Karin Holm-Mueller

• University of Bonn

Disease resistant crop varieties are important for both disease control and for reducing chemical pesticide use. However, there is often a trade-off between disease resistance and yield. While the European Union has banned the use of some pesticides in agriculture, large amounts are still applied to various crops, including wheat. Market-based inst...

Die spontane Umstellung der Hochschullehre auf digitale Lehre im Sommersemester 2020 aufgrund der Corona-Pandemie sorgte für einen Digitalisierungsschub an deutschen Hochschulen. Nach vielen Erfahrungen und einer schrittweisen Rückkehr zur Präsenzlehre ist es an der Zeit, sich Gedanken zu machen, wie eine sinnvolle Kombination von Präsenz- und digi...

In the EU, several environmental regulations aim at protecting the environment from agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus losses. The German regulation on farmers' nutrient management, especially implementing the EU Nitrates Directive, was revised in 2017. It comprises considerable tightening of numerous measures and costs for farmers to comply with...

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes have been increasingly implemented in developing countries where gender-related inequalities are generally prevalent. A randomized field trial in Kenya revealed the impacts of participants’ gender in conservation auctions and in environmental performance of action- and outcome-based PES schemes and prov...

The transport of excess manure to crop farming systems is a core measure of livestock farmers to comply with environmental regulations like the EU Nitrates Directive. The German implementation of the directive has recently been revised and will lead to a distinct increase of manure transport. We quantify the environmental impact of 1 m3of pig manur...

Many industries benefit from public biodiversity conservation through the use of genetic resources in R&D processes. The conservation of biodiversity, though, is an under-provided public good. The aim of this paper is to analyze a global mechanism as a policy tool to internalize the positive conservation externalities accruing to commercial users o...

The empirical evidence that economies predominantly reliant on their natural resources are characterized by slower economic growth—the so-called Resource Curse (RC)—is in many ways confirmed by the case of Zambia. Haber and Menaldo (Am Polit Sci Rev 105(1):1-26, 2011) identify Zambia’s extreme dependence on copper exports as one of the worldwide mo...

This paper examines the relationships between the marginal abatement costs (MAC) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on dairy farms and factors such as herd size, milk yield and available farm labour, on the one hand, and prices, GHG indicators and GHG reduction levels, on the other. A two-stage Heckman procedure is used to estimate these relationshi...

The current study seeks to assess the private benefits associated with multiple soil conservation practices (MSCPs) by estimating the marginal value of crop production that can be attributed to such practices. In areas where land degradation associated with soil erosion causes serious agri-environmental challenges such as loss of soil fertility, si...

Cost‐effectiveness is an important aspect in the assessment of payments for environmental services (PES) initiatives. In participatory field trials with communities in Western Kenya, we combined procurement auctions for forest enrichment contracts with performance‐based payments and compared the outcomes with a baseline scenario currently used by t...

Despite notable progress over the last twenty years, the agricultural sector in Germany has not succeeded in realising certain environmental key targets. For example, the target of reducing maximum national nitrogen surplus at + 80 kg N/ha/year is still far from being achieved. Consequently, not only the quality of surface water and ground water is...

Herausgegeben vom Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz http://buel. Novellierung der Düngeverordnung: Nährstoff überschüsse wirksam begrenzen Kurzstellungnahme der Wissenschaftlichen Beiräte für Agrarpolitik und für Düngungsfragen beim Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz und des Sac...

Opinion of the Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy and of the Scientific Advisory Board on Fertiliser Issues respectively, at the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, as well as the German Advisory Council on the Environment, regarding the amendment of the Fertiliser Application Ordinance (DüV).

Despite notable progress over the last twenty years, the agricultural sector in Germany has not succeeded in realising certain environmental key targets. For example, the target of reducing maximum national nitrogen surplus at + 80 kg N/ha/year is still far from being achieved. Consequently, not only the quality of surface water and ground water is...

Biodiversity is an essential resource, which we classify as conditionally-renewable. In order to achieve conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity virtually all nation states signed the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. In this paper we investigate how the heterogeneity of countries in regard to ecosystems and wealth influen...

Die Energiewende bedeutet eine Systemtransformation des gesamten Energiebereichs hin zu erneuerbaren Energien. Der Transformationsprozess ist dabei einerseits von hohen technologischen Herausforderungen begleitet. Andererseits zeigen sich aber auch zunehmend Akzeptanzprobleme in der Bevölkerung, wenn etwa die Strompreise als zu hoch empfunden werde...

There is broad debate about including agriculture in greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction efforts such as the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Since most agricultural GHG emissions originate from non-point sources, they cannot be directly measured, and therefore have to be derived by calculation schemes (indicators). We designed five such GHG indicator...

