Academic literature on the topic 'Farm-led research'

Purpose: The general objective of the study is to assess management strategies and performance of youth agribusinesses in Kenya: case of Farm Africa. Three research objectives were used; to find out the effect of differentiation strategy on the performance of youth led agribusiness at Farm Africa, to establish the effect of cost leadership strategy on the performance of youth led agribusiness at Farm Africa, and to assess the effect of focus strategy on the performance of youth led agribusiness at Farm Africa.Methodology: This study adopted a case study research design. The study population was all the 30 youth who participates in agribusinesses. Census method was then used since the population was manageable. This research study used questionnaires as the primary research instruments for data collection. A statistical tool known as Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20) (Park, 2015) were used for the process of data analysis. The data that was collected was analyzed by use of descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation analysis method as well as regression analysis.Findings: The study concludes that differentiation costs had positive significant relationship with the performance of agribusinesses at Farm Africa. The study concludes that cost leadership strategy led in the improvement of performance of agribusinesses at Farm Africa. The study concludes that majority of the farmers that were studied adhered to focus strategy because it helped them in improving overall performance of agribusinesses at Farm Africa. The study concludes that finance was a key determining factor in the performance of agribusinesses.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that farmers at Farm Africa need to adhere to product differentiation such that they cannot easily be copied by rivals. The study recommends that farmers should have flexible product costs together with water tight market price strategies that could promote performance. The study recommends that in order to enhance focus strategy, farmers should strive to exploit differences in cost behavior in market segments in order to improve agribusiness performance. The study recommends that policy makers should come up with farmer friendly financial policies that will cushion farmers from high interest rates charged by financial institutions such as MFIs and commercial banks.

Increase in sales is the heartbeat of every marketer. This is achieved very much by promotion. This study evaluated the effect of marketing promotion on farm product in Cross River State . Objectives were raised for the study which led to the raising of research questions. Organically, the following hypotheses were formulated : awareness creation has no positive impact on farm products in Cross River State social media makes no positive impact on farm products in Cross River State branded promotional gifts has no correlation with sales of farm products in Cross River State and customer loyalty makes no positive impact on farm products in Cross River State . Difference in mean statistic was used to test the hypotheses which led to the following findings : awareness creation has positive impact on farm products in Cross River State social media makes positive impact on farm products in Cross River State branded promotional gifts has correlation with sales of farm products in Cross River State and customer loyalty makes positive impact on farm products in Cross River State. It was concluded that farmers can use promotion to push up demand for their farm products. It was recommended that the farmer should maximize awareness creation on his farm products since it makes positive impact on farm products social media should be well utilized by the farmer since it makes positive impact on farm products branded promotional gifts should be well considered by the farmer since it correlates with sales of farm products and customer loyalty should be always exploited by the farmer since it makes positive impact on farm products.

SUMMARYAlthough viewed as important for on-farm adaptive research, farmer-participation has often been superficial and has not led to meaningful incorporation of farmer perspectives. This paper describes the use of a method involving the understanding of farmers' perceptions in determining priorities for research which integrates the different concerns and contributions of farmers and scientists with the transfer of technology from farmer to farmer.

On the market there are several LED lamps that were not designed to produce lettuce, however, they can be purchased at a low cost. In Mexico there is a lack of research on its use in small-scale vertical farms and hydroponic established in urban agriculture. The objective of this work was to measure the response of three commercial lamps with LED lights on the growth and morphogenesis of sangria lettuce grown in a low-cost home vertical farm. The sangria lettuce was subjected to three light intensities with different spectra and photoperiod after 30 days of growth the plant height, leaf length, leaf width, number of leaves and fresh weight were measured, and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Duncan's multiple comparison method was used through an algorithm designed in Python. According to the results, the highest fresh weight is made for a light intensity of 5700 lux. In the 2100 lux treatment, the highest height of the plant is performed and it was the treatment with the highest energy consumption. The production of lettuce at home is technically feasible, however, in addition to the light intensity, it is necessary to evaluate the quality (wavelengths) from the agronomic point of view.

This article addresses the need for more engagement between the alternative food movement and the food labor movement in the United States. Drawing on the notion of agrarian imaginary, I argue for the need to break down divides between producer and consumer, rural and urban, and individual and community based approaches to changing the food system. I contend that farmworker-led consumer-based campaigns and solidarity movements, such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) current Campaign for Fair Food, and The United Farmworkers’ historical grape boycotts, successfully work to challenge this imaginary, drawing consumers into movement-based actions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with farmworkers and farmworker advocates in California and Florida, this research illustrates the possibilities for alternative food movement advocates and coalitions to build upon farmworker-led campaigns and embrace workers as leaders.

