Major Agricultural Products Research Articles

Connection between climatic change and international food prices: evidence from robust long-range cross-correlation and variable-lag transfer entropy with sliding windows approach

As nations progress, the impact of climate change on food prices becomes increasingly substantial. While the influence of climate change on the yields of major agricultural products is widely recognized, its specific effect on food prices remains uncertain. This study delves into the impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index, a well-established climate indicator, on global food prices. To accomplish this, a robust bivariate Hurst exponent (robust bHe) is applied. The study employs a sliding windows approach across various time scales to produce a color map of this coefficient, presenting a time-varying version. Furthermore, variable-lag transfer entropy with a sliding windows approach is utilized to discern causal relationships between the NAO index and international food prices. The findings reveal that significant increases in the NAO index are correlated with noteworthy upswings in various international food prices over both short and long-term periods. Additionally, variable-lag transfer entropy confirms the causal role of the NAO index in influencing international food prices.

Making Decisions on the Development of County-Level Agricultural Industries through Comprehensive Evaluation of Environmental and Economic Benefits of Agricultural Products: A Case Study of Hancheng City

This study aims to provide a scientific basis for the development of county-level agricultural industries through a comprehensive evaluation of the environmental and economic benefits of agricultural products. Focusing on Hancheng City in Shaanxi Province, this paper calculates and analyzes the carbon emission intensity per unit output value and the economic benefits of major agricultural products, assessing their comprehensive advantage indices. The research methods include data collection, data processing, and model construction, utilizing a bi-factor matrix analysis to explore the balance between environmental sustainability and economic profitability of different agricultural products. The results indicate that pepper and vegetables have the highest comprehensive advantages, demonstrating significant economic and environmental benefits, while soybeans show lower comprehensive advantages, requiring improvements in cultivation techniques and management practices. Based on the research findings, this paper proposes policy and management recommendations for different agricultural products, including focusing on the development of high-comprehensive-advantage products, improving cultivation techniques for low-comprehensive-advantage products, promoting green agricultural technologies, establishing a carbon footprint monitoring system for agricultural products, and strengthening agricultural infrastructure construction. The study’s conclusions provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the agricultural development strategies of Hancheng City and similar regions, contributing to the achievement of sustainable agricultural development and carbon reduction goals.

Analysis of the competitiveness and complementarity of China-Vietnam bilateral agricultural commodity trade.

Vietnam's agricultural exports to China have remained strong, with the country maintaining its position as the top destination for Agri-products. This article primarily utilizes the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) Index, and Trade Complementarity (TC) index to examine the trade comparative advantage, and the complementary of twenty major agricultural products between China and Vietnam from 2012 to 2021. The study results showed that Vietnam and China frequently exchange agricultural products. Vietnam has more stronger competitiveness than China in terms of agricultural products. China's exports to Vietnam were highly complementary to Vietnam's imports in category 0 whiles Vietnam's exports to China showed strong complementarity with China's imports in category 2. This paper analyzes the complementarity and comparative advantages of agricultural trade between China and Vietnam, and proposes informed suggestions for policy-making to promote agricultural trade between the countries. The proposed suggestions aim to expand agricultural trade between the two countries, reduce the trade imbalance, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

Exploring the characteristics and drivers of virtual cropland trade of major agricultural products in China

The trade volume of agricultural products can be used to measure the global flow of virtual cropland. This paper measures the virtual cropland contained in 68 major agricultural products in China, analyzes the changes in China's virtual cropland from 2001 to 2020, and examines the main import and export agricultural product categories of virtual cropland and the main trading countries of virtual cropland. Meanwhile, according to the LMDI model, the driving factors of virtual cropland trade are categorized into five effects, and the driving factors of virtual cropland trade are discussed in depth. The main findings are as follows: the net value of virtual cropland trade is growing rapidly, the import of legume crops is the main source of the net value of virtual cropland trade, and the virtual cropland importing countries are dominated by European and American countries, and the exporting countries are dominated by Asian countries. As for the driving factors, the quality effect and the structural effect play a dampening effect on the net imports of virtual cropland, however, the dampening effect is relatively weak and cannot offset the promotion brought by the other effects. The economic effect is the main driver of virtual net imports of cropland, and the amount of trade in agricultural products also has an important role in promoting virtual imports of cropland, while the demand effect is not significant. It is suggested that China should correctly formulate reasonable cropland management policies and trade strategies, optimize the structure of virtual cropland trade, guarantee national food security and promote sustainable development.

