WorldWideScience

Sample records for sub-directorate agricultural production

  1. Institutions and Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Lilyan E. Fulginiti; Richard K. Perrin; Bingxin Yu

    2005-01-01

    Agricultural productivity in 41 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 1960 to 1999 is examined by estimating a semi-nonparametric Fourier production frontier. Over the four decades the estimated rate of productivity change was 0.83% per year, although the average rate from 1985-99 was a strong 1.90% per year. Former UK colonies exhibited significantly higher productivity gains than others, while Liberia and countries that had been colonies of Portugal or Belgium exhibited net reductions in ...

  2. DETERMINANTS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA: 1961-2003

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olajide Abraham Ajao

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available This study examined changes in agricultural productivity in Sub-Sahara Africa countries in the context of diverse institutional arrangements using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA. From a time series which consists of information on agricultural production and means of production were obtained from FAO AGROSTAT and rainfall data from Steve O’Connell data base. The information was for a 43-year period (1961-2003; DEA method was used to measure Malmquist index of total factor productivity. A decomposition of TFP measures revealed that the observed increase in the TFP in the sub–Sahara Africa agriculture is due to technological change rather than efficiency change which is the main constrained of achieving higher level of TFP during the reference period. The study further examined the effect of land quality, malaria, education and selected governance indicators such as, control of corruption and government effectiveness on productivity growth. All the variables included in the model are significant with the exception of government effectiveness

  3. Sub-critical water as a green solvent for production of valuable materials from agricultural waste biomass: A review of recent work

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Shitu

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Agricultural waste biomass generated from agricultural production and food processing industry are abundant, such as durian  peel, mango peel, corn straw, rice bran, corn shell, potato peel and many more. Due to low commercial value, these wastes are disposed in landfill, which if not managed properly may cause environmental problems. Currently, environmental laws and regulations pertaining to the pollution from agricultural waste streams by regulatory agencies are stringent and hence the application of toxic solvents during processing has become public concern. Recent development in valuable materials extraction from the decomposition of agricultural waste by sub-critical water treatment from the published literature was review. Physico-chemical characteristic (reaction temperature, reaction time and solid to liquid ratio of the sub-critical water affecting its yield were also reviewed. The utilization of biomass residue from agriculture, forest wood production and from food and feed processing industry may be an important alternative renewable energy supply. The paper also presents future research on sub-critical water.

  4. Constraints to Agricultural Mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Adeyinka Odunsi

    Key words: food, constraints, mechanization, Sub-Saharan Africa, food security. Introduction ... ensure all-year-round food production. Agricultural .... her citizens to travel to the United States to ... downsize in the intake of students into these.

  5. Institutional Differences and Agricultural Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Asgari, Mahdi; Nogueira, Lia

    2013-01-01

    Countries successful in achieving growth and equity throughout their development process could provide continuing gross flow of resources to agriculture in the form of technical, educational, and financial elements combined with proper institutions and policies to increase agricultural productivity. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of institutional differences in governance, health and markets on the overall agricultural performance of Sub-Saharan Africa countries. Gove...

  6. A Spatial Data Model Desing For The Management Of Agricultural Data (Farmer, Agricultural Land And Agricultural Production)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taşkanat, Talha; İbrahim İnan, Halil

    2016-04-01

    Since the beginning of the 2000s, it has been conducted many projects such as Agricultural Sector Integrated Management Information System, Agriculture Information System, Agricultural Production Registry System and Farmer Registry System by the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock and the Turkish Statistical Institute in order to establish and manage better agricultural policy and produce better agricultural statistics in Turkey. Yet, it has not been carried out any study for the structuring of a system which can meet the requirements of different institutions and organizations that need similar agricultural data. It has been tried to meet required data only within the frame of the legal regulations from present systems. Whereas the developments in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and standardization, and Turkey National GIS enterprise in this context necessitate to meet the demands of organizations that use the similar data commonly and to act in terms of a data model logic. In this study, 38 institutions or organization which produce and use agricultural data were detected, that and thanks to survey and interviews undertaken, their needs were tried to be determined. In this study which is financially supported by TUBITAK, it was worked out relationship between farmer, agricultural land and agricultural production data and all of the institutions and organizations in Turkey and in this context, it was worked upon the best detailed and effective possible data model. In the model design, UML which provides object-oriented design was used. In the data model, for the management of spatial data, sub-parcel data model was used. Thanks to this data model, declared and undeclared areas can be detected spatially, and thus declarations can be associated to sub-parcels. Within this framework, it will be able to developed agricultural policies as a result of acquiring more extensive, accurate, spatially manageable and easily updatable farmer and

  7. Rainwater harvesting and management in rainfed agricultural systems in Sub-Saharan Africa - A review

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Biazin, B.; Sterk, G.; Temesgen, M.; Abdulkedir, A.; Stroosnijder, L.

    2012-01-01

    Agricultural water scarcity in the predominantly rainfed agricultural system of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is more related to the variability of rainfall and excessive non-productive losses, than the total annual precipitation in the growing season. Less than 15% of the terrestrial precipitation

  8. Sub-Saharan agriculture and migrations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea Giordano

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available In Sub-Saharan Africa, the rural population accounts for 70% of the total population and the family farming for 80% of all agricultural enterprises. It would seem logical to think that an unprofitable agriculture is responsible for the migration phenomenon. This is in part certainly true, but numerous other causes contribute to the phenomenon. However considering the current sub-Saharan situation, family farming structured in cooperatives still remains the most suitable land management model to achieve social, economic and ecological integration. On the contrary, we have to note that the commercial agriculture with the monocultures and in the recent past the Green Revolution and the GMOs have not achieved this integration which is fundamental for development. The migratory phenomenon (internal and external to Africa with its many causes is part of a complex framework where in the background the low profitability of family farming and the precarious availability of arable land impend with the inherent conflicting situations. The proposals presented in the paper concern the management and technical enhancement of the family farming, with the hope that they will be supported by local Governments, International Organizations and the NGO. We are conscious that what is indicated in the proposals will certainly not stop the migration phenomenon but could make it more aware and hence reduce it. In the conclusion is reaffirmed the role of cooperatives as main actors for implementing managerial and technological innovations and therefore for the development of agriculture and consequently for the geo-political stabilization of the sub-Saharan area.

  9. Returns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975–2014

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pardey, Philip G.; Andrade, Robert S.; Hurley, Terrance M.; Rao, Xudong; Liebenberg, Frikkie G.

    2016-01-01

    Research-enabled growth in agricultural productivity is pivotal to sub-Saharan Africa's overall economic growth prospects. Yet, investments in research and development (R&D) targeted to many national food and agricultural economies throughout Africa are fragile and faltering. To gain insight

  10. Innovation in Agriculture - a Way for Romanian Farmers to Adjust Production to Market Requirements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Manuela Dora Orboi

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available One of the main problems of the world in the coming years is food security. The main problem of agriculture in the future is not only to produce more, but to do so in a sustainable way. European Innovation Partnership called "Productivity and sustainability of agriculture" aims to provide a working interface between agriculture, bio-economy, science and other disciplines at national, regional and EU level. European Innovation Partnership is a new concept that was introduced in Strategy Europe 2020 of the European Commission. In this document, the Commission underlines the role of research and innovation as key elements in adapting to future challenges of the European Union. This partnership will also serve as a catalyst to increase the effectiveness of actions related to innovation supported through rural development policy, EU research and innovation. It has been identified two main objectives for the European Innovation Partnership: promoting productivity and efficiency of agriculture and durable agriculture sustainability in all Member States. It aims to create a better cooperation between research and agricultural practice, namely farmers. Through National Program for Rural Development 2014 - 2020, can be financed such initiatives, through Measure 16, sub-16.1 - Support for the establishment and operation of operational groups of the EIP for agricultural productivity and sustainability and sub-16.2 - Support for pilot projects and development of new products, practices, processes and technologies. The purpose of these sub-measures is to support the establishment of operational groups between partners coming from research: research institutes, research stations or centers, higher education institutions that have research in agriculture or which can be applied in agriculture and agricultural producers (farmers, companies, cooperatives and producer groups. Development and innovation activities would enable farmers to capitalize on joint the

  11. Multi-Factor Impact Analysis of Agricultural Production in Bangladesh with Climate Change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruane, Alex C.; Major, David C.; Yu, Winston H.; Alam, Mozaharul; Hussain, Sk. Ghulam; Khan, Abu Saleh; Hassan, Ahmadul; Al Hossain, Bhuiya Md. Tamim; Goldberg, Richard; Horton, Radley M.; hide

    2012-01-01

    Diverse vulnerabilities of Bangladesh's agricultural sector in 16 sub-regions are assessed using experiments designed to investigate climate impact factors in isolation and in combination. Climate information from a suite of global climate models (GCMs) is used to drive models assessing the agricultural impact of changes in temperature, precipitation, carbon dioxide concentrations, river floods, and sea level rise for the 2040-2069 period in comparison to a historical baseline. Using the multi-factor impacts analysis framework developed in Yu et al. (2010), this study provides new sub-regional vulnerability analyses and quantifies key uncertainties in climate and production. Rice (aman, boro, and aus seasons) and wheat production are simulated in each sub-region using the biophysical Crop Environment REsource Synthesis (CERES) models. These simulations are then combined with the MIKE BASIN hydrologic model for river floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Basins, and the MIKE21Two-Dimensional Estuary Model to determine coastal inundation under conditions of higher mean sea level. The impacts of each factor depend on GCM configurations, emissions pathways, sub-regions, and particular seasons and crops. Temperature increases generally reduce production across all scenarios. Precipitation changes can have either a positive or a negative impact, with a high degree of uncertainty across GCMs. Carbon dioxide impacts on crop production are positive and depend on the emissions pathway. Increasing river flood areas reduce production in affected sub-regions. Precipitation uncertainties from different GCMs and emissions scenarios are reduced when integrated across the large GBM Basins' hydrology. Agriculture in Southern Bangladesh is severely affected by sea level rise even when cyclonic surges are not fully considered, with impacts increasing under the higher emissions scenario.

  12. Agricultural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Role of the Multiplier A Literature Review

    OpenAIRE

    Snodgrass, Donald

    2014-01-01

    In the coming decades, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) could see a major humanitarian crisis. If rapid population growth continues and agricultural productivity rises slowly or not at all,large increases in the working-age population and daunting problems of food supply, poverty,and underemployment will result. Lowered population growth, job creation, and higher agricultural productivity are all needed to avert impending disaster. If a way can be found to bring about substantial increases in small f...

  13. CO{sub 2} neutral steam production for the production of bioethanol; CO{sub 2}-neutrale Dampferzeugung fuer die Bioethanolproduktion

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wetter, Christof; Bruegging, Elmar; Baumkoetter, Daniel [Fachhochschule Muenster (Germany)

    2011-10-15

    Conventional plants for the production of bioethanol use fossil fuels such as heating oil or lignite for the supply of process energy. The authors of the contribution under consideration report on a tightly connection of an agricultural company with a biogas plant with a distillery by means an energy center consisting of two cogeneration plants and a steam generator. With this, a CO{sub 2} neutral fuel is produced from a CO{sub 2} neutral vapor.

  14. Agricultural R&D, technology and productivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piesse, J; Thirtle, C

    2010-09-27

    The relationships between basic and applied agricultural R&D, developed and developing country R&D and between R&D, extension, technology and productivity growth are outlined. The declining growth rates of public R&D expenditures are related to output growth and crop yields, where growth rates have also fallen, especially in the developed countries. However, growth in output value per hectare has not declined in the developing countries and labour productivity growth has increased except in the EU. Total factor productivity has generally increased, however it is measured. The public sector share of R&D expenditures has fallen and there has been rapid concentration in the private sector, where six multinationals now dominate. These companies are accumulating intellectual property to an extent that the public and international institutions are disadvantaged. This represents a threat to the global commons in agricultural technology on which the green revolution has depended. Estimates of the increased R&D expenditures needed to feed 9 billion people by 2050 and how these should be targeted, especially by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), show that the amounts are feasible and that targeting sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia can best increase output growth and reduce poverty. Lack of income growth in SSA is seen as the most insoluble problem.

  15. Returns to food and agricultural R&D investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1975-2014.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pardey, Philip G; Andrade, Robert S; Hurley, Terrance M; Rao, Xudong; Liebenberg, Frikkie G

    2016-12-01

    Research-enabled growth in agricultural productivity is pivotal to sub-Saharan Africa's overall economic growth prospects. Yet, investments in research and development (R&D) targeted to many national food and agricultural economies throughout Africa are fragile and faltering. To gain insight into what could be driving this trend, this article updates, summarizes and reassesses the published evidence on the returns to African agricultural R&D. Based on a compilation of 113 studies published between 1975 and 2014 spanning 25 countries, the reported internal rates of return ( IRRs ) to food and agricultural research conducted in or of direct consequence for sub-Saharan Africa averaged 42.3%py. In addition to the 376 IRR estimates, the corresponding 129 benefit-cost ratios ( BCRs ) averaged 30.1. Most (96.5%) of the returns-to-research evaluations are of publicly performed R&D, and the majority (87.6%) of the studies were published in the period 1990-2009. The large dispersion in the reported IRRs and BCRs makes it difficult to discern meaningful patterns in the evidence. Moreover, the distribution of IRRs is heavily (positively) skewed, such that the median value (35.0%py) is well below the mean, like it is for research done elsewhere in the world (mean 62.4%py; median 38.0%py). Around 78.5% of the evaluations relate to the commodity-specific consequences of agricultural research, while 5.5% report on the returns to an "all agriculture" aggregate. The weight of commodity-specific evaluation evidence is not especially congruent with the composition of agricultural production throughout Africa, nor, to the best that can be determined, the commodity orientation of public African agricultural R&D.

  16. Labor productivity and employment gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCullough, Ellen B

    2017-02-01

    Drawing on a new set of nationally representative, internationally comparable household surveys, this paper provides an overview of key features of structural transformation - labor allocation and labor productivity - in four African economies. New, micro-based measures of sector labor allocation and cross-sector productivity differentials describe the incentives households face when allocating their labor. These measures are similar to national accounts-based measures that are typically used to characterize structural change. However, because agricultural workers supply far fewer hours of labor per year than do workers in other sectors in all of the countries analyzed, productivity gaps shrink by half, on average, when expressed on a per-hour basis. Underlying the productivity gaps that are prominently reflected in national accounts data are large employment gaps, which call into question the productivity gains that laborers can achieve through structural transformation. Furthermore, agriculture's continued relevance to structural change in Sub-Saharan Africa is highlighted by the strong linkages observed between rural non-farm activities and primary agricultural production.

  17. Potential Land Mapping for Agricultural Extentification in Mengwi Sub-district to Support Food Balance in Badung Regency, Indonesia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Made Trigunasih, Ni; Lanya, Indayati; Ratna Adi, I. G. P.; Hutauruk, Jeremia; Feronika

    2017-12-01

    The availability of agricultural land for food crops, especially in Bali, is rapidly declining every year. The availability of rice fields in Badung regency, especially in Mengwi Sub-district until 2040 is no longer exist, this means that Mengwi Sub-district has lost the rice fields. The existence of land conversion will affect food availability for the country, so there will be food deficit. The food balance in Badung Regency in 2015 with Cultivation Index (IP) and initial productivity in each Sub-district showed a food deficit of 32,843.44 tons, then after increasing IP of 2,5 the productivity in Kecamatan Petang and Kuta at 7 tons / ha, and Abiansemal, Mengwi and North Kuta Sub-districts with 8 tons / ha which indicate a surplus in 2020 and 2030 respectively of 25,155.19 tons, and 3,401.79 tons. But in 2040 and 2050 there was a food deficiency of 18,434.78 tons and 11,824.82 tons respectively. Considering that productivity improvement efforts cannot rely solely on intensification approaches, but also need to be done with extensification or expansion of agricultural areas to support food production. This research was conducted in Mengwi Sub-district, Badung Regency. Mengwi Sub-district consists of 20 villages. The objectives of this research are: (1) to map potential land that can be converted to agricultural land of food crops, and (2) to know the amount of food demand to supply food balance in Badung Regency in 2040. Research methodology includes (1) preliminary study, (2) interpretation of satellite images, (3) mapping and measurement of land area, and (4) calculation of additional food availability. The results indicate that the potential land that can be converted to agricultural land for food crops is 132 ha, consists of 128.51 ha of mixed plantation and 3.49 ha of bare land/bush. The result of additional land produced 1601.73 tons of rice that increased the food availability in Mengwi Sub-district to 45425.7 tons. The addition of surplus in 2040 in Mengwi

  18. Agricultural Commodity Price Shocks and their Effect on Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Addison, Tony; Ghoshray, Atanu

    2014-01-01

    Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper quantifies the impact of agricultural commodity price shocks using a near vector autoregressive model. The novel aspect of this model is that we define an auxiliary variable that can potentially capture the definition of a price shock that allows us to determine whether the response of per capita Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in sub-Sahara...

  19. CO/sub 2/ emission and agricultural productivity in southeast asian region: a pooled mean group estimation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Islam, M.; Kazi, M.

    2014-01-01

    Frequent natural calamities, extreme climatic events and unexpected seasonal changes are the obvious examples of global warming. Carbon emissions by industrial units all over the world are believed to be the major contributor of the global warming that can lead to reduced agricultural productivity. This paper examines the impact of CO emission on agricultural productivity in Southeast Asian countries. It investigates the dynamic relationship between CO emission (along with other control-variables) and agricultural output using panel data set comprising data from Southeast Asian countries. Following the dynamic heterogeneous panel techniques developed by Pesaran and Shin (1999) for estimating the short- run and long-run effects using autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model in the error correction form, the study then estimated the empirical model based on pooled mean group (PMG) estimator. The study found that increased CO emission resulted in higher agricultural productivity because of the fact that farmers around the globe quickly adapt to climate change. In addition, use of submersible pump and other capital machineries significantly increased agricultural yield and led to reduced dependency on human capital, while use of chemical fertilizers increased productivity in short-run but had a harmful impact in the long-run. (author)

  20. Operating room nursing directors' influence on anesthesia group operating room productivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masursky, Danielle; Dexter, Franklin; Nussmeier, Nancy A

    2008-12-01

    Implementation of initiatives to increase anesthesia group productivity depends not just on anesthesia groups, but on operating room (OR) nursing administration. OR nursing directors may encourage organizational change based on the needs of their hospitals and nurses. These changes may differ from those that would increase the anesthesia group's productivity. We assessed reward structures using (A) letters of nomination for the "OR Manager of the Year" award offered annually by the publication OR Manager, and (B) data from a salary/career survey of OR directors by the same publication. (A) There were 164 nomination letters submitted from 2004 through 2007 for 45 nominees. The letters contained n = 2659 full sentences and n = 50,821 words. We systematically created a list of 36 terms related to finance, profit, and productivity. We also analyzed the frequency of use of these terms relative to the use of the 15 most common relationship-oriented terms (e.g., compassion, encourage, mentor, and respect). (B) The salary/career survey's questions relevant to anesthesia group productivity had responses from 303 US OR directors, 97% of whom were nurses. We tested the strength of the relationship between the budget responsibility of the OR nursing director and his or her annual salary. (A) 2.6% of sentences in the nomination letters included at least one term related to profit and productivity (95% confidence interval 2.0%-3.2%). Relationship-oriented terms were 9.0 times more prevalent (95% confidence interval 7.1-11.4). (B) There was statistically significant positive proportionality between the OR nursing director's operational budget (including personnel) and his or her salary (Pearson r = 0.64, P time and OR nursing labor costs. Resulting decisions can differ from those that would increase the productivity (profit) of the anesthesia group. Anesthesia groups need to champion initiatives to increase anesthesia productivity, while being sensitive to institutional

  1. Bioconversion of Agricultural By-Products to Lysin by brevibacterium flavum and physico-chemical optimization for hyper-production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Irshad, S.; Hashmi, A. S.; Babar, M. E.; Awan, A. R.; Anjum, A. A.; Javed, M. M.

    2015-01-01

    Poultry and agriculture industry has a great role in the development of food sector in Pakistan. Whole of the Lysine required for poultry feed is imported to fulfil the desired dietary needs. Present study was designed to utilize different agricultural by-products like molasses, wheat bran, rice polishing and corn steep liquor. Different Physico-Chemical parameters were optimized to have hyper-production of Lysine through fermentation by using Brevibacterium flavum as a fermentative agent. From wheat bran, rice polishing and molasses (as best carbon source), significantly high concentrations of lysine (10.4 g/L) after 72h of incubation was observed with molasses (4 percentage) with 3 percentage (v/v) inoculum size at 30 degree C and pH 7. Among different nitrogen sources, 0.25 percentage (NH/sub 4/)2SO/sub 4/ showed significantly (P< 0.05) high yield of Lysine (16.89 g/L). Addition of different optimum levels of ionic salts; 4 percentage CaCO/sub 3/, 0.4 percentage MgSO/sub 4/.7H/sub 2/O, 0.1 percentage NaCl and 0.2 percentage KH/sub 2/PO/sub 4/ gave significantly (P< 0.05) higher quantity of Lysine 19.01 g/L. Inclusion of 0.6 percentage corn steep liquor and 0.4 mg/100mL biotin significantly (P< 0.05) raised the Lysine from 19.4 g/L - 19.45 g/L. The presence of Lysine in fermented broth was detected by TLC. Thus a cheap and practical bioprocess of Lysine production was concluded, that can be exploited commercially to save foreign exchange. (author)

  2. Agriculture and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia

    OpenAIRE

    Massoud Karshenas

    2000-01-01

    This paper is a comparative study of the role of agriculture in economic development in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Popular notions of economic duality and agricultural squeeze in sub-Saharan Africa are re-examined, and new explanations in terms of agrarian structures and resource availabilities are put forward to account for the apparent economic duality in that continent. Comparison with surplus labour economies of Asia highlights the constraints posed by the prevailing agrarian structures...

  3. Rational allocation of agricultural production in the region

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Grigorii Mikhailovich Semyashkin

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The paper proposes an original approach to determining the optimal allocation of agricultural production in the region; the approach includes the methodological substantiation of the necessity to differentiate consumers when addressing food security issues in the region. It was proposed to allocate three levels: level 1 – the provision of food to socially vulnerable layers, level 2 – the provision with food at the subsistence level, and level 3 – the provision of the total population of the region with food. A preliminary forecast was made for each municipality; it analyzed possible changes in the number of the socially vulnerable up to 2020; in accordance with medical standards and norms of the subsistence level the volumes of food were calculated, which in turn were compared with the actual production output. The difference between the actual volume and the volume of evidence-based requirements represented the very increase in the volume of production, the achievement of which requires certain investments on the basis of capital-output ratio. After that the regional market was divided into three sub-regional markets depending on distance, number of consumers and suppliers. This allowed us to calculate the amount of transport costs based on the type and lot size of the transported product, taking into account the distance to each sub-market. As a criterion of transportation expediency we took into account the share of transport costs in the price of the product not exceeding 30%. Otherwise, it is required to concentrate the production in order to increase the lot transported or to carry out a deeper processing of the product. The proposed methodology served as the basis for choosing the most effective option of spatial location of agricultural production

  4. Strengthening Agricultural Education and Training in Sub-Saharan Africa from an Innovation Systems Perspective: A Case Study of Mozambique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Kristin E.; Ekboir, Javier; Spielman, David J.

    2008-01-01

    This paper examines how post-secondary agricultural education and training (AET) in sub-Saharan Africa can contribute to agricultural development by strengthening the capacity to innovate--to introduce new products and processes that are socially or economically relevant to smallholder farmers and other agents. Using the AET system in Mozambique…

  5. Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thornton, Philip K; Jones, Peter G; Ericksen, Polly J; Challinor, Andrew J

    2011-01-13

    Agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa faces daunting challenges, which climate change and increasing climate variability will compound in vulnerable areas. The impacts of a changing climate on agricultural production in a world that warms by 4°C or more are likely to be severe in places. The livelihoods of many croppers and livestock keepers in Africa are associated with diversity of options. The changes in crop and livestock production that are likely to result in a 4°C+ world will diminish the options available to most smallholders. In such a world, current crop and livestock varieties and agricultural practices will often be inadequate, and food security will be more difficult to achieve because of commodity price increases and local production shortfalls. While adaptation strategies exist, considerable institutional and policy support will be needed to implement them successfully on the scale required. Even in the 2°C+ world that appears inevitable, planning for and implementing successful adaptation strategies are critical if agricultural growth in the region is to occur, food security be achieved and household livelihoods be enhanced. As part of this effort, better understanding of the critical thresholds in global and African food systems requires urgent research.

  6. Greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions and mitigation options from livestock production in peri-urban agriculture

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wei, S.; Bai, Z.H.; Chadwick, D.; Hou, Y.; Qin, W.; Zhao, Z.Q.; Jiang, R.F.; Ma, L.

    2018-01-01

    Livestock production in peri-urban areas constitutes an important sub-sector of the agricultural production system in China, and contributes to environmental degradation and local air borne pollution contributing to smog. As a result, local policies are being implemented to safeguard the

  7. An integrated model for assessing both crop productivity and agricultural water resources at a large scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okada, M.; Sakurai, G.; Iizumi, T.; Yokozawa, M.

    2012-12-01

    Agricultural production utilizes regional resources (e.g. river water and ground water) as well as local resources (e.g. temperature, rainfall, solar energy). Future climate changes and increasing demand due to population increases and economic developments would intensively affect the availability of water resources for agricultural production. While many studies assessed the impacts of climate change on agriculture, there are few studies that dynamically account for changes in water resources and crop production. This study proposes an integrated model for assessing both crop productivity and agricultural water resources at a large scale. Also, the irrigation management to subseasonal variability in weather and crop response varies for each region and each crop. To deal with such variations, we used the Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique to quantify regional-specific parameters associated with crop growth and irrigation water estimations. We coupled a large-scale crop model (Sakurai et al. 2012), with a global water resources model, H08 (Hanasaki et al. 2008). The integrated model was consisting of five sub-models for the following processes: land surface, crop growth, river routing, reservoir operation, and anthropogenic water withdrawal. The land surface sub-model was based on a watershed hydrology model, SWAT (Neitsch et al. 2009). Surface and subsurface runoffs simulated by the land surface sub-model were input to the river routing sub-model of the H08 model. A part of regional water resources available for agriculture, simulated by the H08 model, was input as irrigation water to the land surface sub-model. The timing and amount of irrigation water was simulated at a daily step. The integrated model reproduced the observed streamflow in an individual watershed. Additionally, the model accurately reproduced the trends and interannual variations of crop yields. To demonstrate the usefulness of the integrated model, we compared two types of impact assessment of

  8. 7 CFR 2.36 - Director, Office of Communications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... are made by the Secretary of Agriculture to Director, Office of Communications: (1) Related to public...) Organize and direct the activities of a public affairs office to include press relations of the secretary... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Director, Office of Communications. 2.36 Section 2.36...

  9. 7 CFR 27.11 - Area Director, Marketing Services Office; responsibility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Area Director, Marketing Services Office... MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing Practices), DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMODITY... Regulations Administration § 27.11 Area Director, Marketing Services Office; responsibility. Subject to this...

  10. Urban Intensification and Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa: Impacts on Urban Agriculture and Food Security

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uzokwe, V. N. E. N.; Muchelo, R. O.; Odeh, I. A.

    2015-12-01

    In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), urban intensification and expansion are increasing at alarming rates due to rapid population growth and rural-to-urban migration. This has led to the premise that the proportion of SSA urban residents most vulnerable to food insecurity is the highest in the world. Using a focused survey and multi-temporal (decadal) land use/cover classification of Landsat images, we explored the effect of urban intensification and expansion on urban agriculture and food security, focusing on a megacity and a regional center in Uganda: Kampala and Mbarara, respectively. We found that food insecurity arose due to a number of reasons, among which are: i) expansion and intensification of of urban settlements into previously productive agricultural lands in urban and peri-urban areas; ii) loss of predominantly young (rural agricultural) adult labor force to urban centers, leading to decline in rural food production; iii) lack of proper urban planning incorporating green and agricultural development leading to low productive market garden systems. We discussed these outcomes in light of existing studies which estimated that urban agriculture alone supports over 800 million people globally and accounts for 15-20% of world food supply. In spite of this relatively low contribution by urban/peri-urban agriculture, it probably accounts for higher proportion of food supply to urban poor in SSA and thus are most vulnerable to the loss of urban and peri-urban agricultural land. Further recommendations require policy makers and urban planners to team up to design a suitable framework for sustainable urban planning and development.

  11. Study of Agricultural Product Options Pricing

    Science.gov (United States)

    HONG, Qiu

    2017-09-01

    China is a large agricultural country, and the healthy development of agriculture is related to the stability of the whole society. The agricultural production and management of agricultural products are confronted with many risks, especially the market risks. Option contract is the object of option market transaction, so it is very important to study the option contract of agricultural products. Option trading separates the risk and profit, so that the trader can avoid the risk while retaining the opportunity to obtain income. The option has the characteristics of low transaction cost, simple and efficient, so it is suitable for small and medium investors.

  12. Product competitiveness analysis for e-commerce platform of special agricultural products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wan, Fucheng; Ma, Ning; Yang, Dongwei; Xiong, Zhangyuan

    2017-09-01

    On the basis of analyzing the influence factors of the product competitiveness of the e-commerce platform of the special agricultural products and the characteristics of the analytical methods for the competitiveness of the special agricultural products, the price, the sales volume, the postage included service, the store reputation, the popularity, etc. were selected in this paper as the dimensionality for analyzing the competitiveness of the agricultural products, and the principal component factor analysis was taken as the competitiveness analysis method. Specifically, the web crawler was adopted to capture the information of various special agricultural products in the e-commerce platform ---- chi.taobao.com. Then, the original data captured thereby were preprocessed and MYSQL database was adopted to establish the information library for the special agricultural products. Then, the principal component factor analysis method was adopted to establish the analysis model for the competitiveness of the special agricultural products, and SPSS was adopted in the principal component factor analysis process to obtain the competitiveness evaluation factor system (support degree factor, price factor, service factor and evaluation factor) of the special agricultural products. Then, the linear regression method was adopted to establish the competitiveness index equation of the special agricultural products for estimating the competitiveness of the special agricultural products.

  13. Developments in greenhouse gas emissions and net energy use in Danish agriculture - How to achieve substantial CO{sub 2} reductions?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dalgaard, T., E-mail: tommy.dalgaard@agrsci.dk [Aarhus University, Department of Agroecology, Blichers Alle 20, P.O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele (Denmark); Olesen, J.E.; Petersen, S.O.; Petersen, B.M.; Jorgensen, U.; Kristensen, T.; Hutchings, N.J. [Aarhus University, Department of Agroecology, Blichers Alle 20, P.O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele (Denmark); Gyldenkaerne, S. [Aarhus University, National Environmental Research Institute, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde (Denmark); Hermansen, J.E. [Aarhus University, Department of Agroecology, Blichers Alle 20, P.O. Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele (Denmark)

    2011-11-15

    Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture are a significant contributor to total Danish emissions. Consequently, much effort is currently given to the exploration of potential strategies to reduce agricultural emissions. This paper presents results from a study estimating agricultural GHG emissions in the form of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (including carbon sources and sinks, and the impact of energy consumption/bioenergy production) from Danish agriculture in the years 1990-2010. An analysis of possible measures to reduce the GHG emissions indicated that a 50-70% reduction of agricultural emissions by 2050 relative to 1990 is achievable, including mitigation measures in relation to the handling of manure and fertilisers, optimization of animal feeding, cropping practices, and land use changes with more organic farming, afforestation and energy crops. In addition, the bioenergy production may be increased significantly without reducing the food production, whereby Danish agriculture could achieve a positive energy balance. - Highlights: > GHG emissions from Danish agriculture 1990-2010 are calculated, including carbon sequestration. > Effects of measures to further reduce GHG emissions are listed. > Land use scenarios for a substantially reduced GHG emission by 2050 are presented. > A 50-70% reduction of agricultural emissions by 2050 relative to 1990 is achievable. > Via bioenergy production Danish agriculture could achieve a positive energy balance. - Scenario studies of greenhouse gas mitigation measures illustrate the possible realization of CO{sub 2} reductions for Danish agriculture by 2050, sustaining current food production.

  14. [Development of APSIM (agricultural production systems simulator) and its application].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Yuying; Nan, Zhibiao; Bellotti, Bill; Robertson, Michael; Chen, Wen; Shao, Xinqing

    2002-08-01

    Soil-crop simulator model is an effective tool for providing decision on agricultural management. APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) was developed to simulate the biophysical process in farming system, and particularly in the economic and ecological features of the systems under climatic risk. The current literatures revealed that APSIM could be applied in wide zone, including temperate continental, temperate maritime, sub-tropic and arid climate, and Mediterranean climates, with the soil type of clay, duplex soil, vertisol, silt sandy, silt loam and silt clay loam. More than 20 crops have been simulated well. APSIM is powerful on describing crop structure, crop sequence, yield prediction, and quality control as well as erosion estimation under different planting pattern.

  15. Microcredit Effect on Agricultural Productivity

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Faculty of Agricultural Sciences Lautech Ogbomoso

    Department of Agricultural Economics & Farm Management University of Agriculture, ... This study examines the effect of access to credit on the productivity of rural farming households in Ogun State,. Nigeria. ... agricultural support to export crops, in ... growth and the alleviation of rural poverty ..... Dissertation, Department of.

  16. 7 CFR 2.95 - Director, Office of Ethics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Director, Office of Ethics. 2.95 Section 2.95... Administration § 2.95 Director, Office of Ethics. The Director, Office of Ethics, shall be the USDA Alternate Agency Ethics Official, pursuant to 5 CFR 2638.202, and shall exercise the authority reserved to the...

  17. Food productivity trend analysis of Raichur district for the management of agricultural drought.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swathandran, Sruthi; Aslam, M A Mohammed

    2016-01-01

    Drought is an extreme climatic situation where there is a water shortage arising due to sub-normal rainfall, erratic distribution of precipitation, increased water supply demand, etc. India faced several years of drought in last six decades. As Indian agriculture is largely dependent on the monsoon, a slight change affects production as well as crop yield drastically. Statistical analysis is important for mapping the drought prone areas. Raichur district of the northern interior state of Karnataka is a drought-prone region where the economy is mainly based on agriculture. So, the uneven distribution of rainfall as well as the delay in the arrival of the southwest monsoon adversely affects the growth stage of crops which result in a decline in crop production. The effect of drought on the agriculture for the past decade has been analyzed using crop productivity data. When the production rate of Raichur district was studied for the years 1998 to 2009, it was seen that major crops like rice and jowar faced a decline in its production during the years 2002 and 2003, whereas bajra, maize, etc. mostly decreased in the year 2004.

  18. Constraints to Agricultural Mechanization in Sub-Saharan Africa ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    However, unlike other developing countries in Asia, the level of agricultural mechanization in Sub-‐Sahara Africa is still very low and is faced with a number of constraints. It is important for the attention of governments and other institutions to be drawn to these for immediate intervention to be taken. The objective of this ...

  19. Lands directorate publications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1981-01-01

    The directorate has a lead role in providing advice to the federal government on land use policy in Canada. The Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Program has produced significant amounts of data pertaining to the capability of Canadian lands to support agriculture, forestry, recreation, wildlife and sport fish. A list of CLI reports is presented in this publication. In addition, and capability maps have been compiled for agricultural, forestry, recreation and wildlife and are listed and described in this publication. (KRM)

  20. A study on the production of agricultural residues in Italy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Di Blasi, C.; Tanzi, V.; Lanzetta, M. [Universita degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Dip di Ingegneria Chimica, Napoli (Italy)

    1997-12-01

    The Italian production of agricultural residues has been evaluated with a view to energy recovery through gasification. Two main categories of residues have been identified: the first, (A) is associated with the growing and collection of products with a nutritional value, whereas the second (B) includes the residues associated with the subsequent processing in order to obtain final products for commercialization. Category A, which comprises three further sub-categories: straw (A1); woody residues (A2); and stems and leaves (residues from vegetables, tobacco, sugar beet, (A3)), results in about 16.5 mt yr. The average amount of straw (A1) is 11 mt/yr, of which about 60% is waste to be eliminated. Woody residues (A2) (mainly pruning off-cuts from vineyards and olive groves) are about 3.5 mt/yr (85% unused). Category A3 amounts to about 2 mt/yr (90% unused). Straw is available mainly in the northern part of the country, whereas the other two sub-categories are widely distributed in central and southern regions. The yields of category B are estimated at 4 mt/yr, of which more than 3 mt/yr are waste products from grape and olive processing. Other residues, such as rice, sunflower and soya-bean husks (about 0.65 mt/yr), almond and nut shells and fruit stones (about 0.2 mt/yr), although not widely available on a national scale, can be significant on a local basis. The total amount of unused agricultural residues is about 14.5 mt/yr, which, if completely exploited through gasification, can contribute as much as 7-10% to the current national electricity needs. The regions of Veneto, Puglia, Friuli, Lombardia and Emilia Romagna appear to be good candidates for electricity production, given the significant surface concentration of unused residues (105-55 t km{sup 2}). (author)

  1. Environmental sub models for a macroeconomic model: agricultural contribution to climate change and acidification in Denmark.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jensen, Trine S; Jensen, Jørgen D; Hasler, Berit; Illerup, Jytte B; Andersen, Frits M

    2007-01-01

    Integrated modelling of the interaction between environmental pressure and economic development is a useful tool to evaluate environmental consequences of policy initiatives. However, the usefulness of such models is often restricted by the fact that these models only include a limited set of environmental impacts, which are often energy-related emissions. In order to evaluate the development in the overall environmental pressure correctly, these model systems must be extended. In this article an integrated macroeconomic model system of the Danish economy with environmental modules of energy related emissions is extended to include the agricultural contribution to climate change and acidification. Next to the energy sector, the agricultural sector is the most important contributor to these environmental themes and subsequently the extended model complex calculates more than 99% of the contribution to both climate change and acidification. Environmental sub-models are developed for agriculture-related emissions of CH(4), N(2)O and NH(3). Agricultural emission sources related to the production specific activity variables are mapped and emission dependent parameters are identified in order to calculate emission coefficients. The emission coefficients are linked to the economic activity variables of the Danish agricultural production. The model system is demonstrated by projections of agriculture-related emissions in Denmark under two alternative sets of assumptions: a baseline projection of the general economic development and a policy scenario for changes in the husbandry sector within the agricultural sector.

  2. Marketing of agricultural products: case findings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hingley, M.; Lindgreen, A.

    2002-01-01

    This article focuses on the relationship marketing approach to marketing of agricultural products. The article provides specific insights into, and comparisons between, suppliers of two particular agricultural products sectors: in Britain, the fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) sector and, in New

  3. Determinants of Aggregate Agricultural Productivity among High ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development ... Determinants of Aggregate Agricultural Productivity among High External Input Technology Farms in a ... of aggregate agricultural productivity in an environment where policy on ... to increase the farm sizes through re-examination of the existing land laws.

  4. The JSC Engineering Directorate Product Peer Review Process

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jenks, Kenneth C.

    2009-01-01

    The JSC Engineering Directorate has developed a Product Peer Review process in support of NASA policies for project management and systems engineering. The process complies with the requirements of NPR 7120.5, NPR 7123.1 and NPR 7150.2 and follows the guidance in NASA/SP-2007-6105. This presentation will give an overview of the process followed by a brief demonstration of an actual peer review, with audience participation.

  5. Foreign Agricultural Land Acquisition and the Visibility of Water Resource Impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Philip Woodhouse

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available The many headlines focusing on 'land grabbing' have distracted attention from the role that access to water plays in underpinning the projected productivity of foreign direct investment in acquisition of agricultural land in developing countries. This paper identifies questions that arise about the explicit and implicit water requirements for irrigation in agricultural projects on land that is subject to such foreign investment deals. It focuses particularly on land acquisition in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA, where, for savanna ecosystems that cover some two thirds of the region, rainfall uncertainty is the principal constraint to increased agricultural productivity. The paper argues that, even where land acquisition deals do not specify irrigation, choice of location and/or crop type indicates this is invariably an implicit requirement of projects. It is arguable that private investment in water infrastructure (e.g. for water storage could provide wider benefits to neighbouring small-scale producers, thus reducing the risk inherent in much of African agriculture. However, it is also possible that foreign investment may compete with existing water use, and some land deals have included provisions for priority access to water in cases of scarcity. Empirical studies are used to identify the mechanisms through which large-scale land investments influence water availability for smaller-scale land users. The paper concludes that, although effects on water resources may constitute one of the main impacts of land deals, this is likely to be obscured by the lack of transparency over water requirements of agricultural projects and the invisibility of much existing local agricultural water management to government planning agencies.

  6. Energy and CO{sub 2eq} analysis of the agricultural phase in the sunflower biodiesel chain

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Spugnoli, C.P.; Dainelli, R.; D' avino, L.; Mazzoncini, M.; Lazzeri, L. [DEISTAF Univ. degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze (Italy)

    2010-07-01

    The suitability of the sunflower for biodiesel production was discussed in terms of the reference values on carbon dioxide equivalents (CO{sub 2eq}) emissions for every phase of the biofuels chain as indicated in the European Union (EU) Directive on renewable energies. A life cycle analysis performed on the agricultural phase of the sunflower showed that CO{sub 2eq} emissions from the cultivation phase exceeded the EU reference value. This paper highlighted the relevance of allocation methods to spread out energy consumption and CO{sub 2eq} emissions among sunflower biodiesel and oilcake. Allocation was made according to the principles of mass content, energy content and the economic value of co-products. The CO{sub 2eq} reductions obtained with the 3 methods were approximately 60, 50 and 25 per cent, respectively when compared to a case without allocation. Since these methods did not distinguish the different functionality of co-products in relation to their real use, this study also considered the method of system expansion and allocation by substitution. The considered equivalent functions of oilcake were animal feed, coal fuel and fertilizer. The results showed that while the substitution with coal gives rise to an emission credit, the others allow only minor improvements. A sensitivity analysis emphasized the significance of fossil fuels and fertilizers on energy depletion and CO{sub 2eq} emissions. It was concluded that only a major revision of farm practices aimed at reducing the use of N-fertilizer, can allow the sunflower to be suitable for biodiesel production in central Italy, given the EU constrains for CO{sub 2eq} emissions.

  7. Water footprint as an indicator of agricultural productivity in African countries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chico Zamanillo, Daniel; Zhang, Guoping; Mathews, Ruth

    2017-04-01

    Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the regions with the largest scope for improved agricultural development that would contribute to global food security while respecting environmental boundaries. More importantly, undernourishment is a challenge for many African countries and needs to be addressed to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This study was conducted to support the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affair's Inclusive Green Growth aim of increasing water use efficiency by 25% in Dutch financed projects. A water footprint profile was developed for 7 Sub-Saharan countries; Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda. The profiles provide an overview of water use from the perspective of the goods produced within the country, the consumption of goods, in particular agricultural crops, whether these goods are produced domestically or imported from other countries and the level of blue water scarcity experienced in the country. Across all countries, key food crops such as maize, and sorghum have low water productivity relative to the global water footprint benchmark. Export crops such as tea in Kenya or cocoa in Ghana show a good performance over global production. Furthermore, the water footprint of crops over the period 2006-2013 was compared to data from the period 1996-2005. Changes in yield and the resulting changes in the water footprint were assessed for both food and export crops. Yields in food crops improved in some countries, and in some years, but not consistently across all countries and years. The greatest gains in water productivity were in key export crops. The results provide insights into whether improvements have been made in water productivity in recent years and through comparison with the global water footprint benchmark, remaining opportunities for further gains in water productivity were identified. Going forward, policies that will enhance further improvement in water productivity and support greater food and

  8. Problems and prospects of Ukraine’s export of agricultural products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oksana Lysak

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this publication is to review current trends Ukrainian exports of agricultural products and develop recommendations on the prospects of export of agricultural products in Ukraine. The problem of marketing of agricultural products by agricultural enterprises is considered in the article. The distribution channels of agricultural products in Ukraine are analyzed. The factors constraining agricultural exports are established. Advantages and disadvantages of agricultural products within the Association Agreement with the European Union are analyzed. Analyzed the first results of cooperation with the EU in agriculture. The problems of the use of quotas dispose of agricultural products within the Association Agreement with the European Union are identified. An simplified legalization exports from Ukraine to the EU of animal origin products is offered. The export of agricultural products to other countries is analyzes. The modern trend in the export of Ukrainian agricultural products based on the reorientation of Asian and European markets is considered. The strategic directions of development of Ukrainian agricultural exports are identified.

  9. Irradiation of Northwest agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eakin, D.E.; Tingey, G.L.; Anderson, D.B.; Hungate, F.P.

    1985-01-01

    Irradiation of food for disinfestation and preservation is increasing in importance because of increasing resrictions on various chemical treatments. Irradiation treatment is of particular interest in the Northwest because of a growing supply of agricultural products and the need to develop new export markets. Several products have, or could potentially have, significant export markets if stringent insect control procedures are developed and followed. Due to the recognized potential benefits of irradiation, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is conducting this program to evaluate the benefits of using irradiation on Northwest agricultural products under the US Department of Energy (DOE) Defense Byproducts Production and Utilization Program. Commodities currently included in the program are cherries, apples, asparagus, spices, hay, and hides

  10. Irradiation of Northwest agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eakin, D.E.; Tingey, G.L.

    1985-02-01

    Irradiation of food for disinfestation and preservation is increasing in importance because of increasing restrictions on various chemical treatments. Irradiation treatment is of particular interest in the Northwest because of a growing supply of agricultural products and the need to develop new export markets. Several products have, or could potentially have, significant export markets if stringent insect control procedures are developed and followed. Due to the recognized potential benefits of irradiation, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is conducting this program to evaluate the benefits of using irradiation on Northwest agricultural products under the US Department of Energy (DOE) Defense Byproducts Production and Utilization Program. Commodities currently included in the program are cherries, apples, asparagus, spices, hay, and hides

  11. Potential GHG mitigation options for agriculture in China

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Erda, Lin; Yue, Li; Hongmin, Dong [Agrometeorology Institute, Beijing (China)

    1996-12-31

    Agriculture contributes more or less to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}), methane (CH{sub 4}), and nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}O). China`s agriculture accounts for about 5-15% of total emissions for these gases. Land-use changes related to agriculture are not major contributors in China. Mitigation options are available that could result in significant decrease in CH{sub 4} and N{sub 2}O emissions from agricultural systems. If implemented, they are likely to increase crop and animal productivity. Implementation has the potential to decrease CH{sub 4} emissions from rice, ruminants, and animal waste by 4-40%. The key to decreasing N{sub 2}O emissions is improving the efficiency of plant utilization of fertilizer N. This could decrease N{sub 2}O emissions from agriculture by almost 20%. Using animal waste to produce CH{sub 4} for energy and digested manure for fertilizer may at some time be cost effective. Economic analyses of options proposed should show positive economic as well as environmental benefits.

  12. Long Run Relationship Between Agricultural Production And ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study sought to estimate the impact of agricultural production on the long run economic growth in Nigeria using the Vector Error Correction Methodology. The result shows that long run relationship exists between agricultural production and economic growth in Nigeria. Among the variables in the model, crop production ...

  13. Performance and management of draught animals in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: a review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pearson, R A; Vall, E

    1998-10-01

    Use of animal power generally enables farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to increase agricultural production and improve the quality of life. Effective use of working animals depends on an understanding of the capabilities of the animals for work, their husbandry requirements and the factors which can influence their performance. These issues are reviewed in this paper in the context of the use of animal power in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The type of animal used for work determines power available to the farmer. The performance of donkeys, horses and cattle have been compared in work tests. Equids are more suited to rapid low draught activities where their faster speed can be used to advantage. At higher draught forces, where speed is less important, the additional weight and power of cattle are an advantage. Use of heart rate recovery after work gives a reasonable indication of fatigue and fitness of equids, when test conditions are standardized. Although feed requirements for work are generally low, feed quality can be so poor that animals are unable to eat enough to meet energy needs for work, and so lose weight during the work season. However, improvements in work performance are not always seen following supplementary feeding in the dry season and the economics need to be considered in each case. Food availability, diseases and heat stress, the major constraints to performance of draught cattle and donkeys working in sub-Saharan Africa, are discussed.

  14. Forecasting value added of agricultural sub-sectors during fourth five-year development plan in iran

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nassabian, S.

    2009-01-01

    This article focuses on forecasting the values added of agricultural sub-sectors, including agronomy, fishing, forestry, animal husbandry and agricultural services, using the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) model. It compares the resulting figures with the target estimates throughout the plan within the years 1384-1388 (2005-2009). It turns out that the forecasted values added in the sub-sectors of agronomy and agricultural services are higher and slower than the estimated values added required due to the plan, respectively. Also the high conformity of the estimated and forecasted value added on the horizon of the fourth five-year plan, while the other sub-sectors both the values are close to each other. The results indicate that the capability of ANN method for forecasting variables is more suitable than the other methods. (author)

  15. Women and agricultural productivity: Reframing the Issues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doss, Cheryl R

    2018-01-01

    Should agricultural development programmes target women in order to increase productivity? This article analyzes the challenges in distinguishing women's agricultural productivity from that of men. Most of the literature compares productivity on plots managed by women with those managed by men, ignoring the majority of agricultural households in which men and women are both involved in management and production. The empirical studies which have been carried out provide scant evidence for where the returns to projects may be highest, in terms of who to target. Yet, programmes that do not consider gendered responsibilities, resources and constraints, are unlikely to succeed, either in terms of increasing productivity or benefitting men and women smallholder farmers.

  16. Agricultural Education Curriculum Guide. Agricultural Production and Management I. Course No. 6811. Agricultural Production and Management II. Course No. 6812.

    Science.gov (United States)

    North Carolina State Dept. of Public Instruction, Raleigh.

    This document is designed for use by teachers of Agricultural Production and Management courses in North Carolina. It updates the competencies and content outlines from the previous guide. It lists core and optional competencies for two courses in seven areas as follows: leadership; supervised agricultural experience programs; animal science;…

  17. Rainwater harvesting and management in rainfed agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa - A review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biazin, Birhanu; Sterk, Geert; Temesgen, Melesse; Abdulkedir, Abdu; Stroosnijder, Leo

    Agricultural water scarcity in the predominantly rainfed agricultural system of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is more related to the variability of rainfall and excessive non-productive losses, than the total annual precipitation in the growing season. Less than 15% of the terrestrial precipitation takes the form of productive ‘green’ transpiration. Hence, rainwater harvesting and management (RWHM) technologies hold a significant potential for improving rainwater-use efficiency and sustaining rainfed agriculture in the region. This paper outlines the various RWHM techniques being practiced in SSA, and reviews recent research results on the performance of selected practices. So far, micro-catchment and in situ rainwater harvesting techniques are more common than rainwater irrigation techniques from macro-catchment systems. Depending on rainfall patterns and local soil characteristics, appropriate application of in situ and micro-catchment techniques could improve the soil water content of the rooting zone by up to 30%. Up to sixfold crop yields have been obtained through combinations of rainwater harvesting and fertiliser use, as compared to traditional practices. Supplemental irrigation of rainfed agriculture through rainwater harvesting not only reduces the risk of total crop failure due to dry spells, but also substantially improves water and crop productivity. Depending on the type of crop and the seasonal rainfall pattern, the application of RWHM techniques makes net profits more possible, compared to the meagre profit or net loss of existing systems. Implementation of rainwater harvesting may allow cereal-based smallholder farmers to shift to diversified crops, hence improving household food security, dietary status, and economic return. The much needed green revolution and adaptations to climate change in SSA should blend rainwater harvesting ideals with agronomic principles. More efforts are needed to improve the indigenous practices, and to disseminate best

  18. Agricultural Production. Numeracy. Level 1. Level 2. Level 3. Support Materials for Agricultural Training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Batman, Kangan; Tully, Chris

    This publication contains the three numeracy units of the three levels of Support Materials for Agricultural Training (SMAT) in agricultural production: Level 1 (starting), 2 (continuing), and 3 (completing). The units are designed to help the learner improve his or her numeracy skills needed to deal with agricultural production. SMAT materials…

  19. L‘agriculture en Afrique sub-saharienne : enjeux et perspectives

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hugon Philippe

    2002-11-01

    Full Text Available L’agriculture africaine a connu en longue période un développement limité. La faible productivité de l’agriculture est un facteur essentiel de blocage de l’économie. L’Afrique sub-saharienne (ASS est toutefois contrastée. Cet article présente certains symptômes de la crise agricole puis analyse les effets des politiques de libéralisation de filières avant de dégager les perspectives notamment des rendements et de la productivité, et les risques environnementaux compte tenu des défis internes et mondiaux auxquels l’Afrique sera confrontée dans les prochaines années.

  20. Nondestructive quality evaluation technology of agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Noh, Sang Ha

    1997-01-01

    Quality evaluation of agricultural products has been interested to many researchers for many years and as the result, several nondestructive techniques and so many papers have been reported for quality evaluation of agricultural products. These nondestructive techniques are based on the detection of mechanical, optical, electrical, electro-magnetical, dielectric and vibrational properties of agricultural products that are well correlated with certain quality factors of the products such as color, shape, firmness, sugar content, external or internal defects, moisture content, etc. The sophistication of nondestructive methods has evolved rapidly with modem technologies. In this paper an emphasis was put on reviewing some of those papers and techniques which could be led to on-line measurement for practical use.

  1. Determinants of changes in agriculture and rural areas in the Piła sub-region in the light of factor analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrzej Czyżewski

    2017-07-01

    of road and social infrastructure in municipalities in the Piła sub-region and it explained 9.15% of the communality. These factors were induced by natural conditions, farm production constraints, the level of entrepreneurship, the situation on the labour market, which contributed to the development of sub-urbanization and the development of road and social infrastructure, as well as their derivatives, such as income levels, development of the building industry and early school education. Agriculture destimulated the development of municipalities in the Piła sub-region during the period under study.

  2. Impact of greenhouse gases on agricultural productivity in Pakistan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valasai, G.D; Harijan, K.; Uqaili, M.S.; Memon, H.R

    2005-01-01

    Pakistan is an agricultural developing country. About 68% of the country's population resides in rural areas and is mostly linked with agriculture. Agricultural sector contributes more than 25% to GDP, employees about 45% of the labour force and contributes significantly to export earnings of the country. Energy sector is the major source (80%) of emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). Agriculture and livestock sectors are also responsible for GHGs emissions. The emissions of GHGs results in acid rain and earth's temperature rise (global warming). The destabilization of the global climate destroys natural ecosystem and increases natural disasters, such as violent storms, floods, droughts etc. The acid rain and these natural disasters affect the agricultural productivity. The study indicates that the agricultural productivity per capita in Pakistan decreased continuously during the last two decades. The paper concludes that due to emissions of GHGs, the agricultural productivity is significantly affected in the country. The government should take concrete measures to minimize the emissions of GHGs for increasing the agricultural productivity and reducing other harmful impacts in the country. This paper presents the review and analysis of the effects of GHGs emissions on the agricultural productivity in Pakistan. (author)

  3. Relationship between biodiversity and agricultural production

    OpenAIRE

    Brunetti, Ilaria; Tidball, Mabel; Couvet, Denis

    2018-01-01

    Agriculture is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss. In this work we model the interdependent relationship between biodiversity and agriculture on a farmed land, supposing that, while agriculture has a negative impact on biodiversity, the latter can increase agricultural production. Farmers act as myopic agents, who maximize their instantaneous profit without considering the negative effects of their practice on the evolution of biodiversity. We find that a tax on inputs can have a pos...

  4. 75 FR 68598 - Notice of Appointment of Members to the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-11-08

    ... Secretary of Agriculture to a specific category on the Board, including farming or ranching, food production... follows: Category F. ``National Food Animal Science Society,'' Nancy M. Cox, Director, Kentucky... composed of 25 members, each representing a specific category related to agriculture. The Board was first...

  5. 7 CFR 1900.2 - National office staff and state directors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 12 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false National office staff and state directors. 1900.2 Section 1900.2 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) RURAL HOUSING SERVICE, RURAL BUSINESS-COOPERATIVE SERVICE, RURAL UTILITIES SERVICE, AND FARM SERVICE AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF...

  6. Weather extremes could affect agriculture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balcerak, Ernie

    2012-05-01

    As Earth's climate warms, agricultural producers will need to adapt. Changes, especially increases in extreme events, are already having an impact on food production, according to speakers at a 1 May session on agriculture and food security at the AGU Science Policy Conference. Christopher Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, D. C., pointed out the complex factors that come into play in understanding food security, including spatially varying controls and stresses, incomplete models, and the potential for threshold responses. Factors that are likely to cause problems include increasing population; increasing preference for meat, which needs more land and energy inputs to produce; climate change; and increasing use of agricultural lands for biomass energy.

  7. Research on Supply Chain Coordination of Fresh Agricultural Products under Agricultural Insurance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhang Pei

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Based on the fact that the current fresh agricultural products are susceptible to natural risks and the coordination of supply chain is poor, This paper constructs the supply chain profit model under the two models of natural risk and agricultural insurance, Firstly, studying the coordination function of the supply chain system under Two-part Tariff; Then discussing the setting and claiming mechanism of agricultural insurance, compares the influence of agricultural insurance on supply chain profit and supply chain coordination; Finally, giving an example to validate the model results and give decision - making opinions. Research shows that the supply chain of fresh agricultural products can coordinated under Two-part Tariff, but the supply chain cooperation is poor in the natural risk , need to further stabilize and optimize the supply chain; When the risk factor is less than the non-participation insurance coefficient, not to participate in agricultural insurance is conducive to maintaining the coordination of the supply chain system; When the risk coefficient exceeds the non-participation insurance coefficient, the introduction of agricultural insurance can not only effectively manage the natural risks, but also help to improve the coordination of the supply chain system.

  8. Evaluating the impact of agricultural extension programmes in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and prospects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hailemichael Taye

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Background: In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA, impact evaluation has been used to assess whether agricultural extension interventions have brought the intended result or to establish causal linkages between interventions and outcomes. However, there is some scepticism about the validity and reliability of the results of the impact evaluation reports due to some contradictory and exaggerated results. Objectives: This article analyses some impact evaluation studies conducted in SSA as to why contradictions and exaggerations are manifested in some reports and what would be the future prospects of impact evaluation of agricultural extension programmes in the region. Methods: Impact evaluation reports and results of agricultural extension programmes from 10 SSA countries were reviewed and analysed based on impact evaluation principles and theories. Results: The results show that most of the evaluations reported positive impacts. There are also conflicting reports on extension performance. The fact that the overwhelming majority of impact evaluation reports claim positive extension impacts is not in line with the reports on agricultural productivity growth in the region. There are various reasons for over estimated impacts and contradictory results, which include use of poor impact evaluation methodologies, lack of reliable data and insufficient capacity to conduct rigorous impact evaluations. Conclusion: Due to these challenges and the shift in agricultural research and extension approaches, it is recommended that rather than investing effort in trying to prove impact, greater attention should be given to improving impact as well as using other innovative monitoring and evaluation (M&E and learning tools that consider the dynamic nature of agricultural development.

  9. Monitoring pathogens from irradiated agriculture products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Butterweck, J.S.

    1990-01-01

    The final food and environmental safety assessment of agriculture product irradiation can only be determined by product history. Product history will be used for future research and development, regulations, commercial practices and implementation of agriculture and food irradiation on a regional basis. The commercial irradiator treats large varieties and amounts of products that are used in various environments. it, in time, will generate a large data base of product history. Field product monitoring begins when food irradiation progresses from the pilot/demonstration phase to the commercial phase. At that time, it is important that there be in place a monitoring system to collect and analyze field data. The systems managers, public health authorities and exotic disease specialists will use this information to assess the reduction of food pathogens on the populace and the environment. (author)

  10. Climate variability, food production shocks, and violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Buhaug, Halvard; Benjaminsen, Tor A; Sjaastad, Espen Olav; Theisen, Ole Magnus

    2015-01-01

    Earlier research that reports a correlational pattern between climate anomalies and violent conflict routinely refers to drought-induced agricultural shocks and adverse economic spillover effects as a key causal mechanism linking the two phenomena. Comparing half a century of statistics on climate variability, food production, and political violence across Sub-Saharan Africa, this study offers the most precise and theoretically consistent empirical assessment to date of the purported indirect...

  11. Simulation and optimization of agricultural product supply chain system based on Witness

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiandong Liu

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Researches on agricultural product supply chain have important implications for improving the efficiency of agricultural products circulation, strengthening the construction of agricultural market system, promoting agricultural modernization and solving the three rural issues. Agricultural product supply chain system has begun to be optimized through simulation technique. In this paper, agricultural product supply chain system is reasonably simplified and assumed. A simulation model was developed by using the simulation software Wit-ness to study agricultural product supply chain. Through the analysis of the simulation output data, improvement suggestions were also proposed as follows: improving the organization degree of agricultural products, improving the agricultural products processing, establishing strategic partnership and scientifically developing agricultural products logistics.