A unique project led by livestock producers, called the Cicerone Project, was undertaken on the Northern Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia, following acknowledgement by those producers of a widening gap between them and research and extension information. The overall aim of the project was to co-learn, through a partnership between livestock producers, research, extension and other specialists, how to improve the profitability and sustainability of grazing enterprises in that region. It was hypothesised that closer engagement would help to guide relevant research efforts and also enhance the adoption of research findings. With the support of industry funding and the collaboration of key research, education and extension partners, the inaugural steering committee of the Cicerone Project commissioned a survey of over 300 land managers in the region to explore their research and adoption needs. The survey identified the most important issues and found a high level of commitment to the formation of this producer-led project. Negotiations between all collaborators led to the creation of a Business Plan prepared as the basis for an initial funding period of 5 years. Subsequent reviews of the project allowed for extensions with associated activities over an additional 4 years. In order to study the key farm management alternatives identified from the producer survey, the Cicerone Project Board decided to adopt an agricultural ecosystem approach which conducted studies using three whole-farmlet systems. The farmlet experiment compared three contiguous farmlets by measuring as many aspects of the farm systems as possible using an approach summarised in the motto adopted by the Cicerone Project of ‘compare–measure–learn–adopt’. A wide range of field days and seminars were held over the duration of the project to deliver the results to the producer members. This paper provides an introduction to a Special Issue containing 24 papers which report on the entirety of the project from planning, to execution, results, and reflections on the value obtained from the many research and extension activities, with particular emphasis on the farming systems trial conducted between 2000 and 2006.

In running business poultry broiler, Rancamaya Farm faces many obstacles. Especially is not being able to meet all demand that there are (excess demand). The demand for chicken broiler currently reached 400.783, can be met by Rancamaya Farm is a 288.194. Along with the high education and people's income, then the demand for chicken broiler will progressively increase. This led to opportunities developed farms will increase anyway. The purpose of this research is to analyze the internal and external factors Rancamaya Farm as well as formulate strategies in developing his business. This research uses the qualitative method, as for the quantitative of with regard to internal factors (IFE) matrix, external factors (EFE) Matrix and internal-external (IE). After that, it was back in the analysis using the matrix Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) and architecture strategy. Respondents used in these studies amounted to 7 persons, with consideration of the respondents understand the external and internal condition of the company. The results of this research indicate that the position is located in Rancamaya Farm II which gives recommendations to grow and develop. The strategy that best suits your Rancamaya Farm is a strategy of intensive (market penetration, market development, and product development) or integrative (integration, integration of the back, and the horizontal integration). The results of the SWOT analysis produces 8 business strategic alternatives for Rancamaya Farm which is then poured into 18 work program needs to be done within a period of five years.

A potential source of lessons for agricultural modellers aspiring to influence farm decision making is the historical experience of agricultural economists in the field, variously termed ‘Farm Management Research’ or ‘Farm Management’. Although the histories of Farm Management in the USA and in Australia differ significantly, in both cases the field was originally characterised by pragmatic on-farm research by agricultural scientists and later taken over by agricultural economists committed to theory-based economic analysis to enable rational planning and decision making. But in both countries, it became painfully evident to reflective participants that model-based Farm Management was not proving relevant to practical managers of farms. An insightful few went further to conclude not just that theoretical models of practice had not been relevant but that they could not be relevant, and since the late 1970s, the field has been in crisis. In this series of 2 papers, we seek insights that might explain this extraordinary ‘market’ failure of models that generate theoretical best practice as a basis for intervention. As an ‘experiment’, the history of Farm Management is enriched by the discontinuity between 2 ‘eras’ characterised by 2 contrasting intervention approaches, an ‘early’ interactive and pragmatic era and a ‘late’ academic and theoretical era. In this first paper, after a brief history of the early pragmatic era and the ‘take-over’ by economic theorists, we analyse the ‘crisis of relevance’ that led to demise, relying heavily on the remarkable intellectual journey of John Dillon, the first Professor of Farm Management in Australia who turned from being elder economic theoretician to pioneer philosopher of pragmatic Farming Systems Research. The significant turn to Farming Systems Research by disillusioned Farm Management economists in the 1980s was preceded by a turn to another systems approach 2 decades earlier, that of agricultural systems modelling. Learning from the autecology of these significant systems efforts to influence the management of farms is the aim of the second paper in this series.

