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BackgroundIn this study, we aimed to address the low utilization of straw and poor fermentation quality of paper mulberry silage (under natural fermentation conditions). Straw was combined with paper mulberry for ensiling, and the fermentation characteristics, bacterial community, and metabolite composition of the mixed straw and paper mulberry silage were investigated. Four treatment groups were established: corn-straw treatment 2 (3:7 ratio of corn straw to paper mulberry), corn-straw treatment 3 (5:5 ratio of corn straw to paper mulberry), wheat-straw treatment 2 (3:7 ratio of wheat straw to paper mulberry), wheat-straw treatment 3 (5:5 ratio of wheat straw to paper mulberry), and a control group (ensiling of paper mulberry alone).ResultsThe control group demonstrated the highest pH and ammonia (AN) and acetic acid (AA) content compared with all the treatment groups. Corn-straw treatment 2 had the highest lactic acid content (54.70 g/kg dry weight) compared with the control and other treatment groups. The relative abundance of Enterobacter (7.085%) was the lowest in the control than in the other treatment groups (p

Based on the panel data of the province and municipality in 2010-2021, this paper measures the fishery eco-efficiency by using the SBM-DEA model and empirically analyses how China's marine ranch construction improves the fishery eco-efficiency by using the double-difference fixed-effect model. The results show that, firstly, China's marine ranch construction can improve the fishery eco-efficiency. Secondly, China's marine ranch construction promotes fisheries eco-efficiency by improving the input efficiency of labor, fish species, fishing vessel, fishery technology extension, aquaculture area and by reducing pollutant outputs. Thirdly, the fishery eco-efficiency of the marine ranch construction region has increased annually since 2015, and technological changes, scale efficiency changes and technical efficiency changes can all contribute to the fishery eco-efficiency improvement, and increase in order. Based on the results of the empirical analyses, this paper proposes policy recommendations to improve the fishery eco-efficiency in the conjunction with the construction of marine ranch in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Export quality improvement is a crucial path for a country or region to climb up the advanced division of labor in the global value chain. For developing countries that have long been at the lower end of the global value chain division of labor, the dominance of agricultural trade is often controlled by international retailers, leading to higher costs of agricultural trade and hindering the upgrading of the quality of agricultural exports. As a traditional agricultural exporting country, China still needs a competitive advantage despite the large scale of its agricultural exports. Currently, e-commerce can provide buyers and sellers with comprehensive transaction information and technical support, allowing them to realize rational allocation of resources and export upgrading. Therefore, studying how e-commerce can promote the quality upgrade of agricultural exports is crucial for China to build a trade power. Methods: This paper clarifies the mechanism of e-commerce's theoretical impact on the quality of agricultural exports and then empirically tests it using a high-dimensional fixed-effects model with Chinese customs data from 2000 to 2020 as a sample. Results: The results show that e-commerce significantly promotes the quality of agricultural exports in all regions of China, and this conclusion still holds after various robustness tests; the heterogeneity test shows that e-commerce fosters the quality of agricultural exports in eastern China, densely populated regions, and economically underdeveloped regions, especially in the case of heterogeneous products; the mechanism analysis confirms that e-commerce promotes the quality of agricultural exports mainly through the optimization of the agricultural industry chain and supply chain, and the enhancement of the level of servicing. Mechanism analysis confirms that e-commerce improves agricultural export quality mainly through optimizing the agricultural industry chain and supply chain, improving the level of servitization, and docking the demand information of the consumer market, etc. Expanded analysis shows that constructing cross-border e-commerce platforms also significantly improves the quality of micro enterprises' agricultural exports. This paper enriches the research on e-commerce and agricultural trade. Discussion: This paper provides an essential reference for constructing a robust agricultural trade country and developing high-quality agriculture. Despite encompassing data up to 2020, in the context of today's global economic volatility directly affecting agricultural trade, future investigations will broaden the scope to delve deeper into how e-commerce can help countries cope with global economic uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcoholic beverages have been a significant industry. However, they present food safety risks, necessitating heightened regulation and monitoring. The safety risk assessment of alcoholic beverages encompasses a variety of factors, including microorganisms, excessive methanol content, chemical adulteration, and food additives. The data used in this paper is sourced from the National Food Safety Sampling Inspection Results Query System in China. The primary conclusions are as follows: (1) A deviation reconstruction-based multi-weight decision model is proposed, which incorporates three distinct weight acquisition methods to perform optimization calculations. (2) The comparative investigations serve as evidence of the risk assessment model's effectiveness. (3) The multi-weight decision model based on deviation reconstruction and the NSGA-II (non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II) exhibit excellent adaptability. The results of the risk assessment are analyzed, and recommendations are offered based on the categories of alcoholic beverages and the detection indicators. This paper investigates the regulation of food safety and the identification of risks in intoxicating beverages. It also transitions the response to food safety risks from a passive to an active protection strategy. This method has the potential to improve the public's perception of safety and satisfaction with food-related concerns, as well as to provide the industry with practical solutions for sustainable growth. Simultaneously, this document establishes new risk assessment regulations for alcoholic beverages, offering recommendations for enhancing regulatory efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Although rural industrial integration is a crucial pathway for advancing the revitalization of rural economies, it continues to grapple with financial challenges. This paper delves into the theoretical underpinnings of how capital marketization influences rural industrial integration. Methods: Using panel data from China's provinces spanning the years 2010 to 2020, a comprehensive index of rural industrial integration is constructed from the vantage point of a new development paradigm. The paper employs the system GMM method to empirically investigate the impact of capital marketization on rural industrial integration and to dissect its transmission mechanisms. Additionally, a threshold regression model is applied to explore the specific patterns of the nonlinear relationship between the two variables. Results and discussion: The study's findings reveal that the degree of rural industrial integration is significantly and positively influenced by its previous level, demonstrating an accumulative effect wherein the prior level of integration lays the groundwork for future advancements. The influence of capital marketization on the degree of rural industrial integration is characterized by a non-linear relationship, adhering to a "U-shaped" curve. Below the inflection point, the development of capital marketization is detrimental to rural industrial integration, whereas above this point, it exerts a positive influence. Currently, China's overall level of capital marketization is positioned beyond the inflection point, indicating substantial potential for enhancing industry integration in rural China. In addition, the study indicates that at very low levels of economic development, capital marketization