Big Farms Research Articles

OFFSHOOTS OF KARNATAKA'S FARM POWER SUBSIDY REGIME

Farm power subsidy figures prominently on the agenda of almost every state government of the country. By including the farm power subsidy regime in their agenda, the states seem to have erroneously convinced themselves that they had contributed to the cause of agriculture and agriculturists. If their conviction is right, by now the problems faced by our agriculturists must have been solved many times over. But the problems have not been solved yet although our agriculture is characterized by small and fragmented landholdings. The reasons are not far to seek. The policy targeted marginal farmers and small farmers but big farmers somehow managed to gain a toehold, thereby reducing the pie earmarked for the marginal and small farmers. The regime rendered it easier for the political and permanent executives to evade responsibilities, adding to the woes of the ESCOMS or electricity supply companies. To make matters worse, government failed to release subventions to the Escoms promptly. Upon inquiry, the researcher was convinced that the farmer-consumers would not oppose a pro rata levy on the power consumed , provided quality power was supplied to them uninterruptedly. This would also minimize the opportunities available to vested interests to pilfer power. It is true that the farm power subsidy regime provides scope to the political and permanent executives to evade responsibilities, adding to the incompetence of Escoms. But there is a way out -- the state government, utility companies and farmer-users should devise a set of politically and financially feasible and socially acceptable alternatives to address the problem. A win-win situation will emerge as a result.

Application of Nano Organic Materials in Agriculture farming and yield analysis for Groundnut crop with comparison to conventional inorganic farming

Agriculture is the primary source of income for the majority of India’s people. Big farmers in India use inorganic fertilisers and pesticides on their plantations. However, it would reduce soil fertility. So, in order to address this problem, this paper encourages farmers to return to organic farming, while still increasing crop yield and decreasing crop water requirements. Nano materials and different bio fertilizers were used to cultivate the groundnut crop. For this, we applied these fertilisers to one acre of land for crop production, whereas on the other hand, we applied simple organic fertilisers and water to another one acre of land for comparison. The key goal is to increase yield with high-quality groundnuts. The use of these Nano organic products results in a 17-20% increase in overall production, and the cost-benefit ratio is 1.98, which is very good as compared to conventional inorganic farming.

Impact of Weather and Climate Change in the Area of Cultivation and Cropping Pattern in Villupuram – A Micro Analysis in Machine learning

Climate change and agricultural production are also interrelated. So in the article, we will look at the Villupuram district's studies in agrarian production-related to climate change. Agriculture is considering to be the lifeblood of Tamil Nadu. The majority of the people in Villupuram are engaged in agriculture. Villupuram district is one of the agriculture districts in which 75% of the population is involved in agriculture. There are 5.68 farm families from Lakh in the Vilupuram District. Seventy-five percent are marginal farmers, 16 percent are small farmers, and 9 percent are large farmers. Big farmers account for 42 percent, 34 percent higher than the state average. The district of Vilupuram shares a unique position in developing state food grains. The section of Vilupuram ranked first in food grain production from 2013-14 to 2017-18. Villupuram accounts for more than 10 percent of the state's food production per year. In this article, I have taken two Machine learning algorithms. Taking ten years of data, I can predict that the current rainfall will be 70% and the temperature will be 20%, and in the future, the precipitation will decrease by 30%, and the temperature will increase by 60%. I want to point out that the amount of agricultural production related to weather is presently 30% and that the show may decrease by 10 to 20%. I will explain with Random Forest and Logistic Regression that Random Forest works very well and gives good results.

