Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies

Generational renewal problems in the farming sector highlight the urgent need to attract new farmers and address misconceptions about agricultural careers. This can be achieved by strengthening the connection between the farming community and society. Emphasizing the alternative food movement’s role in attracting new-generation farmers, we focus on the urban agriculture movement and its communication efforts to better understand the changing relationship between agriculture and society. This study examines how urban agriculture communicates about farming by analyzing the use of social media messages related to awareness, responsibility, and pride. Analyses are based on the professionals’ perspectives (28 in-depth key informant interviews) and social media data (four selected Instagram accounts) in Pennsylvania and Illinois. We utilized qualitative thematic coding, guided by Polymedia theory and the Norm Activation Model. The results indicate that dialogues around urban agriculture encourage individuals to engage in discussions about healthy eating and to critically assess their understanding of industrial agriculture. Our study reveals that Instagram messages often emphasize responsibility and pride, which play a significant role in storytelling. These pride messages, linked to personal, relational, or professional achievements, are prevalent in the communication. However, very few messages address the economic aspects of farming, suggesting that financial issues and access to resources are not prioritized in these discussions. The study confirms that the online representation of urban farmers enhances their personal recognition by showcasing the diversity of farmers in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and farm size, which differ from how traditional farmers are depicted in conventional media.

This article aims to challenge the prevailing economic bias in studies of organised valuation and commensuration by exploring the broader plurality of values that organisations must manage. The article draws on social systems theory in the tradition of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann to conceptualise organisations as multifunctional systems of decisions that pertain to and commensurate a plurality values associated with a diverse set of value domains, also known as ‘function systems’. The utility of the proposed framework is demonstrated through cases related to carbon rationing and legal issues during the coronavirus crisis. A key finding is that commensuration is not limited to processes dominated by financial metrics, as political and educational metrics, among others, can also serve as primary drivers of commensuration processes, effectively guiding organisational decision‐making. The paper demonstrates how organisations can effectively commensurate diverse value systems without relying solely on financial metrics and concludes that future research in non‐/financial of valuation and commensuration will be crucial for developing more nuanced and multifaceted strategies and concepts, including multifunctional approaches to the formation, justification, and management of moral judgements and values.

We examined whether perceived land rights—use, management, transfer, and tenure security—are associated with investment in movable farm assets. Using micro-level data from crop-specialized farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, we distinguish investment incentives linked to tenure security, transferability, and decision-making autonomy (use and management rights). Comparing market-oriented versus government-controlled contexts provides insights into differential role of land rights on investment behavior. Our findings underscore significant investment incentives linked to use and management rights rather than tenure security or transferability. Moreover, we reveal how country-specific institutional contexts influence the effectiveness of these land rights in stimulating agricultural investments.

In this study, we explore the relationship between town size and subjective well-being (SWB) in Latin America. We utilize data from the Latinobarómetro survey from 2005 to 2015, employing multilevel modeling to analyze individual responses to life satisfaction as an indicator of SWB. We refine the town size categories provided in the Latinobarómetro by cross-referencing the geographic information with the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, one of our main contributions, leaving us with more refined town size categories than previous research. Given previous theories, we also explore how education moderates the town size-SWB relationship. Our findings reveal that individuals in towns with populations between 10,000 and 500,000 report lower life satisfaction compared to those in smaller or larger towns. Controlling for national macroeconomic conditions reverses the positive association between SWB and living in a very large city. Furthermore, we find some support for the notion that highly-educated individuals are more satisfied than the low-educated in large cities. This study comprehensively underscores the importance of refining town size data and suggests avenues for future research to deepen collective understanding of the ‘geography of happiness’ in Latin America.

