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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.

2015

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Abstract

Markets for cash-crops in developing countries are typically characterized by a concentration of buyer power at different levels of the supply chain. For instance, small-scale coffee farmers sell their produce to a middleman, who in turn sells the coffee onward to an exporter, often a foreign multinational, with monopsony power in the hands of the purchasers at both levels. We analyze pricing behavior and welfare with different assumptions regarding market power. In particular, we show that a more powerful exporter is likely to benefit the producers and may even lead to higher welfare for the producer country as a whole.

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Abstract

Northern landscapes accumulate carbon in vegetation and soils while rivers transport significant amounts of land-derived carbon to coastal areas. Here, we quantify carbon sources and sinks in main ecosystems (forests, peatlands, mountains, agricultural areas, lakes) in Norway for 1990–2008, and compare riverine carbon transport with terrestrial carbon accumulation in Norway’s four major discharge areas. Mean annual carbon accumulation (6.0 ± 0.9 Tg C; 19 g C m−2) in terrestrial ecosystems balanced 40 % of national greenhouse gas emissions. The area-normalized terrestrial sink strength declined in the following order (in g C m−2 year−1): tree biomass (40 ± 3) > peatlands (19 ± 15) > forest soils (9 ± 1) ≫ lakes (2 ± 1) > mountains (0.5 ± 0.3), while agricultural soils were sources of carbon (−36 ± 74). The most precise estimate in the carbon balance was for tree biomass, because of the underlying forest inventory data. Poor data on land management and soil type in agricultural soils, and on (former) drainage and peatland type resulted in high uncertainty in carbon loss and uptake estimates in agricultural soils and peatlands, which impacted the uncertainty in total terrestrial carbon accumulation. Also, carbon losses from disturbance in organic soil types were poorly constrained. Riverine coastal inputs of land-derived organic carbon (OC) were 1.0 ± 0.1 Tg C year−1 (3.0 g C m−2 year−1), with highest area-specific riverine export in western (4.5 g C m−2 year−1) and lowest (1.7 g C m−2 year−1) in subarctic Norway. In west and middle Norway, river OC export was approximately equal to carbon accumulation in soils and wetlands, while it was 50 % of soil and wetland carbon accumulation in southeast and subarctic Norway. Lateral aquatic transport of carbon is not explicitly accounted for in forest soil carbon accumulation estimates, although aquatic fluxes represent a climate-dependent carbon loss from soil carbon pools. The lack of methods that adequately account for lateral fluxes in carbon balances adds considerable uncertainty to soil carbon sink estimates. Climate warming and associated changes in precipitation may result in substantial alterations of terrestrial and aquatic carbon fluxes, with uncertain implications for the terrestrial carbon sink of northern landscapes.