Neighboring Farms Research Articles

Drivers and barriers to adopt best management practices. Survey among Italian dairy farmers

Abstract Best management practices that could improve sustainability of dairy farming systems in northern Italy include crop rotation, green manure, sprinkler or drip irrigation, incorporation of crop residue, and adoption of a nutrient management plan. Despite the numerous advantages that scientific literature reports for these Best management practices, they are not always adopted by farmers, because other factors – of financial, technical, or social nature – limit their adoption. The theory of planned behaviour, based on the identification of outcomes, referents surrounding the farmers, and control factors, was applied through a detailed questionnaire to study individual farmer beliefs that influence the intention to adopt best practices. More than 50% out of the farms applied incorporation of crop residue, rotation with a grass or a legume meadow, sprinkler or drip irrigation, and adopted a nutrient management plan. Reasons for applying them were mainly related to soil sustainability (improvement of soil organic matter content, soil structure, fertility and yield) or to environmental sustainability (reduction of nitrogen losses, use of fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides). Among the main barriers to their adoption, the most important ones were an increase in direct or indirect costs. The only practice that was not adopted and, despite a limited number of barriers, will not be adopted by farmers, is green manure. Likely, our survey did not capture the real barriers against the adoption of this practice. Across all best management practices, the main difference between adopters and non-adopters was found in referents’ opinion on applying them. This means that it is very important, for the adoption of best management practices, that the community of family members, neighbor farmers, and various advisors, are in favour of adoption. This important finding should be used by public authorities to promote the development of focus groups, demonstration days, demonstration farms, and especially good and updated independent farm advisors who could substantially increase the adoption of best management practices by farmers.

THE FAILURES OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOS): RESISTANCE, REGULATION, AND REJECTION

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been contentious for more than three decades. Only 24 countries grow GMOs commercially. Four countries (USA, Canada, Brazil and Argentina) account for 85% of the global GMO hectares. Four crops (soy, corn, cotton and canola) account for 99% of GM hectares. Despite the veneer of social validity that regulators cast, the GMO sector has failed to gain a social licence. Where GM labelling is required, food manufacturers avoid GM ingredients. GMOs have failed to gain price parity with their non-GM counterparts, and they attract price penalties. Segregation of GMOs and non-GMOs has failed (with a tolerance of 0.9% GM contamination in so-called non-GM canola). GM has failed the coexistence test with a GMO growers contaminating neighbouring farms. GMOs are a biosecurity fail, with test plots of GM canola planted in the late 1990s still monitored two decades later for rogue canola plants. Most GMO crops are glyphosate dependent. Glyphosate is globally subject to massive litigation claims and awards, and is implicated in the causation of multiple cancers. Mechanisms for compensating farms contaminated by GMOs are lacking. The GMO industry has taken no responsibility for contaminations. GMOs are a threat to the organic sector and the maintenance of certification and price premiums. Most countries (88%) do not grow GMO crops. This paper considers the global experience of GMOs and the Australian experience as a microcosm of the global experience and as a case study.

Complete genome sequences of novel S-deletion variants of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus identified from a recurrent outbreak on Jeju Island, South Korea.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a deadly epizootic swine coronavirus that is of importance to the world pork industry. Since the re-emergence of the virulent genotype 2b (G2b) in 2014, Jeju Island in South Korea has faced periodic outbreaks, leading to the occurrence of endemics in provincial herds. In this study, we examined the complete genome sequences and molecular characteristics of novel G2b PEDV variants with a two-amino-acid deletion in the neutralizing epitope of the spike (S) gene, which were concurrently identified on a re-infected farm and its neighboring farm on Jeju Island. Whole-genome sequencing of the Jeju S-DEL isolates KNU-1829 and KNU-1830 revealed the presence of a continuous 9-nucleotide deletion within the nonstructural protein coding region. Their genomes were 28,023 nucleotides in length, 15 nucleotides shorter than those of the classical G2b PEDV strains. The two S-DEL isolates had 96.4–99.2% and 98.3–99.7% identity at the S-gene and full-genome level, respectively, to other global G2b PEDV strains. Genetic and antigenic analyses indicated that the S-DEL isolates are most closely related to the primary strain identified from the initial exposure at the same farm, but the virus appears to undergo continuous evolution, possibly leading to antigenic drift under recurrent or endemic pressure. This study provides important information about the antigenic diversity of PEDV circulating in the endemic areas, which arises from continuous non-lethal mutations to ensure viral fitness in the host environment.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00705-019-04360-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Identifying the factors impacting on farmers’ intention to adopt animal friendly practices

