Agricultural Wealth Research Articles

NEW HOLISTIC APPROACH TO CREATIVE TOURISM AND SUSTAINABLE TERRITORIES IN CHI RIVER BASIN, NE THAILAND

Na Ngam, situated in the Chi River Basin, boasts rich water resources and notable geological features like the Chi River, Yang River, and Chi oxbow lake. These elements significantly influence local cultures, traditions, temples, and agricultural products. The area's identity is encapsulated in its slogan highlighting its agricultural wealth, educational an d healthcare development, Buddhism conservation, and traditional festivals. Utilizing Participatory Action Research (PAR), Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), and SWOT analysis, the Na Ngam 101 project aims to enhance tourism by integrating cultural, geotourism, and gastronomic aspects. This model promotes local culture, community income, and environmental conservation, fostering sustainable regional development.

Modification of Milk Coffee Jam Using Low-Grade Coffee Based on Consumer Acceptance (Coffee Grade 4-6)

Garut is a city with abundant agricultural wealth. One of the commodities produced by Garut plantations is coffee. Many entrepreneurs are looking for the best quality coffee so that poor- quality coffee does not sell on the market, even if the selling price is meager. Efforts made to increase the selling price of low-quality coffee are to process the product into new, valuable products. This research aims to improve the selling price of low-quality coffee by modifying the product in the form of milk coffee jam by determining the recipe formula, packaging and selling price label, form of promotion, and consumer acceptance of the milk coffee jam product. The method used in this research is an experimental method with a quantitative approach through organoleptic tests on 30 semi-trained panelists by giving three samples of coffee milk jam products to get the best with the SK1, SK2, and SK3 formulations. The research results show that the SK1 formulation is the best product. Next, a consumer acceptability test was carried out on 100 consumer panelists. The resulting score for coffee milk jam is 4,507 on a class interval scale of 4,200 – 5,000, where the scale shows that consumer panelists can accept the product with a calculated selling price for coffee milk jam of IDR 34,000.

Influence of biodestructors on sequestration of labile carbon compounds in the soil

Ukraine stands as a testament to agricultural wealth due to its fertile soils, most notably, its significant share of the world’s chornozem. Rich soil is fundemantal to agricultural production, and therefore the success of the agricultural industry heavily relies on the fertility of the soil. However, modern agricultural practices in Ukraine, have led to increased anthropogenic impact on soils, affecting their biodiversity and humus content. In this regard, it is becoming increasingly important to perform comprehensive studies of microbiological, biochemical and chemical processes in the soil in response to different agricultural interventions. The urgent need to restore natural ecosystems to preserve their biodiversity and ensure ecological stability poses new scientific challenges, emphasizing the importance of urgent measures aimed at protecting the environment from pollution and degradation. This research aims to explore the effects of biodestructors on the deposition of labile carbon compounds in the soil during long-term consistent corn cultivation. The research was conducted during 2020–2023 within the framework of a stationary field experiment of the scientific research department of the «Druzhba Nova» in Varva village, Chernihiv region. The soil is a typical low-humus chornozem with the experiment focusing on a monoculture corn crop rotation. The DKC 4351 corn hybrid was sown at a density of 82 thousand units per hectare, employing a three-part experiment design: 1) a UAN control at 32–28 l/ha, 2) Ecostern Classic at 2 l/ha combined with UAN 32–28 l/ha, and 3) Ecostern Bacterial at 2 l/ha alongside Ecostern Trichoderma at 1 l/ha and UAN 32–28 l/ha. In the present study, the influence of biodestructors on soil’s agrochemical and microbiological indicators, as well as corn yield was evaluated. In a long-term stationary field experiment conducted on a typical low-humus chornozem, we investigated the influence of microbial preparations — plant residue biodestructors — on the deposition of labile carbon compounds in the soil under continuos corn cultivation. The application of Ecostern Classic and a combination of Ecostern Bacterial + Ecostern Trichoderma biodestructors resulted in an increase of labile carbon content by 0.11% and 0.18%, respectively, compared to the control. The aim of further analysis was to determinate the dynamics of the organic matter transformation coefficient, which is a marker of enhanced microbiological activity in the soil and a predominance of organic matter synthesis over its mineralization. In treatments utilizing biodestructors, this indicator was significantly higher than control values throughout the study. The survival of the fungal bioagent from Ecostern Classic and Ecostern Trichoderma bioproducts in the soil was monitored by assessing the population dynamics of the Trichoderma genus species. Results demonstrated an increase by an average of 19 thousand CFU/g with Ecostern Classic and by 34 thousand CFU/g with the combined use of Ecostern Bacterial with Ecostern Trichoderma, compared to 28 thousand CFU/g in control soil samples. This may indirectly indicate a successful colonization of the bioagent in treated soils. Using BIOTREX technology to evaluate the soil’s ecophysiological diversity, we found that the diversity index increased from 3.66 in control samples to between 4.87 and 5.61 in treatments with biodestructors. According to the further BIOTREX assessment, the use of biodestructors not only increased soil biodiversity, but also improved soil health. The application of these biodestructors also significantly boosted corn grain yield with an increase of 0.32 t/ha with Ecostern Classic treatment and 0.18 t/ha with the combined use of Ecostern Bacterial with Ecostern Trichoderma, compared to control.

