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Publications

NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.

1999

Abstract

This report was written in connection with the preparations of the Norwegian authorities for the new round of WTO negotiations on further liberalization of world trade. The report surveys the natural conditions in Australia, France, New Zealand, Norway and the USA, and studies their influence on agriculture, e.g., on farm size, farmland distribution, types of production and production costs. However, it is not easy to limit the analysis to merely the natural conditions for farming, since a number of other political, legal, economic, historic and cultural factors also determine the conditions for agriculture in a country. The report includes agroclimatic data such as length of growing-season, temperature sums, mean temperatures and mean precipitation. Not surprisingly, the climate in Australia and New Zealand is significantly different from the climate in Norway. In these two countries, low temperatures are not a major growth-limiting factor, as they are in (parts of) France, Norway and the USA. Especially in Australia, growth is mainly limited by too high temperatures, excessive radiation, evaporation and lack of rainfall. [...]

Abstract

In this paper we first discuss the consumption behaviour of Norwegian farm households. Then, possible consumption models are outlined and our data sample is described. In the next section we discuss the use of panel data methods to estimate our consumption function. Finally, the results from estimating a consumption function with the DPD computer program are discussed. The preliminary results indicate that the GMM estimation using the system estimator of Blundell and Bond (1998) may be superior to the other methods. The parameter of the lagged dependent variable is inside the limits indicated by the OLS and the within estimator. The second lag of the dependent variable is rejected as an instrument and there are strong indications of serial correlation. Later on, we have to transform the model to make the serial correlation disappear. In a later version of this paper we will test if the MPC is changing over time. We will also test if there are different effects from price- and production dependent agricultural income and other income.

Abstract

Studies were undertaken in forest ecosystems of the northwestern Kola Peninsula, Russia and South-Varanger, Norway in the zone affected by the Pechenganikel smelter. The soils consist mainly of shallow sandy iron-humus-illuvial and iron-illuvial podzols on highly bouldery unsorted morainic deposits of course texture, fluvioglacial sands and bedrocks.Plant specimens were collected from 16 plots located at different distances from the source of emissions: Pinus sylvestris needles, bark and wood, dwarf shrub (Empetrum hermaphroditum, Vaccinium myrtillus and Vaccinium vitis-idaea ) leaves, wavy-hair grass (Deschampsia flexuosa), green mosses (Hylocomium splendens and Pleurozium schreberi) and lichens (Cladina rangifirina [Cladonia rangiferina], and Cladina stellaris [Physcia stellaris]) were collected at the end of the growing season.Results showed that the elemental composition of the dominants of the tree, grass-shrub, and moss layers was affected by the sulfur and heavy metals from the source of pollution. The content of nickel and copper in pine needles near the smelter exceeded control levels by an order of magnitude and the content of sulfur exceeded it twofold, reaching toxic levels.In addition to the direct input of pollutants from the atmosphere, soil contamination by nickel and copper within a 30 km radius of the smelter will have adverse effects on mineral nutrition of plants.It is concluded that the disturbance of biological cycles because of the active involvement of pollutants and the decreased availability of nutrients results in retardation of plant growth, a reduction in forest biomass and alterations in plant succession and species composition that leads to simplification and death of forest ecosystems.