Questa tesi studia e valuta le tecniche agronomiche legate alla coltivazione del riso biologico nell'area del Nord Italia. Il finanziamento principale di questa tesi deriva dal progetto MIPAAF "Risobiosystems", iniziato nel 2017 e terminato nel 2020. Gli studi presentati sono collegati alla strategia europea di produzione alimentare sostenibile "Farm to Fork", che è il fulcro del Green Deal europeo per rendere i sistemi alimentari equi, sani e rispettosi dell'ambiente, incoraggiando l'espansione del settore dell'agricoltura biologica (Commissione europea 2020). Come riportato in letteratura, l'agricoltura biologica è in grado di ridurre l'impatto ambientale dell'agricoltura evitando l'uso di composti di sintesi (es. fertilizzanti, pesticidi) e favorendo pratiche (es. rotazione delle colture, leguminose, fertilizzanti organici, sovescio, verde pacciamatura.) in grado di aumentare lo stock di carbonio nel suolo e prevenire gli impatti ambientali indiretti dovuti alla produzione industriale di input (Acuna et al. 2018). Concentrandosi sul settore del riso, è stato osservato che il sistema organico è in grado di aumentare la capacità di stoccaggio del carbonio nel suolo (Komatsuzaki e Syuaib, 2010) e il contenuto di materia organica, facilitando la preparazione del suolo (Mendoza, 2004) e favorendo la successione ecologica e l'eterogeneità temporale delle comunità biologiche nel suolo (Martínez-Eixarch et al. 2017). Il lavoro di tesi una raccolta di articoli pubblicati o in corso di revisione, ogni capitolo riporta il mio contributo, e ogni connessione con altri lavori che sono stati avviati ed ancora in corso. Il capitolo I (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102739 ) rivela la mancanza di ricerca scientifica e informazioni sulla risicoltura biologica, soprattutto in Europa e in Italia. Lo studio presenta principalmente tre tecniche innovative di gestione delle erbe infestanti in risaia che possono essere considerate modelli adattabili nel loro contesto per la coltivazione del riso biologico. Questi modelli sono alla base di una lotta sostenibile contro i problemi ecologici e ambientali grazie al rigoroso divieto di sostanze chimiche come gli erbicidi. Nel lavoro emergono le metodologie la cui efficacia è stata ampiamente testata. In particolare la tecnica della “pacciamatura verde” utilizza colture di copertura (cover-crops) che controllano efficacemente le erbe infestanti grazie a quattro meccanismi principali. Il primo consiste nella parziale inibizione della germinazione delle erbe infestanti grazie alla competizione per l'acqua, i nutrienti e l'ombreggiamento, fenomeni causati dalla presenza di colture di copertura. La seconda consiste nell'effetto pacciamatura quando le cover-crops vengono sminuzzate o poste a terra con la semina del riso. Il terzo è rappresentato dai fenomeni di allelopatia che insorgono tra cover crops ed erbe infestanti (questo aspetto sarà approfondito nel Capitolo II, https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9030324 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356 -020-10140-4 ). Allo stesso tempo, il quarto meccanismo è legato all'accumulo di composti fitotossici a seguito della fermentazione provocata dall'acqua di immersione della risaia: l'ambiente anaerobico che si crea porta alla formazione di acidi organici come acido acetico, butirrico e propionico acido. L'allelopatia è un aspetto interessante offerto dalle piante in questa particolare agrotecnica. L'allelopatia generalmente produce e rilascia metaboliti secondari, generando effetti inibitori contro le specie vegetali vicine. La germinazione, la crescita e la riproduzione delle piante bersaglio possono così essere compromesse; questi aspetti sono stati approfonditi nel Capitolo II, partendo dall'esperienza degli agricoltori biologici. Lo studio mirava a definire l'azione inibitoria del Lolium multiflorum Lam., utilizzato come coltura di copertura prima della semina del riso nei confronti dell'Echinochloa oryzoides (Ard.) Fritsch è una delle principali infestanti del riso. Il Capitolo III si concentra sulla valutazione dell'impatto ambientale della coltivazione del riso biologico attraverso l'LCA considerando gli scenari produttivi e gli agrotecnici descritti nel Capitolo I. L'approccio LCA è stato adottato perché è largamente utilizzato per valutare l'impatto ambientale del processo agricolo. Tuttavia, da un punto di vista LCA, l'agricoltura biologica non è una risposta ovvia ai problemi ambientali perché LCA definisce la funzione del sistema studiato utilizzando una 'unità funzionale', che dovrebbe essere una misura precisa di ciò che il sistema offre ma non è in grado di considerare ad esempio effetti indiretti. Inoltre, studi LCA esprimono gli impatti per unità di un prodotto per impostazione predefinita. Tuttavia, l'agricoltura biologica generalmente emette meno inquinanti per unità di terra occupata rispetto all'agricoltura convenzionale (un approccio basato sulla superficie); può però avere impatti maggiori per unità di prodotto a causa delle sue rese inferiori per unità di superficie (van der Werf, 2020).
