Because of considerably increased farmland prices, not only in Germany, the question arises whether farmland is still affordable for farmers. Hence, there is a call for price caps. If farmland prices are to be capped by political intervention, identifying the main farmland price determinants especially for the highest prices is essential. Using quantile regression for German standard farmland values, we find heterogeneous relationships across the estimated quantiles for several covariates. Nonagricultural factors are often more pronounced at the upper tail of the conditional distribution. We recommend focusing primarily on factors in the upper quantiles to prevent further farmland price increases.
Agricultural land provides many different services resulting in a high competition between agricultural production, residential purposes and nature conservation. To give more insight into the competition between nature conservation and agriculture, this study empirically analyzes the impact of nature conservation on German standard farmland values by including the shares of different protected areas in a spatiotemporal regression model. The results indicate that nature conservation can influence standard farmland values, but the magnitude and direction of the effect differ depending on the type of protected area, the type of land use and by region. While there is evidence that protected areas can have a price-decreasing impact on arable land, standard farmland values for grassland tend to be mainly affected positively in the study area. Thus, the results suggest that there is not only land-use competition, but also compatibility between agricultural production and nature conservation.
Food waste is a major challenge for society as it causes economic, environmental and social problems. Many food-waste-reduction measures aim to prevent food waste at the source or by redistributing surplus food via donation. However, it would also be useful to evaluate surplus-food redistribution, where surplus food can be made available for human consumption by valorization (recycling). This paper evaluates food-waste-reduction measures, where surplus food is converted into processed food products for human consumption, which are then sold in a German retail store. The objective is to assess whether this kind of recycling of surplus food is effective in reducing food waste and how sustainable it is considering the economic, environmental and social impacts. The results of this pilot study show a total reduction of 19 kg of food waste within 17 weeks. Furthermore, all products were economically profitable, with a per product net revenue of sold upcycled products between EUR 0.42 and 0.70. The results of the environmental assessment varied from savings of 1.55 kg of CO2 equivalents/kg of product to the addition of 1.88 kg of CO2 equivalents/kg of product in product carbon footprint and the addition of between 0.42 and 0.70 mPt/kg of product in product environmental footprint. The social indicators could only be qualitatively described. The results, therefore, can only recommend this recycling option as an effective and efficient food-waste-reduction measure under optimal conditions. More research is needed to describe different recycling situations and to therefore improve the sustainability of the food supply chain.
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