The relationship between mental well-being and wealth varies by wealth type, place and sex/gender: Evidence from Namibia.

This paper explores the impact of livelihood strategies and place on mental well-being. Identifying different socioeconomic factors that impact mental well-being across contexts is pressing given the global rise in mental health disorders. Numerous studies in the population and social sciences have emphasized the protective role of material wealth on human health and well-being; however, scholars frequently assess wealth as a one-dimensional variable, which may fail to capture diverse forms of wealth. Acknowledging different forms of wealth may be particularly important in settings where agricultural economies coexist with cash economies. Using data from the 2013 Namibia Demographic Health Survey (n = 13 377), we use a newly developed measure of success in agricultural activities, an agricultural wealth index, or AWI, generated by Hackman et al., (2021). To examine the role of different forms of wealth on mental health symptoms. We find mental well-being, assessed through three survey questions, is lower among urban dwellers and females and shows varied associations with wealth type and sex/gender. In general, success in agricultural activities is associated with better mental well-being, while the association with market success is null or and conditional upon sex/gender and place. This study adds to recent work on the value of using multidimensional measures of wealth and raises important questions about why wealth type and sex/gender differentially impact mental well-being.

Hilly, Semi-Mountainous and Mountainous Areas Harbor Landraces Diversity: The Case of Messinia (Peloponnese-Greece)

Landraces are identified for their genetic diversity and heritage value. Geographically isolated areas are gradually recognized for their agricultural diversity and importance in conservation. One of the consequences of agricultural intensification is an increase in crop uniformity and hence a reduction in the landraces’ genetic resources. Messinia, located in Southwest Peloponnese, Greece, is characterized by a diverse terrain and smallholdings. The geomorphological character of the area and farmers’ selections have led to new landraces (local varieties) with unique traits and specific adaptations. A total of 110 villages/settlements were visited between 2013–2016, aiming to explore the existing wealth of landraces and the degree of genetic erosion. The genetic material collected and the testimonies extracted from local communities were compared to data from past expeditions, gene banks, and portal databases. Of the 427 collected samples, the majority belonged to annual vegetable or pulse species, indicating the genetic diversity of the groups, which was likely related to their culinary value. Perennial crops are priced both as commercial and staple crops, with olive trees dominating the agricultural landscape. Genetic erosion and production decline were noticed for cereals. It is concluded that socio-cultural and agricultural trends have a strong influence on the survival of landraces. Without exhausting the agricultural wealth of the region, the present study suggests that Messinia is an agrobiodiversity hotspot that includes neglected crops.

