The main determinants of agricultural employment are related to households’ access to private assets and the influence of inherited social–economic stratification and power relationships. However, despite the recommendations of rural studies which have shown the importance of multilevel approaches to rural poverty, very few studies have explored quantitatively the effects of common-pool resources and household livelihood capitals on agricultural employment. Understanding the influence of access to both common-pool resources and private assets on rural livelihoods can enrich our understanding of the drivers of rural poverty in agrarian societies, which is central to achieving sustainable development pathways. Based on a participatory assessment conducted in rural communities in India, this paper differentiates two levels of livelihood capitals (household capitals and community capitals) and quantifies them using national census data and remotely sensed satellite sensor data. We characterise the effects of these two levels of livelihood capitals on precarious agricultural employment by using multilevel logistic regression. Our study brings a new perspective on livelihood studies and rural economics by demonstrating that common-pool resources and private assets do not have the same effect on agricultural livelihoods. It identifies that a lack of access to human, financial and social capitals at the household level increases the levels of precarious agricultural employment, such as daily-wage agricultural labour. Households located in communities with greater access to collective natural capital are less likely to be agricultural labourers. The statistical models also show that proximity to rural centres and access to financial infrastructures increase the likelihood of being a landless agricultural labourer. These findings suggest that investment in rural infrastructure might increase livelihood vulnerability, if not accompanied by an improvement in the provisioning of complementary rural services, such as access to rural finance, and by the implementation of agricultural tenancy laws to protect smallholders’ productive assets.

The development of a coherent and coordinated policy for the management of large socio-agricultural systems, such as the Mekong delta in southern Vietnam, is reliant on aligning the development, delivery, and implementation of policy on national to local scales. Effective decision making is linked to a coherent, broadly-shared vision of the strategic management of socio-agricultural systems. However, when policies are ambiguous, and at worst contradictory, long-term management and planning can consequently suffer. These potential adverse impacts may be compounded if stakeholders have divergent visions of the current and future states of socio-agricultural systems. Herein we used a transferable, scenario-based methodology which uses a standard quadrant matrix in order to explore both anticipated and idealized future states. Our case study was the Mekong delta. The scenario matrix was based upon two key strategic choices (axis) for the delta, derived from analysis of policy documents, literature, stakeholder engagement, and land use models. These are: (i) who will run agriculture in the future, agri-business or the established commune system; and (ii) to what degree sustainability will be incorporated into production. During a workshop meeting, stakeholders identified that agri-business will dominate future agricultural production in the delta but showed a clear concern that sustainability might consequently be undermined despite policy claims of the contrary. As such, our study highlights an important gap between national expectations and regional perspectives. Our results suggest that the new development plans for the Mekong delta (which comprise a new Master Plan and a new 5-year socio-economic development plan), which emphasize agro-business development, should adopt approaches that address concerns of sustainability as well as a more streamlined policy formulation and implementation that accounts for stakeholder concerns at both provincial and national levels.

The kiwi is a highly insect-pollinated dependent crop and is the cornerstone of the Greek agricultural sector, rendering the country as the fourth biggest kiwi producer worldwide, with an expected increase in national production the following years. This extensive transformation of the Greek arable land to Kiwi monocultures in combination with a worldwide shortage of pollination services due to the wild pollinators’ decline raises questions for the provision of pollination services, and consequently, for the sustainability of the sector. In many countries, this shortage of pollination services has been addressed by the installation of pollination services markets, such as those in the USA and France. Therefore, this study tries to identify the barriers towards the implementation of a pollination services market in Greek kiwi production systems by conducting two separate quantitative surveys, one for beekeepers and one for kiwi producers. The findings showed a strong basis for further collaboration between the two stakeholders, as both of them acknowledge the importance of pollination services. Moreover, the farmers’ willingness to pay and the beekeepers’ willingness to receive of the beekeepers regarding the renting of their hives for pollination services were examined.