but we urge the readers to ask questions and give the answers themselves. The first question to be answered is the one mentioned in the headline.Hoping that these thoughts will not spoil the upcoming holidays, we wish Merry Christmas and a Very Successful New Year 2020 to all members of the Croatian Forestry Association and readers of the Forestry Journal.Editorial Board

Dottorato di ricerca in Economia e territorio ; In agricoltura l'acqua è spesso un fattore produttivo limitante e soggetto a frequenti ed importanti periodi di scarsità, che incentiva una forte competizione per il suo impiego anche tra diversi settori, sia industriali che urbani. Avvalendosi del principio che l'uso familiare dell'acqua debba prevalere su quello produttivo, le Pubbliche Amministrazioni tendono a razionalizzarne l'utilizzo agricolo, attraverso consorzi per la gestione delle fonti d'acqua. Tuttavia, esiste ancora una forte necessità di calibrare la gestione delle risorse idriche a scopo irriguo, per perseguire obiettivi di natura economica e politica che riguardano la riduzione degli sprechi e l'allocazione efficiente. Il problema della gestione della risorsa idrica è reso ancora più rilevante e attuale dalle recenti osservazioni e teorie sul cambio climatico globale, che prospettano scenari futuri con una scarsità dell'acqua in aumento, accompagnata da modificazioni della variabilità degli eventi atmosferici che sono alla base della sua disponibilità. Una prima e importante difficoltà nasce dall'uso normativo del concetto di efficienza, in un'ottica di recupero dei costi. E' quindi d'interesse lo studio dei costi legati all'uso della risorsa idrica in agricoltura, per comprendere meglio in che direzione sarebbe opportuno spingere le politiche di gestione dell'acqua per il raggiungimento degli obiettivi comunitari e, più in generale, di traguardi di efficienza economica più sostenibili. Per una corretta e consapevole gestione delle risorse idriche, è necessaria un'analisi degli aspetti economici legati alla fornitura del servizio irriguo, per comprendere gli effetti che determinati interventi avranno sui benefici associati a tale servizio. E' sulla comprensione di questi aspetti della distribuzione dell'acqua a scopo irriguo che si incentra il lavoro di tesi. Per realizzare questo studio, è stata presa in esame l'area servita da un consorzio di bonifica e irrigazione in Sardegna. Tale scelta è da ritenersi interessante, giacché i sistemi di distribuzione dell'acqua irrigua e i metodi di tariffazione adottati da questo consorzio sono tra i più praticati in Italia e nell'area del Mediterraneo. Pertanto, le caratteristiche di questa area permettono di estendere le conclusioni del lavoro per considerazioni più generali. Attraverso un'approfondita ricostruzione delle tecnologie distributive e dei dati economici e tecnici, sono stati prodotti i dati per poter costruire un modello dei costi operativi della distribuzione irrigua. Il lavoro di raccolta dati ha permesso di comprendere come la realtà dei consorzi irrigui sia molto variegata e diversificata. A tal proposito, infatti, non va trascurato che nel corso degli anni le strutture consortili hanno operato delle ristrutturazioni, sia dal punto di vista organizzativo che tecnico. E' quindi auspicabile comprendere come queste ristrutturazioni hanno modificato le economie e le efficienze dei consorzi irrigui e quanto spazio può ancora sussistere per un ulteriore miglioramento di queste condizioni. All'interno dello stesso comprensorio, difatti, coesistono strutture molto diverse per la distribuzione dell'acqua irrigua che sono il risultato del processo di ammodernamento differenziato e disomogeneo dei vari distretti irrigui. L'approccio metodologico utilizzato è quello basato sulla funzione di costo logaritmica trascendente (translog), già ampiamente utilizzato in altre aree di studio dell'economia applicata, soprattutto nell'analisi dell'efficienza e nella valutazione del progresso tecnologico. In questo lavoro sono stati sviluppati 7 modelli econometrici con 3 diversi gradi di dettaglio nella specificazione della tecnologia. Questa differenzazione è stata utile per comprendere come alcuni aspetti peculiari dei diversi sistemi di distribuzione dell'acqua possano essere presi in considerazione nelle politiche di tariffazione dell'acqua irrigua. Esiste ancora una forte necessità di calibrare la gestione delle risorse idriche a scopo irriguo, per perseguire obiettivi di natura economica e politica che riguardano la riduzione degli sprechi e l'allocazione efficiente. Si è visto come il volume d'acqua fornito sia di fatto un elemento insufficiente per descrivere i costi operativi: la distribuzione dei volumi d'acqua su superfici più o meno estese ha impatti spesso più importanti dei volumi d'acqua in sé. Ciò è facilmente comprensibile, perché le strutture utilizzate nella distribuzione hanno dei costi anche di 'attivazione' e di mantenimento in funzione che sono più legati alla loro dimensione piuttosto che a loro livello operativo. Quando l'acqua viene distribuita per gravità si generano delle perdite di rete dovute a necessità tecnologiche e organizzative, che raggiungono anche il 30% dell'acqua immessa nei canali. Queste perdite non assumono alcun valore economico, tranne forse quando l'acqua deve essere pompata per brevi tratti collinari. Ciò è rilevante per la gestione del servizio irriguo, nel momento in cui si vuole regolare l'esternalità dello spreco di acqua generata dal consorzio attraverso la tariffazione. Dai risultati, emerge anche un sostanziale sotto utilizzo delle strutture che generano i costi fissi di fornitura: è importante specificare che l'implementazione del recupero costo pieno, richiesto dalla attuale normativa, non determini che in varie circostanze, gli agricoltori si trovino a pagare le inefficienze dei sistemi che gestiscono i servizi idrici. Certamente, la sola conoscenza dei costi di fornitura è incompleta per adottare un adeguato sistema di tariffazione. Lo studio dei costi operativi ha comunque dato un apporto significativo alla conoscenza sul funzionamento dei consorzi di bonifica e irrigazione ed i risultati ottenuti permettono di fare delle considerazioni sulle indicazioni di tariffazione introdotti dalla WFD. ; In agriculture the water is often a limiting factor and subject to frequent and important periods of scarcity, which encourages strong competition for its use even among different sectors, both industrial and urban areas. Using the principle that the family use of water should take precedence over the production, Public Administrations tend to rationalize the agricultural use, through consortia for the management of water sources. However, there is still a strong need to adjust the management of water resources for irrigation purposes, in pursuit of economic objectives and policy dealing with waste minimization and allocation efficiency. The management of water resources is made even more relevant and topical by recent observations and theories on global climate change, which envisage future scenarios with an increasing scarcity of water, accompanied by changes in the variability of atmospheric events that underlie the availability. A first and important difficulty arises from the use of the concept of regulatory efficiency, considering cost recovery. The study of the costs associated with the use of water resources in agriculture is therefore interesting to better understand in what direction we should push the water management policy for the achievement of EU objectives and, more generally, the goals of sustainable economic efficiency. For a correct and conscious management of water resources is necessary to analyze the economic aspects related to irrigation service supply, in order to understand the effects that certain actions will have on the benefits associated with such service. The thesis focuses on understanding of these aspects of water supply for irrigation purposes. In order to carry this study on, the area served by a consortium of drainage and irrigation in Sardinia has been examined. This choice can be considered interesting, since the irrigation water distribution systems and pricing methods adopted by this consortium are among the most practiced in Italy and the Mediterranean. Therefore, the characteristics of this area allow us to extend the conclusions of the work for more general interpretations. Through a detailed reconstruction of the distribution technologies and the economic and technical aspects, the data for constructing a model of the operational costs of the irrigation distribution have been produced. The work of data collection has made it clear that the reality of the consortium irrigation is very varied and diverse. In this regard, it should not be overlooked that over the years the facilities have operated consortium of restructuring, both organizationally and technically. It is therefore desirable to understand how these renovations have changed the economies and efficiencies of irrigation consortia and how much space can still exist for further improvement of these conditions. Within the same area, in fact, very different structures for irrigation water distribution coexist, and are the result of the variable and heterogeneous modernization process throughout the various irrigation districts. The methodological approach used is based on the transcendental logarithmic (Translog) cost function, already widely used in other areas of applied economics, particularly when analyzing and evaluating the efficiency of technological progress. In this work 7 econometric models were developed, with 3 different degrees of detail in the specification of the technology . This differentiation is helpful in understanding how certain distinctive features of different water distribution systems can be taken into account in the irrigation water pricing policies. There is still a strong need to balance the management of water resources for irrigation purposes, in pursuit of economic objectives and policy dealing with waste minimization and allocation efficiency. It is seen that the volume of water supplied is in fact inadequate to describe the operational costs: the distribution of volumes of water onto land is relevant when it is accounted for considering also the land on which it is distributed. This is easily understandable, because the structures used in the distribution have also costs for activation and continued operation that are more related to their size rather than their operational level. When the water is distributed by gravity, network losses appear, due to technological and organizational needs, which reach even 30% of the water distributed in the channels. These losses do not take any economic value, except perhaps when the water must be pumped over low hills. This is relevant for the management of irrigation service, when we want to adjust the externalities of waste water generated by the consortium through the pricing. The results also shows a substantial under use of the distribution facilities that generate the fixed costs of delivery. So it is important to specify that the implementation of full cost recovery required by current legislation determines that, in some circumstances, farmers are paying the inefficiencies of the systems that manage the water services. Certainly, the mere knowledge of supply costs is incomplete to adopt a proper system of charging. The study of operating costs has nevertheless made a significant contribution to knowledge on the functioning of the consortia of reclamation and irrigation, and the results obtained allow to make some considerations on the indications for pricing introduced by the WFD.

