Fakultät Agrarwissenschaften

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Die Fakultät entwickelt in Lehre und Forschung nachhaltige Produktionstechniken der Agrar- und Ernährungswirtschaft. Sie erarbeitet Beiträge für den ländlichen Raum und zum Verbraucher-, Tier- und Umweltschutz.

Homepage: https://agrar.uni-hohenheim.de/

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Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

AKIS in England - overview and spotlights
(2024-11-11) Knierim, Andrea; Ingram, Julie
A situation analysis of the AKIS in England was undertaken in the time from January to May 2024 with a special focus on the private sector advisory subsystem’s actor constellation and performance based on grey and peer reviewed literature, expert and stakeholder interviews. Results show a particular diversity of actor types, characterised by different organisational features. Thus, it seems that in many places in England, farmers have many choices among service providers when it comes to making use of advisory services. Secondly, the public actor, the governmental department for environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) plays a fostering role for offering advisory services in combination with setting up ecosystem service and climate mitigation related measures. Thirdly, a shared conviction of the advantages of peer-to-peer learning formats among all service providing actors in the AKIS was observed as well as a readiness to collaborate with other AKIS actors across all organisational types and subsystems. On the other hand, there is a widely expressed need of coordination among AKIS actors, but no strategic planning or initiative in this regard. Former significant actors have shifted or reduced their roles and influence and, there is a considerable number of hybrid initiatives and innovation networks emerging, which represent and promote an array of new farming practices, technologies and food (production) styles and bridge various communities of farmers, researchers, consumers, citizens and other actors. Although the present study fulfils its objective of providing a (snapshot) overview of the AKIS in England, it equally reveals the blind spots and information deficits with respect to farmers’ needs and interests and the degree to which they are satisfied through the diversity of service actors.
Asylum migration of Afghans and Syrians to Germany : opportunities and challenges during transit and integration
(2022) Torfa, Masooma; Birner, Regina
Refugee migration continues to receive considerable attention in the literature, primarily due to its escalating importance. According to the United Nations (UN), forced displacements in 2021 are the highest ever recorded. Since 2015, Afghans and Syrians have been the two largest internationally displaced populations, not only globally, but also within the European Union (EU). In the last seven years, the number of Afghans applying for asylum in Europe has continued to rise despite the EU’s efforts to discourage them. There are major knowledge gaps in the literature with regard to the experiences of migration from the perspective of the refugees themselves and about the driving factors and actors behind fragmented migration journeys. There is also limited literature on Afghan refugees, even though they constitute the second-largest nationality in asylum migration to Europe. Moreover, there are knowledge gaps on the role that different actors, particularly private companies, play for refugees’ integration in the receiving societies. Addressing these knowledge gaps, the research objectives of this thesis were (1) to explore the trajectories of fragmented migration undertaken by Afghan and Syrian refugees to Germany; (2) to better understand the opportunities and challenges of their adaptation to new societies; and (3) to explore the role of private companies in integrating refugees into the labour market. This dissertation uses a qualitative case study design, with individual in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions with newly arrived Afghans and Syrians, experts from the public sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social workers, volunteers, translators/interpreters and private companies. In total, 91 refugees and 69 respondents from the public and private sector and civil society organizations participated in this research. The findings on the first objective showed that three-quarters of Afghan respondents did not plan to travel to Germany before their departure; in contrast, the majority of Syrian respondents did have Germany as a destination in mind when departing from their origin or a transit country. There were different factors behind origin migration (i.e. direct migration from the country of origin to the country of destination) and transit migration (i.e. migration with extended stays in other countries before reaching the destination country). The majority of the respondents migrating directly from Afghanistan and Syria left their countries of origin mainly due to political prosecution, violent conflict, personal security, and socio-economic pressure. The major reasons that led to the departure from transit countries were lack of prospects, lack of legal residence permits, fear of deportation, barriers to education and employment, exploitation of their labour, explicit racism, and ethnic and racial discrimination. Moreover, there were some temporary factors such as the so-called opening of borders to Europe in 2015 and expectations for the protection of Syrians in Germany that were seen as an opportunity for both transit and origin migration to Europe. Smugglers, other asylum seekers in transit, and social media contacts were the most influential actors and played very important roles at the beginning, transit, and endpoints of refugees’ journeys. To address the root causes of migration, European countries including Germany could facilitate regular migration pathways. Moreover, with regard to transit migration, Germany