Аналіз вітчизняного ринку ветеринарних інсектоакарицидних засобів

The main condition for ensuring the economic efficiency of agricultural livestock rearing is the maintenance of wellbeing of farm animals, which is characterized by high productive qualities and the necessary reproductive capacity. At the same time, outbreaks of diseases of various etiologies, including parasitic, are often the cause of reduced productivity of animals. Pest insects control is important in the conditions of intensive animal husbandry, when at big farms and complexes animals are concentrated in large numbers. This increases the risk of reproduction and rapid spread of many insects that parasitize farm animals and are carriers of infectious and invasive diseases and cause economic damage due to reduced animal productivity and quality of raw materials. Protection of animals from ecto- and endoparasites requires the development and creation of highly effective antiparasitic drugs, because providing the necessary range of means to combat diseases of animals, inexpensive in price, in user-friendly forms is a way to further development of animal husbandry. Recent years mark a development of the domestic market of medicines for veterinary use, an increase in the number of registered drugs, the development of enterprises producing medicines, an increase in the number of companies engaged in pharmaceutical activities in both wholesale and retail. All this speaks of the prospects of the market of medicines for veterinary use. Specialists working in the field of production and sale of medicines need immediate, objective and reliable information on the state of the pharmaceutical market. This information has a significant volume and dynamism. Identifying the peculiarities of the formation of the market of veterinary goods at the state level should contribute to the improvement of management methods in this sphere, and the development of veterinary entrepreneurship. Therefore, the reorientation of domestic pharmaceutical companies to the principles of marketing will ensure the search, development and production of effective and competitive drugs, which will meet the pressing needs of customers. The aim of the work was to study the structure of the domestic pharmaceutical market, namely veterinary insectoacaricides. Our research focused on such tasks as studying the nomenclature of veterinary insectoacaricides of foreign and domestic manufacturers by the following indicators: manufacturers, species, forms of release and means of administration. The study of imported products also focused on the country of manufacture according to the State Register of Medicines. The study uses the methods of survey, analysis, comparison, generalization to get the required information. Statistical method was used to process the obtained data. Insectoacaricides are a significant share of the domestic pharmaceutical market. The study group is represented by 186 drugs of domestic and foreign manufacture, which is about 3% of the total number of all registered drugs. Of the 186 registered drugs, 35.5% (66) are imported and 64.5% (120) are domestic. Among insectoacaricides of foreign manufacture, the largest market share is occupied by Merial and KRKA, d.d., Novo mesto – 10.6% each (7 drugs each), KVP Pharma and Veterinar-Product GmbH – 9.1% (6 drugs), and among domestic companies the products of TOV “UKRBIONIT”; VK “KRUG”; TOV “NOVA PLUS” comprises 14.2% (17 drugs), TOV “Vetsintez” and TOV “NOVA PLUS” - 10.8% (13 drugs each), TOV “MEDIPROMTEK”, TOV company “Product”, TOV “NVP “SUZIRIA” – 8.3% (10 drugs each). The implementation of marketing activities which includes the research of the pharmaceutical market, allows companies to better adapt to market economy conditions, determine tactics of competitive behavior, adapt to change, improve strategy, change the production process according to consumer requirements and needs.

A Comparison of vision-based and CNN-based detector for fish monitoring in complex environment

Aquaculture farming can help soften the environmental impact of overfishing by fulfilling seafood demands with farmed fishes. However, to maintain big scale farms can be challenging, even with the help of underwater cameras affixed in farm cages, because there are hours’ worth of footages to sift through, which can be a laborious task if performed manually. Vision-based system therefore could be deployed to filter useful information from video footages, automatically. This work proposed to solve the above mentioned problems by deploying the; 1) Extended UTAR Aquaculture Farm Fish Monitoring System Framework (UFFMS), being the handcrafted method, and 2) Faster Region Convolutional Neural Network (Faster RCNN), being the CNN-based method, for fish detection. These two methods could extract information about fishes from video footages. Experimental results show that for well-lit footages, Faster RCNN performs better, compared to the extended-UFFMS. However, accuracy of Faster RCNN drops drastically for non-well-lit footages, at an average of 28.57%, despite still having perfect precision scores.

Predicting the Digestive Tract Development and Growth Performance of Goat Kids Using Sigmoidal Models.

