Diane Burgess

This paper presents an ecosystem services framework that is being developed to generate evidence on the economic viability of land use change in Northern Ireland. The scenario explored is that of converting agricultural land to woodlands, a key strategy to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. This signifies the loss of food production output, the most marketable provisional ecosystem service generated by agriculture, in compensation for beneficial ecosystem services associated with afforestation such as timber production, carbon sequestration, and recreational opportunities. We describe in detail the approach followed to estimate the value of food production and then briefly mention how we obtain the monetary value of other key ecosystem services affected by the land use change. At this present stage, the practicality of the framework is limited to providing a static assessment of the net economic benefit incurred from afforestation at a coarse spatial scale. We end with a discussion on the current limitations of this work, and how we envision further developing the existing framework to provide more targeted and informed advice to land use planners in the region.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been facing serious environmental issues due to over-exploitation of natural resources. This paper analyzes the ecological footprint as a proxy of environmental degradation and determines its influencing factors in 18 MENA countries during 2000–2016. Despite the many studies on the relationship between the ecological footprint and its determinants in the region, the current study use spatial econometric models to take into account spatial dependence in the ecological footprint as well as its determinants. Using a spatial Durbin model, we revealed that neighbors’ behavior can significantly affect a country’s ecological footprint. Factors such as GDP per capita, trade openness, and financial development were found to increase environmental degradation, while the renewable energy consumption, urbanization, and quality of democracy effectively reduce the ecological footprint. These factors not only affect the ecological footprint in the host country, but also affect it in the adjacent countries in different ways. Due to the interdependence of the countries, we recommend development of a regional vision of the bio-economy such that the scope of the analysis goes beyond the country level to account for territorial effects. Furthermore, considering the great potential for renewable energy consumption in the region, we recommend MENA countries to develop use of renewable energy sources in order to reduce environmental degradation in the region.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence beef farmers’ willingness to participate in supply chain collaboration initiatives and to identify attributes in formal and non-formal agreements that would encourage or discourage participation.Design/methodology/approach: A face-to-face survey containing a choice experiment was carried out. Respondents were selected using stratified sampling among beef finishers in Northern Ireland. Logistic regressions were employed to examine the factors associated with willingness and agreement attributes.Findings: Larger and more specialised farms, as well as farmers with higher education attainment are shown to be more likely to participate in collaboration arrangements with downstream buyers. The choice experiment results suggest that farmers are in general willing to fulfil some feeding requirements in order to earn a premium, while a minimum price guarantee is not attractive. The positive valuation of data sharing between farms and abattoirs is found specifically among farmers with higher qualifications. Although education is shown to have positive impacts on both participation in collaboration agreements and the valuation of contract attributes, the level of education associated with the positive impacts differ. In addition, farmers who have enroled in agri-environmental schemes view the requirement of a written contract more favourably than those who have not.Originality/value: The study adds to the understanding of how beef farmers view participation within supply chain collaborations and also how the potential features of the collaboration relate to characteristics of farmers and their farms.