  12. Fighting the Population/Agriculture/Environment Nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Cleaver, Kevin; Schreiber, Gotz

    1994-01-01

    Over the past thirty years, most of Sub-Saharan Africa has seen rapid population growth, poor agricultural performance, and increasing environmental degradation. Why do these problems seem so intractable? Are they connected? Do they reinforce each other? If so, what are the critical links? This book tests the hypothesis that these phenomena are strongly interrelated. The finding - that thi...

  13. Determinants and impacts of public agricultural research in Japan: Product level evidence on agricultural Kosetsushi

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukugawa, Nobuya

    2017-12-01

    The public sector is an important source of agricultural research as the agricultural sector in many countries consists of a number of individual farmers who have difficulty in bearing the cost of research and development. Public institutes for testing and research called Kosetsushi help agriculture and manufacturing improve labor productivity through technology transfer activities, whereby constituting an important component of regional innovation systems in Japan. This study establishes panel data of agricultural Kosetsushi and examines whether their research activities are responsive to local needs and which type of research effort is conducive to the promotion of agricultural product innovations. Estimation results reveal variations across plants in the impacts of agricultural clusters on research on the plant conducted by Kosetsushi located in the cluster. A positive impact is observed only for vegetable while negative or statistically insignificant relationships are found for rice, fruit, and flower. The impact of research on plant breeding on agricultural product innovations also varies across plants. Policy implications of the major findings are discussed.

  14. 7 CFR 2.92 - Director, Office of Human Resources Management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Director, Office of Human Resources Management. 2.92... Secretary for Administration § 2.92 Director, Office of Human Resources Management. (a) Delegations... Human Resources Management: (1) Formulate and issue Department policy, standards, rules and regulations...

  15. PRODUCTION POTENTIAL AND AGRICULTURAL EFFECTIVENESS IN EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agnieszka Baer-Nawrocka

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the paper was to assess the relation between agricultural production factors and effectiveness in European Union’s agriculture. For each country two synthetic coefficients were calculated using TOPSIS method. The first one characterises production factors relations, the latter one displays effectiveness of production factors. The objective of the research was to verify the correlation between these indices. The analysis proved that in many analysed countries the agricultural potential is correlated positively with the agricultural effectiveness. 

  16. [Discussion on agricultural product quality and safety problem from ecological view].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Ming; Dong, Nan; Lyu, Xin

    2015-08-01

    There are many different perspectives about the sustainable agriculture, which had been proposed since the last three decades in the world. While China's ecologists and agronomists proposed a similar concept named 'ecological agriculture'. Although ecological agriculture in China has achieved substantial progress, including theory, models and supporting technologies nearly several decades of practice and development, its application guidance still is not yet clear. The organic agriculture model proposed by European Union is popular, but it is limited in the beneficiary groups and the social and ecological responsibility. In this context, the article based on an ecological point of view, analyzed the shortcomings of ecological imbalance caused by a single mode of agricultural production and the negative impact on the quality of agricultural products, and discussed the core values of ecological agriculture. On this basis, we put forward the concept of sustainable security of agricultural products. Based on this concept, an agricultural platform was established under the healthy ecosysphere environment, and from this agricultural platform, agricultural products could be safely and sustainably obtained. Around the central value of the concept, we designed the agricultural sustainable and security production model. Finally, we compared the responsibility, benefiting groups, agronomic practices selection and other aspects of sustainable agriculture with organic agriculture, and proved the advancement of sustainable agricultural model in agricultural production quality and safety.

  17. Agriculture products as source of radionuclides and some monitoring principles of agriculture near nuclear facilities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aleksakhin, R.M.; Korneev, N.A.; Panteleev, L.I.; Shukhovtsev, B.I.

    1985-01-01

    Migration of radionuclides into agriculture products in regions adjoining the nuclear facilities depends on a large number of factors. Among them is the complex of ecological conditions: meteorological factors, type of soils etc., as well as biological peculiarities of agriculture plants and animals. It is possible to control the radionuclide content administered to man's organism with agriculture products changing large branches of agriculture and varying within the range of seprate branches of industry, taking into account the most effective ways of radionuclide pathways

  18. Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pittelkow, Cameron M; Liang, Xinqiang; Linquist, Bruce A; van Groenigen, Kees Jan; Lee, Juhwan; Lundy, Mark E; van Gestel, Natasja; Six, Johan; Venterea, Rodney T; van Kessel, Chris

    2015-01-15

    One of the primary challenges of our time is to feed a growing and more demanding world population with reduced external inputs and minimal environmental impacts, all under more variable and extreme climate conditions in the future. Conservation agriculture represents a set of three crop management principles that has received strong international support to help address this challenge, with recent conservation agriculture efforts focusing on smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, conservation agriculture is highly debated, with respect to both its effects on crop yields and its applicability in different farming contexts. Here we conduct a global meta-analysis using 5,463 paired yield observations from 610 studies to compare no-till, the original and central concept of conservation agriculture, with conventional tillage practices across 48 crops and 63 countries. Overall, our results show that no-till reduces yields, yet this response is variable and under certain conditions no-till can produce equivalent or greater yields than conventional tillage. Importantly, when no-till is combined with the other two conservation agriculture principles of residue retention and crop rotation, its negative impacts are minimized. Moreover, no-till in combination with the other two principles significantly increases rainfed crop productivity in dry climates, suggesting that it may become an important climate-change adaptation strategy for ever-drier regions of the world. However, any expansion of conservation agriculture should be done with caution in these areas, as implementation of the other two principles is often challenging in resource-poor and vulnerable smallholder farming systems, thereby increasing the likelihood of yield losses rather than gains. Although farming systems are multifunctional, and environmental and socio-economic factors need to be considered, our analysis indicates that the potential contribution of no-till to the

  19. Students' Perception of West African Agricultural Productivity ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    E M IGBOKWE

    recommended that West African Agricultural Productivity Programme officials ... The agricultural sector in the 1960s provided the main source of employment, .... their fathers and mothers' occupation were majorly trading (43.3%) and trading.

  20. Lemon Effect of Green Agricultural Products and Its Marketing Strategy

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2010-01-01

    The paper introduces the lemon effect of green agricultural products,analyzes the formation reasons of the lemon effect of green agricul-tural products and summarizes problems brought by the effect,such as malicious deception and high price.The paper proposes countermeasures toavoid the lemon effect of green agricultural products from a perspective of marketing.The first is to strengthen the quality supervision of green agri-cultural products,upgrade the quality of products,and build up branded products.The government should foster the main body of the products andguide the main body to realize the importance of brand construction and management.The second is to construct a sales channel system of greenagricultural products,making use of the trading center of modern green agricultural products to sell products,developing a long term partnershipwith processing industries,big supermarket and restaurants,making use of internet and selling products online and offline.The third is to propagatethe products.Make a good use of advertisement,personal sales,propagation and public relations to accelerate the healthy development of greenagricultural market.

  1. Use of clean coal technology by-products as agricultural liming techniques

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Stehouwer, R.C.; Sutton, P.; Dick, W.A. [Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster, OH (United States). Dept. of Agronomy

    1995-03-01

    Dry flue gas desulfurization (FGD) by-products are mixtures of coal fly-ash, anhydrite (CaCO{sub 4}), and unspent lime- or limestone-based sorbent. Dry FGD by-products frequently have neutralizing values greater than 50% CaCO{sub 3} equivalency and thus have potential for neutralizing acidic soils. Owing to the presence of soluble salts and various trace elements, however, soil application of dry FGD by-products may have adverse effects on plant growth and soil quality. The use of a dry FGD by-product as a limestone substitute was investigated in a field study on three acidic agricultural soils (pH 4.6, 4.8, and 5.8) in eastern Ohio. The by-product (60% CaCO{sub 3} equivalency) was applied in September, 1992, at rates of 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 times the lime requirement of the soils, and alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) and corn (Zea mays L.) were planted. Soils were sampled immediately after FGD application and three more times every six months thereafter. Samples were analyzed for pH and water soluble concentrations of 28 elements. Soil pH was increased by all FGD rates in the zone of incorporation (0--10 cm), with the highest rates giving a pH slightly above 7. Within one year pH increases could be detected at depths up to 30 cm. Calcium, Mg, and S increased, and Al, Mn, and Fe decreased with increasing dry FGD application rates. No trace element concentrations were changed by dry FGD application except B which was increased in the zone of incorporation. Dry FGD increased alfalfa yield on all three soils, and had no effect on corn yield. No detrimental effects on soil quality were observed.

  2. Mining, Pollution and Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Ghana

    OpenAIRE

    Fernando Aragon; Juan Pablo Rud

    2012-01-01

    Most modern mines in the developing world are located in rural areas, where agriculture is the main source of livelihood. This creates the potential of negative spillovers to farmers through competition for key inputs (such as land) and environmental pollution. To explore this issue, we examine the case of gold mining in Ghana. Through the estimation of an agricultural production function using household level data, we find that mining has reduced agricultural productivity by almost 40%. This...

  3. Climate variability, food production shocks, and violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buhaug, Halvard; Benjaminsen, Tor A.; Sjaastad, Espen; Magnus Theisen, Ole

    2015-12-01

    Earlier research that reports a correlational pattern between climate anomalies and violent conflict routinely refers to drought-induced agricultural shocks and adverse economic spillover effects as a key causal mechanism linking the two phenomena. Comparing half a century of statistics on climate variability, food production, and political violence across Sub-Saharan Africa, this study offers the most precise and theoretically consistent empirical assessment to date of the purported indirect relationship. The analysis reveals a robust link between weather patterns and food production where more rainfall generally is associated with higher yields. However, the second step in the causal model is not supported; agricultural output and violent conflict are only weakly and inconsistently connected, even in the specific contexts where production shocks are believed to have particularly devastating social consequences. Although this null result could, in theory, be fully compatible with recent reports of food price-related riots, it suggests that the wider socioeconomic and political context is much more important than drought and crop failures in explaining violent conflict in contemporary Africa.

  4. Assessing the transfer of risk due to transportation of agricultural products.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Pei-Chiun; Shih, Hsiu-Ching; Ma, Hwong-Wen

    2015-02-01

    Health risk assessment (HRA) is the process used to estimate adverse health effects on humans. The importance and sensitivity of food chains to HRA have been observed, but the impact of the transportation of food has generally been ignored. This study developed an exposure assessment to demonstrate the significance of the transportation of agricultural products in HRA. The associated case study estimated the health risks derived from various sources of arsenic emissions in Taiwan. Two assessment scenarios, self-sufficiency and transportation of agricultural products, were compared to calculate risk transfer ratios that show the impact of agriculture transportation. The risk transfer ratios found by the study range from 0.22 to 42.10, indicating that the quantity of transportation of agricultural products is the critical factor. High air deposition and high agricultural production are the two main contributors to the effect of the transportation of agricultural products on HRA. Risk reduction measures could be applied to high-pollution areas as well as to areas with high agricultural productivity to reduce ingestion risks to residents. Certain areas that are sensitive to the transportation of agricultural products may incur more risks if emissions increase in agriculturally productive counties. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Endemic diseases and agricultural productivity: Challenges and policy response

    OpenAIRE

    Martine AUDIBERT

    2008-01-01

    Contrary to Asian countries, the agricultural sector in Africa had not benefited from the green revolution success. After a long time of disinterest in the agriculture sector in Africa, several voices arise now in favour of greater efforts towards this sector. Several studies tend to show the crucial role of agriculture in African countries' growth and highlight the huge need of increasing the productivity in this sector. If increase in agriculture productivity requires both an expansion of i...

  6. Effects of Amendment of Agricultural Bye Products with Animal ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Effects of Amendment of Agricultural Bye Products with Animal Manures on Soil ... Discovery and Innovation ... Open Access DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ... into the effectiveness of locally available agricultural by-products as source of nutrient.

  7. Practical Significance of Basin Water Market Construction on Agricultural Production

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    On the basis of introducing the concept of water market and the water market research in cluding both domestic market and foreign market,the system design features of water market are analyzed.The features include the prior distribution of agricultural water right,the close construction of market structure,reasonable price of water obtaining right and water pollution-discharge right and scientific stipulation of total volume of water use and total volume of pollution drainage.The practical significances of basin water market construction on Chinese agricultural production are revealed,which clover safeguarding the safety of agricultural water;effectively alleviating agricultural drought;saving the agricultural production water and improving the quality of agricultural products.

  8. The Status of Human Nutrition and Agricultural Productivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wyse, Bonita; And Others

    1986-01-01

    The authors state that the U.S. Department of Agriculture should be considering productive alternatives for the American farmer, exploring ways to use or export the excess fat, and should be spending at least half of its resources to convince the consumers of the value they are getting from agricultural products. (CT)

  9. Positive and negative impacts of agricultural production of liquid biofuels

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Reijnders, L.; Hester, R.E.; Harrison, R.M.

    2012-01-01

    Agricultural production of liquid biofuels can have positive effects. It can decrease dependence on fossil fuels and increase farmers’ incomes. Agricultural production of mixed perennial biofuel crops may increase pollinator and avian richness. Most types of agricultural crop-based liquid biofuel

  10. Analysis of methods and models for assessing the direct and indirect economic impacts of CO/sub 2/-induced environmental changes in the agricultural sector of the US economy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Callaway, J.M.; Cronin, F.J.; Currie, J.W.; Tawil, J.

    1982-08-01

    The overall purpose of this research was to assist the US Department of Energy (DOE) in developing methods for assessing the direct and indirect economic impacts due to the effects of increases in the ambient concentration of CO/sub 2/ on agricultural production. First, a comprehensive literature search was undertaken to determine what types of models and methods have been developed, which could be effectively used to conduct assessments of the direct and indirect economic impacts of CO/sub 2/ buildup. Specific attention was focused upon models and methods for assessing the physical impacts of CO/sub 2/-induced environmental changes on crop yields; national and multi-regional agricultural sector models; and macroeconomic models of the US economy. The second task involved a thorough investigation of the research efforts being conducted by other public and private sector organizations in order to determine how more recent analytical methods being developed outside of DOE could be effectively integrated into a more comprehensive analysis of the direct economic impacts of CO/sub 2/ buildup. The third and final task involved synthesizing the information gathered in the first two tasks into a systematic framework for assessing the direct and indirect economic impacts of CO/sub 2/-induced environmental changes originating in the agricultural sector of the US economy. It is concluded that the direct economic impacts of CO/sub 2/ on the agricultural sector and the indirect economic impacts caused by spillover effects from agriculture to other sectors of the economy will be pervasive; however, the direction and magnitude of these impacts on producers and consumers cannot be determined a priori.

  11. Radio-Agriculture - Ground and Space-Based Determination of Agricultural Productivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cockell, C. S.

    The decision to sow seeds in a field, either on a local level (such as on an individual plot) or on vast agricultural complexes, is irreversible. Once the seed is sown, provided there is liquid water, tem- perature conditions are adequate and in some cases light is available, it will germinate. The timing of seed sowing has important effects on subsequent agricultural productivity [1-4]. The correlation between time of sowing and productivity causes several problems. Firstly, sowing seed depends absolutely upon a correct judgement on weather conditions, sometimes to the day. Secondly, not all crops need to be sown at the same time and so resources in manpower and equipment must be available for sowing different crops at different times. Great im- provements in resource allocation could be made if all seeds could be sown at the same time. Thirdly, there is no flexibility once resources to sowing have been committed. For example, in large agricultural areas manpower and machinery might be committed at particular times of the year to sowing, but if the weather conditions are not correct either they must be re-scheduled or productivity is lost. Local factors such as irrigation system availability might also impose upon a farmer a wish to be able to regulate the germination of particular fields, particularly in developing countries.

  12. Theoretical Application of Supervision over Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Xin; CHENG; Ying; ZHANG

    2013-01-01

    Supervision over quality and safety of agricultural products has received high attention of management department.Competent authorities have formulated and issued many measures to strengthen supervision over quality and safety of agricultural products and improve China’s agricultural product quality and safety level.From the perspective of management science,this paper elaborates basic contents of two basic management theories,Broken Windows Effect and Effect of Heat Furnace.Then,it analyzes influence of Broken Windows Effect and Effect of Heat Furnace on supervision over quality and safety of agricultural products.Finally,it comes up with recommendations for supervision over quality and safety of agricultural products.

  13. Research on the Legal Regulation of Market Access for Agricultural Products in China

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    On the basis of defining the concept of market access for agricultural products,this paper analyzes the necessity of establishing market access system of agricultural products,proposes the conception of establishing market access system of agricultural products in China;sets up the frame of market access system of agricultural products;analyzes the rationality of the frame of market access system of agricultural products;poses the consideration of economic law regarding setup of market access system of agricultural products.This paper also puts forward the legislative suggestions for establishing market access system of agricultural products as follows:establish the frame of market access system of agricultural products taking quality access as core;establish and perfect the compensation and relief system of guaranteeing benefit of manager and producers;establish the market access system of agricultural products with hierarchical structure;sort out existing laws and form the sound the legal frame of market access system of agricultural products.

  14. Transport and agricultural productivity: A cross-national analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sike Liu

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The transportation infrastructure plays a significant role in the development of agriculture. In this study we examine the relationship between transport and agricultural performance by employing the World Bank’s roads infrastructure indicators. Based on a cross-country sample, a classic method is employed to test the hypothesis that better transport fosters agricultural productivity. The empirical results of the method support the hypothesis. As for this method, the estimation results of the widely-used inter-country aggregate agricultural production function describe that a country with better transport can produce more agricultural outputs given the same amounts of agricultural inputs and the same education level. Our empirical work lends support to the claim of Gollin and Rogerson (2010 [19] that transport is a basic factor explaining the poor economic performance of many developing countries, apart from physical and education investments, more emphasis should be placed on improving the transport infrastructure of these countries.

  15. Management of efficiency of agricultural production on the basis of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Management of efficiency of agricultural production on the basis of margin approach. ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences ... and systematized to the management of production costs of agricultural products, the proposed definition ...

  16. Mapping Sub-Saharan African Agriculture in High-Resolution Satellite Imagery with Computer Vision & Machine Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Debats, Stephanie Renee

    Smallholder farms dominate in many parts of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa. These systems are characterized by small, heterogeneous, and often indistinct field patterns, requiring a specialized methodology to map agricultural landcover. In this thesis, we developed a benchmark labeled data set of high-resolution satellite imagery of agricultural fields in South Africa. We presented a new approach to mapping agricultural fields, based on efficient extraction of a vast set of simple, highly correlated, and interdependent features, followed by a random forest classifier. The algorithm achieved similar high performance across agricultural types, including spectrally indistinct smallholder fields, and demonstrated the ability to generalize across large geographic areas. In sensitivity analyses, we determined multi-temporal images provided greater performance gains than the addition of multi-spectral bands. We also demonstrated how active learning can be incorporated in the algorithm to create smaller, more efficient training data sets, which reduced computational resources, minimized the need for humans to hand-label data, and boosted performance. We designed a patch-based uncertainty metric to drive the active learning framework, based on the regular grid of a crowdsourcing platform, and demonstrated how subject matter experts can be replaced with fleets of crowdsourcing workers. Our active learning algorithm achieved similar performance as an algorithm trained with randomly selected data, but with 62% less data samples. This thesis furthers the goal of providing accurate agricultural landcover maps, at a scale that is relevant for the dominant smallholder class. Accurate maps are crucial for monitoring and promoting agricultural production. Furthermore, improved agricultural landcover maps will aid a host of other applications, including landcover change assessments, cadastral surveys to strengthen smallholder land rights, and constraints for crop modeling

  17. Mandatory Production Controls. Issues in Agricultural Policy. Agriculture Information Bulletin Number 520.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Economic Research Service (USDA), Washington, DC.

    Mandatory restrictions on agricultural production continue to be suggested as an alternative policy for reducing price-depressing surplus production, increasing farm income, and cutting farm program costs. A mandatory production control program (MPCP) can be implemented through two methods: (1) acreage allotments, which restrict individual farmers…

  18. Organization of monitoring of agricultural products in NPP region

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Panteleev, L.I.; Spirin, E.V.; Sanzharova, N.I.

    1990-01-01

    Problem of organizing chemical and radiation monitoring of agricultural products in NPP region is considered. Attention is paid to monitoring during NPP siting and designing, to monitoring of radioactive contamination of agricultural products under normal NPP operation, emergency situations and decommissioning

  19. Policies for reduced deforestation and their impact on agricultural production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angelsen, Arild

    2010-11-16

    Policies to effectively reduce deforestation are discussed within a land rent (von Thünen) framework. The first set of policies attempts to reduce the rent of extensive agriculture, either by neglecting extension, marketing, and infrastructure, generating alternative income opportunities, stimulating intensive agricultural production or by reforming land tenure. The second set aims to increase either extractive or protective forest rent and--more importantly--create institutions (community forest management) or markets (payment for environmental services) that enable land users to capture a larger share of the protective forest rent. The third set aims to limit forest conversion directly by establishing protected areas. Many of these policy options present local win-lose scenarios between forest conservation and agricultural production. Local yield increases tend to stimulate agricultural encroachment, contrary to the logic of the global food equation that suggests yield increases take pressure off forests. At national and global scales, however, policy makers are presented with a more pleasant scenario. Agricultural production in developing countries has increased by 3.3-3.4% annually over the last 2 decades, whereas gross deforestation has increased agricultural area by only 0.3%, suggesting a minor role of forest conversion in overall agricultural production. A spatial delinking of remaining forests and intensive production areas should also help reconcile conservation and production goals in the future.

  20. The influence of farmland pollution on the quality and safety of agricultural products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Z. L.; Li, L. Y.; Ye, C.; Lin, X. Y.; B, C.; Wei

    2018-02-01

    The quality and safety of agricultural products is not only a major livelihood issues for people’s health, but also the main barriers to international trade of agricultural products nowadays. The soil is the foundation to the production of agricultural products and the guarantee of agricultural development. The farmland soil quality is directly related to the quality and safety of agricultural products. Our country’s soil has been polluted by a series of pollution, Such as the excessive discharge of industrial wastes, the encroachment of household waste, and the unreasonable use of pesticides and fertilizers. Soil degradation is a serious threat to the quality and safety of agricultural products, so eliminating soil degradation is the fundamental way out for quality and safety of agricultural products. By analyzing problems of the quality and safety of agricultural products in our country, and exploring the farmland soil influence on the quality and safety of agricultural products. This article provides a reference for improving the control level of quality and safety of agricultural products and the farmland soil quality.

  1. Systems of innovation and agricultural productivity in African ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Journal of Agricultural Research and Development ... dominated by the narrow approach of employing technology transfer and adoption theory. ... are relevant in studying innovative practices that result in sustainable agricultural productivity.

  2. AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES PRODUCTION EVALUATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Serhiy Us

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to analyze correlation between production volume (V, labour factor (L and capital factor (K with further production volume forecasting of researched agricultural enterprises in Ukraine as well as their competitiveness in the European market. Methodology. The survey based on statistical data of State statistics service in Ukraine, Poland and accounting data of investigated enterprises during 2004-2013 years. Production volume and capital amount taken in monetary terms, labour factor is calculated in monetary terms using the average wage and the number of employees. Treatment of major production factors according to classical economic theory is generalized. Correlation of V, L and K factors are calculated using method of the least squares in production function evaluation. Production volume of enterprises A and B are forecasted with further evaluation of its reliability in the econometric program EViews 7. Results of the survey showed the dominant role of L factor over the K factor especially after world economic crisis 2008 in investigated agricultural enterprises of Ukraine. According to high determination coefficient, the influence of both factors on production volume is 85% for enterprise A and 95% for enterprise B. Production forecast shows the increase of its volume till 2020 in both enterprises with high probability according to forecast credibility indicator MAPE. Practical implications. Application of the results, in particular the ratio of production factors and forecast of production volume, will allow more effective use of production resources and better planning of production process taking into account market conditions. Value/originality. Production activity estimation and output forecast of investigated agricultural enterprises were used for competitiveness analysis of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine and Poland, which is important for European integration process of domestic economy.

  3. Obstacles to Development of Marketing Channels of Agricultural Products in China and Countermeasures

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    This paper introduces the connotation of marketing channels of agricultural products, and gives an overall of current modes of marketing channels of agricultural products in China, including the marketing channel of transportation and sale of agricultural products, the marketing channel of intermediary sales agent, and the marketing channel of mutual cooperation. The problems existing in the marketing channel of agricultural products in China as follows: first, the cost is high; second, the technological content is low; third, the upstream main body lacks competitiveness; fourth, the structure of investment is irrational. Corresponding countermeasures are put forward to develop marketing channels of agricultural products as follows: perfect the service function of wholesale market of agricultural products; propel the construction of integration and expansion of wholesale market; develop the circulation cooperatives of agricultural products; develop the integrated organization of production and sales of agricultural products.

  4. Marketing research of organic agricultural products' customers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salai Suzana

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of customers' marketing research is to acquire information about the way domestic customers behave towards organic agricultural products. This research focuses the overview of conditions and factors influencing customer behavior in nutrition processes in the EM and in Yugoslavia. The acquired information about changes and directions directly affect the possibilities of getting involved into supply processes as well as the 'transmission' of some directions in customer behavior. Anticipations based, on marketing research deal with changes on customers' level, in consumption, products and other competitors. The results of a part of problems concerning customer behavior in nutrition processes follow below, with an emphasis on organic agricultural products.

  5. Corn Production. A Unit for Teachers of Vocational Agriculture. Production Agriculture Curriculum Materials Project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grace, Clyde, Jr.

    Designed to provide instructional materials for use by vocational agriculture teachers, this unit contains nine lessons based upon competencies needed to maximize profits in corn production. The lessons cover opportunities for growing corn; seed selection; seedbed preparation; planting methods and practices; fertilizer rates and application;…

  6. Outsourcing Agricultural Production: Evidence from Rice Farmers in Zhejiang Province.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Ji

    Full Text Available China has recorded positive growth rates of grain production for the past eleven consecutive years. This is a remarkable accomplishment given that China's rapid industrialization and urbanization has led to a vast reduction of arable land and agricultural labor to non-agricultural sectors. While there are many factors contributing to this happy outcome, one potential contributing factor that has received increasing attention is the emergence of agricultural production outsourcing, a new rural institution that has emerged in recent years. This study aims to contribute to the limited but growing literature on agricultural production outsourcing in China. Specifically, this study analyzes factors affecting farmers' decisions to outsource any or some production tasks using data from rice farmers in Zhejiang province. Results from a logistic model show that farm size and government subsidy encourages farmers to outsource while ownership of agricultural machines and land fragmentation have negative effects on farmers' decisions to outsource production tasks. Results also showed that determinants of outsourcing decisions vary with the production tasks that farmers outsourced.

  7. Outsourcing Agricultural Production: Evidence from Rice Farmers in Zhejiang Province.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ji, Chen; Guo, Hongdong; Jin, Songqing; Yang, Jin

    2017-01-01

    China has recorded positive growth rates of grain production for the past eleven consecutive years. This is a remarkable accomplishment given that China's rapid industrialization and urbanization has led to a vast reduction of arable land and agricultural labor to non-agricultural sectors. While there are many factors contributing to this happy outcome, one potential contributing factor that has received increasing attention is the emergence of agricultural production outsourcing, a new rural institution that has emerged in recent years. This study aims to contribute to the limited but growing literature on agricultural production outsourcing in China. Specifically, this study analyzes factors affecting farmers' decisions to outsource any or some production tasks using data from rice farmers in Zhejiang province. Results from a logistic model show that farm size and government subsidy encourages farmers to outsource while ownership of agricultural machines and land fragmentation have negative effects on farmers' decisions to outsource production tasks. Results also showed that determinants of outsourcing decisions vary with the production tasks that farmers outsourced.

  8. Interdependence of Agricultural Production and Environment and the Road to Sustainable Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Curić Jasmina

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Sustainability of agricultural production in the world is in serious crisis. Interdependence of agricultural production and the environment is multiple and causality works both ways. On one hand, there are environmental changes which hamper food production, and on the other, the agricultural production, as it is, is severely damaging the environment. The very systems of agricultural production jeopardize future production. The goal of this paper is to explore causes of limitations of sustainable agricultural development in the world, where the authors emphasize the following: gas emissions with greenhouse effect, a disturbed cycle of nitrogen circulation and destruction of biodiversity.

  9. Lambda /sub c/ production and decay

    CERN Document Server

    Briere, R A

    2001-01-01

    We present CLEO results on the Lambda /sub c/ lifetime, beta ( Lambda /sub c/ to pK pi ) using Lambda /sub c/ - D/sup (*)/ correlations, and correlated production of the Lambda /sub c/ baryon in e/sup +/e/sup -/ to cc fragmentation.

  10. Industrial use of agricultural products: European prospects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bocchini, A.

    1992-01-01

    This paper first discusses how the GATT internal trade agreement has affected Italian and European agricultural practices, especially in that which regards the production of soybean and other vegetable oils. It then assesses how current Italian agricultural policies impact on proposals now being designed to encourage the production of vegetable oils for use as ecological automotive fuel alternatives. The paper cites the need for a greater say by farming associations, and cooperation among fuel oil producers and government bodies in the drafting up of future policies

  11. FACTORS OF LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN AGRICULTURE OF THE AGRARIAN REGION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anatoly Babenko

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the article is to study the conceptual provisions of the essence of labour productivity in agriculture in order to determine the factors and conditions for its growth at the present stage of economic development. Methods. The theoretical and methodological bases of research are the works of classical and modern economic science concerning labour productivity and human capital. With the aim of concretizing the conceptual and categorical apparatus, the dialectical and abstract-logical methods were used; a monographic method was used during covering the views of scientists on the investigated problem; for the analysis of labour productivity trends, the method of comparative analysis and the graphical method were used. Results. The conditions of agricultural production management in an agrarian region are characterized. Factors of labour productivity growth in agriculture are determined. It is established that the main reserves of increasing labour productivity consist of reducing labour costs for the production of agricultural products. In turn, the reduction of labour costs is caused by the use of new equipment and new technologies, progressive forms of labour organization, improvement of the system of material incentives for labour. Practical significance. The realization of proposals and recommendations concerning the formation and development of human capital for agricultural production, optimization of production resources, strengthening of labour motivation will provide an opportunity to increase the labour activity of personnel, the volume of agricultural production. Relevance/originality. Further development of research results allows us to collect an empirical, multifactorial model of labour productivity growth in agricultural production.

  12. Utilization of agricultural waste in power production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Clausen, J.C. [ELSAMPROJEKT A/S, Fredericia (Denmark); Rasmussen, I. [MIDTKRAFT Power Co., Aarhus (Denmark)

    1993-12-31

    It is a goal of the Danish energy policy for the last decade to reduce energy consumption and to introduce fuels for power production with less CO{sub 2} emission than coal. This measure has caused a considerable effort by the Danish utilities to develop technologies that reduce CO{sub 2} emissions without causing heavy cost increases of power. Agricultural waste in the form of surplus straw is available in an amount equivalent to 20% of the annual coal imports to Denmark. Straw firing is difficult due to its significant contents of alkaline components. Consequently, its utilization presupposes the development of new technologies. The biomass development program is concentrated on two ways which are (1) co-firing of existing coal fired power station with a modest amount of straw and (2) development of CFB technology that allows a high share of biomass as well as coal only. These options were tested in a coal fired 70 MW spreader stoker unit and a 125 MW PF unit. Approx. 4000 t of straw were burned. Additional tests will be launched this autumn, burning 35,000 t of straw at rates up to 20% straw. The CFB option is pursued from the platform of a 80 MWth unit, operational early `92. This plant burns a mix of 50% straw and 50% coal and consumes annually 70.000 t of straw. Future development is aiming towards CFBs of 250 MW(e), burning in excess of 50% biomass.

  13. Sugar supported H/sub 2/ production and C/sub 2/H/sub 2/ reduction by the cyanobiont Anabaena azollae

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rozen, A.; Tel-Or, E.

    1986-01-01

    Sugar supported activities of H/sub 2/ production and C/sub 2/H/sub 2/ reduction were characterized in axenic cell cultures of the cyanobiont Anabaena azollae isolated from the water fern Azolla filiculoides. Fructose was found to be the favoured substrate, enhancing activities in both the light and the dark even at relatively low concentrations of 0.5-1.0 mM. Higher concentrations of sucrose, (10-20mM) also supported H/sub 2/ production and C/sub 2/H/sub 2/ reduction, while glucose was less effective. Levels of H/sub 2/ production were always lower than those of C/sub 2/H/sub 2/ reduction. 13 references.

  14. Impacts of reducing red meat consumption on agricultural production in Finland

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heikki Sakari Lehtonen

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper summarises the simulated effects on Finnish agricultural production and trade of a 20% decrease in Finnish demand for red meat (beef, pork, lamb. According to our results, reduced red meat consumption would be offset by increased consumption of poultry meat, eggs, dairy products and fish, as well as small increases in consumption of fruits and vegetables, peas, nuts, cereal products and sweets. By including the derived demand changes in an agricultural sector model, we show that livestock production in Finland, incentivised by national production-linked payments for milk and bovine animals, would decrease by much less than 20% due to the complex nature of agricultural production and trade. Overall, assuming unchanged consumer preferences and agricultural policy, a 20% reduction in red meat consumption is not likely to lead to a substantial decrease in livestock production or changed land use, or greenhouse gas emissions, from Finnish agriculture.

  15. The social organization of agricultural biogas production and use

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bluemling, Bettina; Mol, Arthur P.J.; Tu, Qin

    2013-01-01

    While for wind, solar energy or hydropower, energy supply happens directly from the source to the wind wheels, hydropower turbines or solar panels, in the case of biogas, energy production cannot directly take from the energy source, organic matter, but depends on the institutional structures and farmers′ practices involved for making energy available. With the production of bioenergy in rural areas, practices within agriculture are transformed, requiring new ways of organizing production processes. Research has left the question largely unanswered of how agricultural biogas production and use are – and can best be – organized within rural society. Which kinds of social organization exist, how are these embedded in existing agricultural institutions and practices, and how do these systems function? Under which conditions may the different kinds of social organization of biogas production and use work sustainably? This introduction article to the Special Issue “The social organization of agricultural biogas production and use” presents a framework for analysing the different kinds of social organization of biogas production and use presented hereafter. Analysis parameters are the supply network, distribution network, distribution of benefits, social boundaries of the system (accessibility) and scale. Using these parameters, the Special Issue articles are outlined. - Highlights: • Through agricultural institutions and farmers′ practices, biogas is made available. • Scale, supply and delivery network distinguish biogas infrastructural systems. • Access and benefit distribution are key for a biogas system′s sustainability

  16. Evolution of agricultural production of Zaire before and after 1960

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabiti, K.

    1991-01-01

    Full Text Available This study presents the evolution of agricultural production of Zaire before and after 1960 with the help of variable quantifies of products, the cultured area and the exported quantifies of products. A comparative analysis of quantifies of studied products shows that after 1960, the agricultural production of basis foodstuffs of the Zairian population has fallen of the order of 91 % in comparison with the first period. This study shows that the system of peasantry introduced in 1936 by the INEAC, the rationalization of cultural methods connected to the governmental explain the agricultural expansion of Zaire before 1960.

  17. Mass production of entomopathogenic fungi using agricultural ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    STORAGESEVER

    2008-06-17

    Jun 17, 2008 ... Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, SRM University Ram, Apuram campus, Chennai 89, India. ... Various agricultural products and by products such as grains, vegetable ..... Premise Hall of India Private Limited, New Delhi.

  18. Development of innovation infrastructure of agricultural production Lviv area

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasyl Chemerys

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Innovative infrastructure of agrarian production in Lviv Area and basic problems of its development are investigated. On the basis of the conducted cluster analysis in the article six optimum areas are offered clusterizations of agricultural production, which are certain after the criterion of balanced cluster educations. The first area of clusterization is most suitable for development of plant-grower. In particular, in four its districts, almost fourth part of plant-grower products is concentrated in the permanent costs of 2010 year. The second area of clusterization can be identified as mainly stock-raising, as its localization in the districts of foot-hill of area creates favourable terms for the production of meat and milk goods. The third area can be attributed to balanced stock-raising-plant-grower straight, with development of agriculture, oriented to the sale of products to the cities, above all things in Lviv. The fourth area of clusterization can be considered mainly plant-grower-oriented with simultaneous development of the suckling cattle breeding. The fifth area of clusterization, as marked already, can be identified as innovative oriented with predominance of stock-raising and production of goods on an export. A sixth (mountain area of clusterization is the least suitable for development of agriculture (except for the milk and meat cattle breeding. The applied approach is based on the account of ten key indexes which characterize potential of agricultural production development in each districts of Lviv Area: products of plant-grower are in all categories of economic agents; products of stock-raising are in all categories of economic agents; area of agricultural lands which are engaged in an agricultural production area of plough-land of economic agents which are engaged in an agricultural production; sowing areas are in all categories of economic agents; a quantity of cattle is in all categories of economic agents; a quantity of

  19. Preliminary Study on the Standard of Selenium Content in Agricultural Products

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    ZHANG Zhi-yuan; YOU Yong; GUO Qing-quan; WANG Yong-hong; DENG Shi-lin

    2012-01-01

    With the improvement of living standards, people pay more attention to the agricultural products with health protection function, and the selenium-rich agricultural products attract more and more consumers. The main biological role of selenium is to resist oxidation and inflammatory response, mainly focusing on resisting aging, preventing cardiovascular disease, protecting eyesight, counteracting or destroying the toxic properties, preventing cancer and thyroid disease. In most areas of China, there is a widespread shortage of selenium, thus producing selenium-rich agricultural products to provide natural selenium-rich health food to the areas in need of selenium, has gradually become a new hot spot of China’s health food industry, but high content of selenium in food is detrimental to human body, even leads to selenium intoxication, and artificially adding inorganic selenium is difficult to guarantee that the selenium content of agricultural products is not exceeded. According to human body’s daily demand for selenium in dietetics and the content of selenium in agricultural products in the Chinese food composition table, we put forward the recommendations on the standard of selenium in agricultural products, in order to provide the basis for China to formulate the health standard of selenium content in selenium-rich agricultural products.

  20. International Trade of Agricultural Products in the Context of "B&R" Initiative

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Lijing WU; Shuhua XIE

    2016-01-01

    At present,China’s agricultural product trade is facing the development dilemma. The trade deficit is expanding,market and product structure is irrational,and the Chinese agriculture products often encounter trade barriers. " B&R" initiative provides a rare opportunity for the development of agricultural products in China. It is necessary to seize this opportunity to change idea and innovate upon mechanism so as to increase the added value of exported agricultural products through various channels. There is also a need to develop electronic commerce,and make full use of interconnectivity and trade facilitation in " B&R" initiative to develop the international trade of agricultural products.

  1. FACTOR ANALYSIS OF LABOR PRODUCTIVITY IN AGRICULTURE IN TERMS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irina Elena PETRESCU

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper represents an analysis of the level of labor productivity in agriculture for each development region of Romania. Labor productivity in agriculture was analyzed by two parameters, namely: the value of agricultural production and the number of employees in agriculture for the period 2011 – 2012. The level of labor productivity is influenced by the quality of biological and bio-capacity of plants and animals as well, as well as the equipment and quality of work performed. From the factorial analysis it can be noticed a decrease of labor productivity caused by a decrease in the value of agricultural production.

  2. Agricultural Production. Level 1. Level 2. Level 3. Support Materials for Agricultural Training.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Batman, Kangan; Gadd, Nick; Lucas, Michele

    This publication contains the three communication skills units of the three levels of Support Materials for Agricultural Training (SMAT) in agricultural production: Level 1 (starting), 2 (continuing), and 3 (completing). The units are designed to help the learner improve his or her written and spoken communication skills needed to deal with…

  3. 46 CFR 111.105-45 - Vessels carrying agricultural products.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Vessels carrying agricultural products. 111.105-45... ENGINEERING ELECTRIC SYSTEMS-GENERAL REQUIREMENTS Hazardous Locations § 111.105-45 Vessels carrying agricultural products. (a) The following areas are Class II, Division 1, (Zone 10 or Z) locations on vessels...

  4. Sensitivity of agricultural runoff loads to rising levels of CO{sub 2} and climate change in the San Joaquin Valley watershed of California

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ficklin, Darren L.; Luo Yuzhou; Luedeling, Eike; Gatzke, Sarah E. [Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (United States); Zhang Minghua, E-mail: mhzhang@ucdavis.ed [Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (United States)

    2010-01-15

    The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to assess the impact of climate change on sediment, nitrate, phosphorus and pesticide (diazinon and chlorpyrifos) runoff in the San Joaquin watershed in California. This study used modeling techniques that include variations of CO{sub 2}, temperature, and precipitation to quantify these responses. Precipitation had a greater impact on agricultural runoff compared to changes in either CO{sub 2} concentration or temperature. Increase of precipitation by +-10% and +-20% generally changed agricultural runoff proportionally. Solely increasing CO{sub 2} concentration resulted in an increase in nitrate, phosphorus, and chlorpyrifos yield by 4.2, 7.8, and 6.4%, respectively, and a decrease in sediment and diazinon yield by 6.3 and 5.3%, respectively, in comparison to the present-day reference scenario. Only increasing temperature reduced yields of all agricultural runoff components. The results suggest that agricultural runoff in the San Joaquin watershed is sensitive to precipitation, temperature, and CO{sub 2} concentration changes. - Agricultural runoff is significantly affected by changes in precipitation, temperature, and atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentration.

  5. Agricultura brasileira: uma observação do sub-setor de mercado internoBrazilian agriculture: an observation of the sub-sector of the internal market

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hideharu Carlos Ikehara

    1981-11-01

    Full Text Available Análise do sub-setor agrícola de mercado interno, no período 1970/80. Os resultados mostraram que a oferta de culturas de consumo doméstico apresentou crescimento inferior à expansão da demanda de alimentos imposta pelo crescimento demográfico e aumento da renda per capita, com uma performance abaixo daquele observado durante a década de 60, em contraste com o extraordinário desempenho das culturas de mercado externo, consequência de um modelo de desenvolvimento agrícola com nítida direção a estímulos de bens agrícolas com cotação no mercado internacional, trazendo à tona o recrudescimento dos problemas de abastecimento e migração rural-urbam.Analysis of the agricultural subsetor of the internal market in the period 1970-80. The results showed that the supply of products for domestic consumption presented a growth inferior to the expansion of the demand for food imposed by the demographic growth and the rise in income per capita, with a performance lower than that observed during the decade of the 60s, in contrast to the extraordinary behavior of the products in the external market, wich was the consequence of a model for agricultural development with clear definition of stimuli for agricultural goods in the international market, briging into focus the problems of food supply and rural-urban migration.

  6. The Relationship between Customer Knowledge Management and Performance of Agricultural Product Innovation

    OpenAIRE

    Hu, Jia-jia

    2012-01-01

    This paper takes an overview of the CKM and the performance of agricultural product innovation from contents of agricultural product innovation and customer knowledge management (CKM), the relation between CKM and agricultural product innovation. On the basis of the overview, it builds the theoretical framework of CKM and agricultural product innovation. It points out that enterprises can satisfy demands of customers through acquisition, share, utilization and innovation of customer knowledge...

  7. Development of Agricultural Product Logistics from the Perspective of the 4PL

    OpenAIRE

    ZHONG, Wuya; YAN, Wei

    2013-01-01

    From the perspective of the Fourth Party Logistics (4PL), this paper elaborates the concept, background and development plight of agricultural products logistics, advises developing 4PL under the background of rapid development of agricultural products and logistics, etc. and explores issues of information, efficiency and supervision of agricultural products logistics, draws the conclusion that only construct an 4PL agricultural products logistics system can alleviate the aporia of cost, and ...

  8. Life cycle assessment of agricultural biogas production systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lansche, J.; Muller, J. [Hohenheim Univ., Stuttgart (Germany). Inst. of Agricultural Engineering, Tropical and Subtropical Group

    2010-07-01

    Agricultural activities are large contributors to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This paper discussed the effectiveness of reducing agricultural emissions by using liquid manure to produce biogas. When using this technique, greenhouse gas emissions from manure storage are avoided and renewable energy is generated as heat and electricity in combined heat and power plants. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the environmental impacts of biogas production systems based on the methods of life cycle assessment. The traditional use of agricultural manures was compared with conventional energy production. The Gabi 4.3 software was used to create a model to evaluate the biogas production systems according to their environmental impact. In addition to the global warming potential, other impact categories were also used to evaluate the effects of the systems in eutrophication and acidification. It was concluded that environmental benefits can be obtained in terms of greenhouse gas emissions compared to electricity production from biogas with the typical German marginal electricity mix.

  9. INSPIA project: European Index for Sustainable and Productive Agriculture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Triviño-Tarradas, Paula; Jesús González-Sánchez, Emilio; Gómez-Ariza, Manuel; Rass, Gerard; Gardette, Sophie; Whitmore, Gavin; Dyson, Jeremy

    2017-04-01

    The concept of sustainable development has evolved from a mere perception for the protection of the environment, to a holistic approach, seeking to preserve not only the environment, but also to achieve sustainability in economics and social wellbeing. Globally, there is a major challenge to face in the agricultural sector: to produce more food, feed and other raw materials to satisfy the increasing demand of a growing population, whilst also contributing to economic prosperity, climate change mitigation / adaptation, social wellbeing and preserving natural capital such as soil, water, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. Nowadays, conventional approaches to agriculture are under threat. A more productive and resource efficient agriculture that integrates natural resource protection into its approach will help to meet all these challenges, enabling us to have more of everything - more food, more feed, more non-food crops, more biodiversity and natural habitats - while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, INSPIA is an innovative approach that has worked since 2013 towards demonstration that sustainable productive agriculture is possible thanks to the implementation of a host of best management practices (BMPs) capable of delivering the above achievements. The purpose on INSPIA is to make visible with European decision makers that a sustainable and productive agricultural model exists in a small scale in Europe and that wider dissemination is possible with enabling legislation. INSPIA is demonstrating sustainable agriculture through the implementation of BMPs and the measurement and monitoring of a set of defined indicators (economic, social and environmental ones). INSPIA promotes sustainable practices that protect biodiversity, soils and water and contribute towards maintaining ecosystems services. This holistic sustainable system of productive agriculture is based on the combination of Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Integrated Pest

  10. A THEORETICAL SPOTLIGHT OVER THE ROMANIAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tarcza Teodora

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at identifying and classifying new types of agricultural products, especially in Romania, but not only. As we well know, all the countries all over the world have their own history, traditions, economic structure, and a certain type of agriculture, adapted to their soil, climate, and nevertheless to theirs people needs. So, we know that certain countries used to cultivate certain agricultural products, while others are wellknown for others. Usually, we associate Spain with great wines, Belgium with delicious chocolate, Turkey with coffee, India with rice, Romania with grain, Russia with cereals, SUA – tobacco, etc.\\r\

  11. Soil physics and agriculture

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dourado Neto, Durval; Reichardt, K.; Sparovek, G.

    2004-01-01

    The approach that integrates knowledge is very important in Agriculture, including farmers, extensionists, researchers and professors. The specialists, including the soil physicists, must have a global view of the crop production system. Therefore, their expertise can be useful for the society. The Essence of scientific knowledge is its practical application. The soil physics is a sub area of Agronomy. There are many examples of this specific subject related to Agriculture. This paper will focus, in general, the following cases: (i) erosion, environmental pollution and human health, (ii) plant population and distribution, soil fertility, evapo-transpiration and soil water flux density, and (iii) productivity, effective root depth, water deficit and yield

  12. Geographical view on agricultural land and structural changes plant production Montenegro

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. Rajović

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE This paper analyzes agricultural land and structural changes in plant production Montenegro. The Montenegro represents a significant potential for agricultural development, but plant production insufficiently developed in relation to natural resources and the demands of intensive agricultural production. Average possession by agricultural holdings in 1960 amounts is 5.34 ha with only 2.05 ha arable area per agricultural holdings. Yet more unfavorable is the situation with arable surfaces. Namely, agricultural holdings in the Montenegro in 1960 are on average dispose with maximum of 0.74 ha of arable land. Judging by the size of the cultivated area, production volume, as well as according other parameters, plant production in the Montenegro in 2007, mainly used for meeting need households. A smaller area for is market. The role of the Montenegrin village and agriculture must be first-rate, as are its potentials, the main power future development of Montenegro. This requires radically new relationship between society and science to agriculture and the countryside. Instead of the existing approach in which they observed the preventive as producers of cheap food has to be developed a new concept, a comprehensive agricultural and rural development, which will be based on demographic, natural, economic and socio-cultural potential of Montenegro. 

  13. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY ASSESSMENT IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

    OpenAIRE

    Serrao, Amilcar

    2001-01-01

    This research work examines levels and trends in global agricultural productivity in fifteen European Union countries and four Eastern European countries that have already applied for European Union membership. The study makes use of data collected from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and covers the period 1980-1998. An approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis is used to provide information on the peers of the (inefficient) i-th country and to derive the Malmqui...

  14. Effects of climate change on US agriculture; Les effets du changement climatique sur l'agriculture americaine

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Guillet, L

    2007-08-15

    The USA are a major producer of food and fiber products in the world. The US agriculture represents more than 25% of the world trades of wheat, corn, soy and cotton. The cultivated surfaces and the pasture lands represent 210 million Ha (17% of the US territory) and 300 million Ha (26% of the US territory), respectively. The agricultural production represents less than 2% of the US GDP, put the agriculture products make about 5% of the US exports. The climate change may have some impacts on the overall agriculture industry, from the plant growth to the conditions of competition on international markets. In 2001, the US global change research program, published an evaluation report about the potential consequences of the climate change on the US agriculture. The conclusions of the panel of experts, based on climate, cultivation and economical models, was that the CO{sub 2} levels and climate changes of the 21. century would have no negative impact on the US agriculture. The average effects, on the contrary, would be rather positive, depending on the type of culture and on the region considered. Today, the experts have entertained lot of doubts about the 2001 forecasts: the fertilizing effect of CO{sub 2} is more and more criticized and an efficient supply of water appears as seriously compromised for many regions. Experts stress also on the lack of consideration for extreme climatic events, and for crop vermin and diseases. This document reanalyzes the conclusions of the 2001 report in the light of the works carried out more recently at the Agriculture Research Service (ARS). The proceedings of expert's interviews are attached in appendixes. (J.S.)

  15. Effects Of Agricultural Extension On Cassava And Maize Production ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study was carried out to assess the effects of agricultural extension on food production in Abak Agricultural zone of Akwa Ibom state. Specifically, the effect was measured using the productivity of small-scale maize and cassava farmers between the years 2004 and 2005. Data for the study were collected from 108 ...

  16. Wastes and by-products - alternatives for agricultural use

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boles, J.L.; Craft, D.J.; Parker, B.R.

    1994-01-01

    Top address a growing national problem with generation of wastes and by-products, TVA has been involved for several years with developing and commercializing environmentally responsible practices for eliminating, minimizing, or utilizing various wastes/by-products. In many cases, reducing waste generation is impractical, but the wastes/by-products can be converted into other environmentally sound products. In some instances, conversion of safe, value-added agricultural products in the best or only practical alternative. TVA is currently involved with a diversity of projects converting wastes/by-products into safe, economical, and agriculturally beneficial products. Environmental improvement projects have involved poultry litter, cellulosic wastes, used battery acid, ammonium sulfate fines, lead smelting effluents, deep-welled sulfuric acid/ammonium bisulfate solutions, wood ash, waste magnesium ammonium sulfate slurry from recording tape production, and ammunition plant waste sodium nitrate/ammonium nitrate streams

  17. AmO<sub>2sub> Analysis for Analytical Method Testing and Assessment: Analysis Support for AmO<sub>2sub> Production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kuhn, Kevin John [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Bland, Galey Jean [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Fulwyler, James Brent [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Garduno, Katherine [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Keller, Russell C. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Klundt, Dylan James [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Lujan, Elmer J. W [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Mark, Zoe Francoise Elise [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Mathew, Kattathu Joseph [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Ortega, Laura Claire [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Ottenfeld, Chelsea Faith [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Porterfield, Donivan R. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Rearick, Michael Sean [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Rim, Jung Ho [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Schake, Ann Rene [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Schappert, Michael Francis [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Stanley, Floyd E. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Thomas, Mariam R. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Wylie, Ernest Miller II [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Xu, Ning [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Tandon, Lav [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

    2017-09-08

    Americium oxide samples will be measured for various analytes to support AmO<sub>2sub> production. The key analytes that are currently requested by the Am production customer at LANL include total Am content, Am isotopics, Pu assay, Pu isotopics, and trace element content including 237Np content. Multiple analytical methods will be utilized depending on the sensitivity, accuracy and precision needs of the Am matrix. Traceability to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will be achieved, where applicable, by running NIST traceable quality control materials. This given that there are no suitable AmO<sub>2sub> reference materials currently available for requested analytes. The primary objective is to demonstrate the suitability of actinide analytical chemistry methods to support AmO<sub>2sub> production operations.

  18. effects of climate change on agricultural productivity in the federal

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Osondu

    2012-10-18

    Oct 18, 2012 ... The effects of the dynamics of climate on agricultural production are the thrust of this paper. Temperature .... climatic conditions that influence agricultural production in ... temperature when there are few clouds in the. FCT.

  19. Integrated carbon analysis of biomass production on fallow agricultural land and product substitution in Sweden - Preliminary results

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dornburg, Veronika; Eggers, Thies; Gustavsson, Leif [Mid Sweden Univ., Oestersund (Sweden). Ecotechnology

    2006-07-15

    An important option in the Swedish context to reduce its net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) is the increased use of biomass for energy and material substitution. On fallow agricultural land additional production of biomass would be possible. We analyse biomass production systems based on Norway spruce, hybrid poplar and willow hybrids and the use of this biomass to replace fossil energy and energy intensive material systems. The highest biomass production potential is for willow in southern Sweden. Fertilisation management of spruce could shorten the rotation lengths by about 17%. The fertilised production of Norway spruce with use of harvested timber for construction and use of remaining woody biomass for heat and power production gives the largest reductions of carbon emissions per hectare under the assumptions made. The use of willow for heat and power and of fertilised spruce for a wood product mix lead to the highest fossil primary energy savings in our scenarios. Spruce cultivations can achieve considerable carbon emission reductions in the long term, but willow and poplar might be a good option when fossil energy savings and carbon emission reductions should be achieved in the short term.

  20. Research on the performance evaluation of agricultural products supply chain integrated operation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Jiake; Wang, Xifu; Liu, Yang

    2017-04-01

    The agricultural product supply chain integrated operation can ensure the quality and efficiency of agricultural products, and achieve the optimal goal of low cost and high service. This paper establishes a performance evaluation index system of agricultural products supply chain integration operation based on the development status of agricultural products and SCOR, BSC and KPI model. And then, we constructing rough set theory and BP neural network comprehensive evaluation model with the aid of Rosetta and MATLAB tools and the case study is about the development of agricultural products integrated supply chain in Jing-Jin-Ji region. And finally, we obtain the corresponding performance results, and give some improvement measures and management recommendations to the managers.

  1. Application of Mixed Group Decision Making to Safety Evaluation of Agricultural Products

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2012-01-01

    In view of the gravity of issues concerning safety of agricultural products and urgency of resolving these issues,after analyzing the problems existing in safety of agricultural products,this article offers a method for evaluating safety of agricultural products on the basis of mixed group decision making.First of all,it introduces the factors influencing safety evaluation of agricultural products;subsequently,given that the judgment matrices offered by the group of experts contain both reciprocal and complementary judgment matrices in the process of jointly participating in evaluation arising from personal preference,it proposes to assemble expert information in order to obtain indicator weight using the OWA operator;finally,the process of evaluating safety of agricultural products is given.

  2. Production of N{sub 2}O in grass-clover pastures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Carter, M.S.

    2005-09-01

    Agricultural soils are known to be a considerable source of the strong greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}O), and in soil N{sub 2}O is mainly produced by nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria. In Denmark, grass-clover pastures are an important component of the cropping system in organic as well as conventional dairy farming, and on a European scale grass-clover mixtures represent a large part of the grazed grasslands. Biological dinitrogen (N{sub 2}) fixation in clover provides a major N input to these systems, but knowledge is sparse regarding the amount of fixed N{sub 2} lost from the grasslands as N2O. Furthermore, urine patches deposited by grazing cattle are known to be hot-spots of N{sub 2}O emission, but the mechanisms involved in the N{sub 2}O production in urine-affected soil are very complex and not well understood. The aim of this Ph.D. project was to increase the knowledge of the biological and physical-chemical mechanisms, which control the production of N2O in grazed grass-clover pastures. Three experimental studies were conducted with the objectives of: 1: assessing the contribution of recently fixed N{sub 2} as a source of N{sub 2}O. 2: examining the link between N{sub 2}O emission and carbon mineralization in urine patches. 3: investigating the effect of urine on the rates and N{sub 2}O loss ratios of nitrification and denitrification, and evaluating the impact of the chemical conditions that arise in urine affected soil. The results revealed that only 3.2 {+-} 0.5 ppm of the recently fixed N{sub 2} was emitted as N2O on a daily basis. Thus, recently fixed N released via easily degradable clover residues appears to be a minor source of N2O. Furthermore, increased N{sub 2}O emission following urine application at rates up to 5.5 g N m{sup -2} was not caused by enhanced denitrification stimulated by labile compounds released from scorched plant roots. Finally, the increase of soil pH and ammonium following urine application led to raised

  3. Methane Production from Gas Hydrate Deposits through Injection of Supercritical CO<sub>2sub>

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthias Haeckel

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available The recovery of natural gas from CH<sub>4sub>-hydrate deposits in sub-marine and sub-permafrost environments through injection of CO<sub>2sub> is considered a suitable strategy towards emission-neutral energy production. This study shows that the injection of hot, supercritical CO<sub>2sub> is particularly promising. The addition of heat triggers the dissociation of CH<sub>4sub>-hydrate while the CO<sub>2sub>, once thermally equilibrated, reacts with the pore water and is retained in the reservoir as immobile CO<sub>2sub>-hydrate. Furthermore, optimal reservoir conditions of pressure and temperature are constrained. Experiments were conducted in a high-pressure flow-through reactor at different sediment temperatures (2 °C, 8 °C, 10 °C and hydrostatic pressures (8 MPa, 13 MPa. The efficiency of both, CH<sub>4sub> production and CO<sub>2sub> retention is best at 8 °C, 13 MPa. Here, both CO<sub>2sub>- and CH<sub>4sub>-hydrate as well as mixed hydrates can form. At 2 °C, the production process was less effective due to congestion of transport pathways through the sediment by rapidly forming CO<sub>2sub>-hydrate. In contrast, at 10 °C CH<sub>4sub> production suffered from local increases in permeability and fast breakthrough of the injection fluid, thereby confining the accessibility to the CH<sub>4sub> pool to only the most prominent fluid channels. Mass and volume balancing of the collected gas and fluid stream identified gas mobilization as equally important process parameter in addition to the rates of methane hydrate dissociation and hydrate conversion. Thus, the combination of heat supply and CO<sub>2sub> injection in one supercritical phase helps to overcome the mass transfer limitations usually observed in experiments with cold liquid or gaseous CO<sub>2sub>.

  4. Agricultural Productivity, Co-Operatives and Organisational ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Huria: Journal of the Open University of Tanzania ... can enhance productivity and increase farmers' income by bringing financial services closer. ... of Kimuli Agricultural Marketing Co-operative Society (AMCOS) and Muungano Savings and ...

  5. The Change Path of Agricultural Production Outsourcing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan Zhang

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The system of agricultural production outsourcing is a breakpoint for the development of agriculture and immigration worker’s urbanization. The analysis based on framework of the Institutional Change reveals that as a whole,the outsourcing system of agricultural production improves the welfare of society effectively. To some extents,it also can solve the problem of food security. The rural transferring labor-forces who realize the institutional change in the initial stage are is the first Action Group to gain the potential benefits. Local governments are a breakpoint of induced institutional change, which find potential benefits and then change the role of system changes. The central government is in dominant statue during the whole change. The outsourcing is a kind of improvement to the Family Contracted System, also an adaption to an imperfect Chinese rural social security. So the outsourcing has a positive meaning in the rural area.