This thesis studies and evaluates the agronomical techniques associated with organic rice cultivation in the Northern Italy area. The study funding is from the Italian MIPAAF project "Risobiosystems", which started in 2017 and ended in 2020. The studies presented are connected to the European sustainable food production strategy "Farm to Fork," which is the core of the European Green Deal to make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally friendly, encouraging the expansion of the organic agriculture sector (European Commission 2020). As reported in the literature, organic farming is capable of reducing the environmental impact of agriculture by avoiding the use of synthetic compounds (e.g. fertilisers, pesticides) and by promoting practices (e.g. crop rotation, leguminous cultivation, organic fertilisers, green manure crops, green mulching.) able to increase the soil carbon stock, and prevent the indirect environmental impacts due to the industrial production of inputs (Acuna et al. 2018). Focusing on the rice sector, the organic system was observed able to increase the soil carbon storage capacity (Komatsuzaki and Syuaib, 2010) and organic matter content, facilitating the soil preparation (Mendoza, 2004) and promoting the ecological succession and temporal heterogeneity of the macrophyte communities into the soil (Martínez- Eixarch et al.; 2017). The thesis is a collection of articles published or under review associated with the organic rice production connected with Risobiosystems project results. Each paper explains my work and contribution, and each Chapter gave rise to new and ongoing studies. Chapter I (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.102739) reveals the lack of scientific research and information about organic rice farming, especially in Europe and Italy. The studies mainly propose three different weed management techniques in the paddy field that can be considered models that can be standardised on farms specialising in their use. These models are the basis of a sustainable fight against ecological and environmental problems thanks to the strict avoidance of chemicals such as herbicides. Value is given to methodologies whose effectiveness has been widely tested. The green mulching technique uses cover crops that effectively control weeds thanks to four main mechanisms. The first consists of the partial inhibition of weeds' germination thanks to competition for water, nutrients, and shading, which are phenomena caused by the presence of cover crops. The second consists of the mulching effect when the crops are chopped or placed on the ground with rice sowing. The third is represented by the phenomena of allelopathy that arise between cover crops and weeds (this aspect will be further explored in Chapter II, https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9030324, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10140-4 ). At the same time, the fourth mechanism is linked to the accumulation of phytotoxic compounds following the fermentation caused by the submersion water of the paddy field: the anaerobic environment that is created leads to the formation of organic acids such as acetic acid, butyric and propionic acid. Allelopathy is an interesting aspect offered by plants in this particular agrotechnical. Allelopathy generally produces and releases secondary metabolites, generating inhibitory effects against nearby plant species. The germination, growth and reproduction of target plants can thus be impaired; these aspects were deepened in Chapter II, starting from the organic farmers' experience. The study aimed to define the inhibitory action of Lolium multiflorum Lam., used as a cover crop before rice sowing against Echinochloa oryzoides (Ard.) Fritsch is one of the main rice weeds. Chapter III focuses on evaluating the environmental impact of organic rice cultivation through LCA considering the production scenarios and the agrotechnics described in Chapter I. The LCA approach was adopted because it is largely used to assess the environmental impact of the agriculture process. However, from an LCA viewpoint, organic agriculture is not an obvious answer to environmental problems because LCA defines the function of the studied system using a 'functional unit', which should be a precise measure of what the system delivers but is not able to consider for example indirect effects. Furthermore, LCAs express impacts per unit of a product by default. However, organic agriculture generally emits fewer pollutants per unit of land occupied than conventional agriculture (an area-based approach); it may have higher impacts per unit of product due to its lower yields per unit area (van der Werf, 2020).