Simple SummaryGrowth is a biological phenomenon that usually happens with increased mass or volume over time. The transition from birth to postweaning has a fundamental impact on characteristics specific to the development and growth of the digestive tract. Consequently, the growth performance in goat kids is due to the combined effects of age, rumen development, and feeding system, which controls the growth patterns of each stage. Generally, the development of rumen is in stages. Therefore, modeling informative growth curves is of great importance for a better understanding of effective development patterns for optimizing feeding management systems for improved production efficiency. For the above reasons, this study was conducted to compare the sigmoid and polynomial models which were used to determine the age-related changes in body weight, body size indices, and digestive tract development; and to identify the most appropriate model. These empirical mathematical models of growth patterns are continuous functions of time and have biologically meaningful parameters that can be used to predict growth efficiently. In light of these models which lack sufficient information in literature, further research about different species of goats in different environments is still needed, thereby enabling us to distinguish more accurate results. The transition from monogastric to rumination stage is crucial in ruminants’ growth to avoid stressors—weaning and neonatal mortalities. Poor growth of the digestive tract could adversely affect the performance of the animal. Modeling informative growth curves is of great importance for a better understanding of the effective development pattern, in order to optimize feeding management system, and to achieve more production efficiency. However, little is known about the digestive tract growth curves. For this reason, one big goat farm of Laiwu black breed was chosen as a basis of this study. Forty-eight kids belonging to eight-time points (1, 7, 14, 28, 42, 56, 70, and 84 d; 6 kids for each) were selected and slaughtered. The body weight, body size indices, rumen pH, and stomach parts were determined and fitted to the polynomial and sigmoidal models. In terms of goodness of fit criteria, the Gompertz model was the best model for body weight, body oblique length, tube, and rumen weight. Moreover, the Logistic model was the best model for carcass weight, body height, and chest circumference. In addition, the Quadratic model showed the best fit for dressing percentage, omasum weight, abomasum weight, and rumen volume. Moreover, the cubic model best fitted the ruminal pH and reticulum percentage. The Weibull model was the best model for the reticulum weight and omasum percentage, while the MMF model was the best model describing the growth of chest depth, rumen percentage, and abomasum percentage. The model parameters, R squared, inflection points, area under curve varied among the different dependent variables. The Pearson correlation showed that the digestive tract development was more correlated with age than body weight, but the other variables were more correlated with body weight than age. The study demonstrated the use of empirical sigmoidal and polynomial models to predict growth rates of the digestive tract at relevant age efficiently.

Effect of auto- irrigation system on crop yields

The vast majority of Indians live in villages and depend on farming to live on. Today the most popular social interaction and time consuming mission are planning or farming watering exercises. Regardless of the season, whether it is sunny, droughty, shady or damp, the amount of water the plants receive must be controlled. Currently in operation, water systems can be used for water plants effectively when necessary. However, two main considerations need to be taken into account where and how much water is needed for this manual watering scheme. To reduce handling tasks and make work simpler, a programmed automatic irrigation system (Automatic Irrigation System) is developed. It utilises output to naturally assess the soil and water dampness of the plant when no humidity in the dirt has been observed. This instrument can also be used on big farms.

Farmers' perception on combined climatic and market risks and their adaptive behaviors: a case in Shandong Province of China

This paper used original survey data in Shandong province of China to depict local farmers’ perceptions of combined climatic and market risks, and their adaptive behaviors. Two Logit models were developed to capture the empirical relationship between farmers’ risk perception of the combined risks and adaptive behaviors. Results show that farmer’s risk perception of climate change and market significantly affected their adoption behavior of adaptive measures, including perception of rainfall decrease, gale decrease, drought increase, and price fall of agricultural products. Moreover farmers’ adaptive behaviors are more sensitive to their perceptions of extreme climatic events. Addition of demographic factors can improve the explanatory capacity of the Logit model. As illustrated by the models, male and better educated farmers have greater willingness to take actions for averting risks, while household heads with bigger farm are more reluctant. A majority of respondents chose to construct farm structure for irrigation and water conservation to avert climatic risks. Insurance, which is regarded as an effective tool to help farmers mitigate risks and avoid losses, has not been sufficiently accepted by farmers in rural areas in Shandong province. This underscores the need of effective communication of knowledge to enhance farmers’ coping capacity and to encourage their active response to risk.