In spite of all the good news about the economy and the swift confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the headlines this stormy week have been dominated by town hall brawls. As congressional representatives went home to their districts for their August recess, they were greeted by a volatile mixture of high temperatures, monsoon-like storms and furious mobs who stormed town hall meetings to protest against health reform. Several politicians, terrorized by the voters, suspended the meetings and ran past the mobs and into their getaway cars. They later announced they would take phone calls or meet voters individually in scheduled appointments. Journalists and TV talk show personalities were left wondering as to the origin of this new movement of storm troopers: were they real people, from the grassroots, fed up with the way Washington is dealing with health care reform, or was this manufactured, "Astroturf" mobilization, organized by the health insurance and drug companies, scared of losing a large share of their profits if a government-run plan is included on the final bill? Most likely it is a mixture of both. But whether fabricated or not, the tone of the debate and the images of scuffles and fist fights shocked the nation and left many asking what happened to American civility. More importantly, where was the President's leadership?Granted, it is difficult to defend a bill that is not even ready, and Obama has avoided giving bottom lines that may come back to haunt him: his larger political purpose is to pass some kind of health care reform, even if serious compromises have to be made. Having taken the 1994 Clinton-care defeat lesson to heart, President Obama decided from the beginning that he could not dictate to Congress and therefore stated the general principles of health care reform (universal coverage and cost control) and then gave Congress leeway in writing the detailed legislation. But from the beginning, there was a deep chasm between progressives, who insist that a public-plan option is the best way to meet both goals, and conservatives, who adamantly oppose the government-run plan claiming it would bankrupt private insurance companies, and see this and the mandate of universal coverage as "socialized medicine". The Blue Dog Democrats, fiscally conservative, have joined ranks with the opposition and effectively killed the public option in some versions of the bill, replacing it with a vague alternative of co-ops (mutual care).The result so far has been a confusion of bills and versions that no regular voter can understand. Indeed, not even those that are following the debate closely can tell with clarity what each version entails. But because health care is close and personal, it is easy to whip up a frenzy over it just by letting out a few misleading judgments, half truths and exaggerations, and hammering at them until they have the ring of truth. Corporate interest groups from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are fiercely organizing fringe elements on the right, mainly instructing them to be disruptive of town hall meetings and to interrupt any serious discourse. And most of the average, less-educated voters use "easy" sources of information such as radio talk commentators (read: Rush Limbaugh) or TV news shows which are anything but "fair and balanced", instead of hard sources (newspaper editorials, op-ed and factual news articles). In the end, when topics are complex and conflicting information saturates the media, people believe what they want to believe, what confirms their feelings and their ideological bent, what reassures them they are correct in their assumptions and emotions.It is this state of confusion that has allowed the crazy mobs, aided and abetted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, to make the most outlandish claims, from accusing the government of Socialism and Nazism in one voice, to vociferously asserting the Democrats' plan includes euthanasia (of course it does not; it includes a voluntary option for terminal patients to get "counseling on end-of-life options"). But these are the same kind of people that kill abortion-clinic doctors and nurses in their crusade to "save innocent lives". And exactly of the same kind as the "birthers", those who do not believe President Obama was born in the United States, a fact very easily verifiable, since the White House has made his birth certificate available!The point is, extremists are taking over that national scene and are attacking a bill that is not yet ready, based on false claims and preposterous characterizations. The left is now mobilizing union representatives to counteract the right wing crazies. Perhaps it would be better to cancel all town hall meetings, since it is expected that a bill will be passed by the end of the month. It will be most likely be a watered down version of what Obama initially wanted, but it will allow him to claim yet another victory, another check mark on his campaign promises.The debate over health care has accomplished something that seemed unfathomable only a month ago: it has united Republicans. Economic conservatives, libertarians and extreme right social conservatives are all against the public plan option. However, even if they were successful in defeating this bill, as long as they continue on this course of adamant opposition, they will not be well-positioned for the 2010 elections. They will have no other policy initiatives or legislative accomplishments to boast of and they will still be easily characterized as the "party of no." Their political calculations made them oppose a highly qualified Supreme Court nominee in a futile exercise that has put them on the wrong side of history and set them back at least for a decade in getting electoral support from the Latino community, the largest and fastest- growing minority group in the country. The void of Republican political leadership has been filled by extremist groups and irresponsible radio talk commentators, reducing the party's appeal to moderates and independents.This dramatic realization is one incentive to get Republicans to work harder in passing health care reform in some bipartisan shape or form. But this is not likely, since their preference so far has been to deny Obama any chance of bipartisanship. Another motivation to bring them to the table should be the awareness that, if the rising cost curve of health care is not brought under control, the economic recovery that is starting to show will only be temporary, the deficit will continue to grow and other countries will not be so accommodating in holding US debt. But political expedience on their part may overtake even this fundamental concern about the future economic stability of the country.On his part, Obama will have the problem of dealing with the liberal wing of his party: the left will be furious if, with a majority in both Houses, their version of health care reform does not pass, and the President settles for a weaker, watered down version. Indeed, in general terms, the biggest and most immediate test for Obama will be how far he allows the left in Congress to go before he decides to rein them in. In order to regain control of the health care debate, the President held his own town hall meeting in New Hampshire this past Tuesday. His message was clearer and more focused as he answered genuine concerns and questions from the audience. But to what extent he was able to calm down the prevailing anxiety in the country at large still remains to be seen. Outside the town hall, two groups of irate citizens on the opposite ends of the political spectrum confronted each other, yelled and shook their fists, but the police were able to restrain them without much effort.In spite of the turbulent TV images that have inundated the airways this week, the majority of the electorate in this country is still moderate, rational and centrist. They want health care reform and they want it to include a government-run option, which they may or may not buy into, but which they see as an important way to spur competition, in the understanding that it is competition and not monopolies that help control costs. They also want reform of the way private insurance companies ration care, for example, by denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. They are appalled at the crazies on the right, with their false claims about a bill they have not read, and their outrageous claims of Socialism and Nazism, which they merge into one demonic ideology. They are tired of their pseudo-religious zeal and self-righteousness, their insistence on rejecting Darwin's theory of evolution along with global warming, climate change and stem cell research, their violent outbursts, and their tendency to speak in terms of Good (themselves) and Evil (the rest). And they are embarrassed at the subtext of racism that underlies most of the extremists' demented claims, and which becomes crystal clear in their assertion that President Obama is not an American citizen.On the other hand, most citizens are also wary of ultra-liberals on the left, who want to use the Democrats' prevalence to entrench new vast social programs, over-regulate the financial system and corporate pay, and raise taxes to levels that would choke growth and productivity; they are afraid they will forever bankrupt the government and the country.Six months into his presidency, Obama faces sinking approval numbers and the possibility of a major defeat. After a string of solid successes that included, among others, passing an 800 billion dollar economic stimulus plan, expanding children's health insurance, and rescuing the banking system, his agenda may get bogged down in the politics- as- usual Washington culture he promised to change. It will take all his will power and discipline to stay focused, get back on message and resist the blows. His ambition will have to be tempered by patience, caution and political skill. As his aura wears off, the coming battles will be the final test of his courage and determination to succeed. Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Rwanda is a country with a troubled history. Its genocide in 1994, fifteen years ago, is still considered as one of the most shocking episodes of the twentieth century. Since then, however, Rwanda seems to be recovering well. Economic growth in the immediate post-war period was spectacular and remained considerable in the years thereafter (8,6% between 1996 and 2001). The Rwandan government elaborated a poverty reduction policy (PRSP), which was implemented between 2001 and 2006. Rwanda was widely applauded for the efficiency in the elaboration and execution of policy objectives, and could count on extensive financial engagements from the international community. Some even speak of a 'Rwandan Renaissance' to refer to this seemingly spectacular success. There is however also a bleaker picture next to the growth success. The poverty problem remains pressing, certainly in rural areas. Indeed, the percentage of people living below the national poverty line of 1.22$ (PPP, 2006 prices) decreased between 2001 and 2006, from 60.3% to 56.8%. But because of the impressive population growth, the absolute number of poor people increased. In the countryside, an additional half million people lived in poverty in 2006 in comparison to 2001. In this rural environment, the problem of land scarcity is enormous. The overall majority of the rural population has to survive with less than 1 hectare per family and limited possibilities to diversify their income sources beyond subsistence agriculture. In addition, there is a strong inequality. In 2001, the 20% richest consumed as much as the remaining 80% of the population. Since then, inequality has further been rising. Several research questions arise. *) How are the peasants, the overall majority of the Rwandan population surviving in this optimistic post-genocide economic growth climate? Are they able to profit from economic growth? *) How are they dealing with the problem of extreme resource scarcity? They have to deal with enormous hazards and uncertainties, to which they have to adapt their livelihood strategies through risk avoidance and diversification. Are they able to productively exploit their land, and how do they survive if their land holdings are not (no longer) sufficient to produce enough food? *) How does the Rwandan government capture the challenges in the fight against poverty? How do policy makers see their role in rural development, and which type of agricultural and land policy do they adopt? The PhD provides an answer to these questions. It provides a unique insight in how the process of rural change - including the role of rural policies in this process - impacts upon the differentiation and polarization in livelihood profiles in the context of rural Rwanda. It points to the danger of the current Rwandan development model, based on large-scale professionalised farming. Moreover, it elaborates an alternative more sustainable development model based on broad-based economic growth and brings forward technically feasible solutions that build upon the potential and capacity of the large majority of small-scale farmers. But it also reflects upon the current political economy context in which the division of power and wealth make this technically feasible alternative development model politically unrealistic. The PhD points to the crucial role of international donors to support structures that help the voices from below reach the surface, the voices of the Rwandan small-scale peasants. The diversity in focus, level and techniques adopted in the various papers of the PhD allows us to look at the overarching theme - faces of rural poverty - from very different angles. Indeed, as mentioned by Scoones et alii (1996: 10), "models of change that oversimplify, standardise and aggregate in order to ease computation can be highly misleading; instead a methodological pluralism that includes qualitative and quantitative methods is seen to be most appropriate for increasing our understanding of complex, diverse and risk-prone agricultural systems". Some of the chapters analyse macro-level tendencies; others look with a micro-lens at particular case studies. Parts of the PhD engage in a quantitative analysis of nationally representative data. Other parts draw conclusions from in-depth qualitative field research in particular local settings. Some chapters focus on policy makers' perspectives, others literally bring in the voices of the Rwandan peasants. We consider this variety of approaches both relevant and complementary for a comprehensive understanding of the process of rural change and polarization in livelihood profiles in the context of rural Rwanda. The first two chapters provide an analysis of the policy makers' perspective with regards to rural development. The first chapter is titled: "Striving for growth, bypassing the poor? A critical review of Rwanda's rural sector policies". It studies Rwanda's current rural policies, which aim to modernise and 'professionalise' the rural sector. The chapter points to the risk for currently formulated rural policy measures to be at the expense of the large mass of small-scale peasants. A second chapter, "Reengineering rural society: The visions and ambitions of Rwandan elites" illuminates a general trend of policy makers misplaced belief in the potential to socially engineer rural development. Based upon interviews conducted by the author in mid-2007, the chapter focuses upon three engineering ambitions: 1) policy makers aim to transform the agricultural sector into a professionalised motor for economic growth, with little place left for traditional smallholder agriculture; 2) policy makers have a vision on how to artificially upgrade the portrait of rural life by inserting 'modern' tools and concepts into the local realities, while hiding true poverty and inequality; 3) policy makers hope to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highest up to the lowest level. The chapter takes the necessity of rural development and poverty reduction as the bench mark to point to the (potential) dangers, flaws and shortcomings of the reengineering mission of Rwandan policy makers. The next two chapters study the livelihoods of rural peasants on the basis of a quantitative approach. The third chapter, "Rural poverty and livelihood profiles in post-genocide Rwanda", identifies different livelihood profiles that prevail in the Rwandan rural post-conflict context. By means of exploratory tools such as principal component and cluster analysis, it combines variables that capture natural, physical, human, financial and social resources in combination with environmental factors to identify household groups with different livelihood profiles. The chapter also explores how household groups differ with regards to the intra-cluster incidence of poverty. Finally, for a subsample, it looks in detail at how the identified household clusters perceive changes in their living conditions between 2001 and 2004. The analysis allows identifying policies for poverty alleviation that take into account the different livelihood profiles and pathways in the rural setting. The fourth chapter focuses particularly upon the land resource, using a nationally representative database to analyse "the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity in rural Rwanda". Policies aiming for agricultural modernisation concentrate on promoting regional crop specialisation and monocropping. This chapter, however, identifies the strong inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity under the current land management system; also when taking into account farm fragmentation, crop diversification, frequency of multicropping and household size. In addition, increased farm fragmentation and a higher frequency of multicropping seem to have a positive (although modest) impact upon productivity. This seems to suggest that small-scale peasants' risk-cooping strategies not only protect them against risks but also pay off in terms of productivity. The chapter's findings are formulated at an aggregated meso level and are relevant for national rural policies. The final chapter, "Views from below on the pro-poor growth challenge: The case of rural Rwanda", is complementary to the previous two. It adopts a qualitative approach to focus on peasants' livelihoods and rural class differentiation at the micro-level. Based on field data from six case-study settings, we analyse local peasants' perceptions of the characteristics and degree of poverty for different locally-present socio-economic categories. This results in classifications that are based upon livelihood strategies (self-subsistent versus market-oriented peasants, agricultural and non-agricultural wage labour, …), and that relate much closer to local level dynamics (in comparison to the third and fourth chapter). We look at the opportunities and constraints of those categories, which are crucial determinants for their capacity to participate in growth strategies and for their social mobility potential. Further, we analyse how the peasant categories perceive specific policy measures included in the Rwandan government's 'pro-poor' agricultural strategies. Whereas the two quantitative chapters capture trends in rural livelihoods and land productivity at the macro level, and can claim representativity and external validity, they fail to capture local-level dynamics. The final chapter does provide insights into class (trans)formation processes at the local level, but can by no means claim validity beyond these local settings. Both approaches contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the process of rural change. The concluding chapter of the PhD is a reflection on the insights of the previous chapters with regards to the process of rural change and class (trans)formation in contemporary Rwanda. It looks at the causes, processes, mechanisms, contexts and symptoms of the rural differentiation process. It pleads for an alternative rural policy that promotes broad-based agricultural growth with a key role for small-scale peasants, in combination with an activation of the potential of (nearly) landless rural agents in the local off-farm sector. The technical feasibility and societal desirability of this solution for the Rwandan development problem has been proven in the previous chapters of the PhD. The final part of the concluding chapter however reflects upon the political feasibility of this technical solution, given the current political economy context. It points to the responsibility of donors to support mechanisms that allow bringing in the voices from below to the surface, the voices of the Rwandan small-scale peasants.