does not affect the development of rural industries. As the economic development level rises, so does the impact of capital marketization on rural industrial integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Eradicating poverty is the primary objective of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While China has achieved great success in achieving poverty reduction targets, reducing the poverty vulnerability of rural households is crucial for ensuring the sustainability of poverty reduction gains. The purpose of land transfer is to ensure the continuous increase of farmers' income through efficient land use; it has become an important initiative for poverty alleviation in rural areas. Existing studies have confirmed the positive effect of land transfer on poverty alleviation, but few have explored the difference in the impact of land transfer on poverty vulnerability of households with different income structures. Methods: Using data from the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS) from 2010 to 2020, this paper empirically examines the impact of land transfer on poverty vulnerability. Results and discussion: The results show that land transfer has a significant positive impact on poverty vulnerability alleviation among rural households. Further comparing households with different livelihood structures, we find that land transfer is more effective in reducing poverty for non-farm employment-oriented household. Therefore, we suggest that the government should improve the land transfer system, increase agricultural subsidies, and consider the occupational differentiation among farmers to improve the poverty reduction effect of land transfer. These suggestions also provide a reference for promoting sustainable agricultural development and consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The adoption of new agricultural technologies is one of the key factors for achieving sustainable agricultural development. With the rapid development of China's economy and the widening gap between urban and rural areas, it has become the norm for farmers to seek employment outside their home villages. This phenomenon not only changes the lifestyle of farmers but may also affect their attitudes toward and adoption behavior of new agricultural technologies. However, existing research in this field is not yet sufficient. This paper aims to assess the overall impact, heterogeneous effects, and mechanisms of action of migrant work experience on farmers' willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies. Methods: Based on the 8,391 sample data from 243 counties in the 2018 China Labor Force Dynamic Survey (CLDS2018), this paper uses the Linear Probability Model (LPM), Two Stage Least Square (2SLS), Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) methods, and omitted variable test to estimate the impact of migrant work experience on farmers' willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies. Simultaneously, it explored the heterogeneity in the relationship between migrant work experience and the willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies from the perspectives of gender, age, and educational level. Lastly, the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) model was utilized to analyze the mechanisms through which migrant work experience affects farmers' willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies. Results: Migrant work experience significantly enhances farmers' willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies, with the probability of willingness among farmers with migrant work experience being 26.65% higher than that of farmers without such experience. At the same time, compared to female farmers, those born before 1980, and those with primary education or less, this enhancing effect is more pronounced among male farmers, those born after 1980, and those with more than a primary education. Furthermore, it was found that migrant work experience not only directly enhances farmers' willingness to adopt new agricultural technologies but also indirectly promotes it by increasing capital accumulation, enhancing risk awareness, expanding social networks, and strengthening agricultural cognition, with risk awareness and agricultural cognition playing a larger indirect role. Conclusion: Based on the empirical results, this paper suggests actively guiding farmers with migrant work experience to adopt new agricultural technologies, and encouraging return migrant labor with the intention of resettling in rural areas to engage in agriculture again, to further promote the adoption of new agricultural technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: China is the largest producer, consumer, and trader of grain. Changes in China's agricultural policies will affect global food trade and thus impact food security. In this paper, we use China's maize subsidy system reform (MSSR) as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the impact of marketoriented reforms in price support policy on the productivity of grain. Methods: We use official Chinese government panel data on farm households and a PSM-DID model to overcome the endogeneity problem of policy change. Results and discussion: The empirical results show that MSSR can increase maize productivity. The MSSR is divided into two phases: eliminating the maize purchase price and implementing maize producer subsidies. The policy effect of eliminating the purchase price exceeds the implementation of producer subsidies. Further analysis reveals that for farmers with a larger scale of cultivation, higher level of specialization, and higher degree of part-time employment, the MSSR enhances their productivity more significantly. In the high quartile, the MSSR reduces farmers' productivity. In the low quartile, the MSSR raises farmers' productivity, suggesting that the MSSR reduces the productivity differences among farmers. The results of our study suggest that market-based reform of price subsidies is an effective institutional arrangement to mitigate resource mismatch and increase food productivity, and point to the need to continue to improve the MSSR, explore diversified maize producer subsidy policies, and take into account the impact of other subsidies on farmers' maize production behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Compliance with the latest patterns in online consumption of fresh agricultural products should prioritize the shifts in consumer behavior. This study aimed to clarify the influencing factors of consumers' channel migration behavior of fresh agricultural products. While the migration of consumers' consumption of fresh agricultural products to online channels is an undeniable fact, and this trend continues, literature on this topic remains limited. Methods: Based on SOR theory, and from the dual perspectives of information transmission and information reception, this study exploratively introduced the network affinity of consumers, and constructed the concept model of the influencing factors of consumers' channel migration behavior of fresh agricultural products including information acquisition and risk perception. 416 valid questionnaires were used to conduct structural equation model analysis. Results: The results confirm that product information and platform information significantly affect consumers' channel migration behavior of fresh agricultural products. Product information including feature information and price information has a positive influence on consumers' channel migration behavior of fresh agricultural products. The same is true for such behavior and the platform information including service information and logistics information. Risk perception plays a partial mediating role in the influence of product information variables and platform information variables on consumers' online purchasing and migration behavior of fresh agricultural products. Network affinity negatively moderates the causal relationship between product information and risk perception as well as that between platform information and risk perception. The effect is more pronounced for consumers with high network affinity than those with low network affinity. Discussion: The study presented in this paper offers a replicable theoretical framework for future discussions on consumer channel migration behavior, and enriches the literature on consumer online consumption behavior. It is highly meaningful for further improving the online