AbstractThis chapter studies the polarisation of 1970s’ British farm animal welfare politics and Ruth Harrison’s career as a full-time public campaigner on the RSPCA Council and as head of her own welfare Trust. Polarised conflicts triggered a professionalisation of RSPCA campaigning. The Society adopted new public pressure tactics, established expert committees, and started commissioning behavioural research. Internal tensions over elite “field sports” also led to the formation of the RSPCA Reform Group. Reform Group members oversaw a streamlining of RSPCA management and leadership. They also popularised animal rights thinking. Ruth Harrison supported opposition to “field sports” and helped trigger the internal crisis that led to the Reform Group’s formation. However, tensions over her role on FAWAC and her focus on gradualist reforms isolated Harrison. Forced to declare bankruptcy after a libel suit against another Council member, Harrison focused on developing her own Farm Animal Care Trust (FACT).

AbstractThis chapter traces the evolution of welfare science and the marketisation of farm animal welfare between 1980 and 2000. During this time, dedicated welfare publications soared, and welfare scientists obtained prestigious university posts. The field’s growth was aided by assurance schemes for animal welfare, which enabled mutually beneficial cooperation between researchers, industry, and NGOs like the RSPCA, whose Freedom Foods Label enjoyed great popularity from 1994 onwards. Assurance schemes shifted welfare politics to the marketplace and generated funds for research and NGOs. They also deescalated frontstage welfare politics by restricting access to corporate- and expert-led discussions about standards and enforcement. Ruth Harrison was sceptical of label claims and welfare’s transition from a moral into an economic value. Meanwhile, researchers continued to disagree on how to define welfare. While most researchers remained confident in their ability to produce meaningful results, animal welfare science entered a prolonged phase of epistemic navel-gazing.

AbstractThe Research on Poverty, Environment, and Agricultural Technology (RePEAT) project was initiated in 2003 by a small group led by Takashi Yamano, Keijiro Otsuka, and Frank Place. The original focus was to understand how to enhance the income of small farm households in East African countries by increasing crop production combined with improved cattle raising and agroforestry. Until now, the number of contributors and the coverage of this project have been expanding. This chapter summarizes the findings and achievements of the project by reviewing the papers that used RePEAT data. It also discusses the future directions of the project.

AbstractIn Tanzania, about 90% of the banana-coffee-based farming systems lie in the hands of smallholder farmer families. In these systems, smallholder farmers traditionally add farm waste to crop fields, making soils rich in organic matter (humus) and plant-available nutrients. Correspondingly, soils remained fertile during cultivation for over a century. Since the 1960s, the increasing demand for food and biofuels of a growing population has resulted in an overuse of these farming systems, which has occurred in tandem with deforestation, omitted fallows, declined farm size, and soil erosion. Hence, humus and nutrient contents in soils have decreased and soils gradually degraded. Inadequate use of farm waste has led to a further reduction in soil fertility, as less organic material is added to the soils for nutrient supply than is removed during harvesting. Acknowledging that the traditional use of farm waste successfully built up soil fertility over a century and has been reduced in only a few decades, we argue that traditional composting practices can play a key role in rebuilding soil fertility, if such practices are adapted to face the modern challenges. In this chapter, we discuss two cases in Tanzania: one on the traditional use of compost in the Kagera region (Great African Rift Valley) and another about adapted practices to produce compost manure in the Morogoro region (Uluguru Mountains). Both cases refer to rainfed, smallholder banana-coffee-based farming systems. To conclude, optimised composting practices enable the replenishment of soil nutrients, increase the capacity of soils to store plant-available nutrients and water and thus, enhance soil fertility and food production in degraded banana-coffee-based farming systems. We further conclude that future research is needed on a) nutrient cycling in farms implementing different composting practices and on b) socio-economic analyses of farm households that do not successfully restore soil fertility through composting.

