Guido Van Huylenbroeck

Ghent University | UGhent · Rector office

The growing global demand for sustainable and safe food is a major challenge that increases the need for advanced alternatives such as tissue engineering (TE). TE offers promising solutions by improving yields, nutritional value and resilience of crops, while also producing cultivated meat that reduces the environmental impact of livestock farming....

Conventional agriculture has been blamed for its ecological and economic concerns. Consequently, sustainable agriculture has emerged as a feasible and viable alternative for addressing food insecurity and climate change risks, despite its low uptake and unmet expectations. This study examined the opportunities, challenges, and limitations of adopti...

Plant tissue culture biotechnology offers a sustainable way to adapt to climate change by propagating disease-free plants with the desired traits. This study investigated stakeholders’ agronomic, social and economic evaluation of tissue culture plants (TCPs). It unravels microlevel outcomes and indicators that determine TCPs evaluation through a sy...

Interest in using smartphone-based technologies for farm management is growing. However, existing research does not adequately address the effect of farmer knowledge and awareness in their intention to use such technologies. The aim of the present study is to identify the main factors that influence farmer intention to use a Farm Management Smartph...

Modeling transaction costs is of particular importance when analyzing price integration in developing countries. Spatial price integration among five major Bangladesh rice markets are examined over the post-liberalization period that covered a long time span from January 1999 to December 2021, the longest period covered ever. We account for nonline...

Despite the huge potential for milk production, interventions to improve productivity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are barely based on specified farm classifications. This study aimed to develop robust and context-specific farm typologies to guide content of extension farm advice/services in Uganda. From a sample of 482 dairy farmers, we collected d...

Myanmar is the country with the highest economic vulnerability (EV) to climate change in the Southeast Asian region. The dry zone of Myanmar occupies two-thirds of the agricultural lands and it has higher temperatures than elsewhere in the country. Climate change has severe impacts on agricultural production in this region. Moreover, changes in the...

Using sustainable agriculture practices has various economic, social and environmental benefits. Determining the attitude of farmers toward risk is an important first step in understanding their behaviour and coping strategies to mitigate environmental risks. This paper investigates the dual impacts of some agricultural practices on agricultural yi...

Turkish livestock sector plays very important role in the Turkish GDP and the use of manure affects the environment but the farming sector want the farmers to employ the use of more integrated manure practice. The study assessed the economic impacts of integrated manure and chemical fertilizer used and the manure management practices sustainable fo...

During the last several decades, inter-organizational collaboration in the food sector has emerged to tackle complex problems such as sustainability. However, in practice, these networks often either fall short of their goal or disband. Therefore, we investigate the role of culture within these networks to gain insights into the transformative capa...

In the literature, there are limited studies on how socio-psychological factors affect farmers' attitudes towards risks. Therefore, this paper looks into this issue in Ethiopia for better understanding of how socio-psychological issues influence farmers' risk attitudes. The study uses data from a cross-sectional survey and a generalised ordered log...

Public research organizations need to increasingly engage in open innovation processes besides classic collaboration with industry and public-private partnerships. In this study, the effectiveness of an open innovation approach is examined in three bio-economy cases set up by a public research institute, as well as the factors influencing the imple...

In the delta areas of Myanmar, saltwater intrusion and flooding increasingly cause reductions in cultivated area and crop productivity, thereby threatening livelihoods that are dependent on agriculture. A household's vulnerability to these phenomena is determined by demographic factors and the social and economic characteristics of farm households....

Les autorités régionales belges doivent, ces jours-ci, se prononcer sur les différentes options de réforme de la Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) proposées par l'accord européen de juin dernier. Ce numéro spécial de Regards Economiques se penche sur les effets et les enjeux de cette réforme. Plusieurs questions sont abordées. En quoi consiste cette...

Les autorités régionales belges doivent, ces jours-ci, se prononcer sur les différentes options de réforme de la Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) proposées par l'accord européen de juin dernier. Ce numéro spécial de Regards Economiques se penche sur les effets et les enjeux de cette réforme. Plusieurs questions sont abordées. En quoi consiste cette...

Despite the presence of several studies on technology adoption, there are limited empirical studies on how socio-psychological factors affect the adoption of sustainable agriculture. Therefore, this paper investigates how socio-psychological factors-such as social capital, information, attitudes, efficacy, and aversion-affect smallholder farmers’ d...