Частота выделения бактерий рода Salmonella от крупного рогатого скота на молочных комплексах

Частота выделения бактерий рода Salmonella от крупного рогатого скота на молочных комплексах

Usage of biopesticides in agriculture practices

Using pesticides is the first method to control diseases and kill pests and weeds, which are the most menacing and the biggest problem facing agriculture. It is commonly used by developing since it is the solution to increase yields and solve agriculture problems. A part from big farmers, the majority of peasant farmers are unable to pay for synthetic pesticides because of their high price. Moreover, the small fields cultivated by subsistence farmers making the use of such pesticides uneconomic. In morocco, peasant farmers use even pesticides, which are over dose or they use non-certified products. It is understood that it is very harmful for human health and environment as well. Therefore, pesticide plants do not eliminate all pests, but keep their populations under the threshold of harm, and have more advantages than synthetic pesticides. Moreover, pesticide plant extracts decompose rapidly in the environment; which limits the risk of environmental pollution and improves the sanitary quality of cultivated products; also, it controls insect pests by protecting their natural enemies rather than by spraying crops with synthetic pesticides. The aim of this study is to record all products used by farmers to control Bruchus rufimanus especially the use of bio pesticides around Meknes city (Mejjat and Sebet jahjouhe area). It was established that most of big peasant farmers use synthetic pesticides. While small farmers have only access to traditional methods such as Capsicum frutescent, Urtica dioica, salt and ash wood, if not using non-certified products among which rodenticides.

Surveillance of tuberculosis in Georgia in 2017

Background: Tuberculosis is a chronic zoonotic disease that affects domestic and wild mammals, birds and humans. There are countries, where the disease is huge problem for animal and human health and Georgia is amongst them. The first tuberculosis case in Georgia was registered in the 1925 year. 73 unreliable foci were registered in the 1972 year, the number of unreliable villages decreased during 1985–1995 years. After those years no active surveillance was conducted to identify disease unreliable foci in Georgia. Methods and materials: The aim of the study was to identify tuberculosis positive animals and to determine the prevalence of the disease among herds/villages. 10,000 animals were chosen for testing from dairy cattle farms in 5 risk regions. The number of animals was calculated based on sample size calculation (Confidence level – 95%; population size – 200,000, Expected prevalence 50%, error 1%). Double intradermal tuberculin test (both avian and bovine tuberculin) was administrated to large ruminants above 6 weeks of age. All data (Animal owner name, ID, phone number, address and animal ID, sex, age, date and time of injection) were recorded on standardized forms. The interpretation of reaction was based on clinical observation after 72 h of injection of tuberculin. Results: Totally 9505 large ruminants were tested from 277 households in 23 municipalities. Appeared prevalence was 0.44% (44 positive/9505 tested) on individual level, 5.4% (15 positive/277 tested) on holding level and 6.5% (6 positive/91 tested) on herd/village level. Tuberculosis positive cases were identified in Samtskhe Javakheti (73.8%) Kvemo Kartli (14.3%) and Shida Kartli (11.9%) regions, where the livestock industry is more developed. No positive cases identified in Kakheti and Imereti regions. The highest prevalence on the animal level within the regions was in the Samtskhe Javakeheti region (0.92%) and lowest in the Kvemo Kartli region (0.25%). prevalence between villages varied between 1.67–6.85 percentages (average 4.2%). Conclusion: According to the obtained data, it can be concluded that the animal tuberculosis is still widespread in Georgia, especially in big commercial farms, but prevalence within the animals is low. Most of the villages were new emerged and did not have connections to earlier registered foci.