  6. Population pressure and agricultural productivity in Bangladesh.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chaudhury, R H

    1983-01-01

    The relationship between population pressure or density and agricultural productivity is examined by analyzing the changes in the land-man ratio and the changes in the level of land yield in the 17 districts of Bangladesh from 1961-64 and 1974-77. The earlier years were pre-Green Revolution, whereas in the later years new technology had been introduced in some parts of the country. Net sown area, value of total agricultural output, and number of male agricultural workers were the main variables. For the country as a whole, agricultural output grew by 1.2%/year during 1961-64 to 1974-77, while the number of male agricultural workers grew at 1.5%/year. The major source of agricultural growth during the 1960s was found to be increased land-yield associated with a higher ratio of labor to land. The findings imply that a more intensified pattern of land use, resulting in both higher yield and higher labor input/unit of land, is the main source of growth of output and employment in agriculture. There is very little scope for extending the arable area in Bangladesh; increased production must come from multiple cropping, especially through expansion of irrigation and drainage, and from increases in per acre yields, principly through adoption of high yield variants, which explained 87% of the variation in output per acre during the 1970s. Regional variation in output was also associated with variation in cropping intensity and proportion of land given to high yield variants. There is considerable room for modernizing agricultural technology in Bangladesh: in 1975-76 less than 9% of total crop land was irrigated and only 12% of total acreage was under high yield variants. The adoption of new food-grain technology and increased use of high yield variants in Bangladesh's predominantly subsistence-based agriculture would require far-reaching institutional and organizational changes and more capital. Without effective population control, expansion of area under high yield

  7. Conservation agriculture and smallholder farming in Africa: The heretics' view

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Giller, K.E.; Witter, E.; Corbeels, M.; Tittonell, P.A.

    2009-01-01

    Conservation agriculture is claimed to be a panacea for the problems of poor agricultural productivity and soil degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It is actively promoted by international research and development organisations, with such strong advocacy that critical debate is stifled. Claims

  8. Relationship between Balanced Fertilization and Healthy Agricultural Products (A Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M.J. Malakouti

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Based on World Health Organization (WHO report, our society’s health ranks 123 among 192 countries. Unfortunately, this ranking position is very low and its main reason is malnutrition due to imbalanced fertilization. Although more than 85% of Iranian people are not hungry, about 90% of them are suffering from cell hunger, because agricultural authorities and hence producers do not pay attention to food security. According to the latest information, about 86.5% of applied fertilizers in our country appertain to urea and triple super phosphate. In fact, this is an alarming issue in respect to the production of healthy agricultural products and it remains a threat to food security. At present, a total subsidy of more than 7,000 billion rials is paid for nitrogen (N and phosphate (P fertilizers. Whereas, it should be considered that, firstly, the efficiency of these fertilizers, due to different reasons such as mismanagement and existing subsidy level, is low and, secondly, the overuse of these fertilizers causes the accumulation of nitrate (NO3 and cadmium (Cd in agricultural products. Furthermore, according to the law of minimum, the overdosed fertilizers do not have any special positive effect on sustainable production and society’s health. Paying for such high-cost subsidy just for N and P-fertilizers has caused farmers to overuse and waste these fertilizers in the country and moreover not having any tendency to apply biologic, organic and micronutrient fertilizers. Whereas, the application of these fertilizers, beside their adaptability with the environment, has a very positive effect on the human health. Therefore, at this time scientific management of production and application of all kinds of fertilizers is inevitable. In this case, by improving the quality of all types of fertilizers, and following the principle of balanced fertilization, besides achieving the desired yield increase, the quality of agricultural products will be

  9. Status of Agricultural Production and Crop Variety Improvement in Thailand

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    JIAO Chun-hai; GUO Ying; YAO Ming-hua; WAN Zheng-huang

    2012-01-01

    We introduced basic conditions of agricultural production in Thailand, and variety improvement of major crops, including rice, cassava, rubber, and vegetable, in the hope of providing reference for agricultural production and crop variety improvement in Hubei Province and even in the whole country.

  10. Research on the Development of E-commerce Model of Agricultural Products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huo Yaping

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, electronic commerce of agricultural products has developed rapidly. In the development process of electronic commerce of agricultural products,many classic cases and business models have emerged. Such as tootoo industrial commune model (product drive type, Original life model (marketing driven type, Suichang model (service platform type. The author analyzes and compares each model from 7 aspects, and summarizes their differences and links. Finally, The author puts forward suggestions on the development of electronic commerce of agricultural products in china.

  11. Determining the optimum production portfolio in agricultural sector : province of Denizli case

    OpenAIRE

    Akyer, Hasan; Utku, Mehmet; Kaya, Yusuf

    2016-01-01

    Agriculture is a field which is critically important for the economy of every country. Countries pursue different agricultural production strategies in different regions in accordance with their needs. In this study, a production planning model was developed based on Modern Portfolio Theory for the production of summer and winter vegetables in Denizli, which has a significant agricultural production potential for the Aegean region. The historical data of the specified products were obtained f...

  12. Improving agricultural production under water scarcity in Fars province, Iran

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hosseini, M.R.; Haile, A.M.; McClain, M.E.

    2012-01-01

    ABSTRACT Water scarcity is one of the major limiting factor for improving agricultural production in the world, which significantly affects agricultural production and livelihood of millions of people who live in arid and semi-arid regions. This case study presents the analysis of the effectiveness

  13. Economic Analyses of Ware Yam Production in Orlu Agricultural ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Economic Analyses of Ware Yam Production in Orlu Agricultural Zone of Imo State. ... International Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development ... statistics, gross margin analysis, marginal analysis and multiple regression analysis. Results ...

  14. TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT OF PRODUCTION AND REALIZATION OF PLANT PRODUCTION AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES OF MYKOLAIV REGION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kushniruk Viktor

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Agriculture is one of the largest and most important sectors of the Ukrainian economy. The food security and independence of the state, the state of the internal and external markets, and, consequently, the standard of living of the population are directly dependent on its functional state. Mykolaiv region has significant opportunities for the development of the agricultural sector. There are favorable natural and climatic conditions, fertile land, labor resources and long-standing cultivating traditions. The region is considered one of the regions of intensive agriculture in Ukraine and has significant land resources. Purpose. The article presents the analysis of the development of production and sale of crop production by the agrarian enterprises of the Mykolaiv region, as well as revealing ways to increase the volume of their production and sales. Results. The crop area of main agricultural crops in all categories of farms was analyzed, and structural changes for 2010-2016 were revealed. The priority branch of the agro-industrial complex, which has an important strategic significance, first of all, is determined by the level of production of which the food security of the state depends, its economy and welfare of the population. The dynamics of agricultural crop yields in agrarian enterprises as the determining factor of influence on the efficiency of activity in the field of plant growing is researched. The dynamics of gross collections of crop production in agricultural enterprises is analyzed and the contribution of the Mykolaiv region to the national production of grain is determined. The volumes and average prices of sales of agricultural products by agrarian enterprises are investigated and it is determined that the modern development of the agrarian sector of the economy requires special attention to the formation and activation of the activities of market infrastructure entities. The production of which crops are an

  15. Effects of agricultural credit facility on the agricultural production and rural development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    GE Ekwere

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Lack of capital has been identified as one of the constraints that faced by small scale farmers. The aim of this research was to examine the effect of agricultural credit on the agriculture production, and calculate the inputs and outputs among small scale farmers. Structured questionnaires were distributed to 136 farmers, who had been selected using the stratified random sampling technique, and the data obtained were summarized into percentages. Regression analysis was adopted to assess the impacts of socio-economic factors on loan size among farmers, while Cobb-Douglas Production Function Analysis (CDPFA was used to test the relationship between key independent variables such as loan amount, farm size, inputs and farm output as dependent variable. The analysis revealed a significantly high value of coefficient of determination (R2= 0.922 that reflected a high relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables; gender, age, education, family size, farm size, farming experience. The Adjusted (R2 coefficient (R2 = 0.918 revealed that 91.8 % of variation in loam size explained by the changes in variables. The results showed a significance in F-test in size of loan. The hypothesis two, exhibited that the independent variables; loan size, farm size, and inputs explained the variation in the total value of farmers output. The study therefore showed that to achieve the positive agricultural credit impacts on agricultural production, The Government and the private sector should regularly and timely facilitate the credit to the small scale farmers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ije.v3i2.10529 International Journal of the Environment Vol.3(2 2014: 192-204

  16. Agricultural Production, Food and Nutrition Security in Rural Benin ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Agricultural Production, Food and Nutrition Security in Rural Benin, Nigeria. ... that rural-urban migration results in shortage of manpower for agricultural activities. ... to support education, health care, sanitation and safe drinking water supply.

  17. Agricultural Productivity and Policy Interventions in Nyamagabe ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Improving agricultural productivity has received considerable policy intervention in many African countries and particularly in Rwanda. The question remains to know the extent to which the policy contributes to the variation being upwards or downwards of the crop productivity. There are number of determinant factors some ...

  18. Production of Enzymes From Agricultural Wastes and Their Potential Industrial Applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bharathiraja, S; Suriya, J; Krishnan, M; Manivasagan, P; Kim, S-K

    Enzymatic hydrolysis is the significant technique for the conversion of agricultural wastes into valuable products. Agroindustrial wastes such as rice bran, wheat bran, wheat straw, sugarcane bagasse, and corncob are cheapest and plentifully available natural carbon sources for the production of industrially important enzymes. Innumerable enzymes that have numerous applications in industrial processes for food, drug, textile, and dye use have been produced from different types of microorganisms from agricultural wastes. Utilization of agricultural wastes offers great potential for reducing the production cost and increasing the use of enzymes for industrial purposes. This chapter focuses on economic production of actinobacterial enzymes from agricultural wastes to make a better alternative for utilization of biomass generated in million tons as waste annually. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Evaluation on Core Competitiveness of Wholesale Market of Agricultural Products Based on CWAA Operator

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    According to relevant data,we select five indices,namely management ability,organization and management capability,enterprise culture,development ability and technical equipment ability,to establish the index system of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products.Based on combination weight arithmetic average(CWAA) operator,we advance an evaluation model of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products which involves participation of many people.By inviting five exerts,we conduct evaluation in terms of management ability of wholesale market of agricultural products,organization and management capability of leadership,enterprise culture of wholesale market of agricultural products,future development ability of wholesale market of agricultural products,and exiting technical equipment ability of wholesale market of agricultural products.We adopt hundred-mark system to grade and evaluate core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products.The results show that the experts’ evaluation score of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products is high.The evaluation result is reasonable and authentic and this model is feasible.

  20. Agricultural production as a source of irradiation of populations in radiation accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alexakhin, R.M.

    2000-01-01

    Radioactive contamination of the agricultural production sphere in case of a radiation accident with radionuclide release is one of the most important sources of additional irradiation for population. As a result, realisation of the measures for mitigating the consequences of the accident in agro-industrial complex assumes the leading role in total system of measures providing radiation safety. The possibility to obtain agricultural production meeting the radiological standards is one of the main indications of effectiveness of liquidation of the accident consequences. First, obtaining of agricultural production meeting the radiological standards provides decreasing of the total radiation dose. The evidence is obtained in the 8-year experience of liquidation of the Chernobyl NPP accident that the 70% decrease of the internal dose for population became possible through a complex of protection measures in agriculture (during the first year after the accident, the contribution of internal dose into the total one amounted to 45%, and that of external irradiation - 52%; for the 70-year period these values are 39% and 60%, respectively). Second, the possibility to obtain 'pure' agricultural production is one of the most important factors of psychological stability for population. Third, obtaining of consumable (as to radionuclide content) agricultural production in private small holdings is one of the guarantees of stability of demographic sector in the accident-affected zone. From the point of view of organization of agricultural production in liquidation of the consequences of accidents with radioactive releases into environment, some periods can be distinguished: (i) the first (early) period takes 10-12 days after the accident. The main measures in the field of agricultural production are in operative assessment of the radiological situation, organization of radiation survey, express classification of agricultural products ready to consumption. If radionuclide content

  1. Innovation of Supervision System for Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Xingxing; MEI; Zhongchao; FENG

    2014-01-01

    This paper elaborated multidimensional characteristics of quality and safety of agricultural products,introduced current situation of quality and safety supervision of edible agricultural products in China,analyzed existing problems of quality and safety supervision system and corresponding reasons,and finally came up with recommendations for innovation of supervision system for quality and safety of agricultural products.

  2. Potential effects of nuclear war on agricultural productivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harwell, M.A.; Cropper, W.P. Jr.

    1985-01-01

    The authors examine the vulnerabilities of agricultural systems to nuclear war-induced climatic perturbations and to other, indirect effects of nuclear war. Discussion is included of the dependency of agricultural production on technological inputs and the effects of loss or reduction of these inputs in a post-nuclear war world

  3. Design of Agricultural Cleaner Production Technology System

    OpenAIRE

    Hu, Jun-mei; Wang, Xin-jie

    2009-01-01

    Based on the introduction of agricultural cleaner production, technology system design of planting cleaner production is discussed from five aspects of water-saving irrigation technology, fertilization technology, diseases and insects control technology, straw comprehensive utilization technology and plastic film pollution control technology. Cleaner production technology system of livestock and poultry raise is constructed from the aspects of source control technology, reduction technique in...

  4. GLOBAL CHALLENGES FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SLOVAKIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Magdalana Bartosova

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The paper is focused on the evaluation of economic, social and environmental challenges of sustainable agriculture. The selected indicators of the economic challenges of sustainable agriculture imply that agriculture in Slovakia is not in long term be able to ensure competitiveness in the European market, gross agricultural output is characterized by a faster decline in animal production than in crop production and the value of import of agri-food commodities is higher than the value of export. According to selected indicators of social challenges of sustainable agriculture the number of persons working in agriculture has decreasing tendency in last years. The evaluation of selected indicators of environmental challenges of sustainable agriculture implies that area of organic agriculture is the most widely applied sub-measure within the measure agri-environmental payments. For ensuring the balance of the three mentioned dimensions of sustainable agriculture is necessary to increase of local production and consumption of local products, to ensure the protection of nature and landscape, to ensure rural development and to increase the employment opportunities in countryside.

  5. Implications of middlemen in the supply chain of agricultural products

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper appraised the roles of middlemen in the distribution of agricultural products and the inherent implications to food security. The results showed that climate and weather are known limiting factors of production in agriculture. Also, middlemen intervention raise price for consumers. The result showed that farmers ...

  6. THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY ON RURAL TO URBAN MIGRATION IN JAVA, INDONESIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renata Fauzia

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates if the improvement of agricultural productivity will decrease rural to urban migration. Since rural to urban migration occurs due mainly to disparity between urban and agricultural wage, we assume that boosting agricultural income will reduce migration to urban areas. It is hypothesized that increase in agricultural productivity would result in a rise in agricultural wage, and hence income, ceteris paribus, reduces rural-urban migration. The data used in this study is the 2010 provincial statistics in West Java, Central Java, and East Java, Indonesia. The agricultural productivity and migration equations were estimated by using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS. The research findings may offer the suggestion to reduce rural to urban migration by boosting rural income through focusing the policy on agricultural productivity. Enhancing investment in agricultural sector such as increasing the number of subsidized fertilizer, adding agricultural labor and livestock, increasing education of rural people, and utilizing agricultural land resource are expected to increase agricultural output.Thus, it would also minimize the wage differential between urban and rural area.

  7. Quality of agricultural-food products as a factor of the Republic of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Jane

    2011-08-03

    Aug 3, 2011 ... encourages manufacturers and processors of agricultural products to offer a ... AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION COMPETITIVENESS. Serbia has .... quality, modest design and packaging, products have uncertain sale in the ...

  8. Comparing Pathways to Agriculture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorian Q Fuller

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The transition from foraging systems to agricultural dependence is a persistent focus of archaeological research, and the focus of a major research project supported by the European Research Council (ERC grant no. 323842, ’ComPAg’. Gordon Childe, director of the Institute of Archaeology 1947–1957, influentially defined the Neolithic revolution as that which instigated a series of changes in human societies towards sedentism (settling in one place, larger populations, food production based on domesticated plants and animals, transformed cosmologies and the dawn of new malleable technologies such as ceramics and textiles (Childe 1936.

  9. Agricultural field reclamation utilizing native grass crop production

    Science.gov (United States)

    J. Cure

    2013-01-01

    Developing a method of agricultural field reclamation to native grasses in the Lower San Pedro Watershed could prove to be a valuable tool for educational and practical purposes. Agricultural field reclamation utilizing native grass crop production will address water table depletion, soil degradation and the economic viability of the communities within the watershed....

  10. Implications of Climate Mitigation for Future Agricultural Production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Christoph; Elliott, Joshua; Chryssanthacopoulos, James; Deryng, Delphine; Folberth, Christian; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Schmid, Erwin

    2015-01-01

    Climate change is projected to negatively impact biophysical agricultural productivity in much of the world. Actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate future climate changes, are thus of central importance for agricultural production. Climate impacts are, however, not unidirectional; some crops in some regions (primarily higher latitudes) are projected to benefit, particularly if increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is assumed to strongly increase crop productivity at large spatial and temporal scales. Climate mitigation measures that are implemented by reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations lead to reductions both in the strength of climate change and in the benefits of carbon dioxide fertilization. Consequently, analysis of the effects of climate mitigation on agricultural productivity must address not only regions for which mitigation is likely to reduce or even reverse climate damages. There are also regions that are likely to see increased crop yields due to climate change, which may lose these added potentials under mitigation action. Comparing data from the most comprehensive archive of crop yield projections publicly available, we find that climate mitigation leads to overall benefits from avoided damages at the global scale and especially in many regions that are already at risk of food insecurity today. Ignoring controversial carbon dioxide fertilization effects on crop productivity, we find that for the median projection aggressive mitigation could eliminate approximately 81% of the negative impacts of climate change on biophysical agricultural productivity globally by the end of the century. In this case, the benefits of mitigation typically extend well into temperate regions, but vary by crop and underlying climate model projections. Should large benefits to crop yields from carbon dioxide fertilization be realized, the effects of mitigation become much more mixed, though still positive globally and beneficial in many

  11. Implications of climate mitigation for future agricultural production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Müller, Christoph; Elliott, Joshua; Chryssanthacopoulos, James; Deryng, Delphine; Folberth, Christian; Pugh, Thomas A M; Schmid, Erwin

    2015-01-01

    Climate change is projected to negatively impact biophysical agricultural productivity in much of the world. Actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate future climate changes, are thus of central importance for agricultural production. Climate impacts are, however, not unidirectional; some crops in some regions (primarily higher latitudes) are projected to benefit, particularly if increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is assumed to strongly increase crop productivity at large spatial and temporal scales. Climate mitigation measures that are implemented by reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations lead to reductions both in the strength of climate change and in the benefits of carbon dioxide fertilization. Consequently, analysis of the effects of climate mitigation on agricultural productivity must address not only regions for which mitigation is likely to reduce or even reverse climate damages. There are also regions that are likely to see increased crop yields due to climate change, which may lose these added potentials under mitigation action. Comparing data from the most comprehensive archive of crop yield projections publicly available, we find that climate mitigation leads to overall benefits from avoided damages at the global scale and especially in many regions that are already at risk of food insecurity today. Ignoring controversial carbon dioxide fertilization effects on crop productivity, we find that for the median projection aggressive mitigation could eliminate ∼81% of the negative impacts of climate change on biophysical agricultural productivity globally by the end of the century. In this case, the benefits of mitigation typically extend well into temperate regions, but vary by crop and underlying climate model projections. Should large benefits to crop yields from carbon dioxide fertilization be realized, the effects of mitigation become much more mixed, though still positive globally and beneficial in many food insecure

  12. Agricultural production data for the Sizewell area

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1982-11-01

    The proposed site for the Sizewell B nuclear power station is located at the centre of the East Suffolk coastline. The county itself is predominantly agricultural, producing a very wide range of foodstuffs which in the case of one or two particular foodstuffs contribute a significant proportion of the total national production. A general view of the agricultural setting within which the development would be sited and a compendium of more detailed agricultural data relating to the immediate vicinity of the site, which has been drawn on in the Ministry's assessment of the radiological impact of routine atmospheric waste emission, are given. (U.K.)

  13. Market problems of agricultural products in Albania

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Merita Marku

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The production of fruits and vegetables in our country still faces challenges, including informality in sector of planting material, high costs of inputs purchased and fuel (especially affecting the green houses with heating, low productivity and high losses of post-harvest, especially in the case of fruit. Fresh fruit and vegetable marketing is different in many respects from the marketing of other agricultural and nonagricultural products. Hundreds of individual commodities comprise the total group. Each product has its own special requirements for growing and handling, with its own quality attributes, merchandising methods, and standards of consumer acceptance (How, R. B. 2012, 1. Food safety standards of fruits and vegetables their compliance with key standards and certification as a prerequisite and a challenge to be addressed in order to increase Albanian exports of agricultural products to European markets. Concerning vegetables and fruits, Albanian farmers face important marketing problems. Such problems are encountered at all stages of the production system-provision of inputs, both in terms of processing, promotion and other market incentives, which directly assist in the efficient realization of the sale of fruits and vegetables.

  14. Optimizing cultivation of agricultural products using socio-economic and environmental scenarios.

    Science.gov (United States)

    RaheliNamin, Behnaz; Mortazavi, Samar; Salmanmahiny, Abdolrassoul

    2016-11-01

    The combination of degrading natural conditions and resources, climate change, growing population, urban development, and competition in a global market complicate optimization of land for agricultural products. The use of pesticides and fertilizers for crop production in the agricultural fields has become excessive in the recent years and Golestan Province of Iran is no exception in this regard. For this, effective management with an efficient and cost-effective practice should be undertaken, maintaining public service at a high level and preserving the environment. Improving the production efficiency of agriculture, efficient use of water resources, decreasing the use of pesticides and fertilizers, improving farmer revenue, and conservation of natural resources are the main objectives of the allocation, ranking, and optimization of agricultural products. The goal of this paper is to use an optimization procedure to lower the negative effects of agriculture while maintaining a high production rate, which is currently a gap in the study area. We collected information about fertilizer and pesticide consumption and other data in croplands of eastern Golestan Province through face-to-face interviews with farmers to optimize cultivation of the agricultural products. The toxicity of pesticides according to LD50 was also included in the optimization model. A decision-support software system called multiple criteria analysis tool was used to simultaneously minimize consumption of water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides and maximize socio-economic returns. Three scenarios for optimization of agricultural products were generated that alternatively emphasized on environmental and socio-economic goals. Comparing socio-economic and environmental performance of the optimized agricultural products under the three scenarios illustrated the conflict between social, economic, and environmental objectives. Of the six crops studied (wheat, barley, rice, soybeans, oilseed rape

  15. PRODUCTION OF BIOETHANOL FROM AGRICULTURAL WASTE

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Braide W, Kanu I.A, Oranusi U.S and Adeleye S.A

    2016-05-01

    May 1, 2016 ... ethanol can be made from the named agricultural waste and the process is ..... of lignocellulosic materials for ethanol production: a review. Bioresour. ... [6] Martín, C., Klinke, H.B. and Thomsen, A.B. Wet oxidation as a ...

  16. motorable roads and transportation system in the agricultural zones

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    sustain the traditional farming system. ... Consequently, people have to travel to work, to play, to buy and sell, to obtain professional services, to socialize and to convey agricultural products from one place to another. Road is an asset to ..... Cleaver, K.M (1993) A Strategy to Develop Agriculture in Sub-Saharan African and a.

  17. MAPPING AND DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION TO ACTUALIZE SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF FOOD IN YOGYAKARTA CITY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kadarso

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to identify potential urban farming commodities and develop urban agricultural production in order to realize food self-sufficiency in Yogyakarta City. The study used a qualitative and quantitative approach with Location Quotient analysis instrument, Dynamic Location Quotient, SWOT Analysis. Results: base area is Mergangsan, Ngampilan, Tegalrejo, Kotagede, Mantrijeron, Gondokusuman, Wirobrajan, Pakualaman, Umbulharjo, and Kraton. Non-base areas are sub-district Gedongtengen, Gondomanan, Danurejan, and Jetis. Areas that have the potential to develop faster are Mergangsan, Ngampilan, Kotagede, Danurejan, Gondokusuman and Jetis. Areas with slower development potential are Gedong Tengen, Gondomanan, Tegalrejo, Pakualaman, Mantrijeron, Wirobrajan, Umbulharjo, and Kraton. S-O Strategy is there are several sub-districts in the city of Yogyakarta have the strength of the economic base, so the potential to develop crops; optimizing the role of Field Agricultural Instructor. The W-O strategy is the promotion of farming and improvement of farm management. S-T strategy is to improve the quality of infrastructure and improve marketing efficiency. The W-T strategy is the expansion of market share; there are other nonagricultural businesses that are more promising.

  18. Agricultural production and water use scenarios in Cyprus under global change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruggeman, Adriana; Zoumides, Christos; Camera, Corrado; Pashiardis, Stelios; Zomeni, Zomenia

    2014-05-01

    In many countries of the world, food demand exceeds the total agricultural production. In semi-arid countries, agricultural water demand often also exceeds the sustainable supply of water resources. These water-stressed countries are expected to become even drier, as a result of global climate change. This will have a significant impact on the future of the agricultural sector and on food security. The aim of the AGWATER project consortium is to provide recommendations for climate change adaptation for the agricultural sector in Cyprus and the wider Mediterranean region. Gridded climate data sets, with 1-km horizontal resolution were prepared for Cyprus for 1980-2010. Regional Climate Model results were statistically downscaled, with the help of spatial weather generators. A new soil map was prepared using a predictive modelling and mapping technique and a large spatial database with soil and environmental parameters. Stakeholder meetings with agriculture and water stakeholders were held to develop future water prices, based on energy scenarios and to identify climate resilient production systems. Green houses, including also hydroponic systems, grapes, potatoes, cactus pears and carob trees were the more frequently identified production systems. The green-blue-water model, based on the FAO-56 dual crop coefficient approach, has been set up to compute agricultural water demand and yields for all crop fields in Cyprus under selected future scenarios. A set of agricultural production and water use performance indicators are computed by the model, including green and blue water use, crop yield, crop water productivity, net value of crop production and economic water productivity. This work is part of the AGWATER project - AEIFORIA/GEOGRO/0311(BIE)/06 - co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research Promotion Foundation.

  19. A survey of radioactive levels of agricultural products in Saitama prefecture

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Motegi, Misako; Miyake, Sadaaki; Oosawa, Takashi; Nakazawa, Kiyoaki [Saitama Inst. of Public health, Saitama (Japan)

    1997-09-01

    Past atmospheric nuclear testing which have been conducted frequently, have caused environmental pollution due to the diffusion of radioactive substances into the atmosphere and from the radioactive fallout. The environmental pollution from nuclear testing into the atmosphere has resulted in the radioactive contamination in agricultural products and has continued for a long time. The radioactive contamination of agricultural products occurs through air, water and soil which were contaminated by radioactive fallout. In this paper, for the purpose of analyzing the extent of the radioactive contamination levels in the agricultural products of Saitama Prefecture, spinach, green soybeans, dried shiitake and welsh onion, were selected among products, as the amount of the harvest is abundant in all of Japan. Radioactivity concentration was investigated by gamma-ray spectrometry and radiochemical analysis. The radioactivity concentrations of artificial radioactive nuclides, cesium-137 ({sup 137}Cs) and strontium-90 ({sup 90}Sr), were detected in the range which is considered to be the result of radioactive fallout. Moreover, in order to examine the effect on radioactivity concentrations in agricultural products by culinary processing, the raw agricultural products were boiled, and their radioactivity concentrations were compared with the raw produce. The radioactivity concentrations in the boiled were lower than those in the raw produce. (author)

  20. A survey of radioactive levels of agricultural products in Saitama prefecture

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Motegi, Misako; Miyake, Sadaaki; Oosawa, Takashi; Nakazawa, Kiyoaki

    1997-01-01

    Past atmospheric nuclear testing which have been conducted frequently, have caused environmental pollution due to the diffusion of radioactive substances into the atmosphere and from the radioactive fallout. The environmental pollution from nuclear testing into the atmosphere has resulted in the radioactive contamination in agricultural products and has continued for a long time. The radioactive contamination of agricultural products occurs through air, water and soil which were contaminated by radioactive fallout. In this paper, for the purpose of analyzing the extent of the radioactive contamination levels in the agricultural products of Saitama Prefecture, spinach, green soybeans, dried shiitake and welsh onion, were selected among products, as the amount of the harvest is abundant in all of Japan. Radioactivity concentration was investigated by gamma-ray spectrometry and radiochemical analysis. The radioactivity concentrations of artificial radioactive nuclides, cesium-137 ( 137 Cs) and strontium-90 ( 90 Sr), were detected in the range which is considered to be the result of radioactive fallout. Moreover, in order to examine the effect on radioactivity concentrations in agricultural products by culinary processing, the raw agricultural products were boiled, and their radioactivity concentrations were compared with the raw produce. The radioactivity concentrations in the boiled were lower than those in the raw produce. (author)

  1. Remote Sensing Analysis of Malawi's Agricultural Inputs Subsidy and Climate Variability Impacts on Productivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galford, G. L.; Fiske, G. J.; Sedano, F.; Michelson, H.

    2016-12-01

    Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by smallholder production and low yields ( 1 ton ha-1 year-1 since records began in 1961) for staple food crops such as maize (Zea mays). Many years of low-input farming have depleted much of the region's agricultural land of critical soil carbon and nitrogen, further reducing yield potentials. Malawi is a 98,000 km2 subtropical nation with a short rainy season from November to May, with most rainfall occurring between December and mid-April. This short growing season supports the cultivation of one primary crop, maize. In Malawi, many smallholder farmers face annual nutrient deficits as nutrients removed as grain harvest and residues are beyond replenishment levels. As a result, Malawi has had stagnant maize yields averaging 1.2 ton ha-1 year-1 for decades. After multiple years of drought and widespread hunger in the early 2000s, Malawi introduced an agricultural input support program (fertilizer and seed subsidy) in time for the 2006 harvest that was designed to restore soil nutrients, improve maize production, and decrease dependence on food aid. Malawi's subsidy program targets 50-67% of smallholder farmers who cultivate half a hectare or less, yet collectively supply 80% of the country's maize. The country has achieved significant increases in crop yields (now 2 tons/ha/year) and, as our analysis shows, benefited from a new resilience against drought. We utilized Landsat time series to determine cropland extent from 2000-present and identify areas of marginal and/or intermittent production. We found a strong latitudinal gradient of precipitation variability from north to south in CHIRPS data. We used the precipitation variability to normalize trends in a productivity proxy derived from MODIS EVI. After normalization of productivity to precipitation variability, we found significant productivity trends correlated to subsidy distribution. This work was conducted with Google's Earth Engine, a cloud-based platform

  2. Quality of agricultural-food products as a factor of the Republic of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study analyzes the competitiveness of agricultural-food products of Serbia in the local and international markets. The subject of this research is analysis of relevant competitiveness factors of agricultural-food products, aiming to assess the products' quality and highlight the main intentions of production and processing.

  3. Agricultural productivity growth and technology progress in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The goal of this investigation was to analyze the impact of some variables of production(input) on agricultural productivity growth (output) in China over the period 1989-2002. To this aim, Cobb-Douglas function has been used. The methodology used in this study is correct and the resulting conclusion is that labor, capital ...

  4. Implications of salinity pollution hotspots on agricultural production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Floerke, Martina; Fink, Julia; Malsy, Marcus; Voelker, Jeanette; Alcamo, Joseph

    2016-04-01

    Salinity pollution can have many negative impacts on water resources used for drinking, irrigation, and industrial purposes. Elevated concentrations of salinity in irrigation water can lead to decreased crop production or crop death and, thus, causing an economic problem. Overall, salinity pollution is a global problem but tends to be more severe in arid and semi-arid regions where the dilution capacity of rivers and lakes is lower and the use of irrigation higher. Particularly in these regions agricultural production is exposed to high salinity of irrigation water as insufficient water quality further reduces the available freshwater resources. According to the FAO, irrigated agriculture contributes about 40 percent of the total food production globally, and therefore, high salinity pollution poses a major concern for food production and food security. We use the WaterGAP3 modeling framework to simulate hydrological, water use, and water quality conditions on a global scale for the time period 1990 to 2010. The modeling framework is applied to simulate total dissolved solids (TDS) loadings and in-stream concentrations from different point and diffuse sources to get an insight on potential environmental impacts as well as risks to agricultural food production. The model was tested and calibrated against observed data from GEMStat and literature sources. Although global in scope, the focus of this study is on developing countries, i.e., in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as these are most threatened by salinity pollution. Furthermore, insufficient water quality for irrigation and therefore restrictions in irrigation water use are examined, indicating limitations to crop production. Our results show that elevated salinity concentrations in surface waters mainly occur in peak irrigation regions as irrigated agriculture is not only the most relevant water use sector contributing to water abstractions, but also the dominant source of salinity pollution. Additionally

  5. Preparation and characterization of magnetic CsH{sub 2}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/Fe–SiO{sub 2} nanocatalysts for biodiesel production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Feyzi, Mostafa, E-mail: Dalahoo2011@yahoo.com [Faculty of Chemistry, Razi University, P. O. Box: 6714967346, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research Center (NNRC), Razi University, P. O. Box: 6714967346, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Nourozi, Leila [Faculty of Chemistry, Razi University, P. O. Box: 6714967346, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Zakarianezhad, Mohammad [Department of Chemistry, Payam Noor University, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

    2014-12-15

    Graphical abstract: In this study, a series of magnetic CsH{sub 2}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/Fe–SiO{sub 2} nanocatalysts were prepared and tested for biodiesel production. The best operational conditions were CH3OH/oil = 12/1 at 60 °C with mechanical stirring, the biodiesel yield reaches to 81% in 4 h. Also notably, recovery of the catalyst can be achieved easily with the help of an external magnet with no need for expensive ultracentrifugation. - Highlights: • Effects of preparation conditions for biodiesel production were studied. • The CsH{sub 2}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/Fe–SiO{sub 2} catalyst is efficient catalyst for biodiesel production. • The reaction conditions were found methanol/oil = 12/1, T = 60 °C. - Abstract: The magnetic CsH{sub 2}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/Fe–SiO{sub 2} nanocatalysts were prepared via combination of sol–gel and impregnation methods. The effects of different H{sub 3}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/(Fe–SiO{sub 2}) weight percentage, loading of Cs as a promotor and calcination conditions on the catalytic performance has been studied. It was found that the catalyst with H{sub 3}PW{sub 12}O{sub 40}/Fe–SiO{sub 2} = 4 wt.% and Cs = 2 wt.% is an optimal catalyst for biodiesel production. The activity of optimal catalyst was studied in different operational conditions. The best operational conditions were CH{sub 3}OH/oil = 12/1 at 60 °C with mechanical stirring rate of 500 rpm and the biodiesel yield reaches to 81% in 4 h. Characterization of catalysts was carried out by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), N{sub 2} adsorption–desorption measurements methods, Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)

  6. Minilivestock in Argentina. Integration with Agricultural Production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Biasatti, NR.

    1999-01-01

    Full Text Available The development of alternative agricultural production can take different forms. In Argentina there is an important diversity of species available to be incorporated into production systems, giving support for the use of natural resources based on taking advantage of the regional fauna. Moreover the use of different animal species can be incorporated under the concept of the optimization of flows of energy and materials, tending to minimize the environmental impact of livestock production, and also to make more efficient use of the ingredients required for developing the activity. The integration of non-traditional species (minilivestock within the context of sustainable agricultural development was the motivation for the present study A module for raising Myocastor coypus (coypu or false nutha was developed, to which was linked a module for raising Eisenia foetida (the socalled red worm, in both cases with a dual purpose. Preliminary estimates were made of the productive aspects of both species, as well as an analysis of their integration, to understand the extent to which diversification linked with complementation tends to optimize the system.

  7. Influences of Packaging on Consumers’ Choice of Agricultural Products in Enugu, Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chukwuebuka Ebube Wilfred

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available This study focused on packaging and its influence on consumers’ choice of agricultural products in Enugu metropolis, Nigeria. In addition, it also aimed to ascertain the relationship between packaging of agricultural products and their perceived quality. The study population is made up of agro-product consumers in Enugu metropolis, Nigeria. A total of 165 questionnaires were administered to respondents. Data obtained through questionnaires were tabulated and analyzed using simple percentages while the chi-square was used to test the research hypotheses. The major findings of this study were that packaging has a direct relationship both to consumers’ choice of agricultural products and their perception of the quality of such products. Accordingly, the researchers conclude and recommend that improved packaging design for agricultural products is essential in attracting consumers and positively influencing their choice of purchase.

  8. Evolution Model and Simulation of Profit Model of Agricultural Products Logistics Financing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Bo; Wu, Yan

    2018-03-01

    Agricultural products logistics financial warehousing business mainly involves agricultural production and processing enterprises, third-party logistics enterprises and financial institutions tripartite, to enable the three parties to achieve win-win situation, the article first gives the replication dynamics and evolutionary stability strategy between the three parties in business participation, and then use NetLogo simulation platform, using the overall modeling and simulation method of Multi-Agent, established the evolutionary game simulation model, and run the model under different revenue parameters, finally, analyzed the simulation results. To achieve the agricultural products logistics financial financing warehouse business to participate in tripartite mutually beneficial win-win situation, thus promoting the smooth flow of agricultural products logistics business.

  9. Multi-Product Crops for Agricultural and Energy Production : an AGE Analysis for Poland

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ignaciuk, A.; Dellink, R.B.

    2005-01-01

    By-products from agriculture and forestry can contribute to production of clean and cheap (bio)electricity. To assess the role of such multi-product crops in the response to climate policies, we present an applied general equilibrium model with special attention to biomass and multi-product crops

  10. A climate-friendly agriculture in 2050; Ett klimatvaenligt jordbruk 2050

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hjerpe, Karin

    2012-07-01

    Board of Agriculture has developed a basis for the role of agriculture in a road map towards a Sweden without a net greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. One possible reference scenario of how the development would be of no action is taken is presented in the report. Measures that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is discussed as well as instruments that could make the measures came about. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture depends largely on what is produced, and are therefore governed by what is consumed. Production can be made more efficient but not without any emission of greenhouse gases. According to the Swedish climate report 7.9 million tonnes of CO{sub 2} equivalent was released in the form of methane and nitrous oxide from livestock keeping and crop production in the agricultural sector in 2010. The report's reference scenario for agriculture is based on the assumption that the Swedish agricultural production in 2050 should be the same as today. The efficiency and productivity is expected to increase - productivity by 0.5 percent per year - which means that emissions of greenhouse gases decreases compared to 2010. The estimated emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture in 2050 amounts to 7.23 million tonnes CO{sub 2}-equivalent. In the national climate change reporting, the climate impact of agriculture also includes other flows of greenhouse gases than those in the agricultural sector. This applies to uptake and carbon dioxide emissions from land use, greenhouse gas emissions in direct energy use (energy use in stationary machines and fuel use in mobile machines), and greenhouse gas emissions from the production of imported input goods. When these flows are included in total emissions in the reference scenario in 2050, 9.49 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents will be emitted. Relevant measures the farmers themselves can take have been analyzed in terms of the effect they can make as well as cost-effectiveness and

  11. Detecting Chaos from Agricultural Product Price Time Series

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xin Su

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Analysis of the characteristics of agricultural product price volatility and trend forecasting are necessary to formulate and implement agricultural price control policies. Taking wholesale cabbage prices as an example, a multiple test methodology has been adopted to identify the nonlinearity, fractality, and chaos of the data. The approaches used include the R/S analysis, the BDS test, the power spectra, the recurrence plot, the largest Lyapunov exponent, the Kolmogorov entropy, and the correlation dimension. The results show that there is chaos in agricultural wholesale price data, which provides a good theoretical basis for selecting reasonable forecasting models as prediction techniques based on chaos theory can be applied to forecasting agricultural prices.

  12. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agricultural Production

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bennetzen, Eskild Hohlmann

    unit. This dissertation presents results and comprehensions from my PhD study on the basis of three papers. The overall aim has been to develop a new identity-based framework, the KPI, to estimate and analyse GHG emissions from agriculture and LUC and apply this on national, regional and global level....... The KPI enables combined analyses of changes in total emissions, emissions per area and emissions per product. Also, the KPI can be used to assess how a change in each GHG emission category affects the change in total emissions; thus pointing to where things are going well and where things are going less...... well in relation to what is actually produced. The KPI framework is scale independent and can be applied at any level from field and farm to global agricultural production. Paper I presents the first attempt to develop the KPI identity framework and, as a case study, GHG emissions from Danish crop...

  13. Microcredit Effect on Agricultural Productivity: A Comparative ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    F-value of 9.84 and 10.11 recorded for the two categories of farmers respectively, and being significant at 1 percent each, led to the rejection of the hypothesis of inputs having no significant effect on output. It is thus concluded that credit could bring about higher productivity and profit in agricultural production, hence, this ...

  14. Agricultural recycling of biodigested vinasse for lettuce production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Camila Roberta Javorski Ueno

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The agricultural use of waste products represents an interesting alternative for nutrient cycling. Biodigested vinasse, the final waste product of vinasse biodigestion and biogas production, can be reused for agricultural purposes. The present work sought to quantify the shoot dry mass production of lettuce plants, as well as foliar nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content following the application of biodigested vinasse on soil. Biodigested vinasse was produced from anaerobic vinasse digestion, using anaerobic sludge as a source of microorganisms. The treatments, with four replications in entirely randomized design, consisted of anaerobic sludge from a gelatin factory, vinasse in natura, biodigested vinasse and a control treatment. The experiment was conducted over 45 days using 5 L vases and applying a dose equivalent to 150 m3 ha-1 . Lettuce treated with biodigested vinasse showed higher shoot dry mass production and higher accumulation of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in its leaves than that treated with vinasse in natura.

  15. Annual cropped area expansion and agricultural production ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management ... considerable annual increase of varying extent over time and space for both annual output and area ... The study suggests improving productivity through sustainable agricultural ...

  16. Reduction of radiation injury of fresh agricultural products by saccharide

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Todoroki, Setsuko; Hayashi, Toru

    1999-01-01

    Radiation exposure has been paid attention as an alternative technique of methylbromide to protect agricultural products against insects. However, it has been pointed out that radiation at a dose lower than 300-400 Gy necessary for insecticidal effects might produce damages in fresh agricultural products. To reduce such radiation damages, radiation sensitivities of various fresh products were determined to clarify whether sugar treatment is effective for reduction of damages. Further, the timing of the treatment and its influence on the metabolism of agricultural product were investigated. When sucrose was added to a cut flower of chrysanthemum via water before and during irradiation, the withering time of its leaves and flowers was earlier than that of the untreated product, whereas continuous administration of sucrose after radiation exposure caused to lengthen the flower's life and delay the leave's yellowing. Thus, it was indicated that continuous sugar supply after irradiation was effective for prevention of radiation damages. (M.N.)

  17. Computerised image analysis of biocrystallograms originating from agricultural products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Jens-Otto; Henriksen, Christian B.; Laursen, J.

    1999-01-01

    Procedures are presented for computerised image analysis of iocrystallogram images, originating from biocrystallization investigations of agricultural products. The biocrystallization method is based on the crystallographic phenomenon that when adding biological substances, such as plant extracts...... on up to eight parameters indicated strong relationships, with R2 up to 0.98. It is concluded that the procedures were able to discriminate the seven groups of images, and are applicable for biocrystallization investigations of agricultural products. Perspectives for the application of image analysis...

  18. Electromagnetic radiation properties of foods and agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mohsenin, N.N.

    1984-01-01

    In this book, the author examines the effects of the various regions of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum on foods and agricultural products. Among the regions of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum covered are high-energy beta and neutron particles, gamma-rays and X-rays, to lower-energy visible, near infrared, infrared, microwave and low-energy radiowaves and electric currents. Dr. Mohsenin applies these electromagnetic phenomena to food products such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, dairy products, meat and processed foods. Contents: Some Basic Concepts of Electromagnetic Radiation. Basic Instruments for Measurement of Optical Properties. Applications of Radiation in the Visible Spectrum. Color and its Measurement. Sorting for Color and Appearance. Near-Infrared and Infrared Radiation Applications. Applications of High-Energy Radiation. Related Concepts of Microwaves, Radiowaves, and Electric Currents. Measurement of Electrical Properties of Foods and Agricultural Products. Applications of Electrical Properties. Appendix, Cited References. Subject Index

  19. The Analysis of Effectiveness of Various Channels for Selling Agricultural Products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yakubiv Valentyna М.

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the article is to conduct an analysis of the agricultural products market in Ivano-Frankivsk region by assessing the main channels for selling products and the price level. By summarizing and analyzing the research of domestic scientists, the importance of conducting a qualitative and detailed market research in the system of intermediary activity is substantiated. Due to the results of the analysis of channels for selling agricultural products, it is revealed that intermediary structures have the largest market share. It is found that there is a tendency to increase the share of sold agricultural products to intermediaries both in Ukraine in general and in Ivano-Frankivsk region in particular. At the same time, direct sales on the market, and, therefore, direct contact with the end user, are decreasing year by year. Prospects for further research in this direction are searching for ways to reduce control over the agricultural market by intermediary structures.

  20. On The Improvement of the System of Board of Directors in China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhao Jinlong

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Currently, shareholder democracy in many countries are gaining much more attention because many factors have damaged shareholder’s rights and interest, in which is the problem of the system of board of directors when it operated, including the formalization of the board of directors, the autocracy of managers and staggered boards. To safeguard the legitimate interests of the company and minority shareholders, the system of board of directors is to be improved in following areas: defining the supervision functions and powers of the board of directors, setting up sub-committees within the board, improving the director appointing mechanism and electoral system, improving the director qualification system, abolishing the system of legal representative of company, and improving the system of duty of care and related liabilities.

  1. Matching agricultural freshwater supply and demand: using industrial and domestic treated wastewater for sub-irrigation purposes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bartholomeus, Ruud; van den Eertwegh, Gé; Worm, Bas; Cirkel, Gijsbert; van Loon, Arnaut; Raat, Klaasjan

    2017-04-01

    Agricultural crop yields depend largely on soil moisture conditions in the root zone. Climate change leads to more prolonged drought periods that alternate with more intensive rainfall events. With unaltered water management practices, reduced crop yield due to drought stress will increase. Therefore, both farmers and water management authorities search for opportunities to manage risks of decreasing crop yields. Available groundwater sources for irrigation purposes are increasingly under pressure due to the regional coexistence of land use functions that are critical to groundwater levels or compete for available water. At the same time, treated wastewater from industries and domestic wastewater treatment plants are quickly discharged via surface waters towards sea. Exploitation of these freshwater sources may be an effective strategy to balance regional water supply and agricultural water demand. We present results of two pilot studies in drought sensitive regions in the Netherlands, concerning agricultural water supply through reuse of industrial and domestic treated wastewater. In these pilots, excess wastewater is delivered to the plant root zone through sub-irrigation by drainage systems. Sub-irrigation is a subsurface irrigation method that can be more efficient than classical, aboveground irrigation methods using sprinkler installations. Domestic wastewater treatment plants in the Netherlands produce annually 40-50mm freshwater. A pilot project has been setup in the eastern part of the Netherlands, in which treated wastewater is applied to a corn field by sub-irrigation during the growing seasons of 2015 and 2016, using a climate adaptive drainage system. The chemical composition of treated domestic wastewater is different from infiltrating excess rainfall water and natural groundwater. In the pilot project, the bromide-chloride ratio and traces of pharmaceuticals in the treated wastewater are used as a tracer to describe water and solute transport in the

  2. The determinants of agricultural productivity and rural household ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper aims at investigating the determinants of agricultural productivity and rural household income in Ethiopia. Three econometric models namely: Pooled ordinary least square (POLS), fixed effects (FE) and random effects (RE) model were used to examine the relationship between productivity and income; using ...

  3. Agricultural innovations for sustainable crop production intensification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michele Pisante

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Sustainable crop production intensification should be the first strategic objective of innovative agronomic research for the next 40 years. A range of options exist (often very location specific for farming practices, approaches and technologies that ensure sustainability, while at the same time improving crop production. The main challenge is to encourage farmers in the use of appropriate technologies,  and  to  ensure  that  knowledge  about  sound  production  practices  is  increasingly accepted and applied by farmers. There is a huge, but underutilized potential to link farmers’ local knowledge with science-based innovations, through favourable institutional arrangements.  The same  holds  for  the  design,  implementation  and  monitoring  of  improved  natural  resource management  that  links  community  initiatives  to  external  expertise.  It is also suggested that a comprehensive effort be undertaken to measure different stages of the innovation system, including technological adoption and diffusion at the farm level, and to investigate the impact of agricultural policies on technological change and technical efficiency. This paper provides a brief review of agronomic management practices that support sustainable crop production system and evidence on developments  in the selection of crops and cultivars; describes farming systems for crop which take a predominantly ecosystem approach; discusses the scientific application of ecosystem principles for the management of pest and weed populations; reviews the  improvements in fertilizer and nutrient management that explain productivity growth; describes the benefits and constraints of irrigation technologies; and suggests a way forward. Seven changes in the context for agricultural development are proposed that heighten the need to examine how innovation occurs in the agricultural sector.

  4. College Students' View of Biotechnology Products and Practices in Sustainable Agriculture Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, William A.

    2008-01-01

    Sustainable agriculture implies the use of products and practices that sustain production, protect the environment, ensure economic viability, and maintain rural community viability. Disagreement exists as to whether or not the products and practices of modern biotechnological support agricultural sustainability. The purpose of this study was to…

  5. Requirement analysis for the one-stop logistics management of fresh agricultural products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jun; Gao, Hongmei; Liu, Yuchuan

    2017-08-01

    Issues and concerns for food safety, agro-processing, and the environmental and ecological impact of food production have been attracted many research interests. Traceability and logistics management of fresh agricultural products is faced with the technological challenges including food product label and identification, activity/process characterization, information systems for the supply chain, i.e., from farm to table. Application of one-stop logistics service focuses on the whole supply chain process integration for fresh agricultural products is studied. A collaborative research project for the supply and logistics of fresh agricultural products in Tianjin was performed. Requirement analysis for the one-stop logistics management information system is studied. The model-driven business transformation, an approach uses formal models to explicitly define the structure and behavior of a business, is applied for the review and analysis process. Specific requirements for the logistic management solutions are proposed. Development of this research is crucial for the solution of one-stop logistics management information system integration platform for fresh agricultural products.

  6. Agricultural sectoral demand and crop productivity response across the world

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, M.; Ray, D. K.; Cassidy, E. S.; Foley, J. A.

    2013-12-01

    With an increasing and increasingly affluent population, humans will need to roughly double agricultural production by 2050. Continued yield growth forms the foundation of all future strategies aiming to increase agricultural production while slowing or eliminating cropland expansion. However, a recent analysis by one of our co-authors has shown that yield trends in many important maize, wheat and rice growing regions have begun stagnating or declining from the highs seen during the green revolution (Ray et al. 2013). Additional research by our group has shown that nearly 50% of new agricultural production since the 1960s has gone not to direct human consumption, but instead to animal feed and other industrial uses. Our analysis for GLP looks at the convergence of these two trends by examining time series utilization data for 16 of the biggest crops to determine how demand from different sectors has shaped our land-use and intensification strategies around the world. Before rushing headlong into the next agricultural doubling, it would be prudent to first consult our recent agricultural history to better understand what was driving past changes in production. Using newly developed time series dataset - a fusion of cropland maps with historic agricultural census data gathered from around the world - we can examine yield and harvested area trends over the last half century for 16 top crops. We combine this data with utilization rates from the FAO Food Balance Sheet to see how demand from different sectors - food, feed, and other - has influenced long-term growth trends from the green revolution forward. We will show how intensification trends over time and across regions have grown or contracted depending on what is driving the change in production capacity. Ray DK, Mueller ND, West PC, Foley JA (2013) Yield Trends Are Insufficient to Double Global Crop Production by 2050. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66428. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066428

  7. The role of energy policy in agricultural biogas energy production in Visegrad countries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chodkowska-Miszczuk Justyna

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Energy production by agricultural biogas plants has recently recorded considerable growth in Visegrad countries. The development was enhanced by European Union’s efforts to increase the proportion of energy produced from renewable sources. The paper aims to assess the role of energy policy in the development of agricultural biogas energy production in Visegrad region. Conducted studies have shown that among various forms of support for energy production from renewable energy sources, the price system prevails, including the support by feed in tariffs and bonuses. Feed in tariffs were adopted in Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Another kind of support system – a quota system – was adopted in Poland, what includes tendering and certificate systems. The results confirm the adoption of legal framework was necessary step to enable agricultural biogas energy production in Visegrad countries, but itself it was not enough to stimulate development of agricultural biogas energy production significantly. Rapid development in each country was recorded only after the certain financial support systems took effect, what made production of agricultural biogas energy economically efficient for investors. The production of energy from agricultural biogas grew the most in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where the financial support was the highest. Nevertheless, the protracted process of changes in legal framework and transformation of energy policy, certain measures including state-controlled price-making systems, risk regarding with auction system might hamper agricultural biogas energy production further development.

  8. Landscape Analysis of Nutrition-sensitive Agriculture Policy Development in Senegal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lachat, Carl; Nago, Eunice; Ka, Abdoulaye; Vermeylen, Harm; Fanzo, Jessica; Mahy, Lina; Wüstefeld, Marzella; Kolsteren, Patrick

    2015-06-01

    Unlocking the agricultural potential of Africa offers a genuine opportunity to address malnutrition and drive development of the continent. Using Senegal as a case study, to identify gaps and opportunities to strengthen agricultural policies with nutrition-sensitive approaches. We carried out a systematic analysis of 13 policy documents that related to food production, agriculture, food security, or nutrition. Next, we collected data during a participatory analysis with 32 national stakeholders and in-depth interviews with 15 national experts of technical directorates of the different ministries that deal with agriculture and food production. The current agricultural context has various elements that are considered to enhance its nutrition sensitivity. On average, 8.3 of the 17 Food and Agriculture Organization guiding principles for agriculture programming for nutrition were included in the policies reviewed. Ensuring food security and increasing dietary diversity were considered to be the principal objectives of agricultural policies. Although there was considerable agreement that agriculture can contribute to nutrition, current agricultural programs generally do not target communities on the basis of their nutritional vulnerability. Agricultural programs were reported to have specific components to target female beneficiaries but were generally not used as delivery platforms for nutritional interventions. The findings of this study indicate the need for a coherent policy environment across the food system that aligns recommendations at the national level with local action on the ground. In addition, specific activities are needed to develop a shared understanding of nutrition and public health nutrition within the agricultural community in Senegal. © The Author(s) 2015.

  9. Effects of climate change on agricultural production and rural ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Nigeria is still practicing rain fed agriculture which renders her vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Extreme climatic events such as flooding, extreme heat, and drought has led to soil degradation which results in low crop yields. Decline in agricultural productivity discourages the farmers and may lead to ...

  10. A brief review on activated carbon derived from agriculture by-product

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yahya, Mohd Adib; Mansor, Muhammad Humaidi; Zolkarnaini, Wan Amani Auji Wan; Rusli, Nurul Shahnim; Aminuddin, Anisah; Mohamad, Khalidah; Sabhan, Fatin Aina Mohamad; Atik, Arif Abdallah Aboubaker; Ozair, Lailatun Nazirah

    2018-06-01

    A brief review focusing on preparation of the activated carbon derived from agriculture by-products is presented. The physical and chemical activation of activated carbon were also reviewed. The effects of various parameters including types of activating agents, temperature, impregnation ratio, were also discussed. The applications of activated carbon from agricultural by products were briefly reviewed. It is provenly evident in this review, the relatively inexpensive and renewable resources of the agricultural waste were found to be effectively being converted into wealth materials.

  11. Case Management Directors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bankston White, Cheri; Birmingham, Jackie

    2015-01-01

    Purpose and Objectives: Case management directors are in a dynamic position to affect the transition of care of patients across the continuum, work with all levels of providers, and support the financial well-being of a hospital. Most importantly, they can drive good patient outcomes. Although the position is critical on many different levels, there is little to help guide a new director in attending to all the “moving parts” of such a complex role. This is Part 2 of a two-part article written for case management directors, particularly new ones. Part 1 covered the first 4 of 7 tracks: (1) Staffing and Human Resources, (2) Compliance and Accreditation, (3) Discharge Planning and (4) Utilization Review and Revenue Cycle. Part 2 addresses (5) Internal Departmental Relationships (Organizational), (6) External Relationships (Community Agency), and (7) Quality and Program Outcomes. This article attempts to answer the following questions: Are case management directors prepared for an expanded role that affects departments and organizations outside of their own?How does a case management director manage the transition of care of patients while managing required relationships outside the department?How does the director manage program outcomes in such a complex department? Primary Practice Setting: The information is most meaningful to those case management directors who work in either stand-alone hospitals or integrated health systems and have frontline case managers (CMs) reporting to them. Findings/Conclusions: Part 1 found that case management directors would benefit from further research and documentation of “best practices” related to their role, particularly in the areas of leadership and management. The same conclusion applies to Part 2, which addresses the director's responsibilities outside her immediate department. Leadership and management skills apply as well to building strong, productive relationships across a broad spectrum of external organizations

  12. Agricultural production and nutrient runoff in the Corn Belt ...

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agricultural production in the Corn Belt region of the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) remains a leading source of nitrogen runoff that contributes to the annual hypoxic 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico. The rise of corn production, land conversion, and fertilizer use in response to ethanol policy incentives in recent years is well documented and may worsen this effect. We develop a spatially distributed dynamic environmental performance index (EPI), accounting for both desirable agricultural outputs and undesirable nonpoint source emissions from farm production, to examine the corresponding changes in environmental performance within the UMRB between 2002 and 2007, which is characterized by increasing policy incentives for ethanol production. County-level production data from the USDA agricultural census are aggregated to hydrologic unit code (HUC8) boundaries using a geographic information system (GIS), and a previously developed statistical model, which includes net anthropogenic nitrogen inputs (NANI) as well as precipitation and land use characteristics as inputs, is used to estimate annual nitrogen loadings delivered to streams from HUC8 watersheds. The EPI allows us to decompose performance of each HUC8 region over time into changes in productive efficiency and emissions efficiency. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the corresponding changes in environmental performance for producers in this region at the watershed scale. The resu

  13. Business and production performance of different types of agricultural holdings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katarina Rosić

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN was established in the EU in 1965 and now it is obligated for all member states of the EU. The system is based on an annual collection of production, economic and financial data from a representative sample of comercial farms, classified into groups according to the criteria of economic farm size, type of agricultural production and regional affiliation. Research made by FADN system represent the European Commission instrument for evaluating the income of agricultural producers and determining the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU on their business. In this paper the comparison is made between production and economic indicators of different types of agricultural holdings (field crops; horticulture crops; permanent crops, orchards and olive yards; dairy farms; grazing livestock; pig and poultry farms and mixed farms. On the basis of Standard Results for the year 2014 it is possible to conclude that in Croatia field crops and grazing livestock farms lead by their utilized agricultural area. Pig and poultry farming have the most livestock units, while the most working hours is spent in the cultivation of vegetables and flowers. The highest values of labor productivity have holdings that are engaged in the production of vegetables and flowers, while the lowest labor productivity have grazing livestock farms. Cost-effectiveness of all types of farms exceeding a value of 1. The highest value of the gross income is achieved at pig and poultry farms, while the smallest has a mixed type of farms. The average farm direct payments account for a high 44% in the net income, and the largest share of direct payments in the net income has field crop type of farms.

  14. Radiation Processed Materials in Products from Polymers for Agricultural Applications

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2014-07-01

    This publication results from a technical meeting on radiation processed materials in products from polymers for agricultural applications, which was held from 8 to 12 July 2013 at the IAEA in Vienna. The meeting provided a forum for the sharing of practical experiences and lessons learned, and reviewed the recent developments in the use of radiation technologies for the preparation of environmental friendly products based on polymers for agricultural applications

  15. Radiation Processed Materials in Products from Polymers for Agricultural Applications

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2014-07-15

    This publication results from a technical meeting on radiation processed materials in products from polymers for agricultural applications, which was held from 8 to 12 July 2013 at the IAEA in Vienna. The meeting provided a forum for the sharing of practical experiences and lessons learned, and reviewed the recent developments in the use of radiation technologies for the preparation of environmental friendly products based on polymers for agricultural applications.

