Role of Sectoral Transformation in Evolution of Water Management in Agricultural Catchments: A Socio-hydrologic Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roobavannan, Mahendran; Kandasamy, Jaya; Pande, Saket; Vigneswaran, Saravanamuthu; Sivapalan, Murugesu

2017-04-01

Sustainable development in society depends on an understanding of how communities interact with the natural system and how they co-evolve in time. Increasingly the livelihood and future viability of agricultural communities are being threatened by competition for water between food production and the environment. This study focused on this water-agriculture-environment nexus as it played out in the Murrumbidgee River Basin, Australia, and how co-evolution of society and water management occurred. Over 100 years of agricultural development the Murrumbidgee Basin has experienced a "pendulum swing" in terms of water allocation entirely to agriculture production at the expense of the environment, and eventually to the reallocation of water back to the environment. This pendulum swing has been attributed to a combination of increased national wealth, reduced share of agriculture in the national GDP, and to increased environment awareness of environmental degradation. Environment awareness depends on the structure of the economy, education, and socio-politic structure. As the basin economy develops accompanied by sectoral transformation, basin production becomes increasingly dependent on the industry sector. A loss of economic dependence on agriculture leads to a lower emphasis on the need to allocate water to agriculture. Society's value and preference turns around and is motivated towards the protection of the ecosystem. We hypothesize that in the competition of water use between economic livelihood and environment well being of society, economic diversification pushed the balance in towards the environment. In order to test this hypothesis, we developed a coupled socio-hydrologic model, which explicitly considers bi-directional feedbacks between human and water systems to explore how the competition for water played out in the Murrumbidgee. We demonstrate this by linking the dynamics of the economy of the whole (agriculture and industry) to community sentiment for the

Modelling the water-agricultural sector in Rosetta, Egypt: exploring the interaction between water and food

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sušnik, Janez; Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, Lydia; Savic, Dragan; Kapelan, Zoran

2014-05-01

An integrated System Dynamics Model for the Rosetta region, Egypt, assessing local water balance and agricultural yield to 2050, is presented. Fifty-seven simulations are analysed to better understand potential impacts on water and food security resulting from climate and social change and local/regional policy decisions related to the agricultural sector. Water limitation is a national issue: Egypt relies on the Nile for >95% of supply, and the flow of which is regulated by the Aswan High Dam. Egypt's share water of Aswan water is limited to 55 x 19 m3 yr-1. Any reduction in supply to the reservoir or increase in demand (e.g. from an expanding agricultural sector), has the potential to lead to a serious food and water supply situation. Results show current water resource over-exploitation. The remaining suite of 56 simulations, divided into seven scenarios, also mostly show resource overexploitation. Only under significant increases to Nile flow volumes was the trend reversed. Despite this, by threading together multiple local policies to reduce demand and improve/maintain supply, water resource exploitation can be mitigated while allowing for agricultural development. By changing cropping patterns, it is possible to improve yield and revenue, while using up to 21% less water in 2050 when compared with today. The results are useful in highlighting pathways to improving future water resource availability. Many policies should be considered in parallel, introducing redundancy into the policy framework. We do not suggest actual policy measures; this was beyond the scope of the work. This work highlights the utility of systems modelling of complex systems such as the water-food nexus, with the potential to extend the methodology to other studies and scales. In particular, the benefit of being able to easily modify and extend existing models in light of results from initial modelling efforts is cited. Analysis of initial results led to the hypothesis that by producing

Time series GHG emission estimates for residential, commercial, agriculture and fisheries sectors in India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mohan, Riya Rachel

2018-04-01

Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are the major cause of global warming and climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main GHG emitted through human activities, at the household level, by burning fuels for cooking and lighting. As per the 2006 methodology of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the energy sector is divided into various sectors like electricity generation, transport, fugitive, 'other' sectors, etc. The 'other' sectors under energy include residential, commercial, agriculture and fisheries. Time series GHG emission estimates were prepared for the residential, commercial, agriculture and fisheries sectors in India, for the time period 2005 to 2014, to understand the historical emission changes in 'other' sector. Sectoral activity data, with respect to fuel consumption, were collected from various ministry reports like Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Statistics, Energy Statistics, etc. The default emission factor(s) from IPCC 2006 were used to calculate the emissions for each activity and sector-wise CO2, CH4, N2O and CO2e emissions were compiled. It was observed that the residential sector generates the highest GHG emissions, followed by the agriculture/fisheries and commercial sector. In the residential sector, LPG, kerosene, and fuelwood are the major contributors of emissions, whereas diesel is the main contributor to the commercial, agriculture and fisheries sectors. CO2e emissions have been observed to rise at a cumulative annual growth rate of 0.6%, 9.11%, 7.94% and 5.26% for the residential, commercial, agriculture and fisheries sectors, respectively. In addition to the above, a comparative study of the sectoral inventories from the national inventories, published by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, for 2007 and 2010 was also performed.

Conceptualizations of water security in the agricultural sector: Perceptions, practices, and paradigms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malekian, Atefe; Hayati, Dariush; Aarts, Noelle

2017-01-01

Conceptions of agricultural water security are conditioned by larger understandings of being and reality. It is still unclear what such understandings mean for perspectives on water security in general and on causes and solutions related to perceived water security risks and problems in agricultural sector in particular. Based on a systematic literature review, three conceptualizations of water security, related to different paradigms, are presented. Also the consequences of such conceptualizations for determining research objectives, research activities, and research outcomes on agricultural water security are discussed. The results showed that agricultural water security from a positivist paradigm referred to tangible and measurable water-related hazards and threats, such as floods and droughts, pollution, and so forth. A constructivist approach to agricultural water security, constituted by a process of interaction and negotiation, pointed at perceptions of water security of farmers and other stakeholders involved in agricultural sector. A critical approach to agricultural water security focused on the processes of securing vulnerable farmers and others from wider political, social, and natural impediments to sufficient water supplies. The conclusions of the study suggest that paradigms, underlying approaches should be expressed, clarified, and related to one another in order to find optimal and complementary ways to study water security issues in agricultural sector.

Ammonia emissions from the agriculture sector in Argentina; 2000-2012

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castesana, Paula S.; Dawidowski, Laura E.; Finster, Laura; Gómez, Darío R.; Taboada, Miguel A.

2018-04-01

Agriculture is one of the key economic sectors in Argentina and, in the last decades, the increase in prices and competitiveness of some grains has imposed important changes. In this process, crop cultivation occupied significant extensions of land areas previously dedicated to livestock farming, which in turn have experienced intensification in terms of production through an increasing share of feedlot systems. The agriculture sector is the main NH3 emitter in Argentina, however no inventory developed locally has been thus far available. We estimated the time series 2000-2012 of NH3 emissions, both at national and spatially disaggregated levels. National NH3 emissions in 2012 amounted to 0.31 ± 0.08 Tg, with the use of mineral fertilizers accounting for 43.0%, manure in pasture 32.5%, manure management 23.0% and agricultural waste burning 1.5%. Urea use was the major source of NH3 emissions and its application on wheat and corn crops dominated the trend. Emissions from open biomass burning were estimated but not included in the national totals because of the difficulties in differentiating between agricultural (i.e., prescribed burning of savannas) and non-agricultural emission sources. Compared to this work, NH3 emissions reported by EDGAR were 83% higher than our estimates. The time series of spatially distributed NH3 emission estimates clearly showed the effect of the expansion of cropland, the displacement of planted areas of N-fertilizes crops by competing soybean cultivation and the relocation and intensification of beef cattle production. This new inventory constitutes a tool for policies concerning the impact of agricultural activities on air quality and contributes with more accurate and updated information useful for atmospheric chemical transport modeling. The accuracy and applicability of the inventory may be improved by local studies aimed at refining the spatial disaggregation by focusing in specific areas of fertilizer application, reflecting

Assessing effects of mitigation strategies for global climate change with an intertemporal model of the U.S. forest and agriculture sectors.

Treesearch

Ralph J. Alig; Darius M. Adams; Bruce McCarl; J.M. Callaway; Steven Winnett

1997-01-01

A model of product and land markets in U.S. forest and agricultural sectors is used to examine the private forest management, land use, and market implications of carbon sequestration policies implemented in a "least social cost" fashion. Results suggest: policy-induced land use changes may generate compensating land use shifts through markets: land use...

Recent developments in nanotechnology transforming the agricultural sector: a transition replete with opportunities.

PubMed

Kim, Dae-Young; Kadam, Avinash; Shinde, Surendra; Saratale, Rijuta Ganesh; Patra, Jayanta; Ghodake, Gajanan

2018-02-01

The applications and benefits of nanotechnology in the agricultural sector have attracted considerable attention, particularly in the invention of unique nanopesticides and nanofertilisers. The contemporary developments in nanotechnology are acknowledged and the most significant opportunities awaiting the agriculture sector from the recent scientific and technical literature are addressed. This review discusses the significance of recent trends in nanomaterial-based sensors available for the sustainable management of agricultural soil, as well as the role of nanotechnology in detection and protection against plant pathogens, and for food quality and safety. Novel nanosensors have been reported for primary applications in improving crop practices, food quality, and packaging methods, thus will change the agricultural sector for potentially better and healthier food products. Nanotechnology is well-known to play a significant role in the effective management of phytopathogens, nutrient utilisation, controlled release of pesticides, and fertilisers. Research and scientific gaps to be overcome and fundamental questions have been addressed to fuel active development and application of nanotechnology. Together, nanoscience, nanoengineering, and nanotechnology offer a plethora of opportunities, proving a viable alternative in the agriculture and food processing sector, by providing a novel and advanced solutions. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Brief History of Agricultural Systems Modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, James W.; Antle, John M.; Basso, Bruno O.; Boote, Kenneth J.; Conant, Richard T.; Foster, Ian; Godfray, H. Charles J.; Herrrero, Mario; Howitt, Richard E.; Janssen, Sandor;

Brief history of agricultural systems modeling.

PubMed

Jones, James W; Antle, John M; Basso, Bruno; Boote, Kenneth J; Conant, Richard T; Foster, Ian; Godfray, H Charles J; Herrero, Mario; Howitt, Richard E; Janssen, Sander; Keating, Brian A; Munoz-Carpena, Rafael; Porter, Cheryl H; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Wheeler, Tim R

2017-07-01

Agricultural systems science generates knowledge that allows researchers to consider complex problems or take informed agricultural decisions. The rich history of this science exemplifies the diversity of systems and scales over which they operate and have been studied. Modeling, an essential tool in agricultural systems science, has been accomplished by scientists from a wide range of disciplines, who have contributed concepts and tools over more than six decades. As agricultural scientists now consider the "next generation" models, data, and knowledge products needed to meet the increasingly complex systems problems faced by society, it is important to take stock of this history and its lessons to ensure that we avoid re-invention and strive to consider all dimensions of associated challenges. To this end, we summarize here the history of agricultural systems modeling and identify lessons learned that can help guide the design and development of next generation of agricultural system tools and methods. A number of past events combined with overall technological progress in other fields have strongly contributed to the evolution of agricultural system modeling, including development of process-based bio-physical models of crops and livestock, statistical models based on historical observations, and economic optimization and simulation models at household and regional to global scales. Characteristics of agricultural systems models have varied widely depending on the systems involved, their scales, and the wide range of purposes that motivated their development and use by researchers in different disciplines. Recent trends in broader collaboration across institutions, across disciplines, and between the public and private sectors suggest that the stage is set for the major advances in agricultural systems science that are needed for the next generation of models, databases, knowledge products and decision support systems. The lessons from history should be

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

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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

Modeling the Heterogeneous Effects of GHG Mitigation Policies on Global Agriculture and Forestry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golub, A.; Henderson, B.; Hertel, T. W.; Rose, S. K.; Sohngen, B.

2010-12-01

Agriculture and forestry are envisioned as potentially key sectors for climate change mitigation policy, yet the depth of analysis of mitigation options and their economic consequences remains remarkably shallow in comparison to that for industrial mitigation. Farming and land use change - much of it induced by agriculture -account for one-third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Any serious attempt to curtail these emissions will involve changes in the way farming is conducted, as well as placing limits on agricultural expansion into areas currently under more carbon-intensive land cover. However, agriculture and forestry are extremely heterogeneous, both in the technology and intensity of production, as well as in the GHG emissions intensity of these activities. And these differences, in turn, give rise to significant changes in the distribution of agricultural production, trade and consumption in the wake of mitigation policies. This paper assesses such distributional impacts via a global economic analysis undertaken with a modified version of the GTAP model. The paper builds on a global general equilibrium GTAP-AEZ-GHG model (Golub et al., 2009). This is a unified modeling framework that links the agricultural, forestry, food processing and other sectors through land, and other factor markets and international trade, and incorporates different land-types, land uses and related CO2 and non-CO2 GHG emissions and sequestration. The economic data underlying this work is the global GTAP data base aggregated up to 19 regions and 29 sectors. The model incorporates mitigation cost curves for different regions and sectors based on information from the US-EPA. The forestry component of the model is calibrated to the results of the state of the art partial equilibrium global forestry model of Sohngen and Mendelson (2007). Forest carbon sequestration at both the extensive and intensive margins are modeled separately to better isolate land competition between

Water-centric nexus for response to climate change on agriculture and forest sector: The case of the Korean Peninsula

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lim, C. H.; Choi, Y.; Jeon, S. W.; Lee, W. K.

2017-12-01

Given their complexity and the number of stakeholders involved, it is difficult to solve social issues or problems based on an analysis that focuses on a single dimension. In particular, research surrounding climate change is inherently multidisciplinary and there is a need for highly pluralistic nexuses that can be used as a framework for policy decisions. Here, we suggest to water-centric nexus on agriculture and forest sector to improve response to climate change. The nexus is composed agricultural water demand and forest water supply to enhancing water-related adaptation to climate change in the Korean Peninsula. Agricultural productivity and water use related variables was estimating by EPIC crop model, and InVEST model applied for estimation of forest water supply. Results under two climate change scenarios (RCP4.5 and 8.5) and time period (2050s and 2070s), the forest water supply for the all future climate scenarios will increase significantly. In case of agriculture, irrigated crops experienced only the benefits of climate change, but rainfed crops were negatively impacted. It was also found that crop irrigation demand in the future is expected to be around twice as high as baseline levels, thus making irrigation more difficult to successfully implement. These hydrological threats have the potential to greatly reduce food security. In the nexus perspectives, the drop in the productivity of rainfed crops and the increase in irrigation demand in the agriculture sector can be resolved through interconnections with the forest sector. Appropriate management of the water supply in future climatic conditions characterized by increasing precipitation can maintain and expand agricultural areas through irrigation. To achieve this, a time-series water supply versus demand analysis must be performed so that an accurate balance between supply and demand can be established. Water-centric interactions of the agriculture and forest are the basis of nexus-based adaptation

Next generation agricultural system data, models and knowledge products: Introduction.

PubMed

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

2017-07-01

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.

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

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

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.

Brief history of agricultural systems modeling

DOE PAGES

Jones, James W.; Antle, John M.; Basso, Bruno; ...

2017-06-21

Agricultural systems science generates knowledge that allows researchers to consider complex problems or take informed agricultural decisions. The rich history of this science exemplifies the diversity of systems and scales over which they operate and have been studied. Modeling, an essential tool in agricultural systems science, has been accomplished by scientists from a wide range of disciplines, who have contributed concepts and tools over more than six decades. As agricultural scientists now consider the "next generation" models, data, and knowledge products needed to meet the increasingly complex systems problems faced by society, it is important to take stock of thismore » history and its lessons to ensure that we avoid re-invention and strive to consider all dimensions of associated challenges. To this end, we summarize here the history of agricultural systems modeling and identify lessons learned that can help guide the design and development of next generation of agricultural system tools and methods. A number of past events combined with overall technological progress in other fields have strongly contributed to the evolution of agricultural system modeling, including development of process-based bio-physical models of crops and livestock, statistical models based on historical observations, and economic optimization and simulation models at household and regional to global scales. Characteristics of agricultural systems models have varied widely depending on the systems involved, their scales, and the wide range of purposes that motivated their development and use by researchers in different disciplines. Recent trends in broader collaboration across institutions, across disciplines, and between the public and private sectors suggest that the stage is set for the major advances in agricultural systems science that are needed for the next generation of models, databases, knowledge products and decision support systems. Furthermore, the lessons from

Brief history of agricultural systems modeling

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jones, James W.; Antle, John M.; Basso, Bruno

Agricultural systems science generates knowledge that allows researchers to consider complex problems or take informed agricultural decisions. The rich history of this science exemplifies the diversity of systems and scales over which they operate and have been studied. Modeling, an essential tool in agricultural systems science, has been accomplished by scientists from a wide range of disciplines, who have contributed concepts and tools over more than six decades. As agricultural scientists now consider the "next generation" models, data, and knowledge products needed to meet the increasingly complex systems problems faced by society, it is important to take stock of thismore » history and its lessons to ensure that we avoid re-invention and strive to consider all dimensions of associated challenges. To this end, we summarize here the history of agricultural systems modeling and identify lessons learned that can help guide the design and development of next generation of agricultural system tools and methods. A number of past events combined with overall technological progress in other fields have strongly contributed to the evolution of agricultural system modeling, including development of process-based bio-physical models of crops and livestock, statistical models based on historical observations, and economic optimization and simulation models at household and regional to global scales. Characteristics of agricultural systems models have varied widely depending on the systems involved, their scales, and the wide range of purposes that motivated their development and use by researchers in different disciplines. Recent trends in broader collaboration across institutions, across disciplines, and between the public and private sectors suggest that the stage is set for the major advances in agricultural systems science that are needed for the next generation of models, databases, knowledge products and decision support systems. Furthermore, the lessons from

Climate change impact modelling needs to include cross-sectoral interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harrison, Paula A.; Dunford, Robert W.; Holman, Ian P.; Rounsevell, Mark D. A.

2016-09-01

Climate change impact assessments often apply models of individual sectors such as agriculture, forestry and water use without considering interactions between these sectors. This is likely to lead to misrepresentation of impacts, and consequently to poor decisions about climate adaptation. However, no published research assesses the differences between impacts simulated by single-sector and integrated models. Here we compare 14 indicators derived from a set of impact models run within single-sector and integrated frameworks across a range of climate and socio-economic scenarios in Europe. We show that single-sector studies misrepresent the spatial pattern, direction and magnitude of most impacts because they omit the complex interdependencies within human and environmental systems. The discrepancies are particularly pronounced for indicators such as food production and water exploitation, which are highly influenced by other sectors through changes in demand, land suitability and resource competition. Furthermore, the discrepancies are greater under different socio-economic scenarios than different climate scenarios, and at the sub-regional rather than Europe-wide scale.

Development and application of a mechanistic model to estimate emission of nitrous oxide from UK agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, L.; Syed, B.; Jarvis, S. C.; Sneath, R. W.; Phillips, V. R.; Goulding, K. W. T.; Li, C.

A mechanistic model of N 2O emission from agricultural soil (DeNitrification-DeComposition—DNDC) was modified for application to the UK, and was used as the basis of an inventory of N 2O emission from UK agriculture in 1990. UK-specific input data were added to DNDC's database and the ability to simulate daily C and N inputs from grazing animals and applied animal waste was added to the model. The UK version of the model, UK-DNDC, simulated emissions from 18 different crop types on the 3 areally dominant soils in each county. Validation of the model at the field scale showed that predictions matched observations well. Emission factors for the inventory were calculated from estimates of N 2O emission from UK-DNDC, in order to maintain direct comparability with the IPCC approach. These, along with activity data, were included in a transparent spreadsheet format. Using UK-DNDC, the estimate of N 2O-N emission from UK current agricultural practice in 1990 was 50.9 Gg. This total comprised 31.7 Gg from the soil sector, 5.9 Gg from animals and 13.2 Gg from the indirect sector. The range of this estimate (using the range of soil organic C for each soil used) was 30.5-62.5 Gg N. Estimates of emissions in each sector were compared to those calculated using the IPCC default methodology. Emissions from the soil and indirect sectors were smaller with the UK-DNDC approach than with the IPCC methodology, while emissions from the animal sector were larger. The model runs suggested a relatively large emission from agricultural land that was not attributable to current agricultural practices (33.8 Gg in total, 27.4 Gg from the soil sector). This 'background' component is partly the result of historical agricultural land use. It is not normally included in inventories of emission, but would increase the total emission of N 2O-N from agricultural land in 1990 to 78.3 Gg.

Spatially complex land change: The Indirect effect of Brazil's agricultural sector on land use in Amazonia

PubMed Central

Richards, Peter D.; Walker, Robert T.; Arima, Eugenio Y.

2014-01-01

Soybean farming has brought economic development to parts of South America, as well as environmental hopes and concerns. A substantial hope resides in the decoupling of Brazil's agricultural sector from deforestation in the Amazon region, in which case expansive agriculture need not imply forest degradation. However, concerns have also been voiced about the potential indirect effects of agriculture. This article addresses these indirect effects forthe case of the Brazilian Amazon since 2002. Our work finds that as much as thirty-two percent of deforestation, or the loss of more than 30,000 km2 of Amazon forest, is attributable, indirectly, to Brazil's soybean sector. However, we also observe that the magnitude of the indirect impact of the agriculture sector on forest loss in the Amazon has declined markedly since 2006. We also find a shift in the underlying causes of indirect land use change in the Amazon, and suggest that land appreciation in agricultural regions has supplanted farm expansions as a source of indirect land use change. Our results are broadly congruent with recent work recognizing the success of policy changes in mitigating the impact of soybean expansion on forest loss in the Amazon. However, they also caution that the soybean sector may continue to incentivize land clearings through its impact on regional land markets. PMID:25492993

Evaluation of the Food and Agriculture Sector Criticality Assessment Tool (FASCAT) and the Collected Data.

PubMed

Huff, Andrew G; Hodges, James S; Kennedy, Shaun P; Kircher, Amy

2015-08-01

To protect and secure food resources for the United States, it is crucial to have a method to compare food systems' criticality. In 2007, the U.S. government funded development of the Food and Agriculture Sector Criticality Assessment Tool (FASCAT) to determine which food and agriculture systems were most critical to the nation. FASCAT was developed in a collaborative process involving government officials and food industry subject matter experts (SMEs). After development, data were collected using FASCAT to quantify threats, vulnerabilities, consequences, and the impacts on the United States from failure of evaluated food and agriculture systems. To examine FASCAT's utility, linear regression models were used to determine: (1) which groups of questions posed in FASCAT were better predictors of cumulative criticality scores; (2) whether the items included in FASCAT's criticality method or the smaller subset of FASCAT items included in DHS's risk analysis method predicted similar criticality scores. Akaike's information criterion was used to determine which regression models best described criticality, and a mixed linear model was used to shrink estimates of criticality for individual food and agriculture systems. The results indicated that: (1) some of the questions used in FASCAT strongly predicted food or agriculture system criticality; (2) the FASCAT criticality formula was a stronger predictor of criticality compared to the DHS risk formula; (3) the cumulative criticality formula predicted criticality more strongly than weighted criticality formula; and (4) the mixed linear regression model did not change the rank-order of food and agriculture system criticality to a large degree. © 2015 Society for Risk Analysis.

Agricultural sectoral demand and crop productivity response across the world

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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

Bridging the Divide: Challenges and Opportunities for Public Sector Agricultural Professionals Working with Amish and Mennonite Producers on Conservation.

PubMed

Brock, Caroline; Ulrich-Schad, Jessica D; Prokopy, Linda

2018-05-01

As Amish and Old Order and Conservative Mennonite (i.e., Plain) farmers increase their presence in the agricultural sector, it is crucial for public sector agricultural professionals to effectively work with them to mediate nonpoint source pollution and address issues like the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. However, there is a dearth of research on how public sector agricultural professionals can better work with Plain producers on environmental management. There are also few training resources for those working with this key, yet hard to reach, population. Additionally, due to their religious doctrines, Plain communities strive to live apart from the "world" and may be discouraged from working with government entities and attending non-Plain people events. This study analyzes interview data from 23 Amish farmers in one region of Indiana and 18 public sector agricultural professionals from a variety of backgrounds and geographies in areas of the U.S. with heavy Plain populations. Public sector agricultural professionals identified some key agronomic challenges on Plain farms related to issues like poor pasture and manure management as well as socio-cultural challenges such as restrictions on electronic and phone communication. Educators should design outreach strategies that take into consideration that faith convictions and conservation concerns may vary greatly based on the specificities of the particular Plain church group. By better understanding this population and how to work with them, public sector agricultural professionals can more effectively work towards addressing environmental problems with this under-served group.

The System Dynamics Model for Development of Organic Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rozman, Črtomir; Škraba, Andrej; Kljajić, Miroljub; Pažek, Karmen; Bavec, Martina; Bavec, Franci

2008-10-01

Organic agriculture is the highest environmentally valuable agricultural system, and has strategic importance at national level that goes beyond the interests of agricultural sector. In this paper we address development of organic farming simulation model based on a system dynamics methodology (SD). The system incorporates relevant variables, which affect the development of the organic farming. The group decision support system (GDSS) was used in order to identify most relevant variables for construction of causal loop diagram and further model development. The model seeks answers to strategic questions related to the level of organically utilized area, levels of production and crop selection in a long term dynamic context and will be used for simulation of different policy scenarios for organic farming and their impact on economic and environmental parameters of organic production at an aggregate level.

Searching for solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by agricultural policy decisions--Application of system dynamics modeling for the case of Latvia.

PubMed

Dace, Elina; Muizniece, Indra; Blumberga, Andra; Kaczala, Fabio

2015-09-15

European Union (EU) Member States have agreed to limit their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (non-ETS). That includes also emissions from agricultural sector. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has established a methodology for assessment of GHG emissions from agriculture, the forecasting options are limited, especially when policies and their interaction with the agricultural system are tested. Therefore, an advanced tool, a system dynamics model, was developed that enables assessment of effects various decisions and measures have on agricultural GHG emissions. The model is based on the IPCC guidelines and includes the main elements of an agricultural system, i.e. land management, livestock farming, soil fertilization and crop production, as well as feedback mechanisms between the elements. The case of Latvia is selected for simulations, as agriculture generates 22% of the total anthropogenic GHG emissions in the country. The results demonstrate that there are very limited options for GHG mitigation in the agricultural sector. Thereby, reaching the non-ETS GHG emission targets will be very challenging for Latvia, as the level of agricultural GHG emissions will be exceeded considerably above the target levels. Thus, other non-ETS sectors will have to reduce their emissions drastically to "neutralize" the agricultural sector's emissions for reaching the EU's common ambition to move towards low-carbon economy. The developed model may serve as a decision support tool for impact assessment of various measures and decisions on the agricultural system's GHG emissions. Although the model is applied to the case of Latvia, the elements and structure of the model developed are similar to agricultural systems in many countries. By changing numeric values of certain parameters, the model can be applied to analyze decisions and measures in other countries. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All

Demanded competences in the agricultural engineering sector in Spain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perdigones, A.; García, J. L.; Benavente, R. M.; Tarquis, A. M.

2009-04-01

An engineering education should prepare students, i.e., emerging engineers, to use problem-solving processes that combine creativity and imagination with rigour and discipline. The emphasis on training engineers may be best placed on answering the needs of industry; indeed, many proposals are now being made to try to reduce the gap between the educational and industrial communities. Training in the use of certain skills or competences may be one way of better preparing engineering undergraduates for eventual employment in industry. However, industry's needs in this respect must first be known. The aim of this work was to determine which skills are used by practising agricultural engineers with the aim of incorporating training in their use into our department's teaching curriculum. Three surveys were undertaken to determine which skills are demanded by agricultural engineers in their professional activities in Spain. Surveys were carried out by the Department of Rural Engineering, Technical University of Madrid (Spain), analysing two related degrees (agricultural engineer with a duration of the study plan of three and five years, respectively) during the courses 2006/07 and 2007/08. The first survey determined the competences acquired by the students along their academic studies (371 students interviewed). The second survey determined the skills demanded by the enterprises of the agricultural sector (50 enterprises interviewed). The third survey determined the skills demanded by the agricultural engineers working in the sector (70 engineers interviewed), specifically asking about the computer programs used by practising agricultural engineers. Surveys showed important differences between the competences demanded by the enterprises and the competences acquired by the students at the university. Enterprises mainly demanded general competences (team working, time organizing, and skills with computer programs) and were less interested in specific technical skills

Efficiency in the European agricultural sector: environment and resources.

PubMed

Moutinho, Victor; Madaleno, Mara; Macedo, Pedro; Robaina, Margarita; Marques, Carlos

2018-04-22

This article intends to compute agriculture technical efficiency scores of 27 European countries during the period 2005-2012, using both data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) with a generalized cross-entropy (GCE) approach, for comparison purposes. Afterwards, by using the scores as dependent variable, we apply quantile regressions using a set of possible influencing variables within the agricultural sector able to explain technical efficiency scores. Results allow us to conclude that although DEA and SFA are quite distinguishable methodologies, and despite attained results are different in terms of technical efficiency scores, both are able to identify analogously the worst and better countries. They also suggest that it is important to include resources productivity and subsidies in determining technical efficiency due to its positive and significant exerted influence.

Assessing Climate Change Perceptions, Management Strategies, and Information Needs for Indiana Agricultural and Forestry Sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cherkauer, K. A.; Chin, N.

2016-12-01

The agricultural and forestry sectors in the state of Indiana are highly dependent on climate and, subsequently, highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Higher temperatures, shifts in precipitation patterns, more widespread prevalence of pests and pathogens, and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events could all have negative effects on these two sectors in the future. Agricultural and forest producers are already modifying their management strategies in response to perceptions of changes in climate risk, but such responses have been primarily reactive in nature and, in many cases, demonstrate a disconnect between scientific findings and stakeholder perceptions of the greatest climate risks. This research has been conducted to help improve understanding of climate change risks to agriculture and forestry in Indiana; stakeholder perceptions of climate risks and their current management strategies; and the effectiveness of these management strategies for dealing with current and future climate risk. Sector-specific focus groups, expert panel assessments and surveys have all been utilized in this work, which will also contribute to the new Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment report.

Technology choice and development in Brazil: An assessment of Brazil's alternative fuel program and the agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and service sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nolan, Lucy A.

Technology choice profoundly affects a country's development process because capital-intensive and labor-intensive technologies have different socioeconomic linkages within the economy. This research examines the impacts of technology choice through the use of a social accounting matrix (SAM) framework. SAM-based modeling determines the direct and indirect effects of technology choice on development, particularly poverty alleviation in Brazil. Brazil's alternative fuel program was analyzed as a special example of technology choice. Two ethanol production technologies and the gasoline sector were compared; to make the study more robust, labor and capital intensive technologies were evaluated in the production of agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and services. Growth in these economic sectors was examined to assess the effects on employment, factor and household income, energy intensity, and carbon dioxide costs. Poverty alleviation was a focus, so income to unskilled agriculture labor, unskilled non-agriculture labor, and income to rural and urban households in poverty was also analyzed. The major research finding is that overall, labor-intensive technologies generate more employment, factor and household income, environmental and energy benefits to Brazil's economy than capital-intensive technologies. In addition, labor-intensive technologies make a particular contribution to poverty alleviation. The results suggest that policies to encourage the adoption of these technologies, especially in the agriculture and renewable energy sectors, are important because of their intersectoral linkages within the economy. Many studies have shown that Brazil's fuel ethanol program has helped to realize multiple macroeconomic objectives. However, this is the first empirical study to quantify its household income effects. The ethanol industry generated the most household income of the energy sectors. The research confirms a key finding of the appropriate technology literature

ISI-MIP: The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huber, V.; Dahlemann, S.; Frieler, K.; Piontek, F.; Schewe, J.; Serdeczny, O.; Warszawski, L.

2013-12-01

The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) aims to synthesize the state-of-the-art knowledge of climate change impacts at different levels of global warming. The project's experimental design is formulated to distinguish the uncertainty introduced by the impact models themselves, from the inherent uncertainty in the climate projections and the variety of plausible socio-economic futures. The unique cross-sectoral scope of the project provides the opportunity to study cascading effects of impacts in interacting sectors and to identify regional 'hot spots' where multiple sectors experience extreme impacts. Another emphasis lies on the development of novel metrics to describe societal impacts of a warmer climate. We briefly outline the methodological framework, and then present selected results of the first, fast-tracked phase of ISI-MIP. The fast track brought together 35 global impact models internationally, spanning five sectors across human society and the natural world (agriculture, water, natural ecosystems, health and coastal infrastructure), and using the latest generation of global climate simulations (RCP projections from the CMIP5 archive) and socioeconomic drivers provided within the SSP process. We also introduce the second phase of the project, which will enlarge the scope of ISI-MIP by encompassing further impact sectors (e.g., forestry, fisheries, permafrost) and regional modeling approaches. The focus for the next round of simulations will be the validation and improvement of models based on historical observations and the analysis of variability and extreme events. Last but not least, we discuss the longer-term objective of ISI-MIP to initiate a coordinated, ongoing impact assessment process, driven by the entire impact community and in parallel with well-established climate model intercomparisons (CMIP).

Entrepreneurship Education and Training Needs of Family Businesses Operating in the Agricultural Sector of India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sandhu, Navjot; Hussain, Javed; Matlay, Harry

2012-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurship education and training (EET) needs of small family businesses operating in the agricultural sector of the Indian economy. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a survey of 122 agricultural family firms in the Indian state of…

Environmental and socio-economic vulnerability of agricultural sector in Armenia.

PubMed

Melkonyan, Ani

2014-08-01

Being a mountainous country, Armenia has undergone different kinds of natural disasters, such as droughts, floods, and storms, which have a direct influence on economy and are expected to occur more frequently in terms of climate change, raising the need to estimate economic vulnerability especially in agricultural sector. Agriculture plays a great role in national economy of Armenia, with 21% share in Gross Domestic Production (GDP). For this reason, the estimation of agricultural resources of the country, their vulnerability towards current and future climate, and assessment of economical loss of the agricultural crop production due to climate change are the main goals of the given study. Crop productivity in dependence on climatic elements - temperature, radiation, precipitation, wind field, etc. has been estimated, further on interpolating these relations for future climate conditions using climate projections in the region for the time period of 2011-2040. Data on air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and direction for the period of 1966-2011 have been taken from 30 stations from the measuring network of Armenian State Hydrometeorological Service. Other climatic parameters like potential and actual evapotranspiration, soil temperature and humidity, field capacity, and wilting point have been calculated with the help of an AMBAV/AMBETTI (agroclimatic) model (German Weather Service). The results showed that temperature increase accompanied with evapotranspiration increase and water availability decrease especially in low and mid-low altitudes (where the main national crop production is centralized) caused a significant shift in the phenological phases of crops, which is very important information for effective farming dates, giving an opportunity to raise efficiency of agricultural production through minimizing the yield loss due to unfavorable climatic conditions. With the help of macroeconomical analysis of the crop market, it was

Which environmental problems get policy attention? Examining energy and agricultural sector policies in Sweden

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Engstroem, Rebecka; Nilsson, Mans; Finnveden, Goeran

2008-05-15

Not all environmental problems get the same level of policy attention. An interesting question is thus why certain aspects receive attention and others do not. This paper studies the level of policy attention given to different environmental aspects in agriculture and energy policy in Sweden and explores empirically some factors that can explain the level of attention. The first step was to explore the link between environmental issue characteristics and the level of policy attention. The level of policy attention was measured through a content analysis of Swedish government bills. The results from the content analysis are clear and stablemore » over the studied time period. In the agriculture sector biodiversity and toxicity are in focus whereas in the energy sector climate change and resources are given the attention. Besides these aspects, the attention is limited. These results were compared with the results from sector-wide environmental assessments of the same sectors. These assessments were based on hybrid input-output analysis and life cycle assessment methodologies. A main finding from the study is that issue importance is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for policy attention. Other explanations are needed to understand which environmental issues get attention in sectoral policy. Our assessment showed that while the level of knowledge does not provide an explanation, the presence of strong and well-organised stakeholders within the sector, with an interest in having a certain issue on the agenda, might be decisive for issue attention. Path dependency and limited attention capacity are other important factors.« less

Integrated Drought Monitoring and Forecasts for Decision Making in Water and Agricultural Sectors over the Southeastern US under Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arumugam, S.; Mazrooei, A.; Ward, R.

2017-12-01

Changing climate arising from structured oscillations such as ENSO and rising temperature poses challenging issues in meeting the increasing water demand (due to population growth) for public supply and agriculture over the Southeast US. This together with infrastructural (e.g., most reservoirs being within-year systems) and operational (e.g., static rule curves) constraints requires an integrated approach that seamlessly monitors and forecasts water and soil moisture conditions to support adaptive decision making in water and agricultural sectors. In this talk, we discuss the utility of an integrated drought management portal that both monitors and forecasts streamflow and soil moisture over the southeast US. The forecasts are continuously developed and updated by forcing monthly-to-seasonal climate forecasts with a land surface model for various target basins. The portal also houses a reservoir allocation model that allows water managers to explore different release policies in meeting the system constraints and target storages conditioned on the forecasts. The talk will also demonstrate how past events (e.g., 2007-2008 drought) could be proactively monitored and managed to improve decision making in water and agricultural sectors over the Southeast US. Challenges in utilizing the portal information from institutional and operational perspectives will also be presented.

Modelling carbon dioxide emissions from agricultural soils in Canada.

PubMed

Yadav, Dhananjay; Wang, Junye

2017-11-01

Agricultural soils are a leading source of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are major contributors to global climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) makes up 20% of the total GHG emitted from agricultural soil. Therefore, an evaluation of CO 2 emissions from agricultural soil is necessary in order to make mitigation strategies for environmental efficiency and economic planning possible. However, quantification of CO 2 emissions through experimental methods is constrained due to the large time and labour requirements for analysis. Therefore, a modelling approach is needed to achieve this objective. In this paper, the DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC), a process-based model, was modified to predict CO 2 emissions for Canada from regional conditions. The modified DNDC model was applied at three experimental sites in the province of Saskatchewan. The results indicate that the simulations of the modified DNDC model are in good agreement with observations. The agricultural management of fertilization and irrigation were evaluated using scenario analysis. The simulated total annual CO 2 flux changed on average by ±13% and ±1% following a ±50% variance of the total amount of N applied by fertilising and the total amount of water through irrigation applications, respectively. Therefore, careful management of irrigation and applications of fertiliser can help to reduce CO 2 emissions from the agricultural sector. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ammonia Emissions from the Agriculture Sector of Argentina in a Context of Changing Technologies and Practices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dawidowski, L. E.

2015-12-01

Agriculture is a key sector of the Argentinean economy, accounting for 6 to 8 5% of the GDP in the last ten years. Argentina switched in the 90´s from an articulated co-evolution between extensive livestock and crop farming, with annual rotation of crops and livestock, to intensive decoupled practices. Under these new production schemes, ecosystems were supplied with more nutrients, generating increasing levels of wastes. Other changes have also occurred, associated with the shift of the agricultural frontier and the consequent reduction in the cattle stock. In addition, changes related to climate through the strong increase in rainfall in the 80s and 90s in the west Pampas, helped to boost agricultural development. The agriculture sector accounts for practically all NH3 emissions in Argentina, however no inventory has been thus far available. To bridge this gap and particularly to have accurate input information to run coupled atmospheric chemistry models for secondary inorganic aerosols, we estimated 2000-2012 NH3 emissions, both at national and spatially disaggregated levels. Of particular interest for us was also temporal disaggregation as crops growing and temperature exhibit strong seasonal variability. As no NH3 inventory was available we also estimated related N2O emissions to verify our estimates with those of national GHG emission inventory (NEI). National NH3 emissions in 2012 amounted to 309.9 Gg, use of fertilizers accounted for 43.6%, manure management 18,9%, manure in pasture 36,0% and agricultural waste burning 1.5%. Our N2O estimates are in good agreement with the GHG-NEI. NH3 estimates in the EDGAR database for 2008 are 84.0% higher than ours for this year, and exhibit more significant differences per category, namely 113,6% higher for use of fertilizers and about 500% higher for agricultural waste burning. Urea dominates national NH3 emissions, accounting for 32,8% of the total and its use for wheat and corn crops dominates the trend.

The role of country-to-region assignments in global integrated modeling of energy, agriculture, land use, and climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kyle, P.; Patel, P.; Calvin, K. V.

2014-12-01

Global integrated assessment models used for understanding the linkages between the future energy, agriculture, and climate systems typically represent between 8 and 30 geopolitical macro-regions, balancing the benefits of geographic resolution with the costs of additional data collection, processing, analysis, and computing resources. As these models are continually being improved and updated in order to address new questions for the research and policy communities, it is worth examining the consequences of the country-to-region mapping schemes used for model results. This study presents an application of a data processing system built for the GCAM integrated assessment model that allows any country-to-region assignments, with a minimum of four geopolitical regions and a maximum of 185. We test ten different mapping schemes, including the specific mappings used in existing major integrated assessment models. We also explore the impacts of clustering nations into regions according to the similarity of the structure of each nation's energy and agricultural sectors, as indicated by multivariate analysis. Scenarios examined include a reference scenario, a low-emissions scenario, and scenarios with agricultural and buildings sector climate change impacts. We find that at the global level, the major output variables (primary energy, agricultural land use) are surprisingly similar regardless of regional assignments, but at finer geographic scales, differences are pronounced. We suggest that enhancing geographic resolution is advantageous for analysis of climate impacts on the buildings and agricultural sectors, due to the spatial heterogeneity of these drivers.

Agricultural climate impacts assessment for economic modeling and decision support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomson, A. M.; Izaurralde, R. C.; Beach, R.; Zhang, X.; Zhao, K.; Monier, E.

2013-12-01

A range of approaches can be used in the application of climate change projections to agricultural impacts assessment. Climate projections can be used directly to drive crop models, which in turn can be used to provide inputs for agricultural economic or integrated assessment models. These model applications, and the transfer of information between models, must be guided by the state of the science. But the methodology must also account for the specific needs of stakeholders and the intended use of model results beyond pure scientific inquiry, including meeting the requirements of agencies responsible for designing and assessing policies, programs, and regulations. Here we present methodology and results of two climate impacts studies that applied climate model projections from CMIP3 and from the EPA Climate Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) project in a crop model (EPIC - Environmental Policy Indicator Climate) in order to generate estimates of changes in crop productivity for use in an agricultural economic model for the United States (FASOM - Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model). The FASOM model is a forward-looking dynamic model of the US forest and agricultural sector used to assess market responses to changing productivity of alternative land uses. The first study, focused on climate change impacts on the UDSA crop insurance program, was designed to use available daily climate projections from the CMIP3 archive. The decision to focus on daily data for this application limited the climate model and time period selection significantly; however for the intended purpose of assessing impacts on crop insurance payments, consideration of extreme event frequency was critical for assessing periodic crop failures. In a second, coordinated impacts study designed to assess the relative difference in climate impacts under a no-mitigation policy and different future climate mitigation scenarios, the stakeholder specifically requested an assessment of a

Pesticide Health and Safety Challenges Facing Informal Sector Workers: A Case of Small-scale Agricultural Workers in Tanzania.

PubMed

Ngowi, Aiwerasia; Mrema, Ezra; Kishinhi, Stephen

2016-08-01

The Tanzania informal sector is growing fast, with precarious working conditions and particular hazards for women and children in agriculture. Hazardous agricultural chemicals including pesticides are mostly imported and have been used for many years. Despite the role played by pesticides in food security and vector control, these chemicals are responsible for acute and chronic illnesses among communities. The availability of obsolete persistent organic pesticides on the open market indicates existence of an inadequate regulatory system. People who get injured or ill in the agriculture sector in Tanzania receive health services in primary health care facilities where professionals have little or no knowledge of pesticides. We are presenting the pesticide health and safety challenges faced by small-scale farmers who fall in the informal sector. Achievements that have been made by the government and other players to reduce and prevent pesticide exposures and poisoning are also outlined. © The Author(s) 2016.

Ergonomics Perspective in Agricultural Research: A User-Centred Approach Using CAD and Digital Human Modeling (DHM) Technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patel, Thaneswer; Sanjog, J.; Karmakar, Sougata

2016-09-01

Computer-aided Design (CAD) and Digital Human Modeling (DHM) (specialized CAD software for virtual human representation) technologies endow unique opportunities to incorporate human factors pro-actively in design development. Challenges of enhancing agricultural productivity through improvement of agricultural tools/machineries and better human-machine compatibility can be ensured by adoption of these modern technologies. Objectives of present work are to provide the detailed scenario of CAD and DHM applications in agricultural sector; and finding out means for wide adoption of these technologies for design and development of cost-effective, user-friendly, efficient and safe agricultural tools/equipment and operator's workplace. Extensive literature review has been conducted for systematic segregation and representation of available information towards drawing inferences. Although applications of various CAD software have momentum in agricultural research particularly for design and manufacturing of agricultural equipment/machinery, use of DHM is still at its infancy in this sector. Current review discusses about reasons of less adoption of these technologies in agricultural sector and steps to be taken for their wide adoption. It also suggests possible future research directions to come up with better ergonomic design strategies for improvement of agricultural equipment/machines and workstations through application of CAD and DHM.

Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture and Energy Sectors to Changes in Climate and Socioeconomics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hejazi, M. I.; Voisin, N.; Liu, L.; Bramer, L.; Fortin, D.; Huang, M.; Hathaway, J.; Kyle, P.; Leung, L. R.; Li, H. Y.; Liu, Y.; Patel, P.; Pulsipher, T.; Rice, J.; Tesfa, T. K.; Vernon, C. R.; Zhou, Y.