Stakeholder theory is a growing body of scholarly literature at the crossroads of business ethics and strategic management. This literature encompasses two distinct levels of inquiry, the levels of the firm and of the capitalistic system as a whole. At the firm level, stakeholder theory provides insight into the roots of the firm-level competitive advantage, whereas at the system level, it explores how capitalistic business can act as a social institution serving moral goals. Until now, the firm-level and system-level perspectives in stakeholder theory have not been effectively integrated. Drawing on the classical institutional economics of John Commons, the present paper elaborates the distinction between the firm and system levels of stakeholder collaboration and examines how they are interconnected. Stakeholder collaboration is shown to be shaped by larger institutions, such as habits, customs, public purposes, and prevailing perceptions of reasonableness. Whereas the system-level perspective in stakeholder theory focuses on the evolution of these larger institutions, the firm-level perspective explores how these institutions contribute to the emergence of the firm-level competitive advantage, thereby generating evolutionary forces that adjust the larger institutions.

Timely and accurate wheat yield forecasts using Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAV) are crucial for crop management decisions, food security, and ensuring the sustainability of agriculture worldwide. While traditional machine learning algorithms have already been used in crop yield modelling, previous research used machine learning algorithms with default parameters and did not take into account the complex, non-linear relationships between model variables. Especially, the combination of vegetation indices, soil properties, solar radiation, and wheat height at the field estimation has not been deeply analysed in scientific literature. We present a machine learning based wheat yield estimation model using comprehensive UAV datasets with the implementation of hyperparameter tuning to improve model performance. The performance of the models before and after optimisations was measured using the metrics RMSE, MAE and R2, and the results showed that the models improved after tuning. Furthermore, we find that the Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models outperformed other examined models. Furthermore, a non-parametric Friedman test with a Nemenyi post-hoc test indicates that the best-performing algorithms for wheat yield estimation and prediction are RF and XGBoost models. In the final step, we utilised a SHapley Additive exPlanations approach to identify the direct impact of each input variable on the yield estimation model. Among the input variables, only the Red-Edge Chlorophyll Index, the Normalised Difference Red-Edge Index and wheat height were found to be of high explanatory power in predicting wheat yield. The optimised model is 7–12% more accurate in estimating wheat yields than traditional linear models.

A transparent and reliable business environment, free from corruption, is essential for agricultural development. However, the impact of corruption control on productive activities remains ambiguous. While corruption can facilitate transactions in an overly regulated environment, its control is also crucial for creating transparency and fostering economic progress. This paper examines how different organizational farm structures respond to corruption control in a long-term dynamic specification. Using a unique dataset of an objective corruption control measure and livestock production at the subnational level in Kazakhstan and Russia, the analysis reveals that the relationship between production growth and corruption control is non-linear and differs across household farms, peasant farmers and agricultural enterprises. We find peasant farms exhibit superior average growth in regions with stronger corruption control than other farm structures in regions with weaker corruption control. Conversely, enterprises report lower production growth in regions with intensified anti-corruption measures in the short run, yet they eventually benefit from stronger corruption control in the long run. Livestock production by small household producers positively correlates with anti-corruption initiatives, but this association wanes over time. This paper unravels the intricate dynamics surrounding corruption control and different business structures, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of their interrelationship.

Genetically modified foods (GMF) have long been discussed as one of the potential means to bring about our urgently needed agricultural transformation. However, even as long, the public in Europe and Northern America has rejected GMF. Motivated by this ongoing polarisation about GMF, we conducted a systematic review on factors that impact GMF perceptions and attitudes. Adding to previous reviews on GMF attitude, such as Frewer et al. (2013), we are particularly interested in how differences in attitudes between the Global North and Global South (GS) unfold. With that, we also contribute to overcoming a bias that we noted: the majority of studies on this topic has been conducted in the Global North. Moreover, because recent research on moral evolution shows how vital morality is for attitude formation, we are particularly interested in the role of moral beliefs in forming attitudes on GMF. Our study followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews. A total of 55 papers were included in the review, 45 of those from the initial search, and 10 from the additional search, specifically focusing on the GS. Our results show a heterogenous dynamic behind the prediction of attitude. Interestingly, morality is shown to be an important factor. Specifically, we find that moral concerns, for example of fairness, world views, religion, play a prominent role in GMF attitudes. Thus, when designing policies and improving science communication about GMF, moral benefits of the technology need more consideration and should be sensibly addressed. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the population in the GS should be given greater consideration in issues that affect the whole world. Related to GMF attitude and perception, our analysis shows that they bring a different perspective, as well as different needs, to the discussion.