and other European countries could support improving the conditions of refugees in the first countries of refuge, e.g., by creating more favourable reception and living conditions there, improving access to residence and work permits as well as opportunities for employment and education. The findings of the interviews suggest that this may change the decisions of many about undergoing the risky onward migration to Europe. The findings with regard to the second research objective show interesting differences in the integration of the two nationalities included in the study. Syrians were found to be better integrated into their communities as compared to Afghans. The study showed that the shorter the asylum application process is and the more secure the residency status is (which is typically the case for Syrians), the faster refugees gained access to language and integration courses, which gave them a better opportunity to get integrated into the labour market, to find housing and to make better connections to the receiving society. Among the challenges faced by Afghan refugees were the lengthy asylum application process, the difficulty in securing housing, and the long-term residence in reception centres, which caused considerable stress and hardship for the refugees. The opportunities for refugees’ adaptation into the new societies were facilitated by diverse volunteer services, social and cultural events, and labour market integration services besides the government-provided German language integration courses. Although Stuttgart was found to be a pioneering city in terms of integration facilities for refugees, there is still room for improvements, such as timely accommodation of refugees outside of refuge centres, better coordination of integration offers, and systematic employment of volunteer services for social and labour market integration purposes. Regarding the third objective, the study showed that the engagement of private companies in the labour market integration of refugees increased with the larger arrival of refugees during 2015/2016. This was due to several factors, including the following: the discursive environment; the government call to private sector participation; corporate social responsibility of large-scale international companies; and shortages of skilled workers for small and medium-sized businesses, specifically in the care and service sector. However, the findings indicate that bureaucratic administrative employment procedures, challenges related to cooperation with the public sector, and lack of secure work permits have not only discouraged companies from engagement but also decreased the effectiveness of their engagement.
Außer-Haus-Verpflegung und Bio-Lebensmittel in Deutschland : Trends - Hemmnisse - Chancen : Ergebnisse einer Expertenbefragung
(2010) Paffe, Melanie; Niessen, Jan
Casino gambling in Germany : development, legal conditions and the exclusion system
(2017) Becker, Tilman; Strohäker, Tanja
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview about the German casino gambling industry as a whole and the identification of its particularities, while putting a special focus on the present exclusion system. To achieve that, the foundations were laid by examining general developments on the market as well as pointing out recent legal changes, like the introduction of the Interstate treaty on gambling and its consequences for the casinos. Additionally, the application process and the basis for regulation of the establishments have been presented in detail. This general part is then followed by an extensive description of the German exclusion system. The program was set in contrast to those present in other, especially North American jurisdictions, in order to illuminate its unique features. Secondly, the focus is shifted on the development of a profile of excluders from German casinos by examining whether the established risk factors are also significant predictors for the number of bans in German communities. To our knowledge, there is no work explicitly analyzing casino patrons. Using a unique dataset, the approach brought some interesting insights. Some of the considered variables can be confirmed to serve this task in the given framework, whilst others did not yield a statistically significant impact. The most important sociodemographic factors are male gender, being between 30 and 39 years old, and not living in a partnership. The shares of the first two variables have a positive, the latter one a negative influence. Education, unemployment, and migration status, which are usually agreed on to be good predictors, did not exhibit significant results. However, it would be wrong to neglect them, as the outcome is probably owed to noise in the data, which lowers the precision of the estimation and could lead to insignificance. The coefficients of the variables that have been included to capture proximity turn out to be significant and bigger in magnitude than those of the sociodemographic factors. Distance to the next casino and the share of exclusions are inversely related, if the distance increases, the share of bans will decrease. The dummy variables capturing immediate proximity to gambling establishments also provide evidence for this pattern. If a classical casino or an annex is present in a community, this has a positive impact on the share of excluders. Considering only the proximity dimension of availability, the results are in favor of the hypothesis that higher availability could be a predictor for an increase of bans, which serve as a proxy for PG. The additionally included control variables also yield significant results. The coefficient of the indicator for a sparsely populated region shows that the share of excluders in said areas is on average higher than in dense ones. Furthermore, the share of assistance centers in a county positively drives the share of bans. The dummy variable indicating communities in the former GDR turns out to be negatively associated with the dependent variable. This makes absolute sense, considering the different developments of the gambling markets in these two regions between 1950 and 1990. However, the magnitude of the distinct effects on the amount of exclusions is rather small and the model is only able to explain about 10% of the variation in the number of bans, which is a rather small fraction. This is very likely owed to the fact that although problematic or pathological gambling is in parts driven by external sociodemographic factors like age, gender or the marital status, a lot of the behavior is facilitated by internal predisposition which cannot be captured with this type of analysis. Nevertheless, many of the proposed risk or, more neutrally stated, influence factors can be confirmed by this approach, which has been specifically adapted to the German terrestrial casino patrons.
