Non-agricultural Use Research Articles

Adjustments of the Pesticide Risk Index Used in Environmental Policy in Flanders.

Indicators are used to quantify the pressure of pesticides on the environment. Pesticide risk indicators typically require weighting environmental exposure by a no effect concentration. An indicator based on spread equivalents (ΣSeq) is used in environmental policy in Flanders (Belgium). The pesticide risk for aquatic life is estimated by weighting active ingredient usage by the ratio of their maximum allowable concentration and their soil halflife. Accurate estimates of total pesticide usage in the region are essential in such calculations. Up to 2012, the environmental impact of pesticides was estimated on sales figures provided by the Federal Government. Since 2013, pesticide use is calculated based on results from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). The estimation of pesticide use was supplemented with data for non-agricultural use based on sales figures of amateur use provided by industry and data obtained from public services. The Seq-indicator was modified to better reflect reality. This method was applied for the period 2009-2012 and showed differences between estimated use and sales figures of pesticides. The estimated use of pesticides based on accountancy data is more accurate compared to sales figures. This approach resulted in a better view on pesticide use and its respective environmental impact in Flanders.

AGRICULTURAL LAND MARKET IN SLOVAKIA UNDER THE NEW LAND ACQUISITION LAW

This paper discusses recent developments in the market for agricultural land in Slovakia related to the new law on land acquisition. The stated objective of this law is to protect agricultural land from non-agricultural use. We analyze land-related data as reported by sellers in the newly established Registry of offers of agricultural land administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Our results show that the regions with the most fertile soils are not the ones with the highest average land prices. Moreover, we show that the average regional prices are very sensitive to price outliers. For example, the average price for agricultural land in Slovakia is 27,200 EUR per hectare. However, this price falls down to 6,300 EUR per hectare if only observations with prices below 10,000 EUR per hectare are considered.

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Farmland Protection Policy in China

Almost two decades have passed since China first enacted legislation to protect farmland from conversion to nonagricultural use. Yet hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land are still developed to urban area each year, raising the question of whether the legislation is effective in preserving farmland from development. This paper examines the effectiveness of the Basic Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high-quality farmland from urban development in China in the first decade after it came into effect (1995-2005). The theoretical basis for this study is a spatial urban development model with a splitting equation. The empirical evaluation is conducted with georeferenced, longitudinal data on more than 2,000 counties in the country. Results indicate that the Regulation was effective in preserving farmland with high productivity potential only during the period 1995-2000. There is no evidence of effectiveness of the Regulation in protecting lands with good irrigation conditions or lands more suitable for growing major food grains. Farmland development induces the conversion of non-farmland to crop production. This substitution effect declined from 1986 to 2005 and is therefore less likely to be exaggerated by the enforcement of the dynamic balance strategy.

Possible source term of high concentrations of mecoprop-p in leachate and water quality: impact of climate change, public use and disposal

Mecoprop-p herbicide is often found in wells and water abstractions in many areas around Europe, the UK inclusive. There is a growing environmental and public health concern about mecoprop-p herbicide pollution in ground and surface water in England. Reviews suggest that extensive work has been carried out on the contribution of mecoprop-p herbicides from agricultural use whilst more work needs to be carried out on the contribution of mecoprop-p herbicide from non-agricultural use. The study covers two landfill sites in Weaver/Gowy Catchment. Mecoprop-p herbicide concentrations in the leachate quality range between 0.06 and 290 μg l−1 in cells. High concentration of mecoprop-p herbicide in the leachate quality suggests that there is a possible source term in the waste stream. This paper addresses the gap by exploring possible source terms of mecoprop-p herbicide contamination on landfill sites and evaluates the impact of public purchase, use and disposal alongside climate change on seasonal variations in mecoprop-p concentrations. Mecoprop-p herbicide was found to exceed the EU drinking water quality standards at the unsaturated zone/aquifer with observed average concentrations ranging between 0.005 and 7.96 μg l−1. A route map for mecoprop-p herbicide source term contamination is essential for mitigation and pollution management with emphasis on both consumer and producer responsibility towards use of mecoprop-p product. In addition, improvement in data collection on mecoprop-p concentrations and detailed seasonal herbicide sales for non-agricultural purposes are needed to inform the analysis and decision process.

