Hopp til hovedinnholdet

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.

2004

Abstract

Development of Fusarium head blight (FHB) was studied in winter wheat pre-treated with potential defence activators. Several chemicals were pre-screened for their capacity to reduce development of Microdochium nivale in a detached leaf assay. Selected compounds were further tested for their capacity to reduce Fusarium culmorum development in heads of winter wheat in greenhouse and field experiments. In the detached leaf assay, leaves from plants pre-treated with a foliar fertilizer displayed reduced disease development compared to untreated control. A significantly reduced disease development of FHB in plants pre-treated with the foliar fertilizer was also registered in the greenhouse and field experiments. In the field experiment, harvested grainsfrom plants treated with the foliar fertilizer had up to 75% reduction in Fusarium infected seeds compared to grains from non-treated plants.

To document

Abstract

One of the questions debated in the ongoing WTO agricultural negotiations is whether ‘trade-distorting’ subsidies, or subsidies outside the ‘green box’, are needed in order to pursue non-trade concerns. The term ‘multifunctional agriculture’ is increasingly applied to describe non-trade concerns. This article focuses on how to achieve the multifunctional goals that nations may have with minimal trade-distortion. In the first part of the article, this is done by a literature review and a theoretical analysis. The findings are then converted into an analysis of possible policy formulations in a Norwegian context using a partial equilibrium model. The article argues that multifunctionality hardly can justify the use of market support, while it may justify production-related budget support if the positive externalities or public goods are produced jointly with or complementary to agricultural production. The article concludes with suggestions for WTO trade rules to prevent such policies from becoming a form of protectionism.

To document

Abstract

A method of stochastic dominance analysis with respect to a function (SDRF) is described and illustrated. The method, called stochastic efficiency with respect to a function (SERF), orders a set of risky alternatives in terms of certainty equivalents for a specified range of attitudes to risk. It can be applied for conforming utility functions with risk attitudes defined by corresponding ranges of absolute, relative or partial risk aversion coefficients. Unlike conventional SDRF, SERF involves comparing each alternative with all the other alternatives simultaneously, not pairwise, and hence can produce a smaller efficient set than that found by simple pairwise SDRF over the same range of risk attitudes. Moreover, the method can be implemented in a simple spreadsheet with no special software needed.