Climate variability, social capital and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa : household level assessment of potential impacts and adaptation options
(2015) Assfaw, Tesfamicheal Wossen; Berger, Thomas
Climate variability and poor distribution of rainfall often causes serious agricultural production losses and worsens food insecurity. Given that the direct effects of climate change and variability are transmitted through the agricultural sector, improving farm households capacities to adapt to the adverse effects of climate-related shocks is an important policy concern. This thesis applied a stochastic Agent-based Model (ABM) that is capable of simulating the effects of different adaptation options by capturing the dynamic changes of climate and prices, as well as the dynamic adaptive process of different farm households to the impacts of these changes. The agent-based simulations conducted in this thesis address the special challenges of climate and price variability in the context of small-scale and subsistence agriculture by capturing non-separable production and consumption decisions, as well as the role of livestock for consumption smoothing. To ensure the reliability and usefulness of results, the model was validated with reference to land-use and overall poverty levels based on observed survey values. In particular, the study used disaggregated socio-economic, price, climate and crop yield data to quantify the impacts of climate and price variability on food security and poverty at the household level. Furthermore, the study explicitly captured crop-livestock interactions and the “recursive” nature of livestock keeping when examining the effects of climate and price variability. The thesis additionally examined how specific adaptation strategies and policy interventions, especially those related to the promotion of credit, improved seed varieties, fertilizer subsidy and off-farm employment, affect the distribution of household food security and poverty outcomes. In addition to impacts on household food security and poverty, the study further considered indirect impacts through changes in the price of agricultural inputs and livestock holding. In terms of coping strategies, the simulation results in this thesis show that the effects of climate and price variability on consumption are considerable, but smaller for those households with relatively large livestock endowments. In addition, the study also found that farm households with a large plantation area of eucalyptus were able to cope with the effects of variability. Therefore, our results suggest that self-coping strategies are important but not sufficient and should be complemented with appropriate policy interventions. In terms of policy interventions, the study found that policy intervention through the expansion of credit and fertilizer subsidy along with innovation through the promotion of new crop varieties that are resilient and adapted to local conditions are the most effective adaptation options for the case of Ethiopia. In addition, the simulation results underscore that adaptation strategies composed of a portfolio of actions (such as credit and fertilizer subsidy along with new technologies) are more effective compared to a single policy intervention. For Ghana, the study suggests that if expansion of production credit is complimented by irrigation, it can provide a way to achieve food security under climate and price variability. In order to design a best-fit intervention instead of a ‘one size fits all’ approach, it is important to capture the distribution of effects across locations as well as households. The great strength of this study is its agent-based nature, which enables exploration of how effects are distributed across farm households. The simulation results clearly show that poor farms are vulnerable to climate and price variability, under which they suffer food insecurity, while a small group of wealthy farms are better off due to higher prices achieved when selling crops. The result from this thesis further underscores the need for improving adaptive capacity, as a large proportion of farm households are unable to shield themselves against the impacts of price and climate variability. In what follows, the study further applied standard micro-econometric techniques to examine the role of social capital and informal social networks on consumption insurance and adoption of risk mitigating land management practices. In particular, the thesis provides evidence of the effects of different dimensions of social capital on the adoption of soil and water conservation practices across households holding different levels of risk-aversion. The results of the study underscore that social capital plays a significant role in enhancing the adoption of improved farmland management practices and suggests that the effect of social capital across households with heterogeneous risk taking behaviour is different. Finally, by combining household panel data, weather data, self-reported health shocks and detailed social capital information, the last section is able to analyze how social capital buffers some of the implications of weather shocks.