  16. Set of information technologies and their role in automation of agricultural production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. V. Al’t

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The modern enterprises of agrarian and industrial complex are characterized by the high level of automation of technological processes. The technological development level conformto 5th and 6th technology revolutions. The automatic and automated technologies in crop production and livestock production use data of internet technologies, Global Positioning Satellite survey and observations, mashine and tractor aggregates automated operating. The models nucleus and row of information models of agricultural objects were designed on the basis of information streams systematization. The analysis of results of simulation of biological objects, cenosises, ecosystems, agro cenosises and agroecosystems showed that the most acceptable type of model is the systemically determined dynamic model of potentially effective type. The Internet-oriented database of innovative development of institutes of an agrarian profile is designed. It contains the information about sorts, machines, mechanization means, electrification and technologies in crop production, livestock production, forage production, feed processing, crop protection, biotechnologies, mechanization, veterinary science and agricultural production processing. The database is positioned as the subject-oriented, retrieval database in web space. The list of indices to which the created architecture of the database corresponds is defined. More than 20 various databases of agricultural purpose which are used in educational process and production are created. These databases are useful to agricultural producers and also organizers of agricultural production, scientists, teachers and students. Information on key indicators of innovative products and institutes – developers of innovative solutions is provided in a basis.

  17. Department of Energy programs and objectives: energy conservation in agricultural production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    1977-12-01

    This document describes the current Department of Energy agriculture research program as it relates to the research recommendations submitted by a 1976 workshop on energy conservation in agricultural production. In-depth discussions on fertilizers, irrigation, crop drying, fuel substitution, crop and animal production systems, greenhouses, materials handling, and transport systems are included. (MCW)

  18. Agriculture in Bangladesh : A Note on Food Security by Enhancing Productivity

    OpenAIRE

    World Bank

    2009-01-01

    Awami League's Election Manifesto 2008 appropriately recognizes the importance of ensuring food security for all in Bangladesh. Food Security requires increasing agricultural growth which in turn is a key factor in reducing poverty in the country. Food security also requires increasing agricultural production and protecting consumers. Sustained production increases, in turn, require tec...

  19. Process Reengineering of Cold Chain Logistics of Agricultural Products Based on Low-carbon Economy

    OpenAIRE

    Guo, Hong-xia; Shao, Ming

    2012-01-01

    Through the process analysis of cold chain logistics of agricultural products, we find that cold chain logistics of agricultural products contradict the development model of low-carbon economy to some extent. We apply the development idea of low-carbon economy, introduce the third-party logistics companies, establish distribution center of cold chain logistics of agricultural products, and strengthen information sharing, to reengineer the process of cold chain logistics of agricultural produc...

  20. CHALLENGES OF AGRICULTURAL COMPANIES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND FUNDING ACCES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Livia TRASCA

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available The development of agriculture was a priority for the member states of the European Union since its foundation, the Common Agricultural Policy being one of the most ancient politics at the European level. Agriculture is a sector which has a special economic and social importance for Romania. The paper aimed to identify the challenges of the agricultural companies from the perspective of labour productivity and funding access. In this respect, a series of economic indicators as the contribution of agriculture to GDP, the value of agricultural production, the evolution of reference interest rate, the evolution of credits for agriculture, were studied. the conclusion was that in order to improve labour productivity, it is needed a higher qualification of the occupied population in agriculture and the significant improvement of technological endowment of this sector and, from the point of view of funding access, it is necessary the continuous support of the companies which carry out their activity in agriculture, but not only by the diminution of difference interest rate.

  1. Multi-Objective Fuzzy Linear Programming In Agricultural Production Planning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H.M.I.U. Herath

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Modern agriculture is characterized by a series of conflicting optimization criteria that obstruct the decision-making process in the planning of agricultural production. Such criteria are usually net profit total cost total production etc. At the same time the decision making process in the agricultural production planning is often conducted with data that accidentally occur in nature or that are fuzzy not deterministic. Such data are the yields of various crops the prices of products and raw materials demand for the product the available quantities of production factors such as water labor etc. In this paper a fuzzy multi-criteria mathematical programming model is presented. This model is applied in a region of 10 districts in Sri Lanka where paddy is cultivated under irrigated and rain fed water in the two main seasons called Yala and Maha and the optimal production plan is achieved. This study was undertaken to find out the optimal allocation of land for paddy to get a better yield while satisfying the two conflicting objectives profit maximizing and cost minimizing subjected to the utilizing of water constraint and the demand constraint. Only the availability of land constraint is considered as a crisp in nature while objectives and other constraints are treated as fuzzy. It is observed that the MOFLP is an effective method to handle more than a single objective occurs in an uncertain vague environment.

  2. Nitrogen Exchanges: Testing the Hypothesis of a Country without Agricultural Production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M.-F. Slak

    2001-01-01

    Full Text Available Today, finding data on agricultural nitrogen balances is quite easy. Calculations of such balances are carried out by most of the European countries as an indicator of environmental pollution attributable to the agricultural sector. In France, average values of agricultural nitrogen balances show an excess of 1.5 to 2 million tons of nitrogen. This excess is enormous. What would the balance of a country be if agricultural activity were stopped? In the following article, a country (France is used as an example without agriculture is studied in order to assess its nitrogen balance. Using a previously published model describing nitrogen input and output of a given country, nitrogen flows are identified. Inputs include deposition, fixation, and products not intended for agricultural use. Outputs are reduced to zero if agriculture disappears (in France, agriculture is the only sector exporting products containing nitrogen. All flows are calculated considering the hypothesis of disappearance of agriculture. Nitrogen requirements to feed people and pets in France are estimated based on medical and veterinary data (recommended daily amounts for proteins and/or usual average consumption. Indeed, most of the food that nourishes the French population is produced nationally. If agriculture stops, it will be necessary to import food from foreign countries. Results show an unexpectedly high excess (for a country without agriculture having a structure similar to France: number of human beings and pets of 1.5 million tons of nitrogen. An attempt to calculate an agricultural balance with the same data gives a result close to 3 million tons. Differences in French agricultural balances found in the literature can mainly be explained by values taken into account for deposition and fixation (values used here are at least 300,000 tons higher than values used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In conclusion, nitrogen excess in agriculture

  3. Decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions from global agricultural production

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bennetzen, Eskild Hohlmann; Smith, Pete; Porter, John Roy

    2016-01-01

    Since 1970 global agricultural production has more than doubled; contributing ~1/4 of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) burden in 2010. Food production must increase to feed our growing demands, but to address climate change, GHG emissions must decrease. Using an identity approach, we...... estimate and analyse past trends in GHG emission intensities from global agricultural production and land-use change and project potential future emissions. The novel Kaya-Porter identity framework deconstructs the entity of emissions from a mix of multiple sources of GHGs into attributable elements...... to increase food security whilst reducing emissions. The identity approach presented here could be used as a methodological framework for more holistic food systems analysis....

  4. Nanocrystalline SiC and Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> Alloys for Reactor Materials: Diffusion of Fission Product Surrogates

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Henager, Charles H. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Jiang, Weilin [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

    2014-11-01

    MAX phases, such as titanium silicon carbide (Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub>), have a unique combination of both metallic and ceramic properties, which make them attractive for potential nuclear applications. Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> has been suggested in the literature as a possible fuel cladding material. Prior to the application, it is necessary to investigate diffusivities of fission products in the ternary compound at elevated temperatures. This study attempts to obtain relevant data and make an initial assessment for Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub>. Ion implantation was used to introduce fission product surrogates (Ag and Cs) and a noble metal (Au) in Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub>, SiC, and a dual-phase nanocomposite of Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub>/SiC synthesized at PNNL. Thermal annealing and in-situ Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) were employed to study the diffusivity of the various implanted species in the materials. In-situ RBS study of Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> implanted with Au ions at various temperatures was also performed. The experimental results indicate that the implanted Ag in SiC is immobile up to the highest temperature (1273 K) applied in this study; in contrast, significant out-diffusion of both Ag and Au in MAX phase Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> occurs during ion implantation at 873 K. Cs in Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> is found to diffuse during post-irradiation annealing at 973 K, and noticeable Cs release from the sample is observed. This study may suggest caution in using Ti<sub>3sub>SiC>2sub> as a fuel cladding material for advanced nuclear reactors operating at very high temperatures. Further studies of the related materials are recommended.

  5. IMPACT OF CREDENCE ATTRIBUTES OF AGRICULTURAL FOOD PRODUCTS ON CUSTOMER ATTITUDE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fareeha NISAR

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study is to enhance understanding on how a firm can generate value for its customers using a competitive advantage strategy by accumulating credible attributes to its products. There are certain product attributes that customers can only perceive. In the case of agricultural food products, the customers’ consciousness for safe, natural and organic products has enriched the perceived value of the product. To explore the relationship between the credence attributes and attitude of the customers for the agricultural food, a survey questionnaire has been administered to consumers of agricultural food products in the different regions of Punjab, Pakistan. The data analysis has been conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS to investigate the desired relationship in that particular region of the country. It can be concluded that the trust of customer is now very much depending on the presence of credence attribute that customer cannot describe but evaluate during the purchase of food items.

  6. HIV/AIDS and human development in sub-Saharan Africa : impact mitigation through agricultural interventions : an overview and annotated bibliography

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Müller, T.R.

    2005-01-01

    This last part of the AWLAE series on HIV/AIDS and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa focuses on the epidemic as a challenge to human development in general and rural development in particular. In the face of the impact of the epidemic as described in parts one and two of the series, the agricultural

  7. Design of agricultural product quality safety retrospective supervision system of Jiangsu province

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Kun

    2017-08-01

    In store and supermarkets to consumers can trace back agricultural products through the electronic province card to query their origin, planting, processing, packaging, testing and other important information and found that the problems. Quality and safety issues can identify the responsibility of the problem. This paper designs a retroactive supervision system for the quality and safety of agricultural products in Jiangsu Province. Based on the analysis of agricultural production and business process, the goal of Jiangsu agricultural product quality safety traceability system construction is established, and the specific functional requirements and non-functioning requirements of the retroactive system are analyzed, and the target is specified for the specific construction of the retroactive system. The design of the quality and safety traceability system in Jiangsu province contains the design of the overall design, the trace code design and the system function module.

  8. Agricultural and Food Production in Hungary: On the Road to Sustainability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Szűcs Csaba

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In the last 25 years Hungarian agriculture has lost its position. Rapid growth in the world’s population requires an increase in food production since one seventh of the population is still starving. The development of agricultural production and the food industry is the basis for the development of rural areas. Hungary produces two per cent of the EU agricultural output, which is far behind its potential. Agriculture, food industry and food trade can only develop together. We need to find the most favourable forms of coexistence with multinational chains sustainably. Food industry is a critical point in the product line, it lags behind the performance of European countries, and resources are insufficient. Long-term co-operation between farmers and processors is inadequate; the common organizations of the markets are minimal. Today, sustainability is increasingly emphasized, environmental and nature protection has been appreciated. The agriculture and forestry sectors are not only suitable for production of food and other raw materials, but they can also replenish resources and have a beneficial effect on biodiversity as well. Today’s problems can only be solved by taking sustainability into consideration. Agri-food industry that complies with the requirements can play a major role in rural employment and value creation.

  9. Role of State Agricultural Universities and Directorates of Extension Education in Agricultural Extension in India

    OpenAIRE

    Singh, K.M.; Meena, M.S.; Swanson, B.E.

    2013-01-01

    In India, the first SAU was established in 1960 at Pantnagar in Uttar Pradesh. The SAUs were given autonomous status and direct funding from the state governments. They were autonomous organizations with state-wide responsibility for agricultural research, education and training or extension education. The establishment of the SAUs, based on a pattern similar to that of the land-grant universities in the United States, was a landmark in reorganizing and strengthening the agricultural educatio...

  10. African Farmer-led Irrigation Development: re-framing agricultural policy and investment?

    OpenAIRE

    Woodhouse, Philip; Veldwisch, Gert Jan; Venot , Jean-Philippe; Brockington, Daniel; Komakech, Hans; Manjichi , Ângela

    2017-01-01

    The past decade has witnessed an intensifying focus on the development of irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa. It follows a 20-year hiatus in the wake of disappointing irrigation performance during the 1970s and 1980s. Persistent low productivity in African agriculture and vulnerability of African food supplies to increasing instability in international commodity markets are driving pan-African agricultural investment initiatives, such as the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program...

  11. DIRECTIONS FOR THE RECOVERY OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION ON RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMINATED LANDS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kustovska O.V.

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Effective management of agricultural production in the Polesie Ukraine traditionally was complicated through the low natural land fertility, their high acidity, perevolotsky valley. During the centrally planned economic system that the natural contrast of the Polesie land had been somewhat neglected by the state through differentiation of purchase prices for agricultural products, which gave the possibility of redistribution of the rent in favor of the farms with poorer land. With transition to market relations the role of the state, and hence the possibility of its influence on this situation has changed dramatically. Economic conditions have become more profitable for the farmers that are occupying the best lands. However, the situation in the regions has not yet been investigated systematically taking into account the modern complex socio-economic processes and phenomena caused by increased environmental stress on land resources. One of the most pernicious environmental effects of the Chernobyl accident was radioactive contamination of agricultural land, defined in the final stage of transfer of radionuclides in the human body and further irradiation. The main danger of the accumulation by plants of radionuclides lies in the fact that they are a major link in the migratory chain of transmission of radionuclides to the more radiosensitive species and, above all, human. Economic feature of agricultural production in the study area is insufficient pricesambien, transformation of land use, violations of industrial-economic relations, the structure of agricultural production, changes in the natural-cost structure commodity products, the reform of the organizational structure of agricultural production. In the farms located in contaminated areas, the necessary conversion of dairy cattle for meat. In conditions of high pollution, the production of milk requires a serious sanitary objections in that time, as meat production is more environmentally

  12. Thermodynamic analyses of hydrogen production from sub-quality natural gas

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Huang, Cunping; T-Raissi, Ali [Florida Solar Energy Center, University of Central Florida, 1679 Clearlake Road, Cocoa, FL 32922-5403 (United States)

    2007-01-01

    Part I of this paper analyzed sub-quality natural gas (SQNG) pyrolysis and autothermal pyrolysis. Production of hydrogen via direct thermolysis of SQNGs produces only 2mol of hydrogen and 1mol of carbon per mole of methane (CH{sub 4}). Steam reforming of SQNG (SRSQNG) could become a more effective approach because the processes produce two more moles of hydrogen via water splitting. A Gibbs reactor unit operation in the AspenPlus(TM) chemical process simulator was employed to accomplish equilibrium calculations for the SQNG+H{sub 2}O and SQNG+H{sub 2}O+O{sub 2} systems. The results indicate that water and oxygen inlet flow rates do not significantly affect the decomposition of hydrogen sulfide (H{sub 2}S) at temperatures lower than 1000{sup o}C. The major co-product of the processes is carbonyl sulfide (COS) while sulfur dimer (S{sub 2}) and carbon disulfide (CS{sub 2}) are minor by-products within this temperature range. At higher temperatures (>1300{sup o}C), CS{sub 2} and S{sub 2} become major co-products. No sulfur dioxide (SO{sub 2}) or sulfur trioxide (SO{sub 3}) is formed during either SRSQNG or autothermal SRSQNG processes, indicating that no environmentally harmful acidic gases are generated. (author)

  13. Phosphorus in agricultural soils: drivers of its distribution at the global scale

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ringeval, Bruno [ISPA, Villenave d' Ornon (France); Augusto, Laurent [ISPA, Villenave d' Ornon (France); Monod, Herve [Univ. Paris-Saclay, Jouy-en-Josas (France); van Apeldoorn, Dirk [Utrecht Univ., Utrecht (The Netherlands); Bouwman, Lex [Utrecht Univ., Utrecht (The Netherlands); Yang, Xiaojuan [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Achat, David L. [ISPA, Villenave d' Ornon (France); Chini, Louise P. [Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Van Oost, Kristof [Univ. Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Guenet, Bertrand [Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Wang, Rong [Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Peking Univ., Beijing (China); Decharme, Bertrand [CNRS/Meteo-France, Toulouse (France); Nesme, Thomas [ISPA, Villenave d' Ornon (France); Pellerin, Sylvain [ISPA, Villenave d' Ornon (France)

    2017-01-09

    Phosphorus (P) availability in soils limits crop yields in many regions of the world, while excess of soil P triggers aquatic eutrophication in other regions. Numerous processes drive the global spatial distribution of P in agricultural soils, but their relative roles remain unclear. Here, we combined several global datasets describing these drivers with a soil P dynamics model to simulate the distribution of P in agricultural soils and to assess the contributions of the different drivers at the global scale. We analyzed both the labile inorganic P (P<sub>ILAB>), a proxy of the pool involved in plant nutrition and the total soil P (P<sub>TOT>). We found that the soil biogeochemical background (BIOG) and farming practices (FARM) were the main drivers of the spatial variability in cropland soil P content but that their contribution varied between P<sub>TOT> vs P<sub>ILAB>. Indeed, 97% of the P<sub>TOT> spatial variability could be explained by BIOG, while BIOG and FARM explained 41% and 58% of P<sub>ILAB> spatial variability, respectively. Other drivers such as climate, soil erosion, atmospheric P deposition and soil buffering capacity made only very small contribution. Lastly, our study is a promising approach to investigate the potential effect of P as a limiting factor for agricultural ecosystems and for global food production. Additionally, we quantified the anthropogenic perturbation of P cycle and demonstrated how the different drivers are combined to explain the global distribution of agricultural soil P.

  14. Influences of agricultural management practices on Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Fungal symbioses in Kenyan agro-ecosystems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Muriithi-Muchane, M.N.

    2013-01-01

    Conservation agriculture (CA) and integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) practices are receiving increased attention as pathways to sustainable high-production agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the effects of these practices on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

  15. Influence of radioactive contamination to agricultural products by rainfall during a nuclear accident

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hwang, W. T.; Han, M. H.; Choi, Y. H.; Lee, H. S.; Lee, C. W.

    2001-01-01

    For the consideration of the effects on radioactive contamination of agricultural products by rainfall during a nuclear accident, the wet interception coefficients for the plants were derived, and the previous dynamic food chain model was also modified. From the results, radioactive contamination of agricultural products was greatly decreased by rainfall, and it decreased dramatically according to increase of rainfall amount. It means that the predictive contamination in agricultural products using the previous dynamic food chain model, in which dry interception to the plants is only considered, can be overestimated. Influence of rainfall on the contamination of agricultural products was the most sensitive for 131 I, and the least sensitive for 90 Sr

  16. Microbiological Production of Surfactant from Agricultural Residuals for IOR Application

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bala, Greg Alan; Bruhn, Debby Fox; Fox, Sandra Lynn; Noah, Karl Scott; Thompson, David Neal

    2002-04-01

    Utilization of surfactants for improved oil recovery (IOR) is an accepted technique with high potential. However, technology application is frequently limited by cost. Biosurfactants (surface-active molecules produced by microorganisms) are not widely utilized in the petroleum industry due to high production costs associated with use of expensive substrates and inefficient product recovery methods. The economics of biosurfactant production could be significantly impacted through use of media optimization and application of inexpensive carbon substrates such as agricultural process residuals. Utilization of biosurfactants produced from agricultural residuals may 1) result in an economic advantage for surfactant production and technology application, and 2) convert a substantial agricultural waste stream to a value-added product for IOR. A biosurfactant with high potential for use is surfactin, a lipopeptide biosurfactant, produced by Bacillus subtilis. Reported here is the production and potential IOR utilization of surfactin produced by Bacillus subtilis (American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) 21332) from starch-based media. Production of surfactants from microbiological growth media based on simple sugars, chemically pure starch medium, simulated liquid and solid potato-process effluent media, a commercially prepared potato starch in mineral salts, and process effluent from a potato processor is discussed. Additionally, the effect of chemical and physical pretreatments on starchy feedstocks is discussed.

  17. Technological Innovation of Agricultural Products Processing Enterprises from the Perspective of Modern Marketing——A Case of Agricultural Products Processing Enterprises in Hubei Province,China

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2011-01-01

    The science and technology development of agricultural products processing enterprises in Hubei Province is analyzed.From the perspective of modern marketing,problems in the research and development work of agricultural products processing enterprises are analyzed from the aspects of market,personal training and technology radiation,which are mainly the lack of close connection with market.Countermeasures for the technological innovation of agricultural products processing enterprises are put forward,such as establishing modern enterprise culture with innovative features,strengthening the market benefits of brand,constructing a comprehensive customer orientation information platform,scientifically predicting and developing the market,doing well in market positioning of enterprise,selecting corresponding technology innovation strategy,taking technological innovation strategy as the basis,realizing the transformation from "4P" marketing combination to "4C",cultivating technical personnel,and realizing the integration of professional skill and marketing ability.

  18. Measuring excess capital capacity in agricultural production

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zhengfei, G.; Kumbhakar, S.C.; Myers, R.J.; Oude Lansink, A.G.J.M.

    2009-01-01

    We introduce the concept "excess capital capacity" and employ a stochastic input requirement frontier to measure excess capital capacity in agricultural production. We also propose a two-step estimation method that allows endogenous regressors in stochastic frontier models. The first step uses

  19. Agricultural expansion and its impacts on tropical nature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laurance, William F; Sayer, Jeffrey; Cassman, Kenneth G

    2014-02-01

    The human population is projected to reach 11 billion this century, with the greatest increases in tropical developing nations. This growth, in concert with rising per-capita consumption, will require large increases in food and biofuel production. How will these megatrends affect tropical terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity? We foresee (i) major expansion and intensification of tropical agriculture, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America; (ii) continuing rapid loss and alteration of tropical old-growth forests, woodlands, and semi-arid environments; (iii) a pivotal role for new roadways in determining the spatial extent of agriculture; and (iv) intensified conflicts between food production and nature conservation. Key priorities are to improve technologies and policies that promote more ecologically efficient food production while optimizing the allocation of lands to conservation and agriculture. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Precision Agriculture Technologies Positively Contributing to GHG Emissions Mitigation, Farm Productivity and Economics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Athanasios Balafoutis

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Agriculture is one of the economic sectors that affect climate change contributing to greenhouse gas emissions directly and indirectly. There is a trend of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions reduction, but any practice in this direction should not affect negatively farm productivity and economics because this would limit its implementation, due to the high global food and feed demand and the competitive environment in this sector. Precision agriculture practices using high-tech equipment has the ability to reduce agricultural inputs by site-specific applications, as it better target inputs to spatial and temporal needs of the fields, which can result in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Precision agriculture can also have a positive impact on farm productivity and economics, as it provides higher or equal yields with lower production cost than conventional practices. In this work, precision agriculture technologies that have the potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions are presented providing a short description of the technology and the impacts that have been reported in literature on greenhouse gases reduction and the associated impacts on farm productivity and economics. The technologies presented span all agricultural practices, including variable rate sowing/planting, fertilizing, spraying, weeding and irrigation.

  1. Exploring agricultural production systems and their fundamental components with system dynamics modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agricultural production in the United States is undergoing marked changes due to rapid shifts in consumer demands, input costs, and concerns for food safety and environmental impact. Agricultural production systems are comprised of multidimensional components and drivers that interact in complex wa...

  2. Macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. A case study of Argentina

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wicke, Birka; Smeets, Edward; Faaij, Andre; Tabeau, Andrzej; Hilbert, Jorge

    2009-01-01

    This paper assesses the macroeconomic impacts in terms of GDP, trade balance and employment of large-scale bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. An input-output model is developed with which the direct, indirect and induced macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production and agricultural intensification, which is needed to make agricultural land become available for bioenergy production, are assessed following a scenario approach. The methodology is applied to a case study of Argentina. The results of this study reveal that large-scale pellet production in 2015 would directly increase GDP by 4%, imports by 10% and employment by 6% over the reference situation in 2001. When accounting for indirect and induced impacts, GDP increases by 18%, imports by 20% and employment by 26% compared to 2001. Agricultural intensification reduces but does not negate these positive impacts of bioenergy production. Accounting for agricultural intensification, the increase in GDP as a result of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land would amount to 16%, 20% in imports and 16% in employment compared to 2001. (author)

  3. Macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. A case study of Argentina

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wicke, Birka; Smeets, Edward; Faaij, Andre [Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation - Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht (Netherlands); Tabeau, Andrzej [Landbouw Economisch Instituut - Wageningen University and Research Centre, Burgermeester Partijnlaan 19, 2585 BE Den Haag (Netherlands); Hilbert, Jorge [Instituto Ingenieria Rural - Instituto Nacional de la Tecnologia Agropecuario, C.C. 25, 1712 Castelar (Buenos Aires) (Argentina)

    2009-12-15

    This paper assesses the macroeconomic impacts in terms of GDP, trade balance and employment of large-scale bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. An input-output model is developed with which the direct, indirect and induced macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production and agricultural intensification, which is needed to make agricultural land become available for bioenergy production, are assessed following a scenario approach. The methodology is applied to a case study of Argentina. The results of this study reveal that large-scale pellet production in 2015 would directly increase GDP by 4%, imports by 10% and employment by 6% over the reference situation in 2001. When accounting for indirect and induced impacts, GDP increases by 18%, imports by 20% and employment by 26% compared to 2001. Agricultural intensification reduces but does not negate these positive impacts of bioenergy production. Accounting for agricultural intensification, the increase in GDP as a result of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land would amount to 16%, 20% in imports and 16% in employment compared to 2001. (author)

  4. Characteristics of Serbian foreign trade of agricultural and food products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Božić Dragica

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Agricultural and food products are a significant segment of the total foreign trade of Serbia, which is characterized by a relatively high import dependency, modest export and constantly present deficit. In such conditions, agrarian sector serves as a stabilizer, and its importance is reflected in the permanently positive balance, increased participation, particularly in total exports, and balancing the trade balance of the country. The aim of the paper is to analyze the basic characteristics of foreign trade of agricultural and food products of Serbia in the period 2005-2015. The tendencies in export, import, and the level of coverage of import by export of agro-food (or agrarian products are analysed. The participation of these products in the total foreign trade of Serbia is also considered, followed by the comparison of this indicator with the neighbouring countries. In the next part of the paper, the structure of Serbian export and import of agricultural and food products (by product groups is analysed. Special attention is given to the territorial orientation of export and import of agrarian products by the most important trade partners. In order to conduct more comprehensive analysis of comparative advantages, or competitiveness of certain groups of agro-food products of Serbia in the exchange with the world, indicator of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA is calculated. The analysis of qualitative competitiveness is derived using the indicator - unit value of export and import. The analysis points to the dynamic growth in the value of Serbian export and import of agro-food products, with the constant surplus of trade balance in the observed period. These products are significantly represented in the structure of the total foreign trade of the country, particularly in export (with about 20%. RCA indicators show that Serbia has a comparative advantage in trade of agro-food products to the world in primary products and products of lower

  5. Insect disinfestation of food and agricultural products by irradiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1991-01-01

    Insect infestation is a major cause of post-harvest food loss. Use of chemical pesticides is one of the main methods of controlling storage losses caused by insects. Decades of research conducted worldwide on radiation disinfestation of food and agricultural products have shown that this method could be an alternative to the chemical treatment of foods. The advantages of irradiation processing include no undesirable residues in the foods, no resistance developed by the insects and no significant changes in the physicochemical properties or the nutritive value of the treated products. This volume contains the proceedings of the final Research Co-ordination Meeting on insect disinfestation of food and agricultural products by irradiation, held in May 1987. The individual contributions are indexed separately. Refs, figs and tabs

  6. Seasonality in birth defects, agricultural production and urban location.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKinnish, Terra; Rees, Daniel I; Langlois, Peter H

    2014-12-01

    This paper tests whether the strength of the "spring spike" in birth defects is related to agricultural production and urban location using Texas Birth Defects Registry data for the period 1996-2007. We find evidence of a spike in birth defects among children conceived in the spring and summer, but it is more pronounced in urban non-agricultural counties than in other types of counties. Furthermore, the spike lasts longer in urban non-agricultural counties as compared to other types of counties. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Buffers for biomass production in temperate European agriculture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christen, Benjamin; Dalgaard, Tommy

    2013-01-01

    , environmental pressures from intensive agriculture and policy developments. Use of conservation buffers by farmers outside of designated schemes is limited to date, but the increasing demand for bioenergy and the combination of agricultural production with conservation calls for a much wider implementation....... This paper reviews the biophysical knowledge on buffer functioning and associated ecosystem services. It describes how a three-zone buffer design, with arable fields buffered in combination by grassland, short rotation forestry (SRF) or coppice (SRC) and undisturbed vegetation along water courses, can...... be incorporated into farming landscapes as productive conservation elements and reflects on the potential for successful implementation. Land use plays a much greater role in determining catchment hydrology than soil type: shelterbelts or buffer strips have markedly higher infiltration capacity than arable...

  8. Production and Perception of Agricultural Reuse in a Rural Community

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valmir Cristiano Marques Arruda

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available There is a growing competition among the various sectors of society in the world for the use of water where agriculture stands out as a major consumer. Since it is carried out in a controlled manner, irrigation with effluents from a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP is a very attractive practice, as it allows a greater supply of water for nobler purposes. This work had the general objective of evaluating the perception of a rural community in the municipality of Pesqueira, Pernambuco, Brasil, in terms of consumption and production of products cultivated with the practice of agricultural reuse. The local population showed acceptance for the cultivation and consumption of products through agricultural reuse, above all, with reliable information on the appropriate quality of the effluents used for irrigation. In the estimated data, the same community had a potential of production of corn, beans and cotton in the order of 19.8 tons, 3.4 tons and 7.7 tons respectively, with the use of treated sewage in irrigation.

  9. Improving food and agricultural production. Thailand. Improving food and agricultural production with nuclear and related technology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vanderdeelen, J.

    1991-01-01

    In the northern and north-eastern regions of Thailand, low agricultural production is due mainly to poor soil conditions and variability in the seasonal rainfall distribution. With respect to the former aspect, phosphorus fertilization is one of the major constraints. The aim of the mission was to provide guidance on the studies addressing the use of naturally occurring rock phosphate deposits or phosphate fertilizer. 9 refs, 3 tabs

  10. School Nutrition Directors' Perspectives on Flavored Milk in Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yon, Bethany A.; Johnson, Rachel K.; Berlin, Linda

    2013-01-01

    The offering of flavored milk in schools is a controversial topic. U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations now require that flavored milk in schools is fat-free. The perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes of 21 school nutrition directors (SNDs) about the offering and student acceptance of lower-calorie, flavored milk were explored using a focus…

  11. METHODOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS FOR FORMING THE MARKETING STRATEGY OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION ECOLOGIZATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mariya Bagorka

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of the article is the investigation of the nature, objectives, and strategic categories of ecologization marketing strategy, development of algorithm of this strategy and determination of environmental, economic, and ecological instruments of implementation of this strategy in the agricultural sector. Methodology. The basis of the formation of a marketing strategy for the ecologization of agrarian production is the systematic approach, which is based on the existence of implementation mechanisms that ensure system consistency, its purposefulness; interdependence; and complexity of its elements, which determines the integrity of the system; all tasks that execute individual elements of the system are interconnected; system elements and their associated actions have a certain subordination that builds a hierarchy; the system changes under the influence of specific factors, which determines its dynamism; the ability of the system to adapt to the variability of the external environment, while not losing its own individuality. Methods for strategic analysis of macro- and micro-environment factors were used to form the marketing strategy of ecologization. This process involves an analytical evaluation of the parameters of the external and internal environment with the help of general scientific and applied methods of strategic analysis. Results. The article explored the ecologization strategy, presented its objectives in the field of agriculture, the basic categories of strategic directions and implementation of ecologization marketing strategies. An algorithm of environmental marketing strategies in agricultural production is developed, environmental, economic and environmental and economic tools to implement them are determined. Practical implications. It is determined that marketing strategy of ecologization of agrarian production is a strategy of innovative development that can solve problems of economic growth, an increase of

  12. Crop succession requirements in agricultural production planning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Klein Haneveld, W.K.; Stegeman, A.

    2005-01-01

    A method is proposed to write crop succession requirements as linear constraints in an LP-based model for agricultural production planning. Crop succession information is given in the form of a set of inadmissible successions of crops. The decision variables represent the areas where a certain

  13. PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL AND NON AGRICULTURAL BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES: DEA APPROACH

    OpenAIRE

    Dias, Weeratilake

    1998-01-01

    Efficient operation of agricultural credit markets is very important both for the producer as well as for the policy makers. DEA approach is used to calculate productivity analysis which allows decomposition of sources of productivity changes into efficiency and technical change. Measured efficiencies are comparable to most recent parametric studies.

  14. Estimated effects of radioactive fallout on agricultural production in Sweden. Contamination of crop products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eriksson, Aake; Loensjoe, H.; Karlstroem, F.

    1994-01-01

    The study is part of a research project, 'Radioactivity problems within the food sector' performed in 1991-94 at the request of the National Board of Agriculture in Sweden by The National Research Establishment, Dept. of NBC Defence, and the Dept. of Radioecology and the Dept. of Biosystems and Technology, the latter two belonging to the Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences. The aim of the study was to investigate the contamination levels that may occur in agricultural crop products in Sweden in a situation of radioactive fallout from the use of nuclear weapons. There is a risk for a major nuclide transport in agricultural systems by the feeds, mainly by pasture grass and silage and hay crops but also to some extent by grain crops. For that reason, cattle are expected to be important vectors of the fallout nuclides to the human diet, particularly in milk from dairy cattle but also in beef. The activity transport by grain to pig products may also be of some importance. 8 refs, 7 figs, 25 tabs

  15. Processing agricultural and industrial waste materials to fodder

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Varga, J; Baintner, F; Schmidt, J

    1977-11-28

    Unstable agricultural and industrial waste materials containing proteins and less than or equal to 80% H/sub 2/O, e.g. feathers, entrails, blood, malt, malt husks, whey, skim milk, cheese wastes, starch, malt residues, marc, broken and bloody eggs, lucerne liquor, etc. were homogenized with fodder containing carbohydrates or inert materials, as well as additives, e.g., AcOH, ascorbic acid, cysteine, NaNO/sub 2/, etc. to give a products containing less than or equal to 60% H/sub 2/O, pH 4.6 to 4.8, storable for shorter periods and useful for further processing. Thus, a homogenized mixture of 60 parts lard cake and 40 parts corn grits was homogenized with a 2:1 mixture of EtCO/sub 2/H and HCO/sub 2/H 1.5, NaNO/sub 2/ 0.05, and vitamin C 0.2% by weight to give a product with 32% protein content, useful for further processing.

  16. Energy consumption and total factor productivity growth in Iranian agriculture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reza Moghaddasi

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available In this study we investigated the relation between energy consumption and growth of total factor productivity (TFP of agriculture in Iran from 1974 to 2012 using Solow residual method. The results from estimated aggregate Cobb–Douglas production function showed that one percent change in the value of labor, capital and energy will lead to 4.07, 0.09 and 0.49 percent change in agriculture value added, respectively. Also in a long term, based on the Johansen cointegration test, there is a negative relation between TFP growth and energy consumption in Iranian agriculture which might be due to cheap and inefficient energy use in this sector. Gradual liberalization of energy price and use of so called green box support policies is recommended.

  17. SAR Agriculture Rice Production Estimation (SARPE)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raimadoya, M.

    2013-12-01

    The study of SAR Agriculture Rice Production Estimation (SARPE) was held in Indonesia on 2012, as part of Asia-Rice Crop Estimation & Monitoring (Asia-RiCE), which is a component for the GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative. The study was expected to give a breakthrough result, by using radar technology and paradigm shift of the standard production estimation system from list frame to area frame approach. This initial product estimation system is expected to be refined (fine tuning) in 2013, by participating as part of Technical Demonstration Site (Phase -1A) of Asia-RICE. The implementation period of this initial study was from the date of March 12 to December 10, 2012. The implementation of the study was done by following the approach of the BIMAS-21 framework, which has been developed since 2008. The results of this study can be briefly divided into two major components, namely: Rice-field Baseline Mapping (PESBAK - Peta Sawah Baku) and Crop Growth Monitoring. Rice-fields were derived from the mapping results of the Ministry of Agriculture (Kemtan), and validated through Student Extension Campaign of the Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). While for the crop growth, it was derived from the results of image analysis process. The analysis was done, either on radar/Radarsat-2 (medium resolution) or optical/ MODIS (low resolution), based on the Planting Calendar (KATAM) of Kemtan. In this case, the planting season II/2012-2013 of rice production centers in West Java Province (Karawang, Subang and Indramayu counties). The selection of crop season and county were entirely dependent on the quality of the available PESBAK and procurement process of radar imagery. The PESBAK is still in the form of block instead of fields, so it can not be directly utilized in this study. Efforts to improve the PESBAK can not be optimal because the provided satellite image (ECW format) is not the original one. While the procurement process of

  18. Monitoring Agricultural Production in Primary Export Countries within the framework of the GEOGLAM Initiative

    Science.gov (United States)

    Becker-Reshef, I.; Justice, C. O.; Vermote, E.

    2012-12-01

    Up to date, reliable, global, information on crop production prospects is indispensible for informing and regulating grain markets and for instituting effective agricultural policies. The recent price surges in the global grain markets were in large part triggered by extreme weather events in primary grain export countries. These events raise important questions about the accuracy of current production forecasts and their role in market fluctuations, and highlight the deficiencies in the state of global agricultural monitoring. Satellite-based earth observations are increasingly utilized as a tool for monitoring agricultural production as they offer cost-effective, daily, global information on crop growth and extent and their utility for crop production forecasting has long been demonstrated. Within this context, the Group on Earth Observations developed the Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) initiative which was adopted by the G20 as part of the action plan on food price volatility and agriculture. The goal of GEOGLAM is to enhance agricultural production estimates through the use of Earth observations. This talk will explore the potential contribution of EO-based methods for improving the accuracy of early production estimates of main export countries within the framework of GEOGLAM.

  19. Potential and impacts of renewable energy production from agricultural biomass in Canada

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu, Tingting; McConkey, Brian; Huffman, Ted; Smith, Stephen; MacGregor, Bob; Yemshanov, Denys; Kulshreshtha, Suren

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • This study quantifies the bioenergy production potential in the Canadian agricultural sector. • Two presented scenarios included the mix of market and non-market policy targets and the market-only drivers. • The scenario that used mix of market and policy drivers had the largest impact on the production of bioenergy. • The production of biomass-based ethanol and electricity could cause moderate land use changes up to 0.32 Mha. • Overall, agricultural sector has a considerable potential to generate renewable energy from biomass. - Abstract: Agriculture has the potential to supply considerable amounts of biomass for renewable energy production from dedicated energy crops as well as from crop residues of existing production. Bioenergy production can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by using ethanol and biodiesel to displace petroleum-based fuels and through direct burning of biomass to offset coal use for generating electricity. We used the Canadian Economic and Emissions Model for Agriculture to estimate the potential for renewable energy production from biomass, the impacts on agricultural production, land use change and greenhouse gas emissions. We explored two scenarios: the first considers a combination of market incentives and policy mandates (crude oil price of $120 bbl −1 ; carbon offset price of $50 Mg −1 CO 2 equivalent and policy targets of a substitution of 20% of gasoline by biomass-based ethanol; 8% of petroleum diesel by biodiesel and 20% of coal-based electricity by direct biomass combustion), and a second scenario considers only carbon offset market incentives priced at $50 Mg −1 CO 2 equivalent. The results show that under the combination of market incentives and policy mandates scenario, the production of biomass-based ethanol and electricity increases considerably and could potentially cause substantial changes in land use practices. Overall, agriculture has considerable potential to

  20. Declining agricultural production in rapidly urbanizing semi-arid regions: policy tradeoffs and sustainability indicators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dozier, André Q.; Arabi, Mazdak; Wostoupal, Benjamin C.; Goemans, Christopher G.; Zhang, Yao; Paustian, Keith

    2017-08-01

    In rapidly urbanizing semi-arid regions, increasing amounts of historically irrigated cropland lies permanently fallowed due to water court policies as agricultural water rights are voluntarily being sold to growing cities. This study develops an integrative framework for assessing the effects of population growth and land use change on agricultural production and evaluating viability of alternative management strategies, including alternative agricultural transfer methods, regional water ownership restrictions, and urban conservation. A partial equilibrium model of a spatially-diverse regional water rights market is built in application of the framework to an exemplary basin. The model represents agricultural producers as profit-maximizing suppliers and municipalities as cost-minimizing consumers of water rights. Results indicate that selling an agricultural water right today is worth up to two times more than 40 years of continued production. All alternative policies that sustain agricultural cropland and crop production decrease total agricultural profitability by diminishing water rights sales revenue, but in doing so, they also decrease municipal water acquisition costs. Defining good indicators and incorporating adequate spatial and temporal detail are critical to properly analyzing policy impacts. To best improve agricultural profit from production and sale of crops, short-term solutions include alternative agricultural transfer methods while long-term solutions incorporate urban conservation.

  1. Construction of Network Management Information System of Agricultural Products Supply Chain Based on 3PLs

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2010-01-01

    The necessity to construct the network management information system of 3PLs agricultural supply chain is analyzed,showing that 3PLs can improve the overall competitive advantage of agricultural supply chain.3PLs changes the homogeneity management into specialized management of logistics service and achieves the alliance of the subjects at different nodes of agricultural products supply chain.Network management information system structure of agricultural products supply chain based on 3PLs is constructed,including the four layers (the network communication layer,the hardware and software environment layer,the database layer,and the application layer) and 7 function modules (centralized control,transportation process management,material and vehicle scheduling,customer relationship,storage management,customer inquiry,and financial management).Framework for the network management information system of agricultural products supply chain based on 3PLs is put forward.The management of 3PLs mainly includes purchasing management,supplier relationship management,planning management,customer relationship management,storage management and distribution management.Thus,a management system of internal and external integrated agricultural enterprises is obtained.The network management information system of agricultural products supply chain based on 3PLs has realized the effective sharing of enterprise information of agricultural products supply chain at different nodes,establishing a long-term partnership revolving around the 3PLs core enterprise,as well as a supply chain with stable relationship based on the supply chain network system,so as to improve the circulation efficiency of agricultural products,and to explore the sales market for agricultural products.

  2. Sub-Saharan African maize-based foods

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ekpa, Onu; Palacios-Rojas, Natalia; Kruseman, Gideon; Fogliano, Vincenzo; Linnemann, Anita R.

    2018-01-01

    The demand for maize in Sub-Saharan Africa will triple by 2050 due to rapid population growth, while challenges from climate change will threaten agricultural productivity. Most maize breeding programmes have focused on improving agronomic properties and have paid relatively little attention to

  3. Students' Perception of West African Agricultural Productivity ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    More than half (55.6%) of them were favourably disposed to the programme while respondents' farming background (r=3.740, p ≤ 0.05) was significantly related to their perception of the programme. It was recommended that West African Agricultural Productivity Programme officials should focus more attention on ...

  4. Modern Biotechnology—Potential Contribution and Challenges for Sustainable Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. Jane Morris

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Modern biotechnology, including the application of transgenic techniques to produce Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs, can play a significant role in increasing agricultural production in a sustainable way, but its products need to be tailored for the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, the capacity to develop GMOs and ensure they meet stringent regulatory requirements is somewhat limited. Most African governments contribute little to science and technology either financially or through strong policies. This leaves the determination of research and development priorities in the hands of international funding agencies. Whereas funding from the United States is generally supportive of GM technology, the opposite is true of funding from European sources. African countries are thus pulled in two different directions. One alternative to this dilemma might be for countries in the sub-Saharan Africa region to develop stronger South-South collaborations, but these need to be supported with adequate funding. African governments as well as external funding agencies are urged to consider the important role that biotechnology, including GM technology, can play in contributing to sustainable development in Africa, and to provide adequate support to the development of capacity to research, develop and commercialize GMOs in the region.

  5. Agricultural Extension in Africa. A World Bank Symposium.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Nigel, Ed.

    The contributors to this document compare the main approaches to agricultural extension in sub-Saharan Africa; the cost-effectiveness in view of precarious national budgets; the weaknesses of the system for generating technology; the difficulties in forging productive partnerships between researchers, extensionists and farmers; the ineffective…

  6. The Impact of the Uruguay Round on World Agriculture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chung-Sil Kim

    2002-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper focuses on the impact of the Uruguay Round (UR implementation on world agriculture using a multi-regional general equilibrium model and the mapping function of the Geographic Information System (GIS. The results of this study show that the Uruguay Round has had a negative impact on world agriculture in the light of total food production and food distribution. For commodities such as grains, while grain production rises in exporting countries, the effect is not sufficient to cover the fall in production in importing countries. In particular, the impact is serious on food security in importing countries of agricultural products. The negative impact is almost concentrated in importing countries, particularly Japan, the European Union (EU and South Korea. As is clearly visible on the maps produced by the GIS function, the real state of world agriculture as well as the results evaluated by this Computable General Equilibrium (CGE model has changed negatively in major importing countries and particularly the Least Developed Countries (LDCs, Sub-Saharan Africa following the Uruguay Round.

  7. INDIRECT COSTS ALLOCATION AND DECISION MAKING IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Karić

    2001-06-01

    Full Text Available The paper introduces a research on the changes occurred inside the accounting system of agricultural organisations in the transitional period. Changes of structure and accounting information system being results of privatisation processes were analysed. The introduction of modern methods in the preparation of relevant management information represents one of the preconditions for development of the privatised agricultural organisation during the transition period. Information prepared by the accounting, especially adapted to management requirements, is essential for rational decision making. Modern management system of reporting is fundamental task of management and a precondition for securing competitive production in agricultural industry. For this reason, it is necessary to define areas of responsibility and to enable application of a modern techniques for calculating expenses. The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the specialised use of accounting information by managers and to develop methods of management reporting in agricultural organisations. We propose an emphasis upon the application of modern management accounting techniques rather than financial accounting reporting approach. We support the contention that the need for high-quality management accounting is not debatable and tend to explain how and why accounting information is developed for the individual parts of a business entity, that is for each department or enterprise of an agricultural organisation. The responsibility accounting system should be introduced in agricultural business entities within our conditions, especially in larger organisations, as a measure of securing competitive production. We emphasise the importance of distinguishing between direct and indirect expenses and of using appropriate methods to allocate expenses among departments or enterprises. The research is based on information directly received from the largest agricultural companies in the area of

  8. Towards the large scale production of (La{sub 1-z}Ce{sub z})(Fe{sub 1-x-y}Mn{sub y}Si{sub x}){sub 13}H{sub n} products for room temperature refrigeration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mayer, Charlotte; Dubrez, Alexandra; Pierronnet, Michel; Vikner, Peter [Erasteel SAS, Tour Maine Montparnasse, Paris (France)

    2014-05-15

    In this paper, we present a novel process based on gas atomization and powder metallurgy techniques to produce reliable and stable (La{sub 1-z}Ce{sub z})(Fe{sub 1-x-y}Mn{sub y}Si{sub x}){sub 13}H{sub n} materials, with 0.08 ≤ x ≤ 0.15, 0 ≤ y ≤ 0.05, 0 ≤ z ≤ 0.3 and 1.5 ≤ n ≤ 3. With this process, shaped pieces ready-to-use into refrigeration devices can be produced. Gas atomisation is a rapid solidification technique that prevents the La-Fe-Si-type alloy from forming very large α-Fe dendrites during cooling, allowing to easily and efficiently heat treat the obtained powder to form the magnetocaloric NaZn{sub 13}-type intermetallic. In this process, a batch of 500 kg of alloy was first gas atomized into powder. The powder was then annealed at 1373 K under Ar for one hour to reach around 95% of magnetocaloric phase, and subsequently hydrogenated. Finally, the powder was shaped into composite shaped products containing 91.5 wt.% of powder, by extrusion. This process induces no loss of matter and allows producing non fragile pieces comprising thin portions. Our first results on the stability of partially hydrogenated (La,Ce)(Fe,Mn,Si){sub 13} materials are shown and we discuss on the possible existence of conditions of instability liked to both the composition of the magnetocaloric phase and the level of hydrogenation. (copyright 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)

  9. Production of the superheavy baryon Λ{sub c} {sub anti} {sub c}{sup *}(4209) in kaon-induced reaction

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Xiao-Yun [Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou (China); University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China); Institute of Modern Physics of CAS and Lanzhou University, Research Center for Hadron and CSR Physics, Lanzhou (China); Chen, Xu-Rong [Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou (China); Institute of Modern Physics of CAS and Lanzhou University, Research Center for Hadron and CSR Physics, Lanzhou (China)

    2015-07-15

    The production of superheavy Λ{sub c} {sub anti} {sub c}{sup *}(4209) baryon in the K{sup -}p → η{sub c}Λ process via s-channel is investigated with an effective Lagrangian approach and the isobar model. Moreover, the background from the K{sup -}p → η{sub c}Λ reaction through the t-channel with K* exchange and u-channel with nucleon exchange are also considered. The numerical results indicate it is feasible to search for the superheavy Λ{sub c} {sub anti} {sub c}{sup *}(4209) via K{sup -}p scattering. The relevant calculations not only shed light on the further experiment of searching for the Λ{sub c} {sub anti} {sub c}{sup *}(4209) through kaon-induced reaction, but also enable us to have a better understanding of the exotic baryons. (orig.)

  10. Participation of Urban Women in Agricultural Production Activities in the Sokoto Metropolis, Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barau, A. A.

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This study examines the participation of urban women in agricultural production activities in the Sokoto metropolis, Nigeria. Both primary data and secondary information were used in the study. The primary data were obtained using a structured questionnaire, administered to 72 respondents selected using the snowball sampling technique. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the primary data generated. These include frequency and percentage, and Pearson product moment correlation, respectively. The results show that most of the urban women (38.9 % were in the active age range and had a family size of 1-5 persons (73.6 %. The majority attained tertiary education (62.5 % and have relatively low income (61.1 %, with monthly earnings of 5,000-99,000 Naira. The majority of the women were involved in agricultural production activities all year round (52.8 % with the highest participation seen in poultry farming (43.1 %. Although most of the women were motivated to participate for several reasons, it was mostly for the increased income (33.3 %. It was also found that the major constraint faced was inadequate capital (43.1 %. Age, marital status, educational attainment, household size and farm size were negatively and not significantly (p<5 % related to the participation of urban women in agricultural production activities. Monthly income was however, positively related to the urban women’s participation in agricultural production activities and was also significant (p<5 %. In general, urban women participate in agricultural production activities on a small scale all year round. Proper orientation and awareness programs, provision of credit and women-targeted agricultural programs would go a long way to improving the participation of urban women in agricultural production activities.

  11. Study of {chi}{sub c} production using HERA-B data

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aleksandrov, Aleksandar

    2010-07-15

    In this thesis the production of the charmonium states {chi}{sub c1} and {chi}{sub c2} in protonnucleus collisions at a proton-nucleon center-of-mass energy {radical}(s)=41.6 GeV was studied. The data used for the analysis have been taken by the fixed-target experiment HERA-B that uses the HERA proton beam to scatter protons off the nuclei of different wire targets. About 122.10{sup 3} recorded muonic J/{psi} decays, J/{psi}{yields}{mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}, resulted in almost 10000 reconstructed {chi}{sub c}{yields}J/{psi}{gamma}. The ratio R{sub {chi}{sub c}}= sum {sub i=1,2}{sigma}({chi}{sub ci})Br({chi}{sub ci}{yields}J/{psi}{gamma})/{sigma}(J/{psi}), which is the ratio of J/{psi} from {chi}{sub c} decays to all produced J/{psi}, was measured in the kinematical range -0.35sub F}{sup J/{psi}}<0.15 for carbon and tungsten wire targets. The average over both materials yields R{sub {chi}{sub c}}=0.190{sub -0.029}{sup +0.030}. Despite the small separation of the masses of the two {chi}{sub c} states, comparable to the detector resolution, the ratio R{sub 12}=R{sub {chi}{sub c}{sub 1}}/R{sub {chi}{sub c}{sub 2}} was measured yielding R{sub 12}=1.30{sub -0.37}{sup +0.59} which corresponds to a production cross section ratio ({sigma}({chi}{sub c1}))/({sigma}({chi}{sub c2}))=0.74{sub -0.22}{sup +0.34}. By using the known J/{psi} production cross section, the {chi}{sub c1} and {chi}{sub c2} production cross sections are calculated to be {sigma}({chi}{sub c1})=(153{+-}27) nb/nucleon and {sigma}({chi}{sub c2})=(207{+-}39) nb/nucleon, respectively. All results were obtained under the assumption that both the J/{psi} and {chi}{sub c} states are produced without polarization. In addition a study of possible deviations of R{sub {chi}{sub c}} and R{sub 12} due to the polarization of J/{psi} and {chi}{sub c} was performed. By varying the polarization parameter, {lambda}{sub obs}, of all produced J/{psi} by 2{sigma} around the value measured by HERA-B, and assuming fully

  12. Production conditions of bioenergy in Swedish agriculture; Produktionsfoerutsaettningar foer biobraenslen inom svenskt jordbruk

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Boerjesson, Paal

    2007-05-15

    The overall aim of this report is to analyse and describe the production conditions of bioenergy in Swedish agriculture and how these conditions can vary due to different factors. The conclusion is that the potential for producing bioenergy in Swedish agriculture will vary significantly depending on which energy crops are cultivated, which type of agricultural land is utilised and the geographical location of the production. Furthermore, different crop residues and other by-products from agriculture, utilised for energy purposes, will affect the bioenergy potential. To which extent this physical/biological potential will be utilised in the future depends mainly on economic conditions and financial considerations. These aspects are not included in this study. The report starts with a description of current crop production in Sweden, expressed in energy terms, the energy needed for this production and the regional variation in crop yields. The local variations in cultivation conditions are also analysed, as well as variations over the area of a single farm. Another aspect discussed is the production conditions of energy crops on previous farm land not currently utilised. The report includes an analysis of the potential supply of crop residues and other by-products for energy purposes, such as straw, tops and leaves of sugar beets, manure etc, as well as the regional variation of these residues and by-products. A similar analysis is made of the regional production conditions and potential biomass yields of traditional crops and new energy crops. These analyses also include energy balance calculations showing the energy input needed for different production systems in relation to the harvested biomass yield, and the potential for increased biomass yields in the future. Based on the findings of these various analyses, calculations are made showing some examples of how much bioenergy Swedish agriculture can deliver, depending on how much agricultural land is utilised for

  13. Evaluating the impact of agricultural extension programmes in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and prospects

    OpenAIRE

    Hailemichael Taye

    2013-01-01

    Background: In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), impact evaluation has been used to assess whether agricultural extension interventions have brought the intended result or to establish causal linkages between interventions and outcomes. However, there is some scepticism about the validity and reliability of the results of the impact evaluation reports due to some contradictory and exaggerated results. Objectives: This article analyses some impact evaluation studies conducted in SSA as to why cont...

  14. 27 CFR 28.269 - Certification by district director of customs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... director of customs. 28.269 Section 28.269 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX... Export § 28.269 Certification by district director of customs. (a) Exportation. When the district director of customs is satisfied that merchandise described on the application, notice, or claim, TTB Form...

  15. Production development and utilization of Zimmer Station wet FGD by-products. Final report. Volume 5, A laboratory greenhouse study conducted in fulfillment of Phase 2, Objective 2 titled. Use of FGD by-product gypsum enriched with magnesium hydroxide as a soil amendment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yibirin, H. [Ohio State Univ., Wooster, OH (United States); Stehouwer, R. C. [Ohio State Univ., Wooster, OH (United States); Bigham, J. M. [Ohio State Univ., Wooster, OH (United States); Soto, U. I. [Ohio State Univ., Wooster, OH (United States)

    1997-01-31

    The Clean Air Act, as revised in 1992, has spurred the development of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) technologies that have resulted in large volumes of wet scrubber sludges. In general, these sludges must be dewatered, chemically treated, and disposed of in landfills. Disposal is an expensive and environmentally questionable process for which suitable alternatives must be found. Wet scrubbing with magnesium (Mg)-enhanced lime has emerged as an efficient, cost effective technology for SO<sub>2sub> removal. When combined with an appropriate oxidation system, the wet scrubber sludge can be used to produce gypsum (CaSO<sub>4sub>-2H<sub>2sub>O) and magnesium hydroxide [Mg(OH)<sub>2sub>] of sufficient purity for beneficial re-use. Product value generally increases with purity of the by-product(s). The pilot plant at the CINERGY Zimmer Station near Cincinnati produces gypsum by products that can be formulated to contain varying amounts of Mg(OH)<sub>2sub>. Such materials may have agricultural value as soil conditioners, liming agents and sources of plant nutrients (Ca, Mg, S). This report describes a greenhouse study designed to evaluate by-product gypsum and Mg gypsum from the Zimmer Station pilot plant as amendments for improving the quality of agricultural soils and mine spoils that are currently unproductive because of phytotoxic conditions related to acidity and high levels of toxic dissolved aluminum (Al). In particular, the technical literature contains evidence to suggest that gypsum may be more effective than agricultural limestone in modifying soil chemical conditions below the immediate zone of application. Representative samples of by-product gypsum and Mg(OH)<sub>2sub> from the Zimmer Station were initially characterized. The gypsum was of high chemical purity and consisted of well crystalline, lath-shaped particles of low specific surface area. By contrast, the by-product Mg(OH)<sub>2sub> was a high surface area material (50 m2 g

  16. Energetic performance analysis of drying agricultural products ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Renewable energy sources such as solar energy for drying purposes in a more effective and efficient way is inevitable for preservation of agricultural products in developing nations with inadequate access to electricity. This study investigates the effects of using a solar tracking device on the energy performance of drying ...

  17. 27 CFR 26.261 - Action by district director of customs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... director of customs. 26.261 Section 26.261 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX... customs. The district director of customs will direct the proper customs gauger to determine the taxable... revenue tax applicable thereto. When the rate of tax applicable to the product has been ascertained, the...

  18. PRODUCTION, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF AGRICULTURAL BIOGAS PLANT IN KOSTKOWICE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karol Węglarzy

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the economic and ecological effect of Kostkowice Agricultural biogas plant based on a four year study carried out on the prototype installation. Agricultural biogas plant is part of the nature of the research conducted for twenty years at the National Research Institute of Animal PIB Experimental Station. Prof. Mieczyslaw Czaja relates to various aspects of environmental protection. It describes the economic justification for the production of energy from waste biomass (manure, slurry, wastes from feeding table, by the characteristics of substrates and products. It was found that agricultural biogas plant in rural areas are an important link in energy security, mainly due to the very high availability. Ecological effect is presented as effect of the installation solutions for the reduction of pollution of water, soil and air. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the recycling of environmentally harmful by-products of animal production of electricity and thermal energy, which is a substitute for environmentally harmful fossil fuels. The advantage of substances digestate is odorless, which is important both in an effort to improve the work culture in agriculture and improving living conditions in rural communities and it is an indisputable argument for the use of biomass for energy purposes.

  19. Agricultural productivity, household poverty and migration in the Indian Sundarban Delta

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rituparna Hajra

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Deltas are highly sensitive to erosion, flooding, and salinization with consequential agricultural productivity losses and out-migration, which is a preferred adaptive measure for the inhabitants of deltaic islands. This study investigates the associations between agricultural productivity decrease, household poverty and the probability of out-migration in the Indian Sundarban Delta (ISD. Using newly collected survey data from randomly selected households within the ISD, we analysed these relationships by means of descriptive statistics and regression modeling. Results suggest the significant positive association between a decrease in agricultural productivity and out-migration. The results further show that ceteris paribus, out-migration is negatively associated with household poverty, which is likely to be explained by the effect of remittances. The results yield important policy implications at the local level and can contribute to the progress towards sustainable livelihoods in these deltaic islands.

  20. O2O - Based Agricultural Products Supply Chain Process Integration Optimization Based on Internet +

    OpenAIRE

    Li Huijuan

    2017-01-01

    Traditional wholesale and retail, electricity supplier of agricultural products supply chain have many difficulties. The O2O supply chain of agricultural products of “Internet+”, committed to the integration of online and offline advantage process, has become the main direction of the agricultural products supply chain transformation. Practice operation results show that O2O supply chain can effectively play the advantages of online and offline process integration, but its further development...

  1. Effect of air pollution on peri-urban agriculture: a case study

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Agrawal, M.; Singh, B.; Rajput, M.; Marshall, F.; Bell, J.N.B

    2003-12-01

    Peri-urban agriculture is vital for the urban populations of many developing countries. Increases in both industrialization and urbanization, and associated air pollution threaten urban food production and its quality. Six hour mean concentrations were monitored for SO{sub 2}, NO{sub 2} and O{sub 3} and plant responses were measured in terms of physiological characteristics, pigment, biomass and yield. Parameter reductions in mung bean (Vigna radiata), palak (Beta vulgaris), wheat (Triticum aestivum) and mustard (Brassica compestris) grown within the urban fringes of Varanasi, India correlated directly with the gaseous pollutants levels. The magnitude of response involved all three gaseous pollutants at peri-urban sites; O{sub 3} had more influence at a rural site. The study concluded that air pollution in Varanasi could negatively influence crop yield. - Urban air pollution has a negative impact on peri-urban agriculture.

  2. Improving research management: institutionalization of management informations systems in national agricultural research organisations in Sub Saharan Africa

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Webber, H.