2014-12-01

A prominent integrated assessment model (IAM), the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), has been coupled with the Community Land Model (CLM) of the Community Earth system model (CESM) to assess the vulnerability of the US agriculture and energy sectors to future water shortages under changing climate and socioeconomics. This study utilizes the regionalized version of GCAM for the U.S. with 50-state. GCAM-USA includes a detailed representation of water demands and tracks them at multiple spatial scales and annual scale. A spatial and temporal disaggregation approach is developed to project the annual regional water demand simulations into a daily time step and 1/8o spatial resolution for input to CLM, which has been coupled to a river routing model and generic water management model applicable globally at 1/2o resolution and regionally at 1/8o resolution. The coupled modeling framework demonstrated reasonable ability to simulate the historical flow regulation and water supply over the continental U.S. The coupled modeling framework has been used to investigate: 1) Which water use sector (agriculture or energy) and subbasins in the conterminous U.S. will experience water deficits in future decades; 2) What are the drivers for the deficit (i.e., water availability, water demands, or both); 3) Will climate mitigation policies alleviate or exacerbate the situation; and lastly 4) How will the frequency , severity, and spatial extent of water deficits (hot spots) evolve under a non-mitigation scenario (RCP8.5) in which conventional fossil-fueled technologies prevail versus a mitigation scenario (RCP4.5) in which the carbon price causes a shift toward renewables and expansion of bioenergy productions. Results show that irrigation will face greater water deficit overall except in the northeastern U.S. Water deficit is greatest in the western U.S. except the Pacific Northwest. Human footprints on the regulated flows are most pronounced over the Rio Grande, Colorado, Great

Source-sector contributions to European ozone and fine PM in 2010 using AQMEII modeling data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Karamchandani, Prakash; Long, Yoann; Pirovano, Guido; Balzarini, Alessandra; Yarwood, Greg

2017-05-01

Source apportionment modeling provides valuable information on the contributions of different source sectors and/or source regions to ozone (O3) or fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations. This information can be useful in designing air quality management strategies and in understanding the potential benefits of reducing emissions from a particular source category. The Comprehensive Air quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) offers unique source attribution tools, called the Ozone and Particulate Source Apportionment Technology (OSAT/PSAT), which track source contributions. We present results from a CAMx source attribution modeling study for a summer month and a winter month using a recently evaluated European CAMx modeling database developed for Phase 3 of the Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII). The contributions of several source sectors (including model boundary conditions of chemical species representing transport of emissions from outside the modeling domain as well as initial conditions of these species) to O3 or PM2.5 concentrations in Europe were calculated using OSAT and PSAT, respectively. A 1-week spin-up period was used to reduce the influence of initial conditions. Evaluation focused on 16 major cities and on identifying source sectors that contributed above 5 %. Boundary conditions have a large impact on summer and winter ozone in Europe and on summer PM2.5, but they are only a minor contributor to winter PM2.5. Biogenic emissions are important for summer ozone and PM2.5. The important anthropogenic sectors for summer ozone are transportation (both on-road and non-road), energy production and conversion, and industry. In two of the 16 cities, solvent and product also contributed above 5 % to summertime ozone. For summertime PM2.5, the important anthropogenic source sectors are energy, transportation, industry, and agriculture. Residential wood combustion is an important anthropogenic sector in winter for PM2.5 over

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP): Protocols and Pilot Studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, C.; Jones, J. W.; Hatfield, J. L.; Ruane, A. C.; Boote, K. J.; Thorburn, P.; Antle, J. M.; Nelson, G. C.; Porter, C.; Janssen, S.;

Development of a resource protection and waste strategy for water use by the agricultural sector.

PubMed

Ligthelm, M E; Ranwedzi, R; Morokane, M; Senne, M

2007-01-01

The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) has started developing a strategy to regulate activities and water uses by the agricultural sector that could impact on the water resource quality. The aim would not be to over-regulate the sector, but to protect the water resource where necessary. Most of these activities constitute diffuse sources of potential pollution. The strategic process will start with investigative discussions with major stakeholders and determining the strategic context and current situation. The latter will consist of a detailed literature and stakeholder survey, and an evaluation of existing agricultural activities. The next steps of determining a vision and the setting of strategic objectives will be done with active participation by the major players. An action plan will be developed to achieve the set objectives. Important components of the strategy will be to: classify activities according to their risk to the water resource, taking into account the sensitivity of the water resource; set regulatory measures in accordance with the risk posed by the activity (measures could include the promulgation of regulations, general authorisations and/or issuing of licenses); harmonise and link the process with existing relevant processes and guidelines within DWAF and other government departments; review existing guidelines; sign agreements with relevant government departments and the agricultural sector; and provide training, built capacity and raise awareness during and after the process.

Agriculture and Climate Change in Global Scenarios: Why Don't the Models Agree

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nelson, Gerald; van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique; Ahammad, Helal

Agriculture is unique among economic sectors in the nature of impacts from climate change. The production activity that transforms inputs into agricultural outputs makes direct use of weather inputs. Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on agriculture have reported substantial differences in outcomes of key variables such as prices, production, and trade. These divergent outcomes arise from differences in model inputs and model specification. The goal of this paper is to review climate change results and underlying determinants from a model comparison exercise with 10 of the leading global economic models that include significant representation of agriculture. Bymore » providing common productivity drivers that include climate change effects, differences in model outcomes are reduced. All models show higher prices in 2050 because of negative productivity shocks from climate change. The magnitude of the price increases, and the adaptation responses, differ significantly across the various models. Substantial differences exist in the structural parameters affecting demand, area, and yield, and should be a topic for future research.« less

Alternative projections of the impacts of private investment on southern forests: a comparison of two large-scale forest sector models of the United States.

Treesearch

Ralph Alig; Darius Adams; John Mills; Richard Haynes; Peter Ince; Robert Moulton

2001-01-01

The TAMM/NAPAP/ATLAS/AREACHANGE(TNAA) system and the Forest and Agriculture Sector Optimization Model (FASOM) are two large-scale forestry sector modeling systems that have been employed to analyze the U.S. forest resource situation. The TNAA system of static, spatial equilibrium models has been applied to make SO-year projections of the U.S. forest sector for more...

Agricultural growth, the status of women, and fertility.

PubMed

Whittington, L A; Stapleton, D C

1995-08-01

This study tests the hypothesis that fertility is affected differently by economic growth depending upon the specific sector (agriculture, manufacturing, heavy industry, and services) where growth occurred. The hypothesis is that fertility responses are not identical across sectors. The sample includes 51 World Bank member countries in varying stages of development. The econometric model pertains to 1965-88 and the percentage change in the total fertility rate (TFR). During the study period the average TFR declined by over 22%, but the extent of change varied by country and included, for instance, countries such as Ethiopia that experienced fertility increases from 5.8 to 6.5. Hong Kong's TFR declined by 66% from 4.7 to 1.6. Analysis included measures of changes in gross domestic product (GDP) for each of the four sectors and change in real per capita exports in agricultural commodities, resources, and manufactured products. Changes in educational status and changes in infant mortality were also included in some models. There were mixed results for the impact of total GDP. Sectoral analysis shows a positive, small significant impact on TFR from changes in the GDP per capita in agriculture (domestic and export products), and a negative, small significant impact from manufacturing growth. Heavy industry and services produced insignificant impact. In the model with only domestic consumption, results show a stronger coefficient and continued significance for agricultural productivity, agricultural exports, and manufacturing changes per capita. Manufacturing exports produced a negative, insignificant impact. The null hypothesis is rejected only in models comparing aggregate GDP in agriculture and manufacturing industries plus control variables (excluding heavy industry and services). Only secondary education was a negative, significant determinant of fertility. Infant mortality was insignificant when sectoral growth and education were included in the model. The evidence

Ergonomics and design in the Brazilian agricultural sector: a proposal to build matrix of contradictions.

PubMed

Tosetto, Thaís; Camarotto, João Alberto

2012-01-01

The paper presents a correlation between the parameters of classical TRIZ and variables of analysis of the EWA to construct a matrix of contradictions in ergonomics, with the objective of assisting the designing processes in the Brazilian agricultural sector. Given the representativeness of the sector in the economy, the boundary conditions in which the activities are developed and their impact on the health of workers, this proposal should contribute to the development of adaptable solutions and the promotion of Decent Work.

Estimating farmers' willingness to pay for climate change adaptation: the case of the Malaysian agricultural sector.

PubMed

Masud, Muhammad Mehedi; Junsheng, Ha; Akhtar, Rulia; Al-Amin, Abul Quasem; Kari, Fatimah Binti

2015-02-01

This paper estimates Malaysian farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for a planned adaptation programme for addressing climate issues in the Malaysian agricultural sector. We used the contingent valuation method (CVM) for a monetary valuation of farmers' preferences for a planned adaptation programme by ascertaining the value attached to address climatic issues in the Malaysian agricultural sector. Structured questionnaires were distributed among the sampled farmers. The study found that 74 % of respondents were willing to pay for a planned adaptation programme and that several socioeconomic and motivation factors have greater influence on their WTP. This paper clearly specifies the steps needed for all institutional bodies to better address issues in climate change. The outcomes of this paper will support policy makers to better design an efficient adaptation framework for adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Modeling technical change in climate analysis: evidence from agricultural crop damages.

PubMed

Ahmed, Adeel; Devadason, Evelyn S; Al-Amin, Abul Quasem

2017-05-01

This study accounts for the Hicks neutral technical change in a calibrated model of climate analysis, to identify the optimum level of technical change for addressing climate changes. It demonstrates the reduction to crop damages, the costs to technical change, and the net gains for the adoption of technical change for a climate-sensitive Pakistan economy. The calibrated model assesses the net gains of technical change for the overall economy and at the agriculture-specific level. The study finds that the gains of technical change are overwhelmingly higher than the costs across the agriculture subsectors. The gains and costs following technical change differ substantially for different crops. More importantly, the study finds a cost-effective optimal level of technical change that potentially reduces crop damages to a minimum possible level. The study therefore contends that the climate policy for Pakistan should consider the role of technical change in addressing climate impacts on the agriculture sector.

Process heat in California: Applications and potential for solar energy in the industrial, agricultural and commercial sectors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barbieri, R. H.; Bartera, R. E.; Davis, E. S.; Hlavka, G. E.; Pivirotto, D. S.; Yanow, G.

1978-01-01

A summary of the results of a survey of potential applications of solar energy for supplying process heat requirements in the industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors of California is presented. Technical, economic, and institutional characteristics of the three sectors are examined. Specific applications for solar energy are then discussed. Finally, implications for California energy policy are discussed along with recommendations for possible actions by the State of California.

Trends in multi-pollutant emissions from a technology-linked inventory for India: II. Residential, agricultural and informal industry sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pandey, Apoorva; Sadavarte, Pankaj; Rao, Anand B.; Venkataraman, Chandra

2014-12-01

Dispersed traditional combustion technologies, characterized by inefficient combustion and significant emissions, are widely used in residential cooking and "informal industries" including brick production, food and agricultural product processing operations like drying and cooking operations related to sugarcane juice, milk, food-grain, jute, silk, tea and coffee. In addition, seasonal agricultural residue burning in field is a discontinuous source of significant emissions. Here we estimate fuel consumption in these sectors and agricultural residue burned using detailed technology divisions and survey-based primary data for 2010 and projected between 1996 and 2015. In the residential sector, a decline in the fraction of solid biomass users for cooking from 79% in 1996 to 65% in 2010 was offset by a growing population, leading to a nearly constant population of solid biomass users, with a corresponding increase in the population of LPG users. Emissions from agriculture followed the growth in agricultural production and diesel use by tractors and pumps. Trends in emissions from the informal industries sector followed those in coal combustion in brick kilns. Residential biomass cooking stoves were the largest contributors to emissions of PM2.5, OC, CO, NMVOC and CH4. Highest emitting technologies of BC were residential kerosene wick lamps. Emissions of SO2 were largely from coal combustion in Bull's trench kilns and other brick manufacturing technologies. Diesel use in tractors was the major source of NOx emissions. Uncertainties in emission estimates were principally from highly uncertain emission factors, particularly for technologies in the informal industries.

Sector-specific issues and reporting methodologies supporting the General Guidelines for the voluntary reporting of greenhouse gases under Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Volume 2: Part 4, Transportation sector; Part 5, Forestry sector; Part 6, Agricultural sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

This volume, the second of two such volumes, contains sector-specific guidance in support of the General Guidelines for the voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. This voluntary reporting program was authorized by Congress in Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. The General Guidelines, bound separately from this volume, provide the overall rationale for the program, discuss in general how to analyze emissions and emission reduction/carbon sequestration projects, and address programmatic issues such as minimum reporting requirements, time parameters, international projects, confidentiality, and certification. Together, the General Guidelines and the guidance in these supporting documentsmore » will provide concepts and approaches needed to prepare the reporting forms. This second volume of sector-specific guidance covers the transportation sector, the forestry sector, and the agricultural sector.« less

GREENHOUSE GAS MITIGATION POTENTIAL IN U.S. FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE

EPA Science Inventory

This report describes the FASOM-GHG model (Forestry and Agriculture Sector Optimization Model with Greenhouse Gases), the GHG mitigation scenarios for U.S. forestry and agriculture run through the FASOM-GHG model, and the results and insights that are generated. GHG mitigation po...

A web-tool to find spatially explicit climate-smart solutions for the sector agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verzandvoort, Simone; Kuikman, Peter; Walvoort, Dennis

2017-04-01

Europe faces the challenge to produce more food and more biomass for the bio-economy, to adapt its agricultural sector to negative consequences of climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) solutions and technologies improve agriculture's productivity and provide economic growth and stability, increase resilience, and help to reduce GHG emissions from agricultural activities. The Climate Smart Agriculture Booster (CSAb) (http://csabooster.climate-kic.org/) is a Flagship Program under Climate-KIC, aiming to facilitate the adoption of CSA solutions and technologies in the European agro-food sector. This adoption requires spatially explicit, contextual information on farming activities and risks and opportunities related to climate change in regions across Europe. Other spatial information supporting adoption includes Information on where successful implementations were already done, on where CSA would profit from enabling policy conditions, and where markets or business opportunities for selling or purchasing technology and knowledge are located or emerging. The Spatial Solution Finder is a web-based spatial tool aiming to help agri-food companies (supply and processing), authorities or agricultural organisations find CSA solutions and technologies that fit local farmers and regions, and to demonstrate examples of successful implementations as well as expected impact at the farm and regional level. The tool is based on state of the art (geo)datasets of environmental and socio-economic conditions (partly open access, partly derived from previous research) and open source web-technology. The philosophy of the tool is that combining existing datasets with contextual information on the region of interest with personalized information entered by the user provides a suitable basis for offering a basket of options for CSA solutions and technologies. Solutions and technologies are recommended to the user based on

Risk Modelling of Agricultural Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nugrahani, E. H.

2017-03-01

In the real world market, agricultural commodity are imposed with fluctuating prices. This means that the price of agricultural products are relatively volatile, which means that agricultural business is a quite risky business for farmers. This paper presents some mathematical models to model such risks in the form of its volatility, based on certain assumptions. The proposed models are time varying volatility model, as well as time varying volatility with mean reversion and with seasonal mean equation models. Implementation on empirical data show that agricultural products are indeed risky.

Multi-basin, Multi-sector Drought Economic Impact Model in Python: Development and Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gutenson, J. L.; Zhu, L.; Ernest, A. N. S.; Oubeidillah, A.; Bearden, B.; Johnson, T. G.

2015-12-01

Drought is one of the most economically disastrous natural hazards, one whose impacts are exacerbated by the lack of abrupt onset and offset that define tornados and hurricanes. In the United States, about 30 billion dollars losses is caused by drought in 2012, resulting in widespread economic impacts for societies, industries, agriculture, and recreation. And in California, the drought cost statewide economic losses about 2.2 billion, with a total loss of 17,100 seasonal and part-time jobs. Driven by a variety of factors including climate change, population growth, increased water demands, alteration to land cover, drought occurs widely all over the world. Drought economic consequence assessment tool are greatly needed to allow decision makers and stakeholders to anticipate and manage effectively. In this study, current drought economic impact modeling methods were reviewed. Most of these models only deal with the impact in the agricultural sector with a focus on a single basin; few of these models analyze long term impact. However, drought impacts are rarely restricted to basin boundaries, and cascading economic impacts are likely to be significant. A holistic approach to multi-basin, multi-sector drought economic impact assessment is needed.In this work, we developed a new model for drought economic impact assessment, Drought Economic Impact Model in Python (PyDEM). This model classified all business establishments into thirteen categories based on NAICS, and using a continuous dynamic social accounting matrix approach, coupled with calculation of the indirect consequences for the local and regional economies and the various resilience. In addition, Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model was combined for analyzing drought caused soil erosion together with agriculture production, and then the long term impacts of drought were achieved. A visible output of this model was presented in GIS. In this presentation, Choctawhatchee-Pea-Yellow River Basins, Alabama

Seasonal forecasts for the agricultural sector in Peru through user-tailored indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sedlmeier, Katrin; Gubler, Stefanie; Spierig, Christoph; Quevedo, Karim; Escajadillo, Yury; Avalos, Griña; Liniger, Mark A.; Schwierz, Cornelia

2017-04-01

In the agricultural sector, the demand for seasonal forecast information is high since agriculture depends strongly on climatic conditions during the growing season. Unfavorable weather and climate events, such as droughts or frost events, can lead to crop losses and thereby to large economic damages or life-threatening conditions in case of subsistence farming. The generally used presentation form of tercile probabilities of seasonally averaged meteorological quantities are not specific enough for end users. More user-tailored seasonal information is necessary. For example, warmer than average temperatures might be favorable for a crop as long as they remain below a plant-specific critical threshold. If, on the other hand, too many days show temperatures above this critical threshold, a mitigation action such as e.g. changing the crop type would be required. In the framework of the CLIMANDES project (a pilot project of the Global Framework for Climate Services led by WMO [http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/climandes]), user-tailored seasonal forecast products are developed for the agricultural sector in the Peruvian Andes. Such products include indices such as e.g. the frost risk, the occurrence of long dry periods, or the start of the rainy season which is crucial to schedule sowing. Furthermore, more specific indices derived from crop requirement studies are elaborated such as the number of days exceeding or falling below plant specific temperature thresholds for given phenological stages. The applicability of these products highly depends on forecast skill. In this study, the potential predictability and the skill of selected indicators are presented using seasonal hindcast data of the ECMWF system 4 for Peru during the time period 1981-2010. Furthermore, the influence of ENSO on the prediction skill is investigated. In this study, reanalysis data, ground measurements, and a gridded precipitation dataset are used for verification. The results indicate that temperature

A dynamic econometric model of agricultural wage determination in Bangladesh.

PubMed

Boyce, J K; Ravallion, M

1991-11-01

Economists applied data from 1949-1950 and 1980-1981 to a new dynamic model to examine the dynamics of determinants of agricultural wages in Bangladesh, particularly the effect of changes in relative prices of rice (the staple food) and productivity. Just a 20% rise in the price or rice was passed on in the agricultural wage rate within the current year. About 50% was passed on in the long run, however. Therefore an increase in the price of rice reduced the rice purchasing power of agricultural wages in the short and long term. In fact, the importance given to rice in the long run real wage rate was almost the same as the mean proportion of expenditure that an agricultural laborer in Bangladesh committed to rice and closely related food staples. Thus arise in the price of rice in comparison to other goods had limited effects on the long run real wage in terms of the bundle of goods typically consumed, but very adverse effects in the short run placing a high burden on the rural poor. On the other hand, the long run real wage rate fell considerably between the mid 1960s-early 1980s when overall agricultural productivity increased. The economists pointed out that this increased productivity may not have lowered long run real wage rates, but instead mitigating factors may have contributed to this fall. For example, population growth, rising landlessness, and insufficient economic growth in nonagricultural sectors resulted in a consistent growth in the labor supply. In conclusion, this new dynamic model showed that Bangladesh cannot depend only on agricultural growth to reduce the poverty of farmers.

Automated canopy estimator (ACE): Enhancing crop modelling and decision making in agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The Caribbean agriculture sector is dominated by small holdings, which are overly reliant on rainfall and highly dependent on manual means of optimization. The sector is therefore very vulnerable to the vagaries of climate variability and change, with rainfall variations being of particular concern...

European scale climate information services for water use sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Donnelly, Chantal; Strömbäck, Lena; Capell, René; Ludwig, Fulco

2015-09-01

This study demonstrates a climate information service for pan-European water use sectors that are vulnerable to climate change induced hydrological changes, including risk and safety (disaster preparedness), agriculture, energy (hydropower and cooling water use for thermoelectric power) and environment (water quality). To study the climate change impacts we used two different hydrological models forced with an ensemble of bias-corrected general circulation model (GCM) output for both the lowest (2.6) and highest (8.5) representative concentration pathways (RCP). Selected indicators of water related vulnerability for each sector were then calculated from the hydrological model results. Our results show a distinct north-south divide in terms of climate change impacts; in the south the water availability will reduce while in the north water availability will increase. Across different climate models precipitation and streamflow increase in northern Europe and decrease in southern Europe, but the latitude at which this change occurs varies depending on the GCM. Hydrological extremes are increasing over large parts of Europe. The agricultural sector will be affected by reduced water availability (in the south) and increased drought. Both streamflow and soil moistures droughts are projected to increase in most parts of Europe except in northern Scandinavia and the Alps. The energy sector will be affected by lower hydropower potential in most European countries and reduced cooling water availability due to higher water temperatures and reduced summer river flows. Our results show that in particular in the Mediterranean the pressures are high because of increasing drought which will have large impacts on both the agriculture and energy sectors. In France and Italy this is combined with increased flood hazards. Our results show important impacts of climate change on European water use sectors indicating a clear need for adaptation.

Permanence of agricultural afforestation for carbon sequestration under stylized carbon markets in the U.S.

Treesearch

David Haim; Eric White; Ralph J. Alig

2014-01-01

This paper examines the permanence of agricultural land afforestation under stylized carbon markets at the regional level in the US. Attention is focused on Southern and Midwest regions which historically have experienced a relatively large amount of land-use change between the agriculture and forest sectors. The Forest and Agriculture Sector Optimization Model–...

An Analysis of the Impact of Heat Waves in Labor and Crop Productivity in the Agricultural Sector in California

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castillo, F.; Wehner, M. F.; Gilless, J. K.

2017-12-01

California agriculture is an important economic activity for the state. California leads the nation in farms sales since 1950. In addition, agricultural employment in California reached approximately 410,000. Production of many fruits and vegetables is labor intensive and labor costs represent anywhere from 20% to 40% of total production costs. In additon, agricutlural production growth has been the highest for labor intensive crops such as berries (all types) and nuts. Given the importance of the agricultural sector and the labor component whithin it, the analysis of the impact of climate change on the agricultural sector of California becomes imperative. Heat waves are a weather related extreme that impact labor productivity, specially outdoor labor producitivity. We use crop production function analysis that incorporates socio economic variables such as crop prices, total acreage, production levels and harvest timiline with climate related variables such as an estimated Heat Index (HI) to analize the impact of heat waves on crop production via an impact on labor productivity for selected crops in the Central and Imperial Valleys in California. The analysis finds that the impact of heat waves varies by the degree of labor intensity of the crop and the relative intensity of the heat wave.

Economic and environmental impacts of the corn grain ethanol industry on the United States agricultural sector

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Larson, J.A.; English, B.C.; De La Torre Ugarte, D. G.

2010-09-10

This study evaluated the impacts of increased ethanol production from corn starch on agricultural land use and the environment in the United States. The Policy Analysis System simulation model was used to simulate alternative ethanol production scenarios for 2007 through 2016. Results indicate that increased corn ethanol production had a positive effect on net farm income and economic wellbeing of the US agricultural sector. In addition, government payments to farmers were reduced because of higher commodity prices and enhanced net farm income. Results also indicate that if Conservation Reserve Program land was converted to crop production in response to highermore » demand for ethanol in the simulation, individual farmers planted more land in crops, including corn. With a larger total US land area in crops due to individual farmer cropping choices, total US crop output rose, which decreased crop prices and aggregate net farm income relative to the scenario where increased ethanol production happened without Conservation Reserve Program land. Substantial shifts in land use occurred with corn area expanding throughout the United States, especially in the traditional corn-growing area of the midcontinent region.« less

Towards a new generation of agricultural system data, models and knowledge products: Information and communication technology.

PubMed

Janssen, Sander J C; Porter, Cheryl H; Moore, Andrew D; Athanasiadis, Ioannis N; Foster, Ian; Jones, James W; Antle, John M

2017-07-01

Agricultural modeling has long suffered from fragmentation in model implementation. Many models are developed, there is much redundancy, models are often poorly coupled, model component re-use is rare, and it is frequently difficult to apply models to generate real solutions for the agricultural sector. To improve this situation, we argue that an open, self-sustained, and committed community is required to co-develop agricultural models and associated data and tools as a common resource. Such a community can benefit from recent developments in information and communications technology (ICT). We examine how such developments can be leveraged to design and implement the next generation of data, models, and decision support tools for agricultural production systems. Our objective is to assess relevant technologies for their maturity, expected development, and potential to benefit the agricultural modeling community. The technologies considered encompass methods for collaborative development and for involving stakeholders and users in development in a transdisciplinary manner. Our qualitative evaluation suggests that as an overall research challenge, the interoperability of data sources, modular granular open models, reference data sets for applications and specific user requirements analysis methodologies need to be addressed to allow agricultural modeling to enter in the big data era. This will enable much higher analytical capacities and the integrated use of new data sources. Overall agricultural systems modeling needs to rapidly adopt and absorb state-of-the-art data and ICT technologies with a focus on the needs of beneficiaries and on facilitating those who develop applications of their models. This adoption requires the widespread uptake of a set of best practices as standard operating procedures.

Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison

PubMed Central

Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Elliott, Joshua; Deryng, Delphine; Ruane, Alex C.; Müller, Christoph; Arneth, Almut; Boote, Kenneth J.; Folberth, Christian; Glotter, Michael; Khabarov, Nikolay; Neumann, Kathleen; Piontek, Franziska; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Schmid, Erwin; Stehfest, Elke; Yang, Hong; Jones, James W.

2014-01-01

Here we present the results from an intercomparison of multiple global gridded crop models (GGCMs) within the framework of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project. Results indicate strong negative effects of climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes; models that include explicit nitrogen stress project more severe impacts. Across seven GGCMs, five global climate models, and four representative concentration pathways, model agreement on direction of yield changes is found in many major agricultural regions at both low and high latitudes; however, reducing uncertainty in sign of response in mid-latitude regions remains a challenge. Uncertainties related to the representation of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and high temperature effects demonstrated here show that further research is urgently needed to better understand effects of climate change on agricultural production and to devise targeted adaptation strategies. PMID:24344314

Assessing Agricultural Risks of Climate Change in the 21st Century in a Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, Cynthia E.; Elliott, Joshua; Deryng, Delphine; Ruane, Alex C.; Mueller, Christoph; Arneth, Almut; Boote, Kenneth J.; Folberth, Christian; Glotter, Michael; Khabarov, Nikolay

2014-01-01

Here we present the results from an intercomparison of multiple global gridded crop models (GGCMs) within the framework of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project and the Inter-Sectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison Project. Results indicate strong negative effects of climate change, especially at higher levels of warming and at low latitudes; models that include explicit nitrogen stress project more severe impacts. Across seven GGCMs, five global climate models, and four representative concentration pathways, model agreement on direction of yield changes is found in many major agricultural regions at both low and high latitudes; however, reducing uncertainty in sign of response in mid-latitude regions remains a challenge. Uncertainties related to the representation of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and high temperature effects demonstrated here show that further research is urgently needed to better understand effects of climate change on agricultural production and to devise targeted adaptation strategies.

Health care access and health care workforce for immigrant workers in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector in the southeastern US.

PubMed

Frank, Arthur L; Liebman, Amy K; Ryder, Bobbi; Weir, Maria; Arcury, Thomas A

2013-08-01

The Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery (AgFF) Sector workforce in the US is comprised primarily of Latino immigrants. Health care access for these workers is limited and increases health disparities. This article addresses health care access for immigrant workers in the AgFF Sector, and the workforce providing care to these workers. Immigrant workers bear a disproportionate burden of poverty and ill health and additionally face significant occupational hazards. AgFF laborers largely are uninsured, ineligible for benefits, and unable to afford health services. The new Affordable Care Act will likely not benefit such individuals. Community and Migrant Health Centers (C/MHCs) are the frontline of health care access for immigrant AgFF workers. C/MHCs offer discounted health services that are tailored to meet the special needs of their underserved clientele. C/MHCs struggle, however, with a shortage of primary care providers and staff prepared to treat occupational illness and injury among AgFF workers. A number of programs across the US aim to increase the number of primary care physicians and care givers trained in occupational health at C/MHCs. While such programs are beneficial, substantial action is needed at the national level to strengthen and expand the C/MHC system and to establish widely Medical Home models and Accountable Care Organizations. System-wide policy changes alone have the potential to reduce and eliminate the rampant health disparities experienced by the immigrant workers who sustain the vital Agricultural, Forestry, and Fishery sector in the US. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Germany wide seasonal flood risk analysis for agricultural crops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klaus, Stefan; Kreibich, Heidi; Kuhlmann, Bernd; Merz, Bruno; Schröter, Kai

2016-04-01

In recent years, large-scale flood risk analysis and mapping has gained attention. Regional to national risk assessments are needed, for example, for national risk policy developments, for large-scale disaster management planning and in the (re-)insurance industry. Despite increasing requests for comprehensive risk assessments some sectors have not received much scientific attention, one of these is the agricultural sector. In contrast to other sectors, agricultural crop losses depend strongly on the season. Also flood probability shows seasonal variation. Thus, the temporal superposition of high flood susceptibility of crops and high flood probability plays an important role for agricultural flood risk. To investigate this interrelation and provide a large-scale overview of agricultural flood risk in Germany, an agricultural crop loss model is used for crop susceptibility analyses and Germany wide seasonal flood-frequency analyses are undertaken to derive seasonal flood patterns. As a result, a Germany wide map of agricultural flood risk is shown as well as the crop type most at risk in a specific region. The risk maps may provide guidance for federal state-wide coordinated designation of retention areas.

Delivery of agricultural technology to resource-poor farmers in Africa.

PubMed

Mignouna, Hodeba D; Abang, Mathew M; Omanya, Gospel; Nang'ayo, Francis; Bokanga, Mpoko; Boadi, Richard; Muchiri, Nancy; Terry, Eugene

2008-01-01

Recent developments in agricultural science and technology have the potential to transform the agricultural sector in the developing world. These technological advances constitute key drivers of economic growth and hold great promise for poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Agricultural research and development in Africa is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Until recently, public-sector institutions in Africa worked in isolation to create and disseminate agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers. However, they need access to improved proprietary technologies developed for the most part by the private sector in developed countries. These technologies are currently concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations and are protected by intellectual property rights. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) is a new initiative addressing the challenges associated with the access, development, and deployment of agricultural technologies to smallholder farmers in SSA. This article describes the AATF model of facilitating the creation of partnership alliances dedicated to promote and support collaboration among a wide variety of public- and private-sector organizations around shared agricultural research and development goals for the public good. It explains AATF's public-private partnership framework for technology delivery in the light of market failures, institutional constraints, and systemic weaknesses, which impede public-sector organizations from accessing and delivering pro-poor knowledge and technology to farmers. The article provides policy makers, research managers, and business decision makers with an understanding of how access to, and delivery of, proprietary technologies could contribute to food security and the improvement of farmers' livelihoods in Africa.

Co-benefits, trade-offs, barriers and policies for greenhouse gas mitigation in the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector.

PubMed

Bustamante, Mercedes; Robledo-Abad, Carmenza; Harper, Richard; Mbow, Cheikh; Ravindranat, Nijavalli H; Sperling, Frank; Haberl, Helmut; Pinto, Alexandre de Siqueira; Smith, Pete

2014-10-01

The agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector is responsible for approximately 25% of anthropogenic GHG emissions mainly from deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil and nutrient management. Mitigation from the sector is thus extremely important in meeting emission reduction targets. The sector offers a variety of cost-competitive mitigation options with most analyses indicating a decline in emissions largely due to decreasing deforestation rates. Sustainability criteria are needed to guide development and implementation of AFOLU mitigation measures with particular focus on multifunctional systems that allow the delivery of multiple services from land. It is striking that almost all of the positive and negative impacts, opportunities and barriers are context specific, precluding generic statements about which AFOLU mitigation measures have the greatest promise at a global scale. This finding underlines the importance of considering each mitigation strategy on a case-by-case basis, systemic effects when implementing mitigation options on the national scale, and suggests that policies need to be flexible enough to allow such assessments. National and international agricultural and forest (climate) policies have the potential to alter the opportunity costs of specific land uses in ways that increase opportunities or barriers for attaining climate change mitigation goals. Policies governing practices in agriculture and in forest conservation and management need to account for both effective mitigation and adaptation and can help to orient practices in agriculture and in forestry towards global sharing of innovative technologies for the efficient use of land resources. Different policy instruments, especially economic incentives and regulatory approaches, are currently being applied however, for its successful implementation it is critical to understand how land-use decisions are made and how new social, political and economic forces

Regulatory Information By Sector

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Find environmental regulatory, compliance, & enforcement information for various business, industry and government sectors, listed by NAICS code. Sectors include agriculture, automotive, petroleum manufacturing, oil & gas extraction & other manufacturing

Agriculture and Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Assessing the Effectiveness of Agricultural Advisor Projects in Afghanistan

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-11

employment in nonfarm sectors of the economy. Thus, agricultural development can contribute to the education of a rural population and assist the movement...categorized according to the ANDS objectives. In the ANDS, the four expected outcomes of the Agriculture and Rural Development Sector Strategy are: (1...States (U.S.) government, the U.S. Army, and the international community have identified rural and agricultural development as key components of long

The Role of Agriculture in the Economic Development of West Virginia: An Input-Output Analysis. Miscellaneous Publication No. 20.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

D'Souza, Gerard E.; And Others

This study deals with the structural interrelationships among agricultural sub-sectors, and between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors of the West Virginia economy. The study is intended to offer information on which to base sound economic development decisions. An input-output economic model is used in order to focus on the interaction…

Multiple models guide strategies for agricultural nutrient reductions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Scavia, Donald; Kalcic, Margaret; Muenich, Rebecca Logsdon; Read, Jennifer; Aloysius, Noel; Bertani, Isabella; Boles, Chelsie; Confesor, Remegio; DePinto, Joseph; Gildow, Marie; Martin, Jay; Redder, Todd; Robertson, Dale M.; Sowa, Scott P.; Wang, Yu-Chen; Yen, Haw

2017-01-01

In response to degraded water quality, federal policy makers in the US and Canada called for a 40% reduction in phosphorus (P) loads to Lake Erie, and state and provincial policy makers in the Great Lakes region set a load-reduction target for the year 2025. Here, we configured five separate SWAT (US Department of Agriculture's Soil and Water Assessment Tool) models to assess load reduction strategies for the agriculturally dominated Maumee River watershed, the largest P source contributing to toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie. Although several potential pathways may achieve the target loads, our results show that any successful pathway will require large-scale implementation of multiple practices. For example, one successful pathway involved targeting 50% of row cropland that has the highest P loss in the watershed with a combination of three practices: subsurface application of P fertilizers, planting cereal rye as a winter cover crop, and installing buffer strips. Achieving these levels of implementation will require local, state/provincial, and federal agencies to collaborate with the private sector to set shared implementation goals and to demand innovation and honest assessments of water quality-related programs, policies, and partnerships.

Sectoral network on occupational health and safety in agriculture to support enterprises and family farms in Estonia.

PubMed

Kurppa, Kari; Tammaru, Eva; Kempinen, Marina; Rünkla, Ester; Sõrra, Jaan; Lehtinen, Suvi

2006-01-01

A sectoral network on occupational health and safety in agriculture has been established in Estonia as part of a project that provided support for Estonian accession into European Union. Participating organizations represent farmers' unions at county level, agricultural enterprises, workers' representatives, universities and agricultural expert institutions, and government agencies. The purpose is to provide a shared infrastructure that combines information and other capacities of several organizations and provides a platform for dialogue and co-operation in order to make a greater impact with available resources. The network has a decentralized architecture and is technically managed by an institutionalized secretariat. The network's task forces have compiled a network directory, summarised the capacities and interests of member organizations, made an inventory of existing information and training materials, developed an overall strategy for information management, established an information repository on the Internet, prepared promotional materials, and devised a protocol for agricultural walk-though assessment. A profile on occupational health and safety in Estonian agriculture has been compiled with a rapid assessment approach that collected both quantitative and qualitative information from secondary sources (statistics, documents) and from focus group discussions. The profile is used as an instrument for taking occupational health and safety needs in agriculture into discussion on political arena.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of policy instruments for greenhouse gas emission mitigation in the agricultural sector.

PubMed

Bakam, Innocent; Balana, Bedru Babulo; Matthews, Robin

2012-12-15

Market-based policy instruments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are generally considered more appropriate than command and control tools. However, the omission of transaction costs from policy evaluations and decision-making processes may result in inefficiency in public resource allocation and sub-optimal policy choices and outcomes. This paper aims to assess the relative cost-effectiveness of market-based GHG mitigation policy instruments in the agricultural sector by incorporating transaction costs. Assuming that farmers' responses to mitigation policies are economically rationale, an individual-based model is developed to study the relative performances of an emission tax, a nitrogen fertilizer tax, and a carbon trading scheme using farm data from the Scottish farm account survey (FAS) and emissions and transaction cost data from literature metadata survey. Model simulations show that none of the three schemes could be considered the most cost effective in all circumstances. The cost effectiveness depends both on the tax rate and the amount of free permits allocated to farmers. However, the emissions trading scheme appears to outperform both other policies in realistic scenarios. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Software for pest-management science: computer models and databases from the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service.

PubMed

Wauchope, R Don; Ahuja, Lajpat R; Arnold, Jeffrey G; Bingner, Ron; Lowrance, Richard; van Genuchten, Martinus T; Adams, Larry D

2003-01-01

We present an overview of USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) computer models and databases related to pest-management science, emphasizing current developments in environmental risk assessment and management simulation models. The ARS has a unique national interdisciplinary team of researchers in surface and sub-surface hydrology, soil and plant science, systems analysis and pesticide science, who have networked to develop empirical and mechanistic computer models describing the behavior of pests, pest responses to controls and the environmental impact of pest-control methods. Historically, much of this work has been in support of production agriculture and in support of the conservation programs of our 'action agency' sister, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly the Soil Conservation Service). Because we are a public agency, our software/database products are generally offered without cost, unless they are developed in cooperation with a private-sector cooperator. Because ARS is a basic and applied research organization, with development of new science as our highest priority, these products tend to be offered on an 'as-is' basis with limited user support except for cooperating R&D relationship with other scientists. However, rapid changes in the technology for information analysis and communication continually challenge our way of doing business.

Study on the impact of air quality in agricultural and health sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chairani, S.

2018-03-01

This study focused on the impact of air quality in agricultural and health sectors. The impact of CO2 on the agricultural crops was conducted by using literature review and the impact of air quality was conducted using secondary data to calculate the Air Quality Index (AQI), derived from some monitoring stations available in Indonesia. Numerous studies showed that the elevated CO2 decreased the agricultural productivity. Maize yields decreased by 15 % in areas which used irrigation system and 8 % in areas which used rainfed. Maize yields had already experienced severe losses without increasing CO2 concentrations. It decreased by 21 % for irrigated maize and 26 % by rainfed maize. In addition, it turned out that other elevated pollutants, such as SO2, NO2, SPM, O3, CH4, PM2.5, PM10 and TSP also occurred in the atmosphere. These pollutants’ effects might harm human being in term of health concern. The USEPA had developed a tool, called the Air Quality Index (AQI) calculator to calculate the pollutants’ concentrations in a daily basis. This tool’s function to inform how clean or polluted the air that we breathed was with the health effects based on the concentrations of each pollutant. The AQI also provided the information on sensitive groups, health effects and cautionary statements. Based on the air daily data which derived from Board of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) of Indonesia, the AQI in Indonesia varied from good, moderate to unhealthy categories; with level of health concern was respiratory diseases, such as asthma.

Building and testing models with extended Higgs sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ivanov, Igor P.

2017-07-01

Models with non-minimal Higgs sectors represent a mainstream direction in theoretical exploration of physics opportunities beyond the Standard Model. Extended scalar sectors help alleviate difficulties of the Standard Model and lead to a rich spectrum of characteristic collider signatures and astroparticle consequences. In this review, we introduce the reader to the world of extended Higgs sectors. Not pretending to exhaustively cover the entire body of literature, we walk through a selection of the most popular examples: the two- and multi-Higgs-doublet models, as well as singlet and triplet extensions. We will show how one typically builds models with extended Higgs sectors, describe the main goals and the challenges which arise on the way, and mention some methods to overcome them. We will also describe how such models can be tested, what are the key observables one focuses on, and illustrate the general strategy with a subjective selection of results.

Agriculture and the Property Tax: A Forward Look Based on a Historical Perspective. Agricultural Economic Report No. 392.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stam, Jerome M.; Sibold, Ann G.

Assessing the property tax in terms of agriculture, this report analyzes the following in an historical sense in order to draw implications for the future: (1) the importance of the property tax to the agricultural sector; (2) the horizontal equity of the property tax for the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors in terms of income and wealth;…

Who Talks to Whom in Malawi's Agricultural Research Information Network?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mapila, Mariam A. T. J.; Yauney, Jason; Thangata, Paul; Droppelmann, Klaus; Mazunda, John

2016-01-01

Purpose: The sector-wide approach currently dominates as the strategy for developing the agricultural sector of many African countries. Although recognised that collaborative agricultural research is vital in ensuring success of sector-wide agricultural development strategies; there have been few efforts to understand the dynamics of national…

Showing and Telling Farming: Agricultural Shows and Re-Imaging British Agriculture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holloway, Lewis

2004-01-01

Some actors in the ''mainstream'' agricultural sector are beginning to engage in strategies of influencing public perceptions of farming, responding to public anxieties over industrialised agriculture and to a supposed separation of non-farming publics from food production. This paper focuses on agricultural shows as sites and events central to…

Ecohydrological modeling: the consideration of agricultural trees is essential in the Mediterranean area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fader, Marianela; von Bloh, Werner; Shi, Sinan; Bondeau, Alberte; Cramer, Wolfgang

2016-04-01

In the Mediterranean region, climate and land use change are expected to impact on natural and agricultural ecosystems by warming, reduced rainfall and direct degradation of ecosystems. Human population growth and socioeconomic changes, notably on the Eastern and Southern shores, will require increases in food production and put additional pressure on agro-ecosystems and water resources. Coping with these challenges requires informed decisions that, in turn, require assessments by means of a comprehensive ecohydrological model. Here we present here the inclusion of 10 Mediterranean agricultural plants, mainly perennial crops, in an agro-ecosystem model (LPJmL, "Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land"): nut trees, date palms, citrus trees, orchards, olive trees, grapes, cotton, potatoes, vegetables and fodder grasses. The model was then successfully tested in three model outputs: agricultural yields, irrigation requirements and soil carbon density. A first application of the model indicates that, currently, agricultural trees consume in average more irrigation water per hectare than annual crops. Also, different crops show different magnitude of changes in net irrigation requirements due to climate change, being the increases most pronounced in agricultural trees. This is very relevant since the Mediterranean area as a whole might face an increase in gross irrigation requirements between 4% and 74% from climate change and population growth if irrigation systems and conveyance are not improved. Additionally, future water scarcity might pose further challenges to the agricultural sector: Algeria, Libya, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Serbia, Morocco, Tunisia and Spain have a high risk of not being able to sustainably meet future irrigation water requirements in some scenarios by the end of the century (1). The importance of including agricultural trees in the ecohydrological models is also shown in the results concerning soil organic carbon (SOC). Since in former model

Developing Curriculum Markers for Agricultural Extension Education in South Africa

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Worth, S. H.

2008-01-01

Sufficient changes have occurred in both the agricultural and educational sectors of South Africa to warrant a careful scrutiny of the agricultural education offerings in South Africa. Agricultural extension is identified as an important part of the intended transformation of the agricultural sector. Further, agricultural extension is essentially…

Applying the World Water and Agriculture Model to Filling Scenarios for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Villa, Daniel L.; Tidwell, Vincent C.; Passell, Howard D.

The World Water and Agriculture Model has been used to simulate water, hydropower, and food sector effects in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia during the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir. This unique capability allows tradeoffs to be made between filling policies for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reservoir. This Nile River Basin study is presented to illustrate the capacity to use the World Water and Agriculture Model to simulate regional food security issues while keeping a global perspective. The study uses runoff data from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 and informationmore » from the literature in order to establish a reasonable set of hydrological initial conditions. Gross Domestic Product and population growth are modelled exogenously based on a composite projection of United Nations and World Bank data. The effects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam under various percentages of water withheld are presented.« less

Agro-ecology, household economics and malaria in Uganda: empirical correlations between agricultural and health outcomes

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background This paper establishes empirical evidence relating the agriculture and health sectors in Uganda. The analysis explores linkages between agricultural management, malaria and implications for improving community health outcomes in rural Uganda. The goal of this exploratory work is to expand the evidence-base for collaboration between the agricultural and health sectors in Uganda. Methods The paper presents an analysis of data from the 2006 Uganda National Household Survey using a parametric multivariate Two-Limit Tobit model to identify correlations between agro-ecological variables including geographically joined daily seasonal precipitation records and household level malaria risk. The analysis of agricultural and environmental factors as they affect household malaria rates, disaggregated by age-group, is inspired by a complimentary review of existing agricultural malaria literature indicating a gap in evidence with respect to agricultural management as a form of malaria vector management. Crop choices and agricultural management practices may contribute to vector control through the simultaneous effects of reducing malaria transmission, improving housing and nutrition through income gains, and reducing insecticide resistance in both malaria vectors and agricultural pests. Results The econometric results show the existence of statistically significant correlations between crops, such as sweet potatoes/yams, beans, millet and sorghum, with household malaria risk. Local environmental factors are also influential- daily maximum temperature is negatively correlated with malaria, while daily minimum temperature is positively correlated with malaria, confirming trends in the broader literature are applicable to the Ugandan context. Conclusions Although not necessarily causative, the findings provide sufficient evidence to warrant purposefully designed work to test for agriculture health causation in vector management. A key constraint to modeling the

Interval Optimization Model Considering Terrestrial Ecological Impacts for Water Rights Transfer from Agriculture to Industry in Ningxia, China.