The Changing Role of the United States in the Global Agricultural Trade

The agriculture sector in the United States depends upon exports for its vitality. Sales of U.S. agricultural products abroad are responsible for 20 percent of U.S. farm income, supporting more than one million American jobs on and off the farm, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Government pays great attention to supporting exports as an important factor in the stability of agriculture and the well-being of American farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture implements more than 20 state programs for financial, informational, educational and technical support for exports; its representative offices abroad are actively working to promote American agricultural products and search for new markets. Free Intergovernmental Trade Agreements help expand foreign markets for U.S. producers and exporters by reducing or eliminating trade barriers, protecting U.S. economic interests. The ХХ1st century has brought increased competition in the world market due to the entry of new exporters. The competitive prices they offer and the high quality of products for many importers became significant factors that determined the choice in favor of these countries. As a result, the U.S. position in the world market has noticeably deteriorated. The country has lost its leadership in exporting a number of major agricultural products, and for the first time in 60 years, the United States has become a net importer of agricultural products.

Technology structure of China’s export of agricultural products: empirical analysis based on technical complexity

AbstractGrowing labour costs, increasing resources and environmental constraints and a desire to emphasize high-quality trade have promoted China to prioritize upgrading the agricultural export structure. This brings forth a need for further research on agricultural export technology. We measure the technical complexity and height based on the sample of 178 countries over the 2002–2020 period. The results are then compared with those of the world’s major exporters of agricultural products (APs). We find that China’s APs export exhibited a pattern of medium-technology products and slowly transitioned towards medium–high and high technology levels. The technology structure of China’s APs export was significantly lower than that of the major global AP exporters (except Brazil). The overall technical level of China’s APs exports slightly fluctuated near the medium technology grade. The evolutionary trend of the technology structure of China’s APs export differs from its export scale, showing a tendency towards a more downmarket in 2002–2012 but some improvement since 2013. There is a widening gap in the technology structure of APs export between China and major developed exporters. China’s APs export is losing competitiveness overall, and the upgrading of the technology structure of China’s APs export was slower. Therefore, the technology structure of China’s APs export can be escalated by raising standards of quality, concentrating on the export of higher technical complexity products, promoting the advances and innovations in agricultural science and technology, and further exploring the trade potential hidden behind the differences between China and other countries in export technology structure.

RESEARCH OF TECHNOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT FOR THE PRODUCTION OF BULK FOOD MIXTURES

The development of technologies and modern equipment for the agricultural sector, as well as growing competition in the field of growing major agricultural products, lead agricultural producers to try to optimize their own production. The process of mixing can be thought of as the volumetric movement of particles of two or more components to obtain a homogeneous medium (in terms of composition, physical, mechanical, and other properties). To mix bulk materials, external forces must be applied to allow the particles of the components to be mixed to move relative to each other. The heterogeneity of the mixture depends on a number of reasons, in particular: the supply of the initial components to the vibrating mixer; insufficient mixing of the bulk mixture causes a deviation in the distribution of component particles, etc. An analysis of existing mixer designs has shown that most technological processes use rotary drum mixers and mixers with rotating working bodies - paddle, screw, frame. To study the process of mixing bulk food mixtures, a laboratory and experimental setup was developed, consisting of a vibration-centrifugal mixer, a loading hopper, and a control panel. The developed machine (mixer) is based on the task of intensifying the process of mixing materials by reducing the adhesive forces between material particles through the use of the gravitational effect. Vibrational impact on the mixing of materials and the mixer's working bodies significantly increases the process productivity, reduce energy consumption and improves the quality of the mixture. The developed design can be widely used in various industries in the production of spices, bakery mixes, feed, protein and vitamin supplements.

An effective IoT-assisted adaptive thresholding and hybrid deep learning model for rice blast fungal detection

ABSTRACT In Asian countries, rice is the major agricultural product. Hence, the initial identification of plant disorder via the IoT (Internet of Things) offers to ignore the rice from critical disorders. To increase crop production, the measurements should be considered to completely destroy the rice plant disorders by an effective system. This paper proposed an Intelligent IoT-aided deep learning model for detecting rice blast fungal along with a hybrid heuristic algorithm. The proposed work encompasses with multiple stages that are explained as follows. At first, the required paddy images are gathered from online data resources. Next, the pre-processing of the collected images is made by adaptive mean filtering and contrast enhancement. Further, the adaptive thresholding and morphological operation are adopted for leaf segmentation purposes, where the threshold value is tuned by a Fitness-based Billiards-inspired Rat Swarm Optimizer (FBRSO). Consequently, from the segmented image, the Region of Interest (ROI) is cropped. Finally, the cropped ROI is subjected to the Optimized MobileNetv2 and Multiscale Residual Attention Network (OMMRAN), where it includes MobileNetV2 and Multiscale Residual Attention Network, in which some of the hyperparameters are tuned by FBRSO approach. The performance is validated and compared with other existing approaches for detecting rice diseases effectively.