Human Footprint on Natural Systems: Missing Post-war Scenario in the Urban Context of Damascus

All regions in Syria have witnessed a decline in green spaces due to the spread of illegal logging operations and a decline in interest in agricultural wealth due to the need for construction with the growing population during the past decade. In addition to the burning and destruction of many of them due to the war actions that took place during the period of the Syrian crisis, a war that affected the urban, architectural, and human fabric of the city alike, Damascus lacks sufficient green spaces compared to the cement blocks and its external facades considering global climate change. This unjust urban expansion, accompanied by the impact of the fires caused by the war, damaged humans and environment, extending from the heart of the city to its countryside and contributing to the erosion of its Ghouta in particular, the lung and living breath of Damascus, According to what we observe today, the dominance of the cement mass in the city plan of Damascus, with the lack of balance between it and the green space of gardens, public spaces, and public places.

Profit-Loss Sharing Contract as an Alternative to Solve Unemployment in Sudan through Investment in Livestock Breeding

<p>The profit-loss sharing (PLS) or <em>Mudārabah</em> is an Islamic contract in which one side provides capital and the other side provides work. Profits are to be shared in the proportion that was agreed upon before the contract was implemented. This paper aims to highlight the role of the <em>Mudārabah</em> contract in financing livestock projects, and its use in solving the problem of unemployment in Sudan, where livestock breeding is a productive activity that provides employment opportunities and increases the incomes of the workers, and increases the rates of economic growth, especially since Sudan is ranked among the richest Arab and African countries with its livestock and agricultural wealth, and there is a large number of the population of Sudan working in the agricultural sector including the animal and plant subsectors. A large number of Sudan’s population works in the agricultural sector. The paper also intends to examine the applications of the <em>Mudārabah</em> contract as an investment alternative that can be more effectively utilized in providing employment opportunities for university graduates and job seekers in Sudan. a descriptive-analytical approach was used to define the <em>Mudārabah</em> concept and show the types of its application, and the methods of employing it to finance livestock projects in Sudan. The paper reached several results, the most important of which is that <em>Mudārabah</em>, such as in the Prophet’s practice and its contemporary applications, is one of the most significant investment formulas that can be used to finance productive projects in the livestock sector, especially small and medium-sized enterprises in the field of livestock breeding in Sudan.</p>

Biblical Sabbath as Critical Response in an Era of Global Pandemic and Climate Change

AbstractIn modern times, the idea of the sabbath is often limited to a day when people attend religious services or observe rituals in their homes. Biblical sabbath, however, is one of the first codifications of labor rights in world history. This tradition emerged in an ancient economy that extracted agricultural wealth from subsistence farmers to support wealthy elites. Increasing demands on labor were coupled with reductions in the amount of produce available to individual households for sustenance. This led to impoverishment and to interest lending that often resulted in the loss of ancestral property and debt servitude to wealthy creditors. Sabbath traditions, both a weekly day of rest and periodic cancellation of debt, were attempts to mitigate the negative impact of this royal‐imperial system. Those traditions functioned as a critique and a corrective to the royal‐imperial economy. These traditions still have conceptual and practical utility for today’s globalizing economy that is challenged by climate change and reshaped by the COVID pandemic. “Sabbath economics” is built on a notion of abundance limited by self‐restraint—seven days of wealth for six days of work. This model overturns modern assumptions of scarcity and unlimited needs and wants. The values expressed in this ancient tradition can help us imagine the role of work and rest in a just and ecologically sustainable future.