Transition of Polish countryside in the years 1918–1989

In the pre-war period problems of the Polish countryside were fragmentation and overpopulation. In spite of the land reform, the farms were mainly smaller than 5 hectares and the peasants practiced the extensive farming. Only some bigger farms, mainly in Western and Middle Poland, were modern. The Great Depression led to agricultural goods prices drop by 66%, which lasted until 1945. The Polish countryside during World War II suffered enormous material and demographic losses. After the end of the war the radical land reform was introduced, which deepened agricultural fragmentation. Some part of the land remained in the government’s possession and was transformed into State Agricultural Farm (Pl. Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne, PGR) The area taken up by those farms was extended systematically, particularly in the western and northern parts of Poland. In 1948 the government started to collectivize the countryside. Farmers were forced with restrain and repression to join the cooperative farms. After 1956 most cooperative farms fell apart and the policy became less strict, e.g. by reducing compulsory deliveries. The deepening depression of the 1970s led to the drop in prices and the collapse in the agricultural industry, which caused the breakdown of food supply. The bad condition of agriculture lasted until the last days of the People’s Republic of Poland. The paper was originally published as Przemiany polskiej wsi w latach 1918–1989, “Klio” 2013, vol. 26 (3), pp. 55–80; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/KLIO.2013.033.

Manor estates in the context of changes in the economic situation of Poland in the 14th–17th centuries

Considering “Folwark” (Manor) as one of components of an estate, the authors focus on its development and changes in form of its organization, against a background of a changing economic situation. They treat the 14th and the 16th centuries as a time of prosperity and the 15th, 17th centuries as a period of decrease in demand for agricultural products. Big “Folwark”, understood as an estate connected with a local market, emerged during the 14th c. mainly as a result of great land estates’ reorganization. Its concomitant was the gradual and equivalent removal of feudal rent’s point of gravity from a rent in money to labour (e.g. Lesser Poland). This was caused also by an insufficient supply of money in peripheral parts of Poland. A villein manor in the middle gentry’s estate appeared on the turn of 15th and 16th centuries as a result of peasant holdings’ crisis, as they were not able to sell their productsand get money to pay a rent, gradually being changed into a labour. It is concomitant was peasants’ aiming to make services lower by diminishing an area of tillage. The followingcorrelation can be noticed: the villein manor – “folwark” – developed faster in the regions less connected with the market and predominated by big rental peasant holdings. It wasdifferent in parts of Poland predominated by big rental peasant farms, situated in the territories of a greater demand for agricultural products. In regions connected with the market(e.g. East Pomerania) manors of the great landowners did not make use of villein services, but of a hired labour. The change of service forms from a money-rent to labour resultedfrom worsening of the sales conditions. The increase in both kinds of rent in the 16th c. was caused by a growth of peasants’ profits as a result of improvement in the economic situation in Poland, caused by an external demand for grain. The money-rent predominated in periods of prosperity and greater supply of money; the villein labour predominatedwhen the economic situation was not good. Regions connected with the Gdansk market developed in a different way than the rest of the country – they were predominated by peasant rental economy and hired manor; the last aimed to displace peasants from the selling market. The paper was originally published as Folwark i zmiany koniunktury gospodarczej w Polsce w XIV–XVII wieku, “Klio” 2003, vol. 4 (2), pp. 25–40.

REMOTE SENSING IMAGE TIME SERIES METRICS FOR DISTINCTION BETWEEN PASTURE AND CROPLANDS USING THE RANDOM FOREST CLASSIFIER

Abstract. Pasture and croplands play an important role in Brazil’s economic and political scenarios, once its PIB (Raw Internal Product) is mainly based on what is exported from the rural production, such as meat and soybean, and government, with its regulations, is part-responsible for the establishment and maintaining of the conditions so that the trades can go well. In addition, these two types of land use correspond together to aprox. one third of the country extension. Moreover, frequently lands occupation is subject of discussion concerning its potential use for the reason of conflicts including Brazilian traditional communities, landless people and big farmers. Considering it, mapping pasture and croplands accurately is crucial for the country administration, in both economic and political spheres. Certainly, remote sensing is the very manner to tackle this issue, although this may not be an easy task due to the spectral similarity between these patterns. This work, hence, aims to distinct pasture from croplands in an experimental subset area of Brazilian Cerrado biome, using remote sensing metric images derived from one-year time series of the Landsat 8 products. In order to achieve this goal, we utilized six bands of the OLI sensor and calculated seven metrics, attaining a compiled dataset with 42 layers. We performed an object-based supervised classification with the Random Forest algorithm, considering both spectral and geometrical attributes. Results showed global accuracy of 80%, with Kappa index of 0.6, and the potential time series have in separating targets spectrally similar.