What Major Agricultural Cross-Border Trade Products in India Are Influenced by Payments?

This study explores the connection between overall Indian payment statistical indicators and the import-export patterns of around 40 major agricultural products regulated by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) in India. Using separate regression analyses for import and export transactions from 2013 to 2022, our findings indicate that only a few of these products show a clear impact from payment indicators. In a time when digital payments are becoming increasingly important, the discovery that certain agricultural products are not affected by payment trends has significant implications for the financial landscape. As digital transactions continue to grow, understanding that some agricultural products remain independent of payment trends highlights the need for comprehensive intervention and further research. This study emphasizes the importance of thoroughly investigating these dynamics, providing insights to inform strategic decisions and policies that align with the changing financial ecosystem.

Mapping the Coffee Value Chain in Lao PDR: Issues, Insights, and Strategies

Coffee is a major agricultural export product that generates foreign currency for Lao PDR. While several studies have been conducted on coffee in Lao PDR, none have focused on the value chain. This research seeks to fill that gap by analyzing the coffee value chain in Laos. The study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods, such as interviews, value chain mapping, and value-added estimation, to examine the structure, roles, activities, and performance of the value chain actors. The study finds that coffee farmers have the highest value-added, but they are facing various issues of pests and disease, low productivity, and limited access to finance. Laos has a high export potential for coffee, especially to European markets, but also faces constraints such as limited market access, transportation costs, and non-tariff measures. The study provides recommendations for improving the coffee value chain in Laos, such as strengthening farmer groups and cooperatives, enhancing quality and certification standards, and diversifying markets and products.

Sustainable Preparation of Graphene Quantum Dots from Leaves of Date Palm Tree.

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), a subtropical and tropical tree, included in the family Palmae (Arecaceae) is one of the oldest cultivated plants of mankind. Date palm is a major agricultural product in the semi-arid and arid areas of the world, particularly in Arab countries. These trees generate high quantities of agricultural waste in the form of dry leaves, seeds, etc. In this study, dried date palm leaves were used as green precursors for synthesizing graphene quantum dots (GQDs). This work reported the preparation of GQDs using two different sustainable methods. GQD-1 was developed using a simple, hydrothermal technique at 200 °C for 12 h in water, with no requirement of reducing or passivizing agents or organic solvents. GQD-2 was prepared using a hydrothermal technique at 200 °C for 12 h in water, with the usage of just distilled water and absolute ethanol. The compositional analysis of the leaf extract was performed, along with the morphological, compositional, and optical examination of the sustainably developed GQDs. The characterization results confirmed the successful formation of GQDs, with average sizes ranging from 3.5 to 8 nm. This study helps to obtain GQDs in an economical, eco-friendly, and biocompatible manner and can assist in large-scale production and in recycling date palm tree waste products from Middle East countries into value-added products.

Evaluation of transfer factors of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K radionuclides from soil to grass and mango in the northern region of Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a rapidly developing country, which is vulnerable to various types of pollution due to the large-scale industrial and associated human activities that might potentially affect the locally harvested foodstuffs. Therefore, the transfer factor is an essential tool to assess the safety of foodstuffs due to the presence of natural radioactivity in environmental matrix and/or strata. This is a first study of its kind conducted in a well-known region for mango farming in Bangladesh, measuring the uptake of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) by grass and mango from soil to assess the ingestion doses to humans. The HPGe gamma-ray detector was used to determine the concentrations of NORMs in samples of soil (20), grass (10), and mango (10), which were then used to calculate the transfer factors of soil to grass and soil to mango. Average activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K in associated soil samples (47.27 ± 4.10, 64.49 ± 4.32, 421.60 ± 28.85) of mango and 226Ra and 232Th in associated soil samples (45.07 ± 3.93, 52.17 ± 3.95) of grass were found to exceed the world average values. The average transfer factors (TFs) for mango were obtained in the order of 40K(0.80) > 226Ra (0.61) > 232Th (0.31), and for grass, it shows the order of 40K (0.78) > 232Th (0.64) > 226Ra (0.56). However, a few values (3 mango samples and 3 grass samples) of the estimated TFs exceeded the recommended limits. Moreover, Bangladesh lacks the transfer factors for most of the food crops; therefore, calculation of TFs in the major agricultural products is required all over Bangladesh, especially the foodstuffs produced near the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, which is scheduled to be commissioned in 2023.