Brazil, one of the leading countries in livestock production, has not yet developed legislation considering animal welfare issues and most of the actions to improve farm animal welfare (FAW) standards are developed by livestock industries and government focusing in meet the demands of exporting countries. Such actions resulted in FAW protocols and manuals for adoption of best management practices. In this context, farmers’ decisions are of particular importance as they may comply with current FAW protocols or even decide to provide better FAW standards than required. A present example of farmers’ decisions to provide better FAW standards than required by FAW protocols is in the adoption of environmental enrichment in pig farming. This practice is widely available to pig farmers, however, anecdotal evidence shows that the adoption rate is low. This study uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework to identify the socio-psychological factors that influence pig farmers’ intention to adopt environmental enrichment on their farms. The TPB hypothesizes that intention is determined by three psychological constructs: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. These three constructs are derived from behavioral, normative, and control beliefs, respectively. Self-identity was added as an additional construct to explain intention. A survey with 185 farmers was conducted. We used Partial-Least-Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to identify the impact of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and self-identity on farmers’ intention to adopt environmental enrichment on their farms. We used MIMIC models to identify the most important beliefs underlying farmers’ intention to adopt environmental enrichment in their farms. Results show that the intention of farmers to adopt was mainly determined by their positive perceptions about their own capability to adopt environmental enrichment (perceived behavioral control), followed by their perceptions about the social pressure to adopt it (subjective norms), their positive evaluations of adoption (attitude), and self-identity. The most important behavioral beliefs were ‘increase productivity’, and ‘decrease animals stress’. The most important normative beliefs were ‘family’, ‘neighbor farmers’, ‘pig buyers’, and ‘experts’. The most important control belief was ‘receive bonus when selling pigs’. These results revealed important implications to design public and private interventions aimed to stimulate the adoption of animal friendly practices.

Multi-Criteria Decision Making Approach for Hybrid Operation of Wind Farms

Hybrid operation of wind farms has been in the limelight in recent years wherein the stochastic nature of wind causes market operators to choose an optimal strategy to maximize profit. The current work deals with a multi-criteria decision making approach to choose the best possible alternatives for a hybrid wind farm operation. A set of three, non-beneficial criteria, namely wind wakes, wind curtailment, and forced outages, were chosen to evaluate the best alternative. Three methods, (i) Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), (ii) the Technique for Order or Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and (iii) Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS), were applied to identify the best alternative, and the results revealed that for all three methods, borrowing deficit power from a neighboring wind farm is the best alternative. Comparative analyses in terms of the data requirement, the effect of dynamic decision matrices, and rank reversal in wind farm application have also been pioneered.