PubMed

Sun, Lian; Li, Chunhui; Cai, Yanpeng; Wang, Xuan

2017-06-14

In this study, an interval optimization model is developed to maximize the benefits of a water rights transfer system that comprises industry and agriculture sectors in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China. The model is subjected to a number of constraints including water saving potential from agriculture and ecological groundwater levels. Ecological groundwater levels serve as performance indicators of terrestrial ecology. The interval method is applied to present the uncertainty of parameters in the model. Two scenarios regarding dual industrial development targets (planned and unplanned ones) are used to investigate the difference in potential benefits of water rights transfer. Runoff of the Yellow River as the source of water rights fluctuates significantly in different years. Thus, compensation fees for agriculture are calculated to reflect the influence of differences in the runoff. Results show that there are more available water rights to transfer for industrial development. The benefits are considerable but unbalanced between buyers and sellers. The government should establish a water market that is freer and promote the interest of agriculture and farmers. Though there has been some success of water rights transfer, the ecological impacts and the relationship between sellers and buyers require additional studies.

Agricultural, domestic and handicraft folk uses of plants in the Tyrrhenian sector of Basilicata (Italy)

PubMed Central

Salerno, Giovanni; Guarrera, Paolo Maria; Caneva, Giulia

2005-01-01

Background Research was carried out into agricultural and domestic-handicraft uses in folk traditions in the Tyrrhenian sector of the Basilicata region (southern Italy), as it is typically representative of ethnobotanical applications in the Mediterranean area. From the point of view of furnishing a botanical support for the study of local "material culture" data was collected through field interviews of 49 informants, most of whom were farmers. Results The taxa cited are 60, belonging to 32 botanical families, of which 18 are employed for agricultural uses and 51 for domestic-handicraft folk uses. Data show a diffuse use of plants for many purposes, both in agricultural (present uses 14%; past uses 1%) and for domestic-handicraft use (present uses 40%; past uses 45%); most of the latter are now in decline. Conclusion 60 data look uncommon or typical of the places studied. Some domestic-handicraft folk uses are typical of southern Italy (e.g. the use of Ampelodesmos mauritanicus for making ties, ropes, torches, baskets or that of Acer neapolitanum for several uses). Other uses (e.g. that of Inula viscosa and Calamintha nepeta for peculiar brooms, and of Origanum heracleoticum for dyeing wool red) are previously unpublished. PMID:16270919

Agricultural Water Use under Global Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, T.; Ringler, C.; Rosegrant, M. W.

2008-12-01

Irrigation is by far the single largest user of water in the world and is projected to remain so in the foreseeable future. Globally, irrigated agricultural land comprises less than twenty percent of total cropland but produces about forty percent of the world's food. Increasing world population will require more food and this will lead to more irrigation in many areas. As demands increase and water becomes an increasingly scarce resource, agriculture's competition for water with other economic sectors will be intensified. This water picture is expected to become even more complex as climate change will impose substantial impacts on water availability and demand, in particular for agriculture. To better understand future water demand and supply under global change, including changes in demographic, economic and technological dimensions, the water simulation module of IMPACT, a global water and food projection model developed at the International Food Policy Research Institute, is used to analyze future water demand and supply in agricultural and several non-agricultural sectors using downscaled GCM scenarios, based on water availability simulation done with a recently developed semi-distributed global hydrological model. Risk analysis is conducted to identify countries and regions where future water supply reliability for irrigation is low, and food security may be threatened in the presence of climate change. Gridded shadow values of irrigation water are derived for global cropland based on an optimization framework, and they are used to illustrate potential irrigation development by incorporating gridded water availability and existing global map of irrigation areas.

Chapter 3: Cropland Agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

In 2013, cropland agriculture resulted in total emissions of approximately 209 MMT CO2 eq. of greenhouse gases (GHG). Cropland agriculture is responsible for almost half (46%) of all emissions from the agricultural sector. Nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) emissions from c...

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

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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.

Modeling climate change impacts on the forest sector

Treesearch

John R. Mills; Ralph Alig; Richard W. Haynes; Darius M. Adams

2000-01-01

The forest sector has had a relatively long history of applying sectorial models to estimate the effects of atmospheric issues such as acid rain, climate change, and the forestry impacts of reduced atmospheric ozone. The models of the forest sector vary in scope and complexity but share a number of common features and databases.

Evaluation of land capability and suitability for irrigated agriculture in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, using an integrated AHP-GIS model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aldababseh, A.; Temimi, M.; Maghelal, P.; Branch, O.; Wulfmeyer, V.

2017-12-01

The rapid economic development and high population growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have impacted utilization and management of agricultural land. The development of large-scale agriculture in unsuitable areas can severely impact groundwater resources in the UAE. More than 60% of UAE's water resources are being utilized by the agriculture, forestry, and urban greenery sectors. However, the contribution of the agricultural sector to the national GDP is negligible. Several programs have been introduced by the government aimed at achieving sustainable agriculture whilst preserving valuable water resources. Local subsistence farming has declined considerably during the past few years, due to low soil moisture content, sandy soil texture, lack of arable land, natural climatic disruptions, water shortages, and declined rainfall. The limited production of food and the continuing rise in the food prices on a global and local level are expected to increase low-income households' vulnerability to food insecurity. This research aims at developing a suitability index for the evaluation and prioritization of areas in the UAE for large-scale agriculture. The AHP-GIS integrated model developed in this study facilitates a step by step aggregation of a large number of datasets representing the most important criteria, and the generation of agricultural suitability and land capability maps. To provide the necessary criteria to run the model, a comprehensive geospatial database was built, including climate conditions, water potential, soil capabilities, topography, and land management. A hieratical structure is built as a decomposition structure that includes all criteria and sub-criteria used to define land suitability based on literature review and experts' opinions. Pairwise comparisons matrix are used to calculate criteria' weights. The GIS Model Builder function is used to integrate all spatial processes to model land suitability. In order to preserve some flexibility

Evaluation of land capability and suitability for irrigated agriculture in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE, using an integrated AHP-GIS model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aldababseh, Amal; Temimi, Marouane; Maghelal, Praveen; Branch, Oliver; Wulfmeyer, Volker

2017-12-01

The rapid economic development and high population growth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have impacted utilization and management of agricultural land. The development of large-scale agriculture in unsuitable areas can severely impact groundwater resources in the UAE. More than 60% of UAE's water resources are being utilized by the agriculture, forestry, and urban greenery sectors. However, the contribution of the agricultural sector to the national GDP is negligible. Several programs have been introduced by the government aimed at achieving sustainable agriculture whilst preserving valuable water resources. Local subsistence farming has declined considerably during the past few years, due to low soil moisture content, sandy soil texture, lack of arable land, natural climatic disruptions, water shortages, and declined rainfall. The limited production of food and the continuing rise in the food prices on a global and local level are expected to increase low-income households' vulnerability to food insecurity. This research aims at developing a suitability index for the evaluation and prioritization of areas in the UAE for large-scale agriculture. The AHP-GIS integrated model developed in this study facilitates a step by step aggregation of a large number of datasets representing the most important criteria, and the generation of agricultural suitability and land capability maps. To provide the necessary criteria to run the model, a comprehensive geospatial database was built, including climate conditions, water potential, soil capabilities, topography, and land management. A hierarchical structure is built as a decomposition structure that includes all criteria and sub-criteria used to define land suitability based on literature review and experts' opinions. Pairwise comparisons matrix are used to calculate criteria' weights. The GIS Model Builder function is used to integrate all spatial processes to model land suitability. In order to preserve some flexibility

Impact analysis of leading sub sector on basic sector to regional income in Siak Regency, Riau Province

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Astuti, P.; Nugraha, I.; Abdillah, F.

2018-02-01

During this time Siak regency only known as oil producing regency in Riau province, but based on the vision of spatial planning Siak’s regency in 2031 there was a shift from petroleum towards to other sectors such as agribusiness, agroindustry and tourism. The purpose of this study was to identify the sector base, the leading subsectors and shift with their characteristics and to identify the leading subsectors development priority. The method used in this research consisted of the method of Location Quotient (LQ, Shift Share, and Overlay method). The research results were used Location Quotient (LQ) to identify sector’s base in Siak regency based on the document of PDRB. The sector’s refers to the constant prices year of 2000 were mining and quarrying sector (2.25). The sector’s base using document of PDRB at constant prices 2000 without oil and gas sector was the agricultural sector with a value of LQ was 2,45. The leading sub sector in the Siak regency with mining and quarrying sector was oil and gas (1.02) and leading sub sector without oil and gas sector was the plantation sector (1.48) and forestry sector (1.73). Overlay analysis results shown that agriculture sector as a sector base and plantation and forestry as a leading sub sector has positive value and categorize as progressive and competitiveness. Because of that, this leading sub sector gets high priority to developing.

A Multi-Sector Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change at the Energy-Water-Land Nexus in the US

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McFarland, J.; Sarofim, M. C.; Martinich, J.

2017-12-01

Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns due to climate change are projected to alter many sectors of the US economy. A growing body of research has examined these effects in the energy, water, and agricultural sectors. Rising summer temperatures increase the demand for electricity. Changing precipitation patterns effect the availability of water for hydropower generation, thermo-electric cooling, irrigation, and municipal and industrial consumption. A combination of changes to temperature and precipitation alter crop yields and cost-effective farming practices. Although a significant body of research exists on analyzing impacts to individual sectors, fewer studies examine the effects using a common set of assumptions (e.g., climatic and socio-economic) within a coupled modeling framework. The present analysis uses a multi-sector, multi-model framework with common input assumptions to assess the projected effects of climate change on energy, water, and land-use in the United States. The analysis assesses the climate impacts for across 5 global circulation models for representative concentration pathways (RCP) of 8.5 and 4.5 W/m2. The energy sector models - Pacific Northwest National Lab's Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) - show the effects of rising temperature on energy and electricity demand. Electricity supply in ReEDS is also affected by the availability of water for hydropower and thermo-electric cooling. Water availability is calculated from the GCM's precipitation using the US Basins model. The effects on agriculture are estimated using both a process-based crop model (EPIC) and an agricultural economic model (FASOM-GHG), which adjusts water supply curves based on information from US Basins. The sectoral models show higher economic costs of climate change under RCP 8.5 than RCP 4.5 averaged across the country and across GCM's.

The Development Model Electronic Commerce of Regional Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Jun; Cai, Lecai; Li, Hongchan

With the developing of the agricultural information, it is inevitable trend of the development of agricultural electronic commercial affairs. On the basis of existing study on the development application model of e-commerce, combined with the character of the agricultural information, compared with the developing model from the theory and reality, a new development model electronic commerce of regional agriculture base on the government is put up, and such key issues as problems of the security applications, payment mode, sharing mechanisms, and legal protection are analyzed, etc. The among coordination mechanism of the region is discussed on, it is significance for regulating the development of agricultural e-commerce and promoting the regional economical development.

Communicating Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector: Insights from Surveys and Interviews with Agricultural Advisors in the Midwestern United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prokopy, L. S.; Carlton, S.; Dunn, M.

2014-12-01

Understanding U.S. agricultural stakeholder views about the existence of climate change and what influences these views is central to developing communication in support of adaptation and mitigation. It has been postulated in the literature that extreme weather events can shape people's climate change beliefs and adaptation attitudes. In this presentation, we use data from pre- and post-extreme event surveys and interviews to examine the effects of the 2012 Midwestern US drought on agricultural advisors' climate change beliefs, adaptation attitudes, and risk perceptions. We found that neither climate change beliefs nor attitudes toward adaptation changed significantly as a result of the drought. Risk perceptions did change, however, with advisors becoming more concerned about risks from drought and pests and less concerned about risks related to flooding and ponding. Qualitative interviews revealed that while advisors readily accept the occurrence of extreme weather as a risk, the irregularity and unpredictability of extreme events for specific localities limits day-to-day consideration in respect to prescribed management advice. Instead, advisors' attention is directed towards planning for short-term changes encompassing weather, pests, and the market, as well as planning for long-term trends related to water availability. These findings provide important insights for communicating climate change in this critical sector while illustrating the importance of social science research in planning and executing communication campaigns.

Modelling tools to support the harmonization of Water Framework Directive and Common Agricultural Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tediosi, A.; Bulgheroni, C.; Sali, G.; Facchi, A.; Gandolfi, C.

2009-04-01

After a few years from the delivery of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) the need to link agriculture and WFD has emerged as one of the highest priorities; therefore, it is important to discuss on how the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can contribute to the achievements of the WFD objectives. The recent CAP reform - known as Mid Term Review (MTR) or Fischler Reform - has increased the opportunities, offering to farmers increased support to address some environmental issues. The central novelty coming from the MTR is the introduction of a farm single payment which aims to the Decoupling of EU Agricultural Support from production. Other MTR important topics deal with the Modulation of the payments, the Cross-Compliance and the strengthening of the Rural Development policy. All these new elements will affect the farmers' behaviour, steering their productive choices for the future, which, in turn, will have consequences on the water demand for irrigation. Indeed, from the water quantity viewpoint, agriculture is a large consumer and improving water use efficiency is one of the main issues at stake, following the increasing impacts of water scarcity and droughts across Europe in a context of climate change. According to a recent survey of the European Commission the saving potential in the agricultural sector is 43% of present abstraction and 95% of it is concentrated in southern europe. Many models have been developed to forecast the farmers' behaviour as a consequence of agricultural policies, both at sector and regional level; all of them are founded on Mathematical Programming techniques and many of them use the Positive approach, which better fits the territorial dimension. A large body of literature also exists focusing on the assessment of irrigation water requirements. The examples of conjunctive modelling of the two aspects are however much more limited. The work presented has got some innovative aspects: not only does it couple an economical model

Competences in Demand within the Spanish Agricultural Engineering Sector

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perdigones, Alicia; Valera, Diego Luis; Moreda, Guillermo Pedro; García, Jose Luis

2014-01-01

The Rural Engineering Department (Technical University of Madrid) ran three competence surveys during the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years and evaluated: (1) the competences gained by agricultural engineer's degree and agricultural technical engineer's degree students (360 respondents); (2) the competences demanded by agricultural employers…

Contribution of population growth to per capita income and sectoral output growth in Japan, 1880-1970.

PubMed

Yamaguchi, M; Kennedy, G

1984-09-01

The authors measured the positive and negative contributions of population and labor force growth to the growth of per capita income and sectoral output in Japan in the 1880-1970 period. A 2-sector growth accounting model that treats population and labor growth as separate variables was used. 3 alternative methods were used: the Residual method, the Verdoorn method, and the factor augmenting rate method. The total contribution of population cum labor growth to per capita income growth tended to be negative in the 1880-1930 period and positive in the 1930-40 and 1950-70. Over the 1880-1970 period as a whole, population cum labor growth made a positive contribution to per capita income growth under the Residual method (0.35%/year), the factor augmenting rate method (0.29%/year), and the Verdoorn method (0.01%/year). In addition, population cum labor growth contributed positively to sectoral output growth. The average contribution to agricultural output growth ranged from 1.03% (Verdoorn) - 1.46%/year (factor augmenting rate), while the average contribution to nonagricultural output growth ranged from 1.22% (Verdoorn) - 1.60%/year (Residual). Although these results are dependent on the model used, the fact that all 3 methods yielded consistent results suggests that population cum labor growth did make a positive contribution to per capita income and sectoral output growth in Japan. These findings imply that in economies where the rate of technical change in agricultural and nonagricultural sectors exceeds population growth, policies that reduce agricultural elasticities may be preferable; on the other hand, policies that reduce agricultural elasticities are to be avoided in economies with low rates of technical change. Moreover, in the early stages of economic development, policies that increase agricultural income and price elasticities should be considered.

Environmental and economic development consequences of forest and agricultural sector policies in Latin America (a synthesis of case studies of Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Bolivia)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stewart, R.; Gibson, D.

This paper draws heavily on the results of case studies in Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador to explain how sectoral policies have tilted land use decisions against forestry and in favor of agriculture, and to present estimates of the economic development effects of those decisions. The paper summarizes information on forests and forest industries of the three countries, and it describes the framework within which policies are designed. It presents the effects of sectoral policies on land use and forest management, and then quantifies and discusses economic costs of relevant sectoral policies. Conclusions and recommendations for policy reform are offered.

Crop modeling applications in agricultural water management

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kisekka, Isaya; DeJonge, Kendall C.; Ma, Liwang; Paz, Joel; Douglas-Mankin, Kyle R.

2017-01-01

This article introduces the fourteen articles that comprise the “Crop Modeling and Decision Support for Optimizing Use of Limited Water” collection. This collection was developed from a special session on crop modeling applications in agricultural water management held at the 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting (AIM) in Orlando, Florida. In addition, other authors who were not able to attend the 2016 ASABE AIM were also invited to submit papers. The articles summarized in this introductory article demonstrate a wide array of applications in which crop models can be used to optimize agricultural water management. The following section titles indicate the topics covered in this collection: (1) evapotranspiration modeling (one article), (2) model development and parameterization (two articles), (3) application of crop models for irrigation scheduling (five articles), (4) coordinated water and nutrient management (one article), (5) soil water management (two articles), (6) risk assessment of water-limited irrigation management (one article), and (7) regional assessments of climate impact (two articles). Changing weather and climate, increasing population, and groundwater depletion will continue to stimulate innovations in agricultural water management, and crop models will play an important role in helping to optimize water use in agriculture.

Quantifying the Value of Satellite Imagery in Agriculture and other Sectors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brown, M. E.; Abbott, P. C.; Escobar, V. M.

2013-12-01

This study focused on quantifying the commercial value of satellite remote sensing for agriculture. Commercial value from satellite imagery arises when improved information leads to better economic decisions. We identified five areas of application of remote sensing to agriculture where there is this potential: crop management (precision agriculture), insurance, real estate assessment, crop forecasting, and environmental monitoring. These applications can be divided between public information (crop forecasting) and those that may generate private commercial value (crop management), with both public and private information dimensions in some categories. Public information applications of remote sensing have been more successful in the past, and are likely to generate more economic value in the future. It was found that several issues have limited realization of the potential to generate private value from remote sensing in agriculture. The scale of use is small to the high cost of acquiring and interpreting large images has limited the cost effectiveness to individual farmers. Insurance, environmental monitoring, and crop management services by cooperatives or consultants may be cases overcoming this limitation. The greatest opportunities for potential commercial value from agriculture are probably in the crop forecasting area, especially where agricultural statistics services are not as well developed, since public market information benefits a broad range of economic actors, not limited to countries where forecasts are made. We estimate here the value from components of USDA's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) forecasts for corn, indicating potential value increasing in the range of 60 to 240 million if improved satellite based information enhances those forecasts. The research was conducted by agricultural economists at Purdue University, and will be the basis for further evaluation of the use of satellite data within the NASA Carbon

Global Transformations and Agriculture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell, Rex R.

1990-01-01

Examines worldwide political, economic, and social transformations and their impact on agriculture, focusing on biotechnology. Discusses rise of international corporations and accompanying constraints on government power. Sees trend toward increasing agribusiness role in world food and agricultural sectors. Calls for broader views and research in…

Readership Study of an Agricultural Magazine.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, Ted

Since the fall of 1957, the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station has published a semi-scientific quarterly magazine, "Louisiana Agriculture," to present information on the station's research to Louisiana citizens, particularly public officials, members of the agribusiness sector, science-oriented farmers, agriculture and science…

The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI–MIP): Project framework

PubMed Central

Warszawski, Lila; Frieler, Katja; Huber, Veronika; Piontek, Franziska; Serdeczny, Olivia; Schewe, Jacob

2014-01-01

The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project offers a framework to compare climate impact projections in different sectors and at different scales. Consistent climate and socio-economic input data provide the basis for a cross-sectoral integration of impact projections. The project is designed to enable quantitative synthesis of climate change impacts at different levels of global warming. This report briefly outlines the objectives and framework of the first, fast-tracked phase of Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project, based on global impact models, and provides an overview of the participating models, input data, and scenario set-up. PMID:24344316

Embedding an evolving agricultural system within a water resources planning model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Young, C.; Joyce, B.; Purkey, D.; Dale, L.; Mehta, V.

2008-12-01

The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system is a comprehensive, fully integrated water basin analysis tool. It is a simulation model that includes a robust and flexible representation of water demands from all sectors and flexible, programmable operating rules for infrastructure elements such as reservoirs, canals, and hydropower projects. Additionally, it has watershed rainfall-runoff modeling capabilities that allow all portions of the water infrastructure and demand to be dynamically nested within the underlying hydrological processes. WEAP also allows for linking with other models to provide feedback mechanisms whereby the management regime can be altered to respond to changing water supply conditions. This study presents an application wherein the year-to-year cropping decisions of farmers in California's Central Valley are reactive to changes in water supply conditions. To capture this dynamic, we have included in WEAP a link to an agricultural economics model (the Central Valley Production Model) that relates cropping decisions to water supply conditions (surface water allocations and depth to groundwater) and economic considerations (cost of electricity) at the time of planting. This linked model was used to evaluate changes in water supply and demand in the context of projected climate change over the next century.

TRACKING THE EMISSION OF CARBON DIOXIDE BY NATION, SECTOR, AND FUEL TYPE: A TRACE GAS ACCOUNTING SYSTEM (TGAS)

EPA Science Inventory

The paper describes a new way to estimate an efficient econometric model of global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by nation, sector, and fuel type. Equations for fuel intensity are estimated for coal, oil, natural gas, electricity, and heat for six sectors: agricultural, indus...

Shaping Collective Functions in Privatized Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems: The Positioning and Embedding of a Network Broker in the Dutch Dairy Sector

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klerkx, Laurens; Leeuwis, Cees

2009-01-01

This paper examines new organizational arrangements that have emerged in the context of a privatized extension system. It investigates the positioning and embedding of a network broker aimed at enhancing interaction in the privatized agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS), to assess whether tensions reported in other sectors also…

The Study of the Impacts of The agriculture practices on ET by In-situ Measurement and Numeric Modeling in Southern China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Jinhui Jeanne; Chan, Han

2017-04-01

ABSTRACT Evapotranspiration (ET) has long been regarded as a very important component in energy and mass exchange between hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. It is estimated that about 70% annual precipitation goes back to atmosphere through the process of ET, ET thus plays a significant role in modeling regional and global climate and assessing stresses on natural and agricultural ecosystems. The variation of ET is affected by many processes including hydrological, metrological as well as biological processes. Water used in Agriculture Sector is normally accounted for about 70% of total water consumption. ET may also be enhanced by agriculture practices as it is the key component of water consumption in agriculture practices. A two-year continuous in-situ ET measurement (in half minute time scale) by eddy covariance method (using EC-QCL analyzer and three-dimensional ultrasonic anemometer) was conducted in a large vegetable farmland in the suburb of Yueyang City, Hunan Province. EddyPro software was employed to calculate the actual evapotranspiration, water vapor flux, latent heat flux (LE) and analysis the trend of actual evapotranspiration in different time scales. A RZWQM2 (Root Zone Water Quality Model) model was also developed based on the local metrological data and agriculture practices including planting, harvesting, irrigation practices and fertilization etc., The field observations including in-situ ET measurement are used to calibrate the RZWQM2 model. The calibrated model was further used to study the effects of various agriculture activates on ET. The study shows that the crop density has the greatest effects on the variation of plant transpiration following by irrigation and fertilization. This study provides some scientific basis for the optimization and improvement of agricultural activities in the future. Key words: ET; Agricultural Practices; Eddy Covariance Method; RZWQM2 model

Agricultural production and water use scenarios in Cyprus under global change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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.

International Agricultural Trade and Policy: Issues and Implications for U.S. Agriculture. Texas Agricultural Market Research Center Special Series Report No. SS-2-89.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, Gary W.

Historical events have set the stage for the current U.S. agricultural export performance. Agricultural exports in the early 1990s were as large or larger relative to the size of the agricultural sector than at any time since. A dramatic decrease in net farm income was caused by the Great Depression (1929-1932). Following passage of the…

78 FR 37397 - Small Business Size Standards: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-06-20

... Small Business Size Standards: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting AGENCY: U.S. Small Business... (NAICS) Sector 11, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, and retaining the current standards for...-industries (``exceptions'') in NAICS Sector 11, Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, to determine...

Optimal allocation of bulk water supplies to competing use sectors based on economic criterion - An application to the Chao Phraya River Basin, Thailand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Divakar, L.; Babel, M. S.; Perret, S. R.; Gupta, A. Das

2011-04-01

SummaryThe study develops a model for optimal bulk allocations of limited available water based on an economic criterion to competing use sectors such as agriculture, domestic, industry and hydropower. The model comprises a reservoir operation module (ROM) and a water allocation module (WAM). ROM determines the amount of water available for allocation, which is used as an input to WAM with an objective function to maximize the net economic benefits of bulk allocations to different use sectors. The total net benefit functions for agriculture and hydropower sectors and the marginal net benefit from domestic and industrial sectors are established and are categorically taken as fixed in the present study. The developed model is applied to the Chao Phraya basin in Thailand. The case study results indicate that the WAM can improve net economic returns compared to the current water allocation practices.

Extension Strategies Used To Develop a Traditional Farming Sector in an Advanced Agricultural Surrounding. The Case of the Nazareth Region in Israel.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blum, Abraham

A case study of the Nazareth Region in Israel analyzed the extension strategies used to develop the traditional Arab farming sector in an advanced agricultural surrounding. As part of the study, the history of the Arab farmer before and after the creation of the State of Israel was given. The methodology for the study involved interviews with…

Integrating seasonal climate prediction and agricultural models for insights into agricultural practice

PubMed Central

Hansen, James W

2005-01-01

Interest in integrating crop simulation models with dynamic seasonal climate forecast models is expanding in response to a perceived opportunity to add value to seasonal climate forecasts for agriculture. Integrated modelling may help to address some obstacles to effective agricultural use of climate information. First, modelling can address the mismatch between farmers' needs and available operational forecasts. Probabilistic crop yield forecasts are directly relevant to farmers' livelihood decisions and, at a different scale, to early warning and market applications. Second, credible ex ante evidence of livelihood benefits, using integrated climate–crop–economic modelling in a value-of-information framework, may assist in the challenge of obtaining institutional, financial and political support; and inform targeting for greatest benefit. Third, integrated modelling can reduce the risk and learning time associated with adaptation and adoption, and related uncertainty on the part of advisors and advocates. It can provide insights to advisors, and enhance site-specific interpretation of recommendations when driven by spatial data. Model-based ‘discussion support systems’ contribute to learning and farmer–researcher dialogue. Integrated climate–crop modelling may play a genuine, but limited role in efforts to support climate risk management in agriculture, but only if they are used appropriately, with understanding of their capabilities and limitations, and with cautious evaluation of model predictions and of the insights that arises from model-based decision analysis. PMID:16433092

Evaluating the effects of climate change on US agricultural systems: sensitivity to regional impact and trade expansion scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, Justin S.; Havlík, Petr; Beach, Robert; Leclère, David; Schmid, Erwin; Valin, Hugo; Cole, Jefferson; Creason, Jared; Ohrel, Sara; McFarland, James

2018-06-01

Agriculture is one of the sectors that is expected to be most significantly impacted by climate change. There has been considerable interest in assessing these impacts and many recent studies investigating agricultural impacts for individual countries and regions using an array of models. However, the great majority of existing studies explore impacts on a country or region of interest without explicitly accounting for impacts on the rest of the world. This approach can bias the results of impact assessments for agriculture given the importance of global trade in this sector. Due to potential impacts on relative competitiveness, international trade, global supply, and prices, the net impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector in each region depend not only on productivity impacts within that region, but on how climate change impacts agricultural productivity throughout the world. In this study, we apply a global model of agriculture and forestry to evaluate climate change impacts on US agriculture with and without accounting for climate change impacts in the rest of the world. In addition, we examine scenarios where trade is expanded to explore the implications for regional allocation of production, trade volumes, and prices. To our knowledge, this is one of the only attempts to explicitly quantify the relative importance of accounting for global climate change when conducting regional assessments of climate change impacts. The results of our analyses reveal substantial differences in estimated impacts on the US agricultural sector when accounting for global impacts vs. US-only impacts, particularly for commodities where the United States has a smaller share of global production. In addition, we find that freer trade can play an important role in helping to buffer regional productivity shocks.

A Systems Approach to Agricultural Biosecurity.

PubMed

Anand, Manish

This article highlights the importance of systems approaches in addressing agricultural biosecurity threats. On the basis of documentary analysis and stakeholder interaction, a brief survey of agricultural biosecurity threats and vulnerabilities from global and Indian perspectives is provided, followed by an exploration of technological and institutional capabilities. Finally, a perspective on the agricultural disease diagnostic networks is provided, drawing instances from global developments. Technical barriers to agroterrorism are lower than those to human-targeted bioterrorism, and the sector is unique as even a very small disease outbreak could prompt international export restrictions. Key vulnerabilities in the agriculture sector stem from, among others, the structure of agricultural production; insufficient monitoring, surveillance, and controls systems at the borders and in the food chain; inefficient systems for reporting unusual occurrences and outbreaks of disease; and lack of sufficiently trained human resources capable of recognizing or treating transboundary pathogens and diseases. An assessment of technology and institutions pertaining to crop and animal protection management suggests certain gaps. Investment in developing new technologies for civilian application in agriculture, as well as for legitimate actions pertaining to defense, detection, protection, and prophylaxis, and in upgrading laboratory facilities can increase the agricultural sector's level of preparedness for outbreaks. To address potential threats and vulnerabilities of agroterrorism effectively requires the development of a comprehensive strategy and a combined, interagency approach, ideally on an international level. It is proposed that a systems-oriented approach for developing knowledge and innovation networks and strengthening skills and capacities would enable a more resilient agricultural biosecurity system.

What is the difference between a 2, 3, 4, or 5 °C world and how good are we at telling this difference? Results from ISI-MIP the first Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frieler, K.; Huber, V.; Piontek, F.; Schewe, J.; Serdeczny, O.; Warszawski, L.

2012-12-01

The Inter-sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) aims to synthesize the state-of-the-art knowledge of climate change impacts at different levels of global warming. Over 25 climate impact modelling teams from around the world, working within the agriculture, water, biomes, infrastructure and health sectors, are collaborating to find answers to the question "What is the difference between a 2, 3, 4, or 5 °C world and how good are we at telling this difference?". The analysis is based on common, bias-corrected climate projections, and socio-economic pathways. The first, fast-tracked phase of the ISI-MIP has a focus on global impact models. The project's experimental design is formulated to distinguish the uncertainty introduced by the impact models themselves, from the inherent uncertainty in the climate projections and the variety of plausible socio-economic futures. Novel metrics, developed to emphasize societal impacts, will be used to identify regional 'hot-spots' of climate change impacts, as well as to quantify the cross-sectoral impact of the increasing frequency of extreme events in future climates. We present here first results from the Fast-Track phase of the project covering impact simulations in the biomes, agriculture and water sectors, in which the societal impacts of climate change are quantified for different levels of global warming. We also discuss the design of the scenario set-up and impact indicators chosen to suit the unique cross-sectoral, multi-model nature of the project.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture without compromising food security?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frank, Stefan; Havlík, Petr; Soussana, Jean-François; Levesque, Antoine; Valin, Hugo; Wollenberg, Eva; Kleinwechter, Ulrich; Fricko, Oliver; Gusti, Mykola; Herrero, Mario; Smith, Pete; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Kraxner, Florian; Obersteiner, Michael

2017-10-01

To keep global warming possibly below 1.5 °C and mitigate adverse effects of climate change, agriculture, like all other sectors, will have to contribute to efforts in achieving net negative emissions by the end of the century. Cost-efficient distribution of mitigation across regions and economic sectors is typically calculated using a global uniform carbon price in climate stabilization scenarios. However, in reality such a carbon price would substantially affect food availability. Here, we assess the implications of climate change mitigation in the land use sector for agricultural production and food security using an integrated partial equilibrium modelling framework and explore ways of relaxing the competition between mitigation in agriculture and food availability. Using a scenario that limits global warming cost-efficiently across sectors to 1.5 °C, results indicate global food calorie losses ranging from 110-285 kcal per capita per day in 2050 depending on the applied demand elasticities. This could translate into a rise in undernourishment of 80-300 million people in 2050. Less ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in the land use sector reduces the associated food security impact significantly, however the 1.5 °C target would not be achieved without additional reductions outside the land use sector. Efficiency of GHG mitigation will also depend on the level of participation globally. Our results show that if non-Annex-I countries decide not to contribute to mitigation action while other parties pursue their mitigation efforts to reach the global climate target, food security impacts in these non-Annex-I countries will be higher than if they participate in a global agreement, as inefficient mitigation increases agricultural production costs and therefore food prices. Land-rich countries with a high proportion of emissions from land use change, such as Brazil, could reduce emissions with only a marginal effect on food availability. In contrast

Agricultural intensification escalates future conservation costs.

PubMed

Phelps, Jacob; Carrasco, Luis Roman; Webb, Edward L; Koh, Lian Pin; Pascual, Unai

2013-05-07

The supposition that agricultural intensification results in land sparing for conservation has become central to policy formulations across the tropics. However, underlying assumptions remain uncertain and have been little explored in the context of conservation incentive schemes such as policies for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, conservation, sustainable management, and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+). Incipient REDD+ forest carbon policies in a number of countries propose agricultural intensification measures to replace extensive "slash-and-burn" farming systems. These may result in conservation in some contexts, but will also increase future agricultural land rents as productivity increases, creating new incentives for agricultural expansion and deforestation. While robust governance can help to ensure land sparing, we propose that conservation incentives will also have to increase over time, tracking future agricultural land rents, which might lead to runaway conservation costs. We present a conceptual framework that depicts these relationships, supported by an illustrative model of the intensification of key crops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a leading REDD+ country. A von Thünen land rent model is combined with geographic information systems mapping to demonstrate how agricultural intensification could influence future conservation costs. Once postintensification agricultural land rents are considered, the cost of reducing forest sector emissions could significantly exceed current and projected carbon credit prices. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering escalating conservation costs from agricultural intensification when designing conservation initiatives.

Agricultural intensification escalates future conservation costs

PubMed Central

Phelps, Jacob; Carrasco, Luis Roman; Webb, Edward L.; Koh, Lian Pin; Pascual, Unai

2013-01-01

The supposition that agricultural intensification results in land sparing for conservation has become central to policy formulations across the tropics. However, underlying assumptions remain uncertain and have been little explored in the context of conservation incentive schemes such as policies for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, conservation, sustainable management, and enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+). Incipient REDD+ forest carbon policies in a number of countries propose agricultural intensification measures to replace extensive “slash-and-burn” farming systems. These may result in conservation in some contexts, but will also increase future agricultural land rents as productivity increases, creating new incentives for agricultural expansion and deforestation. While robust governance can help to ensure land sparing, we propose that conservation incentives will also have to increase over time, tracking future agricultural land rents, which might lead to runaway conservation costs. We present a conceptual framework that depicts these relationships, supported by an illustrative model of the intensification of key crops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a leading REDD+ country. A von Thünen land rent model is combined with geographic information systems mapping to demonstrate how agricultural intensification could influence future conservation costs. Once postintensification agricultural land rents are considered, the cost of reducing forest sector emissions could significantly exceed current and projected carbon credit prices. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering escalating conservation costs from agricultural intensification when designing conservation initiatives. PMID:23589860

Swedish strategies for health and safety in agriculture: a coordinated multiagency approach.

PubMed

Lundqvist, Peter; Alwall Svennefelt, Catharina

2014-01-01

Occupational injuries are a major problem in agriculture world-wide. Sweden is developing a national approach to scoordinate different stakeholders with the common goal of reducing injuries in the agricultural sector. The Swedish strategy involves important factors, such as: 1) Collaboration between all stakeholders involved in health and safety in agriculture, 2) A national programme on injury prevention, 3) Coordination of actions and 4) Knowledge, attitude and behaviour in focus. This approach is being coordinated through the Swedish Committee on Working Environment (LAMK), a network acting to achieve a good, healthy and safe working environment in Swedish agriculture. The Committee consists of representatives of authorities, institutions, companies, research and education institutions and organisations working in the green sector. The Swedish model will be evaluated as a whole concept on its effect on the frequency of injuries in the agricultural industry in the beginning of 2014. Promising results has been shown in evaluations of minor parts. This coordinated approach has been applied in others countries (United States and New Zealand) as well and seems like an efficient way of using limited resources to achieve higher impact on a specific problems such as occupational injuries in agriculture.

Integrating a Detailed Agricultural Model in a Global Economic Framework: New methods for assessment of climate mitigation and adaptation opportunities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomson, A. M.; Izaurralde, R. C.; Calvin, K.; Zhang, X.; Wise, M.; West, T. O.

2010-12-01

Climate change and food security are global issues increasingly linked through human decision making that takes place across all scales from on-farm management actions to international climate negotiations. Understanding how agricultural systems can respond to climate change, through mitigation or adaptation, while still supplying sufficient food to feed a growing global population, thus requires a multi-sector tool in a global economic framework. Integrated assessment models are one such tool, however they are typically driven by historical aggregate statistics of production in combination with exogenous assumptions of future trends in agricultural productivity; they are not yet capable of exploring agricultural management practices as climate adaptation or mitigation strategies. Yet there are agricultural models capable of detailed biophysical modeling of farm management and climate impacts on crop yield, soil erosion and C and greenhouse gas emissions, although these are typically applied at point scales that are incompatible with coarse resolution integrated assessment modeling. To combine the relative strengths of these modeling systems, we are using the agricultural model EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate), applied in a geographic data framework for regional analyses, to provide input to the global economic model GCAM (Global Change Assessment Model). The initial phase of our approach focuses on a pilot region of the Midwest United States, a highly productive agricultural area. We apply EPIC, a point based biophysical process model, at 60 m spatial resolution within this domain and aggregate the results to GCAM agriculture and land use subregions for the United States. GCAM is then initialized with multiple management options for key food and bioenergy crops. Using EPIC to distinguish these management options based on grain yield, residue yield, soil C change and cost differences, GCAM then simulates the optimum distribution of the available

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

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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.

Toward a new generation of agricultural system data, models, and knowledge products: State of agricultural systems science.

PubMed

Jones, James W; Antle, John M; Basso, Bruno; Boote, Kenneth J; Conant, Richard T; Foster, Ian; Godfray, H Charles J; Herrero, Mario; Howitt, Richard E; Janssen, Sander; Keating, Brian A; Munoz-Carpena, Rafael; Porter, Cheryl H; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Wheeler, Tim R

2017-07-01

We review the current state of agricultural systems science, focusing in particular on the capabilities and limitations of agricultural systems models. We discuss the state of models relative to five different Use Cases spanning field, farm, landscape, regional, and global spatial scales and engaging questions in past, current, and future time periods. Contributions from multiple disciplines have made major advances relevant to a wide range of agricultural system model applications at various spatial and temporal scales. Although current agricultural systems models have features that are needed for the Use Cases, we found that all of them have limitations and need to be improved. We identified common limitations across all Use Cases, namely 1) a scarcity of data for developing, evaluating, and applying agricultural system models and 2) inadequate knowledge systems that effectively communicate model results to society. We argue that these limitations are greater obstacles to progress than gaps in conceptual theory or available methods for using system models. New initiatives on open data show promise for addressing the data problem, but there also needs to be a cultural change among agricultural researchers to ensure that data for addressing the range of Use Cases are available for future model improvements and applications. We conclude that multiple platforms and multiple models are needed for model applications for different purposes. The Use Cases provide a useful framework for considering capabilities and limitations of existing models and data.

Toward a New Generation of Agricultural System Data, Models, and Knowledge Products: State of Agricultural Systems Science

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, James W.; Antle, John M.; Basso, Bruno; Boote, Kenneth J.; Conant, Richard T.; Foster, Ian; Godfray, H. Charles J.; Herrero, Mario; Howitt, Richard E.; Janssen, Sander;

Toward a new generation of agricultural system data, models, and knowledge products: State of agricultural systems science

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jones, James W.; Antle, John M.; Basso, Bruno

We review the current state of agricultural systems science, focusing in particular on the capabilities and limitations of agricultural systems models. We discuss the state of models relative to five different Use Cases spanning field, farm, landscape, regional, and global spatial scales and engaging questions in past, current, and future time periods. Contributions from multiple disciplines have made major advances relevant to a wide range of agricultural system model applications at various spatial and temporal scales. Although current agricultural systems models have features that are needed for the Use Cases, we found that all of them have limitations and needmore » to be improved. We identified common limitations across all Use Cases, namely 1) a scarcity of data for developing, evaluating, and applying agricultural system models and 2) inadequate knowledge systems that effectively communicate model results to society. We argue that these limitations are greater obstacles to progress than gaps in conceptual theory or available methods for using system models. New initiatives on open data show promise for addressing the data problem, but there also needs to be a cultural change among agricultural researchers to ensure that data for addressing the range of Use Cases are available for future model improvements and applications. We conclude that multiple platforms and multiple models are needed for model applications for different purposes. The Use Cases provide a useful framework for considering capabilities and limitations of existing models and data.« less

Innovation evaluation model for macro-construction sector companies: A study in Spain.

PubMed

Zubizarreta, Mikel; Cuadrado, Jesús; Iradi, Jon; García, Harkaitz; Orbe, Aimar

2017-04-01

The innovativeness of the traditional construction sector, composed of construction companies or contractors, is not one of its strong points. Likewise, its poor productivity in comparison with other sectors, such as manufacturing, has historically been criticized. Similar features are found in the Spanish traditional construction sector, which it has been described as not very innovative. However, certain characteristics of the sector may explain this behavior; the companies invest in R+D less than in other sectors and release fewer patents, so traditional innovation evaluation indicators do not reflect the true extent of its innovative activity. While previous research has focused on general innovation evaluation models, limited research has been done regarding innovation evaluation in the macro-construction sector, which includes, apart from the traditional construction companies or contractors, all companies related to the infrastructure life-cycle. Therefore, in this research an innovation evaluation model has been developed for macro-construction sector companies and is applied in the Spanish case. The model may be applied to the macro-construction sector companies in other countries, requiring the adaption of the model to the specific characteristics of the sector in that country, in consultation with a panel of experts at a national level. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Postponing Labor in Fisheries, Tourism and Agriculture Sectors: Rural Eastern Indonesian University Students in Java

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foertsch, Christopher

2017-10-01

This paper explores the migration of Eastern Indonesian university students who come to Java for education. Often from rural, economically disadvantaged regions such as the Kei Islands in Southeast Maluku, and Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), these young adults delay joining fisheries, agriculture, or tourism sectors. Instead, these relatively high-performing students travel to the “center of the country” seeking skills and experiences promised by higher education in Javanese urban centers. This qualitative, anthropological research complements other, more technical and economic approaches. Based on interview and observational data, a complicated portrait emerges of these bright young people from fishing and farming communities in Maluku and NTT. Many idealistically plan to return to their home communities, hoping to improve local fishing and farming methods or to work as teachers, civil servants, or tour guides. Others do not intend to return home, where they think jobs are scarce and traditional livelihoods unattractive. Analysis of this generation’s perspective has critical implications for educators and policymakers wishing to prevent a “brain drain” of their educated native sons and daughters, whose experience and skills could contribute importantly to the various socio-economic demands present in island regions, including fisheries and agriculture, conservation, tourism, and employment.

Scale Issues in Modeling the Water Resources Sector in National Economic Models: A Case study of China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Strzepek, K. M.; Kirshen, P.; Yohe, G.

2001-05-01

unable to find any global or regional datasets of groundwater.. Combining Surface and Groundwater Supply Functions Water Demand Curves. Water Use data is reported on political regions. Water Supply is reported and modeled on river basin regions. It is necessary to allocate water demands to river basins. To accomplish this China's 9 major river basins were divided into 36 hydroeconomic regions. The counties were then allocated to one of the 36-hydroeconomic zones. The county-level water use data was aggregated to 5 major water use sectors: 1)industry; 2)urban municipal and vegetable gardens: 3) major irrigation; 4) Energy and 5)Other agriculture (forestry, pasture; fishery). Sectoral Demand functions that include price and income elasticity were developed for the 5 sectors for each of the 9 major river basin. The supply and demand curves were aggregated at a variety of geographical scales as well as levels of economic sectoral aggregation. Implications for investment and sustainable development policies were examined for the various aggregation using partial and general equilibrium modeling of the Chinese economy. These results and policy implications for China as well as insights and recommendation for other developing countries will be presented.

Model documentation report: Residential sector demand module of the national energy modeling system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

This report documents the objectives, analytical approach, and development of the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) Residential Sector Demand Module. The report catalogues and describes the model assumptions, computational methodology, parameter estimation techniques, and FORTRAN source code. This reference document provides a detailed description for energy analysts, other users, and the public. The NEMS Residential Sector Demand Module is currently used for mid-term forecasting purposes and energy policy analysis over the forecast horizon of 1993 through 2020. The model generates forecasts of energy demand for the residential sector by service, fuel, and Census Division. Policy impacts resulting from new technologies,more » market incentives, and regulatory changes can be estimated using the module. 26 refs., 6 figs., 5 tabs.« less

Model documentation report: Commercial Sector Demand Module of the National Energy Modeling System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1998-01-01

This report documents the objectives, analytical approach and development of the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) Commercial Sector Demand Module. The report catalogues and describes the model assumptions, computational methodology, parameter estimation techniques, model source code, and forecast results generated through the synthesis and scenario development based on these components. The NEMS Commercial Sector Demand Module is a simulation tool based upon economic and engineering relationships that models commercial sector energy demands at the nine Census Division level of detail for eleven distinct categories of commercial buildings. Commercial equipment selections are performed for the major fuels of electricity, natural gas,more » and distillate fuel, for the major services of space heating, space cooling, water heating, ventilation, cooking, refrigeration, and lighting. The algorithm also models demand for the minor fuels of residual oil, liquefied petroleum gas, steam coal, motor gasoline, and kerosene, the renewable fuel sources of wood and municipal solid waste, and the minor services of office equipment. Section 2 of this report discusses the purpose of the model, detailing its objectives, primary input and output quantities, and the relationship of the Commercial Module to the other modules of the NEMS system. Section 3 of the report describes the rationale behind the model design, providing insights into further assumptions utilized in the model development process to this point. Section 3 also reviews alternative commercial sector modeling methodologies drawn from existing literature, providing a comparison to the chosen approach. Section 4 details the model structure, using graphics and text to illustrate model flows and key computations.« less

Building a comprehensive mill-level database for the Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) model of the U.S. pulp and paper sector.