ANALISIS KETERKAITAN PERUBAHAN LAHAN PERTANIAN TERHADAP KETAHANAN PANGAN KABUPATEN MAGELANG BERBASIS MODEL SPATIO TEMPORAL SIG

As mandated by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, agricultural land is part of the earth as a gift from God that is controlled by the state and utilized for the prosperity and welfare of the people. The agricultural land can provide great benefits in terms of economic, social, and environmental benefits. Land use conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural use can cause productivity decrease in agriculture, so it triggers a hypothesis that the decrease of agricultural land will negatively affect food security. Based on the problem, the research is conducted to assess the relationship between conversion in agricultural land use with food security using a case study of Magelang Regency (Kabupaten) in the 2009-11 period. The methods used are spatio-temporal GIS, quantitative analysis, and field calibration. The results have shown that the agricultural land area has decreased (6.31%) but the food security has not declined. It is because the food sources for Magelang Regency come from several adjacent areas. It can then be concluded that the reduction of agricultural land does not significantly affect the food security status of the study area. However, in the long run the decrease of the agricultural land will affect national food security. So, to maintain food security, agricultural land use control is necessary to prevent the unnecessary conversion of agricultural land.

China’s New Rural Land Reform ? Assessment and Prospects

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee that closed last November promised to comprehensively deepen and introduced a number of measures that seek to expand the role of the market in the economy. (1) One of the key reform areas is land - a major source of social unrest in China - on which Chinese leaders have reiterated the promise of giving more property rights to farmers while granting them more freedom to transfer, rent out, or mortgage collectively-owned rural land on the market.Does this signify the official beginning of China's new rural land reform? This article seeks to understand why the Chinese authorities are undertaking such reforms to address various land-related issues, and also to evaluate how progressive they are when compared to other land transfer experiments that have already been taking place in different parts of China. It argues that while the Third Plenum reforms point in the direction of reducing state monopoly on rural land transfer and restoring land use rights to farmers, they are nothing very new. More importantly, these reforms cannot enjoy much success unless more drastic reforms are undertaken. Such reforms include reconfiguring the power relations between local governments and farmers in a way that owners of collective land will truly secure their landuse rights, as well as a thorough fiscal and tax reform that reduces the reliance of local government on land sales.Allowing the free transfer of rural construction land for commercial purposesTo some, the Third Plenum has taken an important step forward in reforming the rural land tenure system. Among these measures, the most significant is the marketisation of rural construction which denotes collectively-owned rural land for non-agricultural use. In China, urban land is state-owned while rural land is generally collectively owned. Rural land is mainly divided into farmland and rural construction land (see Graph 1). The former operates under the household responsibility system, which was adopted in the early 1980s as the cornerstone of economic reforms, under which collectively-owned farms could be entrusted to individual farming households through long-term contracts that could in turn be leased out to other households. The transfer of rural construction on the other hand, has been strictly controlled. The Third Plenum resolution now promises to a unified market for both urban and rural construction land, a tone that removes the hesitation in the Third Plenum five years ago, when the official line was to gradually bring about unification. (2)This means that the transfer of rural construction land will no longer be restricted. Farmers, on the condition that the scale of farmland remains unchanged, will be able to transfer, rent out, and mortgage their land-use rights of rural construction land to anyone, or turn the rights into shares in large-scale farming entities - in theory, at least.Full market transaction, however, only applies to rural construction land for commercial purposes (jingyingxing jianshe yongdi ...). While the reform of the rural construction land for residential housing (zhaijidi ...), where farmers build their homes, also appeared in the resolution, it was marked by a much more cautious tone. The resolution only vows to carefully and properly promote collateralisation, guarantee, and transfer of rural housing to increase farmers' asset revenues in a few pilot regions. In these regions, farmers will be allowed to transfer their housing plots through the property market. However, unlike the reform for commercial the extent of rollout for residential housing will be much more limited, while accompanied by stricter requirements. One possible reason for the Party's caution in allowing the full marketisation of rural residential housing has to do with the massive amount of land it would otherwise make available. …

Linkages between sustainable consumption and sustainable production: some suggestions for foresight work