Rwanda is a country with a troubled history. Its genocide in 1994, fifteen years ago, is still considered as one of the most shocking episodes of the twentieth century. Since then, however, Rwanda seems to be recovering well. Economic growth in the immediate post-war period was spectacular and remained considerable in the years thereafter (8,6% between 1996 and 2001). The Rwandan government elaborated a poverty reduction policy (PRSP), which was implemented between 2001 and 2006. Rwanda was widely applauded for the efficiency in the elaboration and execution of policy objectives, and could count on extensive financial engagements from the international community. Some even speak of a 'Rwandan Renaissance' to refer to this seemingly spectacular success. There is however also a bleaker picture next to the growth success. The poverty problem remains pressing, certainly in rural areas. Indeed, the percentage of people living below the national poverty line of 1.22$ (PPP, 2006 prices) decreased between 2001 and 2006, from 60.3% to 56.8%. But because of the impressive population growth, the absolute number of poor people increased. In the countryside, an additional half million people lived in poverty in 2006 in comparison to 2001. In this rural environment, the problem of land scarcity is enormous. The overall majority of the rural population has to survive with less than 1 hectare per family and limited possibilities to diversify their income sources beyond subsistence agriculture. In addition, there is a strong inequality. In 2001, the 20% richest consumed as much as the remaining 80% of the population. Since then, inequality has further been rising. Several research questions arise. *) How are the peasants, the overall majority of the Rwandan population surviving in this optimistic post-genocide economic growth climate? Are they able to profit from economic growth? *) How are they dealing with the problem of extreme resource scarcity? They have to deal with enormous hazards and uncertainties, to which they have to adapt their livelihood strategies through risk avoidance and diversification. Are they able to productively exploit their land, and how do they survive if their land holdings are not (no longer) sufficient to produce enough food? *) How does the Rwandan government capture the challenges in the fight against poverty? How do policy makers see their role in rural development, and which type of agricultural and land policy do they adopt? The PhD provides an answer to these questions. It provides a unique insight in how the process of rural change - including the role of rural policies in this process - impacts upon the differentiation and polarization in livelihood profiles in the context of rural Rwanda. It points to the danger of the current Rwandan development model, based on large-scale professionalised farming. Moreover, it elaborates an alternative more sustainable development model based on broad-based economic growth and brings forward technically feasible solutions that build upon the potential and capacity of the large majority of small-scale farmers. But it also reflects upon the current political economy context in which the division of power and wealth make this technically feasible alternative development model politically unrealistic. The PhD points to the crucial role of international donors to support structures that help the voices from below reach the surface, the voices of the Rwandan small-scale peasants. The diversity in focus, level and techniques adopted in the various papers of the PhD allows us to look at the overarching theme - faces of rural poverty - from very different angles. Indeed, as mentioned by Scoones et alii (1996: 10), "models of change that oversimplify, standardise and aggregate in order to ease computation can be highly misleading; instead a methodological pluralism that includes qualitative and quantitative methods is seen to be most appropriate for increasing our understanding of complex, diverse and risk-prone agricultural systems". Some of the chapters analyse macro-level tendencies; others look with a micro-lens at particular case studies. Parts of the PhD engage in a quantitative analysis of nationally representative data. Other parts draw conclusions from in-depth qualitative field research in particular local settings. Some chapters focus on policy makers' perspectives, others literally bring in the voices of the Rwandan peasants. We consider this variety of approaches both relevant and complementary for a comprehensive understanding of the process of rural change and polarization in livelihood profiles in the context of rural Rwanda. The first two chapters provide an analysis of the policy makers' perspective with regards to rural development. The first chapter is titled: "Striving for growth, bypassing the poor? A critical review of Rwanda's rural sector policies". It studies Rwanda's current rural policies, which aim to modernise and 'professionalise' the rural sector. The chapter points to the risk for currently formulated rural policy measures to be at the expense of the large mass of small-scale peasants. A second chapter, "Reengineering rural society: The visions and ambitions of Rwandan elites" illuminates a general trend of policy makers misplaced belief in the potential to socially engineer rural development. Based upon interviews conducted by the author in mid-2007, the chapter focuses upon three engineering ambitions: 1) policy makers aim to transform the agricultural sector into a professionalised motor for economic growth, with little place left for traditional smallholder agriculture; 2) policy makers have a vision on how to artificially upgrade the portrait of rural life by inserting 'modern' tools and concepts into the local realities, while hiding true poverty and inequality; 3) policy makers hope to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highest up to the lowest level. The chapter takes the necessity of rural development and poverty reduction as the bench mark to point to the (potential) dangers, flaws and shortcomings of the reengineering mission of Rwandan policy makers. The next two chapters study the livelihoods of rural peasants on the basis of a quantitative approach. The third chapter, "Rural poverty and livelihood profiles in post-genocide Rwanda", identifies different livelihood profiles that prevail in the Rwandan rural post-conflict context. By means of exploratory tools such as principal component and cluster analysis, it combines variables that capture natural, physical, human, financial and social resources in combination with environmental factors to identify household groups with different livelihood profiles. The chapter also explores how household groups differ with regards to the intra-cluster incidence of poverty. Finally, for a subsample, it looks in detail at how the identified household clusters perceive changes in their living conditions between 2001 and 2004. The analysis allows identifying policies for poverty alleviation that take into account the different livelihood profiles and pathways in the rural setting. The fourth chapter focuses particularly upon the land resource, using a nationally representative database to analyse "the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity in rural Rwanda". Policies aiming for agricultural modernisation concentrate on promoting regional crop specialisation and monocropping. This chapter, however, identifies the strong inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity under the current land management system; also when taking into account farm fragmentation, crop diversification, frequency of multicropping and household size. In addition, increased farm fragmentation and a higher frequency of multicropping seem to have a positive (although modest) impact upon productivity. This seems to suggest that small-scale peasants' risk-cooping strategies not only protect them against risks but also pay off in terms of productivity. The chapter's findings are formulated at an aggregated meso level and are relevant for national rural policies. The final chapter, "Views from below on the pro-poor growth challenge: The case of rural Rwanda", is complementary to the previous two. It adopts a qualitative approach to focus on peasants' livelihoods and rural class differentiation at the micro-level. Based on field data from six case-study settings, we analyse local peasants' perceptions of the characteristics and degree of poverty for different locally-present socio-economic categories. This results in classifications that are based upon livelihood strategies (self-subsistent versus market-oriented peasants, agricultural and non-agricultural wage labour, …), and that relate much closer to local level dynamics (in comparison to the third and fourth chapter). We look at the opportunities and constraints of those categories, which are crucial determinants for their capacity to participate in growth strategies and for their social mobility potential. Further, we analyse how the peasant categories perceive specific policy measures included in the Rwandan government's 'pro-poor' agricultural strategies. Whereas the two quantitative chapters capture trends in rural livelihoods and land productivity at the macro level, and can claim representativity and external validity, they fail to capture local-level dynamics. The final chapter does provide insights into class (trans)formation processes at the local level, but can by no means claim validity beyond these local settings. Both approaches contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the process of rural change. The concluding chapter of the PhD is a reflection on the insights of the previous chapters with regards to the process of rural change and class (trans)formation in contemporary Rwanda. It looks at the causes, processes, mechanisms, contexts and symptoms of the rural differentiation process. It pleads for an alternative rural policy that promotes broad-based agricultural growth with a key role for small-scale peasants, in combination with an activation of the potential of (nearly) landless rural agents in the local off-farm sector. The technical feasibility and societal desirability of this solution for the Rwandan development problem has been proven in the previous chapters of the PhD. The final part of the concluding chapter however reflects upon the political feasibility of this technical solution, given the current political economy context. It points to the responsibility of donors to support mechanisms that allow bringing in the voices from below to the surface, the voices of the Rwandan small-scale peasants.

