newsletter

Edition 1/2017, 17 March 2017

The IAMO Forum 2017 will take place from 21 – 23 June 2017 with technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and in partnership with the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations (OA). The focus of this year’s conference will be on "Eurasian Food Economy between Globalization and Geopolitics". Among the prominent keynote speakers will be Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Bernard Hoekman, Professor and Director of Global Economics at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence, Italy, Natalya Volchkova, NOVATEK Assistant Professor of Economics at the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia, and Policy Director of the Centre for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR) as well as Bettina Rudloff from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. A further highlight of the conference will be a plenary discussion on "Fit for the future: Innovative and sustainable Eurasian food chains". It will take place on the final day of the conference and feature experts from science, practice and politics. Online registration for the IAMO Forum 2017 is now open. Early bird tickets at reduced rates (€270 instead of €345) will be available until 1 May. Special rates are available for bachelor and master students (€30 before 1 May and €50 normal rate). The conference is financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Leibniz ScienceCampus "Eastern Europe – Global Area" (EEGA).

Conference website: www.iamo.de/forum/2017
Registration: www.conftool.net/iamo2017

IAMO Forum 2017
Eurasian Food Economy between Globalization and Geopolitics
21 – 23 June 2017 | Halle (Saale), Germany
www.iamo.de/forum/2017
#iamoForum17

Contact:
Lena Kuhn
Tel.: +49 345 2928–210
forum2017(at)iamo.de

The Leibniz ScienceCampus Eastern Europe - Global Area (EEGA) was launched on 26 January 2017. Saxony's Science Minister Eva-Maria Stange and Leibniz President Matthias Kleiner spoke at the ceremony which took place at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. IAMO is a founding member of EEGA. Under the direction of the Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (IfL) the network brings together researchers affiliated with both universities and research institutes in the Leipzig-Jena-Halle science region in Germany and is committed to developing new research perspectives on Eastern Europe. In particular, researchers cooperating in the campus are interested in discovering how societies in Eastern Europe position themselves in global processes and conflicts. For more information see www.leibniz-eega.de.

IAMO is also a founding member of the Leibniz ScienceCampus Halle - Plant-Based Bioeconomy (WCH). Currently the Leibniz Association has established 19 Leibniz ScienceCampi.

Contact:
Thomas Glauben
Tel. +49 345 2928-200
glauben(at)iamo.de

 

During the International Green Week, IAMO Director Thomas Glauben met Zoir Mirzayev, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan and Minister for Agriculture, for a talk at the embassy of Uzbekistan in Berlin (Germany) on 21 January 2017. Glauben spoke of IAMO’s activities in Uzbekistan in the fields of agricultural insurance and capacity building and once again expressed his thanks for the cooperation extended during the IAMO Samarkand Conference, held from 2 - 4 November 2016 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Mirzayev highlighted the importance of the agricultural sector in Uzbekistan and the importance of science in tackling existing challenges and increasing the agricultural export potential of Uzbekistan.

This year the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), organized by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), also took place during the Green Week. IAMO was present with a booth at the cooperation market and co-organized two expert panels. Around 130 guests attended the panel "Everything Flows? Water as Decisive Resource and Factor for Agriculture in Eastern Europe and Central Asia", a joint event by IAMO and the German Agribusiness Alliance of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations (OA). More information and impressions. Around 100 participants joined the panel "Three Sides of One Coin: Agriculture and Water in China", organized in cooperation with the German Agribusiness Alliance at the German Asia-Pacific Business Association (OAV) and the German-Sino Agricultural Center (DCZ). In addition to the event, the background paper "Water and Agriculture - Status, Challenges and Options for Action" was published. It is available for download free of charge at iamo.de/en. More information.