The authors investigate how consumption and production of agricultural products have developed in the past and could possibly evolve in the future. The main focus is on changing consumption patterns and the consequences for food security and for the pressure on natural resources. In this context, the question is raised as to how foresight work can reflect the mechanisms by which a transition towards more sustainable consumption can influence the sustainability of the production systems. The authors first analyze the main drivers of the past and future evolution of food systems and then the implications for foresight analysis. An attempt is made to identify specific issues and policies that should be further analyzed. In particular, future foresight will be challenged to incorporate the interactions between consumption and production more explicitly and to address four issues: (i) intra-national heterogeneity of diets and resulting nutritional outcomes, (ii) externalities resulting from the process of production, processing, and marketing along the product chain, (iii) competition between food and non-food uses of agricultural commodities and between agricultural and non-agricultural use of land and (iv) mechanisms by which food scarcity causes hunger and malnutrition.

SIGEXPO project: pesticides exposure level in the french context: burden of environmental exposures and domestic habits

Background:General population spent about 85 to 90 % of their time in indoor environment and higher indoor pesticides level might be related to adverse health effect. It has been suggested that the indoor exposure level to pesticides is increased by residential proximity to agricultural pesticide use, but information on overall domestic pesticides contamination is lacking in the literature. In 2012, we sampled indoor dust of 239 French houses to validate a GIS approach aiming to estimate agricultural contribution to pesticide in household dusts. Aim: To characterize domestic pesticide contamination in the Rhône-Alpes region (France) depending on type of dominant farming in surrounding fields, thus accounting for non-agricultural sources by our measurement data. Methods: We sampled 239 houses: 69 in orchards production area, 66 near corns and grains, 68 near vineyards and 36 houses in an urban area (at least 2000 meters from agricultural fields). During the main period of pesticides applications, we used a polypropylene dust trap (30 days) and isopropanol floor wipes to collect recent (7 days) and older dust (at least 6 month). Farmer and pesticides applicators were excluded from the study. Questionnaires were used to assess household characteristics and related domestic pesticide use. We conducted multi-residue laboratory analyses for 413 pesticides and 102 organic compounds in each sample. Results: 126 pesticides were detected at least one time in houses, and at least 1 in 97% of homes. Of 30 predominant compounds, 10 were non-authorized and 5 non-agricultural pesticides. Of the remaining, 9 were authorized for domestic purpose. Highest detection of agricultural-exclusive pesticides (47%) was in the homes near vineyards. Older dust samples are still under analysis. Conclusion: Our results confirmed previous studies in US assessing the household pesticides contamination from surrounding fields. However, our findings indicate non-agricultural use contributes substantially to the total contamination observed in our study homes.

Modeling patch characteristics of farmland loss for site assessment in urban fringe of Beijing, China

Farmland protection and delimitation in the urban fringe considers not only natural factors but also the spatial characters and site factors. Taking Daxing District, Beijing in China as a case study, this paper used landscape ecology and power-law methods to analyze and evaluate farmland loss during the period of 2004–2007 based on the interpretation results of SPOT5 remote sensing images in 2004 and 2007. At the patch level, we selected four landscape indices, namely patch size, shape index, the nearest neighbor distance between farmland and construction land (including residential land and other construction land), and cropping type, to evaluate the risk of farmland loss and establish a farmland site analysis indicator system. The results showed that patch size and shape index have a significant positive correlation with farmland loss, whereas the distance to construction land has a clear negative correlation with farmland loss. As regards cropping type, fallow farmland is much easier for non-agricultural use than cultivated farmland. The relative transition ratio among vegetable land, fallow farmland and cultivated farmland is 1:5.6:1. The patch size of lost farmland follows a power-law distribution, indicating that not only small parcels but also large parcels can be lost. Patch size less than 4 ha or more than 15 ha is in high loss risk, between 4 ha and 10 ha in medium loss risk, and larger than 10 ha and less than 15 ha in low risk. Farmland with a more regular shape has a higher likelihood of loss. Patch shape index less than 2.0 is in high loss risk, between 2.0 and 3.0 in medium loss risk, and larger than 3.0 in low risk. Construction land has a varying impact on farmland loss, the residential land effected distance is 1000 m, and that of the other construction land is 2000 m. This analysis showed the relationships between site factors and farmland loss, and the analysis framework can provide support and reference for farmland protection and delimitation of prime farmland in China.