Agriculture’s Energy: The Trouble with Ethanol in Brazil’s Green Revolution. By Thomas D. Rogers

Today, policymakers celebrate Brazilian sugar-based ethanol as a possible alternative energy source to address our climate crisis. Thomas Rogers brings a unique approach to the history of Brazilian sugar ethanol’s development in his new book, Agriculture’s Energy: The Trouble with Ethanol in Brazil’s Green Revolution. In 1975, Brazil famously transformed ethanol into a major domestic fuel source during the global oil crisis with the creation of the National Alcohol (Ethanol) Program, or Proálcool. As a historian of Brazilian agriculture, Rogers uses the sugar ethanol program to examine the costs of Brazil’s broader twentieth century agro-industrial development strategy. Rogers argues that the Green Revolution’s promise of development using fertilizers and adapted seeds to power large-scale agricultural production underwrote the program’s logic and created adverse consequences that are emblematic of bigger global development problems to this day (4, 8). Divided into two major parts, Rogers meticulously connects the origins of Brazil’s ethanol industry to a particular agricultural development model that evolved over the first half of the twentieth century. Sugar has long been a major agricultural product of Brazil. However, Chapter 1 examines how policymakers focused on “modernizing” the sugar sector with “research, modern techniques, and planning” to shake its backward image, particularly in the drought riddled Northeast, during the first half of the twentieth century (36). Chapter 2 examines how government officials and policymakers institutionalized the use of high-yield seeds and chemical fertilizers in line with Green Revolution logic through various policies and programs to intensify industrial sugar production in the 1960s and early 1970s (66-67). Chapter 3 then succinctly connects these big agriculture policies to Proálcool and its brief tenure as a major fuel alternative until 1990. Large-scale sugar ethanol production, mandated and incentivized by the military government, came to embody the “vision of agriculture-fueled development” that policymakers had built over the previous decades (81).

Regional Analysis of Nitrogen Flow within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Food Production Chain Inclusive of Trade.

In the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, excess nitrogen has contributed to poor water quality, leading to nitrogen mitigation efforts to restore and protect the watershed. The food production system is a top contributor to this nitrogen pollution. While the food trade plays a vital role in distancing the environmental impacts of nitrogen use from the consumer, previous work on nitrogen pollution and management in the Bay is yet to carefully consider the effect of embedded nitrogen found in products (nitrogen mass within the product) imported and exported throughout the Bay. Our work advances understanding across this area by creating a mass flow model of nitrogen embedded in the food production chain throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed that separates phases of the production and consumption processes for crops, live animals, and animal products and considers commodity trade at each phase by combining aspects of both nitrogen footprint and nitrogen budget models. Also, by tracking nitrogen embedded in products imported and exported in these processes, we distinguished between direct nitrogen pollution and nitrogen pollution externalities (displaced N pollution from other regions) from outside of the Bay. We developed the model for the watershed and all its counties for major agricultural commodities and food products for 4 years 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 with a specific focus on 2012. Using the developed model, we determined the spatiotemporal drivers of nitrogen loss to the environment from the food chain within the watershed. Recent literature leveraging mass balance approaches has suggested that previous long-term declines in nitrogen surplus and improvements in nutrient use efficiency have stagnated or begun to reverse. Our results suggest that within the Chesapeake Bay, increased corn and wheat acreage and steadily increasing livestock/poultry production may have led to the stagnation in decreasing N loss trends from agricultural production observed over the past two decades. We also show that at the watershed scale, trade has reduced the food chain nitrogen loss by about 40 million metric tons. This model has the potential to quantify the effect of various decision scenarios, including trade, dietary choices, production patterns, and agricultural practices, on the food production chain nitrogen loss at multiple scales. In addition, the model's ability to distinguish between nitrogen loss from local and nonlocal (due to trade) sources makes it a potential tool to optimize regional domestic production and trade to meet local watershed's needs while minimizing the resulting nitrogen loss.