consumption stickiness, tapping the potential of online consumption and improving the circulation efficiency of fresh agricultural products in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural modernization can only be attained through the high-quality development of agriculture, which is made possible by the deep integration of the digital economy with traditional agriculture. From the perspective of the entire agricultural industry chain, this paper offers a theoretical and empirical examination of the digital economy's role in enabling high-quality agricultural development. The fixed effects model, convergence test, threshold model, and spatial error model were implemented based on the panel data of 13 cities in Jiangsu Province from 2013 to 2021 to validate the role of the digital economy in enabling high-quality agricultural development. The findings indicated that first, for every 1% increased in the level of digital economy development, the level of high-quality agricultural development increased by approximately 0.183%. Second, the high-quality development of agriculture had the characteristics of absolute convergence and conditional convergence, and there was a non-linear character in the role of the digital economy in the high-quality agricultural development. Third, for every 1% increase in the development level of digital inclusive finance, the level of high-quality agricultural development in surrounding areas with similar economic levels will be improved by about 0.188%.In this regard, Jiangsu Province should grasp the opportunity of the era of digital economic development, continue to strengthen the construction of digital economic development in backward areas, and attach great importance to inter-regional exchanges and cooperation in the construction of digital agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing farmers' grain profits is crucial for enhancing the sustainability of grain production and ensuring food security. As a widely applied agricultural management means at present, agricultural productive services are of great significance to study whether they can help increase farmers' grain profits. This paper uses the micro-farmer data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS). It employs an endogenous switching regression model and causal mediation analysis methods, which can address endogenous issues, to examine the impact of agricultural productive services on farmers' grain profits and their underlying mechanisms. The results show: (1) Agricultural productive services significantly increase farmers' grain profits and this conclusion is still robust after the robustness test. (2) The mechanism analysis indicates that agricultural productive services increase farmers' grain profits through three pathways: yield enhancement, cost reduction, and efficiency improvement. (3) The heterogeneity analysis shows that agricultural productive services have a greater impact on increasing grain profits for farmers with lower grain profits, smaller operating scales, and lower degrees of farmland fragmentation. Our findings suggest that increasing support for agricultural productive services, fully leveraging the radiative driving role of service providers, and offering farmers various forms of productive services will be key measures to enhance farmers' grain profits, promote sustainable grain production, and ensure food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the transformative potential of fourth industrial revolution (called Industry 4.0) technologies in the context of poverty elimination, with a particular focus on Africa. Given the multidimensional nature of poverty, which spans economic, social, and environmental aspects, there is a critical need for innovative and sustainable solutions. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review to identify how recent advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, blockchain, big data, and 5G can be harnessed to address various facets of poverty. Drawing on insights from existing research and expert opinions, we propose a conceptual framework that integrates these technologies with strategic policy interventions, infrastructure development, and capacity building. The paper proposes a framework that illustrates the prerequisite requirements before adopting Industry 4.0 technologies in poverty elimination efforts. This framework aims to ensure that the benefits of technological innovations are accessible to the most vulnerable populations, thereby contributing to the broader goals of socioeconomic development and poverty reduction. The work shows that while Industry 4.0 presents a critical opportunity for sustainable development and poverty elimination in Africa, it needs to have essential capacities to optimize the use of observations, visualizations, and mindset management before or when adopting the first stage of Industry 4.0 solutions for poverty elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the ongoing process of high-quality development in the new era, which is focused on improving total factor productivity, it is of great importance to explore the spatial and temporal variations of total factor productivity growth and its driving factors in China's county regions' grain cultivation industry. This paper employs a three-stage DEA-Malmquist productivity method, the Gini coefficient method, and a panel fixed-effects model to analyze data from Chinese counties between 2009 and 2019. The analysis indicates that the growth of county food total factor productivity (FTFP) exhibits a fluctuating upward trend during the examination period, with an average annual growth rate of 2.43%. This is primarily driven by technological progress, yet the core driving role of technological efficiency is not effectively played. The average annual growth rate of county FTFP varies across different regions. The highest average annual growth rate of county FTFP in the eastern region and the primary grain-producing area is 2.75 and 3.04%, respectively. The lowest growth rates were observed in the western region and the main grain marketing area, at 1.44 and 1.23%, respectively. Secondly, the Gini coefficient of county FTFP continues to demonstrate a persistent upward trend during the examination period, with an average annual growth rate of 14.729%. The primary factor contributing to the observed variation in total factor productivity growth of the food sector at the regional level is the existence of disparate technological progress. Thirdly, there is a notable positive correlation between county financial deepening and financial self-sufficiency rates and county FTFP growth, with impact coefficients of 0.0503 and 0.0924, respectively. Conversely, county population density, degree of economic development, farmers' income level, and industrial structure exert a significant negative influence on county FTFP growth and technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the EU, policies towards territorial development and the sustainability of agrofood systems are exemplified above all in Pillar II of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). However, policies for the promotion of sustainable food systems and networks are mainly driven by municipalities and large cities. In order to understand multi-level configurations of policies to promote Sustainable Food Systems (SFS), this paper strives to identify the challenges that municipal policymakers face in implementing sustainable agro-food policies, from a multilevel governance perspective. To this end, and through in-depth interviews and secondary documentation analysis, the policies implemented in 10 different municipalities of the Madrid Region (Spain) are studied and the challenges these municipalities are facing are analysed from a multi-scale and territorialised perspective. The following research objectives are addressed: (1) description of the type of policies implemented for the promotion of SFS and the narrative frameworks in which they are shaped; (2) identification of challenges of local policies to support SFS especially governance challenges; and (3) proposals for the promotion of sustainable food systems through a multi-level, territorialised governance perspective. The paper identifies three main axes of tension and discoordination--municipal Vs regional powers; agricultural vs. food policies; and rural vs. urban territories--that constrains the sustainability potential of multi-level agro food