Fungicide Resistance Action Committee’s (FRAC) Classification Scheme of Fungicides According to Mode of Action

This revised guide addresses management of pesticide resistance and describes the Fungicide Resistance Action Committee’s (FRAC) classification of fungicides and bactericides registered for agricultural and non-agricultural use in Florida by their modes of action. A cross-reference of common names for active ingredients, along with corresponding examples of their trade names, is also provided. Written by F.M. Fishel and M.M. Dewdney, and published by the UF Department of Agronomy, November 2012. PI94/PI131: Fungicide Resistance Action Committee's (FRAC) Classification Scheme of Fungicides According to Mode of Action (ufl.edu)

Detectable organophosphorus pesticide exposure in the blood of Nebraska and Iowa residents measured by mass spectrometry of butyrylcholinesterase adducts

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detected organophosphorus pesticide (OP) metabolites in the urine of 96% of Americans, for urine collected before the ban on nonagricultural use of OP in December 2001. It was not known whether exposure was to OP degradation products or to live OP. Our goal was to determine whether exposure was to live OP in the years 2001, 2003, and 2005. Our test for exposure was the presence of OP adducts on plasma butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) detected by mass spectrometry. We purified three lots of BChE from the pooled plasma of 600–800 individuals each, in the years 2001, 2003, and 2005. Blood donors were healthy adults living in Nebraska and Iowa, two agricultural states that grow corn and soybeans. The purified BChE was tested for the presence of OP adducts on serine 198 using MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry. Low levels of methoxyphosphate-labeled BChE were found. The amount of adducted BChE was highest (1%) in blood collected in the year 2001 and lowest (0.2%) in blood collected in the year 2005. A negative control sample of BChE purified from cord blood collected in the year 2012 had no detectable adducts. It was concluded that Nebraska and Iowa residents were exposed to very low levels of live, intact organophosphorus pesticides, and that exposure levels in the pooled samples declined after the year 2001.

Real option valuation of abandoned farmland

This paper investigates the decision-making process of an owner of abandoned farmland that is currently restricted to agricultural use but will be available for nonagricultural use in the future. I make a real option valuation of the abandoned farmland taking prospective land conversion into consideration. Results from the model calibration demonstrate that a slight probability of land conversion greatly increases the land value and discourages the owner from cultivating the land. Further, the results show that a small gap in the anticipation of land conversion prevents the owner from selling or leasing the land to a more efficient farmer.

Factors affecting farmland prices in the Czech Republic

The spatial variability of farmland prices is determined by factors reflecting agricultural use, and also by location-specific characteristics, which are crucial to the conversion of farmland to non-farming uses. In co-operation with experienced real-estate brokers, we collected data from 286 transactions carried out in 2008. We identified factors to be analyzed at the parcel scale and tested their effect on the variability of farmland prices in the Czech Republic using general linear modeling. Our results indicate that the most powerful factor in explaining the sale price per square metre was proximity to a settlement, and significantly higher prices were found close to existing built-up areas. The next most powerful factors were: municipality population, travel time to the capital city, accessibility of the parcel, and natural soil fertility. The results have been interpreted to determine the threshold values for significant factors that support future non-agricultural use of farmland and significantly raise current farmland prices. The values supporting non-agricultural use of farmland are proximity to a settlement (up to 100m), proximity to a larger municipality (above 5000 inhabitants), short travel time to the capital city (up to 1h) and accessibility to the parcel via the transportation network.

Explaining Land Use Change in a Guangdong County: The Supply Side of the Story

AbstractThe conversion of land to non-agricultural use in China has often been attributed to the demand for land arising from urbanization, that is, a growing urban population and the shift from agricultural to industrial activity. With a focus on Sihui 四会, a county in Guangdong, this study explains land use conversion from an alternative perspective: by looking at the supply of agricultural land for conversion and what determines this supply. It gives precedence to the role of the central actors in the process – local officials – and suggests that the extent to which agricultural land is converted for non-agricultural purposes is determined by an array of structural and agential factors, including the fiscal and land resources at the disposal of local officials, the incentive structure and macro-processes which influence their decision.