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN SUSTAINABLE SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION: THE CASE OF GORO GUTUU WOREDA OROMIA, ETHIOPIA

Monitoring the importance of civic participation in the process of sustainable soil and water conservation measures in cases where irregular and unstable participation of civic/community in the process of sustainable soil and water conservation measures has been observed is taken as central problem of the study area. The sequential exploratory mixed type of research was used to answer the stated research questions; moreover, to make sure of getting reliable and valued data both primary and secondary data was collected through FGD, KII, Questionnaires and field observation. As a result, from 203 persons, 24, 12 and 167 informants participated in FGD, KII and survey respectively. The collected data was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively through narration and statistical description respectively. The statistical significance of perception of the difference between informants gathered from three agro ecological zones of study sites was tested by Kruskal Wallist Test. This study significantly identifies the importance of community participation as it is important to develop awareness, sense of ownership, transparency and self–trust among communities in sustainable soil and water conservation activities. Also, the small size of farm leads to low level of annual agricultural income and wealth, low educational status leads to low level of awareness and health status of farming communities, reactive culture of farming communities toward conservation activities and low commitment and weak capacity of front line leaders was identified as economic, social, cultural and political factors that affect dependable participation communities in sustainable soil and water conservation activities. Accordingly, the researcher recommended that, Bureau of agriculture and natural resource office should look again and set clear strategies towards the right of ownership / the right of use of resources produced on rehabilitated closed farm land. Also, the district and zone agriculture and natural resource office should capacitate and empower the front line mobilization agent through training and motivational activities. The future researcher should give emphasis and come up with most possible alternatives which will help to minimize the effect of the small size farm land leading to low level of annual agricultural income and wealth resulted from uneven participation of community in sustainable soil and water conservation activities.

Long-Term Changes of Aquatic Invasive Plants and Implications for Future Distribution: A Case Study Using a Tank Cascade System in Sri Lanka

Climate variability can influence the dynamics of aquatic invasive alien plants (AIAPs) that exert tremendous pressure on aquatic systems, leading to loss of biodiversity, agricultural wealth, and ecosystem services. However, the magnitude of these impacts remains poorly known. The current study aims to analyse the long-term changes in the spatio-temporal distribution of AIAPs under the influence of climate variability in a heavily infested tank cascade system (TCS) in Sri Lanka. The changes in coverage of various features in the TCS were analysed using the supervised maximum likelihood classification of ten Landsat images over a 27-year period, from 1992 to 2019 using ENVI remote sensing software. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall trend test and Sen’s slope estimate were used to analyse the trend of annual rainfall and temperature. We observed a positive trend of temperature that was statistically significant (p value < 0.05) and a positive trend of rainfall that was not statistically significant (p values > 0.05) over the time period. Our results showed fluctuations in the distribution of AIAPs in the short term; however, the coverage of AIAPs showed an increasing trend in the study area over the longer term. Thus, this study suggests that the AIAPs are likely to increase under climate variability in the study area.

Malnutrition, illness, poverty, and infant growth: A test of a syndemic hypothesis in Nuñoa, Peru

The concept of syndemics provides an important framework for understanding the complex interactions of biological and social conditions. Its use in public health and epidemiological research has increased substantially in the past ten years. Many syndemic analyses rely on the use of a sum score and subsequently fail to demonstrate biological interaction, leading some scholars to question the utility of the syndemic approach. Here, we utilize data from 86 mother/infant pairs from the rural district of Nuñoa, Peru to test a potential syndemic relationship among infection, malnutrition and infant growth. Between 2014 and 2015, surveys were conducted to assess household wealth, sanitation, dietary diversity, and reported illness, while anthropometric measures of mothers and infants were conducted to assess nutritional status via height-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores. Ethnographic insight was used in the selection of key economic variables including the development of an agricultural wealth index. We then assessed whether this constellation of health outcomes met the criteria for a syndemic by performing a quantitative analysis in which we tested for (1) an association between economic marginalization and high-risk environments; (2) the concentration of malnutrition, poor growth, and infection; and (3) biological interaction among these health outcomes. We found that economic measures were associated with pathogenic and nutritional risk, and that these in turn were associated with infectious disease, nutritional status, and growth. However, we did not find evidence that the proposed syndemic met criteria (2) or (3). We conclude that, despite being both socially and biologically plausible, a syndemic of malnutrition, poor growth, and infection did not exist in this context. This analysis moves syndemic research forward by demonstrating that such hypotheses are falsifiable, thus presenting a process by which they may be tested and lending support to the use of syndemic theory as an effective analytic framework.