Notes and Documents: Newly Available and Processed Collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Notes and DocumentsNewly Available and Processed Collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Rachel Moloshok, HSP Archives Staff what follows are descriptions of some of the collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania that have either been acquired within the past year or more fully processed and therefore made more available and accessible to researchers. Full finding aids and catalog records for these processed collections, and many others, can be found online at https://hsp.org/collections/catalogs-research-tools/finding-aids and https://discover.hsp.org. John Cadwalader Estate Volume, 1786–96 1 volume Collection 3831 John Cadwalader was born January 10, 1742, in Trenton, New Jersey, to Dr. Thomas Cadwalader (1706–79) and Hannah Lambert (1712–86). John worked as a merchant before establishing a successful military career. During the Revolutionary War, he organized eighty-four men into the volunteer "Greens," or "Silk Stocking Company," which trained at his house in Philadelphia. After the war, he moved to Shrewsbury, Maryland, where he eventually served three terms in Maryland's House of Delegates. John died February 10, 1786, after catching pneumonia at his estate on the banks of the Sassafras River at Shrewsbury, Kent County, Maryland. The recently processed John Cadwalader Estate Volume is a ledger documenting the administration of John Cadwalader's estate. It is maintained in two back-to-back sections, one entitled "Book of memorandums, inventories, and miscellaneous transactions of the Exter [Executor] to the estate of John Cadwalader, Esqr (begun March 1786)," and the second, untitled section consisting of memoranda and receipts by the estate, beginning in November 1790. These memoranda, receipts, and other lists were maintained by the two executors of Cadwalader's estate, Philemon Dickinson and Lambert Cadwalader. Both deal largely with the administration of Shrewsbury Farm, with references to other Cadwalader holdings. [End Page 211] The volume contains details on the family's ownership of enslaved persons. In addition to general listings of the men, women, and children that were enslaved on the estate, there are, for some individuals, agreements concerning exchanges between other neighboring farms and family members. Some of these family members include John Cadwalader's daughters; Maria's husband's family, the Ringgolds; and Lambert Cadwalader's in-laws, the McCalls. These agreements contain names, dates, and profits related to the dissemination of these enslaved people. They are signed by the person receiving the enslaved persons, and either Philemon Dickinson, Lambert Cadwalader, or William Gough, the overseer. There are also a few copied out receipts from John Cadwalader's previous business transactions in the 1770s. Transcribed selections from the volume pertaining to enslaved persons managed by the estate are available online as a PDF and with the copy of the finding aid in HSP's library. The ledger also contains significant details on items owned by the family, including furniture, housewares, and livestock, especially horses. There are several pages of receipts showing mares and stallions that were sold by the estate. One of the ledger sections also details the division of the estate between John's widow, Williamina, and daughters Nancy (Anne), Betsy, and Maria, including who received what furniture and housewares. There is also a room-by-room inventory of what furniture resided in specific rooms at Shrewsbury Farm. Susan Parry Volumes, 1849–1911 1 box, 2 volumes Collection 3695 Dr. Susan Parry was born December 10, 1826, in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She was raised as a Quaker member of the Society of Friends, and she taught at the Lumberville School in the late 1840s. In 1858, she graduated from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (renamed the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania around 1867), founded in 1850 as the first medical school in the world established to train women and offer the degree of MD. There she wrote a thesis: "A Disquisition on Hygiene." She practiced medicine in Bucks County until she died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, on February 12, 1890, at the age of sixty-three. There are two volumes and one box in this recently processed collection. The first volume is a notebook, entitled "S. Parry's Book of Recipes," started in 1873, in which Parry described diseases, prescription [End Page 212...

Adoption and farmer’s perceptions of BARI Aam-3 Mango variety in selected areas of Bangladesh