Reduction of Radiocesium in Internal- and Surface-Contaminated Komatsuna (Brassica rapa var. perviridis) during Washing and Processing

Radiocesium dynamics data during food processing are required for the realistic estimation of internal radiation content in food. Radiocesium contamination of leafy vegetables can occur externally due to the adhesion of fallout and/or resuspension from the air, and internally from soil via the root transport. Information regarding the dynamics of both surface and internal radiocesium contamination during food processing is required; however, such information for leafy vegetables is limited compared to other major agricultural products. In this study, the effect of washing on the removal of surface radiocesium contamination by resuspended materials and that of cooking (grilling, boiling, and microwave heating) on internal radiocesium contamination were investigated using komatsuna (Brassica rapa var. perviridis), a leafy vegetable. The surface-contaminated samples were experimentally grown in a difficult-to-return area in Fukushima Prefecture, which has not yet been decontaminated. The internally contaminated komatsuna were obtained after experimental cultivation in a greenhouse with soil containing 137Cs and no surface contamination. The concentration of 137Cs in surface-contaminated komatsuna was reduced to approximately half (processing factor: 0.55) after washing with water. However, the annual processing factor ranged from 0.12 to 0.95, suggesting that the growing environment and climatic conditions may affect the removal rate of radiocesium by washing. Internal contamination of 137Cs was removed by 23% and 14% by boiling and grilling, respectively, but no effect was observed for microwaving. Moreover, the concentration of 137Cs decreased by 0.66-fold after boiling, while it increased by 1.19- and 1.20-fold after grilling and microwaving, respectively. Therefore, boiling was found to be preferable than grilling or microwaving for radiocesium removal.

Study on the Impact of Climate Change on China's Import Trade of Major Agricultural Products and Adaptation Strategies.

With global warming, China's agricultural products are facing severe production conditions and a complex international trade situation. In order to clarify the relationship between climate change and China's agricultural trade, this paper uses the GTAP model to explore the impact of climate change on China's agricultural trade from the perspectives of agricultural production and supply, energy substitution and trade policy. The results show that: (1) From the overall effect, the production supply risk and energy substitution risk caused by climate change have a positive impact on China's import trade, among which the energy substitution risk has brought about an import trade growth of 38.050%, the production supply risk has brought about an import trade growth of 12.635%, and the trade policy risk has a negative impact, bringing about an import trade decline of 12.589%. (2) Under the impact of production and supply risks caused by climate change, the import volume of different industrial sectors has increased by varying degrees, including livestock products (16.521%) > food crops (14.162%) > cash crops (7.220%). The increase in import trade mainly comes from the United States (10.731%), Canada (10.650%) and Australia (9.455%). (3) Under the impact of energy substitution risk caused by climate change, the increase in import trade was concentrated in food crops (48.144%) and livestock products (42.834%), mainly from the United States (57.098%), the European Union (55.014%) and Canada (53.508%). (4) Under the impact of trade policy risks caused by climate change, the import trade of different industrial sectors showed a downward trend, with cash crops (13.039%) > livestock products (12.588%) > cash crops (12.140%). The countries and regions with significant decline in import trade were ASEAN (-46.131%) and the United States (-28.028%). The trade deficit shifted to surplus, and the terms of trade were improved. Therefore, this paper suggests that we should deal with the impact of climate change on agricultural trade by developing "climate smart" agriculture, actively responding to low-carbon trade measures, and establishing an agricultural trade promotion mechanism to address the risk of climate change.

Research on the Comparative Advantage and Complementarity of China–Ghana Agricultural Product Trade

As trade partners, China in East Asia and Ghana in Africa both play a major role in the China–Africa economic and trade cooperation and have strengthened their bilateral trade. The trade cooperation between China and Ghana has progressed, and there currently exists a large agricultural product trade between the two countries. China has become one of Ghana’s largest trading partners in recent decades, and bilateral cooperation has become stronger. This paper analyses the comparative advantage and complementarity of trade in agricultural products between China and Ghana in terms of twenty major agricultural products from 2016 to 2020, based on the revealed comparative advantage index, trade complementarity index, and their status quo. The results showed that the trade volume of China–Ghana agricultural products has continuously increased, and China is currently in a surplus state, but their total agriculture trade volume proportions had been decreasing. From the perspective of comparative advantage and complementarity, the results showed that the comparative advantage and complementarity coexist, but their comparative advantage is more obvious showing strong competitiveness. The result further shows that the comparative advantage of Ghana was stronger than that of China and the complementarity of China’s exports and Ghana’s imports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited; likewise, the complementarity of China’s imports and Ghana’s exports of agricultural products has not been fully exploited since 2018, and there is a large potential for further cooperation and development. Finally, based on the current situation and our analysis of agricultural trade between China and Ghana, suggestions were put forward to seek new and continuous development opportunities for agricultural trade cooperation between the two countries.