policies. Finally, we provide a comprehensive, sustainable scheme to assess local agro-food governance throughout a multi-level and multi-actor approach, setting interrelations between the different levels, actors and agencies involved to overcome the lock-ins identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Digital agricultural technology service has the characteristics of high efficiency, convenience and flexibility, and plays an important role in the process of Chinese agricultural digitalization, which is of great significance for realizing the modernization and intelligent development of agricultural production. Methods: Based on micro-survey data of small-scale farmers in Sichuan Province, this study utilizes the OLS method and the mediation effect model to investigate the impact of digital agricultural technology services on farmers' willingness to adopt digital production technologies and its underlying mechanisms. Results: The results indicate that digital agricultural technology services effectively enhance farmers' willingness to adopt digital production technologies, especially among those engaged in cooperative. Further analysis of mechanisms suggests that digital agricultural technology services influence farmers' choices of household production and management methods by expanding their information channels, enhancing their cognition of digital production technologies, and facilitating access to technology. Moreover, heterogeneous analysis reveals significant differences in the willingness of farmers with varying levels of digital literacy to adopt digital production technologies. Digital agricultural technology services have a more pronounced impact on the willingness of highly digitally literate farmers. Discussion: The findings of this paper deepen our comprehension of the operational mechanisms of digital agricultural technology services in the context of agricultural development, and advocate for policy recommendations such as enhancing the supply of digital agricultural technology services, strengthening the role of new agricultural entities, improving farmers' digital literacy training, and enhancing policy support systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The global trend toward consuming green food is on the rise. College students, as the future consumer base, have sparked significant interest in their inclination toward consuming environmentally-friendly foods. This paper integrates the Theory of Planned Behavior with the Norm Activation Theory to investigate the factors influencing college students' propensity to choose green foods, establishing a comprehensive model. Methods: This study utilized online and paper questionnaires for data collection, distributing them among college students and receiving 350 valid responses. In the data analysis phase, SPSS was employed for statistical data analysis, including descriptive statistics and regression analysis, while AMOS was used for structural equation modeling. Results and discussion: The data analysis results indicate that subjective norms, behavioral attitudes, and individual norms have a significant positive influence on college students' inclination to purchase green food. Purchase intention is indirectly influenced by personal norms and behavioral attitudes through perceptions of consequences. Responsibility attribution indirectly impacts purchase intention of green food through personal norms. Personal norms are indirectly influenced by responsibility attribution through perceptions of consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the configuration theory, this paper discusses the multiple concurrent causes and causal complex mechanisms affecting the performance differences among different new farmers. Using the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method, taking 40 cases of CCTV’s “ZHI FU JING” column as samples, the paper analyzes the necessary conditions for new farmers to produce high performance by the anthefactory-variable configuration composed of human capital, social capital, psychological capital, entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurial opportunity identification. The results show that: (1) high human capital is the necessary core condition for new farmers to produce high entrepreneurial performance, lack of high entrepreneurial learning and lack of high entrepreneurial opportunity identification is the core necessary condition for low entrepreneurial performance; (2) the driving mechanism of new farmers’ high entrepreneurial performance is divided into three paths, and the driving mechanism of new farmers’ low entrepreneurial performance is divided into two paths; and (3) the ways of inhibiting new farmers’ performance and promoting their performance are asymmetrical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Reducing carbon emissions from agriculture is essential to ensuring food security and human prosperity. As a country with approximately 20% of the global population, China has begun actively practicing the lowcarbon agricultural development conception. Against the backdrop of disruptive technologies that continue to be integrated into various industries, the massive application of agricultural robots has opened the way to intelligent agriculture. This paper tries to answer whether there is some non-linear nexus between the application of agricultural robots and agricultural carbon emissions in China. As an essential tool for carbon emission reduction in China, does environmental regulation moderate the nexus between agricultural robot applications and agricultural carbon emissions? If so, how does this effect manifest itself? Methods: This work takes China as an example by collecting macro-regional panel data from 30 provinces from 2006 to 2019. The environmental Kuznets curve theory is extended to agricultural carbon emissions, and we carried out empirical tests utilizing the panel fixed effects model and the moderating effects model. Results: This study verifies the inverted U-shaped nexus between agricultural robotics applications and agricultural carbon emissions in Chinese provinces, i.e., the agricultural carbon emissions (ACE)-Kuznets curve holds. The higher the level of formal environmental regulation, the larger the peak of the ACE-Kuznets curve and the more the inflection point is pushed back. The higher the level of informal environmental regulation, the lower the peak of the ACE-Kuznets curve and the later the inflection point. Discussion: The findings in this paper represent the first exploration of the environmental Kuznets curve in agricultural carbon emissions. It is noteworthy that the moderating effect of formal environmental regulation does not lower the peak of the curve as we expect. This appearance is attributed to the reality that China is still in a phase of rising agricultural carbon emissions, which is exacerbated by the overlapping positive effects of agricultural robotics applications and formal environmental regulations. Informal environmental regulation is more effective than formal environmental regulation in reducing agricultural carbon emissions at this stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food reserve is the cornerstone of national strategic security. China strives to build a complementary reserve system between government and enterprises, and how to improve the efficiency of food reserves is a matter of great concern to the government and society. Based on the analysis of the connotation of food reserve efficiency, this paper constructs the revenue function and the cost function of food reserve in an emergency and uses the cost-benefit method to explore the best ratio of government reserve, corporate social responsibility reserve, and commercial inventory when maximizing the efficiency of food reserve. This ratio is closely related to the total food reserve, the scale of supply interruption, the reserve cost of food stored by enterprises, and the government's subsidy cost for the social responsibility reserve. The unit subsidy cost of government to social responsibility reserve is inversely proportional to the proportion of corporate social responsibility reserve to corporate reserve. Doing a good job in the social responsibility management of food enterprises is an effective way to improve the efficiency of food reserves. To expand the scale of social responsibility reserves and realize "storing food in enterprises," the subsidies given by the government for corporate social responsibility reserves should not be too high. Taking food social responsibility reserve as an important part of corporate social responsibility, it's the key to promoting enterprises to actively undertake food social responsibility reserves. The conclusion of this paper provides a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for how to improve the efficiency of food reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The construction of digital villages is widely acknowledged as a way to achieve the "dual goals" of high quality of the agricultural and rural economy and common prosperity under the digital China strategy. Studies have explored the socio-economic benefits of different aspects of rural digitization, but few have focused on the productivity role of rural broadband development in the context of the urban-rural broadband divide. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between rural broadband development and agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and the intrinsic mechanism of action, and to provide empirical evidence on the productivity effect of promoting digital transformation in rural agriculture. Methods: Using panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper investigates the impact and mechanism of rural broadband development on agricultural TFP from the perspective of agriculture-related loans by setting up a two-way fixed effects model, a mechanism effects model and a threshold effects model. Results: The results find that rural broadband development has a significant role in enhancing agricultural TFP. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the productivity-enhancing effect of rural broadband development is remarkable only in the central region and the region with higher rural disposable income. Mechanism analysis points out that rural broadband development can increase agricultural TFP by influencing the share of farm-related loans. Threshold analysis further reveals that the role of increasing the share of farm-related loans on agricultural TFP is marked only after rural broadband development reaches a certain level. Discussion: These findings can provide practical guidance for other developing countries in accelerating the digital transformation of villages and optimizing factor allocation to achieve high-quality agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability of agricultural futures market is of great significance to social economy and agri-cultural development. In view of the complexity of the fluctuation of agricultural futures prices, it is challenging to make up for the shortcomings of the existing data preprocessing technology so as to improve the prediction accuracy of the model. This paper puts forward a new VMDSGMD-LSTM model based on improved quadratic decomposition technology and artificial intelligence model. First of all, in the data preprocessing part, VMD is used to decompose the original futures price data, and SGMD is used to further process the remaining components. Secondly, the LSTM model is used to predict a series of modal components, and the final result is obtained by synthesizing the predicted values of different components. Furthermore, based on the futures trading data of wheat, corn and sugar in China agricultural futures market, this paper makes an empirical study in the 1-step, 2-step and 4-step ahead forecasting scenarios, respectively. The results show that compared with other benchmark models, the VMD-SGMD-LSTM hybrid model proposed in this paper has better forecasting ability and robustness for different agricultural futures, which effectively makes up for the shortcomings of existing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crop-livestock integration model is the main path for the sustainable development of agriculture and animal husbandry in China, and farmers' participation behavior is critical to the formation of this model. So this paper based on a field survey data of 615 farmers in 10 pilot counties of Crop-Livestock Integration (CLI) in the dairy industry in the east, middle, and west of Inner Mongolia, the relationship among transaction costs, farmers' decision-making of participating in the CLI model, and income effects was analyzed using the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model in this paper. The results show that under the current market environment, the proportion of farmers participating in the CLI model is 37.56% of the farmer surveyed. The high costs of information searching, negotiation, and execution are the critical factors to inhibit farmers from participating in the CLI model. The results of the counterfactual test of the ESR model show that the effect of the CLI model on the income of participated farmers is not noticeable, while the effect is more significant on the income of non-participating farmers. Moreover, there is no obvious heterogeneity in the effects of the farmer level and "farmers-to-farm" level CLI models on farmers' income. Based on these conclusions, this paper proposes that the government should actively promote the establishment of the information-sharing platform and training mechanism about the CLI model, reduce farmers' costs in information searching and negotiation, optimize the incentive policy of the CLI model, incorporate the farmers planting forage into the subsidy scope of the CLI model, improve the economic benefits of farmers participating in the CLI model, and stimulate the enthusiasm of farmers participating in the CLI model, so as to effectively promote the realization of the CLI model in the animal husbandry industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pennisetum, a herbaceous plant belonging to the Poaceae family, is prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions and encompasses ~140 species. Its versatility is evidenced by its applications in forage, paper weaving, soil erosion control, and energy production. Current research on Pennisetum spans diverse fields including hay production, molecular breeding, and heavy metal absorption. However, this body of research is marked by redundancy, with a lack of clear focus. This article employs bibliometric methods to analyze the key research areas topics from 1970 to 2023. It also further discusses the future research direction of Pennisetum. Over the past five decades, research on Pennisetum has seen a significant increase, primarily concentrating on cultivation and breeding, ecological restoration, and industrial applications. These domains have become pivotal in advancing Pennisetum-related research. The paper also forecasts future innovations in Pennisetum research, focusing on molecular breeding, agricultural management, and novel material development. As a seminal contribution, this study offers a comprehensive graphical overview of Pennisetum research, establishing a foundational resource for ongoing scientific discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A common thought is that extensive and organic breeding systems are associated with lower prevalence of infections in livestock animals, compared to intensive ones. In addition, organic systems limit the use of anti-microbial drugs, which may lead to lower emergence of antimicrobial resistances (AMR). Methods: To examine these issues, avoiding any a priori bias, we carried out a systematic literature search on dairy cattle breeding. Search was targeted to publications that compared different types of livestock farming (intensive, extensive, conventional, organic) in terms of the circulation of infectious diseases and AMR. Results and discussion: A total of 101 papers were finally selected. These papers did not show any trend in the circulation of the infections in the four types of breeding systems. However, AMR was more prevalent on conventional dairy farms compared to organic ones. The prevalence of specific pathogens and types of resistances were frequently associated with specific risk factors that were not strictly related to the type of farming system. In conclusion, we did not find any evidence suggesting that extensive and organic dairy farming bears any advantage over the intensive and conventional ones, in terms of the circulation of infectious agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent apple-picking robots can significantly improve the efficiency of apple picking, and the realization of fast and accurate recognition and localization of apples is the prerequisite and foundation for the operation of picking