Contact:
Daniela Schimming
Tel.: +49 345 2928-330
presse(at)iamo.de
 

On 28 January 2017, IAMO researchers Nodir Djanibekov and Martin Petrick together with partners from Samarkand Agricultural Institute organized a stakeholder workshop on the future establishment of a joint graduate program on sustainable agricultural development in Central Asia. The workshop was supported by the State Committee for Coordination of Science and Technology Development under the Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan and took place in their venue in Tashkent. Around 40 participants from academia, public administration and international organizations joined the event. The Volkswagen Foundation, which financially supported the cooperation, currently supports several IAMO research projects on agricultural development in Central Asia, among them "AGRICHANGE - Institutional change in land and labour relations of Central Asia’s irrigated agriculture" led by Djanibekov and Petrick. In the framework of AGRICHANGE a Winter School is currently taking place at IAMO. Together with IAMO graduates, PhD students from Central Asia practice critical thinking and academic writing and learn how to use the statistical software Stata.

Contact:
Martin Petrick
+49 345 2928-120
petrick(at)iamo.de

On 13 - 20 February 2017, scientists working within the project "FEDAGRIPOL – Political economy of agricultural policies in federal systems", Vasyl Kvartiuk and Siranush Ghukasyan, conducted an initial field trip to Russia in order to obtain insights into the political economy of state support of agriculture and deepen cooperation with key partners. The visit began with meetings with key partners in Moscow: the Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agricultural Issues and Informatics (VIAPI), the Institute for Industrial and Market Studies of Higher School of Economics (HSE), and the Center for Agricultural Policies of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). The researchers were able to reach agreements with the Russian institutes on common data collection, analysis, and future publications. Subsequently, the IAMO team traveled to two selected regions (Tatarstan Republic and Altai Krai) in order to interview key stakeholders on the political economy of the state support of the Russian agricultural sector. The interviews secured an empirical foundation for further research within the project. Afterwards, Siranush Ghukasyan was conducting a research stay in VIAPI until mid-March 2017.

Contact:
Vasyl Kvartiuk
Tel. +49 345 2928-336
kvartiuk(at)iamo.de
 

As part of the cross-university Doctoral Certificate Program in Agricultural Economics, IAMO hosted the Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Analysis course for the 9th time on 22-27 January 2017. The Doctoral Certificate Program in Agricultural Economics established in 2005 is the first long-term structured training program for PhD students in the fields of agricultural and food economics in Germany. As a member of this program, IAMO organizes several courses each year. In the one-week-long GIS module students were introduced to computer tools for spatial data analysis, map-making, and spatial modelling. They experienced a mixture of theoretical lectures, hands-on exercises and structured time to work with their own data. In all, more than 100 PhD students attended the course, from over 30 countries and 20 universities across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The GIS course is one of the most popular of the Doctoral Certificate program over the last years. For future courses the team, coordinated by Zhanli Sun and Daniel Müller, is planning exciting updates, such as a possible shift to open source software and the incorporation of more practical research examples in the lecture.

PhD students at IAMO are members of the IAMO Graduate School and participate in the national Doctoral Certificate Program in Agricultural Economics. Next to the GIS module IAMO hosts the following courses: Foundations of Agricultural Economics, Agent-based Modelling in Agricultural and Resource Economics, Political Economy of Agriculture in Developing and Emerging Economies as well as The Political Economy of Agriculture in high-income Countries.

Contact GIS module:
Zhanli Sun
Tel. +49 345 2928-331
sun(at)iamo.de

 

Within the framework of the project "ENHANCE - Building an Excellency Network for Heightening Agricultural Economic Research and Education in Romania" a Summer School entitled "Policy Evaluation in Agriculture" will take place in Bucharest, Romania, from 18-22 September 2017. Master and PhD students are invited to apply by 31 May 2017. For more information see the website course.enhance-project.ro. ENHANCE focuses on strengthening the agronomic expertise of the University of Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine (USAMV) in Bucharest to promote the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas in Romania. In addition to USAMV and IAMO, the University of Agricultural Science in Vienna, Austria, and the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agricultural Economics and Engineering in Ettenhausen are also involved in the project. ENHANCE is funded by the European Commission.