The study was conducted to assess the level of BARI Aam-3 mango variety adoption, factors affecting adoption and farmer’s perceptions about this variety in four districts namely Khagrachori, Bandorban, Naogaon, and Satkhira of Bangladesh during February to March, 2018. A total of 128 BARI Aam-3 growers and 72 non-growers were selected using multi-stage random sampling technique. Logit model was used to assess the determinants of adoption. The study revealed that BARI Aam-3 was the most adopted variety (57%) than other and it covered 47.5% of the total mango production in the study areas. Most of the rice and vegetable fields are occupied by BARI Aam-3 and majority of the respondents practiced intercropping with BARI Aam-3. Family size, sex, training, and extension linkage had significant positive effect on adoption of BARI Aam-3 mango variety while age and farm size had negative effect. Three fourth (75%) of the respondents collected information about this variety from other neighbor farmers while about 43% learned from Department of Agricultural Extension office. More than half of the respondents (63%) have strong ambition to enlarge their BARI Aam-3 mango variety orchard in the future for its unique features such as non-alternate bearing and early fruiting. Climate change, price fluctuation, higher labour costs and access of Indian mango to the market prior releasing this variety were the major bottlenecks for wider adoption of this variety. The study concluded that there is an urgent need to create a sustainable market environment to ensure a better market price for the mango growers. In addition, training and extension services need to expand all over the country to increase the rate of adoption of BARI Aam-3 mango variety.
 Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.5(3): 301-311, December 2018

A Survey on Farmers’ Recognition for Multiple Use Project of Paddy Field in Korea

This study analyzed farmers’ recognition for multiple use project of paddy field in Korea. For the study, we set up several standards to choose survey regions, such as areas of food crops, self-sufficiency rate for crops and field characteristics. One hundred fifty one farmers were surveyed with questionnaires including experience with similar projects, intention for joining the project, preferred crops for the project and obstacles for joining the project. Results showed that a half of the farmers recognized similar projects while most of the farmers did not join such projects and also had no experience with upland crops except rice in paddy field. Over the half of the farmers showed positive response to the project, where the positive response increased with farmers’ recognition for need of the project and with joint participation with neighbor farmers. About a half of the farmers preferred upland crops when joining the project because of their experience with the crops and their ages. Most important obstacles for the project included labor shortage and expenses for facilities. Other obstacles included uncertainty for marketing channel of upland crops, crop loss from wild animals, decrease in price of upland crops.

Trade-offs among individual and collective performances related to crop–livestock integration among farms: a case study in southwestern France

Integrating crops and livestock is an agroecological way of farming as it enables maintaining production levels while limiting negative environmental impacts. At the farm scale, crop–livestock systems declined due to globalized markets, policies, and limited availability of workforce and skills. Exchanges of manure and crops among already specialized farms are one option to overcome these limiting factors but are still underdeveloped in the reality. This study aimed to design reality-based agroecological scenarios of integrated crops and livestock systems within a collective of seven neighboring farmers. We focused on 7 farms in southwestern France already interested in developing exchanges to achieve self-sufficiency in fertilizer and animal-feed inputs. We applied a participatory method involving the collective of farmers and a group facilitator to define the problem and generate scenarios, as codesign increases the potential for adoption among farmers. The scenarios selected were evaluated using a supply–demand balance model and a multi-criteria framework including economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Among the four alternative scenarios evaluated, the selected scenario considered both (i) the insertion of cereal–legume mixtures into crop rotations of arable farms and (ii) transfers of manure from livestock farmers to crop farmers. In this scenario, individual gross margins increased and environmental impacts decreased, but workload, logistical, and social issues, such as knowledge development, increased. Compared to more ambitious scenarios, the trade-offs between individual and collective benefits appeared acceptable and resulted in greater autonomy in decision-making at the collective level. This methodology can be applied in other contexts, in particular with other farm collectives.