PubMed

Modak, Nabanita; Spence, Kelley; Sood, Saloni; Rosati, Jacky Ann

2015-01-01

Air emissions from the U.S. pulp and paper sector have been federally regulated since 1978; however, regulations are periodically reviewed and revised to improve efficiency and effectiveness of existing emission standards. The Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) model for the pulp and paper sector is currently under development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and can be utilized to facilitate multi-pollutant, sector-based analyses that are performed in conjunction with regulatory development. The model utilizes a multi-sector, multi-product dynamic linear modeling framework that evaluates the economic impact of emission reduction strategies for multiple air pollutants. The ISIS model considers facility-level economic, environmental, and technical parameters, as well as sector-level market data, to estimate the impacts of environmental regulations on the pulp and paper industry. Specifically, the model can be used to estimate U.S. and global market impacts of new or more stringent air regulations, such as impacts on product price, exports and imports, market demands, capital investment, and mill closures. One major challenge to developing a representative model is the need for an extensive amount of data. This article discusses the collection and processing of data for use in the model, as well as the methods used for building the ISIS pulp and paper database that facilitates the required analyses to support the air quality management of the pulp and paper sector.

7 CFR 652.23 - Certification process for private-sector entities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Certification process for private-sector entities. 652... ASSISTANCE Certification § 652.23 Certification process for private-sector entities. (a) A private sector... individual basis as part of the private-sector entity's certification and ensures that the requirements set...

Organization of work in the agricultural, forestry, and fishing sector in the US southeast: implications for immigrant workers' occupational safety and health.

PubMed

Grzywacz, Joseph G; Lipscomb, Hester J; Casanova, Vanessa; Neis, Barbara; Fraser, Clermont; Monaghan, Paul; Vallejos, Quirina M

2013-08-01

There is widespread agreement that work organization is an important element of occupational safety and health, but the health effects of many aspects of work organization are likely to vary considerably across different sectors of work and geographies. We examined existing employment policies and work organization-related research relevant specifically to immigrant workers in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing (AgFF) Sector of the US workforce focusing, when possible, on the southeastern US. A number of specific aspects of work organization within AgFF subsectors have been described, but most of this literature exists outside the purview of occupational health. There are few studies that directly examine how attributes of work organization relevant to the AgFF Sector affect workers', much less immigrant workers', occupational health exposures and outcomes. In contrast to the broader literature, research linking occupational health outcomes to work organization in the AgFF Sector is limited and weak. A systematic program of research and intervention is needed to develop strategies that eliminate or substantially mitigate the deleterious health effects of occupational exposures whose origins likely lie in the organization of AgFF work. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Building a Comprehensive Mill-Level Database for the Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) Model of the U.S. Pulp and Paper Sector

PubMed Central

Modak, Nabanita; Spence, Kelley; Sood, Saloni; Rosati, Jacky Ann

2015-01-01

Air emissions from the U.S. pulp and paper sector have been federally regulated since 1978; however, regulations are periodically reviewed and revised to improve efficiency and effectiveness of existing emission standards. The Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) model for the pulp and paper sector is currently under development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and can be utilized to facilitate multi-pollutant, sector-based analyses that are performed in conjunction with regulatory development. The model utilizes a multi-sector, multi-product dynamic linear modeling framework that evaluates the economic impact of emission reduction strategies for multiple air pollutants. The ISIS model considers facility-level economic, environmental, and technical parameters, as well as sector-level market data, to estimate the impacts of environmental regulations on the pulp and paper industry. Specifically, the model can be used to estimate U.S. and global market impacts of new or more stringent air regulations, such as impacts on product price, exports and imports, market demands, capital investment, and mill closures. One major challenge to developing a representative model is the need for an extensive amount of data. This article discusses the collection and processing of data for use in the model, as well as the methods used for building the ISIS pulp and paper database that facilitates the required analyses to support the air quality management of the pulp and paper sector. PMID:25806516

Heat-related illness in Washington State agriculture and forestry sectors.

PubMed

Spector, June T; Krenz, Jennifer; Rauser, Edmund; Bonauto, David K

2014-08-01

We sought to describe heat-related illness (HRI) in agriculture and forestry workers in Washington State. Demographic and clinical Washington State Fund workers' compensation agriculture and forestry HRI claims data (1995-2009) and Washington Agriculture Heat Rule citations (2009-2012) were accessed and described. Maximum daily temperature (Tmax) and Heat Index (HImax) were estimated by claim date and location using AgWeatherNet's weather station network. There were 84 Washington State Fund agriculture and forestry HRI claims and 60 Heat Rule citations during the study period. HRI claims and citations were most common in crop production and support subsectors. The mean Tmax (HImax) was 95°F (99°F) for outdoor HRI claims. Potential HRI risk factors and HRI-related injuries were documented for some claims. Agriculture and forestry HRI cases are characterized by potential work-related, environmental, and personal risk factors. Further work is needed to elucidate the relationship between heat exposure and occupational injuries. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Heat-Related Illness in Washington State Agriculture and Forestry Sectors

PubMed Central

Spector, June T.; Krenz, Jennifer; Rauser, Edmund; Bonauto, David K.

2017-01-01

Background We sought to describe heat-related illness (HRI) in agriculture and forestry workers in Washington State. Methods Demographic and clinical Washington State Fund workers’ compensation agriculture and forestry HRI claims data (1995–2009) and Washington Agriculture Heat Rule citations (2009–2012) were accessed and described. Maximum daily temperature (Tmax) and Heat Index (HImax) were estimated by claim date and location using AgWeatherNet’s weather station network. Results There were 84 Washington State Fund agriculture and forestry HRI claims and 60 Heat Rule citations during the study period. HRI claims and citations were most common in crop production and support subsectors. The mean Tmax (HImax) was 95°F (99°F) for outdoor HRI claims. Potential HRI risk factors and HRI-related injuries were documented for some claims. Conclusions Agriculture and forestry HRI cases are characterized by potential work-related, environmental, and personal risk factors. Further work is needed to elucidate the relationship between heat exposure and occupational injuries. PMID:24953344

Merging remote sensing data and national agricultural statistics to model change in irrigated agriculture

USGS Publications Warehouse

Brown, Jesslyn; Pervez, Md Shahriar

2014-01-01

Over 22 million hectares (ha) of U.S. croplands are irrigated. Irrigation is an intensified agricultural land use that increases crop yields and the practice affects water and energy cycles at, above, and below the land surface. Until recently, there has been a scarcity of geospatially detailed information about irrigation that is comprehensive, consistent, and timely to support studies tying agricultural land use change to aquifer water use and other factors. This study shows evidence for a recent overall net expansion of 522 thousand ha across the U.S. (2.33%) and 519 thousand ha (8.7%) in irrigated cropped area across the High Plains Aquifer (HPA) from 2002 to 2007. In fact, over 97% of the net national expansion in irrigated agriculture overlays the HPA. We employed a modeling approach implemented at two time intervals (2002 and 2007) for mapping irrigated agriculture across the conterminous U.S. (CONUS). We utilized U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) county statistics, satellite imagery, and a national land cover map in the model. The model output, called the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the U.S. (MIrAD-US), was then used to reveal relatively detailed spatial patterns of irrigation change across the nation and the HPA. Causes for the irrigation increase in the HPA are complex, but factors include crop commodity price increases, the corn ethanol industry, and government policies related to water use. Impacts of more irrigation may include shifts in local and regional climate, further groundwater depletion, and increasing crop yields and farm income.

Agricultural Education as a Medium for the Transmission of Western Science during British Rule in Malaya, 1905-1957

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arman, Ezwan; Mamat, Mohd Zufri; Hasbullah, Maisarah

2016-01-01

This paper traces the transmission of Western science through the agricultural education sector during the British colonial administration of Malaya. This education system included three levels: elementary, intermediate and the school of agriculture. To understand the process by which Western science was transmitted in Malaya, Basalla's model was…

A national econometric forecasting model of the dental sector.

PubMed Central

Feldstein, P J; Roehrig, C S

1980-01-01

The Econometric Model of the the Dental Sector forecasts a broad range of dental sector variables, including dental care prices; the amount of care produced and consumed; employment of hygienists, dental assistants, and clericals; hours worked by dentists; dental incomes; and number of dentists. These forecasts are based upon values specified by the user for the various factors which help determine the supply an demand for dental care, such as the size of the population, per capita income, the proportion of the population covered by private dental insurance, the cost of hiring clericals and dental assistants, and relevant government policies. In a test of its reliability, the model forecast dental sector behavior quite accurately for the period 1971 through 1977. PMID:7461974

Technical change in forest sector models: the global forest products model approach

Treesearch

Joseph Buongiorno; Sushuai Zhu

2015-01-01

Technical change is developing rapidly in some parts of the forest sector, especially in the pulp and paper industry where wood fiber is being substituted by waste paper. In forest sector models, the processing of wood and other input into products is frequently represented by activity analysis (input–output). In this context, technical change translates in changes...

A Comparative Analysis of Financial Reporting Models for Private and Public Sector Organizations.

DTIC Science & Technology

1995-12-01

The objective of this thesis was to describe and compare different existing and evolving financial reporting models used in both the public and...private sector. To accomplish the objective, this thesis identified the existing financial reporting models for private sector business organizations...private sector nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments, as well as the evolving financial reporting model for the federal government

Simulating the Impacts of Climate Extremes Across Sectors: The Case of the 2003 European Heat Wave

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schewe, J.; Zhao, F.; Reyer, C.; Breuer, L.; Coll, M.; Deryng, D.; Eddy, T.; Elliott, J. W.; Francois, L. M.; Friend, A. D.; Gerten, D.; Gosling, S.; Gudmundsson, L.; Huber, V.; Kim, H.; Lotze, H. K.; Orth, R.; Seneviratne, S. I.; Tittensor, D.; Vautard, R.; van Vliet, M. T. H.; Wada, Y.

2017-12-01

Increased occurrence of extreme climate or weather events is one of the most damaging consequences of global climate change today and in the future. Estimating the impacts of such extreme events across different human and natural systems is crucial for quantifying overall risks from climate change. Are current models fit for this task? Here we use the 2003 European heat wave and drought (EHW) as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, and evaluate how accurately its impacts are reproduced by a multi-sectoral "super-ensemble" of state-of-the-art impacts models. Our study combines, for the first time, impacts on agriculture, freshwater resources, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, energy, and human health in a consistent multi-model framework. We identify key impacts of the 2003 EHW reported in the literature and/or recorded in publicly available databases, and examine how closely the models reproduce those impacts, applying the same measure of impact magnitude across different sectors. Preliminary results are mixed: While the EHW's impacts on water resources (streamflow) are reproduced well by most global hydrological models, not all crop and natural vegetation models reproduce the magnitude of impacts on agriculture and ecosystem productivity, respectively, and their performance varies by country or region. A hydropower capacity model matches reported hydropower generation anomalies only in some countries, and estimates of heat-related excess mortality from a set of statistical models are consistent with literature reports only for some of the cities investigated. We present a synthesis of simulated and observed impacts across sectors, and reflect on potential improvements in modeling and analyzing cross-sectoral impacts.

Modelling Mediterranean agro-ecosystems by including agricultural trees in the LPJmL model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fader, M.; von Bloh, W.; Shi, S.; Bondeau, A.; Cramer, W.

2015-06-01

Climate and land use change in the Mediterranean region is expected to affect natural and agricultural ecosystems by decreases in precipitation, increases in temperature as well as biodiversity loss and anthropogenic degradation of natural resources. Demographic growth in the Eastern and Southern shores will require increases in food production and put additional pressure on agro-ecosystems and water resources. Coping with these challenges requires informed decisions that, in turn, require assessments by means of a comprehensive agro-ecosystem and hydrological model. This study presents the inclusion of 10 Mediterranean agricultural plants, mainly perennial crops, in an agro-ecosystem model (LPJmL): nut trees, date palms, citrus trees, orchards, olive trees, grapes, cotton, potatoes, vegetables and fodder grasses. The model was successfully tested in three model outputs: agricultural yields, irrigation requirements and soil carbon density. With the development presented in this study, LPJmL is now able to simulate in good detail and mechanistically the functioning of Mediterranean agriculture with a comprehensive representation of ecophysiological processes for all vegetation types (natural and agricultural) and in a consistent framework that produces estimates of carbon, agricultural and hydrological variables for the entire Mediterranean basin. This development pave the way for further model extensions aiming at the representation of alternative agro-ecosystems (e.g. agroforestry), and opens the door for a large number of applications in the Mediterranean region, for example assessments on the consequences of land use transitions, the influence of management practices and climate change impacts.

Biofertilizers: a potential approach for sustainable agriculture development.

PubMed

Mahanty, Trishna; Bhattacharjee, Surajit; Goswami, Madhurankhi; Bhattacharyya, Purnita; Das, Bannhi; Ghosh, Abhrajyoti; Tribedi, Prosun

2017-02-01

The worldwide increase in human population raises a big threat to the food security of each people as the land for agriculture is limited and even getting reduced with time. Therefore, it is essential that agricultural productivity should be enhanced significantly within the next few decades to meet the large demand of food by emerging population. Not to mention, too much dependence on chemical fertilizers for more crop productions inevitably damages both environmental ecology and human health with great severity. Exploitation of microbes as biofertilizers is considered to some extent an alternative to chemical fertilizers in agricultural sector due to their extensive potentiality in enhancing crop production and food safety. It has been observed that some microorganisms including plant growth promoting bacteria, fungi, Cyanobacteria, etc. have showed biofertilizer-like activities in the agricultural sector. Extensive works on biofertilizers have revealed their capability of providing required nutrients to the crop in sufficient amounts that resulted in the enhancement of crop yield. The present review elucidates various mechanisms that have been exerted by biofertilizers in order to promote plant growth and also provides protection against different plant pathogens. The aim of this review is to discuss the important roles and applications of biofertilizers in different sectors including agriculture, bioremediation, and ecology.

Scenarios of land use change for agriculture: the role of Land Evaluation in improving model simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mereu, V.; Santini, M.; Dettori, G.; Muresu, P.; Spano, D.; Duce, P.

2009-12-01

Integrated scenarios of future climate and land use represent a useful input for impact studies about global changes. In particular, improving future land use simulations is essential for the agricultural sector, which is influenced by both biogeophysical constraints and human needs. Often land use change models are mainly based on statistical relationships between known land use distribution and biophysical or socio-economic factors, neglecting the necessary consideration of physical constraints that interact in making lands more or less capable for agriculture and suitable for supporting specific crops. In this study, a well developed land use change model (CLUE@CMCC) was suited for the Mediterranean basin case study, focusing on croplands. Several climate scenarios and future demands for croplands were combined to drive the model, while the same climate scenarios were used to more reliably allocate crops in the most suitable areas on the basis of Land Evaluation techniques. The probability for each map unit to sustain a specific crop, usually related to location characteristics, elasticity to conversion and competition among land use types, now includes specific crop-favoring location characteristics. Results, besides improving the consistency of the land use change model to allocate land for the future, can have the main feedback to suggest feasibility or reasonable thresholds to adjust land use demands during dynamic simulations.

Human Resource Development for Modernizing the Agricultural Workforce

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rivera, William M.; Alex, Gary E.

2008-01-01

Greater commercialization of agricultural systems and increasing trade liberalization dictate the need for better capacity on the part of the agriculture workforce in the 21st century. Global changes in the roles of the public and private sectors and the dramatic advancements in technology have also strongly affected agricultural workforce…

The Climate-Agriculture-Modeling and Decision Tool (CAMDT) for Climate Risk Management in Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ines, A. V. M.; Han, E.; Baethgen, W.

2017-12-01

Advances in seasonal climate forecasts (SCFs) during the past decades have brought great potential to improve agricultural climate risk managements associated with inter-annual climate variability. In spite of popular uses of crop simulation models in addressing climate risk problems, the models cannot readily take seasonal climate predictions issued in the format of tercile probabilities of most likely rainfall categories (i.e, below-, near- and above-normal). When a skillful SCF is linked with the crop simulation models, the informative climate information can be further translated into actionable agronomic terms and thus better support strategic and tactical decisions. In other words, crop modeling connected with a given SCF allows to simulate "what-if" scenarios with different crop choices or management practices and better inform the decision makers. In this paper, we present a decision support tool, called CAMDT (Climate Agriculture Modeling and Decision Tool), which seamlessly integrates probabilistic SCFs to DSSAT-CSM-Rice model to guide decision-makers in adopting appropriate crop and agricultural water management practices for given climatic conditions. The CAMDT has a functionality to disaggregate a probabilistic SCF into daily weather realizations (either a parametric or non-parametric disaggregation method) and to run DSSAT-CSM-Rice with the disaggregated weather realizations. The convenient graphical user-interface allows easy implementation of several "what-if" scenarios for non-technical users and visualize the results of the scenario runs. In addition, the CAMDT also translates crop model outputs to economic terms once the user provides expected crop price and cost. The CAMDT is a practical tool for real-world applications, specifically for agricultural climate risk management in the Bicol region, Philippines, having a great flexibility for being adapted to other crops or regions in the world. CAMDT GitHub: https://github.com/Agro-Climate/CAMDT

Agriculture and malnutrition in India.

PubMed

Gulati, Ashok; Ganesh-Kumar, A; Shreedhar, Ganga; Nandakumar, T

2012-03-01

Despite the high and relatively stable overall growth of the economy, India's agriculture sector is underperforming and a vast section of the population remains undernourished. To explore the possible interplay between agricultural performance and malnutrition indicators to see whether states that perform better in agriculture record better nutritional outcomes. Correlation analysis and a simple linear regression model were used to study the relationship between agricultural performance and malnutrition among children under 5 years of age and adults from 15 to 49 years of age at 20 major states using data from the National Family Health Survey-3 for the year 2005/06 and the national accounts. Indicators of the level of agricultural performance or income have a strong and significant negative relationship with indices of undernutrition among adults and children, a result suggesting that improvement of agricultural productivity can be a powerful tool to reduce undernutrition across the vast majority of the population. In addition to agriculture, access to sanitation facilities and women's literacy were also found to be strong factors affecting malnutrition. Access to healthcare for women and child-care practices, in particular breastfeeding within 1 hour after birth, are other important determinants of malnutrition among adults and children. Malnutrition is a multidimensional problem that requires multisectoral interventions. The findings show that improving agricultural performance can have a positive impact on nutritional outcomes. However, improvements in agriculture alone cannot be effective in combating malnutrition if several other mediating factors are not in place. Interventions to improve education, health, sanitation and household infrastructure, and care and feeding practices are critical. Innovative strategies that integrate agriculture and nutrition programs stand a better chance of combating the malnutrition problem.

Modelling Mediterranean agro-ecosystems by including agricultural trees in the LPJmL model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fader, M.; von Bloh, W.; Shi, S.; Bondeau, A.; Cramer, W.

2015-11-01

In the Mediterranean region, climate and land use change are expected to impact on natural and agricultural ecosystems by warming, reduced rainfall, direct degradation of ecosystems and biodiversity loss. Human population growth and socioeconomic changes, notably on the eastern and southern shores, will require increases in food production and put additional pressure on agro-ecosystems and water resources. Coping with these challenges requires informed decisions that, in turn, require assessments by means of a comprehensive agro-ecosystem and hydrological model. This study presents the inclusion of 10 Mediterranean agricultural plants, mainly perennial crops, in an agro-ecosystem model (Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land - LPJmL): nut trees, date palms, citrus trees, orchards, olive trees, grapes, cotton, potatoes, vegetables and fodder grasses. The model was successfully tested in three model outputs: agricultural yields, irrigation requirements and soil carbon density. With the development presented in this study, LPJmL is now able to simulate in good detail and mechanistically the functioning of Mediterranean agriculture with a comprehensive representation of ecophysiological processes for all vegetation types (natural and agricultural) and in a consistent framework that produces estimates of carbon, agricultural and hydrological variables for the entire Mediterranean basin. This development paves the way for further model extensions aiming at the representation of alternative agro-ecosystems (e.g. agroforestry), and opens the door for a large number of applications in the Mediterranean region, for example assessments of the consequences of land use transitions, the influence of management practices and climate change impacts.

Agricultural Model for the Nile Basin Decision Support System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van der Bolt, Frank; Seid, Abdulkarim

2014-05-01

To analyze options for increasing food supply in the Nile basin the Nile Agricultural Model (AM) was developed. The AM includes state-of-the-art descriptions of biophysical, hydrological and economic processes and realizes a coherent and consistent integration of hydrology, agronomy and economics. The AM covers both the agro-ecological domain (water, crop productivity) and the economic domain (food supply, demand, and trade) and allows to evaluate the macro-economic and hydrological impacts of scenarios for agricultural development. Starting with the hydrological information from the NileBasin-DSS the AM calculates the available water for agriculture, the crop production and irrigation requirements with the FAO-model AquaCrop. With the global commodity trade model MAGNET scenarios for land development and conversion are evaluated. The AM predicts consequences for trade, food security and development based on soil and water availability, crop allocation, food demand and food policy. The model will be used as a decision support tool to contribute to more productive and sustainable agriculture in individual Nile countries and the whole region.

Agricultural Trade Negotiations at a Crossroads

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-02-28

interests and the commitment of the EC to the social policy objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy . The EC has been especially concerned with...willingness on the part of the EC to reform its Common Agricultural Policy , there would be little reason to extend fast-track authority or to continue the...implementing legislation up or down without amendments. 5 Committees 5 for specific commodity sectors, there is the higher- level Agricultural Policy Advisory

Agricultural model intercomparison and improvement project: Overview of model intercomparisons

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Improvement of crop simulation models to better estimate growth and yield is one of the objectives of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). The overall goal of AgMIP is to provide an assessment of crop model through rigorous intercomparisons and evaluate future clim...

Sectoral transitions - modeling the development from agrarian to service economies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lutz, Raphael; Spies, Michael; Reusser, Dominik E.; Kropp, Jürgen P.; Rybski, Diego

2013-04-01

We consider the sectoral composition of a country's GDP, i.e the partitioning into agrarian, industrial, and service sectors. Exploring a simple system of differential equations we characterise the transfer of GDP shares between the sectors in the course of economic development. The model fits for the majority of countries providing 4 country-specific parameters. Relating the agrarian with the industrial sector, a data collapse over all countries and all years supports the applicability of our approach. Depending on the parameter ranges, country development exhibits different transfer properties. Most countries follow 3 of 8 characteristic paths. The types are not random but show distinct geographic and development patterns.

Droughts in the US: Modeling and Forecasting for Agriculture-Water Management and Adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perveen, S.; Devineni, N.; Lall, U.

2012-12-01

More than half of all US counties are currently mired in a drought that is considered the worst in decades. A persistent drought can not only lead to widespread impacts on water access with interstate implications (as has been shown in the Southeast US and Texas), chronic scarcity can emerge as a risk in regions where fossil aquifers have become the primary source of supply and are being depleted at rates much faster than recharge (e.g., Midwestern US). The standardized drought indices on which the drought declarations are made in the US so far consider only the static decision frameworks—where only the supply is the control variable and not the water consumption. If a location has low demands, drought as manifest in the usual indices does not really have "proportionate" social impact. Conversely, a modest drought as indicated by the traditional measures may have significant impacts where demand is close to the climatological mean value of precipitation. This may also lead to drought being declared too late or too soon. Against this fact, the importance of improved drought forecasting and preparedness for different sectors of the economy becomes increasingly important. The central issue we propose to address through this paper is the construction and testing of a drought index that considers regional water demands for specific purposes (e.g., crops, municipal use) and their temporal distribution over the year for continental US. Here, we have highlighted the use of the proposed index for three main sectors: (i) water management organizations, (ii) optimizing agricultural water use, and (iii) supply chain water risk. The drought index will consider day-to-day climate variability and sectoral demands to develop aggregate regional conditions or disaggregated indices for water users. For the daily temperature and precipitation data, we are using NLDAS dataset that is available from 1949 onwards. The national agricultural statistics services (NASS) online database has

Building a Comprehensive Mill-Level Database for the Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) Model of the U.S. Pulp and Paper Sector

EPA Science Inventory

The Industrial Sectors Integrated Solutions (ISIS) model for the pulp and paper sector is currently under development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and can be utilized to facilitate multi-pollutant sector-based analyses that are performed in conjunction with ...

Industrial Sector Energy Efficiency Modeling (ISEEM) Framework Documentation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Karali, Nihan; Xu, Tengfang; Sathaye, Jayant

2012-12-12

The goal of this study is to develop a new bottom-up industry sector energy-modeling framework with an agenda of addressing least cost regional and global carbon reduction strategies, improving the capabilities and limitations of the existing models that allows trading across regions and countries as an alternative.

Effects of dynamic agricultural decision making in an ecohydrological model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reichenau, T. G.; Krimly, T.; Schneider, K.

2012-04-01

Due to various interdependencies between the cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen, and energy the impacts of climate change on ecohydrological systems can only be investigated in an integrative way. Furthermore, the human intervention in the environmental processes makes the system even more complex. On the one hand human impact affects natural systems. On the other hand the changing natural systems have a feedback on human decision making. One of the most important examples for this kind of interaction can be found in the agricultural sector. Management dates (planting, fertilization, harvesting) are chosen based on meteorological conditions and yield expectations. A faster development of crops under a warmer climate causes shorter cropping seasons. The choice of crops depends on their profitability, which is mainly determined by market prizes, the agro-political framework, and the (climate dependent) crop yield. This study investigates these relations for the district Günzburg located in the Upper Danube catchment in southern Germany. The modeling system DANUBIA was used to perform dynamically coupled simulations of plant growth, surface and soil hydrological processes, soil nitrogen transformations, and agricultural decision making. The agro-economic model simulates decisions on management dates (based on meteorological conditions and the crops' development state), on fertilization intensities (based on yield expectations), and on choice of crops (based on profitability). The environmental models included in DANUBIA are to a great extent process based to enable its use in a climate change scenario context. Scenario model runs until 2058 were performed using an IPCC A1B forcing. In consecutive runs, dynamic crop management, dynamic crop selection, and a changing agro-political framework were activated. Effects of these model features on hydrological and ecological variables were analyzed separately by comparing the results to a model run with constant crop

Representing agriculture in Earth System Models: Approaches and priorities for development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDermid, S. S.; Mearns, L. O.; Ruane, A. C.

2017-09-01

Earth System Model (ESM) advances now enable improved representations of spatially and temporally varying anthropogenic climate forcings. One critical forcing is global agriculture, which is now extensive in land-use and intensive in management, owing to 20th century development trends. Agriculture and food systems now contribute nearly 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions and require copious inputs and resources, such as fertilizer, water, and land. Much uncertainty remains in quantifying important agriculture-climate interactions, including surface moisture and energy balances and biogeochemical cycling. Despite these externalities and uncertainties, agriculture is increasingly being leveraged to function as a net sink of anthropogenic carbon, and there is much emphasis on future sustainable intensification. Given its significance as a major environmental and climate forcing, there now exist a variety of approaches to represent agriculture in ESMs. These approaches are reviewed herein, and range from idealized representations of agricultural extent to the development of coupled climate-crop models that capture dynamic feedbacks. We highlight the robust agriculture-climate interactions and responses identified by these modeling efforts, as well as existing uncertainties and model limitations. To this end, coordinated and benchmarking assessments of land-use-climate feedbacks can be leveraged for further improvements in ESM's agricultural representations. We suggest key areas for continued model development, including incorporating irrigation and biogeochemical cycling in particular. Last, we pose several critical research questions to guide future work. Our review focuses on ESM representations of climate-surface interactions over managed agricultural lands, rather than on ESMs as an estimation tool for crop yields and productivity.

Agricultural Intensification as a Mechanism of Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kyle, P.; Calvin, K. V.; le Page, Y.; Patel, P.; West, T. O.; Wise, M. A.

2015-12-01

The research, policy, and NGO communities have devoted significant attention to the potential for agricultural intensification, or closure of "yield gaps," to alleviate future global hunger, poverty, climate change impacts, and other threats. However, because the research to this point has focused on biophysically attainable yields—assuming optimal choices under ideal conditions—the presently available work has not yet addressed the likely responses of the agricultural sector to real-world conditions in the future. This study investigates endogenous agricultural intensification in response to global climate change impacts—that is, intensification independent of policies or other exogenous interventions to promote yield gap closure. The framework for the analysis is a set of scenarios to 2100 in the GCAM global integrated assessment model, enhanced to include endogenous irrigation, fertilizer application, and yields, in each of 283 land use regions, with maximum yields based on the 95th percentile of attainable yields in a recent global assessment. We assess three levels of agricultural climate impacts, using recent global gridded crop model datasets: none, low (LPJmL), and high (Pegasus). Applying formulations for decomposition of climate change impacts response developed in prior AgMIP work, we find that at the global level, availability of high-yielding technologies mitigates price shocks and shifts the agricultural sector's climate response modestly towards intensification, away from cropland expansion and reduced production. At the regional level, the behavior is more complex; nevertheless, availability of high-yielding production technologies enhances the inter-regional shifts in agricultural production that are induced by climate change, complemented by commensurate changes in trade patterns. The results highlight the importance of policies to facilitate yield gap closure and inter-regional trade as mechanisms for adapting to climate change

Quality assurance of weather data for agricultural system model input

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

It is well known that crop production and hydrologic variation on watersheds is weather related. Rarely, however, is meteorological data quality checks reported for agricultural systems model research. We present quality assurance procedures for agricultural system model weather data input. Problems...

Multi-sectoral interventions for healthy growth.

PubMed

Casanovas, Ma del Carmen; Lutter, Chessa K; Mangasaryan, Nune; Mwadime, Robert; Hajeebhoy, Nemat; Aguilar, Ana Maria; Kopp, Ciro; Rico, Luis; Ibiett, Gonzalo; Andia, Doris; Onyango, Adelheid W

2013-09-01

The risk of stunted growth and development is affected by the context in which a child is born and grows. This includes such interdependent influences as the political economy, health and health care, education, society and culture, agriculture and food systems, water and sanitation, and the environment. Here, we briefly review how factors linked with the key sectors can contribute to healthy growth and reduced childhood stunting. Emphasis is placed on the role of agriculture/food security, especially family farming; education, particularly of girls and women; water, sanitation, and hygiene and their integration in stunting reduction strategies; social protection including cash transfers, bearing in mind that success in this regard is linked to reducing the gap between rich and poor; economic investment in stunting reduction including the work with the for-profit commercial sector balancing risks linked to marketing foods that can displace affordable and more sustainable alternatives; health with emphasis on implementing comprehensive and effective health care interventions and building the capacity of health care providers. We complete the review with examples of national and subnational multi-sectoral interventions that illustrate how critical it is for sectors to work together to reduce stunting. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A framework for the cross-sectoral integration of multi-model impact projections: land use decisions under climate impacts uncertainties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frieler, K.; Levermann, A.; Elliott, J.; Heinke, J.; Arneth, A.; Bierkens, M. F. P.; Ciais, P.; Clark, D. B.; Deryng, D.; Döll, P.; Falloon, P.; Fekete, B.; Folberth, C.; Friend, A. D.; Gellhorn, C.; Gosling, S. N.; Haddeland, I.; Khabarov, N.; Lomas, M.; Masaki, Y.; Nishina, K.; Neumann, K.; Oki, T.; Pavlick, R.; Ruane, A. C.; Schmid, E.; Schmitz, C.; Stacke, T.; Stehfest, E.; Tang, Q.; Wisser, D.; Huber, V.; Piontek, F.; Warszawski, L.; Schewe, J.; Lotze-Campen, H.; Schellnhuber, H. J.

2015-07-01

Climate change and its impacts already pose considerable challenges for societies that will further increase with global warming (IPCC, 2014a, b). Uncertainties of the climatic response to greenhouse gas emissions include the potential passing of large-scale tipping points (e.g. Lenton et al., 2008; Levermann et al., 2012; Schellnhuber, 2010) and changes in extreme meteorological events (Field et al., 2012) with complex impacts on societies (Hallegatte et al., 2013). Thus climate change mitigation is considered a necessary societal response for avoiding uncontrollable impacts (Conference of the Parties, 2010). On the other hand, large-scale climate change mitigation itself implies fundamental changes in, for example, the global energy system. The associated challenges come on top of others that derive from equally important ethical imperatives like the fulfilment of increasing food demand that may draw on the same resources. For example, ensuring food security for a growing population may require an expansion of cropland, thereby reducing natural carbon sinks or the area available for bio-energy production. So far, available studies addressing this problem have relied on individual impact models, ignoring uncertainty in crop model and biome model projections. Here, we propose a probabilistic decision framework that allows for an evaluation of agricultural management and mitigation options in a multi-impact-model setting. Based on simulations generated within the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), we outline how cross-sectorally consistent multi-model impact simulations could be used to generate the information required for robust decision making. Using an illustrative future land use pattern, we discuss the trade-off between potential gains in crop production and associated losses in natural carbon sinks in the new multiple crop- and biome-model setting. In addition, crop and water model simulations are combined to explore irrigation

The Effects of Liberalizing World Agricultural Trade: A Review of Modeling Studies

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-06-01

agricultural policy issues. Like the LINKAGE model analysis, the GTAP-AGR model analysis uses version 6.05 of the GTAP database with a base year of...the 2006 study—fully liberal- izing agricultural policy in equal increments from 2005 through 2010—would increase world economic welfare in 2015 by...Burfisher, ed., Agricultural Policy Reform in the WTO—The Road Ahead, Agricultural Economic Report No. 802 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic

Combining DRGs and per diem payments in the private sector: the Equitable Payment Model.

PubMed

Hanning, Brian W T

2005-02-01

The many types of payment models used in the Australian private sector are reviewed. Their features are compared and contrasted to those desirable in an optimal private sector payment model. The EPM(TM) (Equitable Payment Model) is discussed and its consistency with the desirable features of an optimal private sector payment model outlined. These include being based on a robust classification system, nationally benchmarked length of stay (LOS) results, nationally benchmarked relative cost and encouraging continual improvement in efficiency to the benefit of both health funds and private hospitals. The advantages in the context of the private sector of EPM(TM) being a per diem model, albeit very different to current per diem models, are discussed. The advantages of EPM(TM) for hospitals and health funds are outlined.

A Framework for the Cross-Sectoral Integration of Multi-Model Impact Projections: Land Use Decisions Under Climate Impacts Uncertainties

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frieler, K.; Elliott, Joshua; Levermann, A.; Heinke, J.; Arneth, A.; Bierkens, M. F. P.; Ciais, P.; Clark, D. B.; Deryng, D.; Doll, P.;

Integrated water assessment and modelling: A bibliometric analysis of trends in the water resource sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zare, Fateme; Elsawah, Sondoss; Iwanaga, Takuya; Jakeman, Anthony J.; Pierce, Suzanne A.

2017-09-01

There are substantial challenges facing humanity in the water and related sectors and purposeful integration of the disciplines, connected sectors and interest groups is now perceived as essential to address them. This article describes and uses bibliometric analysis techniques to provide quantitative insights into the general landscape of Integrated Water Resource Assessment and Modelling (IWAM) research over the last 45 years. Keywords, terms in titles, abstracts and the full texts are used to distinguish the 13,239 IWAM articles in journals and other non-grey literature. We identify the major journals publishing IWAM research, influential authors through citation counts, as well as the distribution and strength of source countries. Fruitfully, we find that the growth in numbers of such publications has continued to accelerate, and attention to both the biophysical and socioeconomic aspects has also been growing. On the other hand, our analysis strongly indicates that the former continue to dominate, partly by embracing integration with other biophysical sectors related to water - environment, groundwater, ecology, climate change and agriculture. In the social sciences the integration is occurring predominantly through economics, with the others, including law, policy and stakeholder participation, much diminished in comparison. We find there has been increasing attention to management and decision support systems, but a much weaker focus on uncertainty, a pervasive concern whose criticalities must be identified and managed for improving decision making. It would seem that interdisciplinary science still has a long way to go before crucial integration with the non-economic social sciences and uncertainty considerations are achieved more routinely.

Water resources planning in a strategic context: Linking the water sector to the national economy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rogers, Peter; Hurst, Christopher; Harshadeep, Nagaraja

1993-07-01

In many parts of the developing world investment in water resources takes a large proportion of the available public investment funds. As the conflicts for funds between the water and other sectors become more severe, the traditional ways of analyzing and planning water investments has to move away from project-by-project (or even a river basin-by-river basin) approaches to include the relationships of water investments to other sectors and to overall national development policies. Current approaches to water resources investments are too narrow. There is a need for ways to expand the strategic thinking of water sector managers. This paper develops a water resources planning methodology with the primary objective of giving insights into the linking of water sector investments and macroeconomic policies. The model optimizes the present value of investments for water resources development, while embedding a macroeconomic model into the framework to allow for an examination of the interactions between water investments, the growth in the agricultural sector, and the performance of the overall economy. A case study of Bangladesh is presented which shows how strategic thinking could lead to widely differing implications for water investments than would conventional water resources systems planning models.

Agriculture and nutrition in India: mapping evidence to pathways.

PubMed

Kadiyala, Suneetha; Harris, Jody; Headey, Derek; Yosef, Sivan; Gillespie, Stuart

2014-12-01

In India, progress against undernutrition has been slow. Given its importance for income generation, improving diets, care practices, and maternal health, the agriculture sector is widely regarded as playing an important role in accelerating the reduction in undernutrition. This paper comprehensively maps existing evidence along agriculture-nutrition pathways in India and assesses both the quality and coverage of the existing literature. We present a conceptual framework delineating six key pathways between agriculture and nutrition. Three pathways pertain to the nutritional impacts of farm production, farm incomes, and food prices. The other three pertain to agriculture-gender linkages. After an extensive search, we found 78 research papers that provided evidence to populate these pathways. The literature suggests that Indian agriculture has a range of important influences on nutrition. Agriculture seems to influence diets even when controlling for income, and relative food prices could partly explain observed dietary changes in recent decades. The evidence on agriculture-gender linkages to nutrition is relatively weak. Sizeable knowledge gaps remain. The root causes of these gaps include an interdisciplinary disconnect between nutrition and economics/agriculture, a related problem of inadequate survey data, and limited policy-driven experimentation. Closing these gaps is essential to strengthening the agriculture sector's contribution to reducing undernutrition. © 2014 New York Academy of Sciences.

Modeling of pesticide emissions from agricultural ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Rong

2012-04-01

Pesticides are applied to crops and soils to improve agricultural yields, but the use of pesticides has become highly regulated because of concerns about their adverse effects on human health and environment. Estimating pesticide emission rates from soils and crops is a key component for risk assessment for pesticide registration, identification of pesticide sources to the contamination of sensitive ecosystems, and appreciation of transport and fate of pesticides in the environment. Pesticide emission rates involve processes occurring in the soil, in the atmosphere, and on vegetation surfaces and are highly dependent on soil texture, agricultural practices, and meteorology, which vary significantly with location and/or time. To take all these factors into account for simulating pesticide emissions from large agricultural ecosystems, this study coupled a comprehensive meteorological model with a dynamic pesticide emission model. The combined model calculates hourly emission rates from both emission sources: current applications and soil residues resulting from historical use. The coupled modeling system is used to compute a gridded (36 × 36 km) hourly toxaphene emission inventory for North America for the year 2000 using a published U.S. toxaphene residue inventory and a Mexican toxaphene residue inventory developed using its historical application rates and a cropland inventory. To my knowledge, this is the first such hourly toxaphene emission inventory for North America. Results show that modeled emission rates have strong diurnal and seasonal variations at a given location and over the entire domain. The simulated total toxaphene emission from contaminated agricultural soils in North America in 2000 was about 255 t, which compares reasonably well to a published annual estimate. Most emissions occur in spring and summer, with domain-wide emission rates in April, May and, June of 36, 51, and 35 t/month, respectively. The spatial distribution of emissions depends

Ecological and economic impacts of forest policies: interactions across forestry and agriculture.

Treesearch

R.J. Alig; D.M. Adams; B.A. McCarl

1998-01-01

A linked model of the US forest and agriculture sectors was used to examine the economic and ecological impacts of two forest policies: a minimum harvest age limitation and a reduced public harvest policy. Simulated private responses to both policies indicate that landowners could undertake a range of adjustments to minimize their welfare impacts, but imposition of...

Representing Extremes in Agricultural Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ruane, Alex

2015-01-01

AgMIP and related projects are conducting several activities to understand and improve crop model response to extreme events. This involves crop model studies as well as the generation of climate datasets and scenarios more capable of capturing extremes. Models are typically less responsive to extreme events than we observe, and miss several forms of extreme events. Models also can capture interactive effects between climate change and climate extremes. Additional work is needed to understand response of markets and economic systems to food shocks. AgMIP is planning a Coordinated Global and Regional Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Agricultural Production and Food Security with an aim to inform the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Economic potential of short-rotation woody crops on agricultural land for pulp fiber production in the United States.

Treesearch

Ralph J. Alig; Darius M. Adams; Bruce A. McCarl; Peter J. Ince

2000-01-01

A model of the U.S. forestry and agricultural sectors is used to simulate the consequences of growing short-rotation woody crops on agricultural lands as a fiber source for pulp and paper production. Hybrid poplar, a short-rotation woody crop, annually produces 4 to 7 dry tons per acre of hardwood pulpwood over a 6- to 10-year rotation. When harvested, the material...

Phosphorus modeling in tile drained agricultural systems using APEX

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Phosphorus losses through tile drained systems in agricultural landscapes may be causing the persistent eutrophication problems observed in surface water. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the state of the science in the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model related to surf...

A basket two-part model to analyze medical expenditure on interdependent multiple sectors.

PubMed

Sugawara, Shinya; Wu, Tianyi; Yamanishi, Kenji

2018-05-01

This study proposes a novel statistical methodology to analyze expenditure on multiple medical sectors using consumer data. Conventionally, medical expenditure has been analyzed by two-part models, which separately consider purchase decision and amount of expenditure. We extend the traditional two-part models by adding the step of basket analysis for dimension reduction. This new step enables us to analyze complicated interdependence between multiple sectors without an identification problem. As an empirical application for the proposed method, we analyze data of 13 medical sectors from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. In comparison with the results of previous studies that analyzed the multiple sector independently, our method provides more detailed implications of the impacts of individual socioeconomic status on the composition of joint purchases from multiple medical sectors; our method has a better prediction performance.

[Nutrition or industry. Experiences with nutritional considerations in the agricultural policy].

PubMed

Botten, G

1991-06-30

The need to export health considerations to various sector policies is regarded as important in health promotion. Health is generally a highly appreciated benefit; thus many sectors seek to use health as an argument for their policy. This article describes the relation between nutrition and agricultural policy in Norway. In areas where nutrition and agriculture had mutual interests, health considerations were easily exported. However, when interests diverged the issue became more complicated. Much effort was focused upon achieving correct use of nutritional arguments. Before negotiating and weighing respective viewpoints it is essential to clarify each sector's standpoint and interest. Conflicts and negotiations are linked to strategies which seek explicitly to integrate health premisses into sectors outside the health services itself.

A system dynamics simulation model for sustainable water resources management and agricultural development in the Volta River Basin, Ghana.

PubMed

Kotir, Julius H; Smith, Carl; Brown, Greg; Marshall, Nadine; Johnstone, Ron

2016-12-15

In a rapidly changing water resources system, dynamic models based on the notion of systems thinking can serve as useful analytical tools for scientists and policy-makers to study changes in key system variables over time. In this paper, an integrated system dynamics simulation model was developed using a system dynamics modelling approach to examine the feedback processes and interaction between the population, the water resource, and the agricultural production sub-sectors of the Volta River Basin in West Africa. The objective of the model is to provide a learning tool for policy-makers to improve their understanding of the long-term dynamic behaviour of the basin, and as a decision support tool for exploring plausible policy scenarios necessary for sustainable water resource management and agricultural development. Structural and behavioural pattern tests, and statistical test were used to evaluate and validate the performance of the model. The results showed that the simulated outputs agreed well with the observed reality of the system. A sensitivity analysis also indicated that the model is reliable and robust to uncertainties in the major parameters. Results of the business as usual scenario showed that total population, agricultural, domestic, and industrial water demands will continue to increase over the simulated period. Besides business as usual, three additional policy scenarios were simulated to assess their impact on water demands, crop yield, and net-farm income. These were the development of the water infrastructure (scenario 1), cropland expansion (scenario 2) and dry conditions (scenario 3). The results showed that scenario 1 would provide the maximum benefit to people living in the basin. Overall, the model results could help inform planning and investment decisions within the basin to enhance food security, livelihoods development, socio-economic growth, and sustainable management of natural resources. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All

Applying a private sector capitation model to the management of type 2 diabetes in the South African public sector: a cost-effectiveness analysis.

PubMed

Volmink, Heinrich C; Bertram, Melanie Y; Jina, Ruxana; Wade, Alisha N; Hofman, Karen J

2014-09-30

Diabetes mellitus contributes substantially to the non-communicable disease burden in South Africa. The proposed National Health Insurance system provides an opportunity to consider the development of a cost-effective capitation model of care for patients with type 2 diabetes. The objective of the study was to determine the potential cost-effectiveness of adapting a private sector diabetes management programme (DMP) to the South African public sector. Cost-effectiveness analysis was undertaken with a public sector model of the DMP as the intervention and a usual practice model as the comparator. Probabilistic modelling was utilized for incremental cost-effectiveness ratio analysis with life years gained selected as the outcome. Secondary data were used to design the model while cost information was obtained from various sources, taking into account public sector billing. Modelling found an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of ZAR 8 356 (USD 1018) per life year gained (LYG) for the DMP against the usual practice model. This fell substantially below the Willingness-to-Pay threshold with bootstrapping analysis. Furthermore, a national implementation of the intervention could potentially result in an estimated cumulative gain of 96 997 years of life (95% CI 71 073 years - 113 994 years). Probabilistic modelling found the capitation intervention to be cost-effective, with an ICER of ZAR 8 356 (USD 1018) per LYG. Piloting the service within the public sector is recommended as an initial step, as this would provide data for more accurate economic evaluation, and would also allow for qualitative analysis of the programme.