Small-scale Citrus Farming among Selected Countries: Determinants for Exports and Production

ABSTRACT The objective of the analyses in the paper is to determine a combination of factors that enhances production and export capacity among selected countries practising small-scale citrus farming. Data was sourced through internet search using the search engine of EBSCO discovery and Scopus. Data was analysed using the multiclass discriminant analysis and frequency tables. The results shows that among the 10 sampled countries, the following population size, the rate of citrus consumption in local markets, availability of arable land, processing capacity, proximity to European markets and the counter-seasonal effect with Europe are important fa ctors. For South Africa, important factors are big farm sizes and high crop yield. The income derived from small farms such as those of China and India, is not enough to lift farmers out of poverty. It is recommended for governments to determine a viable size of a citrus farm, which will improve farmer’s living conditions.

Modelling relationships between raw milk quality parameters and climatic conditions - the case study of a 3-years survey in Serbia

This work examined the relationships between quality characteristics of raw milk and climatic conditions. Over a period of three years, a total of 5,065 samples were collected encompassing two types of farms. The quality characteristics analysed were titratable acidity (TA), total plate count (TPC) and somatic cells count (SCC). Climatic conditions were evaluated in respect to the outdoor air temperature, pressure, humidity and precipitation. Big farms showed a stronger correlation between TA and climatic conditions as opposed to SCC and climatic conditions. TPC was out of limit in big farms when the outdoor air temperature was higher than 19.8 °C (p<0.05) and during periods with accumulated precipitation over 4.2 mm (p>0.05). Small farms showed a stronger correlation between SCC and climatic conditions as opposed to TA. In these farms, occurrence of acidity out of limit was detected in less than 7.2% of samples. Samples with TA out of limit were observed when air temperature was higher than 18.4 °C (p<0.05) and accumulated precipitation was below 3.1 mm (p>0.05). These results can be used to improve good agricultural practices in respect to climatic conditions and size of farms.

CHANGES IN RESOURCES AND THE STRUCTURE OF PRODUCTION FACTORS AND THEIR PRODUCTIVITY IN HORTICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN THE YEARS 2010-2018

The aim of the research was to assess the changes in relations between factors of production and their effectiveness in horticultural holdings depending on their economic size in Poland in the years 2010-2018. The general characteristics of FADN horticultural holdings in Poland have been presented, followed by a description of the capital-labor ratio and the capital-land ratio and land resources per work unit, that is, the basic correlations between factors of production. Productivity of work, land and capital measured by gross added value was determined. On the basis of research, it was found that the resources of production factors increased along with the economic size of horticultural holdings. In the examined period, land resources decreased (apart from the biggest farms), labor expenditures were reduced, while capital resources increased. Increase in capital value, accompanied by a reduction in land and labor resources, resulted in enhancing the capital-labor ratio and capital-land ratio. In general, as economic size increased, so did the productivity of factors of production. The highest productivity of labor, land and capital was recorded in the biggest holdings. In the examined period, in all classes of economic size, an increase in labor and land productivity was observed (with the exception of the largest holdings), as well as a decrease in capital productivity (in all classes). Deterioration of capital productivity of horticultural holdings was due to a greater increase in capital value in comparison with gross added value. In the examined period, productivity of factors of production decreased in the largest holdings (economic class 5), despite the achievement of the highest productivity of factors of production in comparison with other classes.

