Contents



Preface

Agricultural economics is a subject area that contains many topics of interest to society. Originally focusing on farm- and rural-level issues, over a period of time it has grown to include many facets that touch human life. This book provides a glimpse of some of these issues facing society today. It is divided into four sections. The first section contains a chapter on the genesis of agricultural economics. The field of agricultural economics started as farm-level economics; however, over time, it has added many other related areas that are relevant to humanity. Its methodology has also become more complex, from the simple cost accounting framework used initially to complex modeling now. The second section is devoted to marketing issues. Here we have one paper (Chapter 2) dealing with value chain analysis for dates in the Gulf Cooperation Countries. The third section is devoted to resource economics through two papers. The first (Chapter 3) is on water scarcity in Tunisia and its impact on Tunisian agriculture. In addition, adaptations undertaken to reduce its negative impacts are also described. The second (Chapter 4) looks at crop conservation for onions and potatoes in Burkina Faso. The last section is devoted to environment-related issues facing agriculture. The first paper in this section (Chapter 5) is on the effect of value chain-induced constraints on conservation agriculture. This type of agriculture has many environmentally friendly attributes but faces a number of constraints in its adoption. Climate change is addressed in this section (Chapter 6) by examining the impact of climate change-induced salinity in Bangladesh. This is accompanied by an assessment of local techniques for crop conservation. A growing response to global food security could be achieved through rooftop gardens, which is addressed in the last chapter (Chapter 7) as a case study for its use for Hong Kong. The willingness to pay for such activities is also examined here. The editor hopes that these contributions provide valuable information to

> **Dr. Surendra N. Kulshreshtha** University of Saskatchewan,

> > Saskatoon, Canada

College of Agriculture and Bioresources,

decision makers in their respective jurisdictions.

*by Ting Wang and Mathew Pryor*