Essays on pre-commitment in Germany
(2019) Strohäker, Tanja; Becker, Tilman
As a superordinate topic, the thesis analyzes and evaluates selected pre-commitment tools that are available in the German gambling context. Pre-commitment is a form of self-binding that allows gamblers to limit money and time spent on gambling before they start a session. This is based on the underlying idea that gamblers will benefit from the fact that expenses and duration of stay are determined before commencing a gambling session, when they are not yet in a state of emotional arousal and hence more capable of deciding rationally. The most extreme form of limitation is the exclusion from gambling. While other countries established formalized pre-commitment systems allowing gamblers in arcades to limit time and money spent on gambling and/or self-exclude from establishments, Germany has not established such a comprehensive scheme yet. There are, however, certain types of gambling, for which at least exclusions are regulated, enforced and externally binding. To further improve the exclusion schemes, it is important to understand the drivers of exclusions. Hence, the second and third chapter of this thesis analyze the drivers for the variation of the number of exclusions between municipalities. Next to sociodemographic characteristics, the models also contain availability measures. Other than most countries, Germany distinguishes between casinos and gambling arcades. Casinos offer table games as well as automated gambling, whereas gambling arcades only provide electronic gambling machines (EGMs hereafter). Both establishments naturally attract different clientele, hence, a thorough examination of these two different types of gamblers is important. Chapter two concentrates on analyzing which variables drive the differences in the number of exclusions from casinos throughout German municipalities. This chapter aims to analyze the degree to which sociodemographic factors and proximity measures can be used to explain the variation in the number of excluded gamblers across German communities. At the time of the analysis, the exclusion file consisted of 31,118 unambiguously assignable entries distributed among 3,091 communities. The results of the study suggest that excluders are more likely to be male, between 30 and 39 years old, and less likely to be single. As only few of the sociodemographic variables yield significant results, we can only partially confirm the well-established risk factors for problematic or pathological gambling. Additionally, the results show that the number of exclusions increases with close proximity to gambling establishments. The distance to the closest casino has a negative impact on exclusions. This is backed up by the finding indicating that in relation, there are more exclusions in communities where casinos are located directly. Chapter three deals with a similar research question, which this time is tailored to excluders from gambling arcades in Hesse, Germany. The aim of the paper is to identify significant predictors that are useful in explaining the variation of exclusions between different Hessian communities. This data set contains 11,902 exclusions that are distributed among 191 Hessian communities. Next to sociodemographic factors, we control for three different accessibility measures in two models: the number of electronic gambling machines in model I as well as the number of locations and density of gambling machines at a location in model II. Considering the sociodemographic variables, the explanatory power of the cross-sectional models is rather low. Only the age group of 30 to39-year-olds and those who are not in a partnership (in model I) yield significant results. Hence we are again not able to determine a specific sociodemographic background for self-excluders. The accessibility variables, on the other hand, turn out to be significantly associated with the number of exclusions. All three of them are statistically significant and their association is positive. The fourth chapter deals with self-limitation, which is another type of pre-commitment. As there has existed no formalized limit scheme in Germany, it is left to evaluate voluntary and self-initiated limits that are frequently used as self-management strategies by gamblers, independent of their gambling severity. The analysis yields promising results. 50 percent of gamblers use at least one limit. There are significant differences in most variables concerning gambling behavior. Gamblers with limits consistently spend significantly less time and money in gambling arcades. The overarching goal of this doctoral thesis is to provide insights considering pre-commitment tools that can be used in the German gambling context. It shows that pre-commitment is an accepted and widely used instrument with positive consequences for gamblers. It is therefore worthwhile in any case to further expand the existing programmes.