Understanding the Reach of Agricultural Impacts from Climate Extremes in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruane, A. C.

2016-12-01

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) has been working since 2010 to build a modeling framework capable of representing the complexities of agriculture, its dependence on climate, and the many elements of society that depend on food systems. AgMIP's 30+ activities explore the interconnected nature of climate, crop, livestock, economics, food security, and nutrition, using common protocols to systematically evaluate the components of agricultural assessment and allow multi-model, multi-scale, and multi-method analysis of intertwining changes in socioeconomic development, environmental change, and technological adaptation. AgMIP is now launching Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments (CGRA) with a particular focus on unforeseen consequences of development strategies, interactions between global and local systems, and the resilience of agricultural systems to extreme climate events. Climate extremes shock the agricultural system through local, direct impacts (e.g., droughts, heat waves, floods, severe storms) and also through teleconnections propagated through international trade. As the climate changes, the nature of climate extremes affecting agriculture is also likely to change, leading to shifting intensity, duration, frequency, and geographic extents of extremes. AgMIP researchers are developing new scenario methodologies to represent near-term extreme droughts in a probabilistic manner, field experiments that impose heat wave conditions on crops, increased resolution to differentiate sub-national drought impacts, new behavioral functions that mimic the response of market actors faced with production shortfalls, analysis of impacts from simultaneous failures of multiple breadbasket regions, and more detailed mapping of food and socioeconomic indicators into food security and nutrition metrics that describe the human impact in diverse populations. Agricultural models illustrate the challenges facing agriculture, allowing

A carbon footprint simulation model for the cork oak sector.

PubMed

Demertzi, Martha; Paulo, Joana Amaral; Arroja, Luís; Dias, Ana Cláudia

2016-10-01

In the present study, a simulation model for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the cork oak sector (CCFM) is developed for the first time. A life cycle approach is adopted including the forest management, manufacturing, use and end-of-life stages. CCFM allows the user to insert the cork type used as raw material and its respective quantity and the distances in-between the various stages. The user can choose among different end-of-life destination options for the used cork products. The option of inserting different inputs, allows the use of the present simulation model for different cork oak systems, in different countries and with different conditions. CCFM allows the identification of the stages and products with the greatest carbon footprint and thus, a better management of the sector from an environmental perspective. The Portuguese cork oak sector is used as an application example of the model. The results obtained showed that the agglomeration industry is the hotspot for the carbon footprint of the cork sector mainly due to the production of the resins that are mixed with the cork granules for the production of agglomerated cork products. The consideration of the biogenic carbon emissions and sequestration of carbon at the forest in the carbon footprint, resulted to a great decrease of the sector's carbon footprint. Future actions for improvement are suggested in order to decrease the carbon footprint of the entire cork sector. It was found that by decreasing by 10% the emission factor of the agglomeration and transformation industries, substituting the transport trucks by more recent ones and by decreasing by 10% the cork products reaching the landfilling end-of-life destinations (while increasing the quantities reaching incineration and recycling), a decrease of the total CF (excluding the biogenic emissions and sequestration) of the entire cork industry by 10% can be achieved. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Policy Perspectives on Social, Agricultural, and Rural Sustainability.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wimberley, Ronald C.

1993-01-01

Introduces three types of agricultural policy dealing with the sustainability of society, the agricultural sector, and rural people and places. Outlines sustainability issues and special interest groups related to each policy type, common ground, and the impact on rural policy of the environment, economic change, physical infrastructure, social…

ELICITED EXPERT PERCEPTIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RISKS AND ADAPTATION IN AGRICULTURE AND FOOD PRODUCTION THROUGH MENTAL MODELS APPROACH

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suda, Eiko; Kubota, Hiromi; Baba, Kenshi; Hijioka, Yasuaki; Takahashi, Kiyoshi; Hanasaki, Naota

Impacts of climate change have become obvious in agriculture and food production in Japan these days, and researches to adapt to their risks have been conducted as a key effort to cope with the climate change. Numerous scientific findings on climate change impacts have been presented so far; however, prospective risks to be adapted to and their management in the context of individual on-site situations have not been investigated in detail. The structure of climate change risks and their management vary depending on geographical and social features in the regions where the adaptation options should be applied; therefore, a practical adaptation strategy should consider actual on-site situations. This study intended to clarify climate change risks to be adapted to in the Japanese agricultural sector, and factors to be considered in adaptation options, for encouragement of decision-making on adaptation implementation in the field. Semi-structured individual interviews have been conducted with 9 multidisciplinary experts engaging in climate change impacts research in agricultural production, economics, engineering, policy, and so on. Based on the results of the interviews, and the latest literatures available for risk assessment and adaptation, an expert mental model including their perceptions which cover the process from climate change impacts assessment to adaptation has been developed. The prospective risks, adaptation options, and issues to be examined to progress the development of practical and effective adaptation options and to support individual or social decision-making, have been shown on the developed expert mental model. It is the basic information for developing social communication and stakeholders cooperations in climate change adaptation strategies in agriculture and food production in Japan.

The Agriculture Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenzweig, C.

2010-12-01

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a distributed climate-scenario simulation exercise for historical model intercomparison and future climate change conditions with participation of multiple crop and world agricultural trade modeling groups around the world. The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of risk of hunger and world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Historical period results will spur model improvement and interaction among major modeling groups, while future period results will lead directly to tests of adaptation and mitigation strategies across a range of scales. AgMIP will consist of a multi-scale impact assessment utilizing the latest methods for climate and agricultural scenario generation. Scenarios and modeling protocols will be distributed on the web, and multi-model results will be collated and analyzed to ensure the widest possible coverage of agricultural crops and regions. AgMIP will place regional changes in agricultural production in a global context that reflects new trading opportunities, imbalances, and shortages in world markets resulting from climate change and other driving forces for food supply. Such projections are essential inputs from the Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation (VIA) research community to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment (AR5), now underway, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. They will set the context for local-scale vulnerability and adaptation studies, supply test scenarios for national-scale development of trade policy instruments, provide critical information on changing supply and demand for water resources, and elucidate interactive effects of climate change and land use change. AgMIP will not only provide crucially-needed new global estimates of how climate change will affect food supply and hunger in the

Incorporating agricultural management into an earth system model for the Pacific Northwest region: Interactions between climate, hydrology, agriculture, and economics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chinnayakanahalli, K.; Adam, J. C.; Stockle, C.; Nelson, R.; Brady, M.; Rajagopalan, K.; Barber, M. E.; Dinesh, S.; Malek, K.; Yorgey, G.; Kruger, C.; Marsh, T.; Yoder, J.

2011-12-01

For better management and decision making in the face of climate change, earth system models must explicitly account for natural resource and agricultural management activities. Including crop system, water management, and economic models into an earth system modeling framework can help in answering questions related to the impacts of climate change on irrigation water and crop productivity, how agricultural producers can adapt to anticipated climate change, and how agricultural practices can mitigate climate change. Herein we describe the coupling of the Variability Infiltration Capacity (VIC) land surface model, which solves the water and energy balances of the hydrologic cycle at regional scales, with a crop-growth model, CropSyst. This new model, VIC-CropSyst, is the land surface model that will be used in a new regional-scale model development project focused on the Pacific Northwest, termed BioEarth. Here we describe the VIC-CropSyst coupling process and its application over the Columbia River basin (CRB) using agricultural-specific land cover information. The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cropland data layers were used to identify agricultural land use patterns, in which both irrigated and dry land crops were simulated. The VIC-CropSyst model was applied over the CRB for the historical period of 1976 - 2006 to establish a baseline for surface water availability, irrigation demand, and crop production. The model was then applied under future (2030s) climate change scenarios derived from statistically-downscaled Global Circulation Models output under two emission scenarios (A1B and B1). Differences between simulated future and historical irrigation demand, irrigation water availability, and crop production were used in an economics model to identify the most economically-viable future cropping pattern. The economics model was run under varying scenarios of regional growth, trade, water pricing, and

Dynamics of renewable energy consumption and economic activities across the agriculture, industry, and service sectors: evidence in the perspective of sustainable development.

PubMed

Paramati, Sudharshan Reddy; Apergis, Nicholas; Ummalla, Mallesh

2018-01-01

This study aims to examine the impact of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on the agriculture, industry, services, and overall economic activities (GDP) across a panel of G20 nations. The study makes use of annual data from 1980 to 2012 on 17 countries of the G20. To achieve the study objectives, we apply several robust panel econometric models which account for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity in the analysis. The empirical findings confirm the significant long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. The long-run elasticities indicate that both renewable and non-renewable energy consumptions have significant positive effect on the economic activities across the sectors and also on the overall economic output. These results also imply that the impact is more from renewable energy on economic activities than that of non-renewable energy. Given that, our results offer significant policy implications. We suggest that the policy makers should aim to initiate effective policies to turn domestic and foreign investments into renewable energy projects. This eventually ensures low carbon emissions and sustainable economic development across the G20 nations.

Falls From Agricultural Machinery: Risk Factors Related to Work Experience, Worked Hours, and Operators' Behavior.

PubMed

Caffaro, Federica; Roccato, Michele; Micheletti Cremasco, Margherita; Cavallo, Eugenio

2018-02-01

Objective We investigated the risk factors for falls when egressing from agricultural tractors, analyzing the role played by worked hours, work experience, operators' behavior, and near misses. Background Many accidents occur within the agricultural sector each year. Among them, falls while dismounting the tractor represent a major source of injuries. Previous studies pointed out frequent hazardous movements and incorrect behaviors adopted by operators to exit the tractor cab. However, less is known about the determinants of such behaviors. In addition, near misses are known to be important predictors of accidents, but they have been under-investigated in the agricultural sector in general and as concerns falls in particular. Method A questionnaire assessing dismounting behaviors, previous accidents and near misses, and participants' relation with work was administered to a sample of Italian tractor operators ( n = 286). Results A mediated model showed that worked hours increase unsafe behaviors, whereas work experience decreases them. Unsafe behaviors in turn show a positive association with accidents, via the mediation of near misses. Conclusions We gave a novel contribution to the knowledge of the chain of events leading to fall accidents in the agricultural sector, which is one of the most hazardous industries. Applications Besides tractor design improvements, preventive training interventions may focus on the redesign of the actual working strategies and the adoption of engaging training methods in the use of machinery to optimize the learning of safety practices and safe behaviors.

Sector-wise midpoint characterization factors for impact assessment of regional consumptive and degradative water use.

PubMed

Lin, Chia-Chun; Lin, Jia-Yu; Lee, Mengshan; Chiueh, Pei-Te

2017-12-31

Water availability, resulting from either a lack of water or poor water quality is a key factor contributing to regional water stress. This study proposes a set of sector-wise characterization factors (CFs), namely consumptive and degradative water stresses, to assess the impact of water withdrawals with a life cycle assessment approach. These CFs consider water availability, water quality, and competition for water between domestic, agricultural and industrial sectors and ecosystem at the watershed level. CFs were applied to a case study of regional water management of industrial water withdrawals in Taiwan to show that both regional or seasonal decrease in water availability contributes to a high consumptive water stress, whereas water scarcity due to degraded water quality not meeting sector standards has little influence on increased degradative water stress. Degradative water stress was observed more in the agricultural sector than in the industrial sector, which implies that the agriculture sector may have water quality concerns. Reducing water intensity and alleviating regional scale water stresses of watersheds are suggested as approaches to decrease the impact of both consumptive and degradative water use. The results from this study may enable a more detailed sector-wise analysis of water stress and influence water resource management policies. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On The Impact of Climate Change to Agricultural Productivity in East Java

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuswanto, Heri; Salamah, Mutiah; Mumpuni Retnaningsih, Sri; Dwi Prastyo, Dedy

2018-03-01

Many researches showed that climate change has significant impact on agricultural sector, which threats the food security especially in developing countries. It has been observed also that the climate change increases the intensity of extreme events. This research investigated the impact climate to the agricultural productivity in East Java, as one of the main rice producers in Indonesia. Standard regression as well as panel regression models have been performed in order to find the best model which is able to describe the climate change impact. The analysis found that the fixed effect model of panel regression outperforms the others showing that climate change had negatively impacted the rice productivity in East Java. The effect in Malang and Pasuruan were almost the same, while the impact in Sumenep was the least one compared to other districts.

The agroecological matrix as alternative to the land-sparing/agriculture intensification model.

PubMed

Perfecto, Ivette; Vandermeer, John

2010-03-30

Among the myriad complications involved in the current food crisis, the relationship between agriculture and the rest of nature is one of the most important yet remains only incompletely analyzed. Particularly in tropical areas, agriculture is frequently seen as the antithesis of the natural world, where the problem is framed as one of minimizing land devoted to agriculture so as to devote more to conservation of biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In particular, the "forest transition model" projects an overly optimistic vision of a future where increased agricultural intensification (to produce more per hectare) and/or increased rural-to-urban migration (to reduce the rural population that cuts forest for agriculture) suggests a near future of much tropical aforestation and higher agricultural production. Reviewing recent developments in ecological theory (showing the importance of migration between fragments and local extinction rates) coupled with empirical evidence, we argue that there is little to suggest that the forest transition model is useful for tropical areas, at least under current sociopolitical structures. A model that incorporates the agricultural matrix as an integral component of conservation programs is proposed. Furthermore, we suggest that this model will be most successful within a framework of small-scale agroecological production.

On the choice of farm management practices after the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2003.

PubMed

Schmid, Erwin; Sinabell, Franz

2007-02-01

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was fundamentally reformed in 2003. From 2005, farmers will receive decoupled income support payments instead of production premiums if basic standards for environment, food safety, animal health and welfare are met. Farmers are likely to adjust production and management practices to the new policy framework. We describe how this reform fits into the EU strategy of making agricultural production more environmentally friendly by concentrating on the financial aspects of the reforms. Using an agricultural sector model for Austria, we show that the reform will further decrease agricultural outputs, reduce farm inputs, lessen nitrogen surpluses and make environmentally friendly management practices more attractive for farmers.

Outsourcing Agricultural Production: Evidence from Rice Farmers in Zhejiang Province

PubMed Central

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. PMID:28129362

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

PubMed

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.

Soybean development: the impact of a decade of agricultural change on urban and economic growth in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

PubMed

Richards, Peter; Pellegrina, Heitor; VanWey, Leah; Spera, Stephanie

2014-01-01

In this research we consider the impact of export-driven, soybean agriculture in Mato Grosso on regional economic growth. Here we argue that the soybean sector has served as a motor to the state's economy by increasing the demand for services, housing, and goods, and by providing a source of investment capital to the non-agricultural sector. Specifically, we show that each square kilometer of soybean production supports 2.5 formal sector jobs outside of agriculture, and the equivalent of approximately 150,000US in annual, non-agricultural GDP. We also show that annual gains in non-agricultural employment and GDP are closely tied to soybean profitability, and thus vary from year to year. However, while this article highlights the potential of the agricultural sector as a driver of regional economic growth, it also acknowledges that this growth has been sustained by profits determined by externally set prices and the rate of exchange, and that future growth trajectories will be susceptible to potential currency of market shocks. We also show that while Mato Grosso's economic growth has come at a significant cost to the environment, value added by the agriculture sector, directly and indirectly, has surpassed the value of the CO2-e emitted through land clearings.

Soybean Development: The Impact of a Decade of Agricultural Change on Urban and Economic Growth in Mato Grosso, Brazil

PubMed Central

Richards, Peter; Pellegrina, Heitor; VanWey, Leah; Spera, Stephanie

2015-01-01

In this research we consider the impact of export-driven, soybean agriculture in Mato Grosso on regional economic growth. Here we argue that the soybean sector has served as a motor to the state’s economy by increasing the demand for services, housing, and goods, and by providing a source of investment capital to the non-agricultural sector. Specifically, we show that each square kilometer of soybean production supports 2.5 formal sector jobs outside of agriculture, and the equivalent of approximately 150,000US in annual, non-agricultural GDP. We also show that annual gains in non-agricultural employment and GDP are closely tied to soybean profitability, and thus vary from year to year. However, while this article highlights the potential of the agricultural sector as a driver of regional economic growth, it also acknowledges that this growth has been sustained by profits determined by externally set prices and the rate of exchange, and that future growth trajectories will be susceptible to potential currency of market shocks. We also show that while Mato Grosso’s economic growth has come at a significant cost to the environment, value added by the agriculture sector, directly and indirectly, has surpassed the value of the CO2-e emitted through land clearings. PMID:25919305

How could Mosan agriculture be impacted by climate change and future droughts ?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bauwens, A.; Sohier, C.; Deraedt, D.; Degré, A.

2012-04-01

Despite the great uncertainties regarding the future climatic context, lots of studies have focused on hydrological effects of climate change on the Meuse catchment. It appears that both winter high flows and summer low flows could be exacerbated. Climate change and its impacts on hydrology will thus affect various socio-economic sectors. High flows have been widely studied compared to low-flows. This poster will put the emphasis on a methodology developed in order to study impacts of droughts on agriculture. Agriculture is among the most impacted sectors due to climate change. The consequences could be both positive as negative in accordance with the range of predicted changes and the adaptation capacity of agricultural systems. Most of the existing studies related to climate change on agriculture focused on specific territory. Within the AMICE Interreg IVB project, a transnational approach has been developed to assess droughts impacts on agriculture through the Meuse basin. The project's previous works gave us a common scenario of climate trends and of the evolution of the hydrology in the Meuse basin. The methodology is based on the use of a physically-based model able to simulate the water-soil-plant continuum (derived from EPIC model). In order to be transferable from one country to another, the methodology proposed used data available at the basin scale. The UE soil data base was complemented with local information on agricultural practices and statistics. Three crops have been studied: maize, wheat and barley. The basic cultural calendar is supposed to be the same for the different countries. The methodology developed permits to study the evolution of yields, leaf area index, crops stress due to excess or lack of water through time under different scenarios build up in the frame of the project. It appears that corn is negatively affected by climate change, and thus despite the CO2 fertilization effect. Wheat and barley have similar behavior and are

Environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector: the case of the defence sector.

PubMed

Ramos, Tomás B; Alves, Inês; Subtil, Rui; Joanaz de Melo, João

2007-03-01

The development of environmental performance policy indicators for public services, and in particular for the defence sector, is an emerging issue. Despite a number of recent initiatives there has been little work done in this area, since the other sectors usually focused on are agriculture, transport, industry, tourism and energy. This type of tool can be an important component for environmental performance evaluation at policy level, when integrated in the general performance assessment system of public missions and activities. The main objective of this research was to develop environmental performance policy indicators for the public sector, specifically applied to the defence sector. Previous research included an assessment of the environmental profile, through the evaluation of how environmental management practices have been adopted in this sector and an assessment of environmental aspects and impacts. This paper builds upon that previous research, developing an indicator framework--SEPI--supported by the selection and construction of environmental performance indicators. Another aim is to discuss how the current environmental indicator framework can be integrated into overall performance management. The Portuguese defence sector is presented and the usefulness of this methodology demonstrated. Feasibility and relevancy criteria are applied to evaluate the set of indicators proposed, allowing indicators to be scored and indicators for the policy level to be obtained.

Identifying Hydrologic Processes in Agricultural Watersheds Using Precipitation-Runoff Models

USGS Publications Warehouse

Linard, Joshua I.; Wolock, David M.; Webb, Richard M.T.; Wieczorek, Michael

2009-01-01

Understanding the fate and transport of agricultural chemicals applied to agricultural fields will assist in designing the most effective strategies to prevent water-quality impairments. At a watershed scale, the processes controlling the fate and transport of agricultural chemicals are generally understood only conceptually. To examine the applicability of conceptual models to the processes actually occurring, two precipitation-runoff models - the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and the Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Model (WEBMOD) - were applied in different agricultural settings of the contiguous United States. Each model, through different physical processes, simulated the transport of water to a stream from the surface, the unsaturated zone, and the saturated zone. Models were calibrated for watersheds in Maryland, Indiana, and Nebraska. The calibrated sets of input parameters for each model at each watershed are discussed, and the criteria used to validate the models are explained. The SWAT and WEBMOD model results at each watershed conformed to each other and to the processes identified in each watershed's conceptual hydrology. In Maryland the conceptual understanding of the hydrology indicated groundwater flow was the largest annual source of streamflow; the simulation results for the validation period confirm this. The dominant source of water to the Indiana watershed was thought to be tile drains. Although tile drains were not explicitly simulated in the SWAT model, a large component of streamflow was received from lateral flow, which could be attributed to tile drains. Being able to explicitly account for tile drains, WEBMOD indicated water from tile drains constituted most of the annual streamflow in the Indiana watershed. The Nebraska models indicated annual streamflow was composed primarily of perennial groundwater flow and infiltration-excess runoff, which conformed to the conceptual hydrology developed for that watershed. The hydrologic

The value of seasonal forecasting and crop mix adaptation to climate variability for agriculture under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, H. S.; Schneider, U.; Schmid, E.; Held, H.

2012-04-01

Changes to climate variability and frequency of extreme weather events are expected to impose damages to the agricultural sector. Seasonal forecasting and long range prediction skills have received attention as an option to adapt to climate change because seasonal climate and yield predictions could improve farmers' management decisions. The value of seasonal forecasting skill is assessed with a crop mix adaptation option in Spain where drought conditions are prevalent. Yield impacts of climate are simulated for six crops (wheat, barely, cotton, potato, corn and rice) with the EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) model. Daily weather data over the period 1961 to 1990 are used and are generated by the regional climate model REMO as reference period for climate projection. Climate information and its consequent yield variability information are given to the stochastic agricultural sector model to calculate the value of climate information in the agricultural market. Expected consumers' market surplus and producers' revenue is compared with and without employing climate forecast information. We find that seasonal forecasting benefits not only consumers but also producers if the latter adopt a strategic crop mix. This mix differs from historical crop mixes by having higher shares of crops which fare relatively well under climate change. The corresponding value of information is highly sensitive to farmers' crop mix choices.

75 FR 67345 - Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade and the Agricultural Technical Advisory...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-11-02

..., UPS, etc.) to the Office of Negotiations and Agreements, Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA, Room 5603.... The Office of Negotiations and Agreements may be reached by telephone at (202) 720-6219, with... sector advisory committee system to ensure that U.S. trade policy and negotiation objectives adequately...

A statistical model for radar images of agricultural scenes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frost, V. S.; Shanmugan, K. S.; Holtzman, J. C.; Stiles, J. A.

1982-01-01

The presently derived and validated statistical model for radar images containing many different homogeneous fields predicts the probability density functions of radar images of entire agricultural scenes, thereby allowing histograms of large scenes composed of a variety of crops to be described. Seasat-A SAR images of agricultural scenes are accurately predicted by the model on the basis of three assumptions: each field has the same SNR, all target classes cover approximately the same area, and the true reflectivity characterizing each individual target class is a uniformly distributed random variable. The model is expected to be useful in the design of data processing algorithms and for scene analysis using radar images.

Less water: How will agriculture in Southern Mountain states adapt?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frisvold, George B.; Konyar, Kazim

2012-05-01

This study examined how agriculture in six southwestern states might adapt to large reductions in water supplies, using the U.S. Agricultural Resource Model (USARM), a multiregion, multicommodity agricultural sector model. In the simulation, irrigation water supplies were reduced 25% in five Southern Mountain (SM) states and by 5% in California. USARM results were compared to those from a "rationing" model, which assumes no input substitution or changes in water use intensity, relying on land fallowing as the only means of adapting to water scarcity. The rationing model also ignores changes in output prices. Results quantify the importance of economic adjustment mechanisms and changes in output prices. Under the rationing model, SM irrigators lose 65 in net income. Compared to this price exogenous, "land-fallowing only" response, allowing irrigators to change cropping patterns, practice deficit irrigation, and adjust use of other inputs reduced irrigator costs of water shortages to 22 million. Allowing irrigators to pass on price increases to purchasers reduced income losses further, to 15 million. Higher crop prices from reduced production imposed direct losses of 130 million on first purchasers of crops, which include livestock and dairy producers, and cotton gins. SM agriculture, as a whole, was resilient to the water supply shock, with production of high value specialty crops along the Lower Colorado River little affected. Particular crops were vulnerable however. Cotton production and net returns fell substantially, while reductions in water devoted to alfalfa accounted for 57% of regional water reduction.

77 FR 55755 - Small Business Size Standards: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-09-11

...: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting AGENCY: U.S. Small Business Administration. ACTION: Proposed rule... for 11 industries in North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Sector 11, Agriculture... standards was published in the Federal Register on July 18, 2008 (73 FR 41237). NAICS 11, Agriculture...

Model-independent indirect detection constraints on hidden sector dark matter

DOE PAGES

Elor, Gilly; Rodd, Nicholas L.; Slatyer, Tracy R.; ...

2016-06-10

If dark matter inhabits an expanded ``hidden sector'', annihilations may proceed through sequential decays or multi-body final states. We map out the potential signals and current constraints on such a framework in indirect searches, using a model-independent setup based on multi-step hierarchical cascade decays. While remaining agnostic to the details of the hidden sector model, our framework captures the generic broadening of the spectrum of secondary particles (photons, neutrinos, e +e - andmore » $$\\overline{p}$$ p) relative to the case of direct annihilation to Standard Model particles. We explore how indirect constraints on dark matter annihilation limit the parameter space for such cascade/multi-particle decays. We investigate limits from the cosmic microwave background by Planck, the Fermi measurement of photons from the dwarf galaxies, and positron data from AMS-02. The presence of a hidden sector can change the constraints on the dark matter by up to an order of magnitude in either direction (although the effect can be much smaller). We find that generally the bound from the Fermi dwarfs is most constraining for annihilations to photon-rich final states, while AMS-02 is most constraining for electron and muon final states; however in certain instances the CMB bounds overtake both, due to their approximate independence on the details of the hidden sector cascade. We provide the full set of cascade spectra considered here as publicly available code with examples at http://web.mit.edu/lns/research/CascadeSpectra.html.« less

Crop insurance: a tool to stabilize Spanish agricultural income

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calatayud Piñero, E.; Escribano Pintor, S.

2009-04-01

Agricultural insurance was born as a need for farmers, opposite to the erratic behavior of the climatology, natural disaster, which strangles the farmer during the cycle of his crops and harvest, reverberating negatively in the economy of the farmer. Before this situation, it became necessary to determine, inside the agricultural policies, a specific regulation of the agricultural insurance across a participation of the State by means of contributions to the agricultural insurance which result was, in Spain, the current Law 87/1978, of December 28 of Agricultural Insurance. The benefits of the existence of a good system of agricultural insurance not only are to level of the farmer but also to regional level and top areas, since to the regional production turns diminished, it reverberates in the economic productivity and in the rest of economic sectors, with the consequent tensions and imbalances, and the probability of being translated in a decrease of the quality of life of the rural way. But the analysis of the importance of his situation, not only must be carried out from a theoretical perspective, where already there exist numerous studies that treat the relation and importance of the agricultural insurance with regard to the traditional agriculture characterized by his limited capacity of innovation. For it, in this paper, we will proceed to realize an empirical analysis, inside our country, across the principal agrarian information statistics, as faithful reflection of the economic dimension of the sector, for across his evolution as well as that of the indemnifications paid for the agricultural insurance, to be able to show the importance of the same one in his contribution to the maintenance and improvement of the agriculture, avoiding the uncertainty of the farmer By means of the utilization of mobile averages, which eliminate the erratic behavior in the annual series, first we will realize a national analysis for the set of the lines of agricultural

Conformal standard model with an extended scalar sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Latosinski, Adam; Lewandowski, Adrian; Meissner, Krzysztof A.; Nicolai, Hermann

2015-10-01

We present an extended version of the Conformal Standard Model (characterized by the absence of any new intermediate scales between the electroweak scale and the Planck scale) with an enlarged scalar sector coupling to right-chiral neutrinos. The scalar potential and the Yukawa couplings involving only right-chiral neutrinos are invariant under a new global symmetry SU(3) N that complements the standard U(1) B-L symmetry, and is broken explicitly only by the Yukawa interaction, of order O (10-6), coupling right-chiral neutrinos and the electroweak lepton doublets. We point out four main advantages of this enlargement, namely: (1) the economy of the (non-supersymmetric) Standard Model, and thus its observational success, is preserved; (2) thanks to the enlarged scalar sector the RG improved one-loop effective potential is everywhere positive with a stable global minimum, thereby avoiding the notorious instability of the Standard Model vacuum; (3) the pseudo-Goldstone bosons resulting from spontaneous breaking of the SU(3) N symmetry are natural Dark Matter candidates with calculable small masses and couplings; and (4) the Majorana Yukawa coupling matrix acquires a form naturally adapted to leptogenesis. The model is made perturbatively consistent up to the Planck scale by imposing the vanishing of quadratic divergences at the Planck scale (`softly broken conformal symmetry'). Observable consequences of the model occur mainly via the mixing of the new scalars and the standard model Higgs boson.

Financial development and sectoral CO2 emissions in Malaysia.

PubMed

Maji, Ibrahim Kabiru; Habibullah, Muzafar Shah; Saari, Mohd Yusof

2017-03-01

The paper examines the impacts of financial development on sectoral carbon emissions (CO 2 ) for environmental quality in Malaysia. Since the financial sector is considered as one of the sectors that will contribute to Malaysian economy to become a developed country by 2020, we utilize a cointegration method to investigate how financial development affects sectoral CO 2 emissions. The long-run results reveal that financial development increases CO 2 emissions from the transportation and oil and gas sector and reduces CO 2 emissions from manufacturing and construction sectors. However, the elasticity of financial development is not significant in explaining CO 2 emissions from the agricultural sector. The results for short-run elasticities were also consistent with the long-run results. We conclude that generally, financial development increases CO 2 emissions and reduces environmental quality in Malaysia.

Public sector administration of ecological economics systems using mediated modeling.

PubMed

van den Belt, Marjan; Kenyan, Jennifer R; Krueger, Elizabeth; Maynard, Alison; Roy, Matthew Galen; Raphael, Ian

2010-01-01

In today's climate of government outsourcing and multiple stakeholder involvement in public sector management and service delivery, it is more important than ever to rethink and redesign the structure of how policy decisions are made, implemented, monitored, and adapted to new realities. The traditional command-and-control approach is now less effective because an increasing amount of responsibility to deliver public goods and services falls on networks of nongovernment agencies. Even though public administrators are seeking new decision-making models in an increasingly more complex environment, the public sector currently only sparsely utilizes Mediated Modeling (MM). There is growing evidence, however, that by employing MM and similar tools, public interest networks can be better equipped to deal with their long-term viability while maintaining the short-term needs of their clients. However, it may require a shift in organizational culture within and between organizations to achieve the desired results. This paper explores the successes and barriers to implementing MM and similar tools in the public sector and offers insights into utilizing them through a review of case studies and interdisciplinary literature. We aim to raise a broader interest in MM and similar tools among public sector administrators at various administrative levels. We focus primarily, but not exclusively, on those cases operating at the interface of ecology and socio-economic systems.

Stochastic and deterministic models for agricultural production networks.

PubMed

Bai, P; Banks, H T; Dediu, S; Govan, A Y; Last, M; Lloyd, A L; Nguyen, H K; Olufsen, M S; Rempala, G; Slenning, B D

2007-07-01

An approach to modeling the impact of disturbances in an agricultural production network is presented. A stochastic model and its approximate deterministic model for averages over sample paths of the stochastic system are developed. Simulations, sensitivity and generalized sensitivity analyses are given. Finally, it is shown how diseases may be introduced into the network and corresponding simulations are discussed.

Greenhouse gas mitigation potentials in the livestock sector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Herrero, Mario; Henderson, Benjamin; Havlík, Petr; Thornton, Philip K.; Conant, Richard T.; Smith, Pete; Wirsenius, Stefan; Hristov, Alexander N.; Gerber, Pierre; Gill, Margaret; Butterbach-Bahl, Klaus; Valin, Hugo; Garnett, Tara; Stehfest, Elke

2016-05-01

The livestock sector supports about 1.3 billion producers and retailers, and contributes 40-50% of agricultural GDP. We estimated that between 1995 and 2005, the livestock sector was responsible for greenhouse gas emissions of 5.6-7.5 GtCO2e yr-1. Livestock accounts for up to half of the technical mitigation potential of the agriculture, forestry and land-use sectors, through management options that sustainably intensify livestock production, promote carbon sequestration in rangelands and reduce emissions from manures, and through reductions in the demand for livestock products. The economic potential of these management alternatives is less than 10% of what is technically possible because of adoption constraints, costs and numerous trade-offs. The mitigation potential of reductions in livestock product consumption is large, but their economic potential is unknown at present. More research and investment are needed to increase the affordability and adoption of mitigation practices, to moderate consumption of livestock products where appropriate, and to avoid negative impacts on livelihoods, economic activities and the environment.

Climate-smart agriculture for food security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lipper, Leslie; Thornton, Philip; Campbell, Bruce M.; Baedeker, Tobias; Braimoh, Ademola; Bwalya, Martin; Caron, Patrick; Cattaneo, Andrea; Garrity, Dennis; Henry, Kevin; Hottle, Ryan; Jackson, Louise; Jarvis, Andrew; Kossam, Fred; Mann, Wendy; McCarthy, Nancy; Meybeck, Alexandre; Neufeldt, Henry; Remington, Tom; Sen, Pham Thi; Sessa, Reuben; Shula, Reynolds; Tibu, Austin; Torquebiau, Emmanuel F.

2014-12-01

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. Widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns threaten agricultural production and increase the vulnerability of people dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, which includes most of the world's poor. Climate change disrupts food markets, posing population-wide risks to food supply. Threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems. CSA promotes coordinated actions by farmers, researchers, private sector, civil society and policymakers towards climate-resilient pathways through four main action areas: (1) building evidence; (2) increasing local institutional effectiveness; (3) fostering coherence between climate and agricultural policies; and (4) linking climate and agricultural financing. CSA differs from 'business-as-usual' approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions.

Operational resilience of reservoirs to climate change, agricultural demand, and tourism: A case study from Sardinia.

PubMed

Mereu, Simone; Sušnik, Janez; Trabucco, Antonio; Daccache, Andre; Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, Lydia; Renoldi, Stefano; Virdis, Andrea; Savić, Dragan; Assimacopoulos, Dionysis

2016-02-01

Many (semi-) arid locations globally, and particularly islands, rely heavily on reservoirs for water supply. Some reservoirs are particularly vulnerable to climate and development changes (e.g. population change, tourist growth, hydropower demands). Irregularities and uncertainties in the fluvial regime associated with climate change and the continuous increase in water demand by different sectors will add new challenges to the management and to the resilience of these reservoirs. The resilience of vulnerable reservoirs must be studied in detail to prepare for and mitigate potential impacts of these changes. In this paper, a reservoir balance model is developed and presented for the Pedra e' Othoni reservoir in Sardinia, Italy, to assess resilience to climate and development changes. The model was first calibrated and validated, then forced with extensive ensemble climate data for representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5, agricultural data, and with four socio-economic development scenarios. Future projections show a reduction in annual reservoir inflow and an increase in demand, mainly in the agricultural sector. Under no scenario is reservoir resilience significantly affected, the reservoir always achieves refill. However, this occurs at the partial expenses of hydropower production with implications for the production of renewable energy. There is also the possibility of conflict between the agricultural sector and hydropower sector for diminishing water supply. Pedra e' Othoni reservoir shows good resilience to future change mostly because of the disproportionately large basin feeding it. However this is not the case of other Sardinian reservoirs and hence a detailed resilience assessment of all reservoirs is needed, where development plans should carefully account for the trade-offs and potential conflicts among sectors. For Sardinia, the option of physical connection between reservoirs is available, as are alternative water supply measures

Assessing the agricultural costs of climate change: Combining results from crop and economic models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howitt, R. E.

2016-12-01

Any perturbation to a resource system used by humans elicits both technical and behavioral changes. For agricultural production, economic criteria and their associated models are usually good predictors of human behavior in agricultural production. Estimation of the agricultural costs of climate change requires careful downscaling of global climate models to the level of agricultural regions. Plant growth models for the dominant crops are required to accurately show the full range of trade-offs and adaptation mechanisms needed to minimize the cost of climate change. Faced with the shifts in the fundamental resource base of agriculture, human behavior can either exacerbate or offset the impact of climate change on agriculture. In addition, agriculture can be an important source of increased carbon sequestration. However the effectiveness and timing of this sequestration depends on agricultural practices and farmer behavior. Plant growth models and economic models have been shown to interact in two broad fashions. First there is the direct embedding of a parametric representation plant growth simulations in the economic model production function. A second and more general approach is to have plant growth and crop process models interact with economic models as they are simulated. The development of more general wrapper programs that transfer information between models rapidly and efficiently will encourage this approach. However, this method does introduce complications in terms of matching up disparate scales both in time and space between models. Another characteristic behavioral response of agricultural production is the distinction between the intensive margin which considers the quantity of resource, for example fertilizer, used for a given crop, and the extensive margin of adjustment that measures how farmers will adjust their crop proportions in response to climate change. Ideally economic models will measure the response to both these margins of adjustment

An AgMIP framework for improved agricultural representation in integrated assessment models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruane, Alex C.; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Asseng, Senthold; Boote, Kenneth J.; Elliott, Joshua; Ewert, Frank; Jones, James W.; Martre, Pierre; McDermid, Sonali P.; Müller, Christoph; Snyder, Abigail; Thorburn, Peter J.

2017-12-01

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) hold great potential to assess how future agricultural systems will be shaped by socioeconomic development, technological innovation, and changing climate conditions. By coupling with climate and crop model emulators, IAMs have the potential to resolve important agricultural feedback loops and identify unintended consequences of socioeconomic development for agricultural systems. Here we propose a framework to develop robust representation of agricultural system responses within IAMs, linking downstream applications with model development and the coordinated evaluation of key climate responses from local to global scales. We survey the strengths and weaknesses of protocol-based assessments linked to the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), each utilizing multiple sites and models to evaluate crop response to core climate changes including shifts in carbon dioxide concentration, temperature, and water availability, with some studies further exploring how climate responses are affected by nitrogen levels and adaptation in farm systems. Site-based studies with carefully calibrated models encompass the largest number of activities; however they are limited in their ability to capture the full range of global agricultural system diversity. Representative site networks provide more targeted response information than broadly-sampled networks, with limitations stemming from difficulties in covering the diversity of farming systems. Global gridded crop models provide comprehensive coverage, although with large challenges for calibration and quality control of inputs. Diversity in climate responses underscores that crop model emulators must distinguish between regions and farming system while recognizing model uncertainty. Finally, to bridge the gap between bottom-up and top-down approaches we recommend the deployment of a hybrid climate response system employing a representative network of sites to bias

The agricultural model intercomparison and improvement project (AgMIP): Protocols and pilot studies

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a distributed climate-scenario simulation research activity for historical period model intercomparison and future climate change conditions with participation of multiple crop and agricultural economic model groups around the...

The worldwide market for photovoltaics in the rural sector

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brainard, W. A.

1982-01-01

Attention is given to the assessment of results obtained by three NASA studies aimed at determining the global market for stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the village power, cottage industry, and agricultural applications areas of the rural sector. An attempt was made to identify technical, social, and institutional barriers to PV system implementation, as well as the funding sources available to potential users. Country- and sector-specific results are discussed, and marketing strategies appropriate for each sector are suggested for the benefit of American PV products manufacturers.

Decadal Climate Information Needs of Stakeholders for Decision Support in Water and Agriculture Production Sectors: A Case Study in the Missouri River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mehta, V. M.; Knutson, C.; Rosenberg, N.

2012-12-01

Many decadal climate prediction efforts have been initiated under the World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5. There is considerable ongoing discussion about model deficiencies, initialization techniques, and data requirements, but not much attention is being given to decadal climate information (DCI) needs of stakeholders for decision support. We report the results of exploratory activities undertaken to assess DCI needs in water resources and agriculture sectors, using the Missouri River Basin (the Basin) as a case study. This assessment was achieved through discussions with 120 representative stakeholders. Stakeholders' awareness of decadal dry and wet spells and their societal impacts in the Basin is established; and stakeholders' DCI needs and potential barriers to their use of DCI are enumerated. We find that impacts, including economic impacts, of DCV on water and agricultural production in the Basin are distinctly identifiable and characterizable. Stakeholders have clear notions about their needs for DCI and have offered specific suggestions as to how these might be met. But, while stakeholders are eager to have climate information, including decadal climate outlooks (DCOs), there are many barriers to the use of such information. The first and foremost is that the credibility of DCOs is yet to be established. Secondly, the nature of institutional rules and regulations, laws, and legal precedents that pose obstacles to the use of DCOs must be better understood and means to modify these, where possible, must be sought. For the benefit of climate scientists, these and other stakeholder needs will also be articulated in this talk. We are engaged in a project to assess simulation and hindcast skills of DCV phenomena and their associations with hydro-meteorological variability in the Basin in the HadCM3, GFDL-CM2.1, NCAR CCSM4, and MIROC5 global coupled models participating in the WCRP's CMIP5 project. Results from this project

Value of irrigation water usage in South Florida agriculture.

PubMed

Takatsuka, Yuki; Niekus, Martijn R; Harrington, Julie; Feng, Shuang; Watkins, David; Mirchi, Ali; Nguyen, Huong; Sukop, Michael C

2018-06-01

This study estimates economic loss from South Florida croplands when usage of agricultural irrigation water is altered. In South Florida, 78% of the total value of farm products sold is comprised of cropland products. The majority of Florida citrus and sugarcane are produced in the area, and agricultural irrigation was the largest sector of water use in 2010, followed by public water supply. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced in December 2012 that traditional sources of fresh groundwater will have difficulty meeting all of the additional demands by 2030. A shortage of water will impose significant damage to the rural and agriculture economy in Florida, which may lead to higher prices and costs for consumers to purchase citrus or other Florida agriculture products. This paper presents a methodology for estimating economic loss when usage of irrigation water is altered, and examines economic values of irrigation water use for South Florida cropland. The efficient allocation of irrigation water across South Florida cropland is also investigated in order to reduce economic cost to the South Florida agricultural sector. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Impacts of Stratospheric Black Carbon on Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xia, L.; Robock, A.; Elliott, J. W.

2017-12-01

A regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could inject 5 Tg of soot into the stratosphere, which would absorb sunlight, decrease global surface temperature by about 1°C for 5-10 years and have major impacts on precipitation and the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface. Using two global gridded crop models forced by one global climate model simulation, we investigate the impacts on agricultural productivity in various nations. The crop model in the Community Land Model 4.5 (CLM-crop4.5) and the parallel Decision Support System for Agricultural Technology (pDSSAT) in the parallel System for Integrating Impact Models and Sectors are participating in the Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison. We force these two crop models with output from the Whole Atmospheric Community Climate Model to characterize the global agricultural impact from climate changes due to a regional nuclear war. Crops in CLM-crop4.5 include maize, rice, soybean, cotton and sugarcane, and crops in pDSSAT include maize, rice, soybean and wheat. Although the two crop models require a different time frequency of weather input, we downscale the climate model output to provide consistent temperature, precipitation and solar radiation inputs. In general, CLM-crop4.5 simulates a larger global average reduction of maize and soybean production relative to pDSSAT. Global rice production shows negligible change with climate anomalies from a regional nuclear war. Cotton and sugarcane benefit from a regional nuclear war from CLM-crop4.5 simulation, and global wheat production would decrease significantly in the pDSSAT simulation. The regional crop yield responses to a regional nuclear conflict are different for each crop, and we present the changes in production on a national basis. These models do not include the crop responses to changes in ozone, ultraviolet radiation, or diffuse radiation, and we would like to encourage more modelers to improve crop models to account for those

General structure of democratic mass matrix of quark sector in E6 model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ciftci, R.; ćiftci, A. K.

2016-03-01

An extension of the Standard Model (SM) fermion sector, which is inspired by the E6 Grand Unified Theory (GUT) model, might be a good candidate to explain a number of unanswered questions in SM. Existence of the isosinglet quarks might explain great mass difference of bottom and top quarks. Also, democracy on mass matrix elements is a natural approach in SM. In this study, we have given general structure of Democratic Mass Matrix (DMM) of quark sector in E6 model.

Myconanotechnology in agriculture: a perspective.

PubMed

Kashyap, Prem Lal; Kumar, Sudheer; Srivastava, Alok Kumar; Sharma, Arun Kumar

2013-02-01

Myconanotechnology is an emerging field, where fungi can be harnessed for the synthesis of nanomaterials or nanostructures with desirable shape and size. Though myconanotechnology is in its infancy, potential applications provide exciting waves of transformation in agriculture and fascinate microbiologists and other researchers to contribute in providing incremental solutions through green chemistry approaches for advancing food security. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the research efforts on the mycogenic synthesis of nanoparticles with particular emphasis on mechanisms and potential applications in agriculture and allied sectors.

A career in government: my experiences working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The agricultural sector provides highly diverse career opportunities that include private companies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and government agencies. One possible career path is with the Federal government which is one of the largest employers of scientists and engineers...

The role of non-CO2 mitigation within the dairy sector in pursuing climate goals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rolph, K.; Forest, C. E.