    2006-01-01

    Agricultural research management in the public sector in Sub Saharan Africa suffers from a lack of relevant, timely and accurate information on which to base decision-making. Developments in Management information systems over the past several years have been dramatic and can offer research managers

  3. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service overview for operational monitoring of current crop conditions and production forecasts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crutchfield, J.

    2016-12-01

    The presentation will discuss the current status of the International Production Assessment Division of the USDA ForeignAgricultural Service for operational monitoring and forecasting of current crop conditions, and anticipated productionchanges to produce monthly, multi-source consensus reports on global crop conditions including the use of Earthobservations (EO) from satellite and in situ sources.United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) International Production AssessmentDivision (IPAD) deals exclusively with global crop production forecasting and agricultural analysis in support of the USDAWorld Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) lockup process and contributions to the World Agricultural Supply DemandEstimates (WASE) report. Analysts are responsible for discrete regions or countries and conduct in-depth long-termresearch into national agricultural statistics, farming systems, climatic, environmental, and economic factors affectingcrop production. IPAD analysts become highly valued cross-commodity specialists over time, and are routinely soughtout for specialized analyses to support governmental studies. IPAD is responsible for grain, oilseed, and cotton analysison a global basis. IPAD is unique in the tools it uses to analyze crop conditions around the world, including customweather analysis software and databases, satellite imagery and value-added image interpretation products. It alsoincorporates all traditional agricultural intelligence resources into its forecasting program, to make the fullest use ofavailable information in its operational commodity forecasts and analysis. International travel and training play animportant role in learning about foreign agricultural production systems and in developing analyst knowledge andcapabilities.

  4. Cellulosic ethanol production from agricultural residues in Nigeria

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Iye, Edward; Bilsborrow, Paul

    2013-01-01

    Nigeria′s Biofuels Policy introduced in 2007 mandates a 10% blend (E10) of bioethanol with gasoline. This study investigates the potential for the development of a cellulosic ethanol industry based on the availability of agricultural residues and models the number of commercial processing facilities that could be sited in the six Geo-political zones. The potential for cellulosic ethanol production from agricultural residues in Nigeria is 7556 km 3 per annum exceeding the mandate of 10% renewable fuel required and providing the potential for 12 large- and 11 medium-scale processing facilities based on the use of a single feedstock. Cassava and yam peelings provided in excess of 80% of the process residues available with enough feedstock to supply 10 large-scale facilities with a fairly even distribution across the zones. Sorghum straw, millet straw and maize stalks represented 75% of the potential resource available from field residues with the potential to supply 2 large- and 7 medium-scale processing facilities, all of which would be located in the north of the country. When a multi-feedstock approach is used, this provides the potential for either 29 large- or 58 medium-scale facilities based on outputs of 250 and 125 km 3 per annum respectively. - Highlights: • Nigeria′s Biofuels Policy mandates a 10% blend of bioethanol with gasoline. • Total bioethanol production from agricultural residues was 7556 km 3 per annum. • Process residues offer the greatest potential accounting for 62% of production. • Nigeria has the potential for 12 large- and 11 medium scale commercial. • The use of mixed feedstocks significantly increases the potential for production

  5. Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, Michael; Tilman, David

    2017-06-01

    Global agricultural feeds over 7 billion people, but is also a leading cause of environmental degradation. Understanding how alternative agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice drive environmental degradation is necessary for reducing agriculture’s environmental impacts. A meta-analysis of life cycle assessments that includes 742 agricultural systems and over 90 unique foods produced primarily in high-input systems shows that, per unit of food, organic systems require more land, cause more eutrophication, use less energy, but emit similar greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) as conventional systems; that grass-fed beef requires more land and emits similar GHG emissions as grain-feed beef; and that low-input aquaculture and non-trawling fisheries have much lower GHG emissions than trawling fisheries. In addition, our analyses show that increasing agricultural input efficiency (the amount of food produced per input of fertilizer or feed) would have environmental benefits for both crop and livestock systems. Further, for all environmental indicators and nutritional units examined, plant-based foods have the lowest environmental impacts; eggs, dairy, pork, poultry, non-trawling fisheries, and non-recirculating aquaculture have intermediate impacts; and ruminant meat has impacts ∼100 times those of plant-based foods. Our analyses show that dietary shifts towards low-impact foods and increases in agricultural input use efficiency would offer larger environmental benefits than would switches from conventional agricultural systems to alternatives such as organic agriculture or grass-fed beef.

  6. 27 CFR 28.261 - Notice to district director of customs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Notice to district director of customs. 28.261 Section 28.261 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX... Export § 28.261 Notice to district director of customs. On arrival at the port of exportation, of...

  7. Construction of a risk assessment system for chemical residues in agricultural products.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Shinai; Hong, Jiyeon; Lee, Dayeon; Paik, Minkyoung

    2014-01-01

    Continuous monitoring of chemical residues in agricultural and food products has been performed by various government bodies in South Korea. These bodies have made attempts to systematically manage this information by creating a monitoring database system as well as a system based on these data with which to assess the health risk of chemical residues in agricultural products. Meanwhile, a database system is being constructed consisting of information about monitoring and, following this, a demand for convenience has led to the need for an evaluation tool to be constructed with the data processing system. Also, in order to create a systematic and effective tool for the risk assessment of chemical residues in foods and agricultural products, various evaluation models are being developed, both domestically and abroad. Overseas, systems such as Dietary Exposure Evaluation Model: Food Commodity Intake Database and Cumulative and Aggregate Risk Evaluation System are being used; these use the US Environmental Protection Agency as a focus, while the EU has developed Pesticide Residue Intake Model for assessments of pesticide exposure through food intake. Following this, the National Academy of Agricultural Science (NAAS) created the Agricultural Products Risk Assessment System (APRAS) which supports the use and storage of monitoring information and risk assessments. APRAS efficiently manages the monitoring data produced by NAAS and creates an extraction feature included in the database system. Also, the database system in APRAS consists of a monitoring database system held by the NAAS and food consumption database system. Food consumption data is based on Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This system is aimed at exposure and risk assessments for chemical residues in agricultural products with regards to different exposure scenarios.

  8. Linking the Agricultural Production and Climate Change in Central Asia: 1991-2015

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tatarskii, V.; Shemyakina, O.; Sokolik, I. N.

    2016-12-01

    We present results of the impact of climate change on the agricultural output in Central Asia (CA) since 1991. While profit-maximizing farmers in the market based economies would be expected to change their cropping patterns fairly fast in response to climate change, we do not expect that to happen in the CA region that was for a long time driven by Soviet production plans with a limited room for personal choice. We explore the relationship between the agricultural productivity (measured by the actual output) and the variations in average monthly temperatures during growing seasons and precipitation. The climate data for Central Asia are generated using the Weather Research (WRF) Model for 1985-2012. We make use of data on air temperature on 2m height, C, and total precipitation. The data on the agricultural production comes from the State Statistical Agencies of the three Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Data on agricultural production for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are not available from online government sources. We model the agricultural production as a function of annual realization of weather in a specific region. This economic approach includes converting daily temperature into degree days, which represents heating units. The two key weather variables are a measure of heat (degree days) and total precipitation in the growing season, April 1st to October 30th. Preliminary regression results estimated for Kazakhstan, indicate that degree days during growing season is negatively and total precipitation is positively associated with the agricultural output. Both coefficients are not statistically significant. Further analysis will include data from other countries and also by the region.

  9. Particle Reduction Strategies - PAREST. Agricultural emissions. Sub-report; Strategien zur Verminderung der Feinstaubbelastung - PAREST. Landwirtschaftliche Emissionen. Teilbericht

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Daemmgen, Ulrich; Haenel, Hans-Dieter; Roesemann, Claus; Hahne, Jochen [Johann Heinrich von Thuenen-Institut (vTI), Braunschweig (Germany); Eurich-Menden, Brigitte; Grimm, Ewald; Doehler, Helmut [Kuratorium fuer Technik und Bauwesen in der Landwirtschaft e.V. (KTBL), Darmstadt (Germany)

    2013-06-15

    The German agricultural emission inventory is designed as an instrument of policy advice. The essential aim is to describe the emitting processes so that options for reducing emissions can be quantified. The German agricultural emission model GAS-EM uses in the field of NH{sub 3} emissions from soils and plants in the EMEP / CORINAIR Guidebook (EMEP / CORINAIR, 2002) proposed methods. These differ in emission factors between several types of fertilizers and their application to acre or grassland in function of the average spring temperature. In the field of emissions from animal husbandry GAS-EM follows a material flow approach, where initially the energy and nutrient requirements for a given power (here are weight, weight gain, milk yield, number of piglets, etc. involved) the excretion of metabolizable carbon compounds and the N excretion can be calculated with feces and urine. Subsequently, for all animal species emissions of nitrogen species NH{sub 3}, NO, N{sub 2}O and N{sub 2} from the grazing, indoor housing, storage and distribution of farm fertilizers calculated. [German] Das deutsche landwirtschaftliche Emissionsinventar ist als Instrument der Politikberatung konzipiert. Wesentliches Ziel ist es, die emittierenden Prozesse so zu beschreiben, dass Minderungsmoeglichkeiten quantifiziert werden koennen. Das deutsche landwirtschaftliche Emissions-Modell GAS-EM bedient sich im Bereich der NH{sub 3}-Emissionen aus Boeden und Pflanzen der im EMEP/CORINAIR-Guidebook (EMEP/CORINAIR, 2002) vorgeschlagenen Methoden. Diese unterscheiden bei den Emissionsfaktoren zwischen mehreren Duengersorten und deren Anwendung auf Acker oder Gruenland in Abhaengigkeit von der mittleren Fruehjahrstemperatur. Im Bereich der Emissionen aus der Tierhaltung verfolgt GAS-EM einen Stofffluss-Ansatz, bei dem zunaechst ueber den Energie- und Naehrstoffbedarf bei gegebener Leistung (hier werden Gewicht, Gewichtszuwachs, Milchleistung, Zahl der Ferkel u. ae. hinzugezogen) die Ausscheidungen

  10. Studies on preservation of agricultural products by irradiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chung, K.H.; Kwon, S.H.; Lee, Y.I.; Chae, J.C.; Shin, I.C.

    1981-01-01

    This study was attempted to develop and establish the preservation techniques of agricultural products by irradiation through ascertainment of the optimum irradiation doses for sprout inhibition of white potato and chestnut, and for disinfestation of rice insects during storage

  11. Ordering Strategy for Fresh Agricultural Products in External Financing Condition

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Wenyi; DU

    2014-01-01

    This paper firstly introduced the two stage supply chain consisting of single agricultural product producer and fund restraint retailer.Then,it analyzed the influence of bank interest rate on order quantity,wholesale price and expected profit of retailer and producer on the condition of retailer taking external loan strategy.Studies have shown that when the bank interest rate is in(0,0.9),the order quantity of agricultural products is a decreasing function of bank interest rate; when the bank interest rate is in(0,1),wholesale price of agricultural products decreases with increase in the bank interest rate; when the bank interest rate is in(0,0.6),the expected profit of retailer is a decreasing function of bank interest rate; when the bank interest rate is in(0,1),the expected profit of producer decreases with increase in the bank interest rate.Finally,through simulation calculation examples,it verified suitability of the conclusion,in the hope of providing reference and application value for management of supply chain.

  12. O2O - Based Agricultural Products Supply Chain Process Integration Optimization Based on Internet +

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li Huijuan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Traditional wholesale and retail, electricity supplier of agricultural products supply chain have many difficulties. The O2O supply chain of agricultural products of “Internet+”, committed to the integration of online and offline advantage process, has become the main direction of the agricultural products supply chain transformation. Practice operation results show that O2O supply chain can effectively play the advantages of online and offline process integration, but its further development is still subject to the logistics, information flow of the dispersion, fracture and high cost. The integrated optimization of various regions and various enterprises and all sectors of the supply chain process is the key to optimize the process Internet plus era of agricultural products supply chain.

  13. Increasing rice production in Malaysia: Department of Agriculture approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Asna Booty Othman; Chua Lee Kiang; Rathinam Thiagarajan; Aziziah Md Jan

    2002-01-01

    Increasing rice productivity will continue to be an important agenda in the agricultural development program of the country. This represents a challenge to the Department of Agriculture. To address this challenge, it calls for creativity, innovation, ideas and initiatives in the use of technologies that consist of land leveling, in the field water management, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), production and distribution of quality seeds, effective fertilizer usage and value added activities. Rice areas which have been leveled using laser guided technology have shown yield increase from 3.3 t/ha to 5.1 t/ha. In-field water management increases rice yield, reduces water wastage and ensures timeliness of operations and improve soil water bearing capacity. IPM has proven highly beneficial in the control of field rats, reducing the incidence of diseases such as rice blast, lowering the occurrence of insect pest outbreaks and weed infestation. Fish rearing and fattening of ducklings to adulthood in the rice fields have also been undertaken as profitable enterprises in the rice farming system. In its effort to modernise and increase rice productivity, the Department of Agriculture approach in acquisition of technology from research agencies, and its adaptation and adoption are discussed. Any technology promoted must be economically viable, socially acceptable and technologically feasible for effective implementation. (Author)

  14. TO THE QUESTION OF FORMATION OF EARTHQUAKES OF CORPORATE STRUCTURES OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    KUSTOVSKA О.

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes the development of corporate structures in agricultural production, proves the influence of corporate formations on the efficiency of agrarian production. On the basis of the analysis of official information of agro holdings, an assessment was made of the efficiency of their activities and a conclusion was made about the optimal size of their structural subdivisions. The advantages and disadvantages of integrated structures are highlighted, peculiarities of formation of their land relations are determined. Issues of expansion of land masses of agro holdings related to the conclusion of land lease agreements are considered. The association of separate agro-industrial enterprises of various industrial-economic orientation form an independent legal entity - a legal entity. The economic feasibility of the creation and functioning of corporate associations is objective based on obtaining the greatest effect, the essence of which is that the result of the joint corporate activities of economic structures will always be higher compared to the results of the individual work of each of them. Corporate forms of management in agriculture were founded in Ukraine on the basis of the general theoretical model of an open, competitive, multi-faceted agricultural market economy type, aimed at an integrated world economic system. The methodology of construction involves taking into account the world economic trends and the national specificity of the country's agricultural development; it is aimed at finding rational forms of organization of agricultural production, mechanisms for overcoming crisis phenomena, stabilizing the economy and creating conditions for further qualitative and quantitative growth of the agrarian sector of the economy. For many years, leading American co-operators have been distributing concepts and concepts that are perceived and used throughout the world. This work is coordinated by the Organization for International

  15. Economic Drought Impact on Agriculture: analysis of all agricultural sectors affected

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gil, M.; Garrido, A.; Hernández-Mora, N.

    2012-04-01

    The analysis of drought impacts is essential to define efficient and sustainable management and mitigation. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the impacts of the 2004-2008 drought in the agricultural sector in the Ebro river basin (Spain). An econometric model is applied in order to determine the magnitude of the economic loss attributable to water scarcity. Both the direct impacts of drought on agricultural productivity and the indirect impacts of drought on agricultural employment and agroindustry in the Ebro basin are evaluated. The econometric model measures losses in the economic value of irrigated and rainfed agricultural production, of agricultural employment and of Gross Value Added both from the agricultural sector and the agro-industrial sector. The explanatory variables include an index of water availability (reservoir storage levels for irrigated agriculture and accumulated rainfall for rainfed agriculture), a price index representative of the mix of crops grown in each region, and a time variable. The model allows for differentiating the impacts due to water scarcity from other sources of economic losses. Results show how the impacts diminish as we approach the macro-economic indicators from those directly dependent on water abstractions and precipitation. Sectors directly dependent on water are the most affected with identifiable economic losses resulting from the lack of water. From the management perspective implications of these findings are key to develop mitigation measures to reduce drought risk exposure. These results suggest that more open agricultural markets, and wider and more flexible procurement strategies of the agro-industry reduces the socio-economic exposure to drought cycles. This paper presents the results of research conducted under PREEMPT project (Policy relevant assessment of the socioeconomic effects of droughts and floods, ECHO - grant agreement # 070401/2010/579119/SUB/C4), which constitutes an effort to provide

  16. THE CONSUMPTION OF BASIC PRODUCTION MEANS IN POLISH AGRICULTURE IN RESPECT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AREAS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wacław Jarecki

    2014-10-01

    The plant protection by pesticides is increasing in Poland and the established trend rate took into account years 2005-2011. In the period 2002-2004 statistics did not present the full range of crop protection measures authorized for sale and consumption. In contrast the consumption of qualified seeds of basic grains and seed potatoes considerably decreased in Polish agriculture. Only for triticale it was noticed that the trend rate of qualified seeds was increasing. So the farmers should be more widely informed about the advantages of the exchange of seed grain for qualified grains. It will facilitate the quicker implementation of variety progress to agricultural production and adverse changes slowdown agricultural production.

  17. Radioactive Contamination of Agricultural Products in Poland

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Muszynski, W.; Grabowski, D.; Rubel, B.; Kurowski, W.; Swietochowska, J.; Smagala, G.

    2003-01-01

    Radiological contamination of the environment is caused by nuclear activities on the globe: nuclear weapon tests and the Chernobyl accident. The transfer of radionuclides to the organism via ingestion is one of the sources of doses obtained by people. To assess the doses received by humans the intake of isotopes with daily diet was defined. The concentration of radionuclides in foodstuffs was determined. The network of Service for Measurement of Radioactive Contamination systematically controls all kinds of important agricultural products such as milk, meat, vegetables, fruit, cereals and forest products: mushrooms, blueberries etc. Measurement stations involved in food monitoring act within Sanitary-Epidemiological Stations, Veterinary Hygiene Units and Chemical-Agricultural Stations. All activities are co-ordinated by the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection. The level of activity of caesium isotopes has regularly been monitored in collected samples originating from different administrative districts of Poland. Since 1994 the 134 Cs concentration has been below the detection limit. The activity of 137 Cs has been measured to determine long-term effect of the accident on the contamination of milk, meat and other foodstuffs. (orig.)

  18. New Paths to Capitalist Agricultural Production in Africa

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Whitfield, Lindsay

    2017-01-01

    their own export marketing arrangements. This article examines Ghanaian commercial farmers producing and exporting fresh pineapples to European markets. This group of pineapple producer–exporters represents a path to capitalist agricultural production that can be conceptualized as capitalism from outside...

  19. Improving cyanobacterail O<sub>2sub>-tolerance using CBS hydrogenase for hydrogen production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maness, Pin-Ching [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Eckert, Carrie [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Wawrousek, Karen [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Noble, Scott [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Pennington, Grant [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Yu, Jianping [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2016-11-11

    Cyanobacterial H<sub>2sub> production is a viable path to renewable H<sub>2sub> with water serving as the electron donor and sunlight the energy source. A grand challenge is the sensitivity of the underlying hydrogenase to O<sub>2sub>, the latter an inherent byproduct of oxygenic photosynthesis. This challenge has been identified as a technical barrier in the Fuel Cell Technologies Office (FCTO) Multi-year Research, Development and Deployment Plan. One solution is to express in cyanobacterium an O<sub>2sub>-tolerant hydrogenase to circumvent this barrier. We have uncovered an O<sub>2sub>-tolerant hydrogenase from a photosynthetic bacterium Rubrivivax gelatinosus CBS (Casa Bonita Strain; hereafter “CBS”) with a half-life near 21 h when exposed to ambient O<sub>2sub>. We sequenced the CBS genome and identified two sets of maturation machineries hyp1 and hyp2. Transcripts expression analysis and mutagenesis revealed that hyp1 is responsible for the assembly of the O<sub>2sub>-tolerant CO-oxidation (Coo) hydrogenase and hyp2 is involved in the maturation of a H<sub>2sub>-uptake hydrogenase. The structural genes encoding the O<sub>2sub>-tolerant hydrogenase (cooLXUH) and maturation genes hyp1FABCDE were therefore cloned and expressed in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. We obtained several recombinants displaying hydrogenase activity in a Synechocystis host lacking background activity, suggesting that the CBS hydrogenase is active in Synechocystis. Yet the activity is extremely low. To ensure balanced protein expression, we systematically optimized heterologous expression of 10 CBS genes by using stronger promoters and better ribosome binding site. Moreover we attempted the expression of cooM and cooK genes, verified to be important in CBS to afford activity. CooM is a very large protein and both CooM and CooK are membrane-associated. These properties limited our success in expressing both genes in Synechocystis, although they

  20. Issue of productivity versus strategies for the development of Polish agricultural sector

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zbigniew Floriańczyk

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available In the article assessment of economic efficiency of agriculture is discussed from the sustainable development perspective. Basic definitions are outlined and spheres of sustainability related to Polish agriculture characteristics. Concepts of productivity and efficiency measurement are illustrated with the use of recently conducted research. Ability of different measures to reflect most important processes in agriculture sector is discussed. Following, development policies for economy and agricultural sector are reviewed to suggest concept of economic efficiency measurement form the sustainable agriculture perspective.

  1. Next Generation Agricultural System Data, Models and Knowledge Products: Introduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antle, John M.; Jones, James W.; Rosenzweig, Cynthia E.

    2016-01-01

    Agricultural system models have become important tools to provide predictive and assessment capability to a growing array of decision-makers in the private and public sectors. Despite ongoing research and model improvements, many of the agricultural models today are direct descendants of research investments initially made 30-40 years ago, and many of the major advances in data, information and communication technology (ICT) of the past decade have not been fully exploited. The purpose of this Special Issue of Agricultural Systems is to lay the foundation for the next generation of agricultural systems data, models and knowledge products. The Special Issue is based on a 'NextGen' study led by the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

  2. Food, Feed, or Fuel? Phosphorus Flows Embodied in US Agricultural Production and Trade

    Science.gov (United States)

    MacDonald, G.; Bennett, E.; Carpenter, S.

    2012-12-01

    Agricultural phosphorus (P) use is integral to sustainable food production and water quality regulation. Globalization of agricultural systems, changing diets, and increasing biofuel production pose new challenges for managing non-renewable P reserves, particularly in key agricultural producing regions such as the US. We used a detailed model of the US agricultural system to assess the quantity of mineral P fertilizers used to produce food crops, livestock, and biofuels relative to the P ultimately consumed in domestic diets. We also quantified linkages in fertilizer use between the US and its trading partners globally via agricultural trade. Feed and livestock production drove by far the largest demand for P fertilizers in the US (56% of all P use for domestic and imported products). Of the total mineral P inputs to US domestic agriculture in 2007 (1905 Gg P), 28% were retained in agricultural soils as surplus P, 40% were lost through processing and waste prior to consumption in human diets, while 10% were diverted directly to biofuel production. One quarter of P fertilizer in the US was required to produce exports, particularly major food and feed crops (corn, soybean, and wheat) that drove a large net P flux out of the country (338 Gg P) with strongly crop-specific effects on soil P imbalances nationally. However, US meat consumption involved considerable reliance on P fertilizer use in other countries to produce red meat imports linked primarily to soil P surpluses abroad. We show that changes in domestic farm management and consumer waste could together reduce the P fertilizer needed to produce food consumed in the US by half, which is comparable to the P fertilizer reduction attainable by cutting domestic meat consumption (44%). More effective distribution of P use for major crops nationally and greater recycling of all agricultural wastes is critical to using US phosphate rock reserves as efficiently as possible while maintaining export-oriented agriculture.

  3. EVALUATION OF MANUFACTURING AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION BY THE END OF THE FINANCIAL PERIOD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mincho Minev

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This article is dedicated on the matter of evaluation of manufacturing and agricultural production after the initial appraisal. Accounting standards and regulations, concerning the reappraisal of production, are discussed with emphasis on the key and most disputable requirements. The most commonly met difficulties in the process of reappraisal of production are pointed out. A research is done over the leading manufacturing and agricultural entities in Bulgaria. The point of the research is to study the degree on witch entities met the requirements and regulations of accounting standards when they reevaluate their production by the end of the year. The results of the research are shown and analyzed. Conclusions are made along with some recommendations in order to improve the quality of reappraisal of manufacturing and agricultural production.

  4. Biogas production from energy crops and agriculture residues

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, G.

    2010-12-15

    In this thesis, the feasibility of utilizing energy crops (willow and miscanthus) and agriculture residues (wheat straw and corn stalker) in an anaerobic digestion process for biogas production was evaluated. Potential energy crops and agriculture residues were screened according to their suitability for biogas production. Moreover, pretreatment of these biomasses by using wet explosion method was studied and the effect of the wet explosion process was evaluated based on the increase of (a) sugar release and (b) methane potential when comparing the pretreated biomass and raw biomass. Ensiling of perennial crops was tested as a storage method and pretreatment method for enhancement of the biodegradability of the crops. The efficiency of the silage process was evaluated based on (a) the amount of biomass loss during storage and (b) the effect of the silage on methane potential. Co-digestion of raw and wet explosion pretreated energy crops and agriculture residues with swine manure at various volatile solids (VS) ratio between crop and manure was carried out by batch tests and continuous experiments. The efficiency of the co-digestion experiment was evaluated based on (a) the methane potential in term of ml CH4 produced per g of VS-added and (b) the amount of methane produced per m3 of reactor volume. (Author)

  5. Virtual water and water self-sufficiency in agricultural and livestock products in Brazil.

    Science.gov (United States)

    da Silva, Vicente de Paulo R; de Oliveira, Sonaly D; Braga, Célia C; Brito, José Ivaldo B; de Sousa, Francisco de Assis S; de Holanda, Romildo M; Campos, João Hugo B C; de Souza, Enio P; Braga, Armando César R; Rodrigues Almeida, Rafaela S; de Araújo, Lincoln E

    2016-12-15

    Virtual water trade is often considered a solution for restricted water availability in many regions of the world. Brazil is the world leader in the production and export of various agricultural and livestock products. The country is either a strong net importer or a strong net exporter of these products. The objective of this study is to determine the volume of virtual water contained in agricultural and livestock products imported/exported by Brazil from 1997 to 2012, and to define the water self-sufficiency index of agricultural and livestock products in Brazil. The indexes of water scarcity (WSI), water dependency (WDI) and water self-sufficiency (WSSI) were calculated for each Brazilian state. These indexes and the virtual water balance were calculated following the methodology developed by Chapagain and Hoekstra (2008) and Hoekstra and Hung (2005). The total water exports and imports embedded in agricultural and livestock products were 5.28 × 10 10 and 1.22 × 10 10  Gm 3  yr -1 , respectively, which results in positive virtual water balance of 4.05 × 10 10  Gm 3  yr -1 . Brazil is either a strong net importer or a strong net exporter of agricultural and livestock products among the Mercosur countries. Brazil has a positive virtual water balance of 1.85 × 10 10  Gm 3  yr -1 . The indexes used in this study reveal that Brazil is self-sufficient in food production, except for a few products such as wheat and rice. Horticultural products (tomato, onion, potato, cassava and garlic) make up a unique product group with negative virtual water balance in Brazil. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. CO{sub 2} exchange, environmental productivity indices, and productivity of Agaves and Cacti under current and elevated atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentrations. Terminal report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1995-06-01

    The research described in the proposal investigated net CO{sub 2} uptake and biomass accumulation for an extremely productive CAM plant, the prickly pear cactus Opuntia ficus-indica, under conditions of elevated CO{sub 2} concentrations for relatively long periods. The influences of soil water status, air temperature, and the photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) on net CO{sub 2} uptake over 24-h periods were evaluated to enable predictions to be made based on an Environmental Productivity Index (EPI). Specifically, EPI predicts the fraction of maximal daily net CO{sub 2} uptake based on prevailing environmental conditions. It is the product of indices for temperature, soil water, and intercepted PPF, each of which range from 0.00 when that index factor completely inhibits net CO{sub 2} uptake to 1.00 when no limitation occurs. For instance, the Water Index is 1.00 under wet conditions and decreases to 0.00 during prolonged drought. Although the major emphasis of the research was on net CO{sub 2} uptake and the resulting biomass production for O. ficus-indica, effects of elevated CO{sub 2} concentrations on root: shoot ratios and on the activities of the two carboxylating enzymes were also investigated. Moreover, experiments were also done on other CAM plants, including Agave deserti, Agave salmiana, and Hylocereus undatus, and Stenocereus queretaroensis.

  7. CO{sub 2} exchange environmental productivity indices, and productivity of agaves and cacti under current and elevated atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentrations. Final report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nobel, P.S.

    1994-12-31

    The research described in the proposal investigated net CO{sub 2} uptake and biomass accumulation for an extremely productive CAM plant, the prickly pear cactus Opuntia ficus-indica, under conditions of elevated CO{sub 2} concentrations for relatively long periods. The influences of soil water status, air temperature, and the photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) on net CO{sub 2} uptake over 24-h periods were evaluated to enable predictions to be made based on an Environmental Productivity Index (EPI). Specifically, EPI predicts the fraction of maximal daily net CO{sub 2} uptake based on prevailing environmental conditions. It is the product of indices for temperature, soil water, and intercepted PPF, each of which range from 0.00 when that index factor completely inhibits net CO{sub 2} uptake to 1.00 when no limitation occurs. For instance, the Water Index is 1.00 under wet conditions and decreases to 0.00 during prolonged drought. Although the major emphasis of the research was on net C0{sub 2} uptake and the resulting biomass production for O. ficus-indica, effects of elevated CO{sub 2} concentrations on root: shoot ratios and on the activities of the two carboxylating enzymes were also investigated. Moreover, experiments were also done on other CAM plants, including Agave deserti, Agave salmiana, and Hylocereus undatus, and Stenocereus queretaroensis.

  8. Limits on likesign dilepton production in nu/sub μ/ interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baker, N.J.; Connolly, P.L.; Kahn, S.A.

    1985-01-01

    We have searched for the production of likesign dilepton events (nu/sub μ/ + Ne → μ - + e - + ...) in a wideband neutrino beam at FNAL using the 15' bubble chamber. We observe no signal above the background arising from conventional sources. We set 90% confidence level upper limits for the production rates of (nu/sub μ/ + Ne → μ - + e - + ...)/(nu/sub μ/ + Ne → μ - + ...) less than or equal to 8 * 10 -5 and (nu/sub μ/ + Ne → μ - + e - + ...)/(nu/sub μ/ + Ne → μ - + e + + ...) less than or equal to 6 * 10 -2

  9. Environmental impacts and production performances of organic agriculture in China: A monetary valuation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Fanqiao; Qiao, Yuhui; Wu, Wenliang; Smith, Pete; Scott, Steffanie

    2017-03-01

    Organic agriculture has developed rapidly in China since the 1990s, driven by the increasing domestic and international demand for organic products. Quantification of the environmental benefits and production performances of organic agriculture on a national scale helps to develop sustainable high yielding agricultural production systems with minimum impacts on the environment. Data of organic production for 2013 were obtained from a national survey organized by the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China. Farming performance and environmental impact indicators were screened and indicator values were defined based on an intensive literature review and were validated by national statistics. The economic (monetary) values of farming inputs, crop production and individual environmental benefits were then quantified and integrated to compare the overall performances of organic vs. conventional agriculture. In 2013, organically managed farmland accounted for approximately 0.97% of national arable land, covering 1.158 million ha. If organic crop yields were assumed to be 10%-15% lower than conventional yields, the environmental benefits of organic agriculture (i.e., a decrease in nitrate leaching, an increase in farmland biodiversity, an increase in carbon sequestration and a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions) were valued at 1921 million RMB (320.2 million USD), or 1659 RMB (276.5 USD) per ha. By reducing the farming inputs, the costs saved was 3110 million RMB (518.3 million USD), or 2686 RMB (447.7 USD) per ha. The economic loss associated with the decrease in crop yields from organic agriculture was valued at 6115 million RMB (1019.2 million USD), or 5280 RMB (880 USD) per ha. Although they were likely underestimated because of the complex relationships among farming operations, ecosystems and humans, the production costs saved and environmental benefits of organic agriculture that were quantified in our study compensated substantially for the

  10. Biogas Production from Energy Crops and Agriculture Residues

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wang, Guangtao

    and wet explosion pretreated energy crops and agriculture residues with swine manure at various volatile solids (VS) ratio between crop and manure was carried out by batch tests and continuous experiments. The efficiency of the co-digestion experiment was evaluated based on (a) the methane potential......In this thesis, the feasibility of utilizing energy crops (willow and miscanthus) and agriculture residues (wheat straw and corn stalker) in an anaerobic digestion process for biogas production was evaluated. Potential energy crops and agriculture residues were screened according...... of perennial crops was tested as a storage method and pretreatment method for enhancement of the biodegradability of the crops. The efficiency of the silage process was evaluated based on (a) the amount of biomass loss during storage and (b) the effect of the silage on methane potential. Co-digestion of raw...

  11. Biomass energy production in agriculture: A weighted goal programming analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ballarin, A.; Vecchiato, D.; Tempesta, T.; Marangon, F.; Troiano, S.

    2011-01-01

    Energy production from biomasses can be an important resource that, when combined with other green energies such as wind power and solar plants, can contribute to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The aim of this study is to assess how agriculture could contribute to the production of bio-energy. A multi-period Weighted Goal Programming model (MpWGP) has been applied to identify the optimal land use combinations that simultaneously maximise farmers' income and biomass energy production under three concurrent constraints: water, labour and soil availability. Alternative scenarios are considered that take into account the effect of climate change and social change. The MpWGP model was tested with data from the Rovigo county area (Italy) over a 15-year time period. Our findings show that trade-off exists between the two optimisation targets considered. Although the optimisation of the first target requires traditional agricultural crops, which are characterised by high revenue and a low production of biomass energy, the latter would be achievable with intensive wood production, namely, high-energy production and low income. Our results also show the importance of the constraints imposed, particularly water availability; water scarcity has an overall negative effect and specifically affects the level of energy production. - Research Highlights: → The aim of this study is to assess how agriculture could contribute to the production of bio-energy. → A multi-period (15-year) Weighted Goal Programming model (MpWGP) has been applied. → We identify the optimal land use combinations that simultaneously maximise farmers' income and biomass energy production. → Three concurrent constraints have been considered: water, labour and soil availability.→ Water scarcity has an overall negative effect and specifically affects the level of energy production.

  12. Inclusive K{sup 0}{sub S}K{sup 0}{sub S} resonance production in ep collisions at HERA

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chekanov, S.; Derrick, M.; Magill, S. [Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL (US)] (and others)

    2008-06-15

    Inclusive K{sup 0}{sub S}K{sup 0}{sub S} production in ep collisions at HERA was studied with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 0.5 fb{sup -1}. Enhancements in the mass spectrum were observed and are attributed to the production of f{sub 2}(1270)/a{sup 0}{sub 2}(1320), f'{sub 2}(1525) and f{sub 0}(1710). The f{sub 0}(1710) state was observed with a statistical significance of 5 standard deviations. Masses and widths were obtained using a fit which takes into account theoretical predictions based on SU(3) symmetry arguments. (orig.)

  13. Optimization of production planning in Czech agricultural co-operative via linear programming

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jitka Janová

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available The production planning is one of the key managerial decisions in agricultural business, which must be done periodically every year. Correct decision must cover the agriculture demands of planting the crops such as crop rotation restrictions or water resource scarcity, while the decision maker aims to plan the crop design in most profitable way in sense of maximizing the total profit from the crop yield. This decision problem represents the optimization of crop design and can be treated by the me­thods of linear programming which begun to be extensively used in agriculture production planning in USA during 50’s. There is ongoing research of mathematical programming applications in agriculture worldwide, but the results are not easily transferable to other localities due to the specific local restrictions in each country. In Czech Republic the farmers use for production planning mainly their expert knowledge and past experience. However, the mathematical programming approach enables find the true optimal solution of the problem, which especially in the problems with a great number of constraints is not easy to find intuitively. One of the possible barriers for using the general decision support systems (which are based on mathematical programming methods for agriculture production planning in Czech Republic is its expensiveness. The small farmer can not afford to buy the expensive software or to employ a mathematical programming specialist. The aim of this paper is to present a user friendly linear programming model of the typical agricultural production planning problem in Czech Republic which can be solved via software tools commonly available in any farm (e.g. EXCEL. The linear programming model covering the restrictions on total costs, crop rotation, thresholds for the total area sowed by particular crops, total amount of manure and the need of feed crops is developed. The model is applied in real-world problem of Czech agriculture

  14. THE STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF THE ORGANIC AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS MARKET IN UKRAINE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aleksandr Maslak

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available The modern agricultural market is characterized by an increasing demand for higher quality agricultural products and food. Thus certified organic production was launched in Ukraine, which prohibited the use of chemically synthesized components, genetically modified organisms, etc., and labelling requirements for such products were established. However, experiencing both external and internal demand, the market for organic products in Ukraine is developing slowly. The subject of study focuses on the theoretical, methodological, and practical aspects of forming the organizational-economic basis of organic agricultural products market development in Ukraine. Methodology. Methodological support for the study is based on dialectical and systemic approaches to the study of economic phenomena and processes of formation of the organizational-economic bases of organic agricultural products market development. General scientific and special methods are used, in particular: methods of analogies and comparisons, systematization, statistical and economic, calculation-constructive, program-oriented. The aim of the research is to identify the state of organic agricultural products market in Ukraine and prospects of its further development. The defined goal led to the following tasks: a study of the current state of organic production in Ukraine is carried out; set of problems that hinder its further development are defined; the possible scenarios of this market are identified; prospective tasks, solution of which will contribute to the further development of the market of organic agricultural products in Ukraine, are outlined. According to the results of the conducted research, the following conclusions are made: the tendencies of organic market development in Ukraine are investigated; it is found that the lack of a proper legislative and regulatory framework, a lack of modern market infrastructure, and effective mechanisms of its functioning are holding back

  15. 7 CFR 2.73 - Director, Office of Energy Policy and New Uses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... OF AGRICULTURE AND GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE DEPARTMENT Delegations of Authority by the Chief Economist... following delegations of authority are made by the Chief Economist to the Director, Office of Energy Policy... interagency agreements. (3) Representing the Chief Economist at conferences, meetings, and other contacts...

  16. FEATURES OF THE TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION IN THE AGRICULTURE OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aigul Kazambayeva

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of the current state and problems of the development of agriculture, the share of agriculture in gross domestic product of the country and the ratio of industries in gross agricultural output are analyzed. The advantages of rational allocation and specialization of agricultural production, as well as the criteria for division into industries are considered. The analysis of territorial specialization of agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan is carried out, recommendations for its optimization are given

  17. Core clerkship directors: their current resources and the rewards of the role.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ephgrave, Kimberly; Margo, Katherine L; White, Christopher; Hammoud, Maya; Brodkey, Amy; Painter, Thomas; Juel, Vern C; Shaw, Darlene; Ferguson, Kristi

    2010-04-01

    To conduct a national multidisciplinary investigation assessing core clinical clerkships and their directors, variances in resources from national guidelines, and the impact of the clerkship director role on faculty members' academic productivity, advancement, and satisfaction. A multidisciplinary working group of the Alliance for Clinical Education (ACE), representing all seven core clinical disciplines, created and distributed a survey to clerkship directors at 125 U.S. MD-granting medical schools, in academic year 2006-2007. A total of 544 clerkship directors from Internal Medicine (96), Family Medicine (91), Psychiatry, (91), Pediatrics (79), Surgery (71), Neurology (60), and Obstetrics-Gynecology (56) responded, representing over 60% of U.S. core clinical clerkships. The clerkship directors were similar across disciplines in demographics and academic productivity, though clinical and clerkship activities varied. Departmental staff support for clerkships averaged 0.69 people, distinctly less than the ACE's 2003 guideline of a full-time coordinator in all disciplines' clerkships. Clerkship directors reported heavy clinical responsibilities, which, as in previous studies, were negatively related to academic productivity. However, many clerkship directors felt the role enhanced their academic advancement; a large majority felt it significantly enhanced their career satisfaction. The resources and rewards of the clerkship director role were similar across disciplines. Expectations of clerkship directors were considerable, including responsibility for clinical material and the learning environment. Resources for many fall short of those stated in the ACE guidelines, particularly regarding support staff. However, the findings indicate that the clerkship director role can have benefits for academic advancement and strongly enhances career satisfaction.

  18. Device to irradiate agricultural product on the production site, after harvesting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jegu, Jean; Palomo, Georges; Blaive, Daniel.

    1982-01-01

    The invention concerns a device to irradiate agricultural product on the production site, after harvesting. It includes an outer shielding to absorb the radiations and containers in which the products are placed for irradiation. The shielding is rotationally symmetrical around a vertical axis and holds an irradiation chamber containing a radioactive bar fitted along the shielding axis. The cylindrical containers are placed around the chamber with their axes parallel to the axis of the shielding. They are set in rotation by a motor and receive the farm products through their top ends which communicate with a supply system. Their bottom ends are closed by shutters covering a means for evacuating the products. The invention applies in particular to the irradiation of newly dug potatoes to avoid germination [fr

  19. Livestock production and marketing:

    OpenAIRE

    Negassa, Asfaw; Rashid, Shahidur; Gebremedhin, Berhanu

    2011-01-01

    The livestock is an important sub-sector within Ethiopia’s economy in terms of its contributions to both agricultural value-added and national GDP. Between 1995/96 and 2005/06, the livestock sub-sector’s share averaged 24 percent of agricultural GDP and 11 percent of national GDP, with the highest shares recorded at 27 percent and 13 percent, respectively, at its peak (NBE 2005/06). The contribution of livestock and livestock product exports to foreign exchange earnings is also large. The ann...

  20. Estimating pesticide emissions for LCA of agricultural products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

    2000-01-01

    Emission data for pesticides from agricultural product systems may be based on national and international pesticide usage statistics, but these only provide information on the applied dose. When the field is considered as part of the technosphere, the emissions from the system are those quantitie...

  1. Low charge state heavy ion production with sub-nanosecond laser.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kanesue, T; Kumaki, M; Ikeda, S; Okamura, M

    2016-02-01

    We have investigated laser ablation plasma of various species using nanosecond and sub-nanosecond lasers for both high and low charge state ion productions. We found that with sub-nanosecond laser, the generated plasma has a long tail which has low charge state ions determined by an electrostatic ion analyzer even under the laser irradiation condition for highly charged ion production. This can be caused by insufficient laser absorption in plasma plume. This property might be suitable for low charge state ion production. We used a nanosecond laser and a sub-nanosecond laser for low charge state ion production to investigate the difference of generated plasma using the Zirconium target.

  2. Low charge state heavy ion production with sub-nanosecond laser

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kanesue, T., E-mail: tkanesue@bnl.gov; Okamura, M. [Collider-Accelerator Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973 (United States); Kumaki, M. [Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo 169-8555 (Japan); Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, RIKEN, Saitama 351-0198 (Japan); Ikeda, S. [Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, RIKEN, Saitama 351-0198 (Japan); Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kanagawa 226-8503 (Japan)

    2016-02-15

    We have investigated laser ablation plasma of various species using nanosecond and sub-nanosecond lasers for both high and low charge state ion productions. We found that with sub-nanosecond laser, the generated plasma has a long tail which has low charge state ions determined by an electrostatic ion analyzer even under the laser irradiation condition for highly charged ion production. This can be caused by insufficient laser absorption in plasma plume. This property might be suitable for low charge state ion production. We used a nanosecond laser and a sub-nanosecond laser for low charge state ion production to investigate the difference of generated plasma using the Zirconium target.

  3. Tracing distant environmental impacts of agricultural products from a consumer perspective

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kastner, Thomas; Kastner, Michael; Nonhebel, Sanderine

    2011-01-01

    Globally, trade flows of agricultural products are increasing. While value is typically added along the whole production chain, certain environmental impacts, such as land and water use, biomass appropriation, and soil degradation, are intrinsically linked to where the primary products originate

  4. Factors affecting RFID adoption in the agricultural product distribution industry: empirical evidence from China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Ping; Yan, Bo

    2016-01-01

    We conducted an exploratory investigation of factors influencing the adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) methods in the agricultural product distribution industry. Through a literature review and field research, and based on the technology-organization-environment (TOE) theoretical framework, this paper analyzes factors influencing RFID adoption in the agricultural product distribution industry in reference to three contexts: technological, organizational, and environmental contexts. An empirical analysis of the TOE framework was conducted by applying structural equation modeling based on actual data from a questionnaire survey on the agricultural product distribution industry in China. The results show that employee resistance and uncertainty are not supported by the model. Technological compatibility, perceived effectiveness, organizational size, upper management support, trust between enterprises, technical knowledge, competitive pressure and support from the Chinese government, which are supported by the model, have significantly positive effects on RFID adoption. Meanwhile, organizational size has the strongest positive effect, while competitive pressure levels have the smallest effect. Technological complexities and costs have significantly negative effects on RFID adoption, with cost being the most significantly negative influencing factor. These research findings will afford enterprises in the agricultural products supply chain with a stronger understanding of the factors that influence RFID adoption in the agricultural product distribution industry. In addition, these findings will help enterprises remain aware of how these factors affect RFID adoption and will thus help enterprises make more accurate and rational decisions by promoting RFID application in the agricultural product distribution industry.

  5. XYLOOLIGOSACCHARIDES FROM AGRICULTURAL BY-PRODUCTS: CHARACTERISATION, PRODUCTION AND PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    L. Kaprelyants

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The current study is a review of characteristics, production, physiological properties and application of xylooligosaccharides (XOS. XOS are the carbohydrates, their molecules are built from xylose residues linked mainly by в-(1→4-glycoside bonds. Xylan is important for plant cell walls and is widely spread component in agricultural by-products. XOS are products of xylan hydrolytic degradation, and exhibiting the high prebiotic potential. The XOS preparation of wheat and rye bran stimulated the cells accumulation ‑ 1,4∙1010 CFU/cm3 of L. аcidophilus and 9,2∙1010 CFU/cm3 of В. bifidum. A difference in XOS molecules branching causes a wide range of their physiological properties: antioxidant, immunomodulation, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic. XOS can reduce high cholesterol level and triglycerides in blood plasma. XOS application reviewed in this article opens new perspectives on its potential use for human consumption. The rich sources of xylan are wheat, rye and barley bran, rice husk, wheat straw, corncobs, cotton stalk. Industrial way of XOS production includes chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis with following purification. Chemical methods are based on hydrothermal pretreatment and acidic or alkali extraction. Obtained oligosaccharides have a wide range of polymerization degree (DP from 2 to 20. Enzymatic methods include fermentation with xylanase that allow controlling the XOS accumulation with certain DP. The different chromatographic purification after hydrolysis is used for analytical purposes. There are anion-exchange, size-exclusion, affinity, size-exclusion high-performance liquid chromatography. In addition, biomethods are preferred for XOS used in food, because such preparations do not contain monosaccharides and furfural as contaminants. XOS are stable in a wide range of temperature and pH, justifying the development of new synbiotics generation. Most widely XOS are used in production of functional

  6. The problem of sustainability within the complexity of agricultural production systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cotes Torres, Alejandro; Cotes Torres, Jose Miguel

    2005-01-01

    The problem of sustainability is a topic that since the end of the XX century has been worrying more the different sectors of society; becoming one of the topics of greatest interest for managers, consumers, academics and investigators that conform the different agricultural food chains of the world. This paper presents from the general systems theory point of view some elements of critical reflection, approaching the problem of sustainability from the complexity of agricultural production systems, beginning with the original philosophical conception of agricultural and ending by outlining some considerations that should be kept in mind for the development of scientific and technological advances concordant with the agricultural food chain needs of the XX century; which permit an orientation of not only work by profession is who lead the processes of animal and vegetable production, but also creates a sense of pertinence in all of the participants in the chain, highlighting the importance of studying by means of systemic thought, agronomy and animal science, as disciplines that approach to complexities of agriculture which is the angular stone of civilization, such as we know it at the moment

  7. Effects of ecological and conventional agricultural intensification practices on maize yields in sub-Saharan Africa under potential climate change

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Folberth, Christian; Yang, Hong; Gaiser, Thomas; Liu, Junguo; Wang, Xiuying; Williams, Jimmy; Schulin, Rainer

    2014-01-01

    Much of Africa is among the world’s regions with lowest yields in staple food crops, and climate change is expected to make it more difficult to catch up in crop production in particular in the long run. Various agronomic measures have been proposed for lifting agricultural production in Africa and to adapt it to climate change. Here, we present a projection of potential climate change impacts on maize yields under different intensification options in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using an agronomic model, GIS-based EPIC (GEPIC). Fallow and nutrient management options taken into account are (a) conventional intensification with high mineral N supply and a bare fallow, (b) moderate mineral N supply and cowpea rotation, and (c) moderate mineral N supply and rotation with a fast growing N fixing tree Sesbania sesban. The simulations suggest that until the 2040s rotation with Sesbania will lead to an increase in yields due to increasing N supply besides improving water infiltration and soils’ water holding capacity. Intensive cultivation with a bare fallow or an herbaceous crop like cowpea in the rotation is predicted to result in lower yields and increased soil erosion during the same time span. However, yields are projected to decrease in all management scenarios towards the end of the century, should temperature increase beyond critical thresholds. The results suggest that the effect of eco-intensification as a sole means of adapting agriculture to climate change is limited in Sub-Saharan Africa. Highly adverse temperatures would rather have to be faced by improved heat tolerant cultivars, while strongly adverse decreases in precipitation would have to be faced by expanding irrigation where feasible. While the evaluation of changes in agro-environmental variables like soil organic carbon, erosion, and soil humidity hints that these are major factors influencing climate change resilience of the field crop, no direct relationship between these factors, crop yields

  8. Assessing the effect of off-farm income diversification on agricultural production in rural Nigeria

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Babatunde, Raphael O.

    2012-01-01

    Farming as a primary source of income has failed to guarantee sufficient livelihood for most farming households in developing countries, and agricultural development policies have largely produced little improvement, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diversification into off-farm activities has

  9. Online hyperspectral imaging system for evaluating quality of agricultural products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mo, Changyeun; Kim, Giyoung; Lim, Jongguk

    2017-06-01

    The consumption of fresh-cut agricultural produce in Korea has been growing. The browning of fresh-cut vegetables that occurs during storage and foreign substances such as worms and slugs are some of the main causes of consumers' concerns with respect to safety and hygiene. The purpose of this study is to develop an on-line system for evaluating quality of agricultural products using hyperspectral imaging technology. The online evaluation system with single visible-near infrared hyperspectral camera in the range of 400 nm to 1000 nm that can assess quality of both surfaces of agricultural products such as fresh-cut lettuce was designed. Algorithms to detect browning surface were developed for this system. The optimal wavebands for discriminating between browning and sound lettuce as well as between browning lettuce and the conveyor belt were investigated using the correlation analysis and the one-way analysis of variance method. The imaging algorithms to discriminate the browning lettuces were developed using the optimal wavebands. The ratio image (RI) algorithm of the 533 nm and 697 nm images (RI533/697) for abaxial surface lettuce and the ratio image algorithm (RI533/697) and subtraction image (SI) algorithm (SI538-697) for adaxial surface lettuce had the highest classification accuracies. The classification accuracy of browning and sound lettuce was 100.0% and above 96.0%, respectively, for the both surfaces. The overall results show that the online hyperspectral imaging system could potentially be used to assess quality of agricultural products.

  10. Livestock in a changing climate: production system transitions as an adaptation strategy for agriculture

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Weindl, Isabelle; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Popp, Alexander; Müller, Christoph; Schmitz, Christoph; Rolinski, Susanne; Havlík, Petr; Herrero, Mario

    2015-01-01

    Livestock farming is the world’s largest land use sector and utilizes around 60% of the global biomass harvest. Over the coming decades, climate change will affect the natural resource base of livestock production, especially the productivity of rangeland and feed crops. Based on a comprehensive impact modeling chain, we assess implications of different climate projections for agricultural production costs and land use change and explore the effectiveness of livestock system transitions as an adaptation strategy. Simulated climate impacts on crop yields and rangeland productivity generate adaptation costs amounting to 3% of total agricultural production costs in 2045 (i.e. 145 billion US$). Shifts in livestock production towards mixed crop-livestock systems represent a resource- and cost-efficient adaptation option, reducing agricultural adaptation costs to 0.3% of total production costs and simultaneously abating deforestation by about 76 million ha globally. The relatively positive climate impacts on grass yields compared with crop yields favor grazing systems inter alia in South Asia and North America. Incomplete transitions in production systems already have a strong adaptive and cost reducing effect: a 50% shift to mixed systems lowers agricultural adaptation costs to 0.8%. General responses of production costs to system transitions are robust across different global climate and crop models as well as regarding assumptions on CO 2 fertilization, but simulated values show a large variation. In the face of these uncertainties, public policy support for transforming livestock production systems provides an important lever to improve agricultural resource management and lower adaptation costs, possibly even contributing to emission reduction. (letter)

  11. Nuclear techniques in Australian animal production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1976-01-01

    In tropical and sub-tropical regions, the production of domestic animals is frequently depressed by the climatic and ecological conditions. These negative effects can be overcome to a great extent by improved methods of animal and land management. In animal research, nuclear techniques are playing an important role in the study of different aspects of nutrition, metabolism, reproduction and health of domestic animals. In response to the need expressed by Member States for more information on these techniques, the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Atomic Energy in Food and Agriculture and the IAEA's Division of Technical Assistance organized a study tour to Australia, a country which has developed considerable expertise in agricultural and animal research. The purpose of the study tour was to enable veterinary and animal scientists and administrators from developing countries in Asia and the Far East to observe at first hand the ways in which animal production, particularly meat, milk and wool, can be increased in tropical and sub-tropical areas. Fourteen senior scientists and research directors from seven Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand) participated. The counterpart organizations in Australia were the Australian Development Assistance Agency (ADAA) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The chief programmer and co-ordinator of the study tour was John E. Vercoe, officer-in-charge of CSIRO's Tropical Cattle Research Centre in Rockhampton, and a former IAEA staff member. The tour was financed by the United Nations Development Programme. The participants visited research facilities of universities, national and state laboratories and commercial cattle producers. The tour started at Sydney and proceeded north along the east coast of Australia to Townsville. On the way, major stops were made in Armidale, Grafton, Wollongbar, Brisbane and Rockhampton. In Rockhampton, a

  12. Near-infrared hyperspectral imaging for quality analysis of agricultural and food products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, C. B.; Jayas, D. S.; Paliwal, J.; White, N. D. G.

    2010-04-01

    Agricultural and food processing industries are always looking to implement real-time quality monitoring techniques as a part of good manufacturing practices (GMPs) to ensure high-quality and safety of their products. Near-infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging is gaining popularity as a powerful non-destructive tool for quality analysis of several agricultural and food products. This technique has the ability to analyse spectral data in a spatially resolved manner (i.e., each pixel in the image has its own spectrum) by applying both conventional image processing and chemometric tools used in spectral analyses. Hyperspectral imaging technique has demonstrated potential in detecting defects and contaminants in meats, fruits, cereals, and processed food products. This paper discusses the methodology of hyperspectral imaging in terms of hardware, software, calibration, data acquisition and compression, and development of prediction and classification algorithms and it presents a thorough review of the current applications of hyperspectral imaging in the analyses of agricultural and food products.

  13. Global warming threatens agricultural productivity in Africa and South Asia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sultan, Benjamin

    2012-12-01

    The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Christensen et al 2007) has, with greater confidence than previous reports, warned the international community that the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases emissions will result in global climate change. One of the most direct and threatening impacts it may have on human societies is the potential consequences on global crop production. Indeed agriculture is considered as the most weather-dependent of all human activities (Hansen 2002) since climate is a primary determinant for agricultural productivity. The potential impact of climate change on crop productivity is an additional strain on the global food system which is already facing the difficult challenge of increasing food production to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050 with changing consumption patterns and growing scarcity of water and land (Beddington 2010). In some regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia that are already food insecure and where most of the population increase and economic development will take place, climate change could be the additional stress that pushes systems over the edge. A striking example, if needed, is the work from Collomb (1999) which estimates that by 2050 food needs will more than quintuple in Africa and more than double in Asia. Better knowledge of climate change impacts on crop productivity in those vulnerable regions is crucial to inform policies and to support adaptation strategies that may counteract the adverse effects. Although there is a growing literature on the impact of climate change on crop productivity in tropical regions, it is difficult to provide a consistent assessment of future yield changes because of large uncertainties in regional climate change projections, in the response of crops to environmental change (rainfall, temperature, CO2 concentration), in the coupling between climate models and crop productivity functions, and in the adaptation of

  14. Measurement of the D{sub s}{sup +}-D{sub s}{sup -} production asymmetry in 7 TeV pp collisions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aaij, R. [Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Abellan Beteta, C. [Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain); Adametz, A. [Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet Heidelberg, Heidelberg (Germany); Adeva, B. [Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Adinolfi, M. [H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol (United Kingdom); Adrover, C. [CPPM, Aix-Marseille Universite, CNRS/IN2P3, Marseille (France); Affolder, A. [Oliver Lodge Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Liverpool (United Kingdom); Ajaltouni, Z. [Clermont Universite, Universite Blaise Pascal, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, Clermont-Ferrand (France); Albrecht, J.; Alessio, F. [European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland); Alexander, M. [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow (United Kingdom); Ali, S. [Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Alkhazov, G. [Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), Gatchina (Russian Federation); Alvarez Cartelle, P. [Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Alves, A.A. [Sezione INFN di Roma La Sapienza, Roma (Italy); Amato, S. [Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Amhis, Y. [Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne (Switzerland); Anderson, J. [Physik-Institut, Universitaet Zuerich, Zuerich (Switzerland); Appleby, R.B. [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester (United Kingdom); Aquines Gutierrez, O. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik (MPIK), Heidelberg (Germany); and others

    2012-07-09

    Heavy quark production in 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy pp collisions at the LHC is not necessarily flavour symmetric. The production asymmetry, A{sub P}, between D{sub s}{sup +} and D{sub s}{sup -} mesons is studied using the {phi}{pi}{sup {+-}} decay mode in a data sample of 1.0 fb{sup -1} collected with the LHCb detector. The difference between {pi}{sup +} and {pi}{sup -} detection efficiencies is determined using the ratios of fully reconstructed to partially reconstructed D{sup Low-Asterisk {+-}} decays. The overall production asymmetry in the D{sub s}{sup {+-}} rapidity region 2.0 to 4.5 with transverse momentum larger than 2 GeV is measured to be A{sub P}=(-0.33{+-}0.22{+-}0.10)%. This result can constrain models of heavy flavour production.

  15. Perceptions of Agriculture Teachers Regarding Education about Biomass Production in Iowa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Guang; Martin, Robert A.

    2015-01-01

    With the growth of biorenewable energy, biomass production has become an important segment in the agriculture industry (Iowa Energy Center, 2013). A great workforce will be needed for this burgeoning biomass energy industry (Iowa Workforce Development, n. d.). Instructional topics in agricultural education should take the form of problems and…

  16. Production of gaseous radiotracers CH{sub 3}I and I{sub 2} through Na{sup 123}I salt

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Candeiro, R.E.M., E-mail: ricardocandeiro@cnen.gov.b [Comissao Nacional de Energia Nuclear (DIFOR/CNEN-CE), Fortaleza, CE (Brazil). Distrito de Fortaleza; Brandao, L.B. [Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear (IEN/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Pereira, W.P. [Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niteroi, RJ (Brazil)

    2011-07-01

    The objective of the present work was to develop, separately, methodology for production of two gaseous tracers through the sodium iodide NaI marked with {sup 123}I. Found in the nature in form different, the iodine has been used in diverse works in the area of the industry and health. These two forms of the gaseous iodine, the methyl iodide, CH{sub 3}I, and molecular iodine, I{sub 2}, are very unstable and volatile in the ambient temperature and presents different problems in clean-up and monitoring systems. The syntheses were processed with sodium iodide (NaI) 1M aqueous solution marked with 1{sup 23I}. The production of gas I{sub 2} was realized with in chlorine acid (HCl) and sodium iodate salt (NaIO{sub 3}) and the CH{sub 3}I was used, the salt of NaI and the reagent (CH{sub 3}){sub 2}SO{sub 4}. The production of gases was initially realized through in unit in glass with an inert material and the purpose was to study the kinetic of reaction and to determine the efficiency of production. The two synthesis occurs in the reaction bottle and after of produced, the gas is stored in the collect bottle that contains a starch solution for fixed the I{sub 2}, and in syntheses of CH{sub 3}I contains a silver nitrate solution for your fixation. To determine the efficiency of production of gases, analytic tests were realized, where the consumption of iodide ions of the bottle of reaction are measured. The optimization of production of the each gaseous tracer was studied varying parameter as: concentration of iodide, concentration of acid and temperature. After, the syntheses of the radiotracers were realized in the compact unit, having been used as main reagent the salt radiated of sodium iodide, Na{sup 123}I. The transportation of elementary iodine and methyl iodine was studied by a scintillation detector NaI (2 x 2)' positioned in the reaction bottle. (author)

  17. Metal-organic framework templated synthesis of Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} nanocomposite for hydrogen production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Krafft, Kathryn E. de; Wang, Cheng; Lin, Wenbin [University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Department of Chemistry

    2012-04-17

    A new metal-organic framework (MOF)-templated method has been developed for the synthesis of a metal oxide nanocomposite with interesting photophysical properties. Fe-containing nanoscale MOFs are coated with amorphous titania, then calcined to produce crystalline Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} composite nanoparticles. This material enables photocatalytic hydrogen production from water using visible light, which cannot be achieved by either Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} or TiO{sub 2} alone or a mixture of the two. (Copyright copyright 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

  18. Resource analysis of the Chinese society 1980-2002 based on exergy-Part 3: Agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, B.; Chen, G.Q.