International Council of Scientific Unions Science International Newsletter No. 64 April 1997 Code Number:NL97006 Sizes of Files: Text: 70.3K Graphics: No associated graphics files MEETING REPORT 72nd MEETING OF EXECUTIVE BOARD OF ICSU Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU The Executive Board (EB), elected at the time of the 25th General Assembly, held its first meeting in Paris in January. Board Members reviewed the measures being taken concerning each of the General Assembly resolutions, and agreed on the procedure to be adopted for responding to the report on the Assessment of ICSU. FIRST MEETING OF INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD (ISAB) OF LINESCO Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU ISAB, under the chairmanship of the President of ICSU, held its first meeting in Paris in January, immediately after the meeting of the Executive Board of ICSU. The terms of reference for ISAB are: to "assist UNESCO by advising on strategic issues of science and the substantive service science offers for development and the environment and provide scientific-based elements for decision-making". ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT (ACE) Sophie Boyer King Environmental Sciences Officer The 12th meeting of ICSU's ACE, held in Paris in January, reviewed ICSU's involvement in various programmes dealing with the environment, including the three Global Observing Systems (climate, oceans, terrestrial - GCOS, GOOS, GTOS), the IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme), the WCRP (World Climate Research Programme), IHDP (International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, DIVERSITAS (Programme on Biodiversity Science) and SCOPE (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment). ACE continued to advise the Executive Board of ICSU about the membership of relevant environmental bodies. SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION (COMSCEE) Christine Glenday, on detail to ICSU from the National Science Foundation, USA. The third meeting of COMSCEE was held at the ICSU Secretariat on January 27, 1997, under its new Chairman Dr. Jan Krzysztof Frackowiak, Undersecretary of State, and Secretary of the State Committee for Scientific Research in Poland (KBN). While acknowledging that the problems of science in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU) differ widely according to country, and that, furthermore, considerable progress has been made over the past five years, COMSCEE members identified several key problems which are still common at present in this region. GETTING TO KNOW CHILE'S ICSU NATIONAL COMMITTEE INCORPORATES SCIENCE TEACHERS AND SCIENCE JOURNALISTS J.E. Aliende, President, Chilean National Committee for ICSU The National Committee of Chile for ICSU gathers the Presidents of all major scientific societies and organizations of that country. This composition results in an organization which integrates the international linkages of the Chilean scientific community. In addition, however, the Chilean NCICSU constitutes a forum that discusses and acts on national issues of importance to scientific development in that country. During the 1993 ICSU General Assembly held in Santiago, delegates from other countries were able to witness the important studies that the Chilean Academy of Sciences and the National Committee for ICSU were able to put together about the state and future of science in Chile. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN DIMENSIONS PROGRAMME ON GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE (IHDP): NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR THE IHDP Udo Bunnagel, Programme Officer When Professor Eckart Ehlers, Chairman of the Scientific Committee of IHDP, opened the inauguration reception for the new IHDP Secretariat in Bonn on 31 January 1997, he told the story of the child IHDP. Born in 1990, an off-spring of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), it had to move from Barcelona to Geneva, and even experienced homelessness for some time. With the second parent, ICSU, joining ISSC as cosponsor in 1996, and with the new home under the roof of Bonn University, Professor Ehlers expressed his hope that the child IHDP has finally found a stable environment, enabling it to grow Up. SPOTLIGHTS ON SCIENCE CHEMRAWN : CHEMICAL RESEARCH APPLIED TO WORLD NEEDS A. Hayes, Chairman, CHEMRAWN The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has been active for over 75 years and is well known throughout the world for its work in setting internationally recognised and much needed standards for all manner of matters of concern to chemists everywhere. Examples are in the fields of atomic weights, gas coratants, and nomenclature. In addition, IUPAC has been the means whereby chemists have come together to work on various problems and also organise symposia, seminars, congresses, and assemblies - both on topics of general interest, as well as in specialist fields. It has an exemplary record of attempting to ensure that any bona fide scientist who wishes to attend such events is able to do so. The senior chemical community has recognised throughout the life of IUPAC the need for international cooperation and many of the past presidents of lUPAC have been holders of the Nobel prize as well as distinguished and senior members of industry. In the 1970's there was a growing appreciation of the need not only to address the purely scientific aspects of chemical topics on an international scale but to demonstrate that chemistry could - and should be applied to the solution of many of the problems which face mankind all over the world. Ideas were discussed and re-formulated, debated and finally expressed as the 'CHEMRAWN' Concept. MOONEY CALLS ON SCIENTISTS TO FIND HOW BIODIVERSITY PROTECTS ECOSYSTEMS H.A. Mooney When the Convention on Biological Diversity was signed by 159 governments in 1992, most observers saw it as a move to prevent the loss of various species - to ward off the disappearance of spotted owls from a forest, or the extinction of a plant that might contain some pharmaceutical miracle. Since then, a study commissioned by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the world academy of scientists, has shown a more compelling reason to protect biodiversity. Whenever a habitat loses enough of the richness and variation among its living species, the study found, the ecological systems that nurture life begin to falter. Ecologists do not yet know how many species - or which ones - must be saved to keep an ecosystem functioning. They do know this: When ecosystems falter, they stop providing essential natural services like pure water from mountain watersheds, abundant fisheries, soulsustaining landscapes. Damaged ecosystems also have global effects: plants, for example, play an important role in the atmosphere's carbon cycle and thus in climate fluctuations. HOUSE NEWS ICSU EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TAKES ON NEW ASSIGNMENT Julia Marton-Lefevre As Members and friends of ICSU were informed in mid-February, Julia Marton-Lefevre will be on leave of absence from ICSU as of 1 September 1997, to become the first Executive Director of the programme set up by the Rockefeller Foundation known as LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) International. The International Secretariat for LEAD is based, for an initial period, in New York. The Executive Director informed the ICSU family in her February letter that her devotion to the mission of ICSU remains constant, and that this move is taken in the spirit of broadening her own expertise as well as hopefully enlarging ICSU's contacts. While on leave of absence, Julia Marton-Lefevre will continue to be involved in the major issues facing ICSU in the years ahead, and will also ensure that ICSU and LEAD, with facets in common, are able to undertake cooperative actions. Leadership for Environment and Development, or the LEAD Program, is a non-profit organization that seeks to bring together a generation of international leaders to carry forth a vision of sustainable development. The LEAD Program was established in direct response to the growing need for collaborative action in support of the world's natural and human resources. LEAD intends to inspire a course of development that is defined as environmentally responsible, culturally acceptable, economically viable and politically feasible. The LEAD Program trains mid-career professionals, called Associates, using a combination of interdisciplinary methods, interactive skills building and global networking. NEWS IN BRIEF AAAS AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION The 1997 AAAS Award for International Scientific Cooperation is given to Philip W. Hemily for having made contributions to international scientific research and engineering development for over 50 years. He recognized the importance of science and technology policies as components of political, economic, education, employment, and trade policies. PUBLICATIONS NEWS IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION REQUIRES A NEW INFRASTRUCTURE Dong Geng & A.J. (Tom)van Loon The progress of science and the implementation of new technical developments are hampered by the time-lag between submission of a manuscript to a journal and delivery of the article to readers. This problem is generally recognized, but none of the solutions suggested has been found feasible. In our opinion, however, it is possible to publish refereed material with a time-lag of no more than 24 hours, through a completely new infrastructure. The approach that is proposed here would be expensive - but probably much less so than the direct and indirect costs for society of a long time-lag. OBITUARIES Baron Nicolet Valentin A. Koptyug FUTURE MEETINGS International Young Scientists Programme at the 17th International Congress of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) announces the sponsorship of a conference for young scientists to be held at Asilomar, Monterey, CA, USA, on 22-24 August, 1997 preceding the 17th International IUBMB Congress in San Francisco on 24-29 August, 1997. CALENDAR OF FORTHCOMING MEETINGS from 23 April 1997 - 19 July 1997 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT 25th MEETING OF THE COSTED EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE IRBID/AMMAN FEBRUARY 25-27, 1997 Veena Ravichandran, Senior Scientific Officer, COSTED, Madras The Executive Committee (EXCOM) of COSTED held its 25th meeting during 25-27 February. A day prior to the EXCOM meeting, half- day parallel sessions on Strengthening Science in Africa and COSTED activities in the Arab region were organised so that EXCOM members could get an opportunity to participate in the regional plans. Strengthening Science in Africa COSTED Activities in the Arab Region EXCOM Meeting Nomenclature for COSTED-IBN: Brainstorming Session - The concept of networks in COSTED - The goals of COSTED - ICSU Assessment Report vis-avis COSTED

35 pages, 18 figures, 1 table, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.10.008.-- Raw reads of Tara Oceans are deposited at the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). In particular, newly released 18S rRNA gene metabarcoding reads are available under the number ENA: PRJEB9737. ENA references for the metagenomics reads corresponding to the size fraction < 0.22 μm (for prokaryotic viruses) analyzed in this study are included in Gregory et al. (2019); see their Table S3. ENA references for the metagenomics reads corresponding to the size fraction 0.22-1.6/3 μm (for prokaryotes and giruses) correspond to Salazar et al. (2019) (see https://zenodo.org/record/3473199). Imaging datasets from the nets are available through the collaborative web application and repository EcoTaxa (Picheral et al., 2017) under the address https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/412 for regent data, within the 3 projects https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/397, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/398, https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/395 for bongo data, and within the 2 projects https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/377 and https://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr/prj/378 for WP2 data. A table with Shannon values and multiple samples identifiers, plus a table with flow cytometry data split in six groups are available (https://doi.org/10.17632/p9r9wttjkm.1). Contextual data from the Tara Oceans expedition, including those that are newly released from the Arctic Ocean, are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.875582 ; The ocean is home to myriad small planktonic organisms that underpin the functioning of marine ecosystems. However, their spatial patterns of diversity and the underlying drivers remain poorly known, precluding projections of their responses to global changes. Here we investigate the latitudinal gradients and global predictors of plankton diversity across archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes, and major virus clades using both molecular and imaging data from Tara Oceans. We show a decline of diversity for most planktonic groups toward the poles, mainly driven by decreasing ocean temperatures. Projections into the future suggest that severe warming of the surface ocean by the end of the 21st century could lead to tropicalization of the diversity of most planktonic groups in temperate and polar regions. These changes may have multiple consequences for marine ecosystem functioning and services and are expected to be particularly significant in key areas for carbon sequestration, fisheries, and marine conservation ; Tara Oceans (which includes both the Tara Oceans and Tara Oceans Polar Circle expeditions) would not exist without the leadership of the Tara Ocean Foundation and the continuous support of 23 institutes (https://oceans.taraexpeditions.org/). We further thank the commitment of the following sponsors: CNRS (in particular Groupement de Recherche GDR3280 and the Research Federation for the Study of Global Ocean Systems Ecology and Evolution FR2022/Tara Oceans-GOSEE), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Genoscope/CEA, the French Ministry of Research, and the French Government "Investissements d'Avenir" programs OCEANOMICS (ANR-11-BTBR-0008), FRANCE GENOMIQUE (ANR-10-INBS-09-08), MEMO LIFE (ANR-10-LABX-54), the PSL∗ Research University (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02), as well as EMBRC-France (ANR-10-INBS-02). Funding for the collection and processing of the Tara Oceans data set was provided by NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program under grants NNX11AQ14G, NNX09AU43G, NNX13AE58G, and NNX15AC08G (to the University of Maine); the Canada Excellence research chair on remote sensing of Canada's new Arctic frontier; and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. We also thank agnès b. and Etienne Bourgois, the Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation, the Veolia Foundation, Region Bretagne, Lorient Agglomeration, Serge Ferrari, Worldcourier, and KAUST for support and commitment. The global sampling effort was enabled by countless scientists and crew who sampled aboard the Tara from 2009–2013, and we thank MERCATOR-CORIOLIS and ACRI-ST for providing daily satellite data during the expeditions. We are also grateful to the countries who graciously granted sampling permission. We thank Stephanie Henson for providing ocean carbon export data and are also grateful to the other researchers who kindly made their data available. We thank Juan J. Pierella-Karlusich for advice regarding single-copy genes. C.d.V. and N.H. thank the Roscoff Bioinformatics platform ABiMS (http://abims.sb-roscoff.fr) for providing computational resources. C.B. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement 835067) as well as the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard University for a scholar's fellowship during the 2016-2017 academic year. M.B.S. thanks the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (award 3790) and the National Science Foundation (awards OCE#1536989 and OCE#1829831) as well as the Ohio Supercomputer for computational support. S.G.A. thanks the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CTM2017-87736-R), and J.M.G. is grateful for project RT2018-101025-B-100. F.L. thanks the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) as well as the EMBRC platform PIQv for image analysis. M.C.B., D.S., and J.R. received financial support from the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) as part of the "Ocean Plankton, Climate and Development" project. M.C.B. also received financial support from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel of Brazil (CAPES 99999.000487/2016-03) ; Peer Reviewed

Tesis (Doctorado en Ciencias Ambientales) ; "Desde su inserción en el ámbito internacional, in 1987, el concepto de sostenibilidad ha venido permeando diversas esferas de las sociedades. El desarrollo sostenible implica mantener los sistemas que permiten la vida en el planeta, al tiempo que garantizar que las generaciones presentes y futuras puedan satisfacer sus necesidades. En las zonas áridas y semiáridas la promoción de la sostenibilidad representa un desafío por la compleja combinación de factores biofísicos y socioculturales. Esta investigación tuvo por objetivos: a) analizar cómo se aborda la sostenibilidad en la legislación mexicana empleando como marco de referencia el Paradigma de Desarrollo de las Zonas Secas (DDP); b) conocer el impacto potencial del clima y los programas gubernamentales en los cambios en la cobertura y el uso de suelo (LULC) en el Altiplano Potosino; c) analizar los mecanismos de retroalimentación socio-ecológica en el municipio de Santo Domingo (San Luis Potosí); y d) analizar el proceso de construcción de capacidad institucional para el desarrollo sostenible a partir de las narrativas de servidores públicos y usuarios locales de programas gubernamentales asociados con el DS. Para el logro del primer objetivo se analizaron 21 leyes federales que contenían el concepto de sostenibilidad en el marco del DS. Dichas leyes asumen el equilibrio como guía de la relación entre los elementos biofísicos y socio-culturales; no consideran variables lentas ni sus umbrales; señalan diversas escalas administrativas y reconocen el conocimiento local. Los desafíos de la legislación mexicana son: adoptar la incertidumbre y no linealidad inherentes a los SSE; hacer los conceptos de productividad, competitividad y rentabilidad compatibles con la sostenibilidad; enfocarse en los procesos que definan la estructura y la función de los SSE a largo plazo y en los umbrales que determinan su resiliencia; fortalecer mecanismos de gobernanza y capacidad institucional, y vincularse con la academia para insertar el conocimiento pertinente en la legislación. Para el logro del segundo objetivo se usaron herramientas de Percepción Remota (PR) y Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). Se analizaron imágenes LANDSAT de los años 1979, 1990, 2000 y 2010. NPP mostró una respuesta rápida al régimen climático variable de la región. Los cambios en LULC, especialmente la diminución en las tierras agrícolas y el aumento de los pastizales en la última década, pueden estar relacionados con una compleja interacción entre la migración, la falta de mano de obra para realizar actividades agrícolas, y el acceso a subsidios y remesas. El preciso contar con más imágenes de la zona para establecer con mayor precisión el rol del clima, los programas gubernamentales y la producción ganadera en la degradación de la zona. Para entender la complejidad de las zonas áridas de México es necesario considerar factores socio-económicos como la migración y el uso de remesas. Los procesos de retroalimentación entre variables biofísicas y socioeconómicas deben ser tenidos en cuenta por los tomadores de decisiones." ; "The concept of sustainability appeared in the international arena in 1987 and since then has come to permeate various spheres of society. Sustainable development involves maintaining systems that support life on the planet while ensuring that present and future generations can meet their needs. In drylands, promoting sustainability is a challenge due to the complex combination of biophysical and socio-cultural factors. The purpose of this research was: a) to analyze the way that the concept of sustainability is addressed in Mexican federal laws, using the Drylands Development Paradigm (DDP) as an analytical framework; b) to conduct a regional assessment of drylands in Mexico in order to understand the potential impact of climate and government programs LULC changes; and, c) to identify the socio-ecological feedbacks in the ejidos of the municipality of Santo Domingo, in the Altiplano Potosino; d) to analyze the Mexican capacity-building process through the narratives of federal and state employees of institutions linked to sustainable development (SD), and local users of government programs associated to SD. To achieve the first objective, 21 federal laws that employ the concept of sustainability were analyzed. The analysis indicates that these laws assume equilibrium as the guide to the relation between biophysical and socio-cultural elements. They do not consider slow variables nor their thresholds. They also indicate diverse administrative scales and recognize local knowledge. The challenges of Mexican legislation are: to adopt the uncertainty and non-linearity inherent in socio-ecological systems (SES); to make the concepts of productivity, competitiveness and profitability compatible with sustainability; to focus on the processes that define the structure and function of SES in the long term and on the thresholds that define their resilience; to strengthen governance mechanisms and institutional capacity; and to create links with academia in order to incorporate pertinent knowledge into legislation. To achieve the second objective Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies were used. Landstat images from 1979, 1990, 2000 and 2010 were analyzed to study LULC changes in the Altiplano Potosino, the southern extreme of the Chihuahuan Desert, in the central plateau of Mexico."

Before the First World War, politicians of the great powers blustered at each other, believing they defended their national interests. Today they are remembered for provoking the deaths of 15 million people. Before WWII, Germany and Japan each felt they had been deprived of their rightful place in the world. That attitude spawned their expansionist régimes. Seventy million people died. In Copenhagen today politicians from rich and poor nations claim their right to spew the planet's carbon into our atmosphere. There is a difference: the negotiators today in Copenhagen already know that if they fail, they will be responsible not for a few millions but for hundreds of millions of deaths, and misery for billions. Madagascar is one of many places that people will die from the changing climate. The last decade averaged 2 true cyclones each year, not counting 2-4 more large tropical storms. Science is unclear whether storms and cyclones will become more frequent, but all predictions agree that warming sea temperatures will make them more intense and destructive. And as people of Madagascar's east and west recover from cyclones Fanele, Eric and Jade, drought ravages the south — no one is sure how the rains will change, only that change is coming. Politicians within Madagascar have little say in the negotiations of Copenhagen, but they have the same problem of balancing short-term advantage over long-term gain. Do they want to spend their time only in political manoeuvers for their parties' gain? If so, they will be remembered for letting people go hungry and allowing the destruction of Madagascar's extraordinary natural heritage. Rosewood export from the national parks and lemur sale as bushmeat are theft from the people of Madagascar, and from the people's future. Even hungry farmers look to the future. A farmer must be at the last extremity before he or she eats the seed they have saved for next year's planting. Can the politicians of Madagascar and the wider world look beyond this year, beyond this round of elections or negotiations? Do they wish to be remembered as the mothers and fathers who protected their countries' people and the world's heritage of nature, or else like politicians of Europe before the great World Wars, as murderers of the future?PRÉFACEUne lettre sur la politique Avant la Première Guerre mondiale, les politiciens des grandes puissances se déchaînaient les uns contre les autres en pensant défendre les intérêts de leurs nations. Aujourd'hui on se rappelle d'eux pour leur responsabilité dans la mort de 15 millions de personnes. Avant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, l'Allemagne et le Japon estimaient avoir été spoliés de la place qui leur revenait dans le monde, attitude qui engendrera leurs régimes expansionnistes. Soixante-dix millions de personnes sont mortes. À Copenhague aujourd'hui, des politiciens de pays riches et de pays pauvres revendiquent leur droit de répandre le carbone planétaire dans l'atmosphère. Mais il y a une différence, car ceux qui négocient aujourd'hui à Copenhague savent que s'ils échouent, ils seront responsables, non pas de quelques millions de morts, mais de centaines de millions de morts et de la misère de milliards d'hommes, de femmes et d'enfants. Madagascar est un endroit parmi tant d'autres où les gens mourront du changement climatique. La dernière décennie a été marquée par deux vrais cyclones par an en moyenne, et quelques deux-quatre tempêtes tropicales importantes. Il subsiste bien encore quelques doutes pour prouver scientifiquement dans quelles mesures les tempêtes et les cyclones augmenteront en fréquence mais toutes les prévisions s'accordent au moins pour admettre que l'augmentation de la température des océans les rendra plus intenses et plus destructeurs. Et alors que les gens de l'Est et de l'Ouest de Madagascar se remettent des cyclones Fanele, Éric et Jade, que la sécheresse ravage le Sud, personne ne sait comment les pluies évolueront mais tous s'accordent à reconnaître que changement il y aura. Les politiciens de Madagascar ont peu de poids dans les négociations de Copenhague, mais sont confrontés au même problème qui consiste à faire la part des avantages à court terme par rapport aux gains à long terme. Veulent - ils se borner à quelques manoeuvres politiques pour en faire profiter leurs partis ? Si c'est le cas, on se rappellera d'eux comme ceux qui ont laissé les famines s'installer dans leurs pays et permis la destruction du patrimoine naturel extraordinaire de Madagascar. L'exportation des bois précieux des parcs nationaux et la vente de lémuriens comme gibier sont des vols commis contre les citoyens de Madagascar et contre le futur de l'humanité. Même les fermiers affamés envisagent l'avenir. Un fermier ou une fermière doit être au bord du désespoir avant de manger les graines qui devraient servir de semences aux plantations de la saison suivante. Les politiciens de Madagascar et du monde peuvent-ils regarder au delà de cette année, au delà de cette série d'élections ou de négociations ? Souhaitent - ils rentrer dans les mémoires comme les mères ou les pères qui ont protégé les citoyens et le patrimoine naturel mondial de leur pays, ou comme les politiciens de l'Europe avant les Grandes Guerres, comme des meurtriers du futur ?