SASAKAWA TECHNOLOGY A PANACEA TO MAIZE YIELD IMPROVEMENT AND MEETING THE VAGARIES OF CLIMATE CHALLENGE IN MUBI

This study determines the efficacy of Sasakawa technology to maize yield improvement and meeting the demand of the populace in terms of food crop production at the time of unpredictable weather conditions in Mubi. The field trials were conducted during the 2017 cropping season at the teaching and research farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Adamawa state University Mubi to evaluate the effect of Sasakawa Technology as a panacea to maize yield improvement and meeting the vagaries of climate change in Mubi. Mubi, located in the Northern Guinea Savannah of Nigeria. Mubi is situated between latitude 100 10’’ and 100 30’’ North of the Equator and between longitude 130 10 and 130 30’’ E of the Greenwich meridian and at an altitude of 696 m above mean sea level (MSL). Extra early white (EEW) variety of maize was obtained from Farm office of the University, were sown at three different sowing dates 19th July, 29th July and 8th August, 2018. There was a large yield difference between the Sasakawa Technology of maize production and local farmers’ output in Mubi, despite the limited opportunities to sustainability and increase in the productivity of the crop in order to adapt to vagaries of climate change. Yields recorded during the three sowing dates were 2,967kg/ha, 2,930kg/ha and 2,921kg/ha while on the neighboring farmer’s field was 1,897kg/ha. It indicated that, the Sasakawa technology used in terms of spacing of 25cm x 25cm between plants and 75cm x75cm between rows, single seed per stand and appropriate fertilizer application increased maize yield more than the neighboring farmers fields. The Sasakawa technology recorded mostly two cobs per stand, longer cobs mean lengths with maximum grain filled and the grains were significantly bigger when compared to the farmer’s fields. Even though some critics argue that, Sasakawa Global 2000 technology deals with high-external-input technologies (HEIT) which are too costly to some farmers, but the out – put out weights the input in terms of yields, economic returns and also sustained the vagaries of climatic effects due to timely sowing and maintenance of the Sasakawa technology techniques. To boost maize production in Mubi and at this time of unpredictable climate and its effects, the Sasakawa technology is recommended to be adopted by the farmers.

A genome scan for genes underlying adult body size differences between Central African hunter-gatherers and farmers.

The evolutionary and biological bases of the Central African "pygmy" phenotype, a characteristic of rainforest hunter-gatherers defined by reduced body size compared with neighboring farmers, remain largely unknown. Here, we perform a joint investigation in Central African hunter-gatherers and farmers of adult standing height, sitting height, leg length, and body mass index (BMI), considering 358 hunter-gatherers and 169 farmers with genotypes for 153,798 SNPs. In addition to reduced standing heights, hunter-gatherers have shorter sitting heights and leg lengths and higher sitting/standing height ratios than farmers and lower BMI for males. Standing height, sitting height, and leg length are strongly correlated with inferred levels of farmer genetic ancestry, whereas BMI is only weakly correlated, perhaps reflecting greater contributions of non-genetic factors to body weight than to height. Single- and multi-marker association tests identify one region and eight genes associated with hunter-gatherer/farmer status, and 24 genes associated with the height-related traits. Many of these genes have putative functions consistent with roles in determining their associated traits and the pygmy phenotype, and they include three associated with standing height in non-Africans (PRKG1, DSCAM, MAGI2). We find evidence that European height-associated SNPs or variants in linkage disequilibrium with them contribute to standing- and sitting-height determination in Central Africans, but not to the differential status of hunter-gatherers and farmers. These findings provide new insights into the biological basis of the pygmy phenotype, and they highlight the potential of cross-population studies for exploring the genetic basis of phenotypes that vary naturally across populations.

Neighbors follow early adopters under stress: panel data analysis of submergence‐tolerant rice in northern Bangladesh

AbstractThe benefits of a stress‐tolerant crop become visible under the stresses that the crop is tolerant against. We investigate the adoption of submergence‐tolerant rice in northern Bangladesh by using panel data of 461 households, interviewed in 2013 and 2015. The sample households were randomly selected in 31 villages where submergence‐tolerant rice seeds were given to a small number of farmers in each village. The results from the household fixed‐effects model indicate that submergence in the previous year increased the adoption of submergence‐tolerant rice. The adoption impact was larger among farmers who were neighbors of early seed recipients. Our results suggest that being neighbors of early seed recipients may have helped the neighboring farmers observe the benefits of the submergence‐tolerant rice under submergence. The results indicate the importance of the information flow from early recipients to neighboring farmers.