2017-12-01

Mitigation of non-CO2 climate forcing agents must complement the mitigation of carbon dioxide (CO2) to achieve long-term temperature and climate policy goals. By using multi-gas mitigation strategies, society can limit the rate of temperature change on decadal timescales and reduce the cost of implementing policies that only consider CO2 mitigation. The largest share of global non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions is attributed to agriculture, with activities related to dairy production contributing the most in this sector. Approximately 4% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is released from the dairy sub-sector, primarily through enteric fermentation, feed production, and manure management. Dairy farmers can significantly reduce their emissions by implementing better management practices. This study assesses the potential mitigation of projected climate change if greenhouse gases associated with the dairy sector were reduced. To compare the performance of several mitigation measures under future climate change, we employ a fully coupled earth system model of intermediate complexity, the MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM). The model includes an interactive carbon-cycle capable of addressing important feedbacks between the climate and terrestrial biosphere. Mitigation scenarios are developed using estimated emission reductions of implemented management practices studied by the USDA-funded Sustainable Dairy Project (Dairy-CAP). We examine pathways to reach the US dairy industry's voluntary goal of reducing dairy emissions 25% by 2020. We illustrate the importance of ongoing mitigation efforts in the agricultural industry to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions towards established climate goals.

Standard model EFT and extended scalar sectors

DOE PAGES

Dawson, Sally; Murphy, Christopher W.

2017-07-31

One of the simplest extensions of the Standard Model is the inclusion of an additional scalar multiplet, and we consider scalars in the S U ( 2 ) L singlet, triplet, and quartet representations. Here, we examine models with heavy neutral scalars, m H ~1 – 2 TeV , and the matching of the UV complete theories to the low energy effective field theory. We also demonstrate the agreement of the kinematic distributions obtained in the singlet models for the gluon fusion of a Higgs pair with the predictions of the effective field theory. Finally, the restrictions on the extendedmore » scalar sectors due to unitarity and precision electroweak measurements are summarized and lead to highly restricted regions of viable parameter space for the triplet and quartet models.« less

Standard model EFT and extended scalar sectors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dawson, Sally; Murphy, Christopher W.

One of the simplest extensions of the Standard Model is the inclusion of an additional scalar multiplet, and we consider scalars in the S U ( 2 ) L singlet, triplet, and quartet representations. Here, we examine models with heavy neutral scalars, m H ~1 – 2 TeV , and the matching of the UV complete theories to the low energy effective field theory. We also demonstrate the agreement of the kinematic distributions obtained in the singlet models for the gluon fusion of a Higgs pair with the predictions of the effective field theory. Finally, the restrictions on the extendedmore » scalar sectors due to unitarity and precision electroweak measurements are summarized and lead to highly restricted regions of viable parameter space for the triplet and quartet models.« less

Is "the perfect model" really needed? - Analysis of the quality level of climate information necessary for supporting adaptation in agriculture and forestry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gálos, Borbála; Ostler, Wolf-Uwe; Csáki, Péter; Bidló, András; Panferov, Oleg

2016-04-01

agriculture a questionnaire has been carried out among 180 farms of different sizes and specializations (mostly arable farming and viniculture) in Reinland-Palatine, Germany. The results show that almost all farmers use the weather information daily and are in need of weather forecast. More than a half requires also the forecast on extreme events. However the farmers require more qualitative (e.g. temperature coarser than 1°C) than high-precision quantitative information in short and medium-term forecasts. Forestry requires long-term (30-100 years) climate projections. For the assessment of climate change impacts on forest distribution, production and tree species selection, monthly temperature means and precipitation sums are sufficient. Based on the results of regional climate models it will be shown how the bias, the spread and spatial resolution of the simulation results are affecting the accuracy of impact assessments. Our analyses can help to fill the gap between climate services and the needs of impact researchers and end users in agriculture and forestry. User-relevant climate information can contribute to appropriate adaptation support services and management options in the two sectors. Keywords: regional climate projections, climate impact assessment, agriculture, forestry, adaptation support, accuracy of climate information Funding: The research is supported by the "Agroclimate-2" (VKSZ_12-1-2013-0034) joint EU-national research project.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture without compromising food security?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Frank, Stefan; Havlík, Petr; Soussana, Jean-Francois; Levesque, Antoine; Valin, Hugo; Wollenberg, Eva; Kleinwechter, Ulrich; Fricko, Oliver; Gusti, Mykola; Herrero, Mario; Smith, Pete; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Kraxner, Florian; Obersteiner, Michael

2017-04-01

To keep global warming possibly below 1.5 C and mitigate adverse effects of climate change, agriculture, like all other sectors, will have to contribute to efforts in achieving net negative emissions by the end of the century. Cost-efficient distribution of mitigation across regions and sectors is typically calculated using a global uniform carbon price in climate stabilization scenarios. However, in reality such a carbon price could substantially affect other Sustainable Development Goals. Here, we assess the implications of climate change mitigation in agriculture for agricultural production and food security using an integrated modelling framework and explore ways of relaxing the competition between climate change mitigation and food availability. Using a scenario that limits global warming to 1.5 C, results indicate a food calorie loss in 2050 of up to 330 kcal per capita in food insecure countries. If only developed countries participated in the mitigation effort, the calorie loss would be 40 kcal per capita, however the climate target would not be achieved. Land-rich countries with a high proportion of emissions from land use change, such as Brazil, could reduce emissions with only a marginal effect on food availability. In contrast, agricultural mitigation in high population (density) countries, such as China and India, would lead to substantial food calorie loss without a major contribution to global GHG mitigation. Increasing soil carbon sequestration on agricultural land using a comprehensive set of management options, would allow achieving a 1.5 C target while reducing the implied calorie loss by up to 70% and storing up to 3.5 GtCO2 in soils. Hence, the promotion of so called "win-win" mitigation options i.e. soil carbon sequestration, and ensuring successful mitigation of land use change emissions are crucial to stabilize the climate without deteriorating food security.

Sector-Wide Transformational Leadership--How Effectively Is the EFQM Excellence Model[R] Used in the UK FE Sector?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cartmell, Jonathan; Binsardi, Ben; McLean, Alexis

2011-01-01

This seminal study investigates the use of the EFQM Excellence Model[R] in the UK Further Education sector. Following initial interviews with Senior Managers and Quality Consultants, an online survey was sent to Principals and Senior Managers in all Colleges across the UK to critically investigate the relationship between the use of the Model and…

Resource concentration dilutes a key pest in indigenous potato agriculture.

PubMed

Parsa, Soroush; Ccanto, Raul; Rosenheim, Jay A

2011-03-01

Modern restructuring of agricultural landscapes, due to the expansion of monocultures and the resulting elimination of non-crop habitat, is routinely blamed for rising populations of agricultural insect pests. However, landscape studies demonstrating a positive correlation between pest densities and the spatial extent of crop monocultures are rare. We test this hypothesis with a data set from 140 subsistence farms in the Andes and find the inverse correlation. Infestations by the Andean potato weevil (Premnotrypes spp.), the most important pest in Andean potato agriculture, decrease with increasing amounts of potato in the landscape. A statistical model predicts that aggregating potato fields may outperform the management of Andean potato weevils by IPM and chemical control. We speculate that the strong pest suppression generated by aggregating potato fields may partly explain why indigenous potato farmers cluster their potato fields under a traditional rotation system common in Andean agriculture (i.e., "sectoral fallow"). Our results suggest that some agricultural pests may also respond negatively to the expansion of monocultures, and that manipulating the spatial arrangement of host crops may offer an important tool for some IPM programs.

Cerescope: Algeria Seeks Better Training in Agriculture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ceres, 1979

1979-01-01

Recent changes and developments in Algeria's agricultural education program to meet the future needs for expertise at all levels in the rural sector are described. Training targets established in the national plan are detailed. (BT)

Development of an Integrated Wastewater Treatment System/water reuse/agriculture model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fox, C. H.; Schuler, A.

2017-12-01

Factors like increasing population, urbanization, and climate change have made the management of water resources a challenge for municipalities. By understanding wastewater recycling for agriculture in arid regions, we can expand the supply of water to agriculture and reduce energy use at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This can improve management decisions between WWTPs and water managers. The objective of this research is to develop a prototype integrated model of the wastewater treatment system and nearby agricultural areas linked by water and nutrients, using the Albuquerque Southeast Eastern Reclamation Facility (SWRF) and downstream agricultural system as a case study. Little work has been done to understand how such treatment technology decisions affect the potential for water ruse, nutrient recovery in agriculture, overall energy consumption and agriculture production and water quality. A holistic approach to understanding synergies and tradeoffs between treatment, reuse, and agriculture is needed. For example, critical wastewater treatment process decisions include options to nitrify (oxidize ammonia), which requires large amounts of energy, to operate at low dissolved oxygen concentrations, which requires much less energy, whether to recover nitrogen and phosphorus, chemically in biosolids, or in reuse water for agriculture, whether to generate energy from anaerobic digestion, and whether to develop infrastructure for agricultural reuse. The research first includes quantifying existing and feasible agricultural sites suitable for irrigation by reuse wastewater as well as existing infrastructure such as irrigation canals and piping by using GIS databases. Second, a nutrient and water requirement for common New Mexico crop is being determined. Third, a wastewater treatment model will be utilized to quantify energy usage and nutrient removal under various scenarios. Different agricultural reuse sensors and treatment technologies will be explored. The

Economic modeling of effects of climate change on the forest sector and mitigation options: a compendium of briefing papers

Treesearch

Ralph J. Alig

2010-01-01

This report is a compilation of six briefing papers based on literature reviews and syntheses, prepared for U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service policy analysts and decisionmakers about specific questions pertaining to climate change. The main topics addressed here are economic effects on the forest sector at the national and global scales, costs of forest...

Task-focused modeling in automated agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vriesenga, Mark R.; Peleg, K.; Sklansky, Jack

1993-01-01

Machine vision systems analyze image data to carry out automation tasks. Our interest is in machine vision systems that rely on models to achieve their designed task. When the model is interrogated from an a priori menu of questions, the model need not be complete. Instead, the machine vision system can use a partial model that contains a large amount of information in regions of interest and less information elsewhere. We propose an adaptive modeling scheme for machine vision, called task-focused modeling, which constructs a model having just sufficient detail to carry out the specified task. The model is detailed in regions of interest to the task and is less detailed elsewhere. This focusing effect saves time and reduces the computational effort expended by the machine vision system. We illustrate task-focused modeling by an example involving real-time micropropagation of plants in automated agriculture.

Global Review of Agricultural Policies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Economic Research Service (USDA), Washington, DC.

This report describes how governments throughout the world manage their economies and interact with their people, with special emphasis on how the agricultural sector is affected by changing government goals, policies, and programs. Policies and programs are described using information as of July 1987. The large country policy statements include…

Representative Agricultural Pathways: A Trans-Disciplinary Approach to Agricultural Model Inter-comparison, Improvement, Climate Impact Assessment and Stakeholder Engagement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Antle, J. M.; Valdivia, R. O.; Claessens, L.; Nelson, G. C.; Rosenzweig, C.; Ruane, A. C.; Vervoort, J.

2013-12-01

The global change research community has recognized that new pathway and scenario concepts are needed to implement impact and vulnerability assessment that is logically consistent across local, regional and global scales. For impact and vulnerability assessment, new socio-economic pathway and scenario concepts are being developed. Representative Agricultural Pathways (RAPs) are designed to extend global pathways to provide the detail needed for global and regional assessment of agricultural systems. In addition, research by the Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) shows that RAPs provide a powerful way to engage stakeholders in climate-related research throughout the research process and in communication of research results. RAPs are based on the integrated assessment framework developed by AgMIP. This framework shows that both bio-physical and socio-economic drivers are essential components of agricultural pathways and logically precede the definition of adaptation and mitigation scenarios that embody associated capabilities and challenges. This approach is based on a trans-disciplinary process for designing pathways and then translating them into parameter sets for bio-physical and economic models that are components of agricultural integrated assessments of climate impact, adaptation and mitigation. RAPs must be designed to be part of a logically consistent set of drivers and outcomes from global to regional and local. Global RAPs are designed to be consistent with higher-level global socio-economic pathways, but add key agricultural drivers such as agricultural growth trends that are not specified in more general pathways, as illustrated in a recent inter-comparison of global agricultural models. To create pathways at regional or local scales, further detail is needed. At this level, teams of scientists and other experts with knowledge of the agricultural systems and regions work together through a step-wise process. Experiences

Reduction potential, shadow prices, and pollution costs of agricultural pollutants in China.

PubMed

Tang, Kai; Gong, Chengzhu; Wang, Dong

2016-01-15

This paper analyses the reduction potential, shadow prices, and pollution costs of agricultural pollutants in China based on provincial panel data for 2001-2010. Using a parameterized quadratic form for the directional output distance function, we find that if agricultural sectors in all provinces were to produce on the production frontier, China could potentially reduce agricultural emissions of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) by 16.0%, 16.2%, and 20.4%, respectively. Additionally, our results show that the shadow price of TN increased rapidly and continuously, while that of COD and TP fluctuated for the whole period. For the whole country, the average shadow price of COD, TN, and TP are 8266 Yuan/tonne, 25,560 Yuan/tonne, and 10,160 Yuan/tonne, respectively. The regional shadow prices of agricultural pollutants are unbalanced. Furthermore, we show that the pollution costs from emissions of COD, TN, and TP are 6.09% of the annual gross output value of the agricultural sector and are highest in the Western and lowest in the Eastern provinces. Our estimates suggest that there is scope for further pollution abatement and simultaneous output expansion for China's agriculture if farmers promote greater efficiency in their production process. Policymakers are required to dynamically adjust the pollution tax rates and ascertain the initial permit price in an emission trading system. Policymakers should also consider the different pollution costs for each province when making the reduction allocations within the agricultural sector. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Decreasing Agricultural Irrigation has not reversed Groundwater Depletion in the Yellow River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Z.; Xie, X.; Zhu, B.

2017-12-01

Agricultural irrigation is considered as the major water use sector accounting for over 60% of the global freshwater withdrawals. Especially in the arid and semiarid areas, irrigation from groundwater storage substantially sustain crop growth and food security. China's Yellow River Basin (YRB) is a typical arid and semiarid area with average annual precipitation about 450 mm. In this basin, more than 52 million hm2 of arable land needs irrigation for planting wheat, cotton, paddy rice etc, and groundwater contributes over one-third irrigation water. However, agricultural irrigation remained a certain level or decreased to some degree due to water-saving technologies and returning farmland to forest projects. Then an interesting question arises: has the groundwater storage (GWS) in YRB kept a consistent variation with the agricultural irrigation? In this study, to address this question, we employed multi-source data from ground measurements, remote sensing monitoring and large-scale hydrological modeling. Specifically, groundwater storage variation was identified using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data and ground observations, and groundwater recharge was estimated based on the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) modeling. Results indicated that GWS in YRB still holds a significant depletion with a rate of about -3 mm per year during the past decade, which was consistently demonstrated by the GRACE and the ground observations. Ground water recharge shows negligible upward trends despite climate change. The roles of different sectors contributing to groundwater depletion have changed. Agricultural irrigation accounting for over 60% of groundwater depletion, but its impact decreased. However, the domestic and the industrial purposes play an increasing role in shaping groundwater depletion.

A Professional Development Climate Course for Sustainable Agriculture in Australia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

George, David; Clewett, Jeff; Birch, Colin; Wright, Anthony; Allen, Wendy

2009-01-01

There are few professional development courses in Australia for the rural sector concerned with climate variability, climate change and sustainable agriculture. The lack of educators with a sound technical background in climate science and its applications in agriculture prevents the delivery of courses either stand-alone or embedded in other…

U.S. Heat Demand by Sector for Potential Application of Direct Use Geothermal

DOE Data Explorer

Katherine Young

2016-06-23

This dataset includes heat demand for potential application of direct use geothermal broken down into 4 sectors: agricultural, commercial, manufacturing and residential. The data for each sector are organized by county, were disaggregated specifically to assess the market demand for geothermal direct use, and were derived using methodologies customized for each sector based on the availability of data and other sector-specific factors. This dataset also includes a paper containing a full explanation of the methodologies used.

Innovative type of Reproduction of Agriculture of the Komi Republic - the Basis of its Sustainable Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ponomareva, Anna

2013-04-01

The necessity of transition of agriculture to sustainability is complicated by the necessity to increase production of local environmentally safe food, unemployment indigenous growth of living standards of the peasant community, stable and balanced nature management. Due to the difficult economic conditions of natural and agricultural development for the Komi Republic principle of food self-sufficiency is unacceptable, but the production of basic food products, for which favorable there are conditions, is objective necessity in the short term. Priority directions of development of the agricultural and fisheries sectors: the production of socially significant food products - potatoes, vegetables of the local range, milk, fresh meat, eggs, dietary, preservation and development of traditional industries, and collecting wild mushrooms and berries and its processing. Off forecast in the northern agricultural areas three scenarios selected: a base (slow), optimistic and pessimistic. For all versions of the forecast to be considered systemic crisis of the agricultural sector of the North is ongoing. Functioning of on sector under a particular scenario will depend on the factors and conditions that affect the stability of the agricultural enterprises and farms. At the base, especially under unfavorable conditions, negative external factors and conditions will prevail. The baseline scenario of recent years assumes the maintenance of the rate of change indicators of agriculture, of the levels of state industry conditions of interbranch exchange in agriculture, of access to economic entities in the financial markets, of the pricing and taxation policies, of relatively low investment opportunities to upgrade production capacity. In this embodiment the growth of agricultural production and its reduction will occur in suburban (peripheral areas). The optimistic scenario will be characterized by protectionist policies of the state, increase investment to improve soil fertility

75 FR 11512 - Consultative Group to Eliminate the Use of Child Labor and Forced Labor in Imported Agricultural...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-11

... include three members from the agriculture-related private sector; two members from institutions of higher... the 2008 Farm Bill. The Act provides for the creation of the Consultative Group. DATES: March 18, 2010... the global supply chains within the agricultural sector or other industries; (b) The roles and...

The Parallel System for Integrating Impact Models and Sectors (pSIMS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elliott, Joshua; Kelly, David; Chryssanthacopoulos, James; Glotter, Michael; Jhunjhnuwala, Kanika; Best, Neil; Wilde, Michael; Foster, Ian

2014-01-01

We present a framework for massively parallel climate impact simulations: the parallel System for Integrating Impact Models and Sectors (pSIMS). This framework comprises a) tools for ingesting and converting large amounts of data to a versatile datatype based on a common geospatial grid; b) tools for translating this datatype into custom formats for site-based models; c) a scalable parallel framework for performing large ensemble simulations, using any one of a number of different impacts models, on clusters, supercomputers, distributed grids, or clouds; d) tools and data standards for reformatting outputs to common datatypes for analysis and visualization; and e) methodologies for aggregating these datatypes to arbitrary spatial scales such as administrative and environmental demarcations. By automating many time-consuming and error-prone aspects of large-scale climate impacts studies, pSIMS accelerates computational research, encourages model intercomparison, and enhances reproducibility of simulation results. We present the pSIMS design and use example assessments to demonstrate its multi-model, multi-scale, and multi-sector versatility.

Carbon dynamics on agricultural land reverting to woody land in Ontario, Canada.

PubMed

Voicu, Mihai F; Shaw, Cindy; Kurz, Werner A; Huffman, Ted; Liu, Jiangui; Fellows, Max

2017-05-15

The 2015 Paris Agreement reinforces the importance of the land sector and its contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions. Thus, there is growing interest in improving estimates of the GHG balance in response to land-use changes (LUCs) involving agriculture and forestry, for national-scale reporting, and for carbon (C) offsets. Large agricultural areas in Europe, Russia and North America are reverting to forest, either naturally or through planting, after abandonment of agricultural land, and this trend may have a substantial impact on carbon budgets. We report results of a pilot project in the Mixedwood Plains ecozone of eastern Canada to analyze the change in the C budget on a landscape over 15 years on abandoned cropland where woody vegetation is regenerating. Thirty-six plots (2 km × 2 km) with paired aerial photographs taken circa 1994 and circa 2008 at a scale of 1:10,000 or larger were randomly selected from the 20 km × 20 km National Forest Inventory (NFI) grid. A spatially-explicit version of the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) was used to estimate impacts of LUC on C stocks and fluxes. Polygons identifying areas of LUC within each photo plot were delineated, classified, and evaluated to provide input data for the model. The rate of C accumulation in our study area was found to be relatively constant over the entire simulation period, at 1.07 Mg C/ha/yr. Abandoned agricultural land reverting to woody lands could play an important role in regional and national C sequestration in Canada, but more research is required to quantify the areal extent of this LUC. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

INSPIA project: European Index for Sustainable and Productive Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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

Future Public Policy and Ethical Issues Facing the Agricultural and Microbial Genomics Sectors of the Biotechnology Industry: A Roundtable Discussion

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Diane E. Hoffmann

2003-09-12

On September 12, 2003, the University of Maryland School of Law's Intellectual Property and Law & Health Care Programs jointly sponsored and convened a roundtable discussion on the future public policy and ethical issues that will likely face the agricultural and microbial genomics sectors of the biotechnology industry. As this industry has developed over the last two decades, societal concerns have moved from what were often local issues, e.g., the safety of laboratories where scientists conducted recombinant DNA research on transgenic microbes, animals and crops, to more global issues. These newer issues include intellectual property, international trade, risks of geneticallymore » engineered foods and microbes, bioterrorism, and marketing and labeling of new products sold worldwide. The fast paced nature of the biotechnology industry and its new developments often mean that legislators, regulators and society, in general, must play ''catch up'' in their efforts to understand the issues, the risks, and even the benefits, that may result from the industry's new ways of conducting research, new products, and novel methods of product marketing and distribution. The goal of the roundtable was to develop a short list of the most significant public policy and ethical issues that will emerge as a result of advances in these sectors of the biotechnology industry over the next five to six years. More concretely, by ''most significant'' the conveners meant the types of issues that would come to the attention of members of Congress or state legislators during this time frame and for which they would be better prepared if they had well researched and timely background information. A concomitant goal was to provide a set of focused issues for academic debate and scholarship so that policy makers, industry leaders and regulators would have the intellectual resources they need to better understand the issues and concerns at stake. The goal was not to provide answers to any of

Hidden Sector Dark Matter Models for the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Berlin, Asher; Gratia, Pierre; Hooper, Dan

2014-07-24

The gamma-ray excess observed from the Galactic Center can be interpreted as dark matter particles annihilating into Standard Model fermions with a cross section near that expected for a thermal relic. Although many particle physics models have been shown to be able to account for this signal, the fact that this particle has not yet been observed in direct detection experiments somewhat restricts the nature of its interactions. One way to suppress the dark matter's elastic scattering cross section with nuclei is to consider models in which the dark matter is part of a hidden sector. In such models, themore » dark matter can annihilate into other hidden sector particles, which then decay into Standard Model fermions through a small degree of mixing with the photon, Z, or Higgs bosons. After discussing the gamma-ray signal from hidden sector dark matter in general terms, we consider two concrete realizations: a hidden photon model in which the dark matter annihilates into a pair of vector gauge bosons that decay through kinetic mixing with the photon, and a scenario within the generalized NMSSM in which the dark matter is a singlino-like neutralino that annihilates into a pair of singlet Higgs bosons, which decay through their mixing with the Higgs bosons of the MSSM.« less

Catchment-scale evaluation of environmental regulations in the agricultural sector in Ireland (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Melland, A. R.; Jordan, P.; Mellander, P.; Wall, D. J.; Buckley, C.; Mechan, S.; Shortle, G.

2010-12-01

The European Union (EU) Nitrates Directive regulations in Ireland limits the use of agricultural fertilisers to agronomic optima and aims to minimise surplus phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) losses to the aquatic environment. The legislated measures include limits on nutrient application according to soil P status, crop type and livestock intensity and restricts chemical and organic fertiliser spreading and ploughing to periods of the year with typically lower exposure of nutrients to runoff and leaching. These agricultural policies are being evaluated in an Agricultural Catchments Programme in six representative catchments dominated by moderate to high intensity grassland and arable enterprises across Ireland (Fealy et al., 2010). An experimental programme has been established to provide a baseline of farm nutrient management and water body quality during the early years of the measures and to provide estimates of trajectories towards (or otherwise) water quality targets. A ‘nutrient transfer continuum’ from source, through pathways, to delivery and impact in a water body receptor describes the different phases of diffuse pollution and is being used as a framework for evaluation. Compliance with Irish standards at different levels of the continuum is being evaluated and demonstrative studies are being conducted to provide evidence of linkages between source and delivery to validate conceptual models of P and N transfers in time and space in each catchment. Source compliance is being evaluated through census soil testing and a survey of nutrient management practice and farmyard infrastructure. Mobilisation and pathways of nutrient transfers do not have chemical standards except where a groundwater body acts as both a receptor and a pathway. To demonstrate these linkages, however, representative groundwater pathways are being monitored through piezometer, chemical end-member and tracer studies, and surface water pathways are being evaluated through subcatchment

Effects of spatially distributed sectoral water management on the redistribution of water resources in an integrated water model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Voisin, Nathalie; Hejazi, Mohamad I.; Leung, L. Ruby; Liu, Lu; Huang, Maoyi; Li, Hong-Yi; Tesfa, Teklu

2017-05-01

Realistic representations of sectoral water withdrawals and consumptive demands and their allocation to surface and groundwater sources are important for improving modeling of the integrated water cycle. To inform future model development, we enhance the representation of water management in a regional Earth system (ES) model with a spatially distributed allocation of sectoral water demands simulated by a regional integrated assessment (IA) model to surface and groundwater systems. The integrated modeling framework (IA-ES) is evaluated by analyzing the simulated regulated flow and sectoral supply deficit in major hydrologic regions of the conterminous U.S, which differ from ES studies looking at water storage variations. Decreases in historical supply deficit are used as metrics to evaluate IA-ES model improvement in representating the complex sectoral human activities for assessing future adaptation and mitigation strategies. We also assess the spatial changes in both regulated flow and unmet demands, for irrigation and nonirrigation sectors, resulting from the individual and combined additions of groundwater and return flow modules. Results show that groundwater use has a pronounced regional and sectoral effect by reducing water supply deficit. The effects of sectoral return flow exhibit a clear east-west contrast in the hydrologic patterns, so the return flow component combined with the IA sectoral demands is a major driver for spatial redistribution of water resources and water deficits in the US. Our analysis highlights the need for spatially distributed sectoral representation of water management to capture the regional differences in interbasin redistribution of water resources and deficits.

Large scale hydro-economic modelling for policy support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Roo, Ad; Burek, Peter; Bouraoui, Faycal; Reynaud, Arnaud; Udias, Angel; Pistocchi, Alberto; Lanzanova, Denis; Trichakis, Ioannis; Beck, Hylke; Bernhard, Jeroen

2014-05-01

To support European Union water policy making and policy monitoring, a hydro-economic modelling environment has been developed to assess optimum combinations of water retention measures, water savings measures, and nutrient reduction measures for continental Europe. This modelling environment consists of linking the agricultural CAPRI model, the LUMP land use model, the LISFLOOD water quantity model, the EPIC water quality model, the LISQUAL combined water quantity, quality and hydro-economic model, and a multi-criteria optimisation routine. With this modelling environment, river basin scale simulations are carried out to assess the effects of water-retention measures, water-saving measures, and nutrient-reduction measures on several hydro-chemical indicators, such as the Water Exploitation Index (WEI), Nitrate and Phosphate concentrations in rivers, the 50-year return period river discharge as an indicator for flooding, and economic losses due to water scarcity for the agricultural sector, the manufacturing-industry sector, the energy-production sector and the domestic sector, as well as the economic loss due to flood damage. Recently, this model environment is being extended with a groundwater model to evaluate the effects of measures on the average groundwater table and available resources. Also, water allocation rules are addressed, while having environmental flow included as a minimum requirement for the environment. Economic functions are currently being updated as well. Recent development and examples will be shown and discussed, as well as open challenges.

An AgMIP framework for improved agricultural representation in integrated assessment models

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ruane, Alex C.; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Asseng, Senthold

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) hold great potential to assess how future agricultural systems will be shaped by socioeconomic development, technological innovation, and changing climate conditions. By coupling with climate and crop model emulators, IAMs have the potential to resolve important agricultural feedback loops and identify unintended consequences of socioeconomic development for agricultural systems. Here we propose a framework to develop robust representation of agricultural system responses within IAMs, linking downstream applications with model development and the coordinated evaluation of key climate responses from local to global scales. We survey the strengths and weaknesses of protocol-based assessments linked to the Agriculturalmore » Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), each utilizing multiple sites and models to evaluate crop response to core climate changes including shifts in carbon dioxide concentration, temperature, and water availability, with some studies further exploring how climate responses are affected by nitrogen levels and adaptation in farm systems. Site-based studies with carefully calibrated models encompass the largest number of activities; however they are limited in their ability to capture the full range of global agricultural system diversity. Representative site networks provide more targeted response information than broadly-sampled networks, with limitations stemming from difficulties in covering the diversity of farming systems. Global gridded crop models provide comprehensive coverage, although with large challenges for calibration and quality control of inputs. Diversity in climate responses underscores that crop model emulators must distinguish between regions and farming system while recognizing model uncertainty. Finally, to bridge the gap between bottom-up and top-down approaches we recommend the deployment of a hybrid climate response system employing a representative network of sites to

A socio-hydrologic model of coupled water-agriculture dynamics with emphasis on farm size.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brugger, D. R.; Maneta, M. P.

2015-12-01

Agricultural land cover dynamics in the U.S. are dominated by two trends: 1) total agricultural land is decreasing and 2) average farm size is increasing. These trends have important implications for the future of water resources because 1) growing more food on less land is due in large part to increased groundwater withdrawal and 2) larger farms can better afford both more efficient irrigation and more groundwater access. However, these large-scale trends are due to individual farm operators responding to many factors including climate, economics, and policy. It is therefore difficult to incorporate the trends into watershed-scale hydrologic models. Traditional scenario-based approaches are valuable for many applications, but there is typically no feedback between the hydrologic model and the agricultural dynamics and so limited insight is gained into the how agriculture co-evolves with water resources. We present a socio-hydrologic model that couples simplified hydrologic and agricultural economic dynamics, accounting for many factors that depend on farm size such as irrigation efficiency and returns to scale. We introduce an "economic memory" (EM) state variable that is driven by agricultural revenue and affects whether farms are sold when land market values exceed expected returns from agriculture. The model uses a Generalized Mixture Model of Gaussians to approximate the distribution of farm sizes in a study area, effectively lumping farms into "small," "medium," and "large" groups that have independent parameterizations. We apply the model in a semi-arid watershed in the upper Columbia River Basin, calibrating to data on streamflow, total agricultural land cover, and farm size distribution. The model is used to investigate the sensitivity of the coupled system to various hydrologic and economic scenarios such as increasing market value of land, reduced surface water availability, and increased irrigation efficiency in small farms.

Economic Dependence of U.S. Industrial Sectors on Animal-Mediated Pollination Service.

PubMed

Chopra, Shauhrat S; Bakshi, Bhavik R; Khanna, Vikas

2015-12-15

Declining animal pollinator health and diversity in the U.S. is a matter of growing concern and has particularly gained attention since the emergence of colony collapse disorder (CCD) in 2006. Failure to maintain adequate animal-mediated pollination service to support increasing demand for pollination-dependent crops poses risks for the U.S. economy. We integrate the Economic Input-Output (EIO) model and network analysis with data on pollinator dependence of crops to understand the economic dependence of U.S. industrial sectors on animal-mediated pollination service. The novelty of this work lies in its ability to identify industrial sectors and industrial communities (groups of closely linked sectors) that are most vulnerable to scarcity of pollination service provided by various animal species. While the economic dependence of agricultural sectors on pollination service is significant (US$14.2-23.8 billion), the higher-order economic dependence of the rest of the U.S. industrial sectors is substantially high as well (US$10.3-21.1 billion). The results are compelling as they highlight the critical importance of animal-induced pollination service for the U.S. economy, and the need to account for the role of ecosystem goods and services in product life cycles.

Web-based information system design of agricultural management towards self-sufficiency local food in North Aceh

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Salahuddin; Husaini; Anwar

2018-01-01

The agricultural sector, especially food crops and horticulture, is one of the sectors driving regional economic pillars in Aceh Utara Regency of Aceh Province. Some agricultural products and food crops that become excellent products in North Aceh regency are: rice, corn, peanuts, long beans, cassava and soybeans. The Local Government of North Aceh Regency has not been optimal in empowering and maximizing the potential of agriculture resources. One of the obstacles is caused by the North Aceh Regency Government does not have an adequate database and web information system/GIS (Geographic Information System) for data management of agricultural centre in North Aceh Regency. This research is expected to assist local government of North Aceh Regency in managing agriculture sector to realize local food independence the region in supporting national food security program. The method in this research is using waterfall method for designing and making information system by conducting sequential process starting from data collection stage, requirement analysis, design, coding, testing and implementation system. The result of this research is a web-based information system for the management of agriculture superior agricultural product centre in North Aceh. This application provides information mapping the location of agricultural superior product producers and mapping of potential locations for the development of certain commodities in North Aceh Regency region in realizing food self-sufficiency in the region.

General structure of democratic mass matrix of quark sector in E{sub 6} model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ciftci, R., E-mail: rciftci@cern.ch; Çiftci, A. K., E-mail: abbas.kenan.ciftci@cern.ch

2016-03-25

An extension of the Standard Model (SM) fermion sector, which is inspired by the E{sub 6} Grand Unified Theory (GUT) model, might be a good candidate to explain a number of unanswered questions in SM. Existence of the isosinglet quarks might explain great mass difference of bottom and top quarks. Also, democracy on mass matrix elements is a natural approach in SM. In this study, we have given general structure of Democratic Mass Matrix (DMM) of quark sector in E6 model.

Market assessment of photovoltaic power systems for agricultural applications in the Philippines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cabraal, R. A.; Delasanta, D.; Burrill, G.

1981-01-01

The market potential in the Philippines for stand alone photovoltaic (P/V) systems in agriculture was assessed. Applications include: irrigation, postharvest operation, food and fiber processing and storage, and livestock and fisheries operations. Power and energy use profiles for many applications as well as assessments of business, government and financial climate for P/V sales are described. Many characteristics of the Philippine agriculture and energy sector favorably influence the use of P/V systems. However, serious and significant barriers prevent achieving the technically feasible, cost competitive market for P/V systems in the agricultural sector. The reason for the small market is the limited availability capital for financing P/V systems. It is suggested that innovative financing schemes and promotional campaigns should be devised.

Market assessment of photovoltaic power systems for agricultural applications in the Philippines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cabraal, R. A.; Delasanta, D.; Burrill, G.

1981-04-01

The market potential in the Philippines for stand alone photovoltaic (P/V) systems in agriculture was assessed. Applications include: irrigation, postharvest operation, food and fiber processing and storage, and livestock and fisheries operations. Power and energy use profiles for many applications as well as assessments of business, government and financial climate for P/V sales are described. Many characteristics of the Philippine agriculture and energy sector favorably influence the use of P/V systems. However, serious and significant barriers prevent achieving the technically feasible, cost competitive market for P/V systems in the agricultural sector. The reason for the small market is the limited availability capital for financing P/V systems. It is suggested that innovative financing schemes and promotional campaigns should be devised.

Changes in population and agricultural land in conterminous United States counties, 1790 to 1997

USGS Publications Warehouse

Waisanen, Pamela J.; Bliss, Norman B.

2002-01-01

We have developed a data set of changes in population and agricultural land for the conterminous United States at the county level, resulting in more spatial detail than in previously available compilations. The purpose was to provide data on the timing of land conversion as an input to dynamic models of the carbon cycle, although a wide variety of applications exist for the physical, biological, and social sciences. The spatial data represent the appropriate county boundaries for each census year between 1790 and 1997, and the census attributes are attached to the appropriate spatial region. The resulting time series and maps show the history of population (1790-1990) and the history of agricultural development (1850-1997). The patterns of agricultural development reflect the influences of climate, soil productivity, increases in population size, variations in the general economy, and technological changes in the energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors.

Promoting Evidence-Based Practice: Models and Mechanisms from Cross-Sector Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nutley, Sandra; Walter, Isabel; Davies, Huw T. O.

2009-01-01

This article draws on both a cross-sector literature review of mechanisms to promote evidence-based practice and a specific review of ways of improving research use in social care. At the heart of the article is a discussion of three models of evidence-based practice: the research-based practitioner model, the embedded research model, and the…

Optical modeling of agricultural fields and rough-textured rock and mineral surfaces

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Suits, G. H.; Vincent, R. K.; Horwitz, H. M.; Erickson, J. D.

1973-01-01

Review was made of past models for describing the reflectance and/or emittance properties of agricultural/forestry and geological targets in an effort to select the best theoretical models. An extension of the six parameter Allen-Gayle-Richardson model was chosen as the agricultural plant canopy model. The model is used to predict the bidirectional reflectance of a field crop from known laboratory spectra of crop components and approximate plant geometry. The selected geological model is based on Mie theory and radiative transfer equations, and will assess the effect of textural variations of the spectral emittance of natural rock surfaces.

Priority economic sector and household income in Indonesia (an analysis of input output)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Subanti, S.; Mulyanto; Hakim, A. R.; Mafruhah, I.; Hakim, I. M.

2018-03-01

This purpose of study aims to identify the roles of priority economic sectors on household incomes in Indonesia. Analyse in this paper used nine economic sectors, that representing result of classification from input output table. This study found that (1) priority economic sector are manufacturing sector & trade hotel and restaurant; (2) sector that have looking forward orientation included agriculture, mining & quarrying, and financial ownership & business services; and (3) electricity, gas, and water supply sector give the biggest impact to household income in Indonesia. The suggestion that policies aimed at increasing productivity and raising skills while encouraging individual participation in the formal labour market are essential.

Agricultural Groundwater Demands in the Conterminous United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ho, M. W.; Parthasarathy, V.; Etienne, E.; Russo, T. A.; Devineni, N.; Lall, U.

2016-12-01

In the conterminous United States (CONUS), over 40% of water consumed for irrigation, livestock and domestic water is sourced from groundwater. The late 20th century and 21st century saw an expansion in irrigated agriculture across the CONUS that was accompanied by increased pumping of groundwater. Groundwater is typically used to mitigate impacts of drought on surface water supplies enabling water demands to be met as well as to augment sparse surface water resources in arid regions or where surface water availability is highly variable temporally and/or spatially. A Demand Sensitive Drought Index (DSDI) is used to examine the impacts of agricultural water needs on groundwater in the CONUS. The DSDI accounts for agricultural water deficits driven by low precipitation, high agricultural water demand, or a combination of both. Changes in groundwater levels relative to agricultural water deficits are characterized relative to precipitation during the growing season and winter precipitation. In several key irrigated agricultural regions in the CONUS, long-term trends in groundwater levels appear to reflect prolonged periods of surface water deficits resulting from land use and associated unsustainable water demands. These areas are subsequent unable to recover from persistent states of agricultural drought. Conversely, reductions in agricultural water demands for crops do not necessarily lead to immediate recovery of groundwater levels due to the demand for groundwater in other sectors. Calls to establish or reform groundwater policies have recently been made in an effort to achieve holistic groundwater management strategies that consider the human demands on both surface water and groundwater. There is a need for relevant groundwater policies to ensure that water demands are adequately managed across sectors without unsustainably depleting groundwater resources and to ensure efficient economic activity.

[Theoretical and methodological research on the comprehensive development of agricultural model zone in waterlogged area].

PubMed

Tian, Xiaohai; Huang, Yongping; Huang, Zhimin; Lei, Weici; Higata, Shugo

2003-10-01

The searching for a proper land reclamation and utilization method adapted to the regional natural conditions and economical level is a prime subject in the waterlogged area of Southern China. Choosing a dish-like micro-zone, one of the typical waterlogged areas deprived from a reclaimed lake as the studying region, its biophysical characteristics and developmental models was investigated, aiming at making a comprehensive development plan to this area. The results showed that with the successive change in altitude across the sector of the land, the soil type, soil profile structure, underground water level, and soil temperature were characterized by five step divergence steps. The analysis on the site and area of the individual divergences showed that the low land was unsuitable for rice planting, and the land between upland and paddy should be increased for rotation and needed to be reclaimed better. After an engineering consolidation to the land, the original five divergence steps were rehabilitated into four steps, and a utilization model of "development in a step way" focused on comprehensively agricultural development and improvement in farming systems was developed, which leaded to a great advance in economic profit of this area.

Integrating and Institutionalizing Lessons Learned: Reorganizing Agricultural Research and Extension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goletti, Francesco; Pinners, Elise; Purcell, Timothy; Smith, Dominic

2007-01-01

The majority of the population of Vietnam lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Consistent growth of the agriculture sector over the past two decades has contributed to a remarkable reduction in the poverty rate and the virtual elimination of hunger in the rural areas of Vietnam. In order to continue the growth…

Exploring factors influencing farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for a planned adaptation programme to address climatic issues in agricultural sectors.

PubMed

Ahmed, Adeel; Masud, Muhammad Mehedi; Al-Amin, Abul Quasem; Yahaya, Siti Rohani Binti; Rahman, Mahfuzur; Akhtar, Rulia

2015-06-01

This study empirically estimates farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for a planned adaptation programme for addressing climate issues in Pakistan's agricultural sectors. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was employed to determine a monetary valuation of farmers' preferences for a planned adaptation programme by ascertaining the value attached to address climatic issues. The survey was conducted by distributing structured questionnaires among Pakistani farmers. The study found that 67 % of respondents were willing to pay for a planned adaptation programme. However, several socioeconomic and motivational factors exert greater influence on their willingness to pay (WTP). This paper specifies the steps needed for all institutional bodies to better address issues in climate change. The outcomes of this paper will support attempts by policy makers to design an efficient adaptation framework for mitigating and adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Alternative approaches to the construction of a composite indicator of agricultural sustainability: An application to irrigated agriculture in the Duero basin in Spain.

PubMed

Gómez-Limón, José A; Riesgo, Laura

2009-08-01

This paper describes a comparative analysis of alternative methods of constructing composite indicators to measure the sustainability of the agricultural sector. The three methods employed were Principal Component Analysis, the Analytic Hierarchy Process and a Multi-Criteria technique. The comparison focused on the irrigated agriculture of the Duero basin in Spain as a case study, using a dataset of indicators previously calculated for various farm types and policy scenarios. The results enabled us to establish a hierarchy of preferred policy scenarios on the basis of the level of sustainability achieved, and show that the most recent CAP reform is the most sustainable agricultural policy scenario. By analyzing the heterogeneity of different farms types in each scenario, we can also determine the main features of the most sustainable farms in each case. The analysis demonstrates that full-time farmers with small to medium-sized farms and sowing profitable crops are the most sustainable farm types in all the policy scenarios. All of this information is useful for the support of agricultural policy design and its implementation, as we attempt to improve the sustainability of this sector.

Ecosystem Services Provided by Agricultural Land as Modeled by Broad Scale Geospatial Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kokkinidis, Ioannis

Agricultural ecosystems provide multiple services including food and fiber provision, nutrient cycling, soil retention and water regulation. Objectives of the study were to identify and quantify a selection of ecosystem services provided by agricultural land, using existing geospatial tools and preferably free and open source data, such as the Virginia Land Use Evaluation System (VALUES), the North Carolina Realistic Yield Expectations (RYE) database, and the land cover datasets NLCD and CDL. Furthermore I sought to model tradeoffs between provisioning and other services. First I assessed the accuracy of agricultural land in NLCD and CDL over a four county area in eastern Virginia using cadastral parcels. I uncovered issues concerning the definition of agricultural land. The area and location of agriculture saw little change in the 19 years studied. Furthermore all datasets have significant errors of omission (11.3 to 95.1%) and commission (0 to 71.3%). Location of agriculture was used with spatial crop yield databases I created and combined with models I adapted to calculate baseline values for plant biomass, nutrient composition and requirements, land suitability for and potential production of biofuels and the economic impact of agriculture for the four counties. The study area was then broadened to cover 97 counties in eastern Virginia and North Carolina, investigating the potential for increased regional grain production through intensification and extensification of agriculture. Predicted yield from geospatial crop models was compared with produced yield from the NASS Survey of Agriculture. Area of most crops in CDL was similar to that in the Survey of Agriculture, but a yield gap is present for most years, partially due to weather, thus indicating potential for yield increase through intensification. Using simple criteria I quantified the potential to extend agriculture in high yield land in other uses and modeled the changes in erosion and runoff should

Developing an Integrated Information System for the Food Sector. Agricultural Economic Report No. 575.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manchester, Alden

This document proposes an information system for the food sector that integrates measures of prices, quantities, and values. It suggests that such an integrated information system provides more information about many developments in the food sector than a system that separately measures prices, quantities, or values. Concepts and approaches…

Models of Sector Flows Under Local, Regional and Airport Weather Constraints

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kulkarni, Deepak

2017-01-01

Recently, the ATM community has made important progress in collaborative trajectory management through the introduction of a new FAA traffic management initiative called a Collaborative Trajectory Options Program (CTOP). FAA can use CTOPs to manage air traffic under multiple constraints (manifested as flow constrained areas or FCAs) in the system, and it allows flight operators to indicate their preferences for routing and delay options. CTOPs also permits better management of the overall trajectory of flights by considering both routing and departure delay options simultaneously. However, adoption of CTOPs in airspace has been hampered by many factors that include challenges in how to identify constrained areas and how to set rates for the FCAs. Decision support tools providing assistance would be particularly helpful in effective use of CTOPs. Such DSTs tools would need models of demand and capacity in the presence of multiple constraints. This study examines different approaches to using historical data to create and validate models of maximum flows in sectors and other airspace regions in the presence of multiple constraints. A challenge in creating an empirical model of flows under multiple constraints is a lack of sufficient historical data that captures diverse situations involving combinations of multiple constraints especially those with severe weather. The approach taken here to deal with this is two-fold. First, we create a generalized sector model encompassing multiple sectors rather than individual sectors in order to increase the amount of data used for creating the model by an order of magnitude. Secondly, we decompose the problem so that the amount of data needed is reduced. This involves creating a baseline demand model plus a separate weather constrained flow reduction model and then composing these into a single integrated model. A nominal demand model is a flow model (gdem) in the presence of clear local weather. This defines the flow as a

Numerical modeling of the agricultural-hydrologic system in Punjab, India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nyblade, M.; Russo, T. A.; Zikatanov, L.; Zipp, K.