This paper uses a case study of Costa Rica to identify the reasons why democracy is conducive for development. By the mid-twentieth century, Costa Rica had begun to depart from the all-too-common mixture of political instability and economic stagnation characteristic of much of the developing world. This paper claims that this country has benefited from better-than-average public policies, a conclusion based upon an original assessment of policy effectiveness and a major comparative ranking of state policies. It largely rejects the interpretation that uncommon development performance stems from institutions created during the colonial period and instead emphasizes how unending political stalemates gradually made the struggle for power more democratic. A central conclusion of this paper is that political competition-as well as steady economic growth rates and development, more generally-interact with and reinforce each other so that the exercise of power foments rather than retards economic growth.

Maritime piracy is still one of the most interesting manifestations of human activity by reason of the fact that it has, directly or indirectly, a number of points of contact between different problems of social, religious, political, economical and, of course, historical matter. Specifically, South-east Asia is a great example of how history, politics and religion are strongly and crucially imbued with the maritime banditry phenomenology. During the era of great maritime political entities exercising dominion along the Malay and Indonesian coasts, predation assumed character of endemicity going to fit firmly within the society, politics and economy networks. Inside Zhu Pan Zhi, the reports of the Song Dynasty about the barbarian peoples, is it possible to read about the piracy in the Great Southern Ocean (Nanyang) «the foreign ships were often attacked by pirates. The captives were the favourite of pirates, one captive can sell for 2 liang or 3 liang gold, the piracy prevents the merchants from visiting the ports» . Of great interest it is also the description of piracy in waters near Singapore (Temasek) and south of the straits that, in 1349, appeared in these terms: «The Dragon-teeth Strait (longyamen) is between the two hills of Temasek barbarians, which look like dragon's teeth'. Through the centre runs a waterway. The fields are barren and rice harvest is poor. The climate is hot with heavy rain in April and May. The inhabitants are addicted to piracy […] when junks sail to the European Ocean (Indian Ocean), the local barbarians allow them to pass unmolested, but when the junks reach the Auspicious Strait (Jilimen) on their return voyages, some 200-300 pirate prahus (boats) will put out to attack the junks for several days, the crew of junks have to fight with their arms and setting up cloth screen as a protection against arrows. Sometimes, the junks are fortunate enough to escape with a favouring wind; otherwise, the crews are butchered and the merchandise becomes pirates' booty» . As can be seen from the text, also the physical elements (water, poor soil, distress sea routes, monsoon climate) play an important role in explaining the aforementioned endemicity of pirate phenomenon: in one of the most relevant work by Anthony Reid, a supporter of the Braudelian method of historical investigation, it is reported that few major areas of the world have been so deeply marked by nature such as South-east Asia, going to emphasize the importance of geography in the study of human activities. During the first part of my research, a question to which I have tried to answer was to understand the extent to which individuals, who are placed in a given geographical and historical context, act in a manner consistent with that particular geo-cultural system and how, external elements in that system, can help to change the perspective of action; in essence, I have tried to study how and to what extent India, China and Europe (Western Culture) have affected the history of the indigenous population of South-east Asia and the Straits of Malacca and Singapore in particular. The constitution of the great European colonial empires stretched from the Malacca Straits to the South China Sea, marked the beginning of a progressive modification process of maritime piracy both in terms of objectives to be achieved and also procedures to be followed; Nicholas Tarling lucidly points out in this regard "the old empires decayed, but were not replaced, and with their boundaries marauding communities appared, led by the adveturous Sharifs, or deprived aristocracies, or hungry chiefs" . The main ethnic groups who practiced piracy, the Riau-Lingga Malay, Bugis and Dayak of East Malaysia and Brunei, and Ilanun Balangingi from the southern Philippines and the Sulu sea, became corsairs in the pay of the colonial authorities and all those princes or sultans deprived of their possessions. However, alongside the politically motivated piracy, continued to resist a kind of maritime banditry conducted by fishing associations, outcasts or Chinese immigrants and so-called nomads people of the sea (Orang Laut), clanic and personalistic in nature whose cultural substrate was made up of bonds of friendship, kinship and blood. The remarkable fact is that the two types of piracy are not mutually exclusive but, on the contrary, represented the two faces of a coin and it was not unusual for pirates and corsairs to exchange roles when political or economic contingencies were changed. Interesting in this regard it was been the reading and examination of archival documents found at the National Archives in London (The National Archives) showing exchanges of correspondence and minute of some of the leading authorities of the British Straits Settlements between the first and second half of the nineteenth century. A set of letters that, given its enormous historical and political significance I decided to bring entirely, contains the correspondence (1863-67) between the Straits Settlements Governor Orfeur Cavenagh, Abu Bakar ibn Temenggong Daing Ibrahim Temenggong of Johor and Inche Wan Ahmed, exiled prince of Pahang become rebellious and pirate. Proceeding with the analysis of the phenomenon and given the interest of the international community for the sea routes passing into the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the next questions concerned what was the real impact of piracy on maritime trade, what costs in human and social terms it produced, which law enforcement measures riparian states and foreign countries (in colonial and post-colonial age) have come into force; in addition to these I had tried to understand who is the pirate, what are the main reasons for his actions, what is the connection, if does exist, between piracy, terrorism and organized crime. In this direction, starting from the definitions of piracy given by the International Maritime Organization and the International Maritime Bureau, I examined most of the international conventions and regional agreements in which the issue of maritime security and cooperation between states and supranational bodies is addressed, placing special attention to the rules and clauses contained in the treaties able to activate those mechanisms for cooperation and burden sharing (burden-sharing) indispensable to the solution or, more realistically, the containment of the problem. Of great relevance to this line of analysis it has proved useful the socio-anthropological approach by Carolin Liss on the links between maritime banditry, criminal syndicates and terrorist groups (criminal syndicate) and the statistical and methodological approach by Karsten von Hoesslin focused on quantity, quality and type of assaults committed at sea. Concluded the second part of the thesis, I went to compare what is written in both historical and contemporary perspective to understand what kind of conclusion emerged from the results of my research; I asked myself, therefore, a further question: taking as a fixed point the thought of Braudel and Reid, following the method of analysis of Liss and Hoesslin, examine the archival documents and translations of ancient texts on the subject (the Sejarah Melayu and Suma Oriental of Tome Pires), given the availability (more or less declared) from South-east Asian newly established states (post-independence) to cooperation and given the interest of third actors in the straits, is it conceivable and correct to sustain now, in the first half of the new millennium, the possibility of a modification of the ancient customs and traditions and entrenched rivalry between neighboring countries on the basis of a new collective consciousness directed to a harmonious resolution, conveyed by a general law, of the phenomenon of maritime piracy? Or are we facing with a false hub of history, with a point that falsely or inappropriately is considered the turnaround from a tradition that has its roots in the coastal kingdoms of the sixth century and which is the sub-cultural layer of those population who have made the sea their source of wealth and power? To say it once again with Braudel, has the longue durée history undergone a change of route or will it repeat and renew her cycle again and again, sweetened by new technological tools and new forms of politics and economics? And if a change is in place, why now and how does it happen? Will history repeat itself? To give an answer, as thoroughly as possible, to this question I tried to define some of those steps that the countries of ASEAN should follow in order to effectively combat maritime piracy, terrorism widespread locally and organized crime; what could be the milestones in the process of construction of a shared legal system able to provide answers to many of the legal issues including the lack of a common legislation on maritime security. The watchword in the near future will have to be 'mutual legal assistance' in view of the implementation, in national legal corpora, of all those rules necessary to give effect to the directions contained in international conventions. Eventually, I propose a different and further reading of all those theories that track in failure or in the great inefficiency of coordinating policies in the field of maritime safety, the proliferation of piracy. Though I substantially agree with some of those interpretations, two points are critical and deserves attention: the lack of a proper historical and historiographical perspective of analysis and what I have called the axiom of the ultimate solution.