Preventing Plague, Bringing Balance: Wildlife Protection as Public Health in the Interwar Union of South Africa.

summaryThis article proposes a new line of enquiry in the history of animal conservation by suggesting that African wildlife protection was a form of public health in the early twentieth century. Through examining the activities of South African epidemiologists, politicians, bureaucrats, farmers, and zoologists in the 1920s and 1930s, the author argues that wildlife was integrated into epidemiological strategies and agricultural modes of production. Against the backdrop of a series of plague outbreaks, carnivora once deemed “vermin” were legally protected as sources of human health and agricultural wealth. As public health, food security, and carnivore populations were imbricated, the categorical boundaries between human and animal health also began to blur. Ultimately, this case suggests the need to bridge environmental and medical history and to broaden the history of environment and health beyond canonical figures such as Rachel Carson. Paying attention to colonial “peripheries” and African thought is critical in understanding the origins of twentieth-century environmentalism.

The Socio-Economic Impact of Raiding on the Eastern and Balkan Borderlands of the Eastern Roman Empire, 502 – 602

Abstract This paper compares the socio-economic impact of warfare on two frontier zones of the sixth-century eastern Roman empire: the central and northern Balkans; and the northern Syrian-Mesopotamian and Armenian borderlands in the East. The theme of war damage is central to historical and archaeological work on the Balkans but plays a comparatively marginal role in research on the East. And yet the eastern provinces were affected by more intensive raiding by larger armies, and at least as regularly as the Balkans. Much of the difference in perception is related to contemporary sources’ exaggerated coverage of ‘barbarian’ raiding on the Balkans, a region traditionally viewed as a neglected backwater by authors such as Procopius. Conversely, such sources portray warfare with the Sassanid Persians in the East through a ‘classicising’ lens, describing at greater length generals’ speeches, battles, campaigns and sieges. Another reason for the disparity in modern discussions of the two regions is the socio-economic recession in the northern Balkans toward the end of the sixth century. This can be at least indirectly linked to the effects of warfare between the empire and the Avar Khaganate and Slavic groups. Recovery from the devastation caused by these groups’ invasions could no longer be funded by the imperial authorities, who, by this stage, were struggling to finance wars on multiple fronts and were feeling the fiscal effects of repeated bouts of bubonic plague. Despite also suffering from this absence of central investment, eastern societies and economies enjoyed a greater degree of continuity in the final decades of the sixth century. This was because non-imperial sources of agricultural and commercial wealth in these areas encouraged elites to invest in recovery projects. Local elites’ and wider populations’ deep-rooted feelings of cultural, linguistic and religious attachment also played a role in their survival. These economic and cultural ties can in part be explained by the fact that, unlike the Balkans, these eastern provinces had enjoyed a long period of peace and stability in the fourth and fifth centuries.

An Agricultural Wealth Index for Multidimensional Wealth Assessments

AbstractSocial scientists have increasingly used asset‐based wealth scores, like the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) wealth index, to assess economic disparities. However, current indices primarily capture wealth in globalized market economies, thus ignoring other forms of prosperity, such as success in agricultural activities. Using a simple extension to the standard estimation of the DHS wealth index, we describe procedures for estimating an agricultural wealth index (AWI) that complements market‐based wealth indices by capturing household success in agricultural activities. We apply this procedure to household data from 129 DHS surveys from over 40 countries with sufficient land and livestock data to estimate a reliable and consistent AWI. We assess the construct validity of the AWI using benchmarks of growth in both adults and children. This alternative measure of wealth provides new opportunities for understanding the causes and consequences of wealth inequality, and how success along different dimensions of wealth creates different social opportunities and constraints for health and well‐being.