Harvesting the sun: New estimations of the maximum population of planet Earth

The maximum population, also called Earth's carrying capacity, is the maximum number of people that can live on the food and other resources available on planet Earth. Previous investigations estimated the maximum carrying capacity as large as about 1 trillion people under the assumption that photosynthesis is the limiting process. Here we use a present state-of-the-art dynamic global vegetation model with managed planetary land surface, Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land (LPJmL), to calculate the yields of the most productive crops on a global 0.5° × 0.5° grid. Using the 2005 crop distribution the model predicts total harvested calories that are sufficient for the nutrition of 11.4 billion people. We define scenarios where humankind uses the whole land area for agriculture, saves the rain forests and the boreal evergreen forests or cultivates only pasture to feed animals. Every scenario is run in an extreme version with no allowance for urban and recreational needs and in two soft versions with a certain area per person for non-agricultural use. We find that there are natural limits of the maximum carrying capacity which are independent of any increase in agricultural productivity, if non-agricultural land use is accounted for. Using all land planet Earth can sustain 282 billion people. The save-forests-scenario yields 150 billion people. The scenario that cultivates only pasture to feed animals yields 96 billion people. Nevertheless, we should always have in mind that all our calculated numbers for the carrying capacity refer to extreme scenarios where humankind may only vegetate on this planet. Our numbers are considerably higher than the general median estimate of upper bounds of human population found in the literature in the order of 10 billion.

Market efficiency and welfare effects of inter-sectoral water allocation in South Africa

The need for increased agricultural production to meet the growing demand for food, coupled with concerns for environmental sustainability, economic growth and poverty reduction has increased demand on the already scarce water in South Africa. At the same time, because of agriculture's minimal contribution, compared to the industrial and mining sectors, to South Africa's GDP and employment, the call to reallocate water from agriculture to non-agricultural use has been intensified. This study updates the 1998 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for South Africa and uses the computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of water reallocation from agriculture to the non-agricultural sectors on output growth, value added at factor cost, which captures the payments from the production sectors to the factors of production, and households' welfare. Using different water reallocation scenarios, the simulation results indicate that water reallocation from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors beyond the level of a market allocation scenario will lead to a decline in sectoral output and a significant deterioration in the welfare of poor households. It thus undermines development efforts aimed at reducing the existing level of poverty in the country.

Geographical characteristics of China’s wetlands derived from remotely sensed data

In this paper, we report the first wetland mapping of the entire China using Landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) data. These data were obtained from the Global Land Cover Facility at the University of Maryland spanning from 1999 to 2002. A total of 597 scenes of Landsat images were georeferenced and mosaiced. Manual image interpretation of satellite images was aided with elevation data, soil data, land cover/land use data and Google Earth. The minimum mapping unit is 10 pixel × 10 pixel, equivalent to 9 ha. The aim of our first round of mapping was only targeted at the boundary delineation of any type of wetland except those wetlands that are under agricultural use (i.e., paddy fields), which has already been well mapped by others. Our interpretation results indicate that a total of 359478 km2 of wetlands are of non-agricultural use. Among our preliminarily mapped wetland, 339353 km2 are inland wetland, 2786 km2 are non-agricultural artificial wetland, and 17609 km2 are coastal wetland. Because low-tide is rarely captured in satellite images, an under-estimation of coastal wetland is inevitable. We conducted some statistics based on our mapped wetlands and compared them with those previously obtained from a number of sources including a land cover/land use map made with satellite images during the late 1990s and early 2000s, a marshland map developed in approximately the same period, survey data of coastal wetland in early 1980s, and area data for approximately 400 larger patches of marshland in China compiled in 1996. Because some inconsistencies exist in the guidelines of those different wetland surveys, difference in area is expected. Some further comparison indicates that the wetland distributions derived from the preliminary wetland map are reasonable and more objective than other sources. The mapping process also indicated that the method adopted by us was efficient and cost-effective. We also found that in order to ensure comparability of the wetland maps developed at different times, a set of standard guidelines on the wetland categories to be mapped, and the mapping methods to be used must be well conceived, developed and effectively employed. We carried out some initial geographical analysis on the distribution of wetlands.