Lincoln and His Biographers

Lincoln and His Biographers Allen Carl Guelzo (bio) Abraham Lincoln would not have thanked those who have made the pile of his biographies reach up through three floors of the Ford's Theatre education center in Washington, D.C. William Henry Herndon, Lincoln's law partner for fourteen years before his election to the presidency, believed Lincoln "had a contempt for all history and biography" in general, because "he knew how it was written; he knew the motives and conscience of the writers of history and biography" and that they were more interested in plaiting laurels and painting halos than delivering the things "Lincoln wanted to know," which were "the whole truth and nothing less." He did not expect to find it at the hands of biography writers, since, as a rule, "biographies as written are false and misleading."1 Neither was Lincoln much more encouraging to people who wanted to write biographies of him. When John Locke Scripps, the coeditor of the Chicago Tribune, begged for a brief political biography to use for his presidential campaign in 1860, Lincoln at first balked. "Why, Scripps, it is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find Gray's Elegy: 'The short and simple annals of the poor.'" The material he supplied to Charles Lanman in 1858 for Lanman's Dictionary of Congress contained only enough to fill six lines in a half-column, admitting that he had "received a limited education" and had been nothing more than "at one time Postmaster of a small village."2 [End Page 239] But as in so many things Lincolnian, the substance is not always in agreement with the appearance. Even though he claimed his personal history amounted to nothing more than Thomas Gray's "short and simple annals," Lincoln was not incurious about his own ancestors, and when a political point was at stake, he would not hesitate to use his own career as an example. One of the great injustices of slavery, he maintained, was its absolute denial to the slave of any hope of economic betterment, whereas the Republican free-labor philosophy opened mobility to even the poorest—as instanced, very dramatically, by Lincoln himself: "When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there is no fixed condition of labor, for his whole life. I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat—just what might happen to any poor-man's son."3 Despite his initial hesitations, he provided not only Scripps but Jesse Fell (a political booster whom Lincoln had first met in 1834) with autobiographical pieces to be used for campaign purposes. Nor was he quite as dismissive of all biography as he sometimes sounded. The teenaged Lincoln worked at pulling "fodder at 25c per day" when rain ruined a copy of David Ramsay's The Life of George Washington (1807) he had borrowed from a neighboring farmer. [End Page 240] Speaking to the New Jersey state senate thirty-five years later, Lincoln cited the influence laid on him by his youthful reading of another Washington biography, Mason Locke Weems's A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits, of General George Washington (1802).4 He loves biography; he loves it not. Unhappily, Lincoln's first biographers were exactly the penny-dreadfuls he loathed—campaign biographies, a genre almost uniquely American and dedicated to one goal, which was motivating voters, either by a pristine presentation of the candidate's virtues to the electorate or discounting negative impressions. In all, sixteen campaign biographies of Lincoln appeared during the 1860 election season, several of them based in whole or in part on the campaign biography Scripps worked up from the outline Lincoln composed for Scripps. An entirely separate biography, commissioned by the Republican publishing house of Follett, Foster & Co. and written by the then-editor of the Ohio State Journal, William Dean Howells...

Foot and mouth disease and F.M.D. outbreak in Evros Prefecture in 2000

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) is an extremely, highly contagious, acute disease of all cloven-footed animal species. From 1994 to 2000 three FMD outbreaks occurred in Evros Prefecture and caused serious economical losses to the livestock of Evros. Particularly, in 1994 22 catde and 375 small ruminants were destroyed. In 1996, 6.250 catde, 24.261 small ruminants and 647 pigs were destroyed. Finally, in 2000, 5.383 catde, 4.405 small ruminants and 359 pigs were destroyed. All outbreaks, which occurred in Evros in 1994, in 1996 and 2000, were controlled by stamping-out of infected herds and flocks and pre-emptive culling on neighbouring and contact farms. FMD virus type Ο was isolated in 1994 and in 1996 and virus type ASIAl5 in 2000. In 2000 outbreak virus predominantly affected the catde population. All infected cattle showed clinical signs and high susceptibility in this strain of type ASIAj. Sheep, goats and pigs showed registans against this type ASIAj virus and clinical signs were found in only two flocks of sheep and in one of goats and pigs. In 2000, occurred the first and unique case of ASIAj in pings. Control measures lasted 5 months. In this review, all the symptomatology of FMD and the control measures, based on the experience of all these years, are given. Also, statistics and photo images are included.