Photoinactivation of Colletotrichum truncatum, Corynespora cassiicola, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Rhizoctonia solani in soybean seeds by cationic porphyrins

AbstractGrain legume production is of great importance in the world economy, with soybeans being a major agricultural product. Among the main causes of crop losses are diseases caused by pathogens that infect seeds, such as Colletotrichum truncatum, Corynespora cassiicola, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Rhizoctonia solani. The fungicides used are not fully effective in controlling these diseases, and new control options are necessary. Photodynamic inactivation (PDI) may be an alternative. PDI consists of the association of a photosensitizer (PS), light and molecular oxygen aimed at the destruction of microbial cells. Porphyrins and their derivatives are aromatic tetrapyrrolic macrocyclic compounds with photosensitizing capacity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficiency of PDI in the photoinactivation of C. truncatum, C. cassiicola, S. sclerotiorum and R. solani, using a mixture of cationic meso‐tetra‐aryl porphyrins as PS, being the first study to consider this formulation as PS in the photoinactivation of these pathogens. Assays were carried out with soybean seeds artificially inoculated with the different fungi, treated with the PS at 10, 50, 100 and 200 μg/ml and submitted to light under an irradiance of 50 mW/cm2. The assays were set up following the blotter test methodology. The evaluations showed significant reductions in the infection rates of the seeds in relation to the controls. The greatest reductions were 46% for C. truncatum, 95.5% for S. sclerotiorum, 87% for C. cassiicola and 92% for R. solani. The results suggest that PDI can be an important alternative to current control methods against these pathogens.

Research on the Multilayer Network of Relations of Western Agricultural Trade along the Belt and Road

This paper defines the weighted super adjacency matrix based on the existing super adjacency matrix. This paper, for the first time, combines the trade network, competitive network, and complementary network to construct the trade multilayer network, and innovatively defines the interlayer connections. Based on this, we build trade multilayer networks for three major agricultural products in the western region along the “Belt and Road”. The paper then proposes analytical methods, including a classification algorithm for local network relations and a comparative analysis of trade development priorities based on the local network relations. The former is used to identify and categorize key trading countries and potential trading countries for western agricultural products along the “Belt and Road”. The latter is used to examine the western regions’ order of priority in developing trade relations with the classified countries. According to the findings, category I agricultural trade has 37 key trading countries among the “Belt and Road” countries. Their local network relationships are classified into six groups, and their trade development priorities are classified into four levels. There are 49 key trading countries in category II agricultural trade. Their local network relations can be classified into three groups, and their trade development priorities can be classified into two levels. There are 62 key trading countries in category IV agricultural trade. Their local network relationships are classified into six groups, and their trade development priorities are classified into four levels. Furthermore, only Chile is a potential trading partner in category I agricultural trade. Finally, this paper offers policy recommendations for the development of agricultural trade along the “Belt and Road” in the western region.

Crop classification based on phenology information by using time series of optical and synthetic-aperture radar images

Crop classification provides essential information for ensuring global food security, allowing early crop monitoring practices and water irrigation management. Despite of high importance of satellite imagery in identifying agricultural products, a significant number of optical images could become inaccessible due to cloud cover, which makes mapping agricultural products difficult. Therefore, the provision of up-to-date data integration methods and the availability of time series of optical and radar images such as Sentinel-1 data have provided new opportunities for mapping agricultural products with high spatial and temporal resolution. In this study, the results of classification accuracy were investigated based on the phenology of agricultural products and using time series of Landsat 8, Sentinel-1 and the digital elevation model (DEM). To do so, the key phenological parameters of the products such as start of season, length of season and end of season were first extracted using time series of the NDVI vegetation index calculated from the optical images and the TIMESAT model. Then, based on vegetation phenology of crops using optical (Landsat-8) and radar (Sentinel-1) time series data along with Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to increase the accuracy of classification, we applied the support vector machine method based on machine learning. The performance of this model was investigated on a part of Miandoab catchment basin located in the catchment of Lake Urmia in the northwest of Iran. Also, five major agricultural products of the study area, such as alfalfa, wheat, sugar beet, apple and grape were identified with overall accuracy of 89% using the support vector machine algorithm. Classification results demonstrated that using a combination of different data (overall accuracy (OA) = 89%, Kappa = 0.78) were more accurate than the only single-sensor inputs (OA = 77%, Kappa = 0.64), and when differences between crop types were largest, classification performance increased throughout the season until July.