Contact:
Thomas Herzfeld
Tel. +49 345 2928-100
herzfeld(at)iamo.de

 

"Social transfers in rural China: Do they contribute to poverty reduction?" is the title of the most recent research results from Lena Kuhn and Stephan Brosig of IAMO, in cooperation with Prof. Linxiu Zhang from the Center of Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Science, published in February 2017. Despite large achievements in poverty reduction, a certain fraction of the Chinese rural population is still living in absolute poverty. The state-run social assistance program, the "Rural Minimum Living Standard System", aims at reducing poverty by providing a minimum income to the most destitute rural households. Unfortunately, various implementation problems lead to ineffective use of program funds: In a nationally representative sample, 79 percent of households living below the poverty line were found to not receive the necessary assistance while 89 percent of recipient households were considered ineligible according to poverty levels. The IAMO Policy Brief 31 investigates the possible causes of the misallocation of social transfers and provides solutions for a better distribution of social benefits.

The IAMO Policy Brief 31 is available in English and German. The publication can be viewed and downloaded for free at the following address: www.iamo.de/en/publications/iamo-policy-briefs.

Would you like to receive future IAMO Policy Briefs directly by e-mail or mail? Then please use our order form.

Contact:
Lena Kuhn
Tel.: +49 345 2928-323
kuhn(at)iamo.de

 

IAMO is looking for a PhD student within the ScienceCampus Halle project "AgriMyths – The Ethics and Economics of Modern Agricultural Myths". Application deadline is 31 March 2017. More information (in German only).

 

On 1 March 2017 Jarmila Curtiss joined IAMO as a Visiting Research Fellow. The agricultural economist from the University of Rostock, Germany, previously held a position as a research associate at IAMO and carries out research in the field of applied microeconomics. She deals with topics such as farm efficiency and performance analysis and works on farm ownership and structural change. More information on IAMO Visiting Research Fellows. +++ IAMO welcomes Qi Yin as new visiting researcher. She is associated with the Sichuan Agricultural University, China, and works together with the IAMO Land Systems Group. Her research focus lies on rural land markets, land use policy and sustainable agriculture. +++ As of 1 February 2017 Bohdana Potiatynnyk has been completing an internship at IAMO. Her stay is funded by the Internship Program of German Business for Ukraine. The program is financed by the German Federal Ministry on Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. +++ Last year, IAMO researchers successfully carried out numerous applications for research funding. Thanks to this IAMO was able to expand its team to include Sandra Engels-Rottleb who joined the institute on 1 March 2017. Together with Antje Barth, she is responsible for the financial management of all third-party funded projects.

 

all publications

IAMO Annual 2017 Download German (only)
IAMO Annual 2016 Download English Download German 

IAMO Policy Briefs

Kuhn, L., Brosig, S., Zhang, L. (2017): Social transfers in rural China: Do they contribute to poverty reduction?, IAMO Policy Brief No. 31, Halle (Saale). Download English Download German

IAMO Discussion Papers

Mogilevskii, Roman; Abdrazakova, Nazgul; Bolotbekova, Aida; Chalbasova, Saule; Dzhumaeva, Shoola; Tilekeyev, Kanat (2017) The outcomes of 25 years of agricultural reforms in Kyrgyzstan. IAMO Discussion Paper No. 162, Halle (Saale), Germany. Download

Belyaeva, M., Bokusheva, R. (2017): Will climate change benefit or hurt Russian grain production? A statistical evidence from a panel approach, IAMO Discussion Paper No. 161, Halle (Saale), Germany. Download

Tleubayev, A., Bobojonov, I., Götz, L., Hockmann, H., Glauben, T. (2017): Determinants of productivity and efficiency of wheat production in Kazakhstan: A Stochastic Frontier Approach, IAMO Discussion Paper No. 160, Halle (Saale), Germany. Download

Further selected publications

Benjamin, E., Buchenrieder, G. (2017): Credit risk and ecosystem services: A review of small-scale emission-certified agroforestry, in: Lehner, O. M. (ed.): Routledge Handbook of Social and Sustainable Finance, Chapter 35, Oxford, UK, S. 587-598.