The Khartoum-Omdurman conurbation: a growing megacity at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers

ABSTRACT Khartoum is one of the largest cities in Africa, located immediately south of the junction of the Blue and White Nile rivers in central Sudan. The growth of the Greater Khartoum-Omdurman conurbation arose – without a proper urban plan – from the agricultural wealth created through the completion of three dams, and mostly in the last three decades. Urban expansion was enabled by and helped to enhance the major agricultural expansion of the Gezira clay plains located to the south between the lower Blue and White Nile rivers. The region has been a focus of human settlement for at least 8,000 years, initially by semi-sedentary groups with a fishing-hunting-gathering lifestyle and later by Neolithic groups as shown by hundreds of archaeological sites. Today, Khartoum is a desert city, still very vulnerable to floods triggered by intense convectional storms. Such extreme events may become more common in future, representing a major geomorphological hazard. Moreover, uncontrolled urban and agricultural development is threatening most of the cultural heritage of the region.

As árvores que não deixam ver a floresta: natureza, agricultura e propaganda imigrantista no Brasil e na Argentina nas exposições universais do século XIX

O presente trabalho examina a circulação de saberes nas exposições universais que ocorreram na segunda metade do século XIX. Pretende contribuir para essa discussão ao analisar os padrões de apresentação dos produtos nos pavilhões brasileiros e argentinos. Vale-se dos documentos produzidos pelas comissões para demonstrar a importância das riquezas naturais e agrícolas em um cenário de concorrência nos mercados internacionais, assim como dos relatórios apresentados pelo Ministério da Agricultura, Comércio e Obras Públicas do Brasil e pelo Departamento de Agricultura de la Republica Argentina. Nesse sentido, propõe-se a discutir as mudanças geradas pelo fortalecimento da ciência e dos técnicos, partindo da circulação de saberes e tecnologias entre um grupo de homens – que abarcava agricultores e estadistas. Escolheu-se trabalhar em duas direções: na vinculação das exposições mundiais com os projetos da elite agrária que priorizavam a exploração das riquezas naturais e, paralelamente, na ligação entre as exposições mundiais e a propaganda imigrantista.

Agricultural wealth better predicts mental wellbeing than market wealth among highly vulnerable households in Haiti: Evidence for the benefits of a multidimensional approach to poverty.

Lack of wealth (poverty) impacts almost every aspect of human biology. Accordingly, many studies include its assessment. In almost all cases, approaches to assessing poverty are based on lack of success within cash economies (eg, lack of income, employment). However, this operationalization deflects attention from alternative forms of poverty that may have the most substantial influence on human wellbeing. We test how a multidimensional measure of poverty that considers agricultural assets expands the explanatory power of the construct of household poverty by associating it with one key aspect of wellbeing: symptoms of mental health. We used the case of three highly vulnerable but distinctive communities in Haiti-urban, town with a rural hinterland, and rural. Based on survey responses from adults in 4055 geographically sampled households, linear regression models were used to predict depression and anxiety symptom levels controlling for a wide range of covariates related to detailed measures of material poverty, including cash-economy and agricultural assets, income, financial stress, and food insecurity. Household assets related to the cash economy were significantly associated with lower (ie, better) depression scores (-0.7, [95% CI: -1.2 to, -0.1]) but unrelated to anxiety scores (-0.3 [95% CI: -0.8 to 0.3]). Agricultural wealth was significantly-and more strongly-associated with both reductions in depression symptoms (-1.4 [95% CI: -2.2 to -0.7]) and anxiety symptoms (-1.8 [95% CI: -2.6 to -1.0]). These associations were consistent across the three sites, except in the fully urban site in Port-au-Prince where level of depression symptoms was not significantly associated with household agricultural wealth. Standard measures of poverty based on success in the cash economy can mask important associations between poverty and wellbeing, in this case related to household-level subsistence capacity and crucial food-producing household assets.