Stakeholder theory is traditionally motivated by the need to reconceptualize three core problems of business: value creation and trade, the ethics of capitalism, and managerial mindsets. We argue that the need for this reconceptualization arises, in part, from the limitations of mainstream economic theory in grasping the evolving business environment. The original institutional economics of John R. Commons offers an alternative body of economic thought that addresses these limitations by replacing the atomistic individualism of mainstream economics with an ontology grounded in collective action. Drawing on Commons’ insights, we demonstrate how the problem of value creation and trade takes on a new meaning of promoting security of expectations through conflict resolution and the maintenance of order. We further reconstruct the problem of the ethics of capitalism by drawing on Commons’ concept of reasonableness, rooted in evolving community standards of morality. Finally, we trace the problem of managerial mindsets to Commons’ category of industrial goodwill, which suggests that managers can deliberately pursue policies that maximize stakeholders’ collaborative attitudes. We conclude that reconstructing these three problems of business through Commons’ categories reveals the deeper institutional economics content embedded within contemporary stakeholder theory.

The concept of agricultural sustainability has been evolving since the mid-twentieth century. However, there is still not a universally accepted method for its measurement. Strong data requirements are a major obstacle to developing a useful farm-level sustainability index. We propose using item response theory models to generate a farm-level agricultural sustainability index. Item response theory models have several advantages over existing methods, the most important of which is that our index is independent of the variables used in the model. As such, farm-level sustainability scores can be estimated with readily available data and compared across different sets of variables from multiple regions. We use data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network and other secondary sources to estimate a farm-level index in Germany. In line with the literature, the results of our estimations indicate a positive relationship between farm size and sustainability, higher levels of sustainability for crop and mixed farming systems, and below-average performance for livestock farms and vineyards. We further test the sensitivity of the index against randomly missing data and simulate a scale linking procedure that tests the flexibility in measuring multiple regions with different data sets, finding that the index is generally robust in both analyses. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online.

The penetration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in farming communities is increasing the use of smartphone-based instant messaging apps. Despite this, the reasons behind participation and the impact on farm productivity in developing countries remain unexplored. This study uses survey data of cotton growers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to explore factors explaining participation in social media groups and its impact on farm performance. The results show that the factors and benefits differ across these two countries. Participation in social media groups has a positive effect on cotton yields in both countries, but increases revenue only in Kazakhstan. We discuss possible reasons for contrasting results and policy implications for improving agricultural extension and advisory services in Central Asia. Scaling up smartphone-based e-extension should focus on younger, more educated farmers. Emphasizing associated economic benefits and fostering decision-making autonomy among farmers will be crucial for creating conducive environment for benefiting from e-extension services.

The sale of products through e‐commerce is emerging in rural China, and it cuts out intermediaries and allows farmers direct access to the market. To understand how adopting e‐commerce impacts the selling prices of agricultural products and who benefits more from adopting e‐commerce, we interviewed 480 apple farmers from the three representative provinces in China. The Propensity Score Matching approach combined with sensitivity analysis is employed to address the potential self‐selection bias in estimating the impacts of adopting e‐commerce. We find that adopting of e‐commerce drives significant increases in the selling prices of apple products, including the average price, the maximum price and the minimum price. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the adoption of e‐commerce has significant heterogeneous effects on selling prices across various ages and education of household heads, land area, distance to the local town centre and social capital. The analysis of potential pathways reveals that increases in selling prices are attributed to farmers achieving more marketing flexibility through more adaptable sale times and extended sale periods due to adopting e‐commerce. The research findings provide rigorous evidence on optimal future policy design regarding the development of rural e‐commerce for poverty alleviation in China and other developing countries.

This paper examines how organization theorists within social systems theory in the tradition of Niklas Luhmann view hierarchical steering and seek to adapt Luhmann's ideas to the complexities of contemporary organizations. We contribute to this debate by linking it to leadership and followership literature, introducing the paradox of ‘willing unwillingness’ to describe personal engagement in organizations. From this concept, we develop a typology of organizational roles: leaders, role shifters, followers and outsiders. Through in‐depth interviews with Brazilian public servants and thematic analysis, our findings reveal that these roles are shaped by emotional experiences and variable psychic engagement, rather than hierarchical structures, offering new insights for systems‐theoretical exploration of organizational roles.