This paper analyzes the effects of social influence and participation in collective action initiatives on soil conservation effort among smallholder farmers in Lake Naivasha basin, Kenya. We apply binary and ordered probit models in a two stage regression procedure to cross-sectional data collected through a household survey among randomly selected...

The reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 2013 decides whether the European fisheries can be put on a sustainable course in the next 10 years. The CFP reform must halt overexploitation of fish resources and stop harm to the marine environment by fishing activities. The European Commission published a reform proposal just recently....

This paper shows the strong relation between the factors that lead to the resource curse (RC) and factors that lead to a decline of genuine savings (GS). There is substantial empirical evidence that economies that rely predominantly on their natural resources are also characterized by slower economic growth. This so‐called RC is commonly traced bac...

Zusammenfassung Nach der Atomkatastrophe in Fukushima hat die Bundesregierung beschlossen, bis Mitte Juni die Zukunft der Atomenergie in Deutschland zu überdenken. Dabei können unterschiedlich weitgehende Szenarien betrachtet werden. Sie reichen von einer Rücknahme der im letzten Herbst beschlossenen Laufzeitverlängerung bis hin zum vollkommenen Au...

Die gegenwärtige im Kyoto-Protokoll festgelegte Klimapolitik versucht vorrangig, dem Klimawandel mit einer Strategie der Emissionsverminderung zu begegnen. Die dort festgelegten Reduktionsziele für den CO2-Ausstoß sind für viele Länder nicht mehr zu realisieren. Und einige Länder, die zu den größten Emittenten gehören, vor allem die USA, haben sich...

The Renewable-Energy-Source-Act (EEG) promotes German biogas production in order to substitute fossil fuels, protect the environment and prevent climate change. In this paper we quantitatively analyse the EEG-reform in 2008. Results imply that the reform contributes to an expansion of biogas electricity generation and thus to substitution of fossil...

The location of first generation processing plants for biogas using bulky inputs is a prominent example of locational decisions of plants that face high per unit transport costs of feedstock and simultaneously depend to a large extent on feedstock availability. Modelling the resulting regional feedstock markets then requires a spatially explicit re...

A newly developed indicator of the pesticide risk for aquatic biocenosis in surface water bodies is applied within an economic sector model, and is used to evaluate alternative designs for an environmental policy programme. For rural districts (‘Landkreise’) across Germany, different widths of riparian buffer zones adjacent to surface water bodies...

This paper discusses how differences in transport costs of energy crops affect the choice of feedstock used in biogas production. This is done by optimizing feedstock demand subject to transportation distances of the different crops. For this a von Thuenen type model is applied to the feedstock demand of biogas plants. In addition to yields in term...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

In the context of energy security and climate protection, biomass is given high importance. Nevertheless, land-use conflicts resulting from the cultivation of biomass and their economy-wide effects are yet to be fully understood. To shed light on this issue we link three distinctive models; a global, multi-regional general equilibrium model (DART),...

The 48Th Annual Conf. of the Ger. Assoc. of Agric. Economists (GEWISOLA) Took Pl. from September 24-26, 2008 at the Univ. of Bonn. Its Overall Theme Was "Coping with Risks in the Agric. and Food Sector". the Two Plenary Sessions of the First Conf. Day Were Completely Devoted to This Gen. Theme. Four Invited Papers Approached the Topic from A Global...

The worldwide turndown in coffee revenue to the majority of resource poor primary producers has become a serious threat to sustainable development. There is however inadequate knowledge with respect to mechanisms used by resource poor coffee farmers to stave off situations of economic hardship. Using cross-sectional household survey data from south...

Taking Brazilian bioethanol as an example, this paper presents possible sustainability criteria for a certification scheme aimed to minimize negative socio-ecological impacts and to increase the sustainable production of biomass. We describe the methods that have led us to the identification of a first set of feasible sustainability criteria for Br...

In most developing countries, crop production is by small scale farmers, who mainly produce for their own consumption and the extra for market. Pollination in such systems is unmanaged and is usually incidental, supported by nearby ecosystems. One of the reasons of not managing pollination is the lack of understanding of its economic value. The "pu...

If Noah had had the opportunity to select the animals he took on board his Ark, he would have had to choose between many species, breeds and types within breeds, all containing different genetic material. How could he have made the right choice and which would he have taken on board given the constraints he had to face? Those trying to save threate...

Individual preferences, changing market conditions, environmental constraints, and regulatory interventions can all contribute towards livestock-keepers in arid environments moving away from their traditional livestock production systems. As a consequence, certain local breeds and the genetic resources they represent may become used less and less,...

Our location model aims to simulate location decisions for biogas plants based on profit maximisation to generate regional demand functions for maize and corresponding plant size structure and transport distances. By linking it with an agricultural sector model we derived regional maize markets. Comparing results for the REA with a scenario applyin...

A rational negotiation strategy for coming multilateral negotiations regarding climate change requires knowledge about possible social, economic and environmental effects of policy instruments for the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions. With this purpose, an agricultural sector model is expanded to cover greenhouse gas emissions from agricultura...