Agricultural production in the Caribbean is being threatened by many factors such as decreasing availability of arable land, climate change effects such as increased incidences of flooding and drought, labour shortages, and competition from importers. However, one of the most important threats to agricultural production is the often under-recognised and under-reported area of farm theft (referred to as praedial larceny in the Caribbean). It involves the theft of agricultural produce (crops, livestock and fisheries) and farm equipment. One of the main reasons why this threat is so important is that theft of this type is very hard to prove. If indeed perpetrators are caught, and prosecuted successfully, the penalty is practically negligible. This paper examines the current status of farm theft in the Caribbean region, explores some of the main factors influencing farm theft, reviews some of the strategies attempted in the Caribbean and other places around the world and makes several suggestions to create a more secure food region. While the discussion calls on food producers to take several best practice actions to mitigate losses to praedial larceny, it emphasises that the primary responsibility is with government-led actions in the areas of modernised policies, updated laws and enhanced enforcement efforts.

Conventional agriculture plays a substantial role in meeting the food demands of a growing human population, which has led to an increased reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Chemical fertilizers are industrially manipulated substances and composed of known amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. In appropriate and misuse use of chemical fertilizers causes air and ground water pollution by eutrophication of water bodies and causing health problem in human. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to emphasize the importance and use of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) as a gateway to sustainable agriculture that could ensure plant productivity and quality agricultural practices in an environment friendly manner. In this respect, efforts have been made to products of nutrient rich high-quality food in feasible way to ensure bio-safety. The innovative aspect of farm production attracts the need of biological based organic fertilizers, an exclusive alternative to agro-chemicals. Organic farming is one of such strategies that not only ensures food safety but also adds to the biodiversity of soil. The eco-friendly approaches trigger a wide range of application of PGPB that leads to improved plant growth, soil health, nutrient uptake and plant tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress. PGPB is an essential component of organic farming and play crucial role in maintaining long term soil fertility and sustainability and would be a viable alternative for farmers to increase productivity per unit area in organic farming for an era of prosperity and clean environment.

Understanding the factors related to destructive ecological processes in the tropics has expanded significantly in the last decade. Much has been learned about heterogeneity in geomorphology, soils, hydrology, and climate and about associated vulnerability to ecological damage. Research on cropping systems has divulged both the suitability and the liability in swidden agricultural practices and has led to recommendations involving alternative cropping and agroforestry complexes (Altieri 1987). At the same time, there has been a growing awareness that a more comprehensive knowledge of tropical ecology and enlarged technological and/or agricultural options will not necessarily affect a sustainable ecology (Altieri and Hecht 1990; Redclift 1984, 1987). Research on peasant economies in Latin America and elsewhere has demonstrated the existence of a highly differentiated peasantry, the vast majority of whom are landless or land-poor and who are more dependent on income earned from off-farm than from on-farm sources (Collins 1986; Deere and Wasserstrom 1981; Stonich 1991b). Such studies have demonstrated that systemic interconnections among family and corporate farmers with landholdings of all sizes promote environmental destruction (Stonich 1989); have established the existence of labor scarcity rather than labor surpluses in many peasant communities and the related environmental consequences (Brush 1977,1987; Collins 1987,1988; Posner and MacPherson 1982; Stonich 1993); and have called for rural and agricultural development policy that takes into account a socially differentiated peasantry and diversified rural poverty (de Janvry and Sadoulet 1989). It is increasingly evident that ecological destruction cannot be fathomed apart from the demographic, institutional, and social factors that influence the agricultural practices and other natural resource management decisions of agricultural producers. This paper describes a multidisciplinary methodology designed to examine the interactions among demographic trends, social processes, agricultural production decisions, and ecological decline in southern Honduras, a region characterized by widespread and worsening human impoverishment and environmental degradation. The methodology integrated the research efforts and databases compiled by anthropologists from the University of Kentucky using a farming systems approach, who were part of the socioeconomic component of the International Sorghum Millet Project (INTSORMIL) with potentially complementary research conducted by the natural and agricultural scientists working as part of the Comprehensive Resource Inventory and Evaluation System Project (CRIES) at Michigan State University.