Policy Highlights To achieve the recommendation stated in the title, we propose the following: Policymakers should organise fair and balanced stakeholder engagement processes to address the key ethical trade-offs of the transition to low-carbon construction. The public sector should take a proactive role in leading the low-carbon transition and build strong cross-sectoral partnerships. Public sector leadership demands transparency and accountability which are crucial for navigating ethical trade-offs with the various stakeholders in the construction sector. Policymakers should build a culture of sustainability and cultivate a shared understanding of ethics and values among all stakeholders. To find creative solutions to the complex challenges associated with the transitionto low-carbon construction, SSH and STEM collaboration should be supported.

An individual's financial situation positively impacts her subjective well-being (SWB) according to the literature. However, most existing studies focus solely on income, neglecting other aspects of an individual's financial situation such as wealth. In this paper, we empirically examine the relationship between SWB, income, household wealth, and its components. Additionally, we explore the significance of one's wealth relative to others' for SWB. Our contribution expands the limited literature on absolute and relative wealth and SWB by utilizing unique microdata from a German wealth survey, the German Panel on Household Finances (PHF). Our findings indicate that both assets and debts, alongside income, are associated with an individual's SWB. In particular, a similar relative increase in financial assets is associated with a greater increase in SWB than the same percentage increase in real assets, and SWB decreases as the level of unsecured debt increases. Furthermore, individuals tend to experience decreased SWB when comparing themselves to others with more assets or less debt. Interestingly, we observe divergent effects of relative wealth on SWB among younger and older individuals. These results underscore the significance of considering wealth, in addition to income, when analyzing determinants of SWB.

Die zunehmende Zahl sicherheitspolitischer, diplomatischer und politischer Abkommen sowie die erweiterte militärische Zusammenarbeit, steigende Finanzpartnerschaften und die Zunahme des Handels deuten auf eine Stärkung der Beziehungen zwischen der Russischen Föderation und der Islamischen Republik Iran hin. Diese Entwicklung ist seit der Zusammenarbeit im syrischen Bürgerkrieg im Jahr 2015 und insbesondere nach dem Einmarsch Russlands in die Ukraine am 24. Februar 2022 besonders bemerkenswert. Eine Dimension dieses Trends ist der Export von Getreide, insbesondere Weizen, aus Russland in den Iran. Dieser Aspekt der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den beiden Ländern ist jedoch nach wie vor unbeständig und weist keinen stetig steigenden Trend auf. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen die Autoren die iranische Agrar- und Lebensmittelproduktion, die Abhängigkeit von Importen und die wachsenden Handels- und Nichthandelsbeziehungen zwischen dem Iran und Russland. Die Autoren kommen zu dem Schluss, dass die Weizenimporte aus Russland trotz des beobachteten Aufwärtstrends aufgrund der von der Islamischen Republik verfolgten Selbstversorgungspolitik weiterhin unstetig sein werden. https://laender-analysen.de/russland-analysen/455/weizenhandel-russland-iran/

Nach dem Einmarsch in die Ukraine setzte Russland nicht nur sein Wachstum bei den Weizenexporten fort, sondern erlebte auch eine zunehmende Marktkonzentration. Da sich große multinationale Exporteure aus dem Getreideexportmarkt zurückzogen, blieben nur wenige internationale Unternehmen übrig. Diese zunehmende Konzentration verringert den Wettbewerb auf dem heimischen Markt, was die Preise und die Rentabilität der Erzeuger senken kann. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser strukturellen Veränderungen nehmen Russlands Getreideexporte in geopolitisch wichtige Länder wie China und Saudi-Arabien zu. Diese Analyse gibt einen Überblick über diese strukturellen Veränderungen und bewertet ihre möglichen Auswirkungen auf den heimischen Markt und die globale Ernährungssicherheit. https://laender-analysen.de/russland-analysen/455/russlands-weizenexport-struktur-wirkung/