    2007-01-01

    This part is the continuation of the second part on renewable energy sources and forest. The major agricultural products entering the Chinese society from 1980 to 2002 are calculated and analyzed in detail in this paper. The relative political infrastructure and organization of the agricultural production in the rural areas frequently and rapidly changed during the past two decades, making profound impact on the crop structure and yields. The planning and organization of agriculture has been adjusted when prices and market are introduced into agricultural production and the direct planning is restricted. The growth in usage of fertilizers, pesticides and farm-use plastic membrane is revealed. The state farm system as the pioneer of exploring the modernization of agriculture and accumulating experiences is also described

  19. Population growth and food supply in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meerman, J; Cochrane, S H

    1982-09-01

    It is argued in this article that sub-Saharan Africa, given its present institutions and endowments of capital and technology, is already dangerously close to overpopulation. The rapid growth of its population projected for the next decades will greatly increase human misery and depress economic development. Specifically, rapid population growth will have disastrous effects on the region's ability to increase exports and provide people with food. There must be a search for new ways in which these effects could be mitigated. In sub-Saharan Africa fertility either continues to be very high or is increasing, in part due to some decline in traditional practices that reduce fertility, such as prolonged breastfeeding. This situation and the expectation of declining mortality imply that African population growth may increase further. Currently, population in sub-Saharan Africa is about half that of India and a third of China. There are 2 main reasons why reduced fertility in the next few decades is unlikely in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole: Africa has low literacy, high infant and child mortality, and low urbanization; and average African fertility rates may even increase for the next 20 years or so. The question that arises is what are the implications of continuing and rapid population growth for the African food supply. The region's cereal production is largely restricted to 4 grains, i.e., millet, sorghum, maize, and rice. The volume of grain production is less, by weight, than 60% of the production of roots and tubers. There are 2 main differences between the output of these crops in sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world: yields/hectare are lower in Africa than in elsewhere; and yields have generally been decreasing or largely constant in Africa. The low productivity has several causes. Today, population pressure has brought diminishing returns to traditional agriculture in much of the Sahel and the savanna, in parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, and parts

  20. Initial impact of integrated agricultural research for development in East and Central Africa

    OpenAIRE

    Nkonya, Ephraim; Kato, Edward; Oduol, Judith; Pali, Pamela; Farrow, Andrew

    2013-01-01

    Conventional agricultural research approaches have generated research results with limited adoption rates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Recently, a new research approach – integrated agricultural research for development (IAR4D) was introduced in SSA. The IAR4D approach goes beyond the conventional research focus on agricultural production technologies, as it includes marketing and development activities. This paper analyses the impact of IAR4D in the East and Central African region using pa...

  1. Nonwoven production from agricultural okra wastes and investigation of their thermal conductivities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duman, M. N.; Kocak, E. D.; Merdan, N.; Mistik, I.

    2017-10-01

    Nowadays bio-based composite materials have been used in rising amounts and demanded widely in industrial uses, as they provide cost reduction and weight loss in the end use products. Agricultural cellulose based wastes can be a good alternative to synthetic fibers and can be used in natural fiber reinforced composite production, as there is a huge (more than 40 million tons) potential for natural cellulose production from agricultural wastes. Okra is one of the most grown vegetables around the world with stems left on the fields after harvest. When the similarity of mechanical properties of okra fibers with traditional bast fibers (flax, kenaf, hemp) are considered, from an economical and an environmental point of view this research emphasizes the potential of agricultural biomass for natural fiber production. In this study, okra stem wastes used for natural cellulosic fiber production and treated with 10% NaOH at 60°C for 10, 20, 30 and 40 minutes. By alkali treatment, decrease in fiber diameter and weight, and increase in tensile strength and elongation % have been observed. Nonwoven production has been done from both the fibers with and without surface treatments. Thermal conductivity properties of both nonwovens have been investigated.

  2. Biomass production from the U.S. forest and agriculture sectors in support of a renewable electricity standard

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    White, Eric M.; Latta, Greg; Alig, Ralph J.; Skog, Kenneth E.; Adams, Darius M.

    2013-01-01

    Production of renewable energy from biomass has been promoted as means to improve greenhouse gas balance in energy production, improve energy security, and provide jobs and income. However, uncertainties remain as to how the agriculture and forest sectors might jointly respond to increased demand for bioelectricity feedstocks and the potential environmental consequences of increased biomass production. We use an economic model to examine how the agriculture and forest sectors might combine to respond to increased demands for bioelectricity under simulated future national-level renewable electricity standards. Both sectors are projected to contribute biomass, although energy crops, like switchgrass, produced on agriculture land are projected to be the primary feedstocks. At the highest targets for bioelectricity production, we project increased conversion of forest to agriculture land in support of agriculture biomass production. Although land conversion takes place in response to renewable electricity mandates, we project only minor increases in forest and agriculture emissions. Similarly, crop prices were projected to generally be stable in the face of increased bioelectricity demand and displacement of traditional agriculture crops. - Highlights: ► We model the response of forest and agriculture to increased bioelectricity demand. ► The agriculture sector, through energy crop production, is the key biomass provider. ► Increased land exchange is projected for the highest bioelectricity demands. ► Land exchange from forest to agriculture yield the greatest changes in GHG flux. ► Agriculture and forestry must be accounted for when considering bioenergy policy

  3. Macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land: a case study of Argentina

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wicke, B.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/306645955; Smeets, E.M.W.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/311445217; Tabeau, A.; Hilbert, J.; Faaij, A.P.C.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/10685903X

    2009-01-01

    This paper assesses the macroeconomic impacts in terms of GDP, trade balance and employment of large-scale bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. An input–output model is developed with which the direct, indirect and induced macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production and agricultural

  4. Macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land—A case study of Argentina

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wicke, Birka; Smeets, E.; Tabeau, Andrzej; Hilbert, Jorge; Faaij, André

    2009-01-01

    This paper assesses the macroeconomic impacts in terms of GDP, trade balance and employment of large-scale bioenergy production on surplus agricultural land. An input–output model is developed with which the direct, indirect and induced macroeconomic impacts of bioenergy production and agricultural

  5. Career Preparation in Agricultural Products (Food Processing): A Curriculum Guide for High School Vocational Agriculture. Test Edition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Eddie A.

    This curriculum guide in agricultural products (food processing) is one of 10 guides developed as part of a vocational project stressing agribusiness, natural resources, and environmental protection. The scope of this guide includes three occupational subgroups: meat, fish, poultry; dairy (milk) products; fruits and vegetables. It is meant as an…

  6. The potential of vegetable oil as an alternate source of liquid fuel for agriculture in the Pacific Northwest - IV: Final report, 1984-1986

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Auld, D.L.; Hall, M.C.; Hawley, K.N.; Korus, R.A.; Madsen, J.P.; Mahler, K.A.; Mora, P.G.; Peterson, C.L.; Roelofsen, M.; Stibal, W.T.; Whitcraft, J.C.

    1986-01-01

    This research was conducted to develop the technology necessary to produce, process, and utilize vegtable oil as a diesel fuel substitute for agricultural production in the Pacific Northwest. Additional studies were conducted to determine the economic threshold, to derive energy budgets for various crop production regions, and to insure that expeller extracted meals would make acceptable animal feeds. This research was conducted by an integrated team of scientists from the University of Idaho which initiated efforts in this field in December of 1979. Experiments were conducted by agronomists, agricultural engineers, animal nutritionists, chemical engineers, and agricultural economists. This report summarized data accumulated from October 1984 to March 1986 as part of USDA/ARS Research Agreement No. 58-7B30-2-402. Copies of this report can be obtained from the Director of the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station, College of Agriculture, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83843.

  7. Grassland production under global change scenarios for New Zealand pastoral agriculture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keller, E. D.; Baisden, W. T.; Timar, L.; Mullan, B.; Clark, A.

    2014-10-01

    We adapt and integrate the Biome-BGC and Land Use in Rural New Zealand models to simulate pastoral agriculture and to make land-use change, intensification of agricultural activity and climate change scenario projections of New Zealand's pasture production at time slices centred on 2020, 2050 and 2100, with comparison to a present-day baseline. Biome-BGC model parameters are optimised for pasture production in both dairy and sheep/beef farm systems, representing a new application of the Biome-BGC model. Results show up to a 10% increase in New Zealand's national pasture production in 2020 under intensification and a 1-2% increase by 2050 from economic factors driving land-use change. Climate change scenarios using statistically downscaled global climate models (GCMs) from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report also show national increases of 1-2% in 2050, with significant regional variations. Projected out to 2100, however, these scenarios are more sensitive to the type of pasture system and the severity of warming: dairy systems show an increase in production of 4% under mild change but a decline of 1% under a more extreme case, whereas sheep/beef production declines in both cases by 3 and 13%, respectively. Our results suggest that high-fertility systems such as dairying could be more resilient under future change, with dairy production increasing or only slightly declining in all of our scenarios. These are the first national-scale estimates using a model to evaluate the joint effects of climate change, CO2 fertilisation and N-cycle feedbacks on New Zealand's unique pastoral production systems that dominate the nation's agriculture and economy. Model results emphasise that CO2 fertilisation and N-cycle feedback effects are responsible for meaningful differences in agricultural systems. More broadly, we demonstrate that our model output enables analysis of decoupled land-use change scenarios: the Biome-BGC data products at a national or regional level can be re

  8. The Cold Chain Logistics for Perishable Agricultural Products in China

    OpenAIRE

    Hou Yanfang; Xie Dong; Wang Jianbo

    2015-01-01

    This study introduces concepts of the agricultural product cold chain logistics and domestic and international researches. Also, the study discusses issues of Chinese agricultural cold chain logistics in the development process as the following aspects: the dividing of cold chain logistics market, refrigeration hardware facilities, third-party cold chain logistics development, the level of cold chain technologies, cold chain logistics professionals and the legal system and the standard system...

  9. CONDITIONS FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN THE AGRICULTURE OF CONGO REPUBLIC*

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katarzyna Andrzejczak

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The majority of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa is employed in agriculture. Nevertheless, the productivity of the sector is relatively low in comparison with other regions of the world. Based on convergence theory, technology transfer can enhance growth. However, the effective transfer of technology requires a certain absorption capacity from the recipient. Based on the qualitative research on cassava production in Congo Brazzaville, we identified key factors that influence the transfer process. These factors have been divided into four key areas: market, institutions, technology, and social capability. Cassava production value chain in Ignie region served as a case study for the evaluation of technology transfer absorptive capacity in Congo agriculture. We learned that the lack of agro-technical education, shortages in infrastructure, unavailability of business services, and market structure are among the main barriers of the intensification of technology use in agriculture.

  10. Utilizing intraspecific variation in phenotypic plasticity to bolster agricultural and forest productivity under climate change.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aspinwall, Michael J; Loik, Michael E; Resco de Dios, Victor; Tjoelker, Mark G; Payton, Paxton R; Tissue, David T

    2015-09-01

    Climate change threatens the ability of agriculture and forestry to meet growing global demands for food, fibre and wood products. Information gathered from genotype-by-environment interactions (G × E), which demonstrate intraspecific variation in phenotypic plasticity (the ability of a genotype to alter its phenotype in response to environmental change), may prove important for bolstering agricultural and forest productivity under climate change. Nonetheless, very few studies have explicitly quantified genotype plasticity-productivity relationships in agriculture or forestry. Here, we conceptualize the importance of intraspecific variation in agricultural and forest species plasticity, and discuss the physiological and genetic factors contributing to intraspecific variation in phenotypic plasticity. Our discussion highlights the need for an integrated understanding of the mechanisms of G × E, more extensive assessments of genotypic responses to climate change under field conditions, and explicit testing of genotype plasticity-productivity relationships. Ultimately, further investigation of intraspecific variation in phenotypic plasticity in agriculture and forestry may prove important for identifying genotypes capable of increasing or sustaining productivity under more extreme climatic conditions. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  11. Multifactor productivity analysis in the sample of agricultural enterprises

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaroslav Svoboda

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The assessment of Total Factor Productivity (TFP, i.e. inclusion of all factors of production seems to be an easy task. However, its calculation can meet with some difficulties. The calculation of inputs is complicated as different factors of production, which are processes to outputs, has to be transformed to a common factor. The aim of the paper was to analyse relations of efficiency of factors of production measured by factor productivity based on economic profit and returns (profitability of enterprise measured by the most synthetic profitability indicator (Return on Assets, ROA. A partial aim was to consider risk analysed through ratio of cost to capital (Weighted Average Cost of Capital – WACC performed in the sample on agricultural enterprises in 2004–2008. The database used for the research consisted of 622 agricultural enterprises. The methodology of calculation was based on an approach according to Neumaierová and Neumaier (2002 considering the economic profit. This methodology suits well to conditions of Czech financial statements (a balance sheets and a profit and loss statement. The TFP assessment was connected to the return on assets and the correlation analysis revealed dependences of calculated indicators. The paper is a part of the MSM 6007665806 research project.

  12. Priorities for Boosting Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jones, Edward Samuel; Tarp, Finn

    2015-01-01

    Should policy-makers, including foreign donors, focus employment strategies in sub-Saharan Africa on strengthening access to formal wage employment or on raising productivity in the informal sector? We examine the evidence in Mozambique and show that crude distinctions between formality...... and informality are not illuminating. The observed welfare advantage of formal sector workers essentially derives from differences in endowments and local conditions. Non-agricultural informal work can yield higher returns than formal work. The implication is that the informal sector must not be marginalized......; and raising productivity in agriculture must be accorded a central place in boosting employment....

  13. GHG emissions and mitigation potential in Indian agriculture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vetter, Sylvia; Feliciano, Diana; Sapkota, Tek; Hillier, Jon; Smith, Pete; Stirling, Clare

    2016-04-01

    India is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, accounting for about 5% of global emissions with further increases expected in the future. The Government of India aims to reduce emission intensities by 20-25% by 2020 compared with the 2005 level. In a recent departure from past practice the reconvened Council on Climate Change stated that climate change in agriculture would include a component that would focus on reducing emissions in agriculture, particularly methane and nitrous oxide emissions. To develop recommendations for mitigation in agriculture in India, a baseline study is presented to analyse the GHG emissions from agriculture for current management (Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the government of India). This analysis is done for the two states Bihar and Haryana, which differ in their management and practises based on different climate and policies. This first analysis shows were the highest GHG emissions in agriculture is produced and were the highest mitigation potential might be. The GHG emissions and mitigation potential are calculated using the CCAFS Mitigation Option Tool (CCAFS-MOT) (https://ccafs.cgiar.org/mitigation-option-tool-agriculture#.VpTnWL826d4) with modifications for the special modelling. In a second step, stakeholder meetings provided a wide range of possible and definite scenarios (management, policy, technology, costs, etc.) for the future to mitigate emissions in agriculture as well as how to increase productivity. These information were used to create scenarios to give estimates for the mitigation potential in agriculture for India in 2020.

  14. Improving food and agricultural production. Thailand. Breeding for resistance to diseases in cotton

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wallace, T.P.

    1992-01-01

    This document reports the results of a 20-day mission to Thailand within the framework of the project ''Improving food and agricultural production with nuclear and related technology''. The expert discussed the status of cotton breeding, production practices and problems with personnel of the Department of Agriculture in Bangkok, and travelled to cotton-producing regions of the central and northern areas of the country to discuss current research, pest problems and social factors affecting cotton production

  15. Production and reduction of nitrous oxide in agricultural and forest soils.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, K; Chen, G; Struwe, S; Kjøller, A

    2000-06-01

    A soil-water slurry experiment was conducted to study the potentials of N2O production and reduction in denitrification of agricultural and beech forest soils in Denmark. The effects of nitrate and ammonium additions on denitrification were also investigated. The forest soil showed a higher denitrification potential than the agricultural soil. However, N2O reduction potential of the agricultural soil was higher than the beech forest soil, shown by the ratio of N2O/N2 approximately 0.11 and 3.65 in the agricultural and the beech forest soils, respectively. Both nitrate and ammonium additions stimulated the N2O production in the two soils, but reduced the N2O reduction rates in the agricultural soil slurries. In contrast to the effect on the agricultural soil, nitrate reduced the N2O reduction rate in the beech forest soil, while ammonium showed a stimulating effect on the N2O reduction activity. After one week incubation, all of the N2O produced was reduced to N2 in the agricultural soil when nitrate was still present. Nitrous oxide reduction in the beech forest soil occurred only when nitrate almost disappeared. The different nitrate inhibitory effect on the N2O reduction activity in the two soils was due to the difference in soil pH. Inhibition of nitrate on N2O reduction was significant under acidic condition. Consequently, soil could serve as a sink of atmospheric N2O under the conditions of anaerobic, pH near neutral and low nitrate content.

  16. Agrification: Agriculture for the industry and energy production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1992-01-01

    The new aspect of agrification is the production of alternative products, which can replace fossil sources. This substitution is necessary in order to replace hazardous materials and to find a solution for the problem of depletion of conventional energy sources and basic materials. Attention is paid to some developments in Germany: agricultural products for the production of energy, and new industrial applications for vegetable filaments. With regard to energy production from agricultrual products one should distinguish between (a) solid energy sources (biomass), f.e. straw, fast-growing wood, elephant's grass, hay and rapeseed, and (b) fluid and gaseous energy sources, f.e. purified and partly refined rapeseed oil, rapeseed oil methyl-ester (RME), ethanol from sugar beet, methanol from straw and hydrogen from straw and/or elephant's grass. 4 figs., 7 refs

  17. Closing the gap: global potential for increasing biofuel production through agricultural intensification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Johnston, Matt; Foley, J; Mueller, N D; Licker, R; Holloway, T; Barford, C; Kucharik, C

    2011-01-01

    Since the end of World War II, global agriculture has undergone a period of rapid intensification achieved through a combination of increased applications of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, the implementation of best management practice techniques, mechanization, irrigation, and more recently, through the use of optimized seed varieties and genetic engineering. However, not all crops and not all regions of the world have realized the same improvements in agricultural intensity. In this study we examine both the magnitude and spatial variation of new agricultural production potential from closing of 'yield gaps' for 20 ethanol and biodiesel feedstock crops. With biofuels coming under increasing pressure to slow or eliminate indirect land-use conversion, the use of targeted intensification via established agricultural practices might offer an alternative for continued growth. We find that by closing the 50th percentile production gap-essentially improving global yields to median levels-the 20 crops in this study could provide approximately 112.5 billion liters of new ethanol and 8.5 billion liters of new biodiesel production. This study is intended to be an important new resource for scientists and policymakers alike-helping to more accurately understand spatial variation of yield and agricultural intensification potential, as well as employing these data to better utilize existing infrastructure and optimize the distribution of development and aid capital.

  18. Closing the gap: global potential for increasing biofuel production through agricultural intensification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Matt; Licker, R.; Foley, J.; Holloway, T.; Mueller, N. D.; Barford, C.; Kucharik, C.

    2011-07-01

    Since the end of World War II, global agriculture has undergone a period of rapid intensification achieved through a combination of increased applications of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, the implementation of best management practice techniques, mechanization, irrigation, and more recently, through the use of optimized seed varieties and genetic engineering. However, not all crops and not all regions of the world have realized the same improvements in agricultural intensity. In this study we examine both the magnitude and spatial variation of new agricultural production potential from closing of 'yield gaps' for 20 ethanol and biodiesel feedstock crops. With biofuels coming under increasing pressure to slow or eliminate indirect land-use conversion, the use of targeted intensification via established agricultural practices might offer an alternative for continued growth. We find that by closing the 50th percentile production gap—essentially improving global yields to median levels—the 20 crops in this study could provide approximately 112.5 billion liters of new ethanol and 8.5 billion liters of new biodiesel production. This study is intended to be an important new resource for scientists and policymakers alike—helping to more accurately understand spatial variation of yield and agricultural intensification potential, as well as employing these data to better utilize existing infrastructure and optimize the distribution of development and aid capital.

  19. Closing the gap: global potential for increasing biofuel production through agricultural intensification

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Johnston, Matt; Foley, J; Mueller, N D [Institute on the Environment (IonE), University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN 55108 (United States); Licker, R; Holloway, T; Barford, C; Kucharik, C [Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53726 (United States)

    2011-07-15

    Since the end of World War II, global agriculture has undergone a period of rapid intensification achieved through a combination of increased applications of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, the implementation of best management practice techniques, mechanization, irrigation, and more recently, through the use of optimized seed varieties and genetic engineering. However, not all crops and not all regions of the world have realized the same improvements in agricultural intensity. In this study we examine both the magnitude and spatial variation of new agricultural production potential from closing of 'yield gaps' for 20 ethanol and biodiesel feedstock crops. With biofuels coming under increasing pressure to slow or eliminate indirect land-use conversion, the use of targeted intensification via established agricultural practices might offer an alternative for continued growth. We find that by closing the 50th percentile production gap-essentially improving global yields to median levels-the 20 crops in this study could provide approximately 112.5 billion liters of new ethanol and 8.5 billion liters of new biodiesel production. This study is intended to be an important new resource for scientists and policymakers alike-helping to more accurately understand spatial variation of yield and agricultural intensification potential, as well as employing these data to better utilize existing infrastructure and optimize the distribution of development and aid capital.

  20. Anaerobic co-digestion of agricultural by-products with manure, for enhanced biogas production

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Søndergaard, Marie M.; Fotidis, Ioannis; Kovalovszki, Adam

    2015-01-01

    Biogas is extensively promoted as a promising renewable energy. Therefore, the search of appropriate co-substrates has come into focus. In this study, we examined the potential of using agricultural byproducts as alternative co-substrates for increased biogas production. The biochemical methane p...

  1. Implementing international experience in promoting agricultural products to foreign markets: the Russian export strategy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lilia S. Revenko

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Almost all countries in the world actively regulate both import and export of agricultural products, however this process is very conflictгфд because of acute contradictions on the market. They are associated with the changing conditions of production, increase of attention of the world community to the food securitysituation, change of the used resources efficiency level, competition enhancement. Both internal and external components of agricultural producers support are important for Russia. That means the regulation should be aimed at meeting the needs of the domestic market and at increasing competitiveness of Russian products abroad. The development of the Russian export strategy for agricultural products is currently very important. This problem is closely related to the general subject of the agricultural productiondevelopment, but it has an explicit specific character. Inthiscontextexperienceofforeigncountriesisinteresting. Almost all tools of export regulation existing in the world practice are used in the foreign practice of export regulation of agricultural raw materials and food. Stimulation measures prevail in regards to the coverage of commodity items, number of episodes involving the use of agricultural export regulationmeasures, effectiveness of impact to the national agricultural sector. Holistic strategies of agricultural export development are not a widespread phenomenon abroad at the present stage of the world economy development. Their existence is typical for countries with a high level of food self-sufficiency. Special programs where export component is a harmonically built-in element are now more widely spread. Export development programs of the developed countries include a range of measures to maintain the target income level of producers and to maintain procurement and consumer prices. Export policy of the developing countries has a subordinated importance and is considered as one of the levels to develop national

  2. The importance of opinion leaders in agricultural production among ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The importance of opinion leaders in agricultural production among male and ... farmers do not have adequate access to extension services due to, amongst others, the ... In view of these problems, the role of opinion leaders is important and ...

  3. Agriculture in the climate change negotiations; ensuring that food production is not threatened.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muldowney, J; Mounsey, J; Kinsella, L

    2013-06-01

    With the human population predicted to reach nine billion by 2050, demand for food is predicted to more than double over this time period, a trend which will lead to increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture. Furthermore, expansion in food production is predicted to occur primarily in the developing world, where adaptation to climate change may be more difficult and opportunities to mitigate emissions limited. In the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 'ensuring that food production is not threatened' is explicitly mentioned in the objective of the Convention. However, the focus of negotiations under the Convention has largely been on reducing GHG emissions from energy, and industrial activities and realizing the potential of forestry as a carbon sink. There has been little attention by the UNFCCC to address the challenges and opportunities for the agriculture sector. Since 2006, concerted efforts have been made to raise the prominence of agriculture within the negotiations. The most recent The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and 'The Emissions Gap Report' by the UNEP highlighted the significant mitigation potential of agriculture, which can help contribute towards keeping global temperature rises below the 2°C limit agreed in Cancun. Agriculture has to be a part of the solution to address climate change, but this will also require a focus on how agriculture systems can adapt to climate change in order to continue to increase food output. However, to effectively realize this potential, systematic and dedicated discussion and decisions within the UNFCCC are needed. UNFCCC discussions on a specific agriculture agenda item started in 2012, but are currently inconclusive. However, Parties are generally in agreement on the importance of agriculture in contributing to food security and employment as well as the need to improve understanding of agriculture and how it can contribute to

  4. Requirement Analysis for the Collaborative Supply and Logistics Management of Fresh Agricultural Products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li Jun

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Issues and concerns for food safety, agro-processing, and the environmental and ecological impact of food production have been attracted many research interests. Traceability and logistics management of fresh agricultural products is faced with the technological challenges including food product label and identification, activity/process characterization, information systems for the supply chain, i.e., from farm to table. Application of information technologies for food processing and logistics industry in the fields of smart packaging and materials, automation and control technology, standards and their application scenarios, and production management principles were wildly studied. A collaborative research project for the supply and logistics of fresh agricultural products in Tianjin was performed. System analysis for the logistics management information system is studied. The model-driven business transformation, an approach uses formal models to explicitly define the structure and behavior of a business, is applied for the review and analysis process. Requirements for the logistic management solutions are proposed. Development of this research is crucial for the solution integration of supply and logistic management information system for fresh agricultural products.

  5. African farmer-led irrigation development: reframing agricultural policy and investment?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Woodhouse, Philip; Veldwisch, G.J.A.; Venot, J.P.J.N.; Brockington, Dan; Komakech, Hans Charles; Manjichi, Angela

    2017-01-01

    The past decade has witnessed an intensifying focus on the development of irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa. It follows a 20-year hiatus in the wake of disappointing irrigation performance during the 1970s and 1980s. Persistent low productivity in African agriculture and vulnerability of African food

  6. Production of Al-Ti-B grain refining master alloys from Na{sub 2}B{sub 4}O{sub 7} and K{sub 2}TiF{sub 6}

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Birol, Yuecel [Materials Institute, Marmara Research Center, TUBITAK, Gebze, Kocaeli (Turkey)], E-mail: yucel.birol@mam.gov.tr

    2008-06-30

    It is very desirable to replace the KBF{sub 4} salt in the popular 'halide salt' process to reduce the volume of fluoride salts to be added to molten aluminium in the production of Al-Ti-B grain refiners. Being over 2 times richer in B, Na{sub 2}B{sub 4}O{sub 7} is a promising replacement for KBF{sub 4}, and is used in the present work to produce Al-Ti-B grain refiner master alloys. A fraction of the aluminide particles were entrapped in the spent salt giving a relatively lower Ti recovery when KBF{sub 4} was replaced by Na{sub 2}B{sub 4}O{sub 7}. The grain refining performance of the Al-Ti-B grain refiner alloy thus produced was nevertheless acceptable. The spent salt became too viscous with the oxides, aluminides and borides to be removed by decanting when Na{sub 2}B{sub 4}O{sub 7}.5H{sub 2}O was used to supply boron. The viscous spent salt, entrained in the grain refiner alloy, did not only impair its performance, but also hurt the fluidity of the molten alloy and made pouring difficult.

  7. Application of fuzzy set theory for integral assessment of agricultural products quality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Derkanosova, N. M.; Ponomareva, I. N.; Shurshikova, G. V.; Vasilenko, O. A.

    2018-05-01

    The methodology of integrated assessment of quality and safety of agricultural products, approbated by the example of indicators of wheat grain in relation to the provision of consumer properties of bakery products, was developed. Determination of the level of quality of the raw ingredients will allow direct using of agricultural raw materials for food production, taking into account ongoing technology, types of products, and, respectively, rational use of resource potential of the agricultural sector. The mathematical tool of the proposed method is a fuzzy set theory. The fuzzy classifier to evaluate the properties of the grain is formed. The set of six indicators normalized by the national standard is determined; values are ordered and represented by linguistic variables with a trapeziform membership function; the rules for calculation of membership functions are presented. Specific criteria values for individual indicators in shaping the quality of the finished products are considered. For one of the samples of wheat grain values of membership; functions of the linguistic variable "level" for all indicators and the linguistic variable "level of quality" were calculated. It is established that the studied sample of grain obtains the 2 (average) level of quality. Accordingly, it can be recommended for the production of bakery products with higher requirements for the structural-mechanical properties bakery and puff pastry products hearth bread and flour confectionery products of the group of hard dough cookies and crackers

  8. Virtual water flows in the international trade of agricultural products of China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yu; Zhang, Jinhe; Tang, Guorong; Chen, Min; Wang, Lachun

    2016-07-01

    With the rapid development of the economy and population, water scarcity and poor water quality caused by water pollution have become increasingly severe in China. Virtual water trade is a useful tool to alleviate water shortage. This paper focuses on a comprehensive study of China's international virtual water flows from agricultural products trade and completes a diachronic analysis from 2001 to 2013. The results show that China was in trade surplus in relation to the virtual water trade of agricultural products. The exported virtual water amounted to 29.94billionm(3)/yr. while 155.55billionm(3)/yr. was embedded in imported products. The trend that China exported virtual water per year was on the decline while the imported was on a rising trend. Virtual water trade of China was highly concentrated. Not all of the exported products had comparative advantages in virtual water content. Imported products were excessively concentrated on water intensive agricultural products such as soya beans, cotton, and palm oil. The exported virtual water mainly flowed to the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong of China and Japan, while the imported mainly flowed from the United States of America, Brazil and Argentina. From the ethical point of view, the trade partners were classified into four types in terms of "net import" and "water abundance": mutual benefit countries, such as Australia and Canada; unilateral benefit countries, such as Mongolia and Norway; supported countries, such as Egypt and Singapore; and double pressure countries, such as India and Pakistan. Virtual water strategy refers to water resources, agricultural products and human beings. The findings are beneficial for innovating water resources management system, adjusting trade structure, ensuring food security in China, and promoting the construction of national ecological security system. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Assessing Potential Air Pollutant Emissions from Agricultural Feedstock Production using MOVES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Eberle, Annika [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Warner, Ethan [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Zhang, Yi Min [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Inman, Daniel J [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Carpenter Petri, Alberta C [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Heath, Garvin A [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Hettinger, Dylan J [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Bhatt, Arpit H [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

    2018-03-29

    Biomass feedstock production is expected to grow as demand for biofuels and bioenergy increases. The change in air pollutant emissions that may result from large-scale biomass supply has implications for local air quality and human health. We developed spatially explicit emissions inventories for corn grain and six cellulosic feedstocks through the extension of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Feedstock Production Emissions to Air Model (FPEAM). These inventories include emissions of seven pollutants (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, sulfur oxides, and carbon monoxide) generated from biomass establishment, maintenance, harvest, transportation, and biofuel preprocessing activities. By integrating the EPA's MOtor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES) into FPEAM, we created a scalable framework to execute county-level runs of the MOVES-Onroad model for representative counties (i.e., those counties with the largest amount of cellulosic feedstock production in each state) on a national scale. We used these results to estimate emissions from the on-road transportation of biomass and combined them with county-level runs of the MOVES-Nonroad model to estimate emissions from agricultural equipment. We also incorporated documented emission factors to estimate emissions from chemical application and the operation of drying equipment for feedstock processing, and used methods developed by the EPA and the California Air Resources Board to estimate fugitive dust emissions. The model developed here could be applied to custom equipment budgets and is extensible to accommodate additional feedstocks and pollutants. Future work will also extend this model to analyze spatial boundaries beyond the county-scale (e.g., regional or sub-county levels).

  10. Aspergillus species as mycotoxin producers in agricultural products in central Europe

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kočube Šandor

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Aspergillus species are able to produce a range of mycotoxins, includ­ing e.g. aflatoxins, ochratoxins, fumonisins and patulin. Aflatoxins are mainly produced by members of Aspergillus section Flavi, and they contaminate various agricultural products in several parts of the world. Several recent reports have indicated that aflatoxin-producing fungi and consequently aflatoxin contamination occur in agricultural commodities in a number of European countries which have not been faced with this problem before. Indeed, recent surveys have clarified that concentrations of aflatoxins in maize products and milk has been exceeding the EU limit in several regions of Central Europe including Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Northern Italy and Romania. However, aflatoxin contamination and aflatoxin-producing Aspergillus species have not been identified yet in maize in Hungary. We examined the presence of potential aflatoxin-producing Aspergilli in maize samples collected in southern parts of Hungary. Several A. flavus isolates were identified, and pre­liminary results indicated that some of the isolates were able to produce aflatoxins. Con­tamination of other agricultural products with aflatoxins can also pose problems in Central Europe due to global warming. Ochratoxin contamination of grapes and grape-derived products is usually caused by black Aspergilli, especially by A. carbonarius and A. niger, although these species have been rare in Central European vineyards due to climatic fac­tors. Ochratoxin contamination of other agricultural products including spices and cereals was also observed in the region. Besides, ochratoxin producing Aspergilli are frequently isolated from imported products including coffee beans, dried fruits and spices, and ochra­toxin contamination of these samples was also observed. Fumonisins are produced mainly by Fusarium species, and by the recently identified producers Aspergillus niger and A. awamori. We examined fumonisin

  11. Protection against radioactive contamination of foods and agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Szabo, A.; Kovacs, Z.

    1977-01-01

    Methods suitable for diminishing radioactive contamination of foods and agricultural products and reducing at the same time the irradiation hazards for the human organism are dealt with. The possibilities for the decontamination of foods vegetal and of animal origin are discussed separately. (author)

  12. Director ownership, outside directors and commitment to corporate social responsibility

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Ying

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines the effects of director ownership and the proportion of outside directors on firms’ commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR. Using a sample of 453 Hong Kong listed companies for 2005, we find that there is a non-linear relationship between the level of director ownership and firms’ engagement in CSR behavior. Commitment to CSR first increases as the proportion of director ownership increases up to 50% and then decreases as that proportion of ownership grows higher. Further, the proportion of outside directors on the board exhibits a positive relationship with the level of CSR commitment. These results provide explanations for firms’ commitment to CSR from the corporate governance perspective.

  13. The effect of Common Agricultural Policy on Dairy production in Croatia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Branka Šakić Bobić

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available In the year 2007 there was price jump at world milk market. In the middle of the year 2008 the market was temporarily stabilized, because European Commission introduced Common Agricultural Policy modernization suggestion to the members of the European Parliament as the answer to an increasing food demand. The main elements of this suggestion were to abolish obligation to keep some agricultural areas set aside, milk quota removal, and abolition of subvention rate - production quantity link. When East and Central European countries entered in the European Union, they faced agricultural tax and milk price decrease. Today in new member states, the protection taxes are lower then before entering the Union (exceptions are Poland and Romania. The production costs in new member states are higher then in the Union, so there is higher market pressure at milk producers to increase their capacity (Livestock unit, to increase capacity utilization (milk per animal, and to produce at lower cost price. One part of smaller producers could not react to this pressure, so they decided to leave the dairy business. The consequence is decreased export of milk and dairy products in the new member states. Today milk market production in Croatia is around 650 million liters. In the production, there are around 32 thousand producers with 177 thousand of dairy cows. In the last 5 years of Croatian dairy, there was important shift in the production and redemption. Help to dairy sector through annual high investments as state subsidies and credit loans, and dairy industry subsidies at basic price, made redemption increase of more then 150 million liters, but also milk producer’s decrease. To stay at present production and redemption level, the only one that counts as Quota I, with around 90 % standard milk, there is a need to increase standard milk for 119 million liters. This increase in production quality, in the negotiation period and just after planned Croatian

  14. DID THE 2004 CAP REFORM AFFECT PRODUCTION PRACTICES OF CEREALS? INSIGHTS FROM THE AGRICULTURAL INPUT SUPPLIERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Theodoros MARKOPOULOS

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The Mid-term review of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2003/2004 has strengthened the multifunctional role of agriculture by implementing “decoupling”, “modulation” and “cross-compliance” and created a number of significant changes in agricultural production in all EU member states. Specifically, the reform shifted emphasis away from commodity support towards environmental contracts, diversified production practices and rural development. In the case of cereals, a full decoupling was applied in subsidies and integration through rights in the Single Payment Scheme, except rice, which was one of the few crop cases in which part of the subsidy remained coupled, particular in countries with significant production like Greece. Within this context, the present study aims to analyze the impact that the reformed CAP measures had on agricultural production and more specifically variations in production diversification. The novelty of this study is that instead of focusing on the producers, it targeted the agricultural input stores, so as to get better insights of the CAP reform impacts on a larger scale of the regional economy. Accordingly, primary data were collected through personal interviews (structured questionnaire from 209 owners of agricultural input stores in the region of Anatoliki Makedonia and Thraki and were analyzed through multivariate data analysis. The results identify important antecedents for the regional economy and the viability of agricultural input stores, which include factors of the reformed CAP, environmental issues, financial measures and CAP effects on cereal production and marketing.

  15. CERTIFICATION OF ORGANIC AGRICULTURE FOR RICE PRODUCTION IN INDONESIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dedik Budianta

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available To make better the life, it is required safety foods for health. The health foods can be satisfied by organic farming. Organic farming is farming system based on biomass recycling or eliminating the use of materials as a synthetic agrochemical inputs. To determine whether the result of rice called as an organic product needs to be certified by the Organic Certification Board (OCB. According to the Indonesian National Standard (INS 6729: 2013, organic farming systems (OFS are not only limited to not use material agrochemical synthetic, but must meet the requirements of OFS in rice production ranging from cultivating, handling, storage, processing, transportation, labeling, marketing, production facilities and other materials that are allowed start on farm to off farm should be separated from conventional agriculture. The farm is just a negate the use of synthetic agrochemicals without regard to the cultivation process and the system of post-harvest organic results are said to be premium food which is not as organic food, because organic food is food produced from OFS by applying processing practices to preserve the ecosystem of sustainable, control of weeds, pests, diseases, selection and crop rotation, water management, land preparation and planting and the use of biological materials. Thus the system of organic agriculture is a holistic management system to improve and develop the agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. The first step that must be done is the conversion of land for food crops from anorganic to organic farming for 2 years did not get the requisite amount of agrochemical applied to the soil for annual crop and 3 years for perennial crops. If agriculture in paddy soil can control the conventional farms into OFS, then the resulting rice is as an organic product.

  16. Hadronic production of J/Ψ at large χ<sub>F> in 800 GeV p+Cu and p+Be collisions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kowitt, Matthew Scott [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

    1992-12-01

    The differential cross-section dσ/dx<sub>F> for J/Ψ production in 800 GeV proton-nucleus collisions has been measured in the kinematic range 0.30 ≤ x<sub>F> ≤ 0.95 and x<sub>F> < p$\\perp$ < 5 GeV through the decay mode J/Ψ → μ+μ-. The nuclear dependence of J/Ψ production over this range was measured using copper and beryllium targets. The differential cross sections are in good agreement with the predictions of the symbolical parton duality model. The data show no evidence for an intrinsic charm component in the proton. The ratio of the differential cross sections for copper and beryllium shows a suppression of J/Ψ production in copper which increases with increasing x<sub>F>.

  17. Valuing tradeoffs between agricultural production and ecosystem services in the Heihe River Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Z.; Deng, X.; Wu, F.

    2017-12-01

    Ecosystem services are faced with multiple stress from complex driving factors, such as climate change and human interventions. The Heihe River Basin (HRB), as the second largest inland river basin in China, is a typical semi-arid and arid region with fragile and sensitive ecological environment. For the past decades, agricultural production activities in the basin has affected ecosystem services in different degrees, leading to complex relations among "water-land-climate-ecology-human", in which hydrological process and water resource management is the key. In this context, managing trade-offs among water uses in the river basin to sustain multiple ecosystem services is crucial for healthy ecosystem and sustainable socioeconomic development. In this study, we analyze the trade-offs between different water uses in agricultural production and key ecosystem services in the HRB by applying production frontier analysis, with the aim to explore the potential for managing them. This method traces out joint production frontiers showing the combinations of ecosystem services and agricultural production that can be generated in a given area, and it deals with the economic problem of the allocation of scarce water resources under presumed objective, which aims to highlight synergies and reduce trade-offs between alternative water uses. Thus, management schemes that targets to both sustain agricultural production and increase the provision of key ecosystem services have to consider not only the technological or biological nature of interrelationships, but also the economic interdependencies among them.

  18. Photo-catalytic hydrogen production over Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} based catalysts

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Boudjemaa, A. [Technical and Scientific Research Centre of Physico-chemistry Analysis (CRAPC), BP 248, RP 16004, Algiers (Algeria); Laboratory of Chemistry of Natural Gas, Faculty of Chemistry (USTHB) BP 32, 16111 Algiers (Algeria); Trari, M. [Laboratory of Storage and Valorization of Renewable Energies, Faculty of Chemistry (USTHB) BP 32, 16111 Algiers (Algeria)

    2010-08-15

    The hydrogen photo-evolution was successfully achieved in aqueous (Fe{sub 1-x}Cr{sub x}){sub 2}O{sub 3} suspensions (0 {<=} x {<=} 1). The solid solution has been prepared by incipient wetness impregnation and characterized by X-ray diffraction, BET, transport properties and photo-electrochemistry. The oxides crystallize in the corundum structure, they exhibit n-type conductivity with activation energy of {proportional_to}0.1 eV and the conduction occurs via adiabatic polaron hops. The characterization of the band edges has been studied by the Mott Schottky plots. The onset potential of the photo-current is {proportional_to}0.2 V cathodic with respect to the flat band potential, implying a small existence of surface states within the gap region. The absorption of visible light promotes electrons into (Fe{sub 1-x}Cr{sub x}){sub 2}O{sub 3}-CB with a potential ({proportional_to}-0.5 V{sub SCE}) sufficient to reduce water into hydrogen. As expected, the quantum yield increases with decreasing the electro affinity through the substitution of iron by the more electropositive chromium which increases the band bending at the interface and favours the charge separation. The generated photo-voltage was sufficient to promote simultaneously H{sub 2}O reduction and SO{sub 3}{sup 2-} oxidation in the energetically downhill reaction (H{sub 2}O + SO{sub 3}{sup 2-} {yields} H{sub 2} + SO{sub 4}{sup 2-}, {delta}G = -17.68 kJ mol{sup -1}). The best activity occurs over Fe{sub 1.2}Cr{sub 0.8}O{sub 3} in SO{sub 3}{sup 2-} (0.1 M) solution with H{sub 2} liberation rate of 21.7 {mu}mol g{sup -1} min{sup -1} and a quantum yield 0.06% under polychromatic light. Over time, a pronounced deceleration occurs, due to the competitive reduction of the end product S{sub 2}O{sub 6}{sup 2-}. (author)

  19. Conservation planning in agricultural landscapes: hotspots of conflict between agriculture and nature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shackelford, Gorm E; Steward, Peter R; German, Richard N; Sait, Steven M; Benton, Tim G

    2015-03-01

    Conservation conflict takes place where food production imposes a cost on wildlife conservation and vice versa. Where does conservation impose the maximum cost on production, by opposing the intensification and expansion of farmland? Where does conservation confer the maximum benefit on wildlife, by buffering and connecting protected areas with a habitable and permeable matrix of crop and non-crop habitat? Our aim was to map the costs and benefits of conservation versus production and thus to propose a conceptual framework for systematic conservation planning in agricultural landscapes. World-wide. To quantify these costs and benefits, we used a geographic information system to sample the cropland of the world and map the proportion of non-crop habitat surrounding the cropland, the number of threatened vertebrates with potential to live in or move through the matrix and the yield gap of the cropland. We defined the potential for different types of conservation conflict in terms of interactions between habitat and yield (potential for expansion, intensification, both or neither). We used spatial scan statistics to find 'hotspots' of conservation conflict. All of the 'hottest' hotspots of conservation conflict were in sub-Saharan Africa, which could have impacts on sustainable intensification in this region. Systematic conservation planning could and should be used to identify hotspots of conservation conflict in agricultural landscapes, at multiple scales. The debate between 'land sharing' (extensive agriculture that is wildlife friendly) and 'land sparing' (intensive agriculture that is less wildlife friendly but also less extensive) could be resolved if sharing and sparing were used as different types of tool for resolving different types of conservation conflict (buffering and connecting protected areas by maintaining matrix quality, in different types of matrix). Therefore, both sharing and sparing should be prioritized in hotspots of conflict, in the context of

  20. Modeling and Optimization of Inventory-Distribution Routing Problem for Agriculture Products Supply Chain

    OpenAIRE

    Liao, Li; Li, Jianfeng; Wu, Yaohua

    2013-01-01

    Mathematical models of inventory-distribution routing problem for two-echelon agriculture products distribution network are established, which are based on two management modes, franchise chain and regular chain, one-to-many, interval periodic order, demand depending on inventory, deteriorating treatment cost of agriculture products, start-up costs of vehicles and so forth. Then, a heuristic adaptive genetic algorithm is presented for the model of franchise chain. For the regular chain model,...

  1. Experimental analysis of CO{sub 2} emissions from agricultural soils subjected to five different tillage systems in Lithuania

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Buragienė, Sidona [Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Safety, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu str. 15A, LT-53361 Akademija, Kaunas distr. (Lithuania); Šarauskis, Egidijus, E-mail: egidijus.sarauskis@asu.lt [Institute of Agricultural Engineering and Safety, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu str. 15A, LT-53361 Akademija, Kaunas distr. (Lithuania); Romaneckas, Kęstutis, E-mail: kestas.romaneckas@asu.lt [Institute of Agroecosystems and Soil Science, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu str. 11, Akademija LT-53361, Kaunas dist. (Lithuania); Sasnauskienė, Jurgita, E-mail: jurgita.sasnauskiene@asu.lt [Institute of Environment and Ecology, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Studentu str. 11, Akademija LT-53361, Kaunas dist. (Lithuania); Masilionytė, Laura, E-mail: laura.masilionyte@gmail.com [Joniskelis Experimental Station, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Joniskelis, LT-39301 Pasvalys distr. (Lithuania); Kriaučiūnienė, Zita, E-mail: zita.kriauciuniene@asu.lt [Experimental Station, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Rapsu str. 7, LT-53363 Noreikiskes, Kaunas distr. (Lithuania)

    2015-05-01

    Intensive agricultural production strongly influences the global processes that determine climate change. Thus, tillage can play a very important role in climate change. The intensity of soil carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) emissions, which contribute to the greenhouse effect, can vary depending on the following factors: the tillage system used, meteorological conditions (which vary in different regions of the world), soil properties, plant residue characteristics and other factors. The main purpose of this research was to analyse and assess the effects of autumn tillage systems with different intensities on CO{sub 2} emissions from soils during different seasons and under the climatic conditions of Central Lithuania. The research was conducted at the Experimental Station of Aleksandras Stulginskis University from 2009 to2012; and in 2014. The soils at the experimental site were classified as Eutric Endogleyic Planosol (Drainic). The investigations were conducted using five tillage systems with different intensities, typical of the Baltic Region. Deep conventional ploughing was performed at a depth of 230–250 mm, shallow ploughing was conducted at a depth of 120–150 mm, deep loosening was conducted at depths of 250–270 mm, and shallow loosening was conducted at depths of 120–150 mm. The fifth system was a no-tillage system. Overall, autumn tillage resulted in greater CO{sub 2} emissions from the soil over both short- and long-term periods under the climatic conditions of Central Lithuania, regardless of the tillage system applied. The highest soil CO{sub 2} emissions were observed for the conventional deep ploughing tillage system, and the lowest emissions were observed for the no-tillage system. The meteorological conditions greatly influenced the CO{sub 2} emissions from the soil during the spring. Soil CO{sub 2} emissions were enhanced as precipitation and the air and soil temperatures increased. Long-term investigations regarding the dynamics of CO{sub 2

  2. Gas production in anaerobic dark-fermentation processes from agriculture solid waste

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sriwuryandari, L.; Priantoro, E. A.; Sintawardani, N.

    2017-03-01

    Approximately, Bandung produces agricultural solid waste of 1549 ton/day. This wastes consist of wet-organic matter and can be used for bio-gas production. The research aimed to apply the available agricultural solid waste for bio-hydrogen. Biogas production was done by a serial of batches anaerobic fermentation using mix-culture bacteria as the active microorganism. Fermentation was carried out inside a 30 L bioreactor at room temperature. The analyzed parameters were of pH, total gas, temperature, and COD. Result showed that from 3 kg/day of organic wastes, various total gases of O2, CH4, H2, CO2, and CnHn,O2 was produced.

  3. The numeric visual evaluation of subsoil structure (SubVESS) under agricultural production

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ball, B.C.; Batey, Tom; Munkholm, Lars Juhl

    2015-01-01

    penetration and aggregate size and shape using a colour diagnostic flowchart. Use of the method enabled identification of extent and severity of compact transition layers in both well-drained and imperfectly drained soils. Porosity and strength assessments were particularly relevant. Reference soils under......) and/or natural processes (e.g. shrinkage crack formation). The method was also used to identify differences in subsoil structural quality within fields associated with field traffic levels (Oxisol in Brazil) and with moisture status (Luvisol in France). The focus of SubVESS on structure rather than...

  4. 27 CFR 28.38 - Action by district director of customs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... director of customs. 28.38 Section 28.38 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX AND... of customs. On receipt of the appropriate TTB officer's authorization for destruction of the liquor, or his disapproval of the application for destruction, the district director of customs shall act...

  5. analysis of the influence of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    INIAMA

    agricultural GDP led to a 0.243% and 0.743% change in the economy respectively. It means that the economy is inelastic with respect to agricultural and non-agricultural sector performance. The economy is more inelastic with respect to agricultural production than non-agricultural production. In countries where economies ...

  6. Direct observation of unimolecular decay of CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO Criegee intermediates to OH radical products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fang, Yi; Liu, Fang; Lester, Marsha I., E-mail: milester@sas.upenn.edu [Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6323 (United States); Klippenstein, Stephen J. [Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439 (United States)

    2016-07-28

    The unimolecular decay of carbonyl oxide intermediates, known as Criegee intermediates, produced in alkene ozonolysis is a significant source of OH radicals in the troposphere. Here, the rate of appearance of OH radical products is examined directly in the time-domain for a prototypical alkyl-substituted Criegee intermediate, CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO, following vibrational activation under collision-free conditions. Complementary statistical Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel–Marcus calculations of the microcanonical unimolecular decay rate for CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO are also carried out at energies in the vicinity of the barrier for 1,4 hydrogen atom transfer that leads to OH products. Tunneling through the barrier, derived from high level electronic structure calculations, contributes significantly to the decay rate. Infrared transitions of CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO are identified in the CH stretch overtone region, which are detected by ultraviolet laser-induced fluorescence of the resultant OH products. The features observed are attributed to CH vibrational excitations and conformational forms utilizing insights from theory. Both experiment and theory yield unimolecular decay rates for CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO of ca. 10{sup 7} s{sup −1}, which are slower than those obtained for syn-CH{sub 3}CHOO or (CH{sub 3}){sub 2}COO reported previously [Fang et al., J. Chem. Phys. 144, 061102 (2016)] at similar energies. Master equation modeling is also utilized to predict the thermal decay rate of CH{sub 3}CH{sub 2}CHOO under atmospheric conditions, giving a rate of 279 s{sup −1} at 298 K.

  7. Classification of agricultural crops of the Taita Hills, Kenya using airborne AisaEAGLE imaging spectroscopy data

    OpenAIRE

    Piiroinen, Rami

    2014-01-01

    Land use practices are changing at a fast pace in the tropics. In sub-Saharan Africa forests, woodlands and bushlands are being transformed for agricultural use to produce food for the rapidly growing population. Although food production is crucial for the survivability of the people the uncontrolled expansion of agricultural land at the expanse of natural habitats may in the longer term decrease food production due to disturbances in water balance, increased land erosion and eradication of n...

  8. Long-run effects of falling cellulosic ethanol production costs on the US agricultural economy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Campiche, Jody L; Bryant, Henry L; Richardson, James W

    2010-01-01

    Renewable energy production has been expanding at a rapid pace. New advances in cellulosic ethanol technologies have the potential to displace the use of petroleum as a transportation fuel, and could have significant effects on both the agricultural economy and the environment. In this letter, the effects of falling cellulosic ethanol production costs on the mix of ethanol feedstocks employed and on the US agricultural economy are examined. Results indicate that, as expected, cellulosic ethanol production increases by a substantial amount as conversion technology improves. Corn production increases initially following the introduction of cellulosic technology, because producers enjoy new revenue from sales of corn stover. After cellulosic ethanol production becomes substantially cheaper, however, acres are shifted from corn production to all other agricultural commodities. Essentially, this new technology could facilitate the exploitation of a previously under-employed resource (corn stover), resulting in an improvement in overall welfare. In the most optimistic scenario considered, 68% of US ethanol is derived from cellulosic sources, coarse grain production is reduced by about 2%, and the prices of all food commodities are reduced modestly.

  9. Radiation technology for enhancing agriculture productivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    D'Souza, S.F.

    2016-01-01

    Radiations and radioisotopes are used in agricultural research to develop improved crop varieties, to manage insect pests, monitor fate of pesticides, to study fertilizer and plant micronutrient uptake and to preserve agricultural produce. This is one of the important fields of peaceful applications of atomic energy for societal benefit. Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has contributed significantly in this area especially in the development of new mutant crop varieties which are benefitting the farmers in enhancing their productivity. With an effective blend of induced mutagenesis and recombination breeding, 42 new crop varieties developed at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have been released and Gazette notified by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India for commercial cultivation. These include 21 in oilseeds (15-groundnut, 3 mustard , 2 soybean, 1 sunflower), 19 in pulses (8-mungbean, 5-urdbean, 5-pigeonpea, 1-cowpea) and one each in rice and jute. Some of the desirable traits which have been bred through induced mutations in these crops include higher yields, improved quality traits, early maturity and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. Several of these varieties have high patronage from the farming community and are grown extensively across the country. Groundnut varieties have given record yields in farmer's fields. Pulses such as mung, urid and tur are popular among farmers in view of their disease resistance and suitability to rice fallow situations. Many of the breeding programmes in national/state systems have been utilizing BARC varieties as parental materials/donors and have developed several other improved varieties using them. (author)

  10. Typologies and Spatialization of Agricultural Production Systems in Rondônia, Brazil: Linking Land Use, Socioeconomics and Territorial Configuration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cláudio Almeida

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The current Amazon landscape consists of heterogeneous mosaics formed by interactions between the original forest and productive activities. Recognizing and quantifying the characteristics of these landscapes is essential for understanding agricultural production chains, assessing the impact of policies, and in planning future actions. Our main objective was to construct the regionalization of agricultural production for Rondônia State (Brazilian Amazon at the municipal level. We adopted a decision tree approach, using land use maps derived from remote sensing data (PRODES and TerraClass combined with socioeconomic data. The decision trees allowed us to allocate municipalities to one of five agricultural production systems: (i coexistence of livestock production and intensive agriculture; (ii semi-intensive beef and milk production; (iii semi-intensive beef production; (iv intensive beef and milk production, and; (v intensive beef production. These production systems are, respectively, linked to mechanized agriculture (i, traditional cattle farming with low management, with (ii or without (iii a significant presence of dairy farming, and to more intensive livestock farming with (iv or without (v a significant presence of dairy farming. The municipalities and associated production systems were then characterized using a wide variety of quantitative metrics grouped into four dimensions: (i agricultural production; (ii economics; (iii territorial configuration, and; (iv social characteristics. We found that production systems linked to mechanized agriculture predominate in the south of the state, while intensive farming is mainly found in the center of the state. Semi-intensive livestock farming is mainly located close to the southwest frontier and in the north of the state, where human occupation of the territory is not fully consolidated. This distributional pattern reflects the origins of the agricultural production system of Rond

  11. The uranium recovery from UO{sub 2} kernel production effluent

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chen, Xiaotong, E-mail: chenxiaotong@tsinghua.edu.cn; He, Linfeng; Liu, Bing; Tang, Yaping; Tang, Chunhe

    2016-12-15

    Graphical abstract: In this study, a flow sheet including evaporation, flocculation, filtration, adsorption, and reverse osmosis was established for the UO{sub 2} kernel production effluent of HTR spherical fuel elements. The uranium recovery could reach 99.9% after the treatment, with almost no secondary pollution produced. Based on the above experimental results, the treating flow process in this study would be feasible for laboratory- and engineering-scale treatment of UO{sub 2} kernel production effluent of HTR spherical fuel elements. - Highlights: • A flow sheet including evaporation, flocculation, filtration, adsorption, and reverse osmosis was established for the UO{sub 2} kernel production effluent. • The uranium recovery could reach 99.9% after the treatment, with almost no secondary pollution produced. • The treating flow process would be feasible for laboratory- and engineering-scale treatment of UO{sub 2} kernel production effluent. - Abstract: For the fabrication of coated particle fuel elements of high temperature gas cooled reactors, the ceramic UO{sub 2} kernels are prepared through chemical gelation of uranyl nitrate solution droplets, which produces radioactive effluent with components of ammonia, uranium, organic compounds and ammonium nitrate. In this study, a flow sheet including evaporation, flocculation, filtration, adsorption, and reverse osmosis was established for the effluent treating. The uranium recovery could reach 99.9% after the treatment, with almost no secondary pollution produced.

  12. PROMOTION OF ECOLOGIC PRODUCT CERTIFICATION AS INSTRUMENT TO SPEED UP THE ECOLOGIC AGRICULTURE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George MOISE

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available This paper present a vision about the possibility to speed up the conversion process to an ecological agriculture in Romania. The link from ecological products consumer and ecologic agricultural producer is also explained from point of view of certification process. Presenting the consumer mentality and principles and rules of organic farming and certification can open the way to a sustainable and ecological agriculture.

  13. Probabilistic estimates of drought impacts on agricultural production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madadgar, Shahrbanou; AghaKouchak, Amir; Farahmand, Alireza; Davis, Steven J.

    2017-08-01

    Increases in the severity and frequency of drought in a warming climate may negatively impact agricultural production and food security. Unlike previous studies that have estimated agricultural impacts of climate condition using single-crop yield distributions, we develop a multivariate probabilistic model that uses projected climatic conditions (e.g., precipitation amount or soil moisture) throughout a growing season to estimate the probability distribution of crop yields. We demonstrate the model by an analysis of the historical period 1980-2012, including the Millennium Drought in Australia (2001-2009). We find that precipitation and soil moisture deficit in dry growing seasons reduced the average annual yield of the five largest crops in Australia (wheat, broad beans, canola, lupine, and barley) by 25-45% relative to the wet growing seasons. Our model can thus produce region- and crop-specific agricultural sensitivities to climate conditions and variability. Probabilistic estimates of yield may help decision-makers in government and business to quantitatively assess the vulnerability of agriculture to climate variations. We develop a multivariate probabilistic model that uses precipitation to estimate the probability distribution of crop yields. The proposed model shows how the probability distribution of crop yield changes in response to droughts. During Australia's Millennium Drought precipitation and soil moisture deficit reduced the average annual yield of the five largest crops.

  14. Some aspects of UO{sub 2} powder production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Balakrishna, P; Asnani, C K; Prabhakar Rao, L; Kartha, R M; Pillai, P K.M. [Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad (India)

    1994-06-01

    UO{sub 2} powder is being produced in a chemical plant from enriched UF{sub 6} and supplied to the pelletizing plant. Small quantities of scrap UO{sub 2} received back from the pelletizing plant are also recycled in the chemical plant to produce UO{sub 2} powder. The powder should be of a consistently high quality so as to finally yield high density sintered pellets with minimum rejection. The final yield of acceptable finished pellets depends on the quality of the powder in the chemical plant as well as the quality of pressing in the pelletizing plant. In this paper, some examples of measures adopted for achieving good quality powder production are presented. (author). 9 refs., 2 figs.