Bobojonov, I., Teuber, R., Hasanov, S., Urutyan, V., Glauben, T. (2016): Farmers’ export market participation decisions in transition economies: a comparative study between Armenia and Uzbekistan, Development Studies Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 25-35. Download

Bromley, J. E., Wolz, A. (2017): Hurdles to reunification: Cultural memories and control over property in post-socialist rural East Germany, in: Congost, R., Gelman, J., Santos, R. (eds.): Property Rights in Land: Issues in social, economic and global history., S. 154-176.

Fredriksson, L., Bailey, A., Davidova, S., Gorton, M., Traikova, D. (2017): The commercialisation of subsistence farms: Evidence from the new member states of the EU, Land Use Policy, Vol. 60, pp. 37-47. Download

Gagalyuk, T., Schaft, F. (2016): Corporate Social Responsibility in Agribusiness, Agriculture Policy Report, German-Ukrainian Agricultural Policy Dialogue No. 08/2016, Kyiv. Download

Hermans, F., Sartas, M., van Schagen, B., van Asten, P., Schut, M. (2017): Social network analysis of multi-stakeholder platforms in agricultural research for development: Opportunities and constraints for innovation and scaling, PLOS ONE, Vol. 12, No. 2. Download

Kuhn, L., Gilbert, D. U. (2016): Die Stakeholderanalyse und ihre Implikationen für das strategische Management, in: Eckert, S., Trautnitz, G. (eds.): Internationales Management und die Grundlagen des globalisierten Kapitalismus, S. 341–372. Download

Munteanu, C., Radeloff, V., Griffiths, P., Halada, L., Kaim, D., Knorn, J., Kozak, J., Kuemmerle, T., Lieskovsky, J., Müller, D., Ostapowicz, K., Shandra, O., Stych, P. (2017): Land Change in the Carpathian Region Before and After Major Institutional Changes, in: Gutman, G., Radeloff, V. (eds.): Land-Cover and Land-Use Changes in Eastern Europe after the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, S. 57-90. Download
Weitere Informationen zur Publikation auch in der IAMO Pressemitteilung 04/2017.

Perekhozhuk, O., Glauben, T., Grings, M., Teuber, R. (2017): Approaches and Methods for Econometric Analysis of Market Power: Survey and Empirical Comparison, Journal of Economic Surveys, Jg. 31, Nr. 1, S. 303-325. Download

Petrick, M., Oshakbayev, D., Wandel, J. (2017): More Than Pouring Money Into an Ailing Sector? Farm-level Financial Constraints and Kazakhstan’s ‘Agribusiness 2020’ Strategy, in: Gomez y Paloma, S., Mary, S., Langrell, S., Ciaian, P. (eds.): The Eurasian Wheat Belt and Food Security. Global and Regional Aspects, S. 103-118. Download

Prishchepov, A., Müller, D., Baumann, M., Kuemmerle, T., Alcantara, C., Radeloff, V. (2017): Underlying Drivers and Spatial Determinants of post-Soviet Agricultural Land Abandonment in Temperate Eastern Europe, in: Gutman, G., Radeloff, V. (eds.): Land-Cover and Land-Use Changes in Eastern Europe after the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, S. 91-117. Download

Valentinov, V. (2015): From equilibrium to autopoiesis: a Luhmannian reading of Veblenian evolutionary economics. Economic Systems, 39(1), pp. 143-155. Download

Zhang, S., Sun, Z. (2016): Analysis of the development situation of German characteristic agricultural industry and its inspiration to China: Taking apiculture as the case, Acta Agriculturae Zhejiangensis, Jg. 11, S. 1954-1961. Download

Zhang, S., Dong, J., Sun, Z. (2016): Analyzing the Technology Transfer between Agricultural Science and Technology Institutions and Agricultural Cooperatives: a case study of Sichuan, China, Journal of Agrotechnical Economics, Jg. 11, S. 106-114. Download
 

The next IAMO Newsletter is to be published in June 2017. For latest news please regularly visit our website www.iamo.de/en or follow IAMO on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Published by:

Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO)
Theodor-Lieser-Straße 2, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany
www.iamo.de/en

Editors:

Public Relations
Email: presse(at)iamo.de

IAMO Newsletter is released in German and English. If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter, please click here. Information about the processing of your personal data can be found in our privacy policy.