Not Available ; The land resource inventory of Gopalagiri Colony-1 microwatershed was conducted using village cadastral maps and IRS satellite imagery on 1:7920 scale. The false colour composites of IRS imagery were interpreted for physiography and the physiographic delineations were used as base for mapping soils. The soils were studied in several transects and a soil map was prepared with phases of soil series as mapping units. Random checks were made all over the area outside the transects to confirm and validate the soil map unit boundries. The soil map shows the geographic distribution and extent, characterstics, classification and use potentials of the soils in the microwartershed. The present study covers an area of 550 ha in Gopalagiri Colony-1 microwatershed in Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka. The climate is semiarid and categorized as drought prone with an average annual rainfall of 734 mm. Maximum of 254 mm precipitation takes place during south–west monsoon period from June to September, the north-east monsoon contributes about 268 mm and prevails from October to early December and the remaining 212 mm takes place during the rest of the year. An area of about 95 per cent is covered by soils and 5 per cent by waterbodies, settlements, forest and others. The salient findings from the land resource inventory are summarized briefly below.  The soils belong to 10 soil series and 35 soil phases (management units) and 7 land management units.  The length of crop growing period is about 150 days starting from the 3rd week of June to 3rd week of November.  From the master soil map, several interpretative and thematic maps like land capability, soil depth, surface soil texture, soil gravelliness, available water capacity, soil slope and soil erosion were generated.  Soil fertility status maps for macro and micronutrients were generated based on the surface soil samples collected at every 250 m grid interval.  Land suitability for growing major agricultural and horticultural crops were assessed and maps showing the degree of suitability along with constraints were generated.  About 95 per cent area is suitable for agriculture and 5 per cent is not suitable for agriculture but well suited for forestry, pasture, agroforestry, silvi-pasture, recreation, installation of wind mills and as habitat for wildlife.  About 41 per cent of the soils are very deep (>150 cm), 22 per cent deep to moderately deep (75 - 150 cm), 33 per cent are moderately shallow to shallow (25-75 cm).  About 65 per cent of the area has clayey soils, 26 per cent loamy soils and 3 per cent sandy soils at the surface.  About 47 per cent of the area has non-gravelly (200mm/m) in available water capacity and about 54 per cent low (50-100 mm/m) and very low (0.75%) in organic carbon.  An area of 34 per cent has soils that are low (57 kg/ha) in available phosphorus.  About 9 per cent medium (145-337 kg/ha) and 85 per cent high (>337kg/ha) in available potassium.  Available sulphur is low (4.5 ppm).  Available manganese and copper are sufficient in all the soils.  About 70 per cent area has soils that are deficient (0.6 ppm).  The land suitability for 27 major crops (agricultural and horticultural) grown in the microwatershed were assessed and the areas that are highly suitable (S1) and moderately suitable (S2) are given below. It is however to be noted that a given soil may be suitable for various crops but what specific crop to be grown may be decided by the farmer looking to his capacity to invest on various inputs, marketing infrastructure, price and finally the demand and supply position. Land suitability for various crops in the Gopalagiri Colony-1 Microwatershed Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Highly suitable(S1) Moderately suitable(S2) Highly suitable(S1) Moderately suitable(S2) Sorghum 246 (1745) 150 (27) Guava 140 (25) 118 (21) Maize 205 (37) 109 (20) Mango 140 (25) 94 (17) Red gram 203(37) 210 (38) Sapota 140 (25) 118 (21) Groundnut 32 (6) 305(51) Jackfruit 140 (25) 94 (17) Sunflower 101 (18) 187 (34) Jamun 140 (25) 176 (32) Cotton 183 (33) 172 (31) Musambi 140 (25) 176 (32) Onion 140 (25) 256 (46) Lime 140 (25) 176 (32) Beans 140 (25) 256 (46) Cashew 140 (25) 118 (21) Potato 140 (25) 174(32) Custard apple 205 (37) 203 (37) Beetroot 140 (25) 174 (32) Amla 203 (37) 257(37) Turmeric 140 (25) 168 (31) Tamarind 140 (25) 176(32) Horse gram 203 (37) 257 (47) Marigold 203 (37) 216(39) Field bean 140 (25) 256 (46) Chrysanthemum 140 (25) 256(46) Banana 140 (25) 176 (32) Apart from the individual crop suitability, a proposed crop plan has been prepared for the 7 identified LMUs by considering only the highly and moderately suitable lands for different crops and cropping systems with food, fibre and horticulture crops that helps in maintaining the ecological balance in the microwatershed.  Maintaining soil-health is vital to crop production and conserve soil and land resource base for maintaining ecological balance and to mitigate climate change. For this, several ameliorative measures have been suggested to these problematic soils like saline/alkali, highly eroded, sandy soils etc.,  Soil and water conservation treatment plan has been prepared that would help in identifying the sites to be treated and also the type of structures required.  As part of the greening programme, several tree species have been suggested to be planted in marginal and submarginal lands and also in the hillocks, mounds and ridges. SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF FARM HOUSEHOLDS Baseline socioeconomic characterisation is prerequisite to prepare action plan for program implementation and to assess the project performance before making any changes in the watershed development program. The baseline provides appropriate policy direction for enhancing productivity and sustainability in agriculture. Methodology: Gopalagiri Colony-1 micro-watershed (Basavapur sub-watershed, Gundlupet taluk, Chamarajanagar district) is located in between 11043' – 11044' North latitudes and 76035' – 76037' East longitudes, covering an area of about 550 ha, bounded by Kannagal, Honnegaudanahalli, Hangala and Hosalhalli villages with length of growing period (LGP) 120-150 days. We used soil resource map as basis for sampling farm households to test the hypothesis that soil quality influence crop selection, and conservation investment of farm households. The level of technology adoption and productivity gaps and livelihood patterns were analyses. The cost of soil degradation and ecosystem services were quantified. Results: The socio-economic outputs for the Gopalagiri Colony-1 micro-watershed Basavapur sub-watershed, Gundlupet taluk, Chamarajanagar district are presented here. Social Indicators  Male and female ratio is 59.5 to 40.5 per cent to the total sample population.  Younger age groups 18 to 50 years group of population is around 54 per cent to the total population.  Literacy population is around 78.4 per cent.  Social groups belong to other backward caste (OBC) is around 77.8 per cent.  Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is the source of energy for a cooking among 88.9 per cent.  About 44.4 per cent of households have a yashaswini health card.  About 11.1 per cent farm households are having MGNREGA card for rural employment.  Dependence on ration cards for food grains through public distribution system is around 88.9 per cent.  Swach bharath program providing closed toilet facilities is among all the sample households.  Institutional participation is only 24.3 per cent of sample households.  Rural migration to unban centre for employment is prevalent among 18.9 per cent of farm households.  Women participation in decisions making are around 66.8 per cent of households were found. 2 Economic Indicators  The average land holding is 0.66 ha indicates that majority of farm households are belong to marginal farmers. The dry land account for 65.1 % and irrigated land 34.9 % of total cultivated land area among the sample farmers.  Agriculture is the main occupation among 90.6 per cent and agriculture is the main and non-agriculture labour is subsidiary occupation for 28.1 per cent of sample households.  The average value of domestic assets is around Rs.8070 per household. Mobile and television are mass popular mass communication media.  The average farm assets a value is around Rs.11850 per household, about 44.4 per cent of sample farmers own plough.  The average livestock value is around Rs.26600 per livestock; about 100 per cent of household are having livestock.  The average per capita food consumption is around 641.6 grams (1561 kilo calories) against national institute of nutrition (NIN) recommendation at 827 gram. Around 77.8 per cent of sample households are consuming less than the NIN recommendation.  The annual average income is around Rs. 45088 per household. Among all farm sample households are below poverty line.  The per capita monthly average expenditure is around Rs.1242. Environmental Indicators-Ecosystem Services  The value of ecosystem service helps to support investment to decision on soil and water conservation and in promoting sustainable land use.  The onsite cost of different soil nutrients lost due to soil erosion is around Rs.773 per ha/year. The total cost of annual soil nutrients is around Rs. 402711 per year for the total area of 550.02 ha.  The average value of ecosystem service for food grain production is around Rs. 19780/ha/year. Per hectare food grain production services is maximum in banana (Rs. 96601), followed by turmeric (Rs. 45085), maize (Rs. 26807), red gram (Rs. 19672), horse gram (Rs. 6623), bajra (Rs. 4432), groundnut (Rs. 2961).  The average value of ecosystem service for fodder production is around Rs. 2806/ ha/year. Per hectare fodder production services is maximum in horse gram (Rs. 5472) followed by ragi (Rs. 3800), sorghum (Rs. 3529), maize (Rs. 2609), groundnut (Rs. 1051) and bajra (Rs. 374).  The data on water requirement for producing one quintal of grain is considered for estimating the total value of water required for crop production. The per hectare value of water used and value of water was maximum in banana (Rs. 185838) followed by turmeric (Rs. 54978), sorghum (Rs. 53775), bajra (Rs. 52269), red 3 gram (Rs. 51718), sunflower (Rs. 39261), maize (Rs. 37562), groundnut (Rs. 23392), horse gram (Rs. 22578) and ragi (Rs. 15479). Economic Land Evaluation  The major cropping pattern is bajra (29.8 %) followed by horse gram (12.8 %), groundnut (10.9 %), red gram (10.8 %), maize (10.4 %), sunflower (10.4 %), turmeric (6.2 %), banana (5.4%), safflower (2.3 %) and sorghum (0.9 %).  In Gopalgiri colony 1 micro-watershed, major soils are Annurkeri (ARK) soil series are having deep soil depth cover around 18.25 per cent of area. On this soil farmers are presently growing groundnut (46.8 %), turmeric (26.78 %) and bajra (26.5 %). Bheemanabeedu (BMB) soil series are having deep soil depth cover around 14.9 per cent of area; the major crops grown are sunflower (83.3 %) and sorghum (16.7 %), Devarahalli (DRH) having moderately shallow soil depth covers around 10.83 per cent of area and the major crops grown are bajra (39.4 %), red gram (39.4 %) and banana (21.2 %). Hullipura (HPR) soil series having moderately shallow soil depth cover 4.96 per cent of area. On this soil crops are horse gram and ragi. Kannigala (KNG) soil series having moderately deep soil depth cover around 4.29 per cent of area in this soil maize (50 %) and sunflower (50 %) are grown. Maddinahundi (MDH) soil series having deep soil cover 5.29 per cent of area. In this soil bajra and horse gram.  The total cost of cultivation and benefit cost ratio (BCR) in study area sunflower range between Rs. 57430/ha in BMB soil (with of 0.98) and Rs. 34393/ha in KNG soil (with BCR of 1.26).  In turmeric the cost of cultivation is Rs. 220347/ha in ARK soil (with BCR of 1.2).  In banana the cost of cultivation is in DRH soil Rs. 115113/ha (with BCR of 1.8).  In groundnut the cost of cultivation is Rs. 39081/ha in ARK soil (with BCR of 1.1).  In sorghum the cost of cultivation is Rs 42790/ha in BMB soil (with BCR of 1.07).  In horse gram the cost of cultivation range between MDH soil is Rs. 20809/ha (with BCR of 1.74) and Rs 32697/ha in HPR soil (with BCR value of 1.3).  In red gram the cost of cultivation is in DRH soil is Rs 21177/ha (with BCR of 1.9) and ragi cost of cultivation Rs in HPR soil is 54721/ha (with BCR of 1.1).  The land management practices reported by the farmers are crop rotation, tillage practices, fertilizer application and use of farm yard manure (FYM). Due to higher wages farmer are following labour saving strategies is not prating soil and water conservation measures. Less ownership of livestock limiting application of FYM.  It was observed soil quality influences on the type and intensity of land use. More fertilizer applications are deeper soils to maximize returns. Suggestions  Involving farmers is watershed planning helps in strengthing institutional participation. 4  The per capita food consumption and monthly income is very low. Diversifying income generation activities from crop and livestock production in order to reduce risk related to drought and market prices.  Majority of farmers reported that they are not getting timely support/extension services from the concerned development departments.  By strengthen agricultural extension for providing timely advice improved technology there is scope to increase in net income of farm households.  By adopting recommended package of practices by following the soil test fertiliser recommendation, there is scope to increase yield in bajra (11.2 % to 28.8%), banana (39.8%), red gram (22.1 %), horse gram (14.6% to 35.1 %), ragi (55.8 %), maize (63.0 %), sunflower (24.1 % to 32.5 %), ground nut (50.8 %) and sorghum (37.1%). ; Watershed Development Department, Government of Karnataka (World Bank Funded) Sujala –III Project