2017-12-01

The goal of food security for India's growing population is threatened by the decline in freshwater resources due to unsustainable water use for irrigation. The issue is acute in parts of Punjab, India, where small landholders produce a major quantity of India's food with declining groundwater resources. To further complicate this problem, other regions of the state are experiencing groundwater logging and salinization, and are reliant on canal systems for fresh water delivery. Due to the lack of water use records, groundwater consumption for this study is estimated with available data on crop yields, climate, and total canal water delivery. The hydrologic and agricultural systems are modeled using appropriate numerical methods and software. This is a state-wide hydrologic numerical model of Punjab that accounts for multiple aquifer layers, agricultural water demands, and interactions between the surface canal system and groundwater. To more accurately represent the drivers of agricultural production and therefore water use, we couple an economic crop optimization model with the hydrologic model. These tools will be used to assess and optimize crop choice scenarios based on farmer income, food production, and hydrologic system constraints. The results of these combined models can be used to further understand the hydrologic system response to government crop procurement policies and climate change, and to assess the effectiveness of possible water conservation solutions.

Research on prediction of agricultural machinery total power based on grey model optimized by genetic algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, Yan; Li, Mu; Zhou, Jin; Zheng, Chang-zheng

2009-07-01

Agricultural machinery total power is an important index to reflex and evaluate the level of agricultural mechanization. It is the power source of agricultural production, and is the main factors to enhance the comprehensive agricultural production capacity expand production scale and increase the income of the farmers. Its demand is affected by natural, economic, technological and social and other "grey" factors. Therefore, grey system theory can be used to analyze the development of agricultural machinery total power. A method based on genetic algorithm optimizing grey modeling process is introduced in this paper. This method makes full use of the advantages of the grey prediction model and characteristics of genetic algorithm to find global optimization. So the prediction model is more accurate. According to data from a province, the GM (1, 1) model for predicting agricultural machinery total power was given based on the grey system theories and genetic algorithm. The result indicates that the model can be used as agricultural machinery total power an effective tool for prediction.

Estimating Regional and National-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) Sector using the `Agricultural and Land Use (ALU) Tool'

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spencer, S.; Ogle, S. M.; Wirth, T. C.; Sivakami, G.

2016-12-01

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides methods and guidance for estimating anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions for reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The methods are comprehensive and require extensive data compilation, management, aggregation, documentation and calculations of source and sink categories to achieve robust emissions estimates. IPCC Guidelines describe three estimation tiers that require increasing levels of country-specific data and method complexity. Use of higher tiers should improve overall accuracy and reduce uncertainty in estimates. The AFOLU sector represents a complex set of methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sinks. Major AFOLU emissions and sinks include carbon dioxide (CO2) from carbon stock change in biomass, dead organic matter and soils, urea or lime application to soils, and oxidation of carbon in drained organic soils; nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) emissions from livestock management and biomass burning; N2O from organic amendments and fertilizer application to soils, and CH4 emissions from rice cultivation. To assist inventory compilers with calculating AFOLU-sector estimates, the Agriculture and Land Use Greenhouse Gas Inventory Tool (ALU) was designed to implement Tier 1 and 2 methods using IPCC Good Practice Guidance. It guides the compiler through activity data entry, emission factor assignment, and emissions calculations while carefully maintaining data integrity. ALU also provides IPCC defaults and can estimate uncertainty. ALU was designed to simplify the AFOLU inventory compilation process at regional or national scales, disaggregating the process into a series of steps reduces the potential for errors in the compilation process. An example application has been developed using ALU to estimate methane emissions from rice production in the United States.

Promoting healthy diets and tackling obesity and diet-related chronic diseases: what are the agricultural policy levers?

PubMed

Hawkes, Corinna

2007-06-01

Diet-related chronic diseases are now a serious global public health problem. Public health groups are calling for the agricultural sector to play a greater role in tackling the threat. To identify potential points of policy intervention in the agricultural sector that could be leveraged to promote healthy diets and tackle obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. A review of the literature on the dietary implications of agriculture, a conceptual analysis of the issues, and the identification of relevant examples. There are two main potential points of intervention in the agricultural sector that could be leveraged to promote healthy diets: agricultural policies and agricultural production practices. Agricultural policies and practices affect diet through their influence on food availability, price, and nutrient quality, which in turn affects food choices available to consumers. Agricultural policies amenable to intervention include input, production, and trade policies; agricultural production practices amenable to intervention include crop breeding, crop fertilization practices, livestock-feeding practices, and crop systems diversity. It is well-known that agricultural policies and production practices influence what farmers choose to grow. Agricultural policies and production practices could also play a role in influencing what consumers choose to eat. To identify how agricultural policies and practices can usefully contribute toward promoting healthy diets and tackling obesity and diet-related chronic diseases, health policymakers need to examine whether current agricultural policies and production practices are contributing to-or detracting from-efforts to attain dietary goals; where and how could agricultural intervention help achieve dietary goals; and whether there are trade-offs between these interventions and other important concerns, such as undernutrition and the livelihoods of agricultural producers. Given the potential of agriculture to contribute to

Modeling applications for precision agriculture in the California Central Valley

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marklein, A. R.; Riley, W. J.; Grant, R. F.; Mezbahuddin, S.; Mekonnen, Z. A.; Liu, Y.; Ying, S.

2017-12-01

Drought in California has increased the motivation to develop precision agriculture, which uses observations to make site-specific management decisions throughout the growing season. In agricultural systems that are prone to drought, these efforts often focus on irrigation efficiency. Recent improvements in soil sensor technology allow the monitoring of plant and soil status in real-time, which can then inform models aimed at improving irrigation management. But even on farms with resources to deploy soil sensors across the landscape, leveraging that sensor data to design an efficient irrigation scheme remains a challenge. We conduct a modeling experiment aimed at simulating precision agriculture to address several questions: (1) how, when, and where does irrigation lead to optimal yield? and (2) What are the impacts of different precision irrigation schemes on yields, soil organic carbon (SOC), and total water use? We use the ecosys model to simulate precision agriculture in a conventional tomato-corn rotation in the California Central Valley with varying soil water content thresholds for irrigation and soil water sensor depths. This model is ideal for our question because it includes explicit process-based functions for the plant growth, plant water use, soil hydrology, and SOC, and has been tested extensively in agricultural ecosystems. Low irrigation thresholds allows the soil to become drier before irrigating compared to high irrigation thresholds; as such, we found that the high irrigation thresholds use more irrigation over the course of the season, have higher yields, and have lower water use efficiency. The irrigation threshold did not affect SOC. Yields and water use are highest at sensor depths of 0.5 to 0.15 m, but water use efficiency was also lowest at these depths. We found SOC to be significantly affected by sensor depth, with the highest SOC at the shallowest sensor depths. These results will help regulate irrigation water while maintaining yield

Creating Good Employment Opportunities for the Rural Sector

PubMed Central

Foster, Andrew D.

2013-01-01

This paper examines the potential for sector-specific productivity growth, human capital, credit markets, and infrastructure to contribute to the development of stable, well-paid employment in rural areas of low-income countries. Particular emphasis is placed on the way that different sectors of the rural economy interact with each other and with local and regional product markets. A simple theoretical framework and descriptive analysis of panel data from India suggests that more emphasis should be placed on increasing the production of goods that incorporate local agricultural products as inputs. PMID:25883938

Model-independent indirect detection constraints on hidden sector dark matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Elor, Gilly; Rodd, Nicholas L.; Slatyer, Tracy R.

2016-06-10

If dark matter inhabits an expanded “hidden sector”, annihilations may proceed through sequential decays or multi-body final states. We map out the potential signals and current constraints on such a framework in indirect searches, using a model-independent setup based on multi-step hierarchical cascade decays. While remaining agnostic to the details of the hidden sector model, our framework captures the generic broadening of the spectrum of secondary particles (photons, neutrinos, e{sup +}e{sup −} and p-barp) relative to the case of direct annihilation to Standard Model particles. We explore how indirect constraints on dark matter annihilation limit the parameter space for suchmore » cascade/multi-particle decays. We investigate limits from the cosmic microwave background by Planck, the Fermi measurement of photons from the dwarf galaxies, and positron data from AMS-02. The presence of a hidden sector can change the constraints on the dark matter by up to an order of magnitude in either direction (although the effect can be much smaller). We find that generally the bound from the Fermi dwarfs is most constraining for annihilations to photon-rich final states, while AMS-02 is most constraining for electron and muon final states; however in certain instances the CMB bounds overtake both, due to their approximate independence on the details of the hidden sector cascade. We provide the full set of cascade spectra considered here as publicly available code with examples at http://web.mit.edu/lns/research/CascadeSpectra.html.« less

Model Course of Study for Agricultural Programs in Iowa. Preparing for the Future.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Robert A.; And Others

Each section contained in this packet is necessary for designing an effective program of agriculture education. The curriculum guide that is developed from this model should include the same sections. The model includes: (1) community description; (2) school description; (3) goals and objectives of education in agriculture; (4) evaluation policy;…

Government Intervention in Agriculture. Measurement, Evaluation, and Implications for Trade Negotiations. Foreign Agricultural Economic Report No. 229.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Economic Research Service (USDA), Washington, DC.

This report presents an analysis that defines and quantifies the extent of government intervention in the agricultural sectors of the market-oriented countries most active in trade. One aim is to provide usable economic information for the multilateral trade negotiations (MTN), recently launched under the auspices of the General Agreement on…

Modeling future U.S. forest sector market and trade impacts of expansion in wood energy consumption

Treesearch

Peter J. Ince; Andrew D. Kramp; Kenneth E. Skog; Do-il Yoo; V. Alaric Sample

2011-01-01

This paper describes an approach to modeling U.S. forest sector market and trade impacts of expansion in domestic wood energy consumption under hypothetical future U.S. wood biomass energy policy scenarios. The U.S. Forest Products Module (USFPM) was created to enhance the modeling of the U.S. forest sector within the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM), providing a...

Agrochemical fate models applied in agricultural areas from Colombia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia-Santos, Glenda; Yang, Jing; Andreoli, Romano; Binder, Claudia

2010-05-01

The misuse application of pesticides in mainly agricultural catchments can lead to severe problems for humans and environment. Especially in developing countries where there is often found overuse of agrochemicals and incipient or lack of water quality monitoring at local and regional levels, models are needed for decision making and hot spots identification. However, the complexity of the water cycle contrasts strongly with the scarce data availability, limiting the number of analysis, techniques, and models available to researchers. Therefore there is a strong need for model simplification able to appropriate model complexity and still represent the processes. We have developed a new model so-called Westpa-Pest to improve water quality management of an agricultural catchment located in the highlands of Colombia. Westpa-Pest is based on the fully distributed hydrologic model Wetspa and a fate pesticide module. We have applied a multi-criteria analysis for model selection under the conditions and data availability found in the region and compared with the new developed Westpa-Pest model. Furthermore, both models were empirically calibrated and validated. The following questions were addressed i) what are the strengths and weaknesses of the models?, ii) which are the most sensitive parameters of each model?, iii) what happens with uncertainties in soil parameters?, and iv) how sensitive are the transfer coefficients?

Integrating water and agricultural management: collaborative governance for a complex policy problem.

PubMed

Fish, Rob D; Ioris, Antonio A R; Watson, Nigel M

2010-11-01

This paper examines governance requirements for integrating water and agricultural management (IWAM). The institutional arrangements for the agriculture and water sectors are complex and multi-dimensional, and integration cannot therefore be achieved through a simplistic 'additive' policy process. Effective integration requires the development of a new collaborative approach to governance that is designed to cope with scale dependencies and interactions, uncertainty and contested knowledge, and interdependency among diverse and unequal interests. When combined with interdisciplinary research, collaborative governance provides a viable normative model because of its emphasis on reciprocity, relationships, learning and creativity. Ultimately, such an approach could lead to the sorts of system adaptations and transformations that are required for IWAM. Copyright © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sectoral risk research about input-output structure of the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Mao

2018-02-01

There exist rare researches about economic risk in sectoral level, which is significantly important for risk prewarning. This paper employed status coefficient to measure the symmetry of economic subnetwork, which is negatively correlated with sectoral risk. Then, we do empirical research in both cross section and time series dimensions. In cross section dimension, we study the correlation between sectoral status coefficient and sectoral volatility, earning rate and Sharpe ratio respectively in the year 2015. Next, in the perspective of time series, we first investigate the correlation change between sectoral status coefficient and annual total output from 1997 to 2015. Then, we divide the 71 sectors in America into agriculture, manufacturing, services and government, compare the trend terms of average sectoral status coefficients of the four industries and illustrate the causes behind it. We also find obvious abnormality in the sector of housing. At last, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the federal government.

Agriculture and natural resources in a changing world - the role of irrigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sauer, T.; Havlík, P.; Schneider, U. A.; Kindermann, G.; Obersteiner, M.

2009-04-01

Fertile land and fresh water constitute two of the most fundamental resources for food production. These resources are affected by environmental, political, economic, and technical developments. Regional impacts may transmit to the world through increased trade. With a global forest and agricultural sector model, we quantify the impacts of increased demand for food due to population growth and economic development on potential land and water use. In particular, we investigate producer adaptation regarding crop and irrigation choice, agricultural market adjustments, and changes in the values of land and water. Against the background of resource sustainability and food security topics, this study integrates the spatial and operational heterogeneity of irrigation management into a global land use model. It represents a first large scale assessment of agricultural water use under explicit consideration of alternative irrigation options in their particular biophysical, economic, and technical context, accounting for international trade, motivation-based farming, and quantified aggregated impacts on land scarcity, water scarcity, and food supply. The inclusion of technical and economic aspects of irrigation choice into an integrated land use modeling framework provides new insights into the interdisciplinary trade-offs between determinants of global land use change. Agricultural responses to population and economic growth include considerable increases in irrigated area and agricultural water use, but reductions in the average water intensity. Different irrigation systems are preferred under different exogenous biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. Negligence of these adaptations would bias the burden of development on land and water scarcity. Without technical progress in agriculture, predicted population and income levels for 2030 would require substantial price adjustments for land, water, and food to equilibrate supply and demand.

How to engage across sectors: lessons from agriculture and nutrition in the Brazilian School Feeding Program.

PubMed

Hawkes, Corinna; Brazil, Bettina Gerken; Castro, Inês Rugani Ribeiro de; Jaime, Patricia Constante

2016-08-11

To provide insights for nutrition and public health practitioners on how to engage with other sectors to achieve public health goals. Specifically, this study provides lessons from the example of integrating family farming and a nutrition into a legal framework in Brazil on how to successfully shift other sectors toward nutrition goals. The study analyzed policy processes that led to a Brazilian law linking family farming with the National School Feeding Program. Main actors involved with the development of the law were interviewed and their narratives were analyzed using a well-established theoretical framework. The study provides five key lessons for promoting intersectorality. First, nutrition and health practitioners can afford to embrace bold ideas when working with other sectors. Second, they should engage with more powerful sectors (or subsectors) and position nutrition goals as providing solutions that meet the interests of these sector. Third is the need to focus on a common goal - which may not be explicitly nutrition-related - as the focus of the intersectoral action. Fourth, philosophical, political, and governance spaces are needed to bring together different sectors. Fifth, evidence on the success of the intersectoral approach increases the acceptance of the process. This study on policy processes shows how a convergence of factors enabled a link between family farming and school feeding in Brazil. It highlights that there are strategies to engage other sectors toward nutrition goals which provides benefits for all sectors involved.

How to engage across sectors: lessons from agriculture and nutrition in the Brazilian School Feeding Program

PubMed Central

Hawkes, Corinna; Brazil, Bettina Gerken; de Castro, Inês Rugani Ribeiro; Jaime, Patricia Constante

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To provide insights for nutrition and public health practitioners on how to engage with other sectors to achieve public health goals. Specifically, this study provides lessons from the example of integrating family farming and a nutrition into a legal framework in Brazil on how to successfully shift other sectors toward nutrition goals. METHODS The study analyzed policy processes that led to a Brazilian law linking family farming with the National School Feeding Program. Main actors involved with the development of the law were interviewed and their narratives were analyzed using a well-established theoretical framework. RESULTS The study provides five key lessons for promoting intersectorality. First, nutrition and health practitioners can afford to embrace bold ideas when working with other sectors. Second, they should engage with more powerful sectors (or subsectors) and position nutrition goals as providing solutions that meet the interests of these sector. Third is the need to focus on a common goal – which may not be explicitly nutrition-related – as the focus of the intersectoral action. Fourth, philosophical, political, and governance spaces are needed to bring together different sectors. Fifth, evidence on the success of the intersectoral approach increases the acceptance of the process. CONCLUSIONS This study on policy processes shows how a convergence of factors enabled a link between family farming and school feeding in Brazil. It highlights that there are strategies to engage other sectors toward nutrition goals which provides benefits for all sectors involved. PMID:27533363

Data Entities and Information System Matrix for Integrated Agriculture Information System (IAIS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Budi Santoso, Halim; Delima, Rosa

2018-03-01

Integrated Agriculture Information System is a system that is developed to process data, information, and knowledge in Agriculture sector. Integrated Agriculture Information System brings valuable information for farmers: (1) Fertilizer price; (2) Agriculture technique and practise; (3) Pest management; (4) Cultivation; (5) Irrigation; (6) Post harvest processing; (7) Innovation in agriculture processing. Integrated Agriculture Information System contains 9 subsystems. To bring an integrated information to the user and stakeholder, it needs an integrated database approach. Thus, researchers describes data entity and its matrix relate to subsystem in Integrated Agriculture Information System (IAIS). As a result, there are 47 data entities as entities in single and integrated database.

Agricultural development in a petroleum-based economy: Qatar

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hassan, M.F

Developing countries, whose policies may have emphasized import substitution as a way to industrialize, now have incentives to stress agriculture. These new incentives are primarily the rapid increase in food prices, but also include the decline of foreign aid, particularly food aid. Qatar, a petroleum exporter, is examined to see if agricultural development is feasible, given the country's economy, which is lopsided with petroleum revenue and lacks modern accounting practices; constraints against agriculture, such as adverse climate, limited land used for cultivation, poor soil conditions, and a shortage of labor and equipment; the governmental role in agriculture; and the opportunitiesmore » for agricultural technology. Policies are needed to deal with questions of water use and resource allocation, with oil resources providing the financial means to overcome some of the constraints and with the government taking the initiative for modernizing the agricultural sector.« less

Agricultural response functions to changes in carbon, temperature, and water based on the C3MP data set

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Snyder, A.; Ruane, A. C.; Phillips, M.; Calvin, K. V.; Clarke, L.

2017-12-01

Agricultural yields vary depending on temperature, precipitation/irrigation conditions, fertilizer application, and CO2 concentration. The Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP), conducted as a component of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), organized a sensitivity experiments across carbon-temperature-water (CTW) space across 1100 management conditions in 50+ countries, sampling 15 crop species and 20 crop models. Such coordinated sensitivity tests allow for the building of emulators of yield response to changes in CTW values, allowing rapid estimation of yield changes from the types of climate changes projected by the climate modeling community. The resulting emulator may be used to supply agricultural responses to climate change in any user-defined scenario, rather than the restriction to the RCPs in many past works. We present the resulting emulators built from the C3MP output data set for use in the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) integrated assessment model that allows for the co-evolution of socioeconomic development, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and agricultural sector ramifications. C3MP-based emulators may be of use in designing agricultural impact studies in other IAMs, and we place them in the context of past crop modeling efforts, including the Challinor et al. Meta-analysis, the AgMIP Wheat team results, the AgMIP Global Gridded Crop Model Intercomparison (GGCMI) fast-track modeling results, and the MACSUR impact response surface results.

The Role of Cash Flow in Financial Early Warning of Agricultural Enterprises Based on Logistic Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Fengru

2018-01-01

This paper chooses the agricultural listed companies as the research object, compares the financial situation of the enterprise and the theory of financial early warning, combines the financial status of the agricultural listed companies, selects the relevant cash flow indicators, discusses the application of the Logistic financial early warning model in the agricultural listed companies, Agricultural enterprises get better development. Research on financial early warning of agricultural listed companies will help the agricultural listed companies to predict the financial crisis. Financial early warning model is simple to establish, operational and strong, the use of financial early warning model, to help enterprises in the financial crisis before taking rapid and effective measures, which can avoid losses. Help enterprises to discover signs of deterioration of the financial situation in time to maintain the sustainable development of agricultural enterprises. In addition, through the financial early warning model, investors can correctly identify the financial situation of agricultural enterprises, and can evaluate the financial situation of agricultural enterprises and to help investors to invest in scientific and rational, beneficial to investors to analyze the safety of investment. But also help the relevant regulatory agencies to effectively monitor the market and promote the healthy and stable development of the market.

Investigation on Reservoir Operation of Agricultural Water Resources Management for Drought Mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, C. L.

2015-12-01

Investigation on Reservoir Operation of Agricultural Water Resources Management for Drought Mitigation Chung-Lien Cheng, Wen-Ping Tsai, Fi-John Chang* Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University, Da-An District, Taipei 10617, Taiwan, ROC.Corresponding author: Fi-John Chang (changfj@ntu.edu.tw) AbstractIn Taiwan, the population growth and economic development has led to considerable and increasing demands for natural water resources in the last decades. Under such condition, water shortage problems have frequently occurred in northern Taiwan in recent years such that water is usually transferred from irrigation sectors to public sectors during drought periods. Facing the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water resources and the problems of increasing water shortages, it is a primary and critical issue to simultaneously satisfy multiple water uses through adequate reservoir operations for sustainable water resources management. Therefore, we intend to build an intelligent reservoir operation system for the assessment of agricultural water resources management strategy in response to food security during drought periods. This study first uses the grey system to forecast the agricultural water demand during February and April for assessing future agricultural water demands. In the second part, we build an intelligent water resources system by using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), an optimization tool, for searching the water allocation series based on different water demand scenarios created from the first part to optimize the water supply operation for different water sectors. The results can be a reference guide for adequate agricultural water resources management during drought periods. Keywords: Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II); Grey System; Optimization; Agricultural Water Resources Management.

Inter-sectoral comparison of model uncertainty of climate change impacts in Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Griensven, Ann; Vetter, Tobias; Piontek, Franzisca; Gosling, Simon N.; Kamali, Bahareh; Reinhardt, Julia; Dinkneh, Aklilu; Yang, Hong; Alemayehu, Tadesse

2016-04-01

We present the model results and their uncertainties of an inter-sectoral impact model inter-comparison initiative (ISI-MIP) for climate change impacts in Africa. The study includes results on hydrological, crop and health aspects. The impact models used ensemble inputs consisting of 20 time series of daily rainfall and temperature data obtained from 5 Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and 4 Representative concentration pathway (RCP). In this study, we analysed model uncertainty for the Regional Hydrological Models, Global Hydrological Models, Malaria models and Crop models. For the regional hydrological models, we used 2 African test cases: the Blue Nile in Eastern Africa and the Niger in Western Africa. For both basins, the main sources of uncertainty are originating from the GCM and RCPs, while the uncertainty of the regional hydrological models is relatively low. The hydrological model uncertainty becomes more important when predicting changes on low flows compared to mean or high flows. For the other sectors, the impact models have the largest share of uncertainty compared to GCM and RCP, especially for Malaria and crop modelling. The overall conclusion of the ISI-MIP is that it is strongly advised to use ensemble modeling approach for climate change impact studies throughout the whole modelling chain.

Phosphorus leakage from fisheries sector - A case study in Thailand.

PubMed

Prathumchai, Nuchnapa; Polprasert, Chongchin; Englande, Andrew J

2016-12-01

Although phosphorus (P) is an essential element needed for all lives, excess P can be harmful to the environment. The objective of this study aims to determine P flows in the fisheries sector of Thailand consisting of both sea and freshwater activities of captures and cultures. Currently, the annual fisheries catch averages 3.44 ± 0.50 Mt. Most comes from marine capture 1.95 ± 0.46 Mt, followed by coastal aquaculture 0.78 ± 0.09 Mt, freshwater aquaculture 0.49 ± 0.05 Mt, and inland capture 0.22 ± 0.01 Mt. Of this total, about 11% is contained in fresh products directly sold in local markets for consumption, while 89% is sent to processing factories prior to being sold in local markets and exported. The quantities of P entering the fisheries sector come from captures, import of fisheries products and feed produced from agriculture. This P input to the fisheries sector is found to average 28,506 t P.y -1 based on the past ten-year records. Of this total, P input from captures accounts for 76%; while, 11% represents aquatic feeds from agriculture and animal manures. About 13% is obtained from the imports of fishery products. Coastal and freshwater aquacultures are found to be P consumers because their feeds are almost all produced from agricultural crops grown inland. Moreover, these activities cause most of P losses, approximately 10,188 t P·y -1 , which account for 89% of the total P loss from the fisheries sector. Overall, P in the fisheries sector is found to mobilize through three channels: (a) 44% is consumed within the country; (b) about 16% is exported; and, (c) 40% is lost from the ecosystem. Based on the results of this work it is recommended that future research be directed on ways to minimize P loss and maximize P recycle in Thailand's fisheries sector as to enhance its food security and curtail water pollution. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Agricultural productivity and greenhouse gas emissions: trade-offs or synergies between mitigation and food security?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Valin, H.; Havlík, P.; Mosnier, A.; Herrero, M.; Schmid, E.; Obersteiner, M.

2013-09-01

In this letter, we investigate the effects of crop yield and livestock feed efficiency scenarios on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and land use change in developing countries. We analyze mitigation associated with different productivity pathways using the global partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM. Our results confirm that yield increase could mitigate some agriculture-related emissions growth over the next decades. Closing yield gaps by 50% for crops and 25% for livestock by 2050 would decrease agriculture and land use change emissions by 8% overall, and by 12% per calorie produced. However, the outcome is sensitive to the technological path and which factor benefits from productivity gains: sustainable land intensification would increase GHG savings by one-third when compared with a fertilizer intensive pathway. Reaching higher yield through total factor productivity gains would be more efficient on the food supply side but halve emissions savings due to a strong rebound effect on the demand side. Improvement in the crop or livestock sector would have different implications: crop yield increase would bring the largest food provision benefits, whereas livestock productivity gains would allow the greatest reductions in GHG emission. Combining productivity increases in the two sectors appears to be the most efficient way to exploit mitigation and food security co-benefits.

Medium Range Flood Forecasting for Agriculture Damage Reduction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fakhruddin, S. H. M.

2014-12-01

Early warning is a key element for disaster risk reduction. In recent decades, major advancements have been made in medium range and seasonal flood forecasting. This progress provides a great opportunity to reduce agriculture damage and improve advisories for early action and planning for flood hazards. This approach can facilitate proactive rather than reactive management of the adverse consequences of floods. In the agricultural sector, for instance, farmers can take a diversity of options such as changing cropping patterns, applying fertilizer, irrigating and changing planting timing. An experimental medium range (1-10 day) flood forecasting model has been developed for Bangladesh and Thailand. It provides 51 sets of discharge ensemble forecasts of 1-10 days with significant persistence and high certainty. This type of forecast could assist farmers and other stakeholders for differential preparedness activities. These ensembles probabilistic flood forecasts have been customized based on user-needs for community-level application focused on agriculture system. The vulnerabilities of agriculture system were calculated based on exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Indicators for risk and vulnerability assessment were conducted through community consultations. The forecast lead time requirement, user-needs, impacts and management options for crops were identified through focus group discussions, informal interviews and community surveys. This paper illustrates potential applications of such ensembles for probabilistic medium range flood forecasts in a way that is not commonly practiced globally today.

Land Suitability Assessment in the Catchment Area of Four Southwestern Atlantic Coastal Lagoons: Multicriteria and Optimization Modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodriguez-Gallego, Lorena; Achkar, Marcel; Conde, Daniel

2012-07-01

In the present study, a land suitability assessment was conducted in the basin of four Uruguayan coastal lagoons (Southwestern Atlantic) to analyze the productive development while minimizing eutrophication, biodiversity loss and conflicts among different land uses. Suitable land for agriculture, forest, livestock ranching, tourism and conservation sectors were initially established based on a multi-attribute model developed using a geographic information system. Experts were consulted to determine the requirements for each land use sector and the incompatibilities among land use types. The current and potential conflicts among incompatible land use sectors were analyzed by overlapping land suitability maps. We subsequently applied a multi-objective model where land (pixels) with similar suitability was clustered into "land suitability groups", using a two-phase cluster analysis and the Akaike Information Criterion. Finally, a linear programming optimization procedure was applied to allocate land use sectors into land suitable groups, maximizing total suitability and minimizing interference among sectors. Results indicated that current land use overlapped by 4.7 % with suitable land of other incompatible sectors. However, the suitable land of incompatible sectors overlapped in 20.3 % of the study area, indicating a high potential for the occurrence of future conflict. The highest competition was between agriculture and conservation, followed by forest and agriculture. We explored scenarios where livestock ranching and tourism intensified, and found that interference with conservation and agriculture notably increased. This methodology allowed us to analyze current and potential land use conflicts and to contribute to the strategic planning of the study area.

Land suitability assessment in the catchment area of four Southwestern Atlantic coastal lagoons: multicriteria and optimization modeling.

PubMed

Rodriguez-Gallego, Lorena; Achkar, Marcel; Conde, Daniel

2012-07-01

In the present study, a land suitability assessment was conducted in the basin of four Uruguayan coastal lagoons (Southwestern Atlantic) to analyze the productive development while minimizing eutrophication, biodiversity loss and conflicts among different land uses. Suitable land for agriculture, forest, livestock ranching, tourism and conservation sectors were initially established based on a multi-attribute model developed using a geographic information system. Experts were consulted to determine the requirements for each land use sector and the incompatibilities among land use types. The current and potential conflicts among incompatible land use sectors were analyzed by overlapping land suitability maps. We subsequently applied a multi-objective model where land (pixels) with similar suitability was clustered into "land suitability groups", using a two-phase cluster analysis and the Akaike Information Criterion. Finally, a linear programming optimization procedure was applied to allocate land use sectors into land suitable groups, maximizing total suitability and minimizing interference among sectors. Results indicated that current land use overlapped by 4.7 % with suitable land of other incompatible sectors. However, the suitable land of incompatible sectors overlapped in 20.3 % of the study area, indicating a high potential for the occurrence of future conflict. The highest competition was between agriculture and conservation, followed by forest and agriculture. We explored scenarios where livestock ranching and tourism intensified, and found that interference with conservation and agriculture notably increased. This methodology allowed us to analyze current and potential land use conflicts and to contribute to the strategic planning of the study area.

Comparing impacts of climate change and mitigation on global agriculture by 2050

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Meijl, Hans; Havlik, Petr; Lotze-Campen, Hermann; Stehfest, Elke; Witzke, Peter; Pérez Domínguez, Ignacio; Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon; van Dijk, Michiel; Doelman, Jonathan; Fellmann, Thomas; Humpenöder, Florian; Koopman, Jason F. L.; Müller, Christoph; Popp, Alexander; Tabeau, Andrzej; Valin, Hugo; van Zeist, Willem-Jan

2018-06-01

Systematic model inter-comparison helps to narrow discrepancies in the analysis of the future impact of climate change on agricultural production. This paper presents a set of alternative scenarios by five global climate and agro-economic models. Covering integrated assessment (IMAGE), partial equilibrium (CAPRI, GLOBIOM, MAgPIE) and computable general equilibrium (MAGNET) models ensures a good coverage of biophysical and economic agricultural features. These models are harmonized with respect to basic model drivers, to assess the range of potential impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector by 2050. Moreover, they quantify the economic consequences of stringent global emission mitigation efforts, such as non-CO2 emission taxes and land-based mitigation options, to stabilize global warming at 2 °C by the end of the century under different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. A key contribution of the paper is a vis-à-vis comparison of climate change impacts relative to the impact of mitigation measures. In addition, our scenario design allows assessing the impact of the residual climate change on the mitigation challenge. From a global perspective, the impact of climate change on agricultural production by mid-century is negative but small. A larger negative effect on agricultural production, most pronounced for ruminant meat production, is observed when emission mitigation measures compliant with a 2 °C target are put in place. Our results indicate that a mitigation strategy that embeds residual climate change effects (RCP2.6) has a negative impact on global agricultural production relative to a no-mitigation strategy with stronger climate impacts (RCP6.0). However, this is partially due to the limited impact of the climate change scenarios by 2050. The magnitude of price changes is different amongst models due to methodological differences. Further research to achieve a better harmonization is needed, especially regarding endogenous food and feed

UNIVERSAL INDUSTRIAL SECTORS INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS MODEL FOR PULP AND PAPER MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY – UISIS-PNP

EPA Science Inventory

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a model for the pulp and paper sector that provides an integrated approach for investigating, developing, and evaluating strategies for reducing the emissions of interest. The Universal Industrial Sectors Integrated Sol...

A Comparison of Agriculture in the United States and the European Community.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newman, Mark; And Others

It is difficult to compare the United States and European Community (EC) agricultural sectors for several reasons. For one thing, the European community is an economic association of 12 independent nations, each of which has its own national methods of data collection and statistical presentation. The problem of comparing the two sectors is…

Statistical bias correction modelling for seasonal rainfall forecast for the case of Bali island

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lealdi, D.; Nurdiati, S.; Sopaheluwakan, A.

2018-04-01

Rainfall is an element of climate which is highly influential to the agricultural sector. Rain pattern and distribution highly determines the sustainability of agricultural activities. Therefore, information on rainfall is very useful for agriculture sector and farmers in anticipating the possibility of extreme events which often cause failures of agricultural production. This research aims to identify the biases from seasonal forecast products from ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) rainfall forecast and to build a transfer function in order to correct the distribution biases as a new prediction model using quantile mapping approach. We apply this approach to the case of Bali Island, and as a result, the use of bias correction methods in correcting systematic biases from the model gives better results. The new prediction model obtained with this approach is better than ever. We found generally that during rainy season, the bias correction approach performs better than in dry season.

An inexact risk management model for agricultural land-use planning under water shortage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Wei; Feng, Changchun; Dai, Chao; Li, Yongping; Li, Chunhui; Liu, Ming

2016-09-01

Water resources availability has a significant impact on agricultural land-use planning, especially in a water shortage area such as North China. The random nature of available water resources and other uncertainties in an agricultural system present risk for land-use planning and may lead to undesirable decisions or potential economic loss. In this study, an inexact risk management model (IRM) was developed for supporting agricultural land-use planning and risk analysis under water shortage. The IRM model was formulated through incorporating a conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) constraint into an inexact two-stage stochastic programming (ITSP) framework, and could be used to control uncertainties expressed as not only probability distributions but also as discrete intervals. The measure of risk about the second-stage penalty cost was incorporated into the model so that the trade-off between system benefit and extreme expected loss could be analyzed. The developed model was applied to a case study in the Zhangweinan River Basin, a typical agricultural region facing serious water shortage in North China. Solutions of the IRM model showed that the obtained first-stage land-use target values could be used to reflect decision-makers' opinions on the long-term development plan. The confidence level α and maximum acceptable risk loss β could be used to reflect decisionmakers' preference towards system benefit and risk control. The results indicated that the IRM model was useful for reflecting the decision-makers' attitudes toward risk aversion and could help seek cost-effective agricultural land-use planning strategies under complex uncertainties.

Agricultural R&D, technology and productivity.

PubMed

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.

Agricultural R&D, technology and productivity

PubMed Central

Piesse, J.; Thirtle, C.

2010-01-01

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. PMID:20713401

Agricultural livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh under climate and environmental change--a model framework.

PubMed

Lázár, Attila N; Clarke, Derek; Adams, Helen; Akanda, Abdur Razzaque; Szabo, Sylvia; Nicholls, Robert J; Matthews, Zoe; Begum, Dilruba; Saleh, Abul Fazal M; Abedin, Md Anwarul; Payo, Andres; Streatfield, Peter Kim; Hutton, Craig; Mondal, M Shahjahan; Moslehuddin, Abu Zofar Md

2015-06-01

Coastal Bangladesh experiences significant poverty and hazards today and is highly vulnerable to climate and environmental change over the coming decades. Coastal stakeholders are demanding information to assist in the decision making processes, including simulation models to explore how different interventions, under different plausible future socio-economic and environmental scenarios, could alleviate environmental risks and promote development. Many existing simulation models neglect the complex interdependencies between the socio-economic and environmental system of coastal Bangladesh. Here an integrated approach has been proposed to develop a simulation model to support agriculture and poverty-based analysis and decision-making in coastal Bangladesh. In particular, we show how a simulation model of farmer's livelihoods at the household level can be achieved. An extended version of the FAO's CROPWAT agriculture model has been integrated with a downscaled regional demography model to simulate net agriculture profit. This is used together with a household income-expenses balance and a loans logical tree to simulate the evolution of food security indicators and poverty levels. Modelling identifies salinity and temperature stress as limiting factors to crop productivity and fertilisation due to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations as a reinforcing factor. The crop simulation results compare well with expected outcomes but also reveal some unexpected behaviours. For example, under current model assumptions, temperature is more important than salinity for crop production. The agriculture-based livelihood and poverty simulations highlight the critical significance of debt through informal and formal loans set at such levels as to persistently undermine the well-being of agriculture-dependent households. Simulations also indicate that progressive approaches to agriculture (i.e. diversification) might not provide the clear economic benefit from the perspective of

Physiotherapy practice in the private sector: organizational characteristics and models.

PubMed

Perreault, Kadija; Dionne, Clermont E; Rossignol, Michel; Poitras, Stéphane; Morin, Diane

2014-08-29

Even if a large proportion of physiotherapists work in the private sector worldwide, very little is known of the organizations within which they practice. Such knowledge is important to help understand contexts of practice and how they influence the quality of services and patient outcomes. The purpose of this study was to: 1) describe characteristics of organizations where physiotherapists practice in the private sector, and 2) explore the existence of a taxonomy of organizational models. This was a cross-sectional quantitative survey of 236 randomly-selected physiotherapists. Participants completed a purpose-designed questionnaire online or by telephone, covering organizational vision, resources, structures and practices. Organizational characteristics were analyzed descriptively, while organizational models were identified by multiple correspondence analyses. Most organizations were for-profit (93.2%), located in urban areas (91.5%), and within buildings containing multiple businesses/organizations (76.7%). The majority included multiple providers (89.8%) from diverse professions, mainly physiotherapy assistants (68.7%), massage therapists (67.3%) and osteopaths (50.2%). Four organizational models were identified: 1) solo practice, 2) middle-scale multiprovider, 3) large-scale multiprovider and 4) mixed. The results of this study provide a detailed description of the organizations where physiotherapists practice, and highlight the importance of human resources in differentiating organizational models. Further research examining the influences of these organizational characteristics and models on outcomes such as physiotherapists' professional practices and patient outcomes are needed.

Optimization of Water Resources and Agricultural Activities for Economic Benefit in Colorado

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

LIM, J.; Lall, U.

2017-12-01

The limited water resources available for irrigation are a key constraint for the important agricultural sector of Colorado's economy. As climate change and groundwater depletion reshape these resources, it is essential to understand the economic potential of water resources under different agricultural production practices. This study uses a linear programming optimization at the county spatial scale and annual temporal scales to study the optimal allocation of water withdrawal and crop choices. The model, AWASH, reflects streamflow constraints between different extraction points, six field crops, and a distinct irrigation decision for maize and wheat. The optimized decision variables, under different environmental, social, economic, and physical constraints, provide long-term solutions for ground and surface water distribution and for land use decisions so that the state can generate the maximum net revenue. Colorado, one of the largest agricultural producers, is tested as a case study and the sensitivity on water price and on climate variability is explored.

Vulnerability of Agriculture to Climate Change as Revealed by Relationships between Simulated Crop Yield and Climate Change Indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, A. W.; Absar, S. M.; Nair, S.; Preston, B. L.

2012-12-01

vulnerability analysis. They also contribute to considerations of adaptation, focusing attention on adapting to increased variability in yield rather than just reductions in yield. For example, in the face of increased variability or reduced reliability, hedging and risk spreading strategies may be more important than technological innovations such as drought-resistant crops or other optimization strategies. Our findings also have implications for the choice and application of climate extreme indices, demands on models used to project climate change and the development of next generation integrated assessment models (IAM) that incorporate the agricultural sector, and especially adaption within that sector, in energy and broader more general markets.

Climate change impacts on US agriculture and forestry: benefits of global climate stabilization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Beach, Robert H.; Cai, Yongxia; Thomson, Allison

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, higher temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and other climate change impacts have already begun to affect US agriculture and forestry, with impacts expected to become more substantial in the future. There have been numerous studies of climate change impacts on agriculture or forestry, but relatively little research examining the long-term net impacts of a stabilization scenario relative to a case with unabated climate change. We provide an analysis of the potential benefits of global climate change mitigation for US agriculture and forestry through 2100, accounting for landowner decisions regarding land use, crop mix, and management practices.more » The analytic approach involves a combination of climate models, a crop process model (EPIC), a dynamic vegetation model used for forests (MC1), and an economic model of the US forestry and agricultural sector (FASOM-GHG). We find substantial impacts on productivity, commodity markets, and consumer and producer welfare for the stabilization scenario relative to unabated climate change, though the magnitude and direction of impacts vary across regions and commodities. Although there is variability in welfare impacts across climate simulations, we find positive net benefits from stabilization in all cases, with cumulative impacts ranging from $32.7 billion to $54.5 billion over the period 2015-2100. Our estimates contribute to the literature on potential benefits of GHG mitigation and can help inform policy decisions weighing alternative mitigation and adaptation actions.« less

Climate change impacts on US agriculture and forestry: benefits of global climate stabilization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beach, Robert H.; Cai, Yongxia; Thomson, Allison; Zhang, Xuesong; Jones, Russell; McCarl, Bruce A.; Crimmins, Allison; Martinich, Jeremy; Cole, Jefferson; Ohrel, Sara; DeAngelo, Benjamin; McFarland, James; Strzepek, Kenneth; Boehlert, Brent

2015-09-01

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, higher temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and other climate change impacts have already begun to affect US agriculture and forestry, with impacts expected to become more substantial in the future. There have been numerous studies of climate change impacts on agriculture or forestry, but relatively little research examining the long-term net impacts of a stabilization scenario relative to a case with unabated climate change. We provide an analysis of the potential benefits of global climate change mitigation for US agriculture and forestry through 2100, accounting for landowner decisions regarding land use, crop mix, and management practices. The analytic approach involves a combination of climate models, a crop process model (EPIC), a dynamic vegetation model used for forests (MC1), and an economic model of the US forestry and agricultural sector (FASOM-GHG). We find substantial impacts on productivity, commodity markets, and consumer and producer welfare for the stabilization scenario relative to unabated climate change, though the magnitude and direction of impacts vary across regions and commodities. Although there is variability in welfare impacts across climate simulations, we find positive net benefits from stabilization in all cases, with cumulative impacts ranging from 32.7 billion to 54.5 billion over the period 2015-2100. Our estimates contribute to the literature on potential benefits of GHG mitigation and can help inform policy decisions weighing alternative mitigation and adaptation actions.

Land Conservation in an Evolving Agricultural Industry: Trade-offs to Consider

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, J. S.; Murray, B. C.; McCarl, B. A.; Jackson, R. B.

2008-12-01

This study analyzes the interactions of land conservation policy with biofuel expansion using an economic model of the U.S. forest and agricultural sectors. The world agricultural industry is changing rapidly under emerging market and policy-based pressures. An important driver in the U.S. is the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which mandates significant expansion in biofuels production (up to 36 billion gallons/year by 2022). Traditional land conservation practices such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) are at risk in this changing agricultural climate, as the opportunity costs of reverting to cropland continue to rise. Large- scale reversion of CRP acreage is likely to lead to substantial losses in soil carbon, biodiversity, soil erosion protection, and water quality. However, given the increased competition for land resources, continued efforts to maintain the CRP could induce land use change (LUC) and agricultural development from even more sensitive ecosystems, including native grasslands and forests. This study uses economic modeling to study CRP reversion and LUC under multiple scenarios, including: 1) Baseline assumptions of growth in world agricultural demand and energy prices, with and without CRP reversion; 2) Implementation of the RFS while maintaining the CRP; and 3) RFS with CRP reversion allowed. The study is done using the FASOMGHG model (Lee, McCarl et al, 2008), which is well suited for this analysis as it: 1) Depicts land use competition between crops, pasture, CRP, and forestry over a 100 year period 2) Contains comprehensive GHG accounting across the sectors, 3) Allows land in the CRP to revert to cultivation at an economically optimal rate as land values increase, and 4) Extensively models biofuel and conventional agricultural production possibilities. Results generated to date show significant reversion to cultivation, even under the baseline (36% of the total CRP stock by 2020). Implementing the RFS further pressures conservation

Calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model (RZWQM2) using surrogate global optimization

DOE PAGES

Xi, Maolong; Lu, Dan; Gui, Dongwei; ...