Gastronomische Anspruchsexpansion : vom prekären Verhältnis des Kochs zu seinen Gästen
(2009) John, René; Rückert-John, Jana
Nature's contributions to human well‐being under climate change: Evidence from Central and Eastern Madagascar
(2024) Petzold, Jan; Kosanic, Aleksandra; Rakoto Joseph, Felana; Rajaonarivelo Andrianina, Princy; Ranaivosoa‐Toandro, Sitraka Mireille; Andriamihaja, Onintsoa Ravaka; Voahanginirina, Leonnie Marcelline; Thien, Lara; Razanajatovo, Mialy
Anthropogenic climate change has an unprecedented impact on ecosystems and their services, with severe consequences for human well‐being, particularly for the marginalised and vulnerable members of society in the Global South. The well‐being of communities relies not only on material and regulating services ecosystems provide but also on non‐material services. In this paper, we unravel the diverse ways that climate change impacts affect Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) and the well‐being of rural populations in four sites in Madagascar—a biodiversity hotspot but one of the economically poorest countries in the world. We conducted participatory community workshops, mapping and semi‐structured interviews with local residents across social subgroups to understand the mechanisms of climate‐related degradation and the resulting impacts on different dimensions of human well‐being through an NCP lens. We found that non‐material services are generally more often associated with well‐being effects. Climate change degrades material and non‐material services through sea level rise, biodiversity loss, drought, precipitation and temperature variability, with consequences for materials, companionship and labour, food and feed, and physical and psychological experiences. Loss of land and forests is expressed through ecological grief. The outcome of our research provides evidence‐based information to local policymakers, conservation practitioners, and climate change agencies. This information can help improve government efforts toward holistic conservation and climate change adaptation by addressing the impacts on the physical and mental well‐being of the most vulnerable communities. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Positive Werteerwartung als Problem qualitativer Sozialforschung
(2009) John, René
Raum und Identität : Forschung zur regionalen Identität in Ostdeutschland
(2007) John, René
VDI-MEG Kolloquium Landtechnik, Heft 41, Arbeitswissenschaften
(2016) Max-Eyth-Gesellschaft im VDI (VDI-MEG); Böttinger, Stefan
Die Zukunft der Arbeitswissenschaften in der Landwirtschaft ist unumgänglich mit der Entwicklung von automatisiert und sogar autonom fahrenden oder agierenden Maschinen verbunden. Die Rolle des Menschen wandelt sich daher vom klassischen Bediener zum Überwacher der Maschinen. Automatisierung und Autonomie von Maschinen geben Freiräume für begrenzte oder sogar unbegrenzte Nebentätigkeiten. Was sind das aber für Nebentätigkeiten? Passen die klassischen Arbeitsplätze noch zur neuen Rolle des Menschen? Passt der Mensch überhaupt noch in dieses Arbeitsumfeld? Eine weitere Herausforderung für die Bedienung von immer komplexeren Maschinen ist der Einsatz von ungeübten Fahrern. Insbesondere zu Spitzenzeiten, wie beispielsweise der Getreide- oder Silomaisernte, werden Aushilfskräfte benötigt. Wie können sie bei ihrer Arbeit unterstützt werden, damit das Potential der Maschinen besser genutzt wird und die Sicherheit nicht zu kurz kommt? Das Arbeitswissenschaftliche Kolloquium soll diesen und weiteren Fragestellungen ein Forum sein. Die Veranstaltung richtet sich an Interessierte aus Wissenschaft, Beratung, Praxis und Industrie des In- und Auslandes.

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