Learning Conservation through Work: Michigan as a Pioneer of the School Camping Movement, 1940-1955

The Michigan Historical Review 45:1 (Spring 2019): 47-80©2019 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved Learning Conservation through Work: Michigan as a Pioneer of the School Camping Movement, 1940-1955 By Kristen Hengtgen “The single aim of [outdoor education] is—better living. America should keep her homes, her school houses, and the recreation halls, but enlarge them to include some of the outdoors. Some call it camping— some, outdoor education—some, recreation—and others, conservation—it is all these and more. It can well be the common mooring of our society.” Julian Smith, “On the Land” (1947)1 “There can be no doubt, and such are the views of the elementary writers upon the subject, that the Creator intended the earth should be reclaimed from a state of nature and cultivated.” Lewis Cass, North American Review (1830)2 It’s hard to miss Michigan on a map. Because of the state’s location and unique access to water, its mineral and agricultural wealth, and its location in the middle of coal, iron, and copper regions and the farming belt, Michigan’s natural gifts are a source of great beauty and pride. Yet today, less is known about the relationship between these natural gifts and Michigan’s public schools. School camps exploded in the 1940s and became popular across the nation, but their success, and their practice of taking students outdoors to learn from the land, can be traced to Michigan. State leadership saw school camps as a space to teach certain skills and dispositions: from health, to democracy, and, eventually, conservation, the dignity of work, and the “American” way of life. 1 Julian Smith, “On the Land: An Account of the First Year of the Camping and Outdoor Education Study of the Michigan Departments of Public Instruction and Conservation,” Michigan Conservation 16, no. 9 (October 1947): 12. 2 Lewis Cass, “Removal of the Indians,” North American Review, 30 January 1830, 77. 48 The Michigan Historical Review Camping as a form of leisure and recreation was already popular in Michigan for decades because of the state’s bountiful natural resources and large amount of public and private camps. Yet it was not until the 1930s that schools began to integrate camping into the school curriculum. By 1932, Tappan Junior High in Ann Arbor had acquired land in central Michigan for camping purposes, and several schools in Dearborn, Iron County, and Cadillac offered educational camping programming, often in the summer. In 1940, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) opened the first year-round public school camp in the nation at Clear Lake Camp in Battle Creek.3 The WKKF found in camping an ideal educative experience for specific reasons: it promoted strong character development, a healthy lifestyle, and democratic citizenship skills, each of which, the foundation asserted, would help strengthen local communities. Public school personnel in Michigan were invited to visit the camp and integrate methods back into their own schools, and the WKKF camp became a catalyst for many schools in the state interested in camping. As State Superintendent Lee Thurston noted, Michigan’s popularity with school camps was no accident, because “a state with a unique combination of great industries and potential natural outdoor resources cannot afford to overlook the erosion of its youth.”4 As with other backto -nature movements of the early twentieth century, educators involved in the camps emphasized that the rough and pioneer-like outdoor experience could potentially solve the imagined “youth problem” of the 1940s by creating better, more disciplined citizens. Camping was just one of many back-to-nature movements in that era. Many of Michigan’s school camps extended typical camp programming that scouting, the YMCA, and other private, public, and religious groups had practiced internationally for decades. 5 School camping also carried 3 The WKKF, a large philanthropic organization, has donated millions to educational endeavors in Michigan, as well as nationally and internationally since its establishment in Battle Creek in 1930. The scope of this project does not dive into the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and its great influence in the school camping movement in Michigan and nationwide, which deserves more study. See W. K. Kellogg Foundation...

Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life by Albert Louis Zambone

Reviewed by: Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life by Albert Louis Zambone Vaughn Scribner Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life. By Albert Louis Zambone. (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing, 2018. Pp. xx, 376. $30.00, ISBN 978-1-59416-315-9.) In Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life, Albert Louis Zambone takes a fast-moving, narrative-driven approach to Daniel Morgan, an often overlooked [End Page 893] Revolutionary Virginian “of humble origins who wished to be recognized as a gentleman” (p. xv). In Zambone’s telling, Morgan’s life “amounts to an outline for how to get ahead in colonial America” (p. xvi). Morgan’s life was indeed an “outline” for white men’s success in an America defined by unfreedoms and inequality: he killed and displaced Native Americans for his extensive land-holdings in the Ohio Valley region; exploited the labor and firepower of African Americans in his bid for military prowess and genteel status; and continuously negotiated mercurial lines of hierarchy, gender, and honor during his scrabble to the top of Virginia’s powerful gentry. Curiously, however, Zambone pays little attention to the diversity of the American experience, and he does not engage with the equally diverse historiographical discussions surrounding Revolutionary America’s various peoples. African Americans receive sparse consideration in the story of a man who prospered in a region that relied on enslaved people for its economic success. Zambone mentions Morgan’s “agricultural wealth” as well as the sixteen enslaved black people in Morgan’s will, but the author misses several opportunities to dive into the contradictions between slavery and freedom with which Morgan—a man so dedicated to defending “honor as well as liberty itself”—must have grappled (pp. 14, 235). For instance, the thousands of African Americans who served with Morgan in the American Revolution go unmentioned, while Morgan’s decision to take two free black men as his permanent slaves after the victory at Cowpens, South Carolina, is noted without further analysis. Native Americans, furthermore, serve as elusive, violent characters. In the description of Morgan’s experiences in the French and Indian War, Natives are only present insomuch as they might cause the Virginia ranger “to be killed, wounded, or scalped” (p. 31). They disappear during the American Revolution, only to reemerge as the final obstacle to America’s “settlement of the Ohio valley . . . [and] all of Washington’s hopes for the future” of the region (p. 281). Never mind that Native warriors like Little Turtle and Blue Jacket had spent the last fifty years warding off British, French, and now American invaders—when the Ohio Valley tribes defended their land from General Arthur St. Clair’s forces in 1791, “[t]he fighting was savage” as one thousand Americans were caught in a “killing zone” just after they “had stacked their guns and lined up to get their morning meal” (p. 280). Zambone explains how the Native Americans executed all who were left behind (including an old friend of poor Morgan), capping off the description of St. Clair’s defeat with President George Washington’s rage-filled exclamations of his army being “‘hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise’” (p. 281). Nevertheless, Zambone provides a riveting account of Daniel Morgan’s raucous exploits. Chapters that delve into the minutiae of battles will delight fans of military history (his chapter on Morgan’s defeat at the siege of Quebec is quite well written). Yet, in tackling “the history of Morgan’s place and his era, particularly as it influenced him and others around him,” Zambone’s work leaves unanswered questions, especially regarding nonwhite actors, women (Morgan’s wife and daughters receive only brief mention), and deeper historiographical developments (p. xix). Morgan—apt to self-aggrandize with false claims such as “Old Morgan was never beaten!”—would have probably [End Page 894] preferred to ignore more unflattering investigations (p. 107). But this was necessarily Morgan: a man whom George Washington described in 1792 as “No head. Health gone. Speculator” (p. 282). Vaughn Scribner University of Central Arkansas Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

THE STATE OF AGRICULTURE KINGDOM OF YEMEN, 1918-1962: A DOCUMENTARY OVERVIEW

Yemen has a rich tradition of agriculture, stemming from the South Arabian kingdoms through the Islamic era. In the 10th century the Yemeni savant al-Ḥasan al-Hamdānī referred to his homeland as al- Yaman al-khaḍrā’ (the verdant Yemen) due to its agricultural wealth. Several important treatises and almanacs exist from the Rasulid era (13th-15th centuries). Yemeni scholars, anthropologists and agricultural experts have written about Yemen’s agriculture in the past half century, but less is known about the state of agriculture during the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Imams Yaḥyā and Aḥmad during the 20th century. This study draws on Arabic sources, foreign travelers and the report of a 1955 FAO mission to Yemen in describing the role of agriculture and cultivated crops in the area ruled by the two imams between 1918 and 1962. The information in these sources is here made available in English.