This book provides an up-to-date account of the many processes shaping and transforming rural space in various parts of the world. The various case studies focus on the multi-functionality of the rural world and the driving forces behind it. The book demonstrates that rural areas are no longer simply characterized by an agricultural economy, and instead accommodate multiple complementary activities. It also touches upon two major changes that have taken place. The first is the process of rurbanization, which has led to the clear distinction between town and countryside becoming blurred: urban traits have penetrated rural areas, and rural traits have invaded towns. The second change is that rural areas are increasingly seen as multi-functional, providers not only of food and other natural resources but also locations for the generation of renewable energy (wind farms, solar farms, biogas) and regions for the preservation of biodiversity. These transformations have resulted in a new understanding and self-image of rural areas and their populations.

Why Agriculture Productivity Falls: The Political Economy of Agrarian Transition in Developing Countries offers a new explanation for the decline in agricultural productivity in developing countries. Transcending the conventional approaches to understanding productivity using agricultural inputs and factors of production, this work brings in the role of formal and informal institutions that govern transactions, property rights, and accumulation. This more robust methodology leads to a comprehensive, well-balanced lens to perceive agrarian transition in developing countries. It argues that the existing process of accumulation has resulted in nonsustainable agriculture because of market failures—the result of asymmetries of power, diseconomies of scale, and unstable property rights. The book covers the historical shifts in land relations, productivity, and class relations that have led to present-day challenges in sustainability. The result is arrested productivity growth. Agrarian transition should be understood in the context of the wider economic development in society, including how political settlement and primitive accumulation inhibited the kind of property rights that encourage growth. Why Agriculture Productivity Falls is a much-needed corrective to the traditional understanding, because before we can increase productivity, we must understand the root causes of those challenges.

Agricultural Statistics is published each year to meet the diverse need for a reliable reference book on agricultural production, supplies, consumption, facilities, costs, and returns. Its tables of annual data cover a wide variety of facts in forms suited to most common use. The estimates for crops, livestock, and poultry made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture are prepared mainly to give timely current state and national totals and averages. They are based on data obtained by sample surveys of farmers and of people who do business with farmers. The survey data are supplemented by information from the Census of Agriculture taken every five years. Being estimates, they are subject to revision as more data become available from commercial or government sources. Unless otherwise indicated, the totals for the United States shown in the various tables on area, production, numbers, price, value, supplies, and disposition are based on official Department estimates. They exclude states for which no official estimates are compiled. Extensive data includes statistics for the following: -Grain and Feed -Cotton, Tobacco, Sugar Crops, and Honey -Oilseeds, Fats, and Oils -Vegetables and Melons -Hay, Seeds, and Minor Field Crops -Cattle, Hogs, and Sheep -Dairy and Poultry -Insurance, Credit & Cooperatives -Agricultural Conservation & Forestry -Consumption & Family Living -Fertilizers & Pesticides Miscellaneous Agricultural Statistics such as Foreign Agricultural Trade Statistics including exports, fisheries and more. Professionals in the following fields to include farmers, ranchers, soil conservationists, surveyors, agricultural economist consultants, livestock manufacturers, livestock feedlot operators, food distributors, animal scientists, food chemists, food brokers, farm and land appraisers (and more) may have the greatest interest in this volume.