2016-11-27

Robust calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model is critical for simulating crop yield and water quality and making reasonable agricultural management. However, calibration of the agricultural-hydrological system models is challenging because of model complexity, the existence of strong parameter correlation, and significant computational requirements. Therefore, only a limited number of simulations can be allowed in any attempt to find a near-optimal solution within an affordable time, which greatly restricts the successful application of the model. The goal of this study is to locate the optimal solution of the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM2) given a limited simulation time, so asmore » to improve the model simulation and help make rational and effective agricultural-hydrological decisions. To this end, we propose a computationally efficient global optimization procedure using sparse-grid based surrogates. We first used advanced sparse grid (SG) interpolation to construct a surrogate system of the actual RZWQM2, and then we calibrate the surrogate model using the global optimization algorithm, Quantum-behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO). As the surrogate model is a polynomial with fast evaluation, it can be efficiently evaluated with a sufficiently large number of times during the optimization, which facilitates the global search. We calibrate seven model parameters against five years of yield, drain flow, and NO 3-N loss data from a subsurface-drained corn-soybean field in Iowa. Results indicate that an accurate surrogate model can be created for the RZWQM2 with a relatively small number of SG points (i.e., RZWQM2 runs). Compared to the conventional QPSO algorithm, our surrogate-based optimization method can achieve a smaller objective function value and better calibration performance using a fewer number of expensive RZWQM2 executions, which greatly improves computational efficiency.« less

Calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model (RZWQM2) using surrogate global optimization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xi, Maolong; Lu, Dan; Gui, Dongwei; Qi, Zhiming; Zhang, Guannan

2017-01-01

Robust calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model is critical for simulating crop yield and water quality and making reasonable agricultural management. However, calibration of the agricultural-hydrological system models is challenging because of model complexity, the existence of strong parameter correlation, and significant computational requirements. Therefore, only a limited number of simulations can be allowed in any attempt to find a near-optimal solution within an affordable time, which greatly restricts the successful application of the model. The goal of this study is to locate the optimal solution of the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM2) given a limited simulation time, so as to improve the model simulation and help make rational and effective agricultural-hydrological decisions. To this end, we propose a computationally efficient global optimization procedure using sparse-grid based surrogates. We first used advanced sparse grid (SG) interpolation to construct a surrogate system of the actual RZWQM2, and then we calibrate the surrogate model using the global optimization algorithm, Quantum-behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO). As the surrogate model is a polynomial with fast evaluation, it can be efficiently evaluated with a sufficiently large number of times during the optimization, which facilitates the global search. We calibrate seven model parameters against five years of yield, drain flow, and NO3-N loss data from a subsurface-drained corn-soybean field in Iowa. Results indicate that an accurate surrogate model can be created for the RZWQM2 with a relatively small number of SG points (i.e., RZWQM2 runs). Compared to the conventional QPSO algorithm, our surrogate-based optimization method can achieve a smaller objective function value and better calibration performance using a fewer number of expensive RZWQM2 executions, which greatly improves computational efficiency.

Calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model (RZWQM2) using surrogate global optimization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xi, Maolong; Lu, Dan; Gui, Dongwei

Robust calibration of an agricultural-hydrological model is critical for simulating crop yield and water quality and making reasonable agricultural management. However, calibration of the agricultural-hydrological system models is challenging because of model complexity, the existence of strong parameter correlation, and significant computational requirements. Therefore, only a limited number of simulations can be allowed in any attempt to find a near-optimal solution within an affordable time, which greatly restricts the successful application of the model. The goal of this study is to locate the optimal solution of the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM2) given a limited simulation time, so asmore » to improve the model simulation and help make rational and effective agricultural-hydrological decisions. To this end, we propose a computationally efficient global optimization procedure using sparse-grid based surrogates. We first used advanced sparse grid (SG) interpolation to construct a surrogate system of the actual RZWQM2, and then we calibrate the surrogate model using the global optimization algorithm, Quantum-behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO). As the surrogate model is a polynomial with fast evaluation, it can be efficiently evaluated with a sufficiently large number of times during the optimization, which facilitates the global search. We calibrate seven model parameters against five years of yield, drain flow, and NO 3-N loss data from a subsurface-drained corn-soybean field in Iowa. Results indicate that an accurate surrogate model can be created for the RZWQM2 with a relatively small number of SG points (i.e., RZWQM2 runs). Compared to the conventional QPSO algorithm, our surrogate-based optimization method can achieve a smaller objective function value and better calibration performance using a fewer number of expensive RZWQM2 executions, which greatly improves computational efficiency.« less

Improved agriculture and forest management in Africa through the AGRICAB project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bydekerke, L.; Tote, C.; Jacobs, T.; Gilliams, S.

2012-04-01

Agriculture and forestry are key economic sectors in many African countries. A sound management of these resources, in order to ensure stable food supply, is key for development. In many countries in Africa both forest and agricultural resources are under stress due to, among others, a growing population, land reforms, climate variability and change. Sound information is required to efficiently manage these resources. Remote sensing contributes significantly to these information needs and for this reason more and more institutes and agencies integrate this technology into their daily work. In this context, there is a growing need for enhancing remote sensing capacity in Africa and for this reason the European Commission launched the AGRICAB Project, funded by the FP7 Programme. The main focus of AGRICAB 'A Framework for enhancing earth observation capacity for agriculture and forest management in Africa as a contribution to GEOSS', is to link European and African research capacity in the use of earth observation technology for agriculture and forestry. The project consortium consists of 17 partners located in 12 different countries (5 in Europe, 10 in Africa and 1 in South America) and has three main components. Firstly, AGRICAB aims to ensure satellite data access, partly through GEONETCast. Secondly, AGRICAB will enhance research capacity through partnerships between African and European institutes in the following thematic areas (a) yield forecasting, (b) early warning and agricultural mapping of food crops, (c) agricultural statistics, (d) livestock and rangeland monitoring, and (e) forest and forest fire monitoring. Thirdly, a significant part is dedicated to training and building awareness concerning the advantage and benefits of the use of remote sensing in forest and agricultural management. AGRICAB intends to allow African partners: (i) to get exposed to state-of-the art techniques and models for agricultural and forest monitoring, (ii) to discover these

Measuring environmental efficiency of agricultural water use: a Luenberger environmental indicator.

PubMed

Azad, Md A S; Ancev, Tihomir

2014-12-01

Irrigated agriculture creates substantial environmental pressures by withdrawing large quantities of water, leaving rivers and wetlands empty and unable to support the valuable ecosystems that depend on the water resource. The key challenge facing society is that of balancing water extractions for agricultural production and other uses with provision of appropriate environmental flow to maintain healthy rivers and wetlands. Measuring tradeoffs between economic gain of water use in agriculture and its environmental pressures can contribute to constructing policy instruments for improved water resource management. The aim of this paper is to develop a modelling framework to measure these tradeoffs. Using a new approach - Luenberger environmental indicator - the study derives environmental efficiency scores for various types of irrigation enterprises across seventeen natural resource management regions within the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. Findings show that there is a substantial variation in environmental performance of irrigation enterprises across the regions. Some enterprises were found to be relatively environmentally efficient in some regions, but they were not efficient in others. The environmental efficiency scores could be used as a guideline for formulating regional policy and strategy to achieve sustainable water use in the agricultural sector. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reducing emissions from agriculture to meet the 2 °C target.

PubMed

Wollenberg, Eva; Richards, Meryl; Smith, Pete; Havlík, Petr; Obersteiner, Michael; Tubiello, Francesco N; Herold, Martin; Gerber, Pierre; Carter, Sarah; Reisinger, Andrew; van Vuuren, Detlef P; Dickie, Amy; Neufeldt, Henry; Sander, Björn O; Wassmann, Reiner; Sommer, Rolf; Amonette, James E; Falcucci, Alessandra; Herrero, Mario; Opio, Carolyn; Roman-Cuesta, Rosa Maria; Stehfest, Elke; Westhoek, Henk; Ortiz-Monasterio, Ivan; Sapkota, Tek; Rufino, Mariana C; Thornton, Philip K; Verchot, Louis; West, Paul C; Soussana, Jean-François; Baedeker, Tobias; Sadler, Marc; Vermeulen, Sonja; Campbell, Bruce M

2016-12-01

More than 100 countries pledged to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the 2015 Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet technical information about how much mitigation is needed in the sector vs. how much is feasible remains poor. We identify a preliminary global target for reducing emissions from agriculture of ~1 GtCO 2 e yr -1 by 2030 to limit warming in 2100 to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Yet plausible agricultural development pathways with mitigation cobenefits deliver only 21-40% of needed mitigation. The target indicates that more transformative technical and policy options will be needed, such as methane inhibitors and finance for new practices. A more comprehensive target for the 2 °C limit should be developed to include soil carbon and agriculture-related mitigation options. Excluding agricultural emissions from mitigation targets and plans will increase the cost of mitigation in other sectors or reduce the feasibility of meeting the 2 °C limit. © 2016 The Authors Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Nitrate-Nitrogen Leaching and Modeling in Intensive Agriculture Farmland in China

PubMed Central

Xu, Ligang; Xu, Jin

2013-01-01

Protecting water resources from nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) contamination is an important public health concern and a major national environmental issue in China. Loss of NO3-N in soils due to leaching is not only one of the most important problems in agriculture farming, but is also the main factor causing nitrogen pollution in aquatic environments. Three typical intensive agriculture farmlands in Jiangyin City in China are selected as a case study for NO3-N leaching and modeling in the soil profile. In this study, the transport and fate of NO3-N within the soil profile and nitrate leaching to drains were analyzed by comparing field data with the simulation results of the LEACHM model. Comparisons between measured and simulated data indicated that the NO3-N concentrations in the soil and nitrate leaching to drains are controlled by the fertilizer practice, the initial conditions and the rainfall depth and distribution. Moreover, the study reveals that the LEACHM model gives a fair description of the NO3-N dynamics in the soil and subsurface drainage at the field scale. It can also be concluded that the model after calibration is a useful tool to optimize as a function of the combination “climate-crop-soil-bottom boundary condition” the nitrogen application strategy resulting for the environment in an acceptable level of nitrate leaching. The findings in this paper help to demonstrate the distribution and migration of nitrogen in intensive agriculture farmlands, as well as to explore the mechanism of groundwater contamination resulting from agricultural activities. PMID:23983629

A National Scale Sustainable Agriculture Matrix of Indicators to Inform Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davidson, E. A.; Zhang, X.

2017-12-01

The ratification of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by all member countries of the United Nations demonstrates the determination of the international community in moving towards a sustainable future. To enable and encourage accountability, independent and transparent measurements of national sustainability efforts are essential. Among all sectors, agriculture is fundamental to all three pillars of sustainability, namely environment, society, and economy. However, the definition of a sustainable agriculture and the feasibility of measuring it remain elusive, in part because it encompasses both biophysical and socio-economic components that are still poorly integrated. Therefore, we have been developing a Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) on a national scale in order to measure country-level performance in agriculture. First proposed by Swaminathan for agricultural research and policy in 1990s, SAM is a collection of indicators measuring sustainable agriculture from environmental, social, and economic dimensions. The environmental dimension evaluates various impacts of agricultural production on the environment, such as water consumption and nutrient pollution. The economic dimension quantifies the costs and benefits for major stakeholders involved in agricultural production, including government, industry, farmers, and consumers. The social dimension considers three major aspects: 1) social welfare (e.g., hunger and poverty rate, nutritional quality, demography of rural community); 2) equity over sectors, space, and gender (e.g., access to resources/services and opportunities, distribution of income, land ownership and tenure rights); 3) systemic risk (e.g., fragility of the global agricultural production and trade system, resilience of a farm or a country to market and natural shocks). Translating the illustrative concepts into measureable indicators will not only provide an independent and transparent measurement of national performance in the

[Colombian migration to the Venezuelan agrarian sector: a binational context].

PubMed

Mora, J; Gomez, A

1980-01-01

The authors attempt to determine the reasons for the chronic national labor shortage in the Venezuelan agrarian sector and for the large-scale emigration of Colombians to work in Venezuelan agriculture. The income of agricultural wage earners and the conditions of labor force reproduction in Venezuela are discussed as factors contributing to the labor shortage. With reference to Colombia, the rapid growth of international commerce and the policy of limiting wages are suggested as factors which contribute to emigration

Climate-Agriculture-Modeling and Decision Tool for Disease (CAMDT-Disease) for seasonal climate forecast-based crop disease risk management in agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, K. H.; Lee, S.; Han, E.; Ines, A. V. M.

2017-12-01

Climate-Agriculture-Modeling and Decision Tool (CAMDT) is a decision support system (DSS) tool that aims to facilitate translations of probabilistic seasonal climate forecasts (SCF) to crop responses such as yield and water stress. Since CAMDT is a software framework connecting different models and algorithms with SCF information, it can be easily customized for different types of agriculture models. In this study, we replaced the DSSAT-CSM-Rice model originally incorporated in CAMDT with a generic epidemiological model, EPIRICE, to generate a seasonal pest outlook. The resulting CAMDT-Disease generates potential risks for selected fungal, viral, and bacterial diseases of rice over the next months by translating SCFs into agriculturally-relevant risk information. The integrated modeling procedure of CAMDT-Disease first disaggregates a given SCF using temporal downscaling methods (predictWTD or FResampler1), runs EPIRICE with the downscaled weather inputs, and finally visualizes the EPIRICE outputs as disease risk compared to that of the previous year and the 30-year-climatological average. In addition, the easy-to-use graphical user interface adopted from CAMDT allows users to simulate "what-if" scenarios of disease risks over different planting dates with given SCFs. Our future work includes the simulation of the effect of crop disease on yields through the disease simulation models with the DSSAT-CSM-Rice model, as disease remains one of the most critical yield-reducing factors in the field.

An agriculture and health inter-sectorial research process to reduce hazardous pesticide health impacts among smallholder farmers in the Andes.

PubMed

Cole, Donald C; Orozco T, Fadya; Pradel, Willy; Suquillo, Jovanny; Mera, Xavier; Chacon, Aura; Prain, Gordon; Wanigaratne, Susitha; Leah, Jessica

2011-11-08

The use of highly hazardous pesticides by smallholder farmers constitutes a classic trans-sectoral 'wicked problem'. We share our program of research in potato and vegetable farming communities in the Andean highlands, working with partners from multiple sectors to confront this problem over several projects. We engaged in iterative cycles of mixed methods research around particular questions, actions relevant to stakeholders, new proposal formulation and implementation followed by evaluation of impacts. Capacity building occurred among farmers, technical personnel, and students from multiple disciplines. Involvement of research users occurred throughout: women and men farmers, non-governmental development organizations, Ministries of Health and Agriculture, and, in Ecuador, the National Council on Social Participation. Pesticide poisonings were more widespread than existing passive surveillance systems would suggest. More diversified, moderately developed agricultural systems had lower pesticide use and better child nutrition. Greater understanding among women of crop management options and more equal household gender relations were associated with reduced farm pesticide use and household pesticide exposure. Involvement in more organic agriculture was associated with greater household food security and food sovereignty. Markets for safer produce supported efforts by smallholder farmers to reduce hazardous pesticide use.Participatory interventions included: promoting greater access to alternative methods and inputs in a store co-sponsored by the municipality; producing less harmful inputs such as compost by women farmers; strengthening farmer organizations around healthier and more sustainable agriculture; marketing safer produce among social sectors; empowering farmers to act as social monitors; and using social monitoring results to inform decision makers. Uptake by policy makers has included: the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health rolling out pesticide poisoning

An agriculture and health inter-sectorial research process to reduce hazardous pesticide health impacts among smallholder farmers in the Andes

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background The use of highly hazardous pesticides by smallholder farmers constitutes a classic trans-sectoral ‘wicked problem’. We share our program of research in potato and vegetable farming communities in the Andean highlands, working with partners from multiple sectors to confront this problem over several projects. Methods We engaged in iterative cycles of mixed methods research around particular questions, actions relevant to stakeholders, new proposal formulation and implementation followed by evaluation of impacts. Capacity building occurred among farmers, technical personnel, and students from multiple disciplines. Involvement of research users occurred throughout: women and men farmers, non-governmental development organizations, Ministries of Health and Agriculture, and, in Ecuador, the National Council on Social Participation. Results Pesticide poisonings were more widespread than existing passive surveillance systems would suggest. More diversified, moderately developed agricultural systems had lower pesticide use and better child nutrition. Greater understanding among women of crop management options and more equal household gender relations were associated with reduced farm pesticide use and household pesticide exposure. Involvement in more organic agriculture was associated with greater household food security and food sovereignty. Markets for safer produce supported efforts by smallholder farmers to reduce hazardous pesticide use. Participatory interventions included: promoting greater access to alternative methods and inputs in a store co-sponsored by the municipality; producing less harmful inputs such as compost by women farmers; strengthening farmer organizations around healthier and more sustainable agriculture; marketing safer produce among social sectors; empowering farmers to act as social monitors; and using social monitoring results to inform decision makers. Uptake by policy makers has included: the Ecuadorian Ministry of Health

Evaluating the sensitivity of agricultural model performance to different climate inputs

PubMed Central

Glotter, Michael J.; Moyer, Elisabeth J.; Ruane, Alex C.; Elliott, Joshua W.

2017-01-01

Projections of future food production necessarily rely on models, which must themselves be validated through historical assessments comparing modeled to observed yields. Reliable historical validation requires both accurate agricultural models and accurate climate inputs. Problems with either may compromise the validation exercise. Previous studies have compared the effects of different climate inputs on agricultural projections, but either incompletely or without a ground truth of observed yields that would allow distinguishing errors due to climate inputs from those intrinsic to the crop model. This study is a systematic evaluation of the reliability of a widely-used crop model for simulating U.S. maize yields when driven by multiple observational data products. The parallelized Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (pDSSAT) is driven with climate inputs from multiple sources – reanalysis, reanalysis bias-corrected with observed climate, and a control dataset – and compared to observed historical yields. The simulations show that model output is more accurate when driven by any observation-based precipitation product than when driven by un-bias-corrected reanalysis. The simulations also suggest, in contrast to previous studies, that biased precipitation distribution is significant for yields only in arid regions. However, some issues persist for all choices of climate inputs: crop yields appear oversensitive to precipitation fluctuations but undersensitive to floods and heat waves. These results suggest that the most important issue for agricultural projections may be not climate inputs but structural limitations in the crop models themselves. PMID:29097985

A participatory model for improving occupational health and safety: improving informal sector working conditions in Thailand.

PubMed

Manothum, Aniruth; Rukijkanpanich, Jittra; Thawesaengskulthai, Damrong; Thampitakkul, Boonwa; Chaikittiporn, Chalermchai; Arphorn, Sara

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of an Occupational Health and Safety Management Model for informal sector workers in Thailand. The studied model was characterized by participatory approaches to preliminary assessment, observation of informal business practices, group discussion and participation, and the use of environmental measurements and samples. This model consisted of four processes: capacity building, risk analysis, problem solving, and monitoring and control. The participants consisted of four local labor groups from different regions, including wood carving, hand-weaving, artificial flower making, and batik processing workers. The results demonstrated that, as a result of applying the model, the working conditions of the informal sector workers had improved to meet necessary standards. This model encouraged the use of local networks, which led to cooperation within the groups to create appropriate technologies to solve their problems. The authors suggest that this model could effectively be applied elsewhere to improve informal sector working conditions on a broader scale.

Evaluation on the efficiency of the construction sector companies in Malaysia with data envelopment analysis model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weng Hoe, Lam; Jinn, Lim Shun; Weng Siew, Lam; Hai, Tey Kim

2018-04-01

In Malaysia, construction sector is essential parts in driving the development of the Malaysian economy. Construction industry is an economic investment and its relationship with economic development is well posited. However, the evaluation on the efficiency of the construction sectors companies listed in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) with Data Analysis Envelopment (DEA) model have not been actively studied by the past researchers. Hence the purpose of this study is to examine the financial performance the listed construction sectors companies in Malaysia in the year of 2015. The results of this study show that the efficiency of construction sectors companies can be obtained by using DEA model through ratio analysis which defined as the ratio of total outputs to total inputs. This study is significant because the inefficient companies are identified for potential improvement.

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Town Hall

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ruane, Alex; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Kyle, Page; Basso, Bruno; Winter, Jonathan; Asseng, Senthold

2015-01-01

AgMIP (www.agmip.org) is an international community of climate, crop, livestock, economics, and IT experts working to further the development and application of multi-model, multi-scale, multi-disciplinary agricultural models that can inform policy and decision makers around the world. This meeting will engage the AGU community by providing a brief overview of AgMIP, in particular its new plans for a Coordinated Global and Regional Assessment of climate change impacts on agriculture and food security for AR6. This Town Hall will help identify opportunities for participants to become involved in AgMIP and its 30+ activities.

A commentary on domestic animals as dual-purpose models that benefit agricultural and biomedical research.

PubMed

Ireland, J J; Roberts, R M; Palmer, G H; Bauman, D E; Bazer, F W

2008-10-01

Research on domestic animals (cattle, swine, sheep, goats, poultry, horses, and aquatic species) at land grant institutions is integral to improving the global competitiveness of US animal agriculture and to resolving complex animal and human diseases. However, dwindling federal and state budgets, years of stagnant funding from USDA for the Competitive State Research, Education, and Extension Service National Research Initiative (CSREES-NRI) Competitive Grants Program, significant reductions in farm animal species and in numbers at land grant institutions, and declining enrollment for graduate studies in animal science are diminishing the resources necessary to conduct research on domestic species. Consequently, recruitment of scientists who use such models to conduct research relevant to animal agriculture and biomedicine at land grant institutions is in jeopardy. Concerned stakeholders have addressed this critical problem by conducting workshops, holding a series of meetings with USDA and National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials, and developing a white paper to propose solutions to obstacles impeding the use of domestic species as dual-purpose animal models for high-priority problems common to agriculture and biomedicine. In addition to shortfalls in research support and human resources, overwhelming use of mouse models in biomedicine, lack of advocacy from university administrators, long-standing cultural barriers between agriculture and human medicine, inadequate grantsmanship by animal scientists, and a scarcity of key reagents and resources are major roadblocks to progress. Solutions will require a large financial enhancement of USDA's Competitive Grants Program, educational programs geared toward explaining how research using agricultural animals benefits both animal agriculture and human health, and the development of a new mind-set in land grant institutions that fosters greater cooperation among basic and applied researchers. Recruitment of

Econometrics and data of the 9 sector Dynamic General Equilibrium Model. Volume III. Final report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Berndt, E.R.; Fraumeni, B.M.; Hudson, E.A.

1981-03-01

This report presents the econometrics and data of the 9 sector Dynamic General Equilibrium Model. There are two key components of 9DGEM - the model of household behavior and the model of produconcrneer behavior. The household model is concerned with decisions on consumption, saving, labor supply and the composition of consumption. The producer model is concerned with output price formation and determination of input patterns and purchases for each of the nine producing sectors. These components form the behavioral basis of DGEM. The remaining components are concerned with constraints, balance conditions, accounting, and government revenues and expenditures (these elements aremore » developed in the report on the model specification).« less

Rural Development and the Regional State: Denying Multifunctional Agriculture in the UK

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marsden, Terry; Sonnino, Roberta

2008-01-01

Under the emerging rural development paradigm, we argue that to be multifunctional an activity must add income to agriculture, it must contribute to the construction of a new agricultural sector that corresponds to the needs of the wider society and it must reconfigure rural resources in ways that lead to wider rural development benefits. By…

Agriculture and Energy: Implications for Food Security, Water, and Land Use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tokgoz, S.; Zhang, W.; Msangi, S.; Bhandary, P.

2011-12-01

population under hunger and poverty. In light of these threats and opportunities facing the global food system, the proposed study takes a long-term perspective and addresses the main medium and long- term drivers of agricultural markets using the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade developed by the Environment and Production Technology Division of IFPRI to project future production, consumption, and trade of key agricultural commodities. The main objective of the study is to analyze the link between energy and agricultural markets, focusing on the "new" role of agriculture as a supplier of energy for transportation through biofuels, and the subsequent impact on land use and demand for water from the agricultural sector. In this context, this study incorporates various scenarios of future energy demand and energy price impacts on global agricultural markets (food prices and food security), water use implications (irrigation water consumption by agricultural sector), and land use implications (changes in national and global crop area). The scenarios are designed to understand the impact of energy prices on biofuel production, cost of production for agricultural crops, conversion of rainfed area to irrigated area, and necessary levels of crop productivity growth to counter these effects.

The relationship between carbon dioxide and agriculture in Ghana: a comparison of VECM and ARDL model.

PubMed

Asumadu-Sarkodie, Samuel; Owusu, Phebe Asantewaa

2016-06-01

In this paper, the relationship between carbon dioxide and agriculture in Ghana was investigated by comparing a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model. Ten study variables spanning from 1961 to 2012 were employed from the Food Agricultural Organization. Results from the study show that carbon dioxide emissions affect the percentage annual change of agricultural area, coarse grain production, cocoa bean production, fruit production, vegetable production, and the total livestock per hectare of the agricultural area. The vector error correction model and the autoregressive distributed lag model show evidence of a causal relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and agriculture; however, the relationship decreases periodically which may die over-time. All the endogenous variables except total primary vegetable production lead to carbon dioxide emissions, which may be due to poor agricultural practices to meet the growing food demand in Ghana. The autoregressive distributed lag bounds test shows evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the percentage annual change of agricultural area, cocoa bean production, total livestock per hectare of agricultural area, total pulses production, total primary vegetable production, and carbon dioxide emissions. It is important to end hunger and ensure people have access to safe and nutritious food, especially the poor, orphans, pregnant women, and children under-5 years in order to reduce maternal and infant mortalities. Nevertheless, it is also important that the Government of Ghana institutes agricultural policies that focus on promoting a sustainable agriculture using environmental friendly agricultural practices. The study recommends an integration of climate change measures into Ghana's national strategies, policies and planning in order to strengthen the country's effort to achieving a sustainable environment.

The Urban Food-Water Nexus: Modeling Water Footprints of Urban Agriculture using CityCrop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tooke, T. R.; Lathuilliere, M. J.; Coops, N. C.; Johnson, M. S.

2014-12-01

Urban agriculture provides a potential contribution towards more sustainable food production and mitigating some of the human impacts that accompany volatility in regional and global food supply. When considering the capacity of urban landscapes to produce food products, the impact of urban water demand required for food production in cities is often neglected. Urban agricultural studies also tend to be undertaken at broad spatial scales, overlooking the heterogeneity of urban form that exerts an extreme influence on the urban energy balance. As a result, urban planning and management practitioners require, but often do not have, spatially explicit and detailed information to support informed urban agricultural policy, especially as it relates to potential conflicts with sustainability goals targeting water-use. In this research we introduce a new model, CityCrop, a hybrid evapotranspiration-plant growth model that incorporates detailed digital representations of the urban surface and biophysical impacts of the built environment and urban trees to account for the daily variations in net surface radiation. The model enables very fine-scale (sub-meter) estimates of water footprints of potential urban agricultural production. Results of the model are demonstrated for an area in the City of Vancouver, Canada and compared to aspatial model estimates, demonstrating the unique considerations and sensitivities for current and future water footprints of urban agriculture and the implications for urban water planning and policy.

A comprehensive review of thin-layer drying models used in agricultural products.

PubMed

Ertekin, Can; Firat, M Ziya

2017-03-04

Drying is one of the widely used methods of grain, fruit, and vegetable preservation. The important aim of drying is to reduce the moisture content and thereby increase the lifetime of products by limiting enzymatic and oxidative degradation. In addition, by reducing the amount of water, drying reduces the crop losses, improves the quality of dried products, and facilitates its transportation, handling, and storage requirements. Drying is a process comprising simultaneous heat and mass transfer within the material, and between the surface of the material and the surrounding media. Many models have been used to describe the drying process for different agricultural products. These models are used to estimate drying time of several products under different drying conditions, and how to increase the drying process efficiency and also to generalize drying curves, for the design and operation of dryers. Several investigators have proposed numerous mathematical models for thin-layer drying of many agricultural products. This study gives a comprehensive review of more than 100 different semitheoretical and empirical thin-layer drying models used in agricultural products and evaluates the statistical criteria for the determination of appropriate model.

Collaboration between nurses and agricultural teachers to prevent adolescent agricultural injuries: the Agricultural Disability Awareness and Risk Education Model.

PubMed

Reed, Deborah B; Kidd, Pamela S

2004-01-01

Nearly 2 million children live or work on America's farms and ranches. Despite the increasing mechanization of production agriculture in the United States, children still constitute a considerable portion of the work force on farms and ranches. When adjusted for actual work exposure time, adolescent injury rates on agricultural establishments surpass those of adults (Castillo, D. N., Landen, D. D., & Layne, L. A. (1994). American Journal of Public Health, 84, 646-649). This project, headed by two public health nurses, developed and tested an agricultural safety curriculum [Agricultural Disability Awareness and Risk Education (AgDARE)] for use in high school agriculture classes. Students who participated in AgDARE scored significantly higher in farm safety attitude and intent to change work behavior than the control group. School and public health nurses, working together with agriculture teachers, may make an effective team in reducing injuries among teen agricultural workers.

Establishment and application of the estimation model for pollutant concentrfation in agriculture drain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Qiangkun; Hu, Yawei; Jia, Qian; Song, Changji

2018-02-01

It is the key point of quantitative research on agricultural non-point source pollution load, the estimation of pollutant concentration in agricultural drain. In the guidance of uncertainty theory, the synthesis of fertilization and irrigation is used as an impulse input to the farmland, meanwhile, the pollutant concentration in agricultural drain is looked as the response process corresponding to the impulse input. The migration and transformation of pollutant in soil is expressed by Inverse Gaussian Probability Density Function. The law of pollutants migration and transformation in soil at crop different growth periods is reflected by adjusting parameters of Inverse Gaussian Distribution. Based on above, the estimation model for pollutant concentration in agricultural drain at field scale was constructed. Taking the of Qing Tong Xia Irrigation District in Ningxia as an example, the concentration of nitrate nitrogen and total phosphorus in agricultural drain was simulated by this model. The results show that the simulated results accorded with measured data approximately and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients were 0.972 and 0.964, respectively.

A steady state model of agricultural waste pyrolysis: A mini review.

PubMed

Trninić, M; Jovović, A; Stojiljković, D

2016-09-01

Agricultural waste is one of the main renewable energy resources available, especially in an agricultural country such as Serbia. Pyrolysis has already been considered as an attractive alternative for disposal of agricultural waste, since the technique can convert this special biomass resource into granular charcoal, non-condensable gases and pyrolysis oils, which could furnish profitable energy and chemical products owing to their high calorific value. In this regard, the development of thermochemical processes requires a good understanding of pyrolysis mechanisms. Experimental and some literature data on the pyrolysis characteristics of corn cob and several other agricultural residues under inert atmosphere were structured and analysed in order to obtain conversion behaviour patterns of agricultural residues during pyrolysis within the temperature range from 300 °C to 1000 °C. Based on experimental and literature data analysis, empirical relationships were derived, including relations between the temperature of the process and yields of charcoal, tar and gas (CO2, CO, H2 and CH4). An analytical semi-empirical model was then used as a tool to analyse the general trends of biomass pyrolysis. Although this semi-empirical model needs further refinement before application to all types of biomass, its prediction capability was in good agreement with results obtained by the literature review. The compact representation could be used in other applications, to conveniently extrapolate and interpolate these results to other temperatures and biomass types. © The Author(s) 2016.

AgBase: supporting functional modeling in agricultural organisms

PubMed Central

McCarthy, Fiona M.; Gresham, Cathy R.; Buza, Teresia J.; Chouvarine, Philippe; Pillai, Lakshmi R.; Kumar, Ranjit; Ozkan, Seval; Wang, Hui; Manda, Prashanti; Arick, Tony; Bridges, Susan M.; Burgess, Shane C.

2011-01-01

AgBase (http://www.agbase.msstate.edu/) provides resources to facilitate modeling of functional genomics data and structural and functional annotation of agriculturally important animal, plant, microbe and parasite genomes. The website is redesigned to improve accessibility and ease of use, including improved search capabilities. Expanded capabilities include new dedicated pages for horse, cat, dog, cotton, rice and soybean. We currently provide 590 240 Gene Ontology (GO) annotations to 105 454 gene products in 64 different species, including GO annotations linked to transcripts represented on agricultural microarrays. For many of these arrays, this provides the only functional annotation available. GO annotations are available for download and we provide comprehensive, species-specific GO annotation files for 18 different organisms. The tools available at AgBase have been expanded and several existing tools improved based upon user feedback. One of seven new tools available at AgBase, GOModeler, supports hypothesis testing from functional genomics data. We host several associated databases and provide genome browsers for three agricultural pathogens. Moreover, we provide comprehensive training resources (including worked examples and tutorials) via links to Educational Resources at the AgBase website. PMID:21075795

An optimization model to agroindustrial sector in antioquia (Colombia, South America)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandez, J.

2015-06-01

This paper develops a proposal of a general optimization model for the flower industry, which is defined by using discrete simulation and nonlinear optimization, whose mathematical models have been solved by using ProModel simulation tools and Gams optimization. It defines the operations that constitute the production and marketing of the sector, statistically validated data taken directly from each operation through field work, the discrete simulation model of the operations and the linear optimization model of the entire industry chain are raised. The model is solved with the tools described above and presents the results validated in a case study.

Modelling mitigation options to reduce diffuse nitrogen water pollution from agriculture.

PubMed

Bouraoui, Fayçal; Grizzetti, Bruna

2014-01-15

Agriculture is responsible for large scale water quality degradation and is estimated to contribute around 55% of the nitrogen entering the European Seas. The key policy instrument for protecting inland, transitional and coastal water resources is the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Reducing nutrient losses from agriculture is crucial to the successful implementation of the WFD. There are several mitigation measures that can be implemented to reduce nitrogen losses from agricultural areas to surface and ground waters. For the selection of appropriate measures, models are useful for quantifying the expected impacts and the associated costs. In this article we review some of the models used in Europe to assess the effectiveness of nitrogen mitigation measures, ranging from fertilizer management to the construction of riparian areas and wetlands. We highlight how the complexity of models is correlated with the type of scenarios that can be tested, with conceptual models mostly used to evaluate the impact of reduced fertilizer application, and the physically-based models used to evaluate the timing and location of mitigation options and the response times. We underline the importance of considering the lag time between the implementation of measures and effects on water quality. Models can be effective tools for targeting mitigation measures (identifying critical areas and timing), for evaluating their cost effectiveness, for taking into consideration pollution swapping and considering potential trade-offs in contrasting environmental objectives. Models are also useful for involving stakeholders during the development of catchments mitigation plans, increasing their acceptability. © 2013.

[Problems of population and agricultural development in Rwanda].

PubMed

Sibomana, J M

1984-01-01

The primary goal of law 3/81 created by the National Office of Population (l'Office National de la Population--ONAPU) in 1981, is to establish a demographic policy consistent with national realities and designed to ease the problem of overpopulation. ONAPU supports family planning for all of Rwanda as an approach to the population situation. The family planning objective promotes conscientious and wanted procreation. It encourages couples to have children in accordance with a preestablished plan, which takes into account the size of the family and the calendar of procreation. Unmatched population growth with limited economic growth have been major concerns for ONAPU; hence, emphasis on maintaining a level of equilibrium between the 2 is a national priority. In the meantime, increased population growth has been causing agricultural problems. Small amounts of land available for cultivation and rudimentary agricultural technology necessitate a change in the financial organization of this sector. Simultaneously, there is an abundance of agricultural workers and a threat of famine due to population demands outstripping subsistence yields. If the population growth rate of Rwanda remains at 3.79%, the land will be insufficient. To avoid future problems, a financial revolution which involves both the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors must be planned. Economic, social, and cultural reorganization is critical, especially for family planning. The policy of spacing births will not be accepted without amelioration 1st family and community health.

Sidewalks and City Streets: A Model for Vibrant Agricultural Education in Urban American Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Nicholas R.; Kelsey, Kathleen D.

2013-01-01

In 2005, The National Council for Agricultural Education (NCAE) unveiled The Long Range Goal for Agricultural Education also known as 10 x 15. According to NCAE, the primary goal of 10 x 15 was to create 10,000 new agricultural education programs by 2015 that focused on an integrated model of classroom and laboratory instruction, experiential…

Meeting the Radiative Forcing Targets of the Representative Concentration Pathways with Agricultural Climate Impacts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kyle, P.; Müller, C.; Calvin, K. V.; Thomson, A. M.

2013-12-01

The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) have formed the basis for much of the current scientific understanding of future climate change impacts and mitigation. However, the emissions scenarios underlying the RCPs were produced by integrated assessment models that did not include impacts of future climate change on the modeled evolution of the agricultural and energy systems. Given the prominent role of bioenergy in greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, and given the importance of land-use-related emissions in determining future atmospheric CO2 concentrations, it is possible that agricultural climate impacts may cause significant changes to the means and costs of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This study builds on several international modeling exercises aimed at improving understanding of climate change impacts--CMIP-5 and ISI-MIP--that have generated global gridded climate impacts on yields of major agricultural crops in each of the four RCPs. We use the climate outcomes from the HadGEM2-ES climate model, and the agricultural yield outcomes from the LPJmL crop growth model to inform inputs to the GCAM integrated assessment model, allowing analysis of how agricultural climate impacts may affect the long-term global and regional strategies for achieving the greenhouse gas concentration pathways of the RCPs. Our results indicate that for this combination of models and emissions scenarios, strongly negative climate impacts on several major commodity classes--prominently cereals and oil seeds, and particularly in the high-radiative-forcing RCPs--lead to a long-term increase in cropland and therefore land-use-related CO2 emissions. All else equal, this increases the emissions mitigation burden on the rest of the system, and therefore increases total net costs of emissions mitigation. However, the future climate change impacts on C4 bioenergy crops tend to be positive, limiting the shock of agricultural climate impacts on the modeled energy supply and

State of science of phosphorus modeling in tile drained agricultural systems using APEX

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Phosphorus losses through tile drained systems in agricultural landscapes may be causing the persistent eutrophication problems observed in surface water. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the state of the science in the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model related to surf...

Cyclical absenteeism among private sector, public sector and self-employed workers.

PubMed

Pfeifer, Christian

2013-03-01

This research note analyzes differences in the number of absent working days and doctor visits and in their cyclicality between private sector, public sector and self-employed workers. For this purpose, I used large-scale German survey data for the years 1995 to 2007 to estimate random effects negative binomial (count data) models. The main findings are as follows. (i) Public sector workers have on average more absent working days than private sector and self-employed workers. Self-employed workers have fewer absent working days and doctor visits than dependent employed workers. (ii) The regional unemployment rate is on average negatively correlated with the number of absent working days among private and public sector workers as well as among self-employed men. The correlations between regional unemployment rate and doctor visits are only significantly negative among private sector workers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modelling income distribution impacts of water sector projects in Bangladesh.

PubMed

Ahmed, C S; Jones, S

1991-09-01

Dynamic analysis was conducted to assess the long-term impacts of water sector projects on agricultural income distribution, and sensitivity analysis was conducted to check the robustness of the 5 assumptions in this study of income distribution and water sector projects in Bangladesh. 7 transitions are analyzed for mutually exclusive irrigation and flooding projects: Nonirrigation to 1) LLP irrigation, 2) STW irrigation, 3) DTW irrigation, 4) major gravity irrigation, and manually operated shallow tubewell irrigation (MOSTI) and Flood Control Projects (FCD) of 6) medium flooded to shallow flooded, and 7) deeply flooded to shallow flooded. 5 analytical stages are involved: 1) farm budgets are derived with and without project cropping patterns for each transition. 2) Estimates are generated for value added/hectare from each transition. 3) Assumptions are made about the number of social classes, distribution of land ownership between classes, extent of tenancy for each social class, term of tenancy contracts, and extent of hiring of labor for each social class. 4) Annual value added/hectare is distributed among social classes. 5) Using Gini coefficients and simple ratios, the distribution of income between classes is estimated for with and without transition. Assumption I is that there are 4 social classes defined by land acreage: large farmers (5 acres), medium farmers (1.5-5.0), small farmers, (.01-1.49), and landless. Assumption II is that land distribution follows the 1978 Land Occupancy Survey (LOS). Biases, if any, are indicated. Assumption III is that large farmers sharecrop out 15% of land to small farmers. Assumption IV is that landlords provide nonirrigated crop land and take 50% of the crop, and, under irrigation, provide 50% of the fertilizer, pesticide, and irrigation costs and take 50% of the crop. Assumption V is that hired and family labor is assumed to be 40% for small farmers, 60% for medium farmers, and 80% for large farmers. It is understood that

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP): Progress and Preliminary Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenzweig, C.

2011-12-01

The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) is a distributed climate-scenario simulation exercise for historical model intercomparison and future climate change conditions with participation of multiple crop and agricultural trade modeling groups around the world. The goals of AgMIP are to improve substantially the characterization of risk of hunger and world food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity in both developing and developed countries. Recent progress and the current status of AgMIP will be presented, highlighting three areas of activity: preliminary results from crop pilot studies, outcomes from regional workshops, and emerging scientific challenges. AgMIP crop modeling efforts are being led by pilot studies, which have been established for wheat, maize, rice, and sugarcane. These crop-specific initiatives have proven instrumental in testing and contributing to AgMIP protocols, as well as creating preliminary results for aggregation and input to agricultural trade models. Regional workshops are being held to encourage collaborations and set research activities in motion for key agricultural areas. The first of these workshops was hosted by Embrapa and UNICAMP and held in Campinas, Brazil. Outcomes from this meeting have informed crop modeling research activities within South America, AgMIP protocols, and future regional workshops. Several scientific challenges have emerged and are currently being addressed by AgMIP researchers. Areas of particular interest include geospatial weather generation, ensemble methods for climate scenarios and crop models, spatial aggregation of field-scale yields to regional and global production, and characterization of future changes in climate variability.

Climate change impacts utilizing regional models for agriculture, hydrology and natural ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kafatos, M.; Asrar, G. R.; El-Askary, H. M.; Hatzopoulos, N.; Kim, J.; Kim, S.; Medvigy, D.; Prasad, A. K.; Smith, E.; Stack, D. H.; Tremback, C.; Walko, R. L.

2012-12-01

Climate change impacts the entire Earth but with crucial and often catastrophic impacts at local and regional levels. Extreme phenomena such as fires, dust storms, droughts and other natural hazards present immediate risks and challenges. Such phenomena will become more extreme as climate change and anthropogenic activities accelerate in the future. We describe a major project funded by NIFA (Grant # 2011-67004-30224), under the joint NSF-DOE-USDA Earth System Models (EaSM) program, to investigate the impacts of climate variability and change on the agricultural and natural (i.e. rangeland) ecosystems in the Southwest USA using a combination of historical and present observations together with climate, and ecosystem models, both in hind-cast and forecast modes. The applicability of the methodology to other regions is relevant (for similar geographic regions as well as other parts of the world with different agriculture and ecosystems) and should advance the state of knowledge for regional impacts of climate change. A combination of multi-model global climate projections from the decadal predictability simulations, to downscale dynamically these projections using three regional climate models, combined with remote sensing MODIS and other data, in order to obtain high-resolution climate data that can be used with hydrological and ecosystem models for impacts analysis, is described in this presentation. Such analysis is needed to assess the future risks and potential impacts of projected changes on these natural and managed ecosystems. The results from our analysis can be used by scientists to assist extended communities to determine agricultural coping strategies, and is, therefore, of interest to wide communities of stakeholders. In future work we will be including surface hydrologic modeling and water resources, extend modeling to higher resolutions and include significantly more crops and geographical regions with different weather and climate conditions

Using the Health Belief Model to Comparatively Examine the Welding Safety Beliefs of Postsecondary Agricultural Education Students and Their Non-Agricultural Education Peers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Ryan; Velez, Jonathan; Anderson, Shawn

2014-01-01

The purpose of this descriptive correlational research was to investigate postsecondary agriculture students' perceptions regarding the safe use of agricultural mechanics equipment. Students enrolled in a university metals and welding course were surveyed using an adapted instrument to assess constructs of the Health Beliefs Model, self-efficacy…

Agricultural biosecurity.

PubMed

Waage, J K; Mumford, J D

2008-02-27

The prevention and control of new pest and disease introductions is an agricultural challenge which is attracting growing public interest. This interest is in part driven by an impression that the threat is increasing, but there has been little analysis of the changing rates of biosecurity threat, and existing evidence is equivocal. Traditional biosecurity systems for animals and plants differ substantially but are beginning to converge. Bio-economic modelling of risk will be a valuable tool in guiding the allocation of limited resources for biosecurity. The future of prevention and management systems will be strongly influenced by new technology and the growing role of the private sector. Overall, today's biosecurity systems are challenged by changing national priorities regarding trade, by new concerns about environmental effects of biological invasions and by the question 'who pays?'. Tomorrow's systems may need to be quite different to be effective. We suggest three changes: an integration of plant and animal biosecurity around a common, proactive, risk-based approach; a greater focus on international cooperation to deal with threats at source; and a commitment to refocus biosecurity on building resilience to invasion into agroecosystems rather than building walls around them.

Mycelium reinforced agricultural fiber bio-composites: Summary of research

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Industry and the public sector have a growing interest in utilizing natural fibers, such as agricultural substrates, in the manufacture of components and products currently manufactured from fossil fuels. A patented process, developed by Ecovative Design, LLC (Ecovative), for growing fungal species ...

MODELING LONG-TERM NITRATE BASE-FLOW LOADING FROM TWO AGRICULTURAL WATERSHEDS

EPA Science Inventory

Nitrate contamination of ground water from agricultural practices may be contributing to the eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay, degrading water quality and aquatic habitats. Groundwater flow and nitrate transport and fate are modeled, using MODFLOW and MT3D computer models, in...

The economic impact of more sustainable water use in agriculture: A computable general equilibrium analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calzadilla, Alvaro; Rehdanz, Katrin; Tol, Richard S. J.

2010-04-01

SummaryAgriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater resources - around 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals are used for food production. These agricultural products are traded internationally. A full understanding of water use is, therefore, impossible without understanding the international market for food and related products, such as textiles. Based on the global general equilibrium model GTAP-W, we offer a method for investigating the role of green (rain) and blue (irrigation) water resources in agriculture and within the context of international trade. We use future projections of allowable water withdrawals for surface water and groundwater to define two alternative water management scenarios. The first scenario explores a deterioration of current trends and policies in the water sector (water crisis scenario). The second scenario assumes an improvement in policies and trends in the water sector and eliminates groundwater overdraft world-wide, increasing water allocation for the environment (sustainable water use scenario). In both scenarios, welfare gains or losses are not only associated with changes in agricultural water consumption. Under the water crisis scenario, welfare not only rises for regions where water consumption increases (China, South East Asia and the USA). Welfare gains are considerable for Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia and Western Europe as well. These regions benefit from higher levels of irrigated production and lower food prices. Alternatively, under the sustainable water use scenario, welfare losses not only affect regions where overdrafting is occurring. Welfare decreases in other regions as well. These results indicate that, for water use, there is a clear trade-off between economic welfare and environmental sustainability.

Motives of consumers following a vegan diet and their attitudes towards animal agriculture.

PubMed