African farmers have always been exposed to climatic and economic variability and have developed a range of coping strategies. Such strategies form part of flexible farm management, an ability that may prove very valuable in the face of future climate change and market dynamics. The generally...

In the north-eastern semi-arid area of Brazil, because of climatic and economic risks, production systems use limited amounts of inputs and instead exploit accumulated fertility. The substitution of the woody native vegetation by pastures has led to its almost total deforestation. The...

For agriculture, there are three major options for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: 1) productivity improvements, particularly in the livestock sector; 2) dedicated technical mitigation measures; and 3) human dietary changes. The aim of the paper is to estimate long-term agricultural...

In this paper we analyse the requirements of bioproductive land in a future industrial society of 10 billion people, with an average per capita economic standard comparable to that of the industrialized countries of today. Despite significantly more efficient technology, lowering demand for both...

Growing global population figures and per-capita incomes imply an increase in food demand and pressure to expand agricultural land. Agricultural expansion into natural ecosystems affects biodiversity and leads to substantial carbon dioxide emissions. Considerable attention has been paid to...

This article investigates the use of expert-based Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACC) to design abatement strategies. It shows that introducing inertia, in the form of the "cost in time" of available options, changes significantly the message from MACCs. With an abatement objective in...

This paper investigates the optimal timing of greenhouse gas abatement efforts in a multi-sectoral model with economic inertia, each sector having a limited abatement potential. It defines economic inertia as the conjunction of technical inertia - a social planner chooses investment on...