robots. Existing apple recognition and localization methods primarily focus on object detection and semantic segmentation techniques. However, these methods often suffer from localization errors when facing occlusion and overlapping issues. Furthermore, the few instance segmentation methods are also inefficient and heavily dependent on detection results. Therefore, this paper proposes an apple recognition and localization method based on RGB-D and an improved SOLOv2 instance segmentation approach. To improve the efficiency of the instance segmentation network, the EfficientNetV2 is employed as the feature extraction network, known for its high parameter efficiency. To enhance segmentation accuracy when apples are occluded or overlapping, a lightweight spatial attention module is proposed. This module improves the model position sensitivity so that positional features can differentiate between overlapping objects when their semantic features are similar. To accurately determine the apple-picking points, an RGB-D-based apple localization method is introduced. Through comparative experimental analysis, the improved SOLOv2 instance segmentation method has demonstrated remarkable performance. Compared to SOLOv2, the F1 score, mAP, and mIoU on the apple instance segmentation dataset have increased by 2.4, 3.6, and 3.8%, respectively. Additionally, the model's Params and FLOPs have decreased by 1.94M and 31 GFLOPs, respectively. A total of 60 samples were gathered for the analysis of localization errors. The findings indicate that the proposed method achieves high precision in localization, with errors in the X, Y, and Z axes ranging from 0 to 3.95mm, 0 to 5.16mm, and 0 to 1mm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: There exists a noticeable gap between consumers' willingness to purchase green food and their actual purchase behavior. However, the awareness of green development is a crucial factor influencing this purchase behavior and acts as an internal driving force promoting green consumption. Consumers' green development awareness is shaped by various psychological motivations, including environmental concern, health consciousness, knowledge, norms, and price considerations. The existing literature often focuses on specific regions or groups, lacking comprehensive cross-regional and multivariate evaluations, and frequently overlooks the potential impact of moderating variables such as economic development level, product type, and behavior type. Methods: To clarify the overall effect of each motivational factor on green food purchase behavior, this study conducted a meta-analysis. We selected eight causal variables and three moderating variables that significantly influence consumers' green food purchase behavior. The analysis included 132 independent effect values from 45 research papers. Results: The meta-analysis revealed that: (1) Consumers' green food purchase behavior is significantly positively correlated with eight motivational factors: environmental awareness, health awareness, green attitude, green knowledge, subjective norms, price awareness, perceived behavior control, and perceived usefulness. (2) Economic development level, product type, and behavior type significantly affect consumers' green food purchase behavior. (3) The impact of motivational factors on actual purchase behavior is weaker than on purchase intention, suggesting that interventions should focus on converting purchase intentions into actual purchase behavior. (4) The findings indicate that environmental responsibility, government policies, and marketing strategies can influence consumers' psychological motives, guiding them toward more responsible consumption choices. Discussion: Enhancing consumers' environmental and health awareness is essential, and policy support and marketing strategies can effectively promote green food consumption. These insights underscore the importance of targeted interventions to bridge the gap between green purchase intention and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability within food systems (FS) transcends approaches that only consider FS transformation via changing agricultural practices or consumption patterns. The essence lies in addressing the root causes of current unsustainable FS and their associated social and environmental ramifications. This paper aims to outline the solutions needed to revamp these challenges, by paying special attention to the state-capital nexus in the context of the FS'global core-periphery dialectics. Thereby, we embrace radical political agroecology as being essential in promoting sustainability within the FS, especially in the Global South. Agroecology is proposed as the strategy to address the food system's complexity in terms of the social, environmental, and economic embeddedness. We conclude with potential solutions that contribute to the pathway for FS sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' Markets (FMs) have gained relevance in recent years as increasingly acknowledged to be critical to turn to more equitable food systems, easing agroecological transition, and preserving biocultural heritage. However, the issue of the forms of social and institutional coordination needed to create, organize, manage and promote FMs is a recent topic in the literature, and their governance is still poorly considered. Based on a set of case studies in Tuscany, Italy, this paper intends to contribute to filling this gap by analysing the forms of governance and the role of different stakeholders. The hypothesis is that FMs are social constructions that respond to processes of social and institutional innovation through direct exchanges between producers, consumers and other stakeholders, articulated at both local and non-local level. The aim of the paper is to explore the interactions between stakeholders and the corresponding forms of multi-level governance that emerge. The method for testing the hypotheses is qualitative, through semi-structured interviews to FMs managers and conversations with producers and other stakeholders, conducted between May and August 2022 in Tuscany. The research was complemented by consultation of indirect sources, such as FMs websites and social networks. The results are summarized in the elaboration of a three-dimensional and territorially embedded governance model. The first dimension refers to the management of internal relations between stakeholders within the FM. The second corresponds to the activation of dialogue, negotiation, and agreement with the municipality and other local authorities, and with local farmers' unions. The third type corresponds to vertical flows between the FMs and extraterritorial bodies, i.e., regional government, regional and national farmers' unions and other stakeholder associations. It is important to note that at FMs level, processes of hybridization between the different types of governance are established. The article contributes to the analysis of FMs as economic and social constructions and may be useful for establishing comparative frameworks around institutional and collective action dimensions, multi-actor and multilevel studies of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ever-growing popularity of food deliver, more and more consumers are embracing this convenience as part of their lifestyle. However, the issue of food waste created by the food deliver industry has become a pressing concern in society. This paper aims to examine the link between food waste and food delivery services, and investigate the effects of anti-food waste regulations on the generation of food waste and the choice of logistics strategies in an Onlineto- Offline (O2O) supply chain. Using game-theoretical approach, we focus on two prominent logistics strategies--the restaurant-free self-logistics strategy (RF strategy) and the platform-charge logistics strategy (PC strategy). Our research results show that anti-food waste regulation can effectively reduce food waste in food delivery service under the PC logistics strategy. The choice of logistics strategy is constrained by the online market potential, the relative logistics costs of platform logistics, and anti-food waste regulations. If the anti-food waste regulation is strict, as long as the size of the food delivery market and the relative logistics costs of platform logistics are not simultaneously small, the RF strategy will be the equilibrium strategy, whereas the supply chain members should choose the PC