  15. Thermal expansion of the nuclear fuel-sodium reaction product Na{sub 3}(U{sub 0.84(2)},Na{sub 0.16(2)})O{sub 4} - Structural mechanism and comparison with related sodium-metal ternary oxides

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Illy, Marie-Claire [Chimie ParisTech, PSL Research University, CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (IRCP), F-75005 Paris (France); European Commission, Joint Research Centre, P.O. Box 2340, 76125 Karlsruhe (Germany); Smith, Anna L. [European Commission, Joint Research Centre, P.O. Box 2340, 76125 Karlsruhe (Germany); Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Department of Radiation Science & Technology, Nuclear Energy and Radiation Applications (NERA), Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB, Delft (Netherlands); Wallez, Gilles, E-mail: gilles.wallez@upmc.fr [Chimie ParisTech, PSL Research University, CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (IRCP), F-75005 Paris (France); Sorbonne University, UPMC Université, Paris 06, 75005 Paris (France); Raison, Philippe E.; Caciuffo, Roberto; Konings, Rudy J.M. [European Commission, Joint Research Centre, P.O. Box 2340, 76125 Karlsruhe (Germany)

    2017-07-15

    Na{sub 3.16(2)}U{sup V,VI}{sub 0.84(2)}O{sub 4} is obtained from the reaction of sodium with uranium dioxide under oxygen potential conditions typical of a sodium-cooled fast nuclear reactor. In the event of a breach of the steel cladding, it would be the dominant reaction product forming at the rim of the mixed (U,Pu)O{sub 2} fuel pellets. High-temperature X-ray diffraction measurements show that a distortion of the uranium environment in Na{sub 3.16(2)}U{sup V,VI}{sub 0.84(2)}O{sub 4} results in a strongly anisotropic thermal expansion. A comparison with several related sodium metallates Na{sub n-2}M{sup n+}O{sub n-1} - including Na{sub 3}SbO{sub 4} and Na{sub 3}TaO{sub 4}, whose crystal structures are reported for the first time - has allowed us to assess the role played in the lattice expansion by the M{sup n+} cation radius and the Na/M ratio. On this basis, the thermomechanical behavior of the title compound is discussed, along with those of several related double oxides of sodium and actinide elements, surrogate elements, or fission products. - Highlights: •Thermal expansion and structural mechanism of Na{sub 3}(U{sub 0.84(2)},Na{sub 0.16(2)})O{sub 4}, main product of the reaction of sodium with nuclear fuel. •Thermomechanical behavior of sodium uranate suggests possible strains on the fuel cladding and risks of de-cohesion with the fuel pin. •Effect of homo- and aliovalent cation substitutions allows to predict the thermomechanical behavior of sodium metallates involving fission products or minor actinide elements. •Crystal structure of new compounds Na{sub 3}SbO{sub 4} and Na{sub 3}TaO{sub 4}.

  16. Urban and peri-urban agricultural production in Beijing municipality and its impact on water quality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wolf, J.; Wijk, van M.S.; Cheung, X.; Hu, Y.; Diepen, van C.A.; Jongbloed, A.W.; Keulen, van H.; Lu, C.H.; Roeter, R.

    2003-01-01

    This paper reviews water use and water resource issues in Beijing Municipality, the main trends in the agricultural production systems in and around the city with respect to land use, input use, production and economic role, and the impacts of agricultural activities on water quality. Rapid

  17. Improving food and agricultural production in Thailand

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Snitwongse, P.; Lamm, C.G.

    1987-01-01

    In the early 1960s, the IAEA and FAO jointly initiated the first in a series of large-scale multi-faceted agricultural field projects using nuclear techniques in agricultural sciences. The first project, in Yugoslavia, served as a model for future ones in India, Brazil, Bangladesh, Republic of Korea, Venezuela, and Thailand. The Thailand project - for the time being the last one of this series - started in January 1986 for a 5-year period, the project carries major objectives centering on the use of isotopes, radiation, and related technologies in three particular areas: Mutation breeding. Scientists are aiming to generate new genetic sources of disease-resistant varieties of crops that are economically important; Soil Science. Aims are to help farmers make the best use of fertilizers, biofertilizers, and water, and to maximize biological nitrogen fixation and the use of local rock phosphates as sources of crop nutrients; Animal science. Project scientists are aiming to improve livestock productivity on small farms

  18. Study on application of the physical detection methods for electron beam-irradiated agricultural products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Dong Yong; Park, Yong Dae; Jin, Chang Hyun; Choi, Dae Seong; Jeong, Il Yun [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Jeongeup (Korea, Republic of); Yook, Hong Sun [Chungnam National University, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2010-09-15

    Physical detection methods, photostimulated luminescence (PSL), thermoluminescence (TL) and electron spin resonance (ESR) were applied to detect electron beam-irradiated agricultural products, such as red pepper, black pepper, raisin, walnut, beef seasoning and pistachio. The absorbed irradiation doses for representative samples were controlled at 0, 1, 3, 5 and 10 kGy. PSL values for non-irradiated samples were <700 counts/60s (lower threshold, T{sub 1}) except beef seasoning, whereas those of irradiated samples were more than 5,000 photon counts, upper threshold (T{sub 2}) in black pepper, raisin, and beef seasoning and intermediates values of T{sub 1}-T{sub 2} in red pepper, walnut, and pistachio. Minerals separated from the samples for TL measurement showed that non-irradiated samples except pistachio (TL ratio, 0.12) were characterized by no glow curves situated at temperature range of 50 {approx} 400 .deg. C with TL ratio (0.01 {approx} 0.08), while irradiated samples except pistachio at only 1 kGy (TL ratio, 0.08) indicated glow curve at about 150 {approx} 250 .deg. C with TL ratio (0.28 {approx} 3.10). ESR measurements of irradiated samples any specific signals to irradiation. The samples of both red pepper ad pistachio were produced specific signals derived from cellulose radicals as well as single line signals for black pepper and walnut, and multiple signals derived from crystalline sugar radicals for raisin and beef seasoning. In conclusion, The ESR methods can apply for detection of pistachio exposed to electron beam but PSL and TL are not suitable methods. Furthermore, TL and ESR suggested that both techniques were more useful detection method than PSL to confirm whether red pepper, walnut and beef seasoning samples have been exposed to electron beam.

  19. Landsat and agriculture—Case studies on the uses and benefits of Landsat imagery in agricultural monitoring and production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leslie, Colin R.; Serbina, Larisa O.; Miller, Holly M.

    2017-03-29

    Executive SummaryThe use of Landsat satellite imagery for global agricultural monitoring began almost immediately after the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972, making agricultural monitoring one of the longest-standing operational applications for the Landsat program. More recently, Landsat imagery has been used in domestic agricultural applications as an input for field-level production management. The enactment of the U.S. Geological Survey’s free and open data policy in 2008 and the launch of Landsat 8 in 2013 have both influenced agricultural applications. This report presents two primary sets of case studies on the applications and benefits of Landsat imagery use in agriculture. The first set examines several operational applications within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the second focuses on private sector applications for agronomic management.  Information on the USDA applications is provided in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Uses of Landsat Imagery for Global and Domestic Agricultural Monitoring section of the report in the following subsections:Estimating Crop Production.—Provides an overview of how Landsat satellite imagery is used to estimate crop production, including the spectral bands most frequently utilized in this application.Monitoring Consumptive Water Use.—Highlights the role of Landsat imagery in monitoring consumptive water use for agricultural production. Globally, a significant amount of agricultural production relies on irrigation, so monitoring water resources is a critical component of agricultural monitoring. National Agricultural Statistics Service—Cropland Data Layer.—Highlights the use of Landsat imagery in developing the annual Cropland Data Layer, a crop-specific land cover classification product that provides information on more than 100 crop categories grown in the United States. Foreign Agricultural Service—Global Agricultural Monitoring.—Highlights Landsat’s role in monitoring global agricultural

  20. Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in China's agriculture: from farm production to food consumption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yue, Qian; Cheng, Kun; Pan, Genxing

    2016-04-01

    Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture could be mitigated from both supple side and demand side. Assessing carbon footprint (CF) of agricultural production and food consumption could provide insights into the contribution of agriculture to climate change and help to identify possible GHG mitigation options. In the present study, CF of China's agricultural production was firstly assessed from site scale to national scale, and from crop production to livestock production. Data for the crop and livestock production were collected from field survey and national statistical archive, and both life cycle assessment and input-output method were employed in the estimations. In general, CF of crop production was lower than that of livestock production on average. Rice production ranked the highest CF in crop production, and the highest CFs of livestock production were observed in mutton and beef production. Methane emissions from rice paddy, emissions from fertilizer application and water irrigation exerted the largest contribution of more than 50% for CF of crop production; however, emissions from forage feeding, enteric fermentation and manure treatment made the most proportion of more than 90 % for CF of livestock production. In China, carbon efficiency was shown in a decreasing trend in recent years. According to the present study, overuse of nitrogen fertilizer caused no yield effect but significant emissions in some sites and regions of China, and aggregated farms lowered the CFs of crop production and livestock production by 3% to 25% and 6% to 60% respectively compared to household farms. Given these, improving farming management efficiency and farm intensive development is the key strategy to mitigate climate change from supply side. However, changes in food consumption may reduce GHG emissions in the production chain through a switch to the consumption of food with higher GHG emissions in the production process to food with lower GHG emissions. Thus, CFs

  1. Agricultural extension needs of farmers in Telfairia production and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study assessed agricultural extension needs of farmers in Telfairia production and marketing in Enugu State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 160 Telfairia farmers for the study. Structured interview schedule was used to collect data. Data was analysed by use of descriptive statistics and factor ...

  2. Nested archetypes of vulnerability in African drylands: where lies potential for sustainable agricultural intensification?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sietz, D.; Ordoñez, J. C.; Kok, M. T. J.; Janssen, P.; Hilderink, H. B. M.; Tittonell, P.; Van Dijk, H.

    2017-09-01

    Food production is key to achieving food security in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa. Since agricultural productivity is limited, however, due to inherent agro-ecological constraints and land degradation, sustainable agricultural intensification has been widely discussed as an opportunity for improving food security and reducing vulnerability. Yet vulnerability determinants are distributed heterogeneously in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa and sustainable intensification cannot be achieved everywhere in cost-effective and efficient ways. To better understand the heterogeneity of farming systems’ vulnerability in order to support decision making at regional scales, we present archetypes, i.e. socio-ecological patterns, of farming systems’ vulnerability in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa and reveal their nestedness. We quantitatively indicated the most relevant farming systems’ properties at a sub-national resolution. These factors included water availability, agro-ecological potential, erosion sensitivity, population pressure, urbanisation, remoteness, governance, income and undernourishment. Cluster analysis revealed eight broad archetypes of vulnerability across all drylands of sub-Saharan Africa. The broad archetype representing better governance and highest remoteness in extremely dry and resource-constrained regions encompassed the largest area share (19%), mainly indicated in western Africa. Moreover, six nested archetypes were identified within those regions with better agropotential and prevalent agricultural livelihoods. Among these patterns, the nested archetype depicting regions with highest erosion sensitivity, severe undernourishment and lower agropotential represented the largest population (30%) and area (28%) share, mainly found in the Sahel region. The nested archetype indicating medium undernourishment, better governance and lowest erosion sensitivity showed particular potential for sustainable agricultural intensification, mainly in

  3. Analysis of Options Contract, Option Pricing in Agricultural Products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Tamidy

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Risk is an essential component in the production and sale of agricultural products. Due to the nature of agricultural products, the people who act in this area including farmers and businesspersons encounter unpredictable fluctuations of prices. On the other hand, the firms that process agricultural products also face fluctuation of price of agricultural inputs. Given that the Canola is considered as one of the inputs of product processing factories, control of unpredictable fluctuations of the price of this product would increase the possibility of correct decision making for farmers and managers of food processing industries. The best available tool for control and management of the price risk is the use of future markets and options. It is evident that the pricing is the main pillar in every trade. Therefore, offering a fair price for the options will be very important. In fact, options trading in the options market create cost insurance stopped. In this way, which can reduce the risks of deflation created in the future, if the person entitled to the benefits of the price increase occurs in the future. Unlike the futures, market where the seller had to deliver the product on time, in the options market, there is no such compulsion. In addition, this is one of the strengths of this option contract, because if there is not enough product for delivery to the futures market as result of chilling, in due course, the farmers suffer, but in the options market there will be a loss. In this study, the setup options of rape, as a product, as well as inputs has been paid for industry. Materials and Methods: In this section. The selection criteria of the disposal of asset base for valuation of European put options and call option is been introduced. That for obtain this purpose, some characteristics of the goods must considered: 1-Unpredictable fluctuations price of underlying asset 2 -large underlying asset cash market 3- The possibility

  4. Constraining the role of iron in environmental nitrogen transformations. Dual stable isotope systematics of abiotic NO<sub>2sub>- reduction by Fe(II) and its production of N<sub>2sub>O

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Johnston, David [Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States); Wankel, Scott David [Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., MA (United States); Buchwald, Carolyn [Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., MA (United States); Hansel, Colleen [Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., MA (United States)

    2015-09-16

    Redox reactions involving nitrogen and iron have been shown to have important implications for mobilization of priority contaminants. Thus, an understanding of the linkages between their biogeochemical cycling is critical for predicting subsurface mobilization of radionuclides such as uranium. Despite mounting evidence for biogeochemical interactions between iron and nitrogen, our understanding of their environmental importance remains limited. Here we present an investigation of abiotic nitrite (NO<sub>2sub>-) reduction by Fe(II) or ‘chemodenitrification,’ and its relevance to the production of nitrous oxide (N<sub>2sub>O), specifically focusing on dual (N and O) isotope systematics under a variety of environmentally relevant conditions. We observe a range of kinetic isotope effects that are regulated by reaction rates, with faster rates at higher pH (~8), higher concentrations of Fe(II) and in the presence of mineral surfaces. A clear non-linear relationship between rate constant and kinetic isotope effects of NO<sub>2sub>- reduction was evident (with larger isotope effects at slower rates) and is interpreted as reflecting the dynamics of Fe(II)-N reaction intermediates. N and O isotopic composition of product N<sub>2sub>O also suggests a complex network of parallel and/or competing pathways. Our findings suggest that NO<sub>2sub>- reduction by Fe(II) may represent an important abiotic source of environmental N<sub>2sub>O, especially in iron-rich environments experiencing dynamic redox variations. This study provides a multi-compound, multi-isotope framework for evaluating the environmental occurrence of abiotic NO<sub>2sub>- reduction and N<sub>2sub>O formation, helping future studies constrain the relative roles of abiotic and biological N<sub>2sub>O production pathways.

  5. Successes and Challenges in School Meal Reform: Qualitative Insights from Food Service Directors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asada, Yuka; Ziemann, Margaret; Zatz, Lara; Chriqui, Jamie

    2017-01-01

    Background: The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) directed the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to revise school meal standards to increase healthy food offerings. A critical stakeholder in the implementation of standards is Food Service Directors (FSDs). We sought to examine FSDs' perspectives on revised school meal standards to…

  6. Perspectives on Climate Effects on Agriculture: The International Efforts of AgMIP in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kihara, Job; MacCarthy, Dilys S.; Bationo, Andre; Koala, Saidou; Hickman, Jonathon; Koo, Jawoo; Vanya, Charles; Adiku, Samuel; Beletse, Yacob; Masikate, Patricia; hide

    2012-01-01

    Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is experiencing climate change-related effects that call for integrated regional assessments, yet capacity for these assessments has been low. The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is advancing research on integrated regional assessments of climate change that include climate, crop, and economic modeling and analysis. Through AgMIP, regional integrated assessments are increasingly gaining momentum in SSA, and multi-institutional regional research teams (RRTs) centered in East, West, and Southern· Africa are generating new information on climate change impacts and adaptation in selected agricultural systems. The research in Africa is organized into four RRTs and a coordination team. Each of the RRTs in SSA is composed of scientists from the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) institutions, National Agriculture Research institutes (NARs), and universities consisting of experts in crop and economic modeling, climate, and information technology. Stakeholder involvement to inform specific agricultural systems to be evaluated, key outputs, and the representative agricultural pathways (RAPs), is undertaken at two levels: regional and national, in order to contribute to decision making at these levels. Capacity building for integrated assessment (lA) is a key component that is undertaken continuously through interaction with experts in regional and SSA-wide workshops, and through joint creation of tools. Many students and research affiliates have been identified and entrained as part of capacity building in IA. Bi-monthly updates on scholarly publications in climate change in Africa also serve as a vehicle for knowledge-sharing. With 60 scientists already trained and actively engaged in IA and over 80 getting monthly briefs on the latest information on climate change, a climate-informed community of experts is gradually taking shape in SSA. (See Part 2, Appendices 3-5 in

  7. Director`s series on proliferation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bailey, K.C.; Price, M.E. [eds.

    1994-12-27

    The Director`s Series on Proliferation is an occasional publication of essays on the topics of nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile proliferation. The seven papers presented in this issue cover the following topics: Should the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) be amended?; NPT extension - Legal and procedural issues; An Indonesian view of NPT review conference issues; The treaty of Tlatelolco and the NPT - Tools for peace and development; Perspectives on cut-off, weapons dismantlement, and security assurances; Belarus and NPT challenges; A perspective on the chemical weapons convention - Lessons learned from the preparatory commission.

  8. Implications of climate change for agricultural productivity in the early twenty-first century.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gornall, Jemma; Betts, Richard; Burke, Eleanor; Clark, Robin; Camp, Joanne; Willett, Kate; Wiltshire, Andrew

    2010-09-27

    This paper reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty. Few global-scale assessments have been carried out, and these are limited in their ability to capture the uncertainty in climate projections, and omit potentially important aspects such as extreme events and changes in pests and diseases. There is a lack of clarity on how climate change impacts on drought are best quantified from an agricultural perspective, with different metrics giving very different impressions of future risk. The dependence of some regional agriculture on remote rainfall, snowmelt and glaciers adds to the complexity. Indirect impacts via sea-level rise, storms and diseases have not been quantified. Perhaps most seriously, there is high uncertainty in the extent to which the direct effects of CO(2) rise on plant physiology will interact with climate change in affecting productivity. At present, the aggregate impacts of climate change on global-scale agricultural productivity cannot be reliably quantified.

  9. Coal-Derived Warm Syngas Purification and CO<sub>2sub> Capture-Assisted Methane Production

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dagle, Robert A. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); King, David L. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Li, Xiaohong S. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Xing, Rong [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Spies, Kurt A. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Zhu, Yunhua [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Rainbolt, James E. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Li, Liyu [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Braunberger, B. [Western Research Inst., Laramie, WY (United States)

    2014-10-01

    Gasifier-derived syngas from coal has many applications in the area of catalytic transformation to fuels and chemicals. Raw syngas must be treated to remove a number of impurities that would otherwise poison the synthesis catalysts. Inorganic impurities include alkali salts, chloride, sulfur compounds, heavy metals, ammonia, and various P, As, Sb, and Se- containing compounds. Systems comprising multiple sorbent and catalytic beds have been developed for the removal of impurities from gasified coal using a warm cleanup approach. This approach has the potential to be more economic than the currently available acid gas removal (AGR) approaches and improves upon currently available processes that do not provide the level of impurity removal that is required for catalytic synthesis application. Gasification also lends itself much more readily to the capture of CO<sub>2sub>, important in the regulation and control of greenhouse gas emissions. CO<sub>2sub> capture material was developed and in this study was demonstrated to assist in methane production from the purified syngas. Simultaneous CO<sub>2sub> sorption enhances the CO methanation reaction through relaxation of thermodynamic constraint, thus providing economic benefit rather than simply consisting of an add-on cost for carbon capture and release. Molten and pre-molten LiNaKCO<sub>3sub> can promote MgO and MgO-based double salts to capture CO<sub>2sub> with high cycling capacity. A stable cycling CO<sub>2sub> capacity up to 13 mmol/g was demonstrated. This capture material was specifically developed in this study to operate in the same temperature range and therefore integrate effectively with warm gas cleanup and methane synthesis. By combining syngas methanation, water-gas-shift, and CO<sub>2sub> sorption in a single reactor, single pass yield to methane of 99% was demonstrated at 10 bar and 330°C when using a 20 wt% Ni/MgAl<sub>2sub>O>4sub> catalyst and a molten-phase promoted Mg

  10. Final report investigation project agricultural products and environment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Loria, L.G.; Jimenez Dam, R.; Mora Rodriguez, P.

    1998-01-01

    The document presents the after-action report on six investigation projects: Thermoluminescence, Spectrometry gamma of low level, Agricultural products, Radon in the subsoil, Nuclear instrumentation, and X-ray fluorescence, executed between 1995-1997 by the Laboratory of Physical Nuclear Applied of the University of Costa Rica, in the which objectives are shown, applied methodology as well as the achievements and results each project. (Author) [es

  11. Probabilistic approach to the prediction of radioactive contamination of agricultural production

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fesenko, S.F.; Chernyaeva, L.G.; Sanzharova, N.I.; Aleksakhin, R.M.

    1993-01-01

    The organization of agricultural production on the territory contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl reactor disaster involves prediction of the content of radionuclides in agro-industrial products. Traditional methods of prediting the contamination in the products does not give sufficient agreement with actual data and as a result it is difficult to make the necessary decisions about eliminating the consequences of the disaster in the agro-industrial complex. In many ways this is because the available methods are based on data on the radionuclide content in soils, plants, and plant and animal products. The parameters of the models used in the prediction are also evaluated on the basis of these results. Even if obtained from a single field or herd of livestock, however, such indicators have substantial variation coefficients due to various factors such as the spatial structure of the fallouts, the variability of the soil properties, the sampling error, the errors of processing and measuring the samples, and well as the data-averaging error. Consequently the parameters of the radionuclide transfer along the agricultural chains are very variable, thus considerably reducing the reliability of predicted values. The reliability of the prediction of radioactive contamination of agricultural products can be increased substantially by taking a probabilistic approach involving information about the random laws of contamination of farming land and the statistical features of the parameters of radionuclie migration along food chains. Considering the above, comparative analysis is made of the results obtained on the basis of the traditional treatment (deterministic in the simplest form) and its probabilistic analog

  12. Thermal transport in UO<sub>2sub> with defects and fission products by molecular dynamics simulations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Liu, Xiang-Yang [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Cooper, Michael William Donald [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Mcclellan, Kenneth James [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Lashley, Jason Charles [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Byler, Darrin David [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Stanek, Christopher Richard [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Andersson, Anders David Ragnar [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

    2015-10-14

    The importance of the thermal transport in nuclear fuel has motivated a wide range of experimental and modelling studies. In this report, the reduction of thermal transport in UO<sub>2sub> due to defects and fission products has been investigated using non-equilibrium MD simulations, with two sets of empirical potentials for studying the degregation of UO<sub>2sub> thermal conductivity including a Buckingham type interatomic potential and a recently developed EAM type interatomic potential. Additional parameters for U5+ and Zr4+ in UO<sub>2sub> have been developed for the EAM potential. The thermal conductivity results from MD simulations are then corrected for the spin-phonon scattering through Callaway model formulations. To validate the modelling results, comparison was made with experimental measurements on single crystal hyper-stoichiometric UO<sub>2+xsub> samples.

  13. Linking agricultural food production and rural tourism in the Kazbegi district – A qualitative study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Hüller

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available As in many transition countries, also in Georgia rural urban migration as well as migration from the agricultural sector takes place. This also applies to the Kazbegi district, a mountainous region in the Greater Caucasus of Georgia. The main activity in the district is subsistence farming, while only a few agricultural producers are commercially active. As the region offers beautiful nature, during the last decade tourism has been on the rise, while a dwindling interest in the agricultural sector can be observed. However, the growth in tourism also provides opportunities for small-scale agricultural producers to increase their income by marketing their surplus production to the local tourism sector and thereby improving their livelihoods. In turn, an increase in local agri-food products offered might have a positive effect on the tourism sector. Thus, establishing linkages of agricultural food production and rural tourism might contribute to the economic development of the district and even counteract migration to the capital and from the agricultural sector. Through a qualitative study, we aim at identifying local agri-food products suitable for being marketed to the tourism sector and efficient marketing options. In order to do so, we analyze local agri-food chains. Exploratory interviews, focus group discussions and expert interviews provide data for a qualitative content analysis. First results show that food products which require little technological equipment for processing and do not underlie strict food safety standards, like for example honey, seem to be adequate to tap marketing potentials with regard to rural tourism.

  14. Protection against radioactive contamination of food and agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Szabo, A.; Kovacs, Z.

    1977-01-01

    Due to contaminating effects from nuclear explosions and nuclear power plants, the systematic investigation of environmental radioactive contamination is absolutely necessary. In order to reduce the artificial radiation dose to which the human body is exposed, isotope content of foods and agricultural products should be known. The authors evaluate the decontamination possibilities of food produced from vegetable and animal products, starting from the contamination of some products. For vegetable product decontamination the use of suitable fertilizers, thorough scrubbing in excess water and, for cereals, milling is proposed. As the most effective preventive measure of radiation contamination of food products of animal origin, appropriate packing is proposed. The storage and preservation problems are emphasized for short half-life radiation contamination. (P.J.)

  15. Organic agricultural products in Europe and USA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Skrodzka Violetta

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In the most developed countries of Western Europe and North America, the share of organic farming in the food market is between 2% and 6%. The share of organic products on the Polish food market is only 0.33% (Dryjańska E. 2017. The aim of this article is to compare organic agricultural products in the US and EU. The scope of the comparison was covered by the legal regulations for organic production in the mentioned regions and the availability of organic products for customers. In order to highlight differences between the organic product and their traditional counterpart, selected meta-analyzes were conducted by authors in the field of medical and natural sciences. The possibilities of buying organic products are described on the basis of personal experiences of the author as a consumer. The offer of organic products was analyzed on the example of one European country (Poland and the example of several states of America (Colorado, Virginia, New York. The rules for producing organic food in the US are more rigorous than in the EU. The offer of organic and conventional food targeted to the American consumer is comparable. Although Polish consumers have a positive perception of organic food, its supply is significantly different from the US market. The main differences are in distribution channels, product range, price and visual design of organic products.

  16. Learning processes and productive modernization of learning in agriculture from northwestern Mexico: Cases of commercial agriculture of the coast of Hermosillo, Sonora and organic agriculture of the southern zone of Baja California Sur

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abel O. Villa Rodríguez

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The process of open markets has created import changes in the Mexican agriculture sector, very much noted in the so called crop pattern, the institutional frame that guides the agro–productive commercial relationships and trade organization. The agriculture in the Northwest region, particularly La Costa de Hermosillo in the State of Sonora and southern Baja in Baja Peninsula, shows a big transformation. This corresponds to Global Production Networks (gpn, a vertical integration with intensive extraterritorial interaction resulting in a process of productive escalation that favors; learning and the creation of new competitive capabilities indispensable to comply with high standards in international markets. These capabilities are reflected in improvements in product quality, productive efficiency and the development of new functions for the players involved in the production and trade of produce. It also reflects the transition to more sophisticated productive units where players are located in other territories. This study focuses on analyzing the roll of gpn in the transformation of the agricultural sector in the northwest region of Mexico, particularly the process that took place in modernizing both places.

  17. SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IN THE STATE OF PARANA – BRAZIL (1970, 1996 AND 2007

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucir Reinaldo Alves

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: This paper analyzes the spatial displacement of the productivity of Gross Value of Agricultural Production of the main activities and cultures of Parana’s State in 1970, 1996 and 2007. To this, we used a database of pre-existing on the Gross Value of Agricultural Production - the VBPA contained in the Agricultural Censuses (IBGE, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and the SEAB (Secretary of Agriculture and Supply of Paraná. The results showed that the VBPA of Paraná State has a spatial displacement during the period, where it was concentrated in 1970 in the northern portion of the state, influenced mainly by coffee plantations. In 2007, the most visible concentration hovered over the West and Southwest regions, and motion to expand the activities poultry and swine in those regions as well as crop production technicality as soybeans and corn. The findings of this study confirm the dynamism of the regions, as well as the impact of modernization on the field, and also highlights the role that agricultural activities have on the economy of the state of Parana.

  18. Co-production of hydrogen and electricity with CO{sub 2} capture

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Arienti, S.; Cotone, P.; Davison, J. [Foster Wheeler Italiana (Italy)

    2007-07-01

    This paper summarizes the results of a study carried out by Foster Wheeler for the IEA Greenhouse Gas R & D Programme that focused on different IGCC configurations with CO{sub 2} capture and H{sub 2} production. The three following main cases are compared: production of hydrogen, with minimum amount of electricity for a stand-alone plant production; co-production of the optimum hydrogen/electricity ratio; and co-production of hydrogen and electricity in a flexible plant that varies the hydrogen/electricity ratio. The paper reviews three available gasification technologies and presents the results of a more detailed evaluation of the selected one. The scope of this paper is to underline possible advantages of hydrogen and electricity co-production from coal, that is likely going to replace natural gas and petroleum as a source of hydrogen in the long term. Expected advantage of co-production will be the ability to vary the hydrogen/electricity ratio to meet market demands. A natural gas, diesel and gasoline demand market analysis has been performed for the Netherlands and the USA to determine the expected future hydrogen demand. Plant performance and costs are established and electric power production costs are evaluated. Electricity and hydrogen co-production plants are compared to plants that produce electricity only, with and without CO{sub 2} capture, to evaluate the costs of CO{sub 2} avoidance. 4 refs., 8 figs., 4 tabs.

  19. Peering into the secrets of food and agricultural co-products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Delilah; Williams, Tina; Glenn, Gregory; Pan, Zhongli; Orts, William; McHugh, Tara

    2010-06-01

    Scanning electron microscopy is a useful tool for understanding food contamination and directing product development of food and industrial products. The current trend in food research is to produce foods that are fast to prepare and/or ready to eat. At the same time, these processed foods must be safe, high quality and maintain all or most of the nutritional value of the original whole foods. Minimally processed foods, is the phrase used to characterize these "new" foods. New techniques are needed which take advantage of minimal processing or processing which enhances the fresh properties and characteristics of whole foods while spending less time on food preparation. The added benefit coupled to less cooking time in an individual kitchen translates to an overall energy savings and reduces the carbon emissions to the environment. Food processing changes the microstructure, and therefore, the quality, texture and flavor, of the resulting food product. Additionally, there is the need to reduce waste, transportation costs and product loss during transportation and storage. Unlike food processing, structural changes are desirable in co-products as function follows form for food packaging films and boxes as well as for building materials and other industrial products. Thus, the standard materials testing procedures are coupled with SEM to provide direction in the development of products from agricultural residues or what would otherwise be considered waste materials. The use of agricultural residues reduces waste and adds value to a currently underutilized or unutilized product. The product might be biodegradable or compostable, thus reducing landfill requirements. Manufacturing industrial and packaging products from biological materials also reduces the amount of petroleum products currently standard in the industry.

  20. Analysis the Impact of Technology Spillovers on Total Factor Productivity of Agricultural Sector in Iran

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mostafa Baniasadi

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: The growth of agricultural production and natural resources are from primary objectives of any political system, because this section has a vital role in providing food security. According to the production theories, production growth will come from two sources; more use of production factors within the framework of existing technologies and second, with using more advanced and more efficient production methods and effective use of production factors. In fact, the second one is tied to the concept of productivity. New and efficient technologies are the most important factor for productivity growth. Technology was enhanced through internal and external sources. External sources include spillover technology from developed countries into another country. Empirical evidence on the impact of spillover technology on productivity growth of indigenous producer is vague. One perspective proposes that FDI, technology transferred from developed countries has positive effects on developing countries and another perspective is against it. This paper explores the role of technological spillover on total factor productivity (TFP growth in agricultural sectors of Iran uses time series data during 1971-2011. Materials and Methods: In this study, Kendrick model was used to calculate total factor productivity. After calculating productivity, affective factors on it, were examined through ARDL model. The aim of this study is examination of technology spillover on the productivity of agricultural sectors. The degree of technology diffusion grows with increase in technology distance between the hosts and the foreign countries. The greater the technology distance, the more difficult it becomes for developing countries to boost independent innovation. To calculate the index of technology spillover, commercial partners should be considered that are more advanced in science and technology than Iran. For this purpose, commercial partners in this study are

  1. Application of nuclear techniques in improving agricultural productivity with particular reference to pasture management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Majid Ajorlo; Ramdzani Abdullah

    2009-01-01

    Nuclear techniques are appropriate tools to settle problems for agriculture or natural resources which cannot be solved using conventional agricultural techniques. In this paper, the research activities carried out and the achievements so far obtained in the agricultural specialties -all by using nuclear techniques- with particular reference to pasture management are discussed. Insect pest control by Sterile Insect Techniques (SIT); soil and water management using neutron moisture probes; determining N-fixation capacity of legumes using N-15 isotope and nuclear methods; soil erosion measurement using of fallout radionuclide such as Cs-137; monitoring the movement of saline water in salt-affected land using isotopes of chlorine; livestock production and health by RIA and ELISA are some of achievements so far obtained in improving agricultural productivity. The ultimate goal of the nuclear technique investigation in agriculture is to use the resources efficiently in obtaining higher plant and livestock yields while increasing the quality and protecting them against insects, diseases and weeds. (Author)

  2. Fluorination of La{sub 2−x}Sr{sub x}CuO{sub 4} (x = 0, 0.15, 0.3) and study on the crystal structures, magnetic properties of their fluorinated products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chen, Xiuhua [Division of Nanomaterials and Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (China); Tang, Kaibin, E-mail: kbtang@ustc.edu.cn [Division of Nanomaterials and Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (China); Zeng, Suyuan [Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Energy Storage and Novel Cell Technology, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Liaocheng University, Liaocheng 252059 (China); Hao, Qiaoyan; Wang, Dake; Gao, Zhan; Wang, Yan [Division of Nanomaterials and Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (China)

    2015-03-25

    Highlights: • Fluorination of La{sub 2−x}Sr{sub x}CuO{sub 4} (x = 0, 0.15, 0.3) by ZnF{sub 2} with few byproducts. • Less of impurities are benefit to research its structure and properties. • Suffering a phase transformation and unit cell expansion after fluorination. • Determining chemical formula and fluorine ions occupation of fluorinated product. - Abstract: Here we report using the transition metal difluoride ZnF{sub 2} to fluorinate K{sub 2}NiF{sub 4}-type cuprates La{sub 2−x}Sr{sub x}CuO{sub 4} (x = 0, 1.5, 0.3). Unlike other fluorinating agents, the technique is nontoxic, easy to handle and the byproduct ZnO can be removed. After fluorination, the fluorinated product of La{sub 2}CuO{sub 4} suffers a phase transformation and unit cell expansion. While La{sub 1.85}Sr{sub 0.15}CuO{sub 4} and La{sub 1.7}Sr{sub 0.3}CuO{sub 4} indicate no change in structure after fluorination, their space groups still are I/4mmm, however, their lattices become larger, too. We emphasis the structural characterizations for fluorinated product of La{sub 1.7}Sr{sub 0.3}CuO{sub 4} by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images and electron diffraction (ED) patterns. Moreover, we determine the chemical formula to be La{sub 1.54}Sr{sub 0.46}CuO{sub 3.1}F{sub 0.9} and the fluorine ions are prone to be located in the apical sites of the Cu(O, F){sub 6} octahedron in the structure of post-treated fluorinated product of La{sub 1.7}Sr{sub 0.3}CuO{sub 4}. Magnetization investigations demonstrate that partial replacement of the lanthanum by strontium changes the magnetism of post-treated fluorinated products of La{sub 2−x}Sr{sub x}CuO{sub 4} (x = 0, 0.15, 0.3) and they exhibit a paramagnetic behavior.

  3. Improving Credit Allocation to Sustaiable Agriculture in Sub ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This development may be attributed to how these institutions rate the business of agriculture and the risks involved. However the slow pace of financing sustainable agriculture (biobased economy) in the presence of internationalization (Clean Development Mechanism CDM and voluntary carbon) needs to be analyzed.

  4. 32 CFR Appendix D to Part 247 - AFIS Print Media Directorate

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... for word processing or desktop publishing. All other PMD publications should be requisitioned through... Directorate (PMD), an element of AFIS, develops, publishes, and distributes a variety of print media products.../defenselink/afis/. B. Use of materials published by print media directorate. With the exception of copyrighted...

  5. Water and Land Limitations to Future Agricultural Production in the Middle East

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koch, J. A. M.; Wimmer, F.; Schaldach, R.

    2015-12-01

    Countries in the Middle East use a large fraction of their scarce water resources to produce cash crops, such as fruit and vegetables, for international markets. At the same time, these countries import large amounts of staple crops, such as cereals, required to meet the nutritional demand of their populations. This makes food security in the Middle East heavily dependent on world market prices for staple crops. Under these preconditions, increasing food demand due to population growth, urban expansion on fertile farmlands, and detrimental effects of a changing climate on the production of agricultural commodities present major challenges to countries in the Middle East that try to improve food security by increasing their self-sufficiency rate of staple crops.We applied the spatio-temporal land-use change model LandSHIFT.JR to simulate how an expansion of urban areas may affect the production of agricultural commodities in Jordan. We furthermore evaluated how climate change and changes in socio-economic conditions may influence crop production. The focus of our analysis was on potential future irrigated and rainfed production (crop yield and area demand) of fruit, vegetables, and cereals. Our simulation results show that the expansion of urban areas and the resulting displacement of agricultural areas does result in a slight decrease in crop yields. This leads to almost no additional irrigation water requirements due to the relocation of agricultural areas, i.e. there is the same amount of "crop per drop". However, taking into account projected changes in socio-economic conditions and climate conditions, a large volume of water would be required for cereal production in order to safeguard current self-sufficiency rates for staple crops. Irrigation water requirements are expected to double until 2025 and to triple until 2050. Irrigated crop yields are projected to decrease by about 25%, whereas there is no decrease in rainfed crop yields to be expected.

  6. PLANT PROTECTION PRODUCT RESIDUES IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF SLOVENE ORIGIN FOUND IN 2008

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Helena BAŠA ČESNIK

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In the year 2008, 166 apple, bean, carrot, cucumber, lettuce, pear, potato and spinach samples from Slovene producers were analysed for plant protection product residues. The samples were analysed for the presence of 158 different active compounds using three analytical methods. In two samples (1.2% exceeded maximum residue levels (MRLs were determined which is better than the results of the monitoring of pesticide residues in the products of plant origin in the 27 European Union, Member States (EU MS and 2 European Free Trade Association (EFTA States: Norway and Iceland in 2008 (2.2%. The most frequently found active substance in agricultural products was dithiocarbamates. Products which contained 4 or more active substances per sample were apples and pears.

  7. Mushroom production in the faculty of agriculture teaching and ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study was carried out in the Teaching and Research of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The main objective was to conduct an economic assessment of mushroom production in the farm. The study utilized secondary data generated from the farm record of the farm. Gross margin model was ...

  8. Allocative Efficiency Analysys Production Function Of Cassava Farming (Manihot, Sp.) In Tenayan Raya Sub-District Of Pekanbaru City

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nizar, Rini; Nurwati, Niken; Amalia

    2017-12-01

    Cassava (Manihot sp) has long been known and cultivated by Indonesian farmers. The economic and social potential of cassava aside from foodstuffs can also be used as raw materials for industrial use and animal feed. In Riau Province, Cassva has the potential to be developed considering Cassva is a plant that can easily grow on low altitude to high altitude lands. Cassava does not need a complex maintenance. Conventionally, this plant can be planted and left alone by itself. Cassava roots can be developed to be a processed products that society needs as main foodstuffs ingredients. This research is done in three months and the purpose is to know the influence of input use (pesticide, seeds, fertilizers and labor) on cassava farming to cassava farming by the model of cobb-douglas. Other than that is also the effect on economical efficiency. The method used in this research is a quantitative research by using Cobb-Douglas Function Model. This research was done in the Tenayan Raya sub-district with 55 farmer samples. This research shows Cobb-Douglas Production Function can be used as the predictor for Cassava production function in Tenayan Raya Sub-district of Pekanbaru City. Altogether the production factor used by farmers influence production. Partially only usage of organic fertilizer that does not affect production, while other production factor such as, seeds, pesticides, an-organic fertilizer (urea) and labor affect production by quite a bit. Usage of production factor seeds, urea and pesticides is not yet efficient while usage of organic fertilizer is not efficient and usage of labor on cassava agriculture by respondent farmers is relatively efficient

  9. Microwork and Virtual Production Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Microwork and Virtual Production Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia ... content posted to social media sites; -categorizing products in online shops; or, ... that have realized that entry-level workers can be efficient and effective.

  10. Market versus agriculture in Poland – macroeconomic relations of incomes, prices and productivity in terms of the sustainable development paradigm

    OpenAIRE

    CZYŻEWSKI, Bazyli; MAJCHRZAK, Adam

    2017-01-01

    In the article macroeconomic relations of prices, productivity and incomes in Polish agriculture in the context of changes in the EU Common Agricultural Policy were studied. The authors have developed a macroeconomic model which explains these relations and confirms the occurrence of market failures in agriculture in Poland. The developed model proves the existence of a puzzling exchangeable relation between the real productivity of production factors in agriculture, and agricultural incomes,...

  11. Providing low-budget estimations of carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural wetlands

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lloyd, Colin R; Rebelo, Lisa-Maria; Max Finlayson, C

    2013-01-01

    The conversion of wetlands to agriculture through drainage and flooding, and the burning of wetland areas for agriculture have important implications for greenhouse gas (GHG) production and changing carbon stocks. However, the estimation of net GHG changes from mitigation practices in agricultural wetlands is complex compared to dryland crops. Agricultural wetlands have more complicated carbon and nitrogen cycles with both above- and below-ground processes and export of carbon via vertical and horizontal movement of water through the wetland. This letter reviews current research methodologies in estimating greenhouse gas production and provides guidance on the provision of robust estimates of carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural wetlands through the use of low cost reliable and sustainable measurement, modelling and remote sensing applications. The guidance is highly applicable to, and aimed at, wetlands such as those in the tropics and sub-tropics, where complex research infrastructure may not exist, or agricultural wetlands located in remote regions, where frequent visits by monitoring scientists prove difficult. In conclusion, the proposed measurement-modelling approach provides guidance on an affordable solution for mitigation and for investigating the consequences of wetland agricultural practice on GHG production, ecological resilience and possible changes to agricultural yields, variety choice and farming practice. (letter)

  12. The central role of agricultural water-use productivity in sustainable water management (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gleick, P. H.

    2013-12-01

    As global and regional populations continue to rise for the next several decades, the need to grow more food will worsen old -- and produce new -- challenges for water resources. Expansion of irrigated agriculture is slowing due to constraints on land and water, and as a result, some have argued that future new food demands will only be met through improvements in agricultural productivity on existing irrigated and rainfed cropland, reductions in field losses and food waste, and social changes such as dietary preferences. This talk will address the central role that improvements in water-use productivity can play in the food/water/population nexus. In particular, the ability to grow more food with less water will have a great influence on whether future food demands will be met successfully. Such improvements can come about through changes in technology, regulatory systems, economic incentives and disincentives, and education of water users. Example of potential savings from three different strategies to improve agricultural water productivity in California. (From Pacific Institute).

  13. Wheat and barley exposure to nanoceria: Implications for agricultural productivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    The impacts of man-made nanomaterials on agricultural productivity are not yet well understood. A soil microcosm study was performed to assess the physiological, phenological, and yield responses of wheat (Triticum aestivum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) exposed to nanoceria (n...

  14. Cultivated Land Changes and Agricultural Potential Productivity in Mainland China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Linlin Xiao

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available With rapid and continuous population growth and the associated declining quality of cultivated land, food security in China has been attracting the attention of scholars both domestically and internationally. In recent decades, the implications of the cultivated land balance policy have promoted spatial changes of cultivated land. Estimating the agricultural potential productivity and assessing its response to cultivated land changes could provide a scientific basis for strategic decision-making concerning grain production and thus guarantee food security. In the present study, the Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ model was applied to estimate the agricultural potential productivity. Data from the second national land survey were first applied to characterize the changes of cultivated land (by comparing the cultivated land in 2009 with that in 2012 and their influence on potential productivity in Mainland China. We propose a utilization degree of total potential productivity (UTP and its ratio coefficient (RUTP to reveal the utilization status of potential productivity and its change characteristics at the provincial level. It was found that there was a trend for cultivated land to be shifted away from cities, and the average productive capability per hectare of cultivated land declined from 7386.5 kg/ha to 6955.2 kg/ha by occupying highly productive cultivated land generally near the cities and compensating less productive cultivated land in remote areas. UTPs and RUTPs indicate a significant difference in the utilization status of potential productivity among the 31 provinces of Mainland China. Grain production with the aim of sustainable development should be strategized according to the particular facts of each province. The methods we applied can mine the impacts of cultivated land changes on potential productivity and the utilization of potential productivity effectively.

  15. Status and Countermeasures for the Green Marketing of Agricultural Products Processing Enterprises in Yinchuan City,China

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2010-01-01

    Based on the overview and characteristics of agricultural products processing enterprise in Yinchuan City,green marketing status of agricultural products processing enterprise in Yinchuan City is introduced from the aspects of product strategy,pricing strategy,distribution strategy and promotion strategy.Problems in the green marketing of agricultural products processing enterprise are analyzed,such as the obvious contradiction between the processing demand and the raw materials,low level of comprehensive utilization of resources,no common demand for green consumption in Yinchuan City,weak strength of enterprise and no concept of green marketing,poor macro-control and insufficient input,neglecting the environmental production of materials during marketing,and insufficient input of enterprises in professional marketing personnel.In order to improve the green marketing ability of enterprises and the development of agricultural products processing enterprise in Yinchuan City,the following countermeasures are put forward:green marketing strategy(mainly including cultivating the green marketing strategy for enterprises,gathering of green information,and strengthening the marketing strategy of target market)and green marketing policy(mainly including green products policy,green price policy,green channel policy and green promotion policy).

  16. Greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural food production to supply Indian diets: Implications for climate change mitigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vetter, Sylvia H; Sapkota, Tek B; Hillier, Jon; Stirling, Clare M; Macdiarmid, Jennie I; Aleksandrowicz, Lukasz; Green, Rosemary; Joy, Edward J M; Dangour, Alan D; Smith, Pete

    2017-01-16

    Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. The growing global population is putting pressure on agricultural production systems that aim to secure food production while minimising GHG emissions. In this study, the GHG emissions associated with the production of major food commodities in India are calculated using the Cool Farm Tool. GHG emissions, based on farm management for major crops (including cereals like wheat and rice, pulses, potatoes, fruits and vegetables) and livestock-based products (milk, eggs, chicken and mutton meat), are quantified and compared. Livestock and rice production were found to be the main sources of GHG emissions in Indian agriculture with a country average of 5.65 kg CO 2 eq kg -1 rice, 45.54 kg CO 2 eq kg -1 mutton meat and 2.4 kg CO 2 eq kg -1 milk. Production of cereals (except rice), fruits and vegetables in India emits comparatively less GHGs with foods could greatly increase GHG emissions from Indian agriculture. A range of mitigation options are available that could reduce emissions from current levels and may be compatible with increased future food production and consumption demands in India.

  17. PERENCANAAN PENGEMBANGAN SEKTOR PERTANIAN SUB SEKTOR TANAMAN PANGAN DI KABUPATEN KULONPROGO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    - Fafurida

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this research is to make planning in the development of agricultural sector especiallyfood crops for the economic area improvement. The tools of analysis applied are shift share, LocationQuotient (LQ and central index analysis. The development of the superb food crops is conducted withthe development of processing and central industry. By observing the superb crops commodity, centralindex value, and PRDB per capita, it can be determined the development direction of each food cropscommodities, that is by specifying central production area and processing industry. Paddy centralproduction is recommended in Temon, Panjatan, Galur, Lendah, Kokap, Girimulyo, Nanggulan andSamigaluh sub-districts, and rice mill is developed in Wates and Pengasih sub-districts. For Maizecommodity, the development of processing industry is conducted in Sentolo and Pengasih sub-districtsand its central production is in Temon, Lendah, Kokap, Kalibawang and Samigaluh sub-districts. Forcassava crops commodity, the central production is in Temon, Kokap, Girimulyo, Kalibawang andSamigaluh sub-districts, and its processing industry is founded in Sentolo and Pengasih sub-districts.Central production of sweet potatoes is in Panjatan, Pengasih, and Girimulyo subdistricts, and itsprocessing industry is in Wates sub-district. For peanuts commodity, the processing industry is foundedin Wates and Pengasih sub-districts, and its central production is in Temon, Lendah, Kokap, Girimulyoand Samigaluh sub-districts. Central production of soybeans crops commodity is located in Temon,Galur, Lendah, Nanggulan and Kalibawang sub-districts and its processing industry is in Sentolo andPengasih sub-districts. Temon, Sentolo, and Pengasih sub-districts are the central production for thegreen beans crops with processing industry in Wates sub-district.Keywords: development, food crops, superb commodity

  18. Antimicrobial peptide production and plant-based expression systems for medical and agricultural biotechnology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holaskova, Edita; Galuszka, Petr; Frebort, Ivo; Oz, M Tufan

    2015-11-01

    Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are vital components of the innate immune system of nearly all living organisms. They generally act in the first line of defense against various pathogenic bacteria, parasites, enveloped viruses and fungi. These low molecular mass peptides are considered prospective therapeutic agents due to their broad-spectrum rapid activity, low cytotoxicity to mammalian cells and unique mode of action which hinders emergence of pathogen resistance. In addition to medical use, AMPs can also be employed for development of innovative approaches for plant protection in agriculture. Conferred disease resistance by AMPs might help us surmount losses in yield, quality and safety of agricultural products due to plant pathogens. Heterologous expression in plant-based systems, also called plant molecular farming, offers cost-effective large-scale production which is regarded as one of the most important factors for clinical or agricultural use of AMPs. This review presents various types of AMPs as well as plant-based platforms ranging from cell suspensions to whole plants employed for peptide production. Although AMP production in plants holds great promises for medicine and agriculture, specific technical limitations regarding product yield, function and stability still remain. Additionally, establishment of particular stable expression systems employing plants or plant tissues generally requires extended time scale for platform development compared to certain other heterologous systems. Therefore, fast and promising tools for evaluation of plant-based expression strategies and assessment of function and stability of the heterologously produced AMPs are critical for molecular farming and plant protection. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Pricing Power of Agricultural Products under the Background of Small Peasant Management and Information Asymmetry

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Dexuan LI

    2016-01-01

    From the background of small peasant management and information asymmetry,this paper introduced the middle profit sharing model and discussed influence factors and ownership of pricing power of agricultural products. It obtained following results:( i) the transaction scale has positive effect on farmer’s pricing power of agricultural products,while the competitor’s transaction scale has negative effect on it,so does the cost for information search;( ii) under the condition of small peasant management system,farmer is in a relatively weak position in the distribution of pricing power of agricultural products,due to factors such as small transaction scale,information asymmetry and farmer’s weak negotiation ability;( iii) through cooperative game,farmer and buyers can share cooperative surplus at the agreed ratio;( iv) the introduction of self-organizing specialized farmers cooperatives is favorable for solving the problem of pricing power of agricultural products,and possible problems,such as " collective action dilemma" and " fake cooperatives" in the cooperative development process can be solved by internal and external division of labor and specialization of cooperatives.

  20. Assessment of the synthesis conditions for nano-Bi{sub 4}Ti{sub 3}O{sub 12} production by the combustion route; Avaliacao das condicoes de sintese para producao de nano-Bi{sub 4}Ti{sub 3}O{sub 12} pelo metodo de combustao

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dias, Jeferson A.; Nascimento, Cassia C.; Oliveira, Jessica A.; Morelli, Marcio R., E-mail: jeferson.unifal@gmail.com [Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCar), SP (Brazil)

    2016-07-01

    The bismuth titanate has interesting optoelectronic properties. Its production in nanometric scale is important due to the demand of miniaturized electronic devices and greater synthesization facility. This study aims at the evaluation of synthesis parameters for nano-Bi{sub 4}Ti{sub 3}O{sub 12} production by the combustion route. For that, the materials were synthesized and calcined at 600°C, 700°C and 800°C. The materials were posteriorly characterized by X-Ray diffraction, SEM, DSC-TGA, FTIR; DRS and impedance spectroscopy. The results have demonstrated that the combustion method was effective for nanocrystalline powders production, which also showed high levels of purity. Particles size growth was observed for high treatment temperatures. Low level of residual organic matter was determined and the high electrical resistivity was observed. The temperature of 600°C was enough to produce particles with optimal properties. Therefore, the results have confirmed the efficacy of combustion route to produce nanometric Bi{sub 4}Ti{sub 3}O{sub 12}. (author)

  1. Dehydration of D-xylose over SiO{sub 2}-Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} catalyst: Perspective on the pathways for condensed products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    You, Su Jin; Park, Eun Duck; Park, Myung-June [Ajou University, Suwon (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-03-15

    This work addresses the kinetic mechanism for the dehydration of D-xylose over the SiO{sub 2}-Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} solid catalyst, where the formation of condensed products is included in addition to the production of furfural and its decomposition. The kinetic modeling and parametric sensitivity show that the isomerization of D-xylose takes place in the early stages of the reaction, followed by the dehydration of isomers. Accordingly, the homogeneous polymerization of isomers is found to be dominant. The developed model is used to evaluate the effects of operating conditions on the catalytic performance; high temperature and D-xylose concentration guarantee high furfural yield.

  2. Regional identity can add value to agricultural products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bradley C. Christensen

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Regional identity creation is being recognized for its economic benefits and as a strategic resource for producer communities. A regional identity is not a brand; it is built through a complicated process of developing cohesion and sharing in the industry community and communicating outside the industry community to opinion-makers and consumers. The California fine wine industry has built successful regional identities and leveraged them to add value to their wines. As regional identities in the wine industry have strengthened, so has the industry, and a symbiotic relationship with other local value-added industries, such as tourism and hospitality, has emerged. Other agricultural producers can learn from the identity creation experiences in the wine industry. With the many challenges faced by California agriculture, identity formation may offer producers new ideas for adding value to their products and finding larger markets.

  3. Climate Change and Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Spatial Sample Selection Model

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ward, P.S.; Florax, R.J.G.M.; Flores-Lagunes, A.

    2014-01-01

    Using spatially explicit data, we estimate a cereal yield response function using a recently developed estimator for spatial error models when endogenous sample selection is of concern. Our results suggest that yields across Sub-Saharan Africa will decline with projected climatic changes, and that

  4. The Growth Path of Agricultural Labor Productivity in China: A Latent Growth Curve Model at the Prefectural Level

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Bin

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Given the shrinking proportion of agriculture output and the growing mobility of the labor force in China, how agricultural labor productivity develops has become an increasingly attractive topic for researchers and policy makers. This study aims to depict the development trajectory of agricultural labor productivity in China after its WTO entry. Based on a balanced panel data containing 287 Chinese prefectures from 2000 to 2013, this study applies the Latent Growth Curve Model (LGCM and finds that the agricultural labor productivity follows a piecewise growth path with two breaking points in the years of 2004 and 2009. This may stem from some exogenous stimulus, such as supporting policies launched in the breaking years. Further statistical analysis shows an expanding gap of agricultural labor productivity among different Chinese prefectures.

  5. Economic performance of community based bean seed production ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Limited access to seed of improved varieties is an impediment to agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers in the national and international agricultural research systems have been piloting a community based seed multiplication and marketing enterprises (CBSME) model, as an alternative to the formal ...

  6. How costly is mitigation of non-CO{sub 2} greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture? A meta-analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vermont, Bruno; De Cara, Stephane [INRA, UMR 210 Economie Publique INRA-AgroParisTech, Thiverval-Grignon (France)

    2010-05-15

    This text reviews the assessments of marginal abatement costs of methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture. We use agricultural emissions and the corresponding prices collected from 21 studies that have assessed abatement potentials and costs using various modeling approaches and assumptions. We first highlight the implications of the modeling approach for marginal abatement costs. Harmonized abatement rates for three emission prices (10, 20 and 50 EUR{sub 2005}/tCO{sub 2}eq) are regressed on variables that reflect various modeling assumptions and study characteristics. In a second step, the emission price is introduced as an explanatory variable. When controlling for a few key characteristics of the studies, the models explain an important share of the observed variability in abatement rates. The type of modeling approach is found to have a significant effect. In particular, we find that equilibrium models lead to higher abatement rates for a given price. The flexibility in nitrogen use and its effect on crop yields also plays a significant role in lowering marginal abatement costs. The results of the second step indicate that the price elasticity of the abatement rate is about 0.6. This estimate is found to be robust to several specifications and consistent with previous assessments covering other economic sectors. (author)

  7. Insect community composition and functional roles along a tropical agricultural production gradient

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bellamy, Angelina Sanderson; Svensson, Ola; Den Brink, van Paul J.; Gunnarsson, Jonas; Tedengren, Michael

    2018-01-01

    High intensity agricultural production systems are problematic not only for human health and the surrounding environment, but can threaten the provision of ecosystem services on which farm productivity depends. This research investigates the effects of management practices in Costa Rica on on-farm

  8. Nutritional Sustainability: Aligning Priorities in Nutrition and Public Health with Agricultural Production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finley, John W; Dimick, Dennis; Marshall, Elizabeth; Nelson, Gerald Charles; Mein, Jonathan R; Gustafson, David I

    2017-09-01

    Nutrition science-based dietary advice urges changes that may have a great impact on agricultural systems. For example, the 2016 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommends greatly increased fruit and vegetable consumption, but the present domestic production is insufficient to accommodate large-scale adoption of these guidelines. Increasing production to the extent needed to meet the DGA will necessitate changes in an already stressed agriculture and food system and will require nutrition and agriculture professionals to come together in open and collegial discourse. All involved need to understand the stress placed on the food system by increasing populations, changing diets, and changing environments, and recognize the major diet-based public health challenges. Furthermore, there is a need to understand the intricate interplay of the myriad parts of the food system and the vast amount of work necessary to make even small changes. New systems approaches are needed, especially at the research level, where nutrition, public health, agriculture, and the food industry work together to solve interconnected problems. Future well-being depends on a sustainable food system that continues to deliver optimal health with minimal impact on the environment. © 2017 American Society for Nutrition.

  9. Life Cycle Based Evaluation of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Agricultural Productions in the Mediterranean Area

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena Tamburini

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA applied to estimate the cradle-to-grave environmental impact of agricultural products or processes. Furthermore, including in the analysis an economic evaluation, from the perspective of an integrated life cycle approach, appears nowadays as a fundamental improvement. In particular, Life Cycle Costing (LCC, is a method that could integrate financial data and cost information with metrics of life cycle approaches. In this study, LCA in conjunction with LCC methods were used, with the aim to evaluate the main cost drivers—environmental and economic—of five widely diffused and market-valued agricultural productions (organic tomato and pear, integrated wheat, apple and chicory and to combine the results in order to understand the long-term externalities impacts of agricultural productions. Data obtained in local assessment show a wide margin of improvement of resources management at farms level in the short-term, but also allow for the investigation of future effects of environmental impacts not expressed in product price on the market. Reaching a real sustainable model for agriculture could be a value added approach firstly for farmers, but also for all the people who live in rural areas or use agricultural products.

  10. The analysis of indiference and the price elasticity of demand between different categories of agricultural products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vukadinović Predrag

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, the analysis of the price elasticity of demand of four different categories of agricultural products in the Republic of Serbia was described. Differentiating the price and demand of these products by sales points, and using the least squares approximation method, the elasticity for all different agricultural categories was expressed in the functional form. According to this, the coefficients of elasticity of the price and demand were computed and between different agricultural categories were analyzed. The results we obtained show that the market of agricultural products in Serbia is mostly inelastic because the coefficients of inelasticity and indifference of demand to change of prices, are dominant. The influence of factors on the elasticity of demand that are not of price character, proved to be very pronounced. The relationship of the two segments of agricultural market (markets and shops was also analysed and it was demonstrated that these two segments have a slight correlation.