Agricultural Water Monitoring for Water Management Under Pivot Irrigation System Using Spatial Techniques

In arid and semi-arid regions, the water-use efficiency (WUE) is highly important for water administration and management. The water losses increased, when water application records low efficiency. The water losses maybe amplified, when the irrigation system ignores soil variability and water applied uniformly. Which means more water application, more energy demand, and more money expenses. The current investigation aims at using remotely sensed data and GIS Techniques for monitoring irrigation water consumption and its correlation with crop yield under the pivot irrigation system. El-Salhia region contains a big agricultural farm located at the South Eastern of Nile delta. The investigated field was irrigated under the pivot central sprinkler irrigation system which cultivated with the wheat crop. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) were calculated based on landsat data. The crop water stress index (CWSI) depends on the variance between the LST of the targets and their air temperature (Tair) to detect the relative moisture condition. The soil texture, organic matter, time-domain reflectometer (TDR), thermal infrared, leaf area index (LAI), and actual yield measurements were taken for 47 systematic samples during the wheat growing season of the year 2012/2013. Accordingly, the available water (AW) displayed relatively lower accuracy than the rest of the other parameters. The canopy temperature (Tc), CWSI, field capacity (Fc), and LAI showed high accuracy to predict the wheat yield as shown from the statistical analysis. The WUE recorded 1.07 (kg/m3) in the southeast boundary and gradient toward the northwest boundary with a rate of 2.2 (kg/m3). The WUE distribution is comparable to soil parameters and measured yield circulation, which indicates high applicability with significant improvement in yield response.

Italian Social Farming: the Network of Coldiretti and Campagna Amica

For the last ten years, Social farming (SF) has become an innovative practice able to connect multifunctional agriculture and novel social services for urban and rural areas in Italy and the EU. By looking at the experience from Italy, it is possible to note that SF has not developed homogeneously along the national territory. It is characterized by a wide range of practices and activities related to the development of a welfare in which several topics such as subsidiarity, the value of relationship, and co-production find multiple meanings and applications. This paper provides a further contribution to the knowledge on this type of activity and opens the way to deeper considerations on the topic. The information reported in this study refers to a project born in 2018 and carried out by Fondazione Campagna Amica, a foundation promoted by Coldiretti, the main organization of agricultural entrepreneurs in Italy. This paper focuses on the analysis of data collected during this project, through in-depth interviews carried out from July 2018 to March 2019 among 229 agricultural enterprises, as well as meetings with representatives of the regional offices of Coldiretti that are involved in SF. This study aims to reach a better understanding of the development of SF in Italy through the perspective of a national network of farmers and to compare SF practices across regions in order to examine their similarities and differences. The most important results show big individual farms with a great variety of agricultural activities and livestock systems, with a clear predominance of horticulture. These SF farms mainly provide direct sales and educational activities and are involved in training and job placement services.

Detection of bovine pestiviruses by a multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction.

Pestiviruses are the cause of reproductive problems, diseases of the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts of animals. Three species are important for cattle: Pestivirus A, B, and H. Fast and reliable methods of differentiation of these pathogens are currently needed. Aims and objectives of the study: the development of multiplex real time PCR for the simultaneous detection and differentiation of three viruses. The nucleotide sequences of the conserved regions of the 5´-UTR genes of pes tivirusesA, B, and H served as a target. The reaction showed high specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility and was able to detect virus RNA at a concentration of not less than 0.6-1.2 lg TCID50/cm3. Cross-reactions with other pestiviruses wer e not observed. Real time PCR confirmed the results obtained previously in RT-PCR with gel electrophoresis detection. In a parallel study of 1823 biological samples, the results of the two reactions were completely consistent. Pestivirus spp. was detectedin 76 samples, Pestivirus A was present in 73 samples, Pestivirus B - in 3 samples, and Pestivirus H was not detected. A two-step real time PCR was developed for the simultaneous detection and differentiation of three pestiviruses. Modified pan primers of S. Vilcek et al. were used for the first reaction, and primers and probes of our own design were used for virus typing, which resulted in high reaction efficiency. On the big dairy farms for livestock maintenance, there are favorable conditions for the circulation of pathogenic viruses. In this situation, rapid diagnostic methods are needed to quickly identify of several viruses. Real-time triplex analysis can be recommended as the rapid method for mass epidemiological studies, as well as for screening fetal calf serum used for virus cultivation in medicine and veterinary practice.