Vo Thi Chinh (p), Donghwan An (p)

Carlos Bacha

While theories of regional economic development emphasize the interconnectedness of agricultural and industrial development, many developing countries prioritize industrialization and foreign direct investment (FDI) despite agriculture's significant role in their economies. Southeast Asia's strategic location, coupled with its relatively low wages, has rendered the region increasingly attractive for intenational investment. Over the past few decades, the region has witnessed significant structural transformations. Concurrently, Southeast Asian governments have implemented diverse strategies to promote industrialization and attract foreign direct investment, resulting in impressive GDP growth rates. Despite undergoing significant structural transformations and economic diversification, Southeast Asia's agricultural sector retains substantial social and economic importance for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, carefully balancing agricultural development with the promotion of industrialization is crucial for the region's sustainable growth.
This study examines the long-term relationship between agriculture and industrialization, and the role of agriculture in economic growth, across six Southeast Asian countries (Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam). This study employed an ARDL (Auto Regressive Distributed Lag) model by using the sectoral value-added data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicator (WDI). The variables for this analysis encompass agriculture, forestry, and fishing value added, as well as industry value added. Additionally, trade value added, and foreign direct investment were included as control variables.
Our findings confirm cointegration among all four variables (agriculture, industry, trade openness, FDI) and a long-run tendency for them to move together. The confirmation of the growth complementarity hypothesis across all six countries under review. The results shows that, a 1% increase in the industrial sector leads to a 0.28% increase in agricultural development, and a 1% increase in trade openness leads to a 0.69% increase in agriculture, both statistically significant at the 1% level. This highlights the importance of integrating agriculture into intersectoral growth analysis. This inclusion is essential because every macroeconomic policy scenario should consider the long-term interdependencies and linkages between agriculture and industrialization for a comprehensive approach to development.

Humberto Francisco Silva Spolador (p), André Felipe Danelon

Thi Chinh Vo

Since 2015 Brazil has been a signatory to the United Nations 2030 Agenda, which defines the Sustainable Development Goals for environmental protection, poverty reduction, and the promotion of socioeconomic development. To achieve these goals, the Brazilian economy needs to develop economically sustainable use of its environmental resources. This also requires promoting ecologically sustainable income generation for disadvantaged populations, which contributes to environmental preservation combined with actions to reduce poverty. Despite the importance of the bioeconomy, researches that assess the impact of public policies and climate change on products from Brazilian sociobiodiversity is still relatively scarce in the economic literature. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to evaluate the economic performance of socio-biodiversity products, and present estimations of technical efficiency scores for Brazilian socio-biodiversity production using data of 22 crops and 68 Brazilian municipalities between the years 2008-2023. Referent to the methodological approach, a product-oriented stochastic frontier model was implemented, and the results indicate highly heterogeneity among crops and regions over the analyzed period in terms of technical efficiency and productivity, suggesting that there are opportunities for public policies and private investments to increase the economic performance of this sector, which can promote the environmental sustainability and rural development in Brazil.

Garri Raagmaa (p)

Humberto Francisco Silva Spolador

This research analyzes the impact of manors on the population development of remote rural areas in Estonia after the post-COVID-19 era of expanding distance work and the second house boom.
Estonia has been a manor-country throughout history. Manors have been dominant rural economy drivers for centuries: employers and innovators. According to the observations, the well-kept manor complex possesses a considerably better demographic situation in the nearby area. The manors influence the place's spirit and identity: the inhabitants' pride and attachment to the place. Heritage sites and manors are often in the service of the tourism industry, but their impact on population development has yet to be studied. Hypothetically, good-looking and intensively used manors (as local business centers) surrounding villages are characterized by a considerably better demographic situation.
We will design and test a comparative analysis of manor and non-manor settlements using 2021 and previous censuses' village-level population data, the Estonian Land Board transactions database, and the manor's database. As the intensity of manor utilization depends considerably on their accessibility and location (and to reduce the workload), the intention is to focus on the remote areas where population density is less than 8 in/km2 and/or the distance from the closest center is more than 50 km. Such areas make up 50% of Estonia's territory, with only about 10% of the population. Another criterion would be the maintenance and functionality of manors, which is why there is a need for the corresponding typology. Additionally, we intend to carry out selected case studies in the pre-defined manor-type villages, investigating:
• place attachment and identity,
• stories about the manors and places,
• local cultural and social capital.

Nayara Cruz, Carlos Bacha (p), Edward Costa

Garri Raagmaa

Brazil stands out as one of the leading agricultural producers. At least, since the 1990s, Brazilian farmers have been officially settled into two categories: family and non-family farmers. This distinction enables the Federal Government to implement differentiated policies through specific programs, including rural credit, minimum price, and agricultural insurance to afford differently each group of farmers. In particular, the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf) was established in 1996 to support family farmers. However, Pronaf has been subject to divergent evaluations. In one hand, some authors have highlighted its crucial importance for the modernization of family farming, but, at other hand, there are authors that point out the significant concentration of Pronaf´s resources among a restricted group of beneficiaries.
Motivated by this divergent literature, this paper aims to analyze the trajectory of family farming in Brazil during the period from 2006 to 2017, which are the two most recent agricultural censuses available at the time of this study was finished. The analysis focuses on two main aspects: the importance of family farming into the Brazilian agricultural economy and its differentiated evolution among the Brazilian regions, as well as the use of credits provided by Pronaf.
This paper has an exploratory nature and it is based on an analysis of data from the last two Brazilian agricultural censuses (referring to the years 2006 and 2017). The dataset is organized in the form of tables or graphs in order to achieve the objectives established above. The last two Brazilian Agricultural Census allows us to set farmers into family and non-family ones and the last one (dated as 2017) also allows us to evaluate family farmers grouped into Pronaf-granted (called “pronafianos”) and non Pronaf-granted farmers. Also, the 2017 Agricultural Census split the Pronaf-granted farmers into B and V categories.
In conclusion, it can be stated that family farming is not evenly distributed across the Brazilian territory. Furthermore, the paper points out that one of the main program supporting agriculture modernization, Pronaf, tends to benefit mainly family farmers located in more developed regions of the country, with emphasis on the South of Brazil. This contributes to perpetuating regional inequalities inside this category. The prominent role of credit cooperatives, especially in the Brazil´s Southern Region, due to their historical European heritage, seems to exacerbate this disparity by channeling resources to already more developed areas, ultimately benefiting predominantly the considered more prosperous family farmers.