  11. Project AProWa: a national view on managing trade-offs between agricultural production and conservation of aquatic ecosystems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dietzel, Anne; Rahn, Eric; Stamm, Christian

    2014-05-01

    Swiss agriculture is legally committed to fulfill several, partially conflicting goals such as agricultural production on the one hand and the conservation of natural resources on the other hand. In the context of the research project AProWa ("Agricultural Production and Water"), the relationships between the production aspect and the conservation of aquatic ecosystems is analyzed with a holistic approach. Agricultural production and the protection of water resources have high potential for conflicts: Farmers use ground and surface water to irrigate their fields. On the other hand, drainage systems enable the production on otherwise unfavorably wet soils. These in turn often affect ground water recharge and divert precipitation directly into surface waters, which changes their hydrological regime. Typically, drainage systems also elevate the input of nutrients and pesticides into the water bodies. In general, applied fertilizers, plant protection products, veterinary drugs and phytohormones of cultivated plants are introduced into the ground and surface waters through different processes such as drift, leaching, runoff, preferential flow or erosion. They influence the nutrient cycles and ecological health of aquatic systems. The nutrient and pesticide loss processes themselves can be altered by tillage operations and other agricultural practices. Furthermore, the competition for space can lead to additional conflicts between agriculture and the protection of aquatic ecosystems. For example, channelized or otherwise morphologically changed rivers do not have a natural discharge pattern and are often not suitable for the local flora and fauna; but naturally meandering rivers need space that cannot be used for agriculture. In a highly industrialized and densely populated country like Switzerland, all these potential conflicts are of importance. Although it is typically seen as a water-rich country, local and seasonal overexploitation of rivers through water extraction

  12. The Effects of Agricultural Raw Product Exports on Environment Quality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    hosein mohammadi

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: The relationship between openness, trade and environmental damaging are the most important problems in the early 1990s. Some scientists assume the environmental quality is a normal good and increasing income increases demand for environmentally safe products. Therefore, Firms will be encouraging the using of safer and less polluting procedure. On the other hand other scientists assume international trade grows the environmental degradation through environmentally polluting industries and expand economics scales in developing countries. While environmental standards are low in these countries, the expansion of trade will lead to more pollution. Some experimental studies have confirmed a negative relationship between trade and environment. The effect of import and export of trade is not considered as important components of trade, despite very consideration of the relationship between openness, trade and environmental by researchers while in general part trade may have different effect on environmental. Materials and Methods: The base model is used to study the relationship between economic growth and environmental indexes and trade. Grossman and Krueger (1991 and Shafik and Bandvpady (1992 used the trade intensity variable, obtained from the ratio of exports plus imports divided by GDP as the World Trade openness of an economy measure. Grossman and Krueger (1991, the first person who developed environmental Kuznets curve (EKC used multiple versions of the model. Instrumental variable regression model has been estimated using panel data of period 1998 and 2009 for 73 countries, including 27 development countries and 46 developing countries. Countries with more than 0.9 Human Development Index eligible as developed countries and countries by Human Development Index between 0.7 to 0.9 considered as developing countries., based on the standard international trade classification. For exports of agricultural raw materials, 5

  13. The Effect of No Agricultural Productivity Growth on Future Land Use and Climate through Biogeophysical Mechanisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davies-Barnard, T.; Valdes, P. J.; Singarayer, J. S.; Jones, C.

    2012-12-01

    Future land use and the consequent land cover change will have a significant impact on future climate through biogeophysical (albedo, surface roughness and latent heat transfer, etc.) as well as biogeochemical (greenhouse gas emissions etc.) mechanisms. One of the major determinants of the extent of land use induced land cover change is the agricultural productivity growth within the socio-economic models used for developing the RCP scenarios. There are considerable uncertainties in the size of agricultural productivity under climate change, as yields are projected to vary spatially in signal and strength. Previous climate modeling work has considered the impacts to the carbon cycle of different levels of agricultural productivity growth, but has failed to consider the biogeophysical effects of the land use induced land cover change on climate. Here we examine the climate impacts of the assumption of agricultural productivity growth and business as usual land use. The effects are considered through the biogeophysical land use induced land cover change, using the Hadley Centre climate model HadGEM2. The model simulations use the set biogeochemical climate forcing of the RCP 4.5 scenario, but the biogeophysical land use change specification is altered over a 100 year simulation. Simulations are run with combinations of no land use change; standard RCP 4.5 land use change; business as usual land use change; and zero agricultural productivity growth. The key effect of no agricultural productivity growth is that more cropland is required to feed the same population, necessitating cropland expansion. The expansion of cropland and consequent deforestation increases the albedo and gives an extensive cooling effect in the northern hemisphere (up to 2°C). Differences in global mean temperature between the zero agricultural productivity growth with business as usual land use change specified run and the standard RCP 4.5 run are -0.2°C by 2040 and -0.7°C by 2100. There is

  14. Sequestering CO{sub 2} by Mineralization into Useful Nesquehonite-Based Products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Glasser, Fredrik Paul, E-mail: f.p.glasser@abdn.ac.uk; Jauffret, Guillaume; Morrison, Jennie [Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen (United Kingdom); Galvez-Martos, Jose-Luis; Patterson, Naomi; Imbabi, Mohammed Salah-Eldin [School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen (United Kingdom)

    2016-02-11

    The precipitation of magnesium hydroxy-carbonate hydrates has been suggested as a route to sequester CO{sub 2} into solids. We report the development of self-cementing compositions based on nesquehonite, MgCO{sub 3}⋅3H{sub 2}O, that are made from CO{sub 2}-containing gas streams, the CO{sub 2} being separated from other gases by its high solubility in alkaline water, while magnesium is typically provided by waste desalination brines. Precipitation conditions are adjusted to optimize the formation of nesquehonite and the crystalline solid can readily be washed free of chloride. Products can be prepared to achieve self-cementation following two routes: (i) thermal activation of the nesquehonite then rehydration of the precursor or (ii) direct curing of a slurry of nesquehonite. The products thus obtained contain ~30 wt% CO{sub 2} and could form the basis for a new generation of lightweight, thermally insulating boards, blocks, and panels, with sufficient strength for general construction.

  15. Proton induced L{sub 1}, L{sub 2}, L{sub 3}-sub-shell X-ray production cross sections of Hf and Au

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bertol, A.P.L., E-mail: anapaula.bertol@gmail.com [Programa de Pós-graduação em Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil); Hinrichs, R. [Programa de Pós-graduação em Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil); Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil); Vasconcellos, M.A.Z. [Programa de Pós-graduação em Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil); Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS (Brazil)

    2015-11-15

    Experimental data for proton induced X-ray production cross sections of L-sub-shells of Hf and Au were obtained, in order to contribute to the existing data sets and to support refinements of the ECPSSR theory. X-ray emissions of mono-elemental 10 nm films of Hf and Au were excited with 0.7–1.5 MeV protons. The measured L-line spectra were fitted assuming Gaussian shapes and constraining peak positions and line widths. The transition energy values used to establish peak positions were based on values proposed in the literature, while the line widths were matched to the detector resolution, obtained independently. The intensity of each line was obtained from the adjusted areas, without the use of emission rates. The line intensities were summed in α, β, γ, and ℓ groups to validate the measurements by comparison with existing data, and in L{sub 1}, L{sub 2}, L{sub 3}-sub-shells for comparison with ECPSSR-UA theory. Ratios of the emission rates of lines of the same sub-shell were obtained and compared with the data from the literature.

  16. Hydrothermal Valorization of Steel Slags—Part I: Coupled H{sub 2} Production and CO{sub 2} Mineral Sequestration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Crouzet, Camille [University Grenoble Alpes, University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, IRD, IFSTTAR, ISTerre, Grenoble (France); LRCS and RS2E, CNRS-UMR7314, University Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens (France); Aix Marseille University, CNRS, Centrale Marseille, M2P2, Marseille (France); Brunet, Fabrice, E-mail: fabrice.brunet@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr; Montes-Hernandez, German [University Grenoble Alpes, University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, IRD, IFSTTAR, ISTerre, Grenoble (France); Recham, Nadir [LRCS and RS2E, CNRS-UMR7314, University Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens (France); Findling, Nathaniel [University Grenoble Alpes, University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, IRD, IFSTTAR, ISTerre, Grenoble (France); Ferrasse, Jean-Henry [Aix Marseille University, CNRS, Centrale Marseille, M2P2, Marseille (France); Goffé, Bruno [Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, IRD, Coll. de France, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence (France)

    2017-10-30

    A new process route for the valorization of BOF steel slags combining H{sub 2} production and CO{sub 2} mineral sequestration is investigated at 300°C (HT) under hydrothermal conditions. A BOF steel slag stored several weeks outdoor on the production site was used as starting material. To serve as a reference, room temperature (RT) carbonation of the same BOF steel slag has been monitored with in situ Raman spectroscopy and by measuring pH and P{sub CO2} on a time-resolved basis. CO{sub 2} uptake under RT and HT are, respectively, 243 and 327 kg CO{sub 2}/t of fresh steel slag, which add up with the 63 kg of atmospheric CO{sub 2} per ton already uptaken by the starting steel slag on the storage site. The CO{sub 2} gained by the sample at HT is bounded to the carbonation of brownmillerite. H{sub 2} yield decreased by about 30% in comparison to the same experiment performed without added CO{sub 2}, due to sequestration of ferrous iron in a Mg-rich siderite phase. Ferric iron, initially present in brownmillerite, is partitioned between an Fe-rich clay mineral of saponite type and metastable hematite. Saponite is likely stabilized by the presence of Al, whereas hematite may represent a metastable product of brownmillerite carbonation. Mg-rich wüstite is involved in at least two competing reactions, i.e., oxidation into magnetite and carbonation into siderite. Results of both water-slag and water-CO{sub 2}-slag experiments after 72 h are consistent with a kinetics enhancement of the former reaction when a CO{sub 2} partial pressure imposes a pH between 5 and 6. Three possible valorization routes, (1) RT carbonation prior to hydrothermal oxidation, (2) RT carbonation after hydrothermal treatment, and (3) combined HT carbonation and oxidation are discussed in light of the present results and literature data.

  17. School Nutrition Directors' Perspectives on Preparing for and Implementing USDA's New School Meal Regulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yon, Bethany A.; Amin, Sarah A.; Taylor, Jennifer C.; Johnson, Rachel K.

    2016-01-01

    Purpose/Objectives: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) new school meals regulations went into effect in July 2012. The purpose of this research was to explore school nutrition director's (SNDs) perspectives and attitudes about the new regulations and to identify strategies used to prepare for and subsequently implement the regulations.…

  18. The impact of German biogas production on European and global agricultural markets, land use and the environment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Britz, Wolfgang; Delzeit, Ruth

    2013-01-01

    As part of its climate policy, Germany promotes the production of biogas via its so-called Renewable-Energy-Act (EEG). The resulting boost in biogas output went along with a significant increase in production of green maize, the dominant feedstock. Existing studies of the EEG have analysed its impacts on German agriculture without considering market feedback. We thus expand existing quantitative analysis by also considering impacts on European and global agricultural markets, land use and the environment by combining a detailed location model for biogas plants, the Regionalised Location Information System-Maize (ReSi-M2012), with a global Partial Equilibrium model for agriculture, the Common Agricultural Policy Regional Impact (CAPRI) model. Our results indicate that the German biogas production is large enough to have sizeable impacts on global agricultural markets in prices and quantities, causing significant land use change outside of Germany. While profits in the agricultural sector increase, food consumer face higher prices, and subsidies for biogas production are passed on to electricity consumers. The German biogas program, as long as it is almost entirely based on non-waste feedstocks, is probably not a promising avenue towards a GHG-saving renewable energy production, but a rather expensive one. - Highlights: • Recent changes to that program decrease green maize use but increase land demands. • The program could raise EU prices for cereals by 3%. • Agricultural land use expansion outside of the EU estimated at 1 Mio ha

  19. Danish emission inventory for agriculture. Inventories 1985 - 2009

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hjorth Mikkelsen, M; Albrektsen, R; Gyldenkaerne, S

    2011-02-15

    By regulations given in international conventions Denmark is obliged to work out an annual emission inventory and document the methodology. The National Environmental Research Institute (NERI) at Aarhus University (AU) in Denmark is responsible for calculating and reporting the emissions. This report contains a description of the emissions from the agricultural sector from 1985 to 2009. Furthermore, the report includes a detailed description of methods and data used to calculate the emissions, which is based on national methodologies as well as international guidelines. For the Danish emissions calculations and data management an Integrated Database model for Agricultural emissions (IDA) is used. The emission from the agricultural sector includes emission of the greenhouse gases methane (CH{sub 4}), nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}O), ammonia (NH{sub 3}), particulate matter (PM), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) and other pollutants related to the field burning of agricultural residue such as NO{sub x}, CO{sub 2}, CO, SO{sub 2}, heavy metals, dioxin and PAH. The ammonia emission from 1985 to 2009 has decreased from 119 300 tonnes of NH{sub 3} to 73 800 tonnes NH{sub 3}, corresponding to a 38 % reduction. The emission of greenhouse gases has decreased by 25 % from 12.9 M tonnes CO{sub 2} equivalents to 9.6 M tonnes CO{sub 2} equivalents from 1985 to 2009. Improvements in feed efficiency and utilisation of nitrogen in livestock manure are the most important reasons for the reduction of both the ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions. (Author)

  20. Ministerial Order concerning radioactive contamination of agricultural products

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1987-01-01

    The purpose of this Order is to implement at national level Articles 1 and 3 of the Council of the European Communities' Regulation No. 1707/86 of 30th May 1986, as amended by Commission Regulation No. 1762/86 of 5th June 1986 (Official Journal of the European Communities 1986 Nos. L 146 and L 152), on conditions for the import of agricultural products from non-European Community States after the Chernobyl accident [fr

  1. Influence of predictive contamination to agricultural products due to dry and wet processes during an accidental release of radionuclides

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hwang, Won Tae; Kim, Eun Han; Suh, Kyung Suk; Jeong, Hyo Joon; Han, Moon Hee; Lee, Chang Woo

    2003-01-01

    The influence of predictive contamination to agricultural products due to the wet processes as well as dry processes from radioactive air concentration during a nuclear emergency is comprehensively analyzed. The previous dynamic food chain model DYNACON considering Korean agricultural and environmental conditions, in which the initial input parameter was radionuclide concentrations on the ground, is improved so as to evaluate radioactive contamination to agricultural products from either radioactive air concentrations or radionuclide concentrations on the ground. As for the results, wet deposition is a more dominant mechanism than dry deposition in contamination on the ground. While, the contamination levels of agricultural products are strongly dependent on radionuclide and precipitation when the deposition of radionuclides occurs. It means that the contamination levels of agricultural products are determined from which is the more dominant process between deposition on the ground and interception to agricultural plants

  2. The association between chronic conditions and non-agricultural work productivity loss among the middle-aged Chinese population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Wei; Sun, Huiying; Li, Xin

    2018-05-03

    To measure the association between different chronic conditions and non-agricultural work productivity loss among the middle-aged Chinese population. We used 2011, 2013 and 2015 data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. The study focused on middle-aged respondents who had the potential to work in the non-agricultural sector. Work productivity loss was measured by non-agricultural work participation and number of absent workdays among those conducting non-agricultural work. Seven different chronic conditions were considered. Heart diseases had the strongest association with lower work participation for men and women. Stomach/digestive disease and arthritis/rheumatism were conditions with the largest incremental absent workdays for men and women, respectively. The associations with non-agricultural work productivity loss varied by chronic conditions, outcomes, and sex. The findings will help motivate chronic condition prevention/management programs and set priorities.

  3. Modeling Agricultural Crop Production in China using AVHRR-based Vegetation Health Indices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, B.; Kogan, F.; Guo, W.; Zhiyuan, P.; Xianfeng, J.

    Weather related crop losses have always been a concern for farmers On a wider scale it has always influenced decision of Governments traders and other policy makers for the purpose of balanced food supplies trade and distribution of aid to the nations in need Therefore national policy and decision makers are giving increasing importance to early assessment of crop losses in response to weather fluctuations This presentation emphasizes utility of AVHRR-based Vegetation health index VHI for early warning of drought-related losses of agricultural production in China The VHI is a three-channel index characterizing greenness vigor and temperature of land surface which can be used as proxy for estimation of how healthy and potentially productive could be vegetation China is the largest in the world producer of grain including wheat and rice and cotton In the major agricultural areas China s crop production is very dependent on weather The VHI being a proxy indicator of weather impact on vegetation showed some correlation with productivity of agricultural crops during the critical period of their development The periods of the strongest correlation were investigated and used to build regression models where crop yield deviation from technological trend was accepted as a dependent and VHI as independent variables The models were developed for several major crops including wheat corn and soybeans

  4. Adapting Agricultural Production Systems to Climate Change—What’s the Use of Models?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Annelie Holzkämper

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Climate change poses a challenge to agricultural production and its impacts vary depending on regional focus and on the type of production system. To avoid production losses and make use of emerging potentials, adaptations in agricultural management will inevitably be required. Adaptation responses can broadly be distinguished into (1 short-term incremental responses that farmers often choose autonomously in response to observed changes and based on local knowledge and experiences, and (2 long-term transformative responses that require strategic planning, and which are usually implemented at a larger spatial scale. Models can be used to support decision making at both response levels; thereby, different features of models prove more or less valuable depending on the type of adaptation response. This paper presents a systematic literature review on the state-of-the-art in modelling for adaptation planning in agricultural production systems, investigating the question of which model types can be distinguished and how these types differ in the way they support decision making in agricultural adaptation planning. Five types of models are distinguished: (1 empirical crop models; (2 regional suitability models; (3 biophysical models; (4 meta-models; and (5 decision models. The potential and limitations of these model types for providing decision-support to short- and long-term adaptation planning are discussed. The risk of maladaptation—adaptation that implies negative consequences either in the long term or in a wider context—is identified as a key challenge of adaptation planning that needs more attention. Maladaptation is not only a risk of decision making in the face of incomplete knowledge of future climate impacts on the agricultural production system; but it can also be a threat if the connectedness of the agroecosystem is not sufficiently acknowledged when management adaptations are implemented. Future research supporting climate change

  5. The effect of El-Niño on South Asian Monsoon and agricultural production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mukherjee, A.

    2015-12-01

    Mukherjee A, Wang S.Y.Abstract:The South Asian Monsoon has a prominent and significant impact on South Asian countries like India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and it is one of the most studied phenomena in the world. The monsoon is historically known to be influenced by El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The inter-annual and inter-decadal variability of seasonal precipitation over India strongly depends upon the ENSO phasing. The average southwest monsoon rainfall received during the years with El Niño was found to be less compared to normal years and the average rainfall during the northeast monsoon is higher in coastal Andhra Pradesh. ENSO is anti-correlated with Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The last prominent effect of ENSO on India's monsoon occurred in 2009 with 23% reduction in annual rainfall, reducing summer sown crops such as rice, sugar cane etc. and pushing up food prices. Climatic resources endowment plays a major role in planning agricultural production in tropical and sub-tropical environment especially under rain-fed agriculture, and so contingent crop planning drawn on this relationship would help to mitigate the effects of ENSO episodes in the region. The unexplored area in this domain of research is the changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO due to global warming and its impact on ENSO prediction and agricultural management practices. We analyze the last 30 years datasets of Pacific SST, and precipitation and air temperature over Southeast Asia to examine the evolution of ENSO teleconnections with ISM, as well as making estimates of drought indices such as Palmer Drought Severity Index. This research can lead toward better crop management strategies in the South Asian monsoon region.

  6. Soil Degradation-Induced Decline in Productivity of Sub-Saharan African Soils: The Prospects of Looking Downwards the Lowlands with the Sawah Ecotechnology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sunday E. Obalum

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper provides an insight into the problem of land degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa, with emphasis on soil erosion and its effect on soil quality and productivity, and proposes a lowland-based rice-production technology for coping with the situation. Crop yields are, in addition to the degree of past and current erosion, determined by a number of interacting variables. This, coupled with the generally weak database on erosion-induced losses in crop yield in spite of the region’s high vulnerability to erosion, makes it difficult to attain a reliable inference on the cause-effect relationship between soil loss and productivity. Available data suggest, however, that the region is at risk of not meeting up with the challenges of agriculture in this 21st century. Based on the few studies reviewed, methodology appears to have an overwhelming influence on the erosion-productivity response, whereas issues bordering on physical environment and soil affect the shape of the response curve. We argue that the sawah ecotechnology has the potential of countering the negative agronomic and environmental impacts of land degradation in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a farmer-oriented, low-cost system of managing soil, water, and nutrient resources for enhancing lowland rice productivity and realizing Green Revolution in the region.

  7. Linking Remote Sensing Data and Energy Balance Models for a Scalable Agriculture Insurance System for sub-Saharan Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, M. E.; Osgood, D. E.; McCarty, J. L.; Husak, G. J.; Hain, C.; Neigh, C. S. R.

    2014-12-01

    One of the most immediate and obvious impacts of climate change is on the weather-sensitive agriculture sector. Both local and global impacts on production of food will have a negative effect on the ability of humanity to meet its growing food demands. Agriculture has become more risky, particularly for farmers in the most vulnerable and food insecure regions of the world such as East Africa. Smallholders and low-income farmers need better financial tools to reduce the risk to food security while enabling productivity increases to meet the needs of a growing population. This paper will describe a recently funded project that brings together climate science, economics, and remote sensing expertise to focus on providing a scalable and sensor-independent remote sensing based product that can be used in developing regional rainfed agriculture insurance programs around the world. We will focus our efforts in Ethiopia and Kenya in East Africa and in Senegal and Burkina Faso in West Africa, where there are active index insurance pilots that can test the effectiveness of our remote sensing-based approach for use in the agriculture insurance industry. The paper will present the overall program, explain links to the insurance industry, and present comparisons of the four remote sensing datasets used to identify drought: the CHIRPS 30-year rainfall data product, the GIMMS 30-year vegetation data product from AVHRR, the ESA soil moisture ECV-30 year soil moisture data product, and a MODIS Evapotranspiration (ET) 15-year dataset. A summary of next year's plans for this project will be presented at the close of the presentation.

  8. Construction of the All-region Linkage System for Emergency Management of Agricultural Product Quality and Safety in West China

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Hua; YU; Yanbin; QI; Yubao; YAN

    2013-01-01

    Quality and safety of agricultural products are significant for national socioeconomic development,sustainable development,and vital interests of people.To safeguard quality and safety of agricultural products in west China is to safeguard economic safety and ecological safety of the country,public health and social stability,of which an important task is to properly handle emergencies concerning quality and safety of agricultural products.Considering actual conditions of west China,suggestions are given to construct the all-region linkage system for emergency management of agricultural product quality and safety in the local area,enhance the all-region linkage,and improve the linkage efficiency.

  9. 49 CFR 1300.5 - Additional publication requirement for agricultural products and fertilizer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... RAIL COMMON CARRIAGE § 1300.5 Additional publication requirement for agricultural products and....C. 75, and all products thereof) and fertilizer, a rail carrier shall publish, make available, and... identification of the changes, the nature of those changes and their effective dates. (c) A rail carrier must...

  10. Agrarian-Economic Structure of Agricultural Holdings in Poland and East Germany: Selected Elements of Comparative Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jezierska-Thöle Aleksandra

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to determine differences in the development of farms in Poland against the agriculture of East Germany, and to show areas with similar conditions for development. The time range of the research covered the years 2002-2010, i.e. the stage of preparation of Polish agriculture for accession to the European Union, the implementation of pre-accession aid programmes, and the establishment and implementation of the tools of the Common Agricultural Policy. To assess the level of agricultural development, natural, productive and social characteristics were adopted. Spatial variations in the analysed features were based on the variation coefficient (Vz, and the level of agricultural development, on Perkal’s index (Wi. In the analysed period the range of variation and the degree of the spatial dispersion of sub-indices changed, indicating a deepening of the polarisation processes in agriculture. The implementation of CAP intensified the process of specialisation and modernisation in agriculture, an example of which is the increase in the average farm size and in agricultural productivity. On the other hand, agricultural production intensified, as exemplified by a decrease in the minimum value in six of the analysed characteristics, which indicates growing disparities.

  11. Transfer of radionuclides into and their removal from agricultural products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hisamatsu, Shun-ichi [Akita Univ. (Japan). School of Medicine; Takizawa, Yukio

    1996-12-31

    Transfer of radionuclides to agricultural products and their removal before ingestion are reviewed briefly. Ingestion of {sup 137}Cs through various food groups were intensively has been studied from 1960s. The results of these studies indicated that cereals were relatively important food groups in Japan, while dairy products were a critical food group in Western countries. However, Westernization of Japanese diet and other factors recently make dairy products more important. In the case of {sup 137}Cs ingestion from the Chernobyl accident, 43% of total {sup 137}Cs intake was ingested through dairy products. The removal of radionuclides from food by washing, preparing and cooking is also discussed. (author)

  12. Influence of radioactive contamination to agricultural products due to dry and wet deposition processes during a nuclear emergency

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hwang, Won Tae; Kim, Eun Han; Suh, Kyung Suk; Han, Moon Hee; Choi, Yong Ho; Lee, Chang Woo

    2002-01-01

    Combined with deposition model onto the ground of radionuclides, the influence of radioactive contamination to agricultural products was analyzed due to wet deposition as well as dry deposition from radioactive air concentration during a nuclear emergency. The previous dynamic food chain model, in which initial input parameter is only radionuclide concentrations on the ground, was improved for the evaluating of radioactive contamination to agricultural products from either radionuclide concentrations in air or radionuclide concentrations on the ground. As the results, in case of deposition onto the ground, wet deposition was more dominant process than dry deposition. While the contamination levels of agricultural products were dependent on the a variety of factors such as radionuclides and rainfall rate. It means that the contamination levels of agricultural products are determined from which is more dominant process between deposition on the ground and interception onto agricultural plants

  13. Assessment of Agricultural Water Productivity for Tea Production in Tea Fields of Guilan Province

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    kourosh majdsalimi

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Water productivity index is one of the main factors in efficient use of water for agricultural products. In this study, the rate of water productivity (WP in six irrigated tea fields and three rainfed (no irrigation were assessed by farmer’s management for two years (2009-2010. Yield of each tea field in successive harvests, soil moisture monitoring by gravimetric soil and use of water balance equation was conducted during the growing seasons. Volume of water entered to irrigation system and amount of water reached to surface level were also measured. Tea mean yield in irrigated and rainfed field were 2843 and 1095 Kg. ha-1, respectively. Average of gross irrigation and effective rainfall (WP and irrigation water productivity (IWP in the irrigated fields were 4.39 and 4.55 kg (made tea ha-1 mm-1 and average of net WP (actual evaportanspiration and net IWP was 5.18 and 6.61 kg ha-1 mm-1, respectively. Average WP in rainfed tea fields was 3.4 kg ha-1 for each mm of effective rainfall. The most effective factors on WP reduction in tea fields were improper harvesting operations (un standard plucking and economic problems. Moreover, improper operation and maintenance and old irrigation systems and unprincipled irrigation scheduling in irrigated tea fields were also effective on WP reduction. Comparing the results of this study with other studies in past, showed that by implementing the proper methods in irrigation management and appropriate agricultural practices can improve water productivity in tea fields.

  14. Catalytic Transformation of Waste CO{sub 2} into Valuable Products

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anderson, Jason; Shepard, Peter; Valente, Ron

    2013-09-30

    Novomer’s novel materials contain up to 50% by mass CO{sub 2} and provide a unique platform for re-using CO{sub 2} from waste industrial sources and converting it into useful products. This Report covers the progress made by Novomer during the DOE funded project (DOE Award #: DE-FE0002474) under the “Carbon Capture and Sequestration from Industrial Sources and Innovative Concepts for Beneficial CO{sub 2} Use” program. This includes Phase 1 and Phase 2, including all three subphases of the latter. Novomer completed all technical and commercial objectives in both Phase 1 and Phase 2, including the six Phase 2 Objectives outlined in the SOPO within budget by the project end date of September 30, 2013. These are: validating the economics are competitive, validate the carbon footprint, validate acceptable product performance, verify robust manufacturing process, validate large markets exist, and qualify at least 3 products with customers.

  15. Selective photocatalytic reduction of CO{sub 2} by H{sub 2}O/H{sub 2} to CH{sub 4} and CH{sub 3}OH over Cu-promoted In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} nanocatalyst

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tahir, Muhammad, E-mail: mtahir@cheme.utm.my [Chemical Reaction Engineering Group (CREG), Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, UTM, Johor Bahru, Johor (Malaysia); Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Punjab (Pakistan); Tahir, Beenish; Saidina Amin, Nor Aishah; Alias, Hajar [Chemical Reaction Engineering Group (CREG), Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, UTM, Johor Bahru, Johor (Malaysia)

    2016-12-15

    Highlights: • Cu-promoted In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} nanocatalysts tested for CO{sub 2} photoreduction with H{sub 2}O/H{sub 2}. • Production of CH{sub 4} and CH{sub 3}OH depends on reductants type and metal-loading to TiO{sub 2}. • CH{sub 4} production over Cu-In/TiO{sub 2} was 1.5 fold more than In/TiO{sub 2} and 5 times the TiO{sub 2}. • The Cu-promoted CH{sub 3}OH production while In gave more CH{sub 4} with water vapors. • The H{sub 2} reductant gave negative effect for CH{sub 4} but enhanced CH{sub 3}OH production. - Abstract: Photocatalytic CO{sub 2} reduction by H{sub 2}O and/or H{sub 2} reductant to selective fuels over Cu-promoted In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} photocatalyst has been investigated. The samples, prepared via a simple and direct sol-gel method, were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, N{sub 2} adsorption-desorption, UV–vis diffuse reflectance, Raman and PL spectroscopy. Cu and In loaded into TiO{sub 2}, oxidized as Cu{sup 2+} and In{sup 3+}, promoted efficient separation of photo-generated electron/hole pairs (e{sup −}/h{sup +}). The results indicate that the reduction rate of CO{sub 2} by H{sub 2}O to CH{sub 4} approached to 181 μmol g{sup −1} h{sup −1} using 0.5% Cu-3% In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} catalyst, a 1.53 fold higher than the production rate over the 3% In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} and 5 times the amount produced over the pure TiO{sub 2}. In addition, Cu was found to promote efficient production of CH{sub 3}OH and yield rate reached to 68 μmol g{sup −1} h{sup −1} over 1% Cu-3% In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} catalyst. This improvement was attributed to charge transfer property and suppressed recombination rate by Cu-metal. More importantly, H{sub 2} reductant was less favorable for CH{sub 4} production, yet a significant amount of CH{sub 4} and CH{sub 3}OH were obtained using a mixture of H{sub 2}O/H{sub 2} reductant. Therefore, Cu-loaded In{sub 2}O{sub 3}/TiO{sub 2} catalyst has shown to be capable for

  16. Female Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Key to Development?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Browne, Angela W.; Barrett, Hazel R.

    1991-01-01

    In sub-Saharan Africa, aggregate data show that female literacy is associated with higher agricultural productivity and is more strongly correlated than GNP with mortality and immunization rates of young children. A case study of Gambia confirms these relationships, with high female illiteracy apparently impeding both human and economic…

  17. Grassland-Cropping Rotations: An Avenue for Agricultural Diversification to Reconcile High Production with Environmental Quality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lemaire, Gilles; Gastal, François; Franzluebbers, Alan; Chabbi, Abad

    2015-11-01

    A need to increase agricultural production across the world to ensure continued food security appears to be at odds with the urgency to reduce the negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. Around the world, intensification has been associated with massive simplification and uniformity at all levels of organization, i.e., field, farm, landscape, and region. Therefore, we postulate that negative environmental impacts of modern agriculture are due more to production simplification than to inherent characteristics of agricultural productivity. Thus by enhancing diversity within agricultural systems, it should be possible to reconcile high quantity and quality of food production with environmental quality. Intensification of livestock and cropping systems separately within different specialized regions inevitably leads to unacceptable environmental impacts because of the overly uniform land use system in intensive cereal areas and excessive N-P loads in intensive animal areas. The capacity of grassland ecosystems to couple C and N cycles through microbial-soil-plant interactions as a way for mitigating the environmental impacts of intensive arable cropping system was analyzed in different management options: grazing, cutting, and ley duration, in order to minimize trade-offs between production and the environment. We suggest that integrated crop-livestock systems are an appropriate strategy to enhance diversity. Sod-based rotations can temporally and spatially capture the benefits of leys for minimizing environmental impacts, while still maintaining periods and areas of intensive cropping. Long-term experimental results illustrate the potential of such systems to sequester C in soil and to reduce and control N emissions to the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

  18. The production and utilization of by-product agricultural fertilizer from flue gases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Frank, N.W.; Hirano, S.

    1992-01-01

    The electron-beam process is one of the most effective methods for removing SO 2 and NO X from industrial flue gases and producing a usable by-product. This paper surveys the potential for production and consumption of alternative, usable, commercial by-products, in conjunction with major reductions in the inventory of emissions of SO 2 and NO X . An examination is made of the important limitations in the annual consumptive use or price of and/or net revenues from commonplace, electric utility, by-product types such as gypsum, sulfuric acid, etc. A principal focus of the work is an analysis and quantification of the major large-scale, growing and profitable markets for utility solid wastes that can be generated in agricultural fertilizer forms, including ammonium sulfate and other compounds that are available through stack-gas cleaning operations at large, coal-fired boilers. Cost study data is arranged to define the impact of commercial by-product yield and revenue on the economics of full scale SO 2 and NO X emission reduction activity. (author)

  19. Measurement of the cross-section ratio {sigma}({chi}{sub c2})/{sigma}({chi}{sub c1}) for prompt {chi}{sub c} production at {radical}(s)=7 TeV

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aaij, R. [Nikhef National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Abellan Beteta, C. [Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain); Adeva, B. [Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Adinolfi, M. [H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol (United Kingdom); Adrover, C. [CPPM, Aix-Marseille Universite, CNRS/IN2P3, Marseille (France); Affolder, A. [Oliver Lodge Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Liverpool (United Kingdom); Ajaltouni, Z. [Clermont Universite, Universite Blaise Pascal, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, Clermont-Ferrand (France); Albrecht, J.; Alessio, F. [European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland); Alexander, M. [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow (United Kingdom); Alkhazov, G. [Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), Gatchina (Russian Federation); Alvarez Cartelle, P. [Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela (Spain); Alves, A.A. [Sezione INFN di Roma La Sapienza, Roma (Italy); Amato, S. [Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Amhis, Y. [Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne (Switzerland); Anderson, J. [Physik-Institut, Universitaet Zuerich, Zuerich (Switzerland); Appleby, R.B. [School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester (United Kingdom); Aquines Gutierrez, O. [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik (MPIK), Heidelberg (Germany); Archilli, F. [Laboratori Nazionali dell' INFN di Frascati, Frascati (Italy); European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland); Arrabito, L. [CC-IN2P3, CNRS/IN2P3, Lyon-Villeurbanne (France); and others

    2012-08-14

    The prompt production of the charmonium {chi}{sub c1} and {chi}{sub c2} mesons has been studied in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of {radical}(s)=7 TeV. The {chi}{sub c} mesons are identified through their decays {chi}{sub c}{yields}J/{psi}{gamma} with J/{psi}{yields}{mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} using 36 pb{sup -1} of data collected by the LHCb detector in 2010. The ratio of the prompt production cross-sections for the two {chi}{sub c} spin states, {sigma}({chi}{sub c2})/{sigma}({chi}{sub c1}), has been determined as a function of the J/{psi} transverse momentum, p{sub T}{sup J/{psi}}, in the range from 2 to 15 GeV/c. The results are in agreement with the next-to-leading order non-relativistic QCD model at high p{sub T}{sup J/{psi}} and lie consistently above the pure leading-order colour-singlet prediction.

  20. Environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural products--are the differences captured by life cycle assessment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meier, Matthias S; Stoessel, Franziska; Jungbluth, Niels; Juraske, Ronnie; Schader, Christian; Stolze, Matthias

    2015-02-01

    Comprehensive assessment tools are needed that reliably describe environmental impacts of different agricultural systems in order to develop sustainable high yielding agricultural production systems with minimal impacts on the environment. Today, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used to assess and compare the environmental sustainability of agricultural products from conventional and organic agriculture. However, LCA studies comparing agricultural products from conventional and organic farming systems report a wide variation in the resource efficiency of products from these systems. The studies show that impacts per area farmed land are usually less in organic systems, but related to the quantity produced impacts are often higher. We reviewed 34 comparative LCA studies of organic and conventional agricultural products to analyze whether this result is solely due to the usually lower yields in organic systems or also due to inaccurate modeling within LCA. Comparative LCAs on agricultural products from organic and conventional farming systems often do not adequately differentiate the specific characteristics of the respective farming system in the goal and scope definition and in the inventory analysis. Further, often only a limited number of impact categories are assessed within the impact assessment not allowing for a comprehensive environmental assessment. The most critical points we identified relate to the nitrogen (N) fluxes influencing acidification, eutrophication, and global warming potential, and biodiversity. Usually, N-emissions in LCA inventories of agricultural products are based on model calculations. Modeled N-emissions often do not correspond with the actual amount of N left in the system that may result in potential emissions. Reasons for this may be that N-models are not well adapted to the mode of action of organic fertilizers and that N-emission models often are built on assumptions from conventional agriculture leading to even greater

  1. Did the Establishment of Poyang Lake Eco-Economic Zone Increase Agricultural Labor Productivity in Jiangxi Province, China?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tao Wu

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we take the establishment of Poyang Lake Eco-Economic Zone in 2009 as a quasi-natural experiment, to evaluate its influence on the agricultural labor productivity in Jiangxi Province, China. The estimation results of the DID method show that the establishment of the zone reduced agricultural labor productivity by 3.1%, lowering farmers’ net income by 2.5% and reducing the agricultural GDP by 3.6%. Furthermore, this negative effect has increased year after year since 2009. However, the heterogeneity analysis implies that the agricultural labor productivities of all cities in Jiangxi Province will ultimately converge. We find that the lack of agricultural R&D activities and the abuse of chemical fertilizers may be the main reasons behind the negative influence of the policy, by examining two possible transmission channels—the R&D investment and technological substitution. Corresponding policy implications are also provided.

  2. Water in agriculture: The roles of nuclear techniques

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Heng, L.; Nguyen, L.

    2006-01-01

    Agriculture accounts for nearly seventy percent of the world's demand for fresh water. Improper management of this resource has contributed extensively to the current water scarcity and pollution problems in many parts of the world, and is a serious challenge to future food security and environmental sustainability. Addressing these issues requires an integrated approach to soilwater- plant-nutrient management at the plant-rooting zone, where water use for food and agriculture and farm management can significantly modify the quantity and quality of both surface and ground water. Nuclear technologies can contribute significantly to alleviate constraints/limitations to agricultural productivity and thus fight hunger and poverty by providing quantitative, precise, specific and dynamic information about the key components of productivity and sustainability (sources, availability, uptake and losses) of major nutrients and water. The Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition (SWMCN) sub-programme is assisting Member States to develop and promote the adoption of nuclear-based technologies for optimising water and nutrient management practices, which support intensification of crop production and the preservation of natural resources. To ensure food security and sustainable water management for agriculture, there is a need to produce more food per drop of water used in the agricultural sector. That is to increase both the Crop Water Productivity (CWP) and Water Use Efficiency (WUE) without any negative impact on downstream water quantity and quality. The IAEA is currently conducting CWP studies in various parts of the world (China, Kenya, Turkey and Uzbekistan) using nuclear and associated techniques to assess soil and water management and water-saving technologies to increase crop productivity and reduce crop failure for the farmers. One of these technologies is fertigation, which is the direct application of water and nutrients to plants through a drip irrigation

  3. Immobilizer-assisted management of metal-contaminated agricultural soils for safer food production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Kwon-Rae; Kim, Jeong-Gyu; Park, Jeong-Sik; Kim, Min-Suk; Owens, Gary; Youn, Gyu-Hoon; Lee, Jin-Su

    2012-07-15

    Production of food crops on metal contaminated agricultural soils is of concern because consumers are potentially exposed to hazardous metals via dietary intake of such crops or crop derived products. Therefore, the current study was conducted to develop management protocols for crop cultivation to allow safer food production. Metal uptake, as influenced by pH change-induced immobilizing agents (dolomite, steel slag, and agricultural lime) and sorption agents (zeolite and compost), was monitored in three common plants representative of leafy (Chinese cabbage), root (spring onion) and fruit (red pepper) vegetables, in a field experiment. The efficiency of the immobilizing agents was assessed by their ability to decrease the phytoavailability of metals (Cd, Pb, and Zn). The fruit vegetable (red pepper) showed the least accumulation of Cd (0.16-0.29 mgkg(-1) DW) and Pb (0.2-0.9 mgkg(-1) DW) in edible parts regardless of treatment, indicating selection of low metal accumulating crops was a reasonable strategy for safer food production. However, safer food production was more likely to be achievable by combining crop selection with immobilizing agent amendment of soils. Among the immobilizing agents, pH change-induced immobilizers were more effective than sorption agents, showing decreases in Cd and Pb concentrations in each plant well below standard limits. The efficiency of pH change-induced immobilizers was also comparable to reductions obtained by 'clean soil cover' where the total metal concentrations of the plow layer was reduced via capping the surface with uncontaminated soil, implying that pH change-induced immobilizers can be practically applied to metal contaminated agricultural soils for safer food production. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Greenhouse gas emissions from Swiss agriculture since 1990: implications for environmental policies to mitigate global warming

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Leifeld, Jens [AGROSCOPE, Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture, Air Pollution/Climate Group, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046 Zurich (Switzerland)]. E-mail: jens.leifeld@fal.admin.ch; Fuhrer, Juerg [AGROSCOPE, Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture, Air Pollution/Climate Group, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046 Zurich (Switzerland)

    2005-08-01

    Agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contribute significantly to global warming, and environmental protection strategies have thus to integrate emission reduction measures from this source. In Switzerland, legislation together with monetary incentives has forced primarily integrated, and to a lesser extend organic farming, both covering nowadays more than 95% of the agriculturally useful area. Though reducing greenhouse gas emissions was not a primary intention of this reorganisation, the measures were successful in reducing the overall emissions of nitrous oxide and methane by 10% relative to 1990. A reduction of the animal herd, namely of dairy cattle, non-dairy cattle and swine, and decreasing inputs of mineral N are the main contributors to the achieved emission reduction. Crop productivity was not negatively affected and milk productivity even increased, referring to the ecological potential of agricultural reorganisation that has been tapped. Total meat production declined proportional to the animal herd. Stabilised animal numbers and fertiliser use during the last 4 years refer to an exhaustion of future reduction potentials without further legislative action because this stabilisation is most likely due to the adaptation to the production guidelines. A comparison of emission trends and carbon sequestration potentials in the broader context of the EU15 reveals that nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}O) and methane (CH{sub 4}) have been reduced more efficiently most probably due to the measures taken, but that sequestration potentials are smaller than in the EU15 mainly because of differences in the agricultural structure. The change from an intensified towards a more environmental sound integrated production has a significant reduction potential, but in any case, agriculture will remain a net GHG source in spite of emission mitigation and carbon sequestration.

  5. Angular dependence of high-p/sub T/ pi /sup 0/ production

    CERN Document Server

    Lloyd-Owen, D; Bellettini, G; Braccini, Pier Luigi; Castaldi, R; Cavasinni, V; Del Prete, T; Finocchiaro, G; Grannis, P D; Jöstlein, H; Kephart, R D; Laurelli, P; Sanguinetti, G; Thun, R; Valdata-Nappi, M

    1981-01-01

    The authors have measured inclusive pi /sup 0/ production cross- sections at the CERN ISR for p/sub T/ <5 GeV/c at c.m. angles of theta =90 degrees and 5< theta <22 degrees at c.m. energies square root s=23 and 53 GeV. The data are in agreement with previous measurements of pi degrees production at FNAL and the ISR. The authors have compared these data with the hypothesis of radial scaling, which asserts that the inclusive cross section should be a function of x/sub R/ and p/sub T/ alone. Here x/sub R/ is the fraction of available energy carried by the produced particle. They find that radial scaling is not satisfactory over the energy and angle range of this experiment. Comparing their data with radial scaling fits to mainly FNAL data, the authors find that their cross sections approach ten times the prediction at large p/sub T/ and x/sub R/. As a more direct test of the hypothesis, the authors compare their data for which x/sub R/ variation occurs as theta varies at fixed s, with that from ISR expe...

  6. Gender Differences in Access to Extension Services and Agricultural Productivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ragasa, Catherine; Berhane, Guush; Tadesse, Fanaye; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: This article contributes new empirical evidence and nuanced analysis on the gender difference in access to extension services and how this translates to observed differences in technology adoption and agricultural productivity. Approach: It looks at the case of Ethiopia, where substantial investments in the extension system have been…

  7. How Could Agricultural Land Systems Contribute to Raise Food Production Under Global Change?

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    WU Wen-bin; YU Qiang-yi; Verburg H Peter; YOU Liang-zhi; YANG Peng; TANG Hua-jun

    2014-01-01

    To feed the increasing world population, more food needs to be produced from agricultural land systems. Solutions to produce more food with fewer resources while minimizing adverse environmental and ecological consequences require sustainable agricultural land use practices as supplementary to advanced biotechnology and agronomy. This review paper, from a land system perspective, systematically proposed and analyzed three interactive strategies that could possibly raise future food production under global change. By reviewing the current literatures, we suggest that cropland expansion is less possible amid iferce land competition, and it is likely to do less in increasing food production. Moreover, properly allocating crops in space and time is a practical way to ensure food production. Climate change, dietary shifts, and other socio-economic drivers, which would shape the demand and supply side of food systems, should be taken into consideration during the decision-making on rational land management in respect of sustainable crop choice and allocation. And ifnally, crop-speciifc agricultural intensiifcation would play a bigger role in raising future food production either by increasing the yield per unit area of individual crops or by increasing the number of crops sown on a particular area of land. Yet, only when it is done sustainably is this a much more effective strategy to maximize food production by closing yield and harvest gaps.

  8. Evaluating multiple indices of agricultural water use efficiency and productivity to improve comparisons between sites and trends

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levy, M. C.

    2012-12-01

    Approximately 70% of global available freshwater supplies are used in the agricultural sector. Increased demands for water to meet growing population food requirements, and expected changes in the reliability of freshwater supplies due to climate change, threaten the sustainability of water supplies worldwide - not only on farms, but in connected cities and industries. Researchers concerned with agricultural water use sustainability use a variety of theoretical and empirical measures of efficiency and productivity to gain insight into the sustainability of agricultural water use. However, definitions of measures, or indices, vary between different natural and political boundaries, across regions, states and nations and between their respective research, industry, and environmental groups. Index development responds to local data availability and local agendas, and there is debate about the validity of various indices. However, real differences in empirical index measures are not well-understood across the multiple disciplines that study agricultural water use, including engineering and hydrology, agronomy, climate and soil sciences, and economics. Nevertheless reliable, accessible, and generalizable indices are required for planners and policymakers to promote sustainable water use systems. This study synthesizes a set of water use efficiency and productivity indices based on academic, industry and government literature in California and Australia, two locations with similarly water-stressed and valuable agricultural industries under pressure to achieve optimal water use efficiency and productivity. Empirical data at the irrigation district level from the California San Joaquin Valley and Murray Darling Basin states of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia are used to compute indices that estimate efficiency, yield productivity, and economic productivity of agricultural water use. Multiple index estimates of same time-series data demonstrate historical spread

  9. Production of the excited charm mesons D{sub 1} and D{sup *}{sub 2} at HERA

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abramowicz, H. [Tel Aviv Univ. (Israel). School of Physics; Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich (Germany); Abt, I. [Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich (Germany); Adamczyk, L. [AGH-Univ. of Science and Technology, Krakow (Poland). Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science] [and others; Collaboration: ZEUS Collaboration

    2012-08-15

    The production of the excited charm mesons D{sub 1}(2420) and D{sup *}{sub 2}(2460) in ep collisions has been measured with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 373 pb{sup -1}. The masses of the neutral and charged states, the widths of the neutral states, and the helicity parameter of D{sub 1}(2420){sup 0} were determined and compared with other measurements and with theoretical expectations. The measured helicity parameter of the D{sup 0}{sub 1} allows for some mixing of S- and D-waves in its decay to D{sup *{+-}}{pi}{sup -+}. The result is also consistent with a pure D-wave decay. Ratios of branching fractions of the two decay modes of the D{sup *}{sub 2}(2460){sup 0} and D{sup *}{sub 2}(2460){sup {+-}} states were measured and compared with previous measurements. The fractions of charm quarks hadronising into D{sub 1} and D{sup *}{sub 2} were measured and are consistent with those obtained in e{sup +}e{sup -} annihilations.

  10. The food production and consumption balance in sub-Saharan Africa under different SSPs, from 2010 to 2050

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wada, Y.; Luan, Y.; Fischer, G.; Sun, L.; Shi, P.

    2015-12-01

    Forcing with the population growth and consequently increasing food requirement, food security in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most emergent and challenging issues. The purposes of this work are 1) what's the future food requirement and their food security status in each sub-Saharan African countries? What is the distance from current and future food security status, corresponding to the food requirement, to the targeted food security status? 2) To what extent Sub-Saharan countries could meet their present and future food requirement, and whether they have potential to improve their food insecurity status on currently cultivated land? 3) Whether or, if there have, how the pressures on land resources from meeting the food requirements? To figure those questions out, we firstly use socio-economic pathways datasets, and historical food diet pattern classification to forecast the 2010-2050 food commodity and feed calories demand per country. A new food security indicator, which considered the influences of both the food energy and quality intake, was used to evaluate the food insecurity status and the distances to different targeted statuses of the specific country. The latest Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ) databases were used to estimate the current and future crop yield gap and crop potential production. For current to future scenario analysis, we considered population growth, dietary change, climate change, agricultural input level, and target food security status. Then the balance of food requirement with the current and potential crop production was analyzed for different scenarios. Land requirements were calculated for meeting those food requirements, and the pressures on land resources are evaluated. Our works are hoping to provide scientific-based evidences for policy recommendations for local government to tackle food insecurity problems in Sub-Saharan Africa.

  11. The organic agricultural waste as a basic source of biohydrogen production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sriwuryandari, Lies; Priantoro, E. Agung; Sintawardani, Neni; Astuti, J. Tri; Nilawati, Dewi; Putri, A. Mauliva Hada; Mamat, Sentana, Suharwadji; Sembiring, T.

    2016-02-01

    Biohydrogen production research was carried out using raw materials of agricultural organic waste that was obtained from markets around the Bandung city. The organic part, which consisted of agricultural waste material, mainly fruit and vegetable waste, was crushed and milled using blender. The sludge that produced from milling process was then used as a substrate for mixed culture microorganism as a raw material to produce biohydrogen. As much as 1.2 kg.day-1 of sludge (4% of total solid) was fed into bioreactor that had a capacity of 30L. Experiment was done under anaerobic fermentation using bacteria mixture culture that maintained at pH in the range of 5.6-6.5 and temperature of 25-30oC on semi-continuous mode. Parameters of analysis include pH, temperature, total solid (TS), organic total solid (OTS), total gas production, and hydrogen gas production. The results showed that from 4% of substrate resulted 897.86 L of total gas, which contained 660.74 L (73.59%) of hydrogen gas. The rate of hydrogen production in this study was 11,063 mol.L-1.h-1.

  12. Comparative research of international exchange of plant products

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Đorović Milutin T.

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available The well known events which had taken place in our country over the period 1989-2001 provoked adverse effects on foreign trade exchange of the total economy, agriculture and commodities of plant origin. These effects and changes were analyzed using corresponding indices for the sub periods 1989-1992 and 1998-2001. The foreign trade exchange balance was substantially negative in both sub periods over the analyzed period showing an aggravating trend. Export covering import declined from 78.09% to only 47.71%. The positive balance of exchange of agricultural, especially commodities of plant origin in the first four years was turned into a negative balance of exchange in the second four years. Export covering import at the agricultural level declined from 164.79% to 78.58% and at the level of commodities of plant origin from 201,76% to 87.35%. There was a significant disturbance of commodity and regional structure exchange. The share of agriculture in the total export of the country was raised from 13.82% to 18.16%. The share of plant originating commodities in the total export of agriculture was raised from 71,96% to 86,34%. Basic agricultural products predominated in the export. In addition, in the domestic export the share of developed countries decreased which contributed to poor export results and increased the import dependence of the country. Considering the above said, the need arises to increase substantially agricultural production, i.e. commodities of plant origin. The structure and output of these productions should meet the needs of both domestic and foreign markets. International standards need to be applied in order to take hold of new foreign markets, exporting high technology processed products, using intensive and efficient promotive activities. Subsequently, greater investments and a planned production are needed, liberalization and especially the system of import control in foreign trade exchange of agricultural products, i

  13. 18 Prerequisite for Sustainable Agricultural Development in the Sub ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    User

    2011-07-21

    Jul 21, 2011 ... Keywords: Prerequisite, agricultural development, sustainable .... into many areas of policy and public provision, reducing subsidies and bringing ... indirectly influence agricultural prices is often far greater than the effects of.

  14. A study on the effect of board of directors on the rate of corporate transparency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iman Rezaei

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The main target of this study is to consider the effect of the combination of board of directors on the corporate transparency in some companies among selected ones in Tehran Stock Exchange Market over the period of 2007- 2010. In this research, the combination of board of directors is selected among some factors of corporate transparency such as structure of ownership and the rights of owners, financial information and statistics and structure and combination of board of directors and managers as a sub-indicator for corporate governance. Linear regression statistical method is used to test hypotheses of study. The size of α is considered as 5% and hypotheses are accepted or rejected by means of Durbin-Watson and Clemogrov-Smirnov tests and by comparing p-value with α. At last, by means of forward regression method, the effect of control variables is considered over each hypothesis. The results show that the members of board of directors have no effect on partnership transparency, but effect on financial data and information and structure and combination of board of directors.

  15. Vulnerability of Rehabilitated Agricultural Production Systems to Invasion by Nontarget Plant Species

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baer, Sara G.; Engle, David M.; Knops, Johannes M. H.; Langeland, Kenneth A.; Maxwell, Bruce D.; Menalled, Fabian D.; Symstad, Amy J.

    2009-02-01

    Vast areas of arable land have been retired from crop production and “rehabilitated” to improved system states through landowner incentive programs in the United States (e.g., Conservation and Wetland Reserve Programs), as well as Europe (i.e., Agri-Environment Schemes). Our review of studies conducted on invasion of rehabilitated agricultural production systems by nontarget species elucidates several factors that may increase the vulnerability of these systems to invasion. These systems often exist in highly fragmented and agriculturally dominated landscapes, where propagule sources of target species for colonization may be limited, and are established under conditions where legacies of past disturbance persist and prevent target species from persisting. Furthermore, rehabilitation approaches often do not include or successfully attain all target species or historical ecological processes (e.g., hydrology, grazing, and/or fire cycles) key to resisting invasion. Uncertainty surrounds ways in which nontarget species may compromise long term goals of improving biodiversity and ecosystem services through rehabilitation efforts on former agricultural production lands. This review demonstrates that more studies are needed on the extent and ecological impacts of nontarget species as related to the goals of rehabilitation efforts to secure current and future environmental benefits arising from this widespread conservation practice.

  16. High-x sub T single-spin asymmetry in. pi. sup 0 and. eta. production at x sub F =0 by 200 GeV polarized antiprotons and protons

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Adams, D L; Akchurin, N; Belikov, N I; Bystricky, J; Corcoran, M D; Cossairt, J D; Cranshaw, J; Derevschikov, A A; En' yo, H; Funahashi, H; Goto, Y; Grachov, O A; Grosnick, D P; Hill, D A; Imai, K; Itow, Y; Iwatani, K; Krueger, K W; Kuroda, K; Laghai, M; Lehar, F; Lesquen, A de; Lopiano, D; Luehring, F C; Maki, T; Makino, S; Masaike, A; Matulenko, Yu A; Meschanin, A P; Michalowicz, A; Miller, D H; Miyake, K; Nagamine, T; Nessi-Tedaldi, F; Nessi, M; Nguyen, C; Nurushev, S B; Ohashi, Y; Onel, Y; Patalakha, D I; Pauletta, G; Penzo, A; Read, A L; Roberts, J B; Van Rossum, L; Rykov, V L; Saito, N; Salvato, G; Schiavon, P; Skeens, J; Solovyanov, V L; Spinka, H; Takashima, R; Takeutchi, F; Tamura, N; Tanaka, N; Underwood, D G; Vasiliev, A N; Villari, A; White, J L; Yamashita, S; Yokosawa, A; Yoshida, T; Zanetti, A [T.W. Bonner Nuclear Lab., Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States) Dept. of Physics, Univ. Iowa, Iowa City, IA (Unite; FNAL E704 Collaboration

    1992-02-20

    A measurement of the single-spin asymmetry A{sub N} in p{up arrow}+p{yields}{pi}{sup 0}+X at 200 GeV with x{sub F}=0 shows a transition in the production process from a 'low-x{sub T}' regime with A{sub N}=0, through an intermediate region of negative asymmetry, to a 'high-x{sub T}' regime with A{sub N}>0.3. This transition occurs at x{sub T}{approx equal}0.4 and is consistent with x{sub T}-scaling of A{sub N} in pion production using polarized beams or targets from {radical}-s=5.2 to 19.4 GeV. Results for A{sub N} in {eta} production by polarized protons and in {pi}{sup 0} production by polarized antiprotons are also presented. (orig.).

  17. A Grape Production Guide for Vocational Agriculture Instructors in Washington. Final Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Padelford, Stewart L.; Cvancara, Joseph G., Ed.

    This curriculum guide is intended to provide vocational agriculture instructors with an up-to-date resource dealing with grape production in Washington. Addressed in the individual units of the guide are the following topics: the history of grape production; grape types important to Washington; site selection for a vineyard; establishment and…

  18. Innovation platform: A tool for sustainable rice production in Ghana ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Agriculture plays a key role in Ghana's economy and that of sub Saharan Africa. Transforming agriculture in Ghana is key to increasing farm output, reducing poverty, ensuring environmental sustainability and reducing food insecurity. Linear transfer of technology addressing productivity, marketing and policy underlies the ...

  19. Evaluating and predicting the effectiveness of farmland consolidation on improving agricultural productivity in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Yeting; Jin, Xiaobin; Xiang, Xiaomin; Gan, Le; Yang, Xuhong; Zhang, Zhihong; Zhou, Yinkang

    2018-01-01

    Food security has always been a focus issue in China. Farmland consolidation (FC) was regarded as a critical way to increase the quantity and improve the quality of farmland to ensure food security by Chinese government. FC projects have been nationwide launched, however few studies focused on evaluating the effectiveness of FC at a national scale. As such, an efficient way to evaluate the effectiveness of FC on improving agricultural productivity in China will be needed and it is critical for future national land consolidation planning. In this study, we selected 7505 FC projects completed between 2006 and 2013 with good quality Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as samples to evaluate the effectiveness of FC. We used time-series Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer NDVI from 2001 to 2013, to extract four indicators to characterize agricultural productivity change of 4442 FC projects completed between 2006 and 2010, i.e., productivity level (PL), productivity variation (PV), productivity potential (PP), and multi-cropping index (MI). On this basis, we further predicted the same four characteristics for 3063 FC projects completed between 2011 and 2013, respectively, using Support Vector Machines (SVM). We found FC showed an overall effective status on improving agricultural productivity between 2006 and 2013 in China, especially on upgrading PL and improving PP. The positive effect was more prominent in the southeast and eastern China. It is noteworthy that 27.30% of all the 7505 projects were still ineffective on upgrading PL, the elementary improvement of agricultural productivity. Finally, we proposed that location-specific factors should be taken into consideration for launching FC projects and diverse financial sources are also needed for supporting FC. The results provide a reference for government to arrange FC projects reasonably and to formulate land consolidation planning in a proper way that better improve the effectiveness of FC.

  20. Evaluating and predicting the effectiveness of farmland consolidation on improving agricultural productivity in China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiang, Xiaomin; Gan, Le; Yang, Xuhong; Zhang, Zhihong; Zhou, Yinkang

    2018-01-01

    Food security has always been a focus issue in China. Farmland consolidation (FC) was regarded as a critical way to increase the quantity and improve the quality of farmland to ensure food security by Chinese government. FC projects have been nationwide launched, however few studies focused on evaluating the effectiveness of FC at a national scale. As such, an efficient way to evaluate the effectiveness of FC on improving agricultural productivity in China will be needed and it is critical for future national land consolidation planning. In this study, we selected 7505 FC projects completed between 2006 and 2013 with good quality Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as samples to evaluate the effectiveness of FC. We used time-series Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer NDVI from 2001 to 2013, to extract four indicators to characterize agricultural productivity change of 4442 FC projects completed between 2006 and 2010, i.e., productivity level (PL), productivity variation (PV), productivity potential (PP), and multi-cropping index (MI). On this basis, we further predicted the same four characteristics for 3063 FC projects completed between 2011 and 2013, respectively, using Support Vector Machines (SVM). We found FC showed an overall effective status on improving agricultural productivity between 2006 and 2013 in China, especially on upgrading PL and improving PP. The positive effect was more prominent in the southeast and eastern China. It is noteworthy that 27.30% of all the 7505 projects were still ineffective on upgrading PL, the elementary improvement of agricultural productivity. Finally, we proposed that location-specific factors should be taken into consideration for launching FC projects and diverse financial sources are also needed for supporting FC. The results provide a reference for government to arrange FC projects reasonably and to formulate land consolidation planning in a proper way that better improve the effectiveness of FC