In recent sustainability assessments, transdisciplinary approaches have been used to bridge contested normative views among many societal actors, policymakers and researchers. Transdisciplinary research is mainly based on three premises: (1) various perspectives need to be incorporated and discussed to empower actors, (2) the collaboration and co-c...

Sea level rise causes saltwater intrusion and flooding of agricultural land and ultimately threatens the livelihoods of farm households in the delta region of Myanmar. Empirical research on the effects of climate change on the delta's agriculture and an assessment of the vulnerability are becoming necessary. This study explores the vulnerability of...

In the delta areas of Myanmar, saltwater intrusion and flooding increasingly cause reductions in cultivated area and crop productivity, thereby threatening livelihoods that are dependent on agriculture. A household’s vulnerability to these phenomena is determined by demographic factors and the social and economic characteristics of farm households....

Being more than mere passive objects used at human will, technologies co-determine the values and structures that shape the EU agricultural system. Technologies (in use) actively shape human interpretation, human action and co-shape our moral standards and routines. It is therefore important to account for the moral significance of agricultural tec...

In Myanmar, the government has made a vast investment in the construction of dams to improve crop productivity and to ensure socioeconomic development. This study explores the differential impacts, in terms of socioeconomic conditions, of these investments for paddy farmers in Yedashe Township, in the Bago region in the south-central part of Myanma...

In recent years, research, society and industry recognize the need to transform the agri-food system towards sustainability. Within this process, sustainability experiments play a crucial role in transforming the structure, culture and practices. In literature, much attention is given to new business models, even if the transformation of convention...

Production diseases in dairy cows can have significant effects on farm business performance. Decisions about controlling production diseases are mainly based on veterinary advice. However, from an economic perspective, mere diagnosis of disease does not provide enough information for intervention decisions. Well-founded decisions are based on knowl...

Grazing management (GM) interventions, such as reducing the grazing time or mowing pasture before grazing, have been proposed to limit the exposure to gastrointestinal (GI) nematode infections in grazed livestock. However, the farm-level economic effects of these interventions have not yet been assessed so far. In this paper, the economic effects o...

The agri-food system is increasingly under pressure due to external and internal changes, urging the agri-food chain to transform towards sustainability. Since sustainability is a normative concept, different visions on the way to follow exist. Therefore, the identification of shared transformation pathways based on both factual knowledge and stake...

Purpose Climate change negatively affects agricultural crop production in the dry zone region of Myanmar. This paper aims to examine climate change adaptation strategies of farmers in the dry zone region. Farmers’ choice for adaptation strategies is influenced by many factors such as the practical availability and by socioeconomic conditions of the...

Value chain analysis is an important tool to assess and enhance the performance of agribusiness. This paper analyzes the empirical application of a conceptual framework known as the Rural Web to evaluate the socioeconomic complexity of a specific agribusiness value chain. This can be used as a complementary approach to traditional value chain analy...

In the aftermath of the market liberalization reforms, interventions in developing countries shifted toward building institutions. One of such interventions is the introduction of commodity exchanges. The theoretical justification is that commoditization reduces the high transaction costs associated with the information and enforcement problems cha...

Most cities in developing countries fail to treat their wastewater comprehensively. Consequently, farmers downstream use poor-quality water for irrigation. This practice implies risks for farmers, consumers and the environment. Conversely, this water supply supports the livelihood of these farmers and other stakeholders along the value chains. Link...

Payments for environmental services (PES) are a hybrid mode of governance, situated between markets and hierarchies. However, market structure has been used as a theoretical model to inform PES design. Based on 16 cases from Andean and Mesoamerican countries, we analyze whether PES schemes have, since their implementation, gradually incorporated mo...

There is a widely held belief among public consumers that rice prices are manipulated in Bangladesh. This manipulation may have led to price asymmetry in the vertical chain of Bangladesh rice markets. This paper is an attempt to investigate the existence of asymmetry between wholesale and retail rice prices in Bangladesh. Maximum likelihood estimat...

Wastewater has emerged as an alternative source of water. Since the agricultural sector remains the largest water user world-wide, it is the main potential user of treated wastewater. However, while there are trade-offs in using wastewater, it may be the only option in water scarce regions. South Africa has included water reuse as a policy option;...

Corporate Social Responsibility has been recognized by policymakers and development specialists as a feasible driver for rural development. The present paper explores both theoretically and empirically how firms involved in CSR provide development opportunities to rural communities. The research first evaluates the applied literature on the impleme...