Chlorpyrifos sparks outcry

On a summer evening in 2012, Bonnie Wirtz and her family hurried inside and shut all the windows in their rural Minnesota house when they heard the roar of a plane spraying pesticides on a neighboring farm. Moments later, the plane flew over their house. “It sounded so close we thought it was going to crash,” Wirtz says. Within seconds, their house began to fill with a white mist coming in around the air-conditioning unit. “I stumbled out coughing and I was having trouble breathing,” Wirtz recalls. Her husband rushed her and their eight-month-old son to the emergency room. Tests revealed that she had been exposed to chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic insecticide that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed twice to ban on food under the Obama Administration. The agency has since decided to allow its use to continue for at least five years. In 2013, Wirtz collected air samples using

Effect of Integrated Pest Management Training on Ugandan Small-Scale Farmers.

Small-scale farmers in developing countries use hazardous pesticides taking few or no safety measures. Farmer field schools (FFSs) teaching integrated pest management (IPM) have been shown to reduce pesticide use among trained farmers. This cross-sectional study compares pesticide-related knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP), potential exposure, and self-reported poisoning symptoms among 35 FFS farmers, 44 neighboring farmers, and 35 control farmers after an IPM intervention in Uganda (2011-2012). The FFS farmers were encouraged to teach their neighboring farmers. Data were based on standardized interviews and were analyzed using a linear trend test and logistic regression. The results showed that FFS and neighboring farmers used significantly fewer pesticide applications (P = .021) and used more safety measures. No differences were found on the hazardousness of pesticides used or self-reported symptoms. The study supports IPM as a method to reduce pesticide use and potential exposure and to improve pesticide-related KAP among small-scale farmers in developing countries.

Demonstration of pearl millet technology at Raya kobo and Gubalafto districts, North wollo zone

Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.] locally known as “Bajra” is a nutritious course grain cereal. Globally, it is grown on an area of 34.6 million ha with annual production of 28.8 million tons. Demonstration of improved variety kola 1 was conducted in 2016/17 cropping season at Gubalafto and Raya kobo districts to create demand on the pearl millet technology to farmers and development agents and thereby to assess their reactions towards the introduced technology. It was conducted on two FTC’s from kobo and Gubalafto districts. Though all agronomic practices were employed equally at both locations the performance of the variety varies significantly. The variety Kola 1 gave mean grain yield of 3.2 ton/ha and 1.8 ton/ha at Kobo and Hara respectively. The study indicated that cultivating pearl millet in moisture deficit areas can be an alternative for sustaining food security. Farmers have shown great interest and promised to adopt the technology from their neighbor farmers. Therefore technology promotions and popularization on the study and similar agro ecological areas should be carried out in collaboration with stake holders.

Planning the Collection and Transportation of Rice Straw in Nantou County, Taiwan