Satisfaction of communities living close to forests with forest management authorities is essential for ensuring continued support for conservation efforts. However, more often than not, community satisfaction is not systematically elicited, analyzed, and incorporated in conservation decisions. This study attempts to elicit levels of community sati...

Die neunte Vertragsstaatenkonferenz zum Übereinkommen über die biologische Vielfalt in Bonn befasste sich auch mit dem Zugang und Vorteilsausgleich für genetische Ressourcen. Welche Auswirkungen haben bisherige Regelungen für Unternehmen und vor welchem Hintergrund sind die Verhandlungen zu bewerten?

Solving carnivore-livestock conflicts is essential if goals to preserve biodiversity conservation are taken seriously and livelihoods especially of poor livestock owners are to be safeguarded. This paper presents an innovative performance payment approach for carnivore conservation, that has been successfully implemented in Sweden. Performance paym...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

In light of international discussions on a possible opt-in of the agricultural sector to the current European emission trading system for greenhouse gases, the objective of this article is to present a feasible implementation strategy for a market of emission permits in European agriculture and to simulate its economic effects within the regionalis...

To enhance the use of biofuels is stated priority of EU and German energy policy. Reasons given for this priority inter alia include positive income effects for the rural areas. This paper uses the example of North Rhine-Westphalia to investigate rural areas’ possibilities to profit from the added value of bio fuel production. It is shown that...

The Borana cattle have their origin in Southern Ethiopia where they are kept by the Borana-Oromyfa clans because of their outstanding traits that make them suitable for the harsh environment in this region. Borana cattle are also the main source of the livestock-keepers' income and the local people's cultural identity is formed on the husbandry of...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

Bioenergy produced from biomass is increasingly used to substitute fossil energy sources. Trade of biomass is expected to increase in the following years due to disparities in production costs and potentials in countries and regions. In this paper the possibility of a certification scheme for minimizing negative socio-ecological impacts and for inc...

We conducted a survey of 291 people in Nortrhine-Westphalia in order to find out preferences for different characteristics of grassland types and the willingness to pay to preserve them. Our results indicate a high loss aversity which results in remarkable passive use values like existence and bequest values.

In this article, legal consequences of the new German genetic engineering act are analyzed. In addition environmental economic analysis is presented of those parts of the act that introduce new litigation regulation to farmers. The different kinds of external costs arising from genetic engineering of plants and their allocation to different actors...

In recent decades there has been a remarkable loss of species and habitats worldwide. Efforts have thus been made in nearly all regions of the world to implement biodiversity protection programs. Significant financial support is needed which, for the most part, is funded by tax revenues. For this reason, the public interest should be considered in...

Based on previous experience with the cultivation of short rotating coppice in Germany, the present article deals with the options of commercial use and profitability of tree plantations for bio-energy generation. The production is divided into several steps in order to juxtapose the resultant production costs with the potential revenues of possibl...

Risk perceptions play a key role in production and investment behavior of farmers. However, insufficient attention has been given to understand its nature and distribution in cash crop farming such as coffee. This study, therefore, attempts to explore patterns of coffee farmers' perceived sources of risk and the factors associated with them. Data w...

A variety of agri-environmental instruments can be used to combat water pollution by pesticides in agriculture according to the regulation EC 1257/1999. The chosen policies should be politically feasible and capable to prevent external effects cost-effectively. One possible policy instrument for Germany is the implementation of nation-wide buffer s...

The Convention on Biological Diversity provides an international framework to ensure conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources. The realization of these objectives is based on the state's sovereignty over its biological resources and the idea of a fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resou...

In addition to existing juridical analyses of the new German act for genetic engineering, this article deals with an environmental economic assessment. It is examined what kind of external costs will arise by using/applying genetic engineering and how they will be allocated. Our focus is on the costs that explicitly evolve from the societal postula...

Based on previous experiences with the cultivation of short Rotation Coppice in Germany, the present article deals with the profitability of tree-plantations for bio-energy generation. The production process is divided into several steps in order to compare the resulting production costs with the associated revenues of potential users. As the culti...

A variety of agri-environmental instruments can be used to combat water pollution by pesticides in agriculture according to the regulation EC 1257/1999. The chosen policies should be politically feasible and capable to prevent external effects cost-effectively. One possible policy instrument for Germany is the implementation of nation-wide buffer s...

The knowledge to-date recaps Coffea arabica to have originated in Ethiopia and its genetic diversity in the country is proved to be high. However, this diversity is threatened due to policy, institutional and market failures. Despite a tremendous attention to salvage this loss through on-farm conservation, there is no adequate contextual research d...