The paper analyzes the impact of trade liberalization and changes in world prices of agricultural commodities in Bangladesh using single country CGE model. Since the agricultural sector is sensitive to overall employment, household welfare and food security, the analysis focuses on the changes in agricultural production, consumption, household inco...

Efficiency analysis is used for assessing links between technical efficiency (TE) of livestock farms and animal diseases. However, previous studies often do not make the link with the allocation of inputs and mainly present average effects that ignore the often huge differences among farms. In this paper, we studied the relationship between exposur...

The potential of smallholder-irrigated agriculture to enhance food security and improve livelihoods has led the government of Ethiopia to invest significantly in irrigation establishment. This article aims to investigate the impact of small-scale irrigation on households' livelihood. To deal with the problems of purposive targeting and self-selecti...

Wastewater constitutes an alternative water source for the irrigation sector. To fully benefit from it, and reduce possible adverse effects on public health and the environment, we need to look at the regulation of the practice. A prerequisite for this is an institutional analysis, and the points to consider are the institutional mandates. We used...

Wastewater is increasingly regarded as a valuable resource, but to fully and safely exploit the potential, sound institutional arrangements governing its reuse are crucial. This article presents a case study of a self-managed irrigation scheme in Western Cape, South Africa, that uses treated effluent directly, formally and safely. By applying the I...

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the effect of cooperative societies on household food security in six villages of Northern Ethiopia. Cooperative societies have significant contribution to the food security and poverty reduction. However, limited empirical studies exist in the study areas about the roles of cooperative societies on food secu...

When rural planning complexity increases, such as in rural areas with a high urbanisation pressure, decision support tools can assist in determining which agricultural land should be given priority for preservation. Theoretically, traditional land valuation methods can cope with the multiple criteria at stake, but literature reveals a gap between t...

This paper examined the relationship between the equity indices in the BRIC economies and oil prices for the period from September 22, 1997 to November 29, 2013. We focused on various sub-periods to obtain statistically robust and economically solid relationships and to address cross-sectional dependence among stock market indices and oil prices in...

The objective of the study was to compare the provision of the existing artificial insemination service delivery system (AI-SDS) among public, private and autonomous institutions to the small-scale dairy farmers in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional survey was conducted by using a pre-tested and pre-designed questionnaire and face-to-face interview tech...

From theory it is expected that forestry laws and regulations affect the adoption of agroforestry technologies, such as planting of indigenous fruit trees. These trees are important sources of nutrients and income to thousands of farmers. However data on farmers’ perceptions and behaviour towards such policy instruments are scarce and contradictory...

Wetland degradation has recently received considerable research attention. Although wetlands are valuable ecosystems, their actual value is difficult to measure because the services they provide often do not have market values. The current study seeks to investigate the preferences for wetland management options in the Kilombero Valley, central Tan...

Agricultural activity of EU farmers is particularly concerned by specific compulsory requirements arising from the legislation in the fields of the protection of the environment, food safety and animal welfare. EU farmers may be facing extra costs when complying with this legislation.Farmers in third countries are not bound by EU legislation on agr...

The use of genetically modified (GM) crops and their applications is partially suppressed in European Union (EU) agriculture, even if one would expect otherwise given their complementarity with the neoliberal and industrialised EU agricultural regime in place. By applying a qualitative content analysis, this paper analyses how food manufacturers an...

A comprehensive description and assessment of the costs of compliance with EU legislation in the fields of environment, animal welfare and food safety at farm level in selected EU Member States and in selected third countries; A comprehensive description and assessment of the costs of compliance for farmers in a number of third countries with equiv...

The paper measures the total factor productivity (TFP), technical change (TC) and technical efficiency change (TEC) in rice production, and traces the impact of market reform policies of the 1990s on these indices at the farm level in Bangladesh using a unique cohort of three-period panel data (1987, 2000 and 2004) of 73 farms by applying stochasti...

The promotion of development projects based on the commercialization of non-timber forest products has increased in recent decades, showing a positive contribution to rural development; yet it has led to controversial approaches in resource preservation. This paper examines the case of Candelilla wax from the Chihuahuan Desert in northern Mexico, i...

The impact of gastrointestinal (GI) nematode infections in dairy farming has traditionally been assessed using partial productivity indicators. But such approaches ignore the impact of infection on the performance of the whole farm. In this study, efficiency analysis was used to study the association of the GI nematode Ostertagia ostertagi on the t...