Abstract. The purpose of this study was to design a rice straw collection and transportation method. Four bale forms were designed for processing 75,474 tons of rice straw produced in Nantou County: large large-round bale, small large-round bale, large small-round bale, and small small-round bale. Nine trucks, individually weighing 2, 3, 3.49, 6.2, 7.5, 11, 15.5, 17, and 24 tons, were used for transportation analysis. This study proposed six hypothetical scenarios for rice straw collection and transportation. For each scenario, centralized and noncentralized transportation were implemented, in which centralized transport involves a route from various townships to neighboring farmers‘ associations to the final rice-straw treatment site, and noncentralized transport is direct delivery from various townships to the final treatment site. A geographic information system was consulted to construct a map for the locations of various townships and to assess the optimal routes for rice straw collection and transport. Considering the trucks of varying weights, the transportation costs of various rice straw delivery methods were calculated to determine the optimal collection and transportation locations. The results revealed that the optimal plant locations for rice straw processing and distribution are the rice straw production areas in Caotun Township, Nantou, Mingjian Township, and Jhushan Township. A centralized transportation of small large-round bale was the optimal method and form. The cost of rice straw collection and transportation is US$31.66 and US$20.7 per ton, respectively. A 3.49-ton truck was used for first-stage transportation, traveling an average distance of 15.9 km; a 15.5-ton truck was used for second-stage transportation, traveling an average distance of 24.9 km. Additionally, US$1.5776 million is required annually for collecting and delivering rice straws in Nantou County. In this study, a rice straw collection and transportation method was devised for Nantou County and plant establishment at the final sites for rice straw treatment was assessed. In the future, a decision-supporting system for rice straw collection and transportation can be further developed.

Revised chloropicrin use requirements impact strawberry growers unequally

Buffer zone requirements are by nature spatial and their effects are site-specific, with some fields — because of their location — more impacted than others. Using a set of strawberry fields in Ventura County that were preplant soil fumigated in 2013 as a baseline, we examined how much acreage eligible for chloropicrin fumigation would have been lost if either of two buffer zone distance regulations had been in effect: any one of the four sets of alternative distances proposed in May 2013 by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) or the buffer zone distances DPR released in January 2015. Buffer zone distances are based on several factors including the anticipated protection of human health, referred to as the percentile of protection. We find that the effects are highly dependent on the percentile of protection. From 4% to 29% of the fumigated blocks analyzed would have had an increase in buffer zone acreage depending on the percentile of protection. In those blocks, the share of total acreage that would no longer have been eligible for fumigation with chloropicrin varied from 3% to 45%. We also identify strategies that growers employed to reduce required buffer zone distances under use requirements in effect in 2013. The most frequently used strategies were using a tarp type with the lowest buffer zone requirements (“60% tarp”), extending a buffer onto a neighboring property, road and/or farm path, and reducing application rates. The results have an important policy implication: spatially defined use regulations have very different effects for different fields; aggregated industry-level analyses will miss the range of impacts on growers.

La política rural de mejoramiento social del general Maximiliano Hernández Martínez y sus contradicciones, 1932-1944

La vida de los jornaleros-colonos y estacionarios en las fincas y haciendas, entre 1920 y 1932, era paupérrima. Un ejemplo de lo mencionado es que para 1930 los jornaleroscolonos y estacionarios sin tierras eran alrededor de 50.000, solamente en la zona occidental, que representaban, de acuerdo con Jeffrey Gould y Aldo Lauria, el 18 % de la población rural del occidente del país, y quienes vivían en su mayoría en las fincas productoras de café.El aumento de este sector rural se debió a la expansión de la superficie cultivada de café, que ocasionó la reconcentración de las pequeñas propiedades de campesinos que se dedicaban a cultivos de granos básicos en pequeña escala, en fincas cafetaleras latifundistas y a las malas condiciones económicas de estos campesinos, que habían sido favorecidos con tierras durante las reformas liberales de finales del siglo XIX; que no pudieron pagar sus tierras por falta de acompañamiento técnico y económico gubernamental, y que se vieron obligados a venderlas o hipotecarlas, con cafetaleros con mayor poder adquisitivo.Entre las diferentes formas de pérdida de las pequeñas propiedades estaban las deudas contraídas con los cafetaleros y hacendados o por presiones, que obligaban a los campesinos colindantes con sus propiedades a vender sus tierras, con la promesa de que estos se quedaran en sus fincas o haciendas como colonos.