Future cereal production in China: The interaction of climate change, water availability and socio-economic scenarios

Food production in China is a fundamental component of the national economy and driver of agricultural policy. Sustaining and increasing output to meet growing demand faces significant challenges including climate change, increasing population, agricultural land loss and competing demands for water. Recent warming in China is projected to accelerate by climate models with associated changes in precipitation and frequency of extreme events. How changes in cereal production and water availability due to climate change will interact with other socio-economic pressures is poorly understood. By linking crop and water simulation models and two scenarios of climate (derived from the Regional Climate Model PRECIS) and socio-economic change (downscaled from IPCC SRES A2 and B2) we demonstrate that by the 2040s the absolute effects of climate change are relatively modest. The interactive effects of other drivers are negative, leading to decreases in total production of −18% (A2) and −9% (B2). Outcomes are highly dependent on climate scenario, socio-economic development pathway and the effects of CO 2 fertilization on crop yields which may almost totally offset the decreases in production. We find that water availability plays a significant limiting role on future cereal production, due to the combined effects of higher crop water requirements (due to climate change) and increasing demand for non-agricultural use of water (due to socio-economic development). Without adaptation, per capita cereal production falls in all cases, by up to 40% of the current baseline. By simulating the effects of three adaptation scenarios we show that for these future scenarios China is able to maintain per capita cereal production, given reasonable assumptions about policies on land and water management and progress in agricultural technology. Our results are optimistic because PRECIS simulates much wetter conditions than a multi-model average, the CO 2 crop yield response function is highly uncertain and the effects of extreme events on crop growth and water availability are likely to be underestimated.

Stochastic uncertainties and sensitivities of a regional-scale transport model of nitrate in groundwater

Groundwater quality management relies more and more on models in recent years. These models are used to predict the risk of groundwater contamination for various land uses. This paper presents an assessment of uncertainties and sensitivities to input parameters for a regional model. The model had been set up to improve and facilitate the decision-making process between stakeholders and in a groundwater quality conflict. The stochastic uncertainty and sensitivity analysis comprised a Monte Carlo simulation technique in combination with a Latin hypercube sampling procedure. The uncertainty of the calculated concentrations of nitrate leached into groundwater was assessed for the various combinations of land use, soil type, and depth of the groundwater table in a vulnerable, sandy region in The Netherlands. The uncertainties in the shallow groundwater were used to assess the uncertainty of the nitrate concentration in the abstracted groundwater. The confidence intervals of the calculated nitrate concentrations in shallow groundwater for agricultural land use functions did not overlap with those of non-agricultural land use such as nature, indicating significantly different nitrate leaching in these areas. The model results were sensitive for almost all input parameters analyzed. However, the NSS is considered pretty robust because no shifts in uncertainty between factors occurred between factors towards systematic changes in fertilizer and manure inputs of the scenarios. In view of these results, there is no need to collect more data to allow science based decision-making in this planning process. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bottom-up uncertainty estimates of global ammonia emissions from global agricultural production systems

Here we present an uncertainty analysis of NH 3 emissions from agricultural production systems based on a global NH 3 emission inventory with a 5×5 min resolution. Of all results the mean is given with a range (10% and 90% percentile). The uncertainty range for the global NH 3 emission from agricultural systems is 27–38 (with a mean of 32) Tg NH 3-N yr −1, N fertilizer use contributing 10–12 (11) Tg yr −1 and livestock production 16–27 (21) Tg yr −1. Most of the emissions from livestock production come from animal houses and storage systems (31–55%); smaller contributions come from the spreading of animal manure (23–38%) and grazing animals (17–37%). This uncertainty analysis allows for identifying and improving those input parameters with a major influence on the results. The most important determinants of the uncertainty related to the global agricultural NH 3 emission comprise four parameters (N excretion rates, NH 3 emission rates for manure in animal houses and storage, the fraction of the time that ruminants graze and the fraction of non-agricultural use of manure) specific to mixed and landless systems, and total animal stocks. Nitrogen excretion rates and NH 3 emission rates from animal houses and storage systems are shown consistently to be the most important parameters in most parts of the world. Input parameters for pastoral systems are less relevant. However, there are clear differences between world regions and individual countries, reflecting the differences in livestock production systems.