The insufficient knowledge regarding safe and proper pesticide handling by farmers in developing countries has led to extensive agricultural expansions at the expense of the health of farmers. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and field practices of farmers regarding pesticide handling, and to determine the prevalence of acute and chronic health-related problems in Finchawa and Tullo rural Kebeles of Hawassa City Administration. A cross-sectional mixed methods research design was employed to capture the fuller image of the issue. Farmers’ knowledge regarding pesticide handling and toxicity found to be on average. The odds of the knowledge concerning proper pesticide handling was positively influenced by the factor of age, access to training; and years of experience; Field practices adopted by farmers were disappointing and intentional suicide incidents among teenagers were the result of farmers’ unsafe storage. Nearly all the farmers did not use any means of PPE, and the lack of awareness about the dermal route presented a high risk of exposure. The common self-reported toxicity symptoms experienced by the participants included a headache (84.93%) and slow heartbeats (72.60%). The odds of prevalence of long-term toxicity symptoms found to be negatively correlated with the training factor while the same was positively influenced by the working hours in the farm. The study revealed that there is a high risk of exposure among farmers and their families in the study area.

Offshore wind assets have reached multi-GW scale and additional capacity is being installed and developed. To achieve demanding cost of energy targets, awarded by competitive auctions, the operation and maintenance (O&M) of these assets has to become increasingly efficient, whilst ensuring compliance and effectiveness. Existing offshore wind farm assets generate a significant amount of inhomogeneous data related to O&M processes. These data contain rich information about the condition of the assets, which is rarely fully utilized by the operators and service providers. Academic and industrial research and development efforts have led to a suite of tools trying to apply sensor data and build machine learning models to diagnose, trend and predict component failures. This study presents a decision support framework incorporating a range of different supervised and un-supervised learning algorithms. The aim is to provide guidance for asset owners on how to select the most relevant datasets, apply and choose the different machine learning algorithms and how to integrate the data stream with daily maintenance procedures. The presented methodology is tested on a real case example of an offshore wind turbine gearbox replacement at Teesside offshore wind farm. The study uses k-nearest neighbour (kNN) and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms to detect the fault using supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) data and an autoregressive model for the vibration data of the condition monitoring system (CMS). The implementation of all the algorithms has resulted in an accuracy higher than 94%. The results of this paper will be of interest to offshore wind farm developers and operators to streamline and optimize their O&M planning activities for their assets and reduce the associated costs.

Abstract In the past 70 years the world has relied extensively for its energy needs based on hydrocarbons produced significantly offshore. In recent years many installations with fixed platforms and pipelines are reaching the end of their useful life and are required by law to be decommissioned and removed if an approved alternative use cannot be found. This process coincides with focus on decarbonization arising from global warming and climate change. The conventional way of decommissioning is to remove the structure and take it onshore for disposal. Such an activity costs around £28 million for smaller UKCS installations in the Southern North Sea. Possible alternative solutions include their use as a research-leisure complex and artificial reef. Such an approach would have less impact on the environment and it is therefore worthwhile to explore the feasibility of repurposing these decommissioned UKCS platforms. The paper begins by highlighting the background to UKCS offshore decommissioning and farming fish life-cycle. This is followed by a critical review of the three options of total and partial removals and leave-on-site. It is found that repurposing decommissioned platforms for aquaculture farm has not been given sufficient attention and thus offers scope for a project to explore the feasibility of such a solution. Existing offshore fish farming in various countries are examined before using a decision-making matrix to select the most suitable UKCS installation for conversion and this led to using a normally unattended gas platform for the case study. The focus for this paper is on design and operation of an unattended fish farm and its cost benefit analysis. The former covers fish cage selection, capacity calculation, fish handling procedures, fish feed characteristics, feed demand, designing feed logistics and storage system. The processing facilities are layout on two decks and power needs are generated using a hybrid system of diesel and Li-ion battery. The possibility of using renewable sources by connecting to wind energy grids was also considered. For the latter capital and operating expenditure, revenue generated and maintenance costs are estimated before performing net present value prediction of the profitability of the fish farm over 10 years with for example up to 8 cages and three discount rates. The main conclusions derived are: It is technically feasible to convert a decommissioned gas platform to a fish farm and the operation can be economic. However, liability transfer implications in a repurposed offshore decommissioned gas platforms to fish farms were not established to verify the project viability. The conversion of unattended offshore gas platforms in the UKCS to an automated offshore fish farm is a novel solution which has not been implemented in the North Sea before. The work will provide an economic and environmental friendly solution to decommissioning offshore platforms and provide with a possible profitable investment.