Die Entwicklung der Agrarpolitik geht zunehmend in Richtung einer Liberalisierung der regionalen und internationalen Märkte. Die Agrarreform 1992, die Agenda 2000 und der FAIR Act 1996 auf Ebene der EU und der USA als wesentliche Global Player im internationalen Agrarhandel sowie das Uruguay-Abkommen 1994 und die laufenden WTO-Verhandlungen auf der...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

Benefit transfer, as a mean to transfer values from existing monetary valuation studies to new policy sites, has been in use for many years. This paper aims to analyze the forecasting quality of benefit transfer by applying a rigoroust-test – also referred to as Accuracy-t-test – that takes into account testing errors which were made in previous su...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

Both WTO and the EU use a “Rule of additional costs†(RAC) to restrict payments for ecological services in agriculture in order to prevent trade distortions. We assess this rule in the light of modern economic theory. It is shown that the RAC is efficient, if conventional agriculture is competitive without other payments. In regions where agricu...

Dieser Artikel ist nur in deutscher Sprache verfügbar. The article is only available in German language.

Agri-environmental programs offering uniform payments to farmers achieved only low participation ratios in some regions whereas, in other regions, windfall profits arose. Auctions leading to individual payments equal to farmers’ bids could solve this problem. Simulations showing auctions’ efficiency gains are based on critical assumptions thoug...

In der Umweltpolitik wurden bisher vor allem Ge- und Verbote, Subventionen und Abgaben eingesetzt. Als ein weiterer Weg zur Bewältigung der Umweltprobleme wird in der auf Coase aufbauenden Literatur die Definition von problemadäquaten Eigentumsrechten angeregt. Auch die Rücknahmeverpflichtung, die, wie in Kapitel 3 erwähnt, als neues Instrument in...

Aufgabe dieses Kapitels soll es in erster Linie sein, ein Referenzmodell zu erstellen, mit dessen Hilfe die abfallwirtschaftlichen Instrumente in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beurteilt werden können (Kapitel 2.1 und 2.2). Um mögliche Gründe für politische Eingriffe im Abfallsektor darzulegen, soll zudem ein Vergleich mit dem Gleichgewichtszustand...

Im Mittelpunkt der Kapitel 4 und 5 stand die Internalisierung externer Entsorgungskosten. Sie führt, soweit gelungen, zur Erreichung des optimalen Produktionsniveaus für Primär- und Sekundärgüter durch den Markt. Zumindest gilt dies im Modell der vollkommenen Konkurrenz. Die Abfallpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beschränkt sich jedoch nic...

Das folgende Kapitel soll einen zusammenhängenden Überblick über die abfallrechtlichen Gegebenheiten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland geben, von denen ein Teil bereits kurz erwähnt, jedoch noch nicht im Zusammenhang dargestellt wurde.

Bis vor kurzem ging die Abfallpolitik in Deutschland davon aus, daß die vorhandenen Deponien zu einem großen Teil am Ende ihrer Laufzeit angelangt sind. So seien circa 90 % der bestehenden Hausmülldeponien in den alten Bundesländern bis zum Jahre 2015 erschöpft (Siemens 1995 S. 1). Beim Stand der Abfallvermeidung von 1990 fehlten etwa 80 – 100 Aufb...

Zielsetzung der vorliegenden Arbeit war die ökonomische Beurteilung der Abfallwirtschaftspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, wobei verhaltenssteuernde Anreize, die von dieser Politik ausgehen, im Mittelpunkt der Analyse standen. Bei der Auswahl des Abfallbegriffes für die ökonomische Analyse der Abfallpolitik zeigte sich, daß in der Literatu...

Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die Abfallpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland auf ihre Effizienz hin zu untersuchen. Daraus ergibt sich die Notwendigkeit, den verwendeten Abfallbegriff ebenso wie die für die abfallpolitische Diskussion zentralen Begriffe der Abfallvermeidung, -verwertung und -beseitigung zu klären. Kapitel 1.1 beginn...

Die folgenden Kapitel 4–6 stellen die Verknüpfung zwischen den Ergebnissen des Kapitels 2.4 und des dritten Kapitels dar. Hier sollen die wichtigsten Instrumente der Abfallpolitik auf ihre Effizienz hin überprüft werden. Unter Effizienz wird dabei im allgemeinen Pareto-Optimalität verstanden, d.h. die Fähigkeit eines Instrumentes, gleichzeitig opti...

The idea of the collective use of natural resources has been a well known concept in Uzbekistan for a long time. In 2000 management of the irrigation systems in Uzbekistan was handed over to farmers within the framework of structural adjustment. In the same year Water Users Associations (WUA) were established in several regions of Uzbekistan. WUAs...

In the context of energy security and concerns about climate change, German legislation subsidizes electricity production from biogas. Given that transportation costs of silage maize and manure, the main biogas feedstock, are high compared to the feedstock's value, a robust impact assessment requires tools capturing regional market clearing. We the...