Biochar has received considerable scientific attention in the past decade as a possible method for carbon storage and increasing agricultural yields. Despite this promise, however, economic assessments of biochar are yet to definitively establish the value of the technology, primarily due to discrepancy between observed short-term agronomic benefit...

This paper gives an overview on the traditional Jatropha curcas L. (physic nut) production practices as a multipurpose vegetable resource in the Totonacapan, Mexico, and the social acceptability of changes involved both in its agronomic management and use, promotion by the Mexican Energy Ministry through a special program, which, in the case for J....

In the European Union (EU), genetically modified (GM) crops are regarded as a socially-sensitive technology. At present, GM crops are rarely cultivated in the EU and non-genetically modified ingredients dominate the EU market. However, most consumers are unaware of the fact that many genetically modified ingredients (GMI) are present in EU supermar...

Payment for Environmental or Ecosystem Services (PES) is among the tools for managing degraded ecosystems and their associated ecological and economic services. Wetlands are an important type of ecosystem, which are highly degradable and accordingly PES become relevant for the sustainable management of wetlands. In Tanzania deforestation in catchme...

Although several international carbon footprint (CF) calculation initiatives have been developed, studies that focus specifically on estimating the CF of pigmeat are rather limited. This paper describes the application of a CF methodology, based on lifecycle assessment of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for Flemish pigmeat production using the Publ...

The European Union (EU) still retains genetically modified (GM) crop applications within its agriculture and on the EU market. The current EU non-GM crop regime is in fact a ‘fictitious’ or ‘virtual’ non-GM crop regime that has developed into a ‘wicked’ problem. Any progress towards resolving this impasse, either in favour of or against GM crops an...

This paper offers a holistic study on the complex relationships between crude oil, corn and ethanol during a turbulent period between 2006 and end of 2011. Through a holistic mapping of the current market situation and a contextual analytical design we show that there exists a strong relationship between crude oil and corn markets on one side, and...

Natural resources management has been an issue of global concern due to the ongoing deterioration in the stock of natural resources worldwide. This problem has often been linked to the rules governing the management of these resources. The current study was conducted in Kilombero wetlands, a Ramsar site in Tanzania, to determine whether variations...

Purpose – There are many farmers in rural Ethiopia, who do not join cooperative societies, despite the different technical and financial supports from the government. This study thus aims to investigate the main factors that inspire rural people to join into the cooperatives. Design/methodology/approach – The study collected relevant primary data...

In recent years, new tools for funding nature conservation have been designed. Because poverty is often significant in areas with high biodiversity, the improvement of local livelihoods is frequently considered as a secondary goal of new financing mechanisms besides nature conservation. The buffer zone of the Podocarpus National Park in Ecuador is su...

Peasant communities in the Inter-Andean valleys in Bolivia increasingly face water shortages. Because they depend largely on agriculture, this puts their livelihood security at risk. While the debate over water access mostly focuses on the conflicts between industries or cities and traditional users, there has been little attention for inequality i...

In this paper, the objective is to assess the influence of the institutional organisation of AESs on farmers’ participation in the schemes. The literature reveals that the institutional organisation of AESs can influence participation in the schemes and that this participation rate is an important indicator of the schemes’ eventual environmental ef...

Considerable efforts are being deployed to reduce illegal forestry activities in the Congo basin forests, but these efforts seem to be concentrated on illegal timber logging and wildlife poaching to the neglect of other illegal forest activities such as Non Timber Forests Products (NTFP) harvesting and trade. This paper applies a choice experiment...

The government of Ethiopia has technically and financially encouraged cooperative societies in order to play significant role in ensuring food security. This study thus investigated the impact of cooperative societies on ensuring household food security in Tigray region using 400 sample households, household survey and Heckman two-stage model. The...

Rural areas in densely populated regions face increasing competition for land. Consequently, land use planning processes must attempt to balance the goals of diverse stakeholders and the process of reaching consensus becomes more complicated. By investigating the perception of the actors involved in rural planning, this research contributes to the...

The BELSPO funded project 'MERINOVA' deals with risks associated with extreme weather phenomena and with risks of biological origin such as pests and diseases. The major objectives of the proposed project are to characterise extreme meteorological events, assess the impact on Belgian agro-ecosystems, characterise their vulnerability and resilience...