Not Available ; The land resource inventory of Belhatti-6 Microwatershed was conducted using village cadastral maps and IRS satellite imagery on 1:7920 scale. The false colour composites of IRS imagery were interpreted for physiography and these physiographic delineations were used as base for mapping soils. The soils were studied in several transects and a soil map was prepared with phases of soil series as mapping units. Random checks were made all over the area outside the transects to confirm and validate the soil map unit boundaries. The soil map shows the geographic distribution and extent, characteristics, classification and use potentials of the soils in the microwartershed. The present study covers an area of 468 ha in Shirahatti taluk of Gadag district, Karnataka. The climate is semiarid and categorized as drought prone with an average annual rainfall of 633 mm of which about 363 mm is received during south –west monsoon, 165 mm during north-east and the remaining 105 mm during the rest of the year. An area of about 98 per cent is covered by soils, two per cent by rock lands, waterbodies, settlements and others. The salient findings from the land resource inventory are summarized briefly below.  The soils belong to 13 soil series and 30 soil phases (management units) and 8 land management units.  The length of crop growing period is about 150 days starting from the 3rd week of June to 1rd week of October.  From the master soil map, several interpretative and thematic maps like land capability, soil depth, surface soil texture, soil gravelliness, available water capacity, soil slope and soil erosion were generated.  Soil fertility status maps for macro and micronutrients were generated based on the surface soil samples collected at every 250 m grid interval.  Land suitability for growing major agricultural and horticultural crops were assessed and maps showing the degree of suitability along with constraints were generated.  About 98 per cent area is suitable for agriculture and 150 cm) to deep (100 - 150 cm), 41 per cent are moderately shallow to shallow (25-75 cm) and about 18 per cent are moderately deep (75-100 cm) soils.  About 78 per cent of the area has clayey soils at the surface and 20 per cent loamy soils.  About 15 per cent of the area has non-gravelly soils, 47 per cent gravelly soils (15- 35 % gravel) and 37 per cent very gravelly (35- 60% gravel) and extremely gravelly (60-80%) soils.  About 22 per cent of the area has soils that are very high (>200mm/m) in available water capacity, 3 per cent medium (101-150 mm/m) and about 72 per cent low (51- 100 mm/m) and very low (9.0) and 10 percent has soils that area neutral (pH 6.5-7.3).  The Electrical Conductivity (EC) of the soils are dominantly 337 kg/ha) in available potassium and low in about 1 per cent area.  Available sulphur is low (20 ppm).  Available boron is low (0.5 ppm) in about 98 per cent area.  Available iron is deficient in about 16 per cent area and sufficient in 82 per cent area.  Available manganese and copper are sufficient in all the soils.  Available zinc is sufficient (>0.6 ppm) in entire area of the microwatershed.  The land suitability for 21 major crops grown in the microwatershed were assessed and the areas that are highly suitable (S1) and moderately suitable (S2) are given below. It is however to be noted that a given soil may be suitable for various crops but what specific crop to be grown may be decided by the farmer looking to his capacity to invest on various inputs, marketing infrastructure, price and finally the demand and supply position. Land suitability for various crops in the Microwatershed Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Crop Suitability Area in ha (%) Highly suita ble (S1) Moderate ly suit abl e (S2) Highly sui tab le (S1) Moderatel y suit able (S2) Sorghum 46 (10) 246 (53) Jackfruit - 78 (17) Maize 46 (10) 220 (47) Jamun - 183 (39) Bengalgram 4 (<1) 428 (92) Musambi 11 (2) 231 (49) Groundnut 11 (2) 176 (38) Lime 11 (2) 240 (51) Sunflower 11 (2) 173 (37) Cashew 11 (2) 236 (50) Cotton 15 (3) 336 (72) Custard Apple 46 (10) 327 (70) Banana 11 (2) 301 (64) Amla 46 (10) 266 (57) Pomegranat 11 (2) 301 (64) Tamarind - 183 (39) e Mango - 11 (2) Marigold 42 (9) 272 (58) Sapota 11 (2) 135(29) Chrysanthemu m 42 (9) 272 (58) Guava 11 (2) 131 (28) Apart from the individual crop suitability, a proposed crop plan has been prepared for the 8 identified LMUs by considering only the highly and moderately suitable lands for different crops and cropping systems with food, fibre and horticulture crops.  Maintaining soil-health is vital to crop production and conserve soil and land resource base for maintaining ecological balance and to mitigate climate change. For this, several ameliorative measures have been suggested to these problematic soils like saline/alkali, highly eroded, sandy soils etc.,  Soil and water conservation treatment plan has been prepared that would help in identifying the sites to be treated and also the type of structures required.  As part of the greening programme, several tree species have been suggested to be planted in marginal and submarginal lands and also in the hillocks, mounds and ridges. SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF FARM HOUSEHOLDS Baseline socioeconomic characterisation is prerequisite to prepare action plan for program implementation and to assess the project performance before making any changes in the watershed development program. The baseline provides appropriate policy direction for enhancing productivity and sustainability in agriculture. Methodology: Belhatti-6 micro-watershed (Belhatti sub-watershed, Shirahatti taluk, Gadag district) is located in between 1503' – 1505' North latitudes and 75036' – 75039' East longitudes, covering an area of about 468 ha, bounded by Nilogal, Kurubgatta, Devihal and Bijjur villages with length of growing period (LGP) 150-180 days. We used soil resource map as basis for sampling farm households to test the hypothesis that soil quality influence crop selection, and conservation investment of farm households. The level of technology adoption and productivity gaps and livelihood patterns were analyses. The cost of soil degradation and ecosystem services were quantified. Results: The socio-economic outputs for the Belhatti-6 micro-watershed (Belhatti subwatershed, Shirahatti taluk, Gadag district) are presented here. Social Indicators;  Male and female ratio is 55.6 to 44.4 per cent to the total sample population.  Younger age 18 to 50 years group of population is around 52.8 per cent to the total population.  Literacy population is around 97.2 per cent.  Social groups belong to scheduled caste (SC) is around 9.1 per cent.  Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is the source of energy for a cooking among 63.6 cent.  About 45.5 per cent of households have a yashaswini health card.  Majority of farm households (36.4 %) are having MGNREGA card for rural employment.  Dependence on ration cards for food grains through public distribution system is around 63.6 per cent.  Swach bharath program providing closed toilet facilities around 90.9 per cent of sample households.  Institutional participation is only 6.4 per cent of sample households.  Women participation in decisions making are around 90.9 per cent of households were found. 2 Economic Indicators;  The average land holding is 2.4 ha indicates that majority of farm households are belong to small and medium farmers. The dry land of 46.7 % and irrigated land 13.7 % of total cultivated land area among the sample farmers.  Agriculture is the main occupation among 56.9 per cent and agriculture is the main and agriculture labour is subsidiary occupation for 29.2 per cent of sample households.  The average value of domestic assets is around Rs. 92494 per household. Mobile and television are popular mass media communication.  The average value of farm assets is around Rs. 121609 per household, about 72.7 per cent of sample farmers having plough and sprayer (45.5 %).  The average value of livestock is around Rs. 29198 per household; about 81 per cent of household are having livestock.  The average per capital food consumption is around 853.9 grams (1798.6 kilo calories) against national institute of nutrition (NIN) recommendation at 827 gram. Around 36.4 per cent of sample households are consuming less than the NIN recommendation.  The annual average income is around Rs. 20120 per household. Among the entire farm households in these study area comes under the below poverty line.  The per capita monthly average expenditure is around Rs.1365. Environmental Indicators-Ecosystem Services;  The value of ecosystem service helps to support investment to decision on soil and water conservation and in promoting sustainable land use.  The onsite cost of different soil nutrients lost due to soil erosion is around Rs. 635 per ha/year. The total cost of annual soil nutrients is around Rs. 296230 per year for the total area of 468.28 ha.  The average value of ecosystem service for food grain production is around Rs. 9324/ ha/year. Per hectare food grain production services is maximum in onion (Rs. 22221) followed by chilli (Rs. 20671), cotton (Rs. 13608), bengal gram (Rs. 7344), maize (Rs. 4623), sorghum (Rs. 1311) and groundnut is negative returns.  The average value of ecosystem service for fodder production is around Rs. 1573/ ha/year. Per hectare fodder production services is maximum in maize (Rs. 1806) followed by sorghum (Rs. 1339).  The data on water requirement for producing one quintal of grain is considered for estimating the total value of water required for crop production. The per hectare value of water used and value of water was maximum in bengal gram (Rs. 39669) followed by cotton (Rs. 34831), sorghum (Rs. 23705), maize (Rs. 23676), groundnut (Rs. 18488), onion (Rs. 16598) and chilli (Rs. 3833). 3 Economic Land Evaluation;  The major cropping pattern is maize (48.7 %) followed by sorghum (16.7 %), onion (11.2 %), bengalgram (9.7%), groundnut (7.8 %) and cotton (6.0 %).  In Belhatti-6 micro-watershed major soil of Muttal (MTL) soils series are having shallow soil depth cover around 10.5 % of area. On this soil farmers are presently growing bengalgram (9.1%), chilli (17.9 %), cotton (16.9 %), maize (16.9 %), onion (18.0 %) and sorghum (21.2%). Ravanki (RNK) soils are having moderately shallow soil depth cover around 12.81 % of area; the major crops are maize. Chikkamegheri (CKM) series having moderately deep soil depth cover around 6.66 % of areas; crops are maize (80 %) and onion (20 %). Balapur (BPR) series are having deep soil depth cover around 14.32 % of area; crops are groundnut (25 %), sorghum (75 %) and Lakshmangudda (LGD) series having deep soil depth cover around 14.84 % of area, the major crops grown are groundnut (37.1%), maize (35.3 %) and sorghum (27.6 %).  The total cost of cultivation and benefit cost ratio (BCR) in study area for maize ranges between Rs.25791/ha in RNK soil (with BCR of 1.13) and Rs.21143/ha in LGD soil (with BCR of 1.31).  In sorghum the cost of cultivation range between Rs 20790/ha in BPR soil (with BCR of 1.00) and Rs.13082/ha in MTL soil (with BCR of 1.01).  In onion the cost of cultivation ranges between Rs.54232/ha in CKM soil (with BCR of 1.35) and Rs. 20322/ha in MTL soil (with BCR of 1.14).  In groundnut cost of cultivation range between is Rs.45590/ha in BPR soil (with BCR of 1.00) and Rs. 31872 in LGD soil (with BCR of 1.02).  In chilli the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs 21836/ha (with BCR of 1.65).  In bengal gram the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs.22526/ha (with BCR of 1.33) and cotton the cost of cultivation in MTL soil is Rs.21836/ha (with BCR of 1.62).  The land management practices reported by the farmers are crop rotation, tillage practices, fertilizer application and use of farm yard manure (FYM). Due to higher wages farmer are following labour saving strategies is not prating soil and water conservation measures. Less ownership of livestock limiting application of FYM.  It was observed soil quality influences on the type and intensity of land use. More fertilizer applications in deeper soil to maximize returns. Suggestions;  Involving farmers is watershed planning helps in strengthing institutional participation. 4  The per capita food consumption and monthly income is very low. Diversifying income generation activities from crop and livestock production in order to reduce risk related to drought and market prices.  Majority of farmers reported that they are not getting timely support/extension services from the concerned development departments.  By strengthing agricultural extension for providing timely advice improved technology there is scope to increase in net income of farm households.  By adopting recommended package of practices by following the soil test fertiliser recommendation, there is scope to increase yield in maize (74 to 79.7%), sorghum (64.8 to 85.9%), onion (59.5 to 90.5%), groundnut (56.6 to65.6%), chilli (96.3 %), cotton (49.4%) and bengalgram (60.8 %) ; Watershed Development Department, Government of Karnataka (World Bank Funded) Sujala –III Project