In Lithuania, besides the usual farming technologies, starting precision agriculture (PA). The basic principle of the PA is to focus technological operations on the conditions located in separate field locations. When there in separate fields is a significant difference in the amount of nutrients in the soil, the distribution of weeds or diseases, then the crop fertilization and maintenance operations must be precisely adapted to these differences. Most importantly, these differences in soil and crops can be captured and converted into correspondingly differentiated instructions for agricultural machinery. This ensures the timely use of appropriate material resources, helps to optimize yields at the lowest cost, reduce environmental pollution and increase economic returns. The purpose of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of economic indicators for spring wheat cultivation by using a usual intensive and PA technologies, and to determine the financial effect. Novelty of this study are the new approach and new method for financial effect calculations in Lithuania, they can lead to future deeper analysis of money return related with PA technologies. The tests for a year 2014-2015 was carried out on A. Bardauskas farm in Raseiniai district, and in year 2016 on ASU testing station in Kaunas district. Economic indicators of spring wheat cultivation by using conventional intensive and precision farming (PA) technologies was determined, i.e. additional cost-benefit effect was calculated and the financial effect generated. Underlying research shows that better economic indicators are obtained through the using of PA technology. It was determined that the cost of mineral fertilizers during spring wheat cultivation in accordance with the PA technology was lower in the two analyzed years and slightly higher in one year than the conventional intensive agricultural technology. The decline in fertilizer costs also led to a decrease in yield, which resulted in less incomes for one year from precision farming than the use of conventional intensive agricultural technology, and received a negative financial effect. In the other two years of analysis, additional revenues from spring wheat cultivation with PA technology exceeded the additional costs related with this technology and received a positive financial effect. Due to the reduced yield, the incomes for precision farming in 2014 were 41.6 Eur/ha less, and in 2015 and 2016, respectively, 12.8 Eur/ha and 30.58 Eur/ha higher than for the conventional intensive farming technology

The floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) market is currently dominated by single unit demonstration projects and first pre-commercial wind farms such as the Hywind Scotland wind farm. Today’s FOWT substructure design process is therefore not yet at a level of industrialization comparable to fixed-bottom substructure design methodologies, where standardized design and realization procedures are well established throughout the industry. Aligned with work performed in the Ramboll and University of Stuttgart-led work packages “Concept Industrialization” and “Design practice” of the European H2020 LIFES50+ project, the ambition of this paper is to define state-of-the-art fixed-bottom and floating design methods and based on these identify key differences through comparative analysis. In the first part of the paper the scope and selected details of today’s industrialized design process for fixed-bottom substructure design is presented, including e.g. load iteration schemes and applied numerical methods, risk assessment incorporation, optimization, and cost modelling. In the second part, the key elements of this industrialized procedure which are different to FOWT design are identified and described: This is done based on a review of the current FOWT common design practice, where elements are identified that are unique and/or different for FOWTs — this includes e.g. the requirement to adapt the controller to the specific platform behaviour, as well as a tower and/or selected rotor-nacelle assembly (RNA) component redesign, and also includes differences in terms of defining and performing load case simulations. Another observation that is described relates to the floating specific required numerical methodologies applied for the detailed structural and mooring design, where challenges exist regarding the interface between coupled global loads analyses tools and detailed structural, mooring, and geotechnical tools. A further key item discussed in this respect is the industry-common load exchange practice for fixed-bottom design, where only a limited data exchange between WT manufacturers and platform designers is done; a procedure that is challenging to be applied for FOWTs. Compared with fixed-bottom design, the consideration of manufacturability, fabrication constraints, serial production, design complexity reduction, assembly, supply chain, installation, geotechnics, O&M and risk is often limited and these items will also be briefly discussed. Overall the paper is intended as a technical review of existing fixed-bottom design procedures and, facilitated through the comparative analysis with these established design methodologies, identifies and presents the key differentiating design elements and challenges for an industrialized FOWT design. The content of the paper will provide input for the focused development of design processes for industrialized detailed design of FOWTs to guarantee the demanded technology-readiness and manufacturing-readiness levels (TRL and MRL) and ultimately improve their CAPEX and OPEX by applying industrial design procedures. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 640741 (LIFES50+ project, www.lifes50plus.eu).

A research team at UVM, led by Dr. Carol Adair and Dr. Heather Darby, is evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of four different tillage approaches (conventional, strip, vertical, and no till) and two different methods of manure application (broadcast and injection). The goal is to determine the practices best suited for reducing greenhouse gas emission, improving carbon storage and limiting nitrogen losses. The team measures carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from the treatments every two weeks or more frequently after events (large rainfall, manure application) using a measuring device called photoacoustic multigas monitor.