strategy. The study thus offers useful inferences for theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptualization of radical food democracy (RFD) which links the diverse economies approach of Gibson-Graham with Tully's notion of diverse citizenship. Despite its invaluable contribution to theorizing the role of alternative food networks (AFNs) in transforming unsustainable industrial food systems, the diverse economies scholarship has been criticized for essentializing the autonomy of alternative economic practices--hence risking to confound emancipatory social change with punctuated forms of "local," "quality," "organic certified" products, which nevertheless remain embedded in market-mediated capitalist relations, and displacement and/or deferral of negative impacts. This paper aims to address such critiques, contending that the realization of RFD requires both (1) the experimentation with new economic practices that carve out food economies alternative to the working logic of capital accumulation, and (2) the cultivation of new political subjects capable of universalizing these particular struggles. After situating various existing practices associated with food democracy in a framework of various modes of democratic citizenship, we underpin our understanding of RFD with a theory of change informed by Bob Jessop's strategic-relational approach to social structures, agents' reflexive actions, and their contingency. Following a critical scientific approach to the social role of academics, this theoretical framework is illustrated using a case study from Germany. The empirical work draws on participant observation and semi-structured interviews with leaders of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) cooperatives and Food Policy Council (FPC) networks conducted in Cologne, Berlin, and Frankfurt in 2018-2020. To conclude, this paper argues that the emancipatory potential of food democracy should cultivate both lighthouse alternative economic practices that are connected with people's everyday lives, and political imagination that dares to critically engage with existing institutions. Likewise, RFD praxis requires a constant back and forth between the ideational and the practical, the abstract and the concrete, the actionable and the analytical, to challenge both the symbolic-discursive and the material dimensions of capitalist agri-food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food democracy and political agroecology, as closely allied social movements, have become associated in the main with what may be termed 'agrarian populist' and postcolonial problematics. While certainly 'radical' in relation to hegemonic neoliberal, or sub-hegemonic 'national developmentalist', framings of contemporary agricultural and ecological crises and their mitigatory responses to them, populist food democracy and political agroecology, it is argued here, fail convincingly to identify causality underlying the 'political' causes of these capitalogenic contradictions. While more convincing in identifying such causality in the 'ecological' domain in terms of the need to 'localize' and 'reterritorialize' food production and consumption networks, in its 'political' aspect populist food democracy and political agroecology demonstrate a failure to specify key ontological drivers of capitalogenic contradiction in terms of state, capital, class, and, more generally, power relations in their historical particularity. These shortcomings of 'populist' food democracy and agroecology in their 'political' aspect are exemplified by reference to key academic texts arising from the movement. The paper then proceeds to identify how these populist assumptions differ from a Marxian derived understanding of contradiction and the resulting proposal for a 'radical' political agroecology as substantive food democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current global food system is characterized by anonymity in the value chain, global food trade, loss of knowledge about food sources, and a distant producerconsumer relationship. In addition, the negative environmental impacts of the agricultural sector, such as pollution, degradation of soil and water quality, loss of biodiversity, and significant greenhouse gas emissions, make this sector a major driver of climate change. In contrast, the city region food system (CRFS) approach captures the complexity of a food system and its actors at the local level. It aims to meet the requirements of sustainable transformation along the food value chain and offers an alternative approach to the challenges of the global food system. However, the actors and their relationships in CRFS are rarely analyzed. To fill this gap, this study focuses on analyzing CRFSs as networks using the Net-Map tool to study different CRFS in seven European cities (Bologna, Naples, Lansingerland, Tenerife, Oslo, Dortmund, and Romainville). The aim of this paper is to concentrate on the method and to show how the Net-Map tool can effectively support the evaluation of the CRFS by identifying different actor roles, recognizing patterns of relationships. Additionally, the strengths and weaknesses of the network can be assessed by a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. The paper highlights the limitations, advantages, and practical use of the Net-Map tool and discusses potential transferability to other case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving food total factor productivity is a necessary way to break the double constraint of resources and environment, and promote the transformation of the food production system and the realization of the sustainable development goal of zero hunger. Based on the panel data of 729 counties in China from 2010 to 2019, this paper analyzes the effect of county financial marketization reform on food total factor productivity by using a two-way fixed effects model, focusing on the mechanism of the quality of factors such as land, labor and capital. The results show that county financial marketization reform promoted food total factor productivity growth by promoting technical progress, while technical efficiency did not play a significant role. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of county financial marketization reform on grain total factor productivity is not significantly different in eastern and central China. There is a significant difference in the western region, where county financial market reform hindered the growth of grain total factor productivity. In terms of different functional areas of grain production, the facilitating effect is only played in the main grain production area, and the inhibiting effect is played in the main grain marketing area. Mechanistic analysis shows that the county financial marketing reform promoted the growth of food total factor productivity by improving the quality of labor and land, while the quality of agricultural capital has a masking effect. On this basis, it is necessary for the government to implement differentiated financial market-oriented reform strategies, and to guide and encourage county financial institutions to provide financial services to improve the quality of agricultural labor and farmland through tax incentives and loan interest subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large scale agricultural business entities (hereinafter referred to as "the large scale entities") are newly sprouted in the process of China's agricultural transformation from traditional production to modern mode, while the improvement of agricultural total factor productivity is an important driving force to realize agricultural transformation in China. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore whether the former has a promoting effect on the latter. First of all, the effective improvement of agricultural total factor productivity by the large scale entity development is analyzed from the two aspects of scale effect and technology utilization effect, and the effect mechanism is discussed in depth in this paper. Secondly, empirical test was carried out by using the panel data of prefecturelevel cities from 2015 to 2020. The benchmark regression results show that the development of large scale entities can significantly improve agricultural total factor productivity. The mechanism test results indicate that the development of large scale entities improves the agricultural total factor productivity by raising the agricultural mechanization level. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the difference between large scale entities would affect the benchmarking results. Therefore, it is believed through the study as discussed in this paper that devoting greater effort to support the development of large scale entities is an important measure to improve agricultural total factor productivity and promote China's agricultural transformation, but it is necessary to act according to local conditions based on the difference of entity types in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop change detection study is the foundation of agricultural sustainability. The inherent high spectral resolution of hyperspectral images, combined with multi-temporal datasets, facilitates the detection of subtle changes. To enhance the accuracy and applicability of hyperspectral change detection in agricultural scenes, this paper introduces a fast hyperspectral change detection approach for agricultural crops based on low-rank matrix and morphological feature extraction (FLRaMF). The goal is to improve detection precision and computational efficiency of the change detection process. The method initially employs rapid low-rank matrix extraction to separate changing and non-changing pixels in the spectral domain. Subsequently, spatial information is introduced using attribute profiles, restricting spectral anomalies through hyperspectral morphology, which ultimately improves the detection results. This study utilized four hyperspectral change detection datasets in agricultural crop scenarios, optimizing and analyzing parameters. Experimental results and analysis indicate that the FLRaMF method can achieve higher detection accuracy with reduced computation cost in unsupervised, default parameter scenarios when performing agricultural crop change detection tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many of societies' existing social and economic inequalities, one of which is illustrated in the challenges facing food and farm workers across the food chain. Despite this upsurge in public recognition, the circumstances facing food and farm workers remain unchanged, and this lack of action is reflected within the work of food systems-focused civil society organizations (CSO) in Canada. Several authors have noted the lack of recognition of labor issues within food systems work. This paper further explores the nature of this disengagement, particularly in food systems governance work, and identifies barriers to more meaningful engagement and possible avenues to overcome these challenges. Findings draw from a set of 57 interviews conducted from 2020 to 2023 with a range of food system CSO representatives across Canada, examining their understanding of, and engagement in, food systems governance work and their involvement in labor issues (or lack thereof). The paper concludes that though there exists widespread awareness of the challenges facing food and farm workers, and a desire to engage in a more sustained fashion, many food system CSOs have not yet found the tools or pathways to do so on an organizational level. Several discursive openings are identified that offer an opportunity to leverage the heightened awareness of food and farm workers during the pandemic into concrete collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the imbalance in the supply and demand of agricultural land, there is an increasing trend of land resources being remoted utilized across regions. Within the context of regional trade, changes in the agroecosystem service value (ESV) can be used to assess consumer responsibility. However, the embodied flow of ESV and its driving factors have been largely unexplored. This paper, utilizing the latest Chinese multi-regional input-output tables and the equivalence factor method, explores the spatiotemporal characteristics of embodied agricultural land and ESV flow between Guangdong and 30 other provinces, and further seeks to construct three types of embodied ESV models to reveal the driving factors. The findings reveal that during the process of domestic trade in goods and services, Guangdong Province has an inflow of 2.10 × 107 hm2 of land from other provinces, with arable land, forestland, and grassland accounting for 25, 61, and 14%, respectively. Guangdong's utilization of ESV is mainly dependent on external inflows, with minimal local consumption and outflows. The embodied ESV between Guangdong and other provinces is 1626.10 billion yuan, with an outflow of 325.32 billion yuan. The "Y"-shaped region consisting of the northwest, northeast, southwest, and Hainan bears significant potential ESV losses for Guangdong Province. Population growth and the intensity of ESV loss will promote the flow of cropland and forestland ESV, while economic development has a certain inhibitory effect on ESV transfer. This paper provides a new analytical perspective on issues such as the spatial distribution mismatch of land resources and ecologically unequal exchange. These insights are pivotal for promoting sustainable utilization of land resources and regional equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food is one of the basic necessities for human life. Nutritious food is essential for human health and helps oneself live up to our best potential as productive members of society. In spite of this, 3 billion people are estimated to have limited access to nutrient-rich food, and there are 768 million undernourished people in the globe today. There are still concerns with food systems and food security, despite the fast economic transformation of low-and middle-income nations in Maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania over the past 10 years. These issues include dwindling agricultural land, deforestation, ineffective food supply networks, environmental degradation, changing and unhealthy diets, non-communicable diseases, disappearing cultural legacy, and ineffective policies. These problems are exacerbated by climate change, natural hazards, and pandemic shocks. This review explores the perspectives of food systems that relates to all the elements and activities in transforming agri-food industry. In this paper, we discuss the challenges and solutions to transforming food systems in this region to achieve a sustainable and healthy diet for all, with the perspective of bringing the region closer toward the UN sustainable development goals. This paper is an outcome of the deliberations that took place during the Food Security in Small Islands and Developing States workshop in 2020. It also includes insights from subsequent expert group sessions that focused on the following topics: Agriculture and Food Systems; Nutrition, Health, and Culture; Innovations and Digitalization in Food Systems; as well as Policies Coordination and Future Shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, most university campuses in China are plagued by issues such as high food demand, imbalanced diets, serious food waste and poor environmental quality. Research has shown that the multiple benefits of an edible campus, which may also be referred to as a school garden or farm catering to various educational levels, can help alleviate the aforementioned problems. However, there is limited research on how to promote the benefits of an edible campus through design. Therefore, taking the South Campus of Hebei University of Technology in China as an example, this paper aims to explore the correlation between design and benefits of an edible campus. The design factors and benefit factors related to an edible campus are extracted through literature search. The design preferences and benefit predictions are obtained through 261 questionnaire surveys and interviews with 30 participants. During the statistical analysis phase, principal component analysis and multiple regression analysis are applied to analyze the correlation between design factors and benefit factors. The results indicate: (1) The design factors of an edible campus can be categorized into seven categories: spatial location, spatial carrier, size, space function, facility configuration, planting and crop varieties, and technology application. (2) The benefits of an edible campus include environmental education, physical and mental health, social interaction, ecological protection, and economic output. (3) There are significant differences in design factors that positively or negatively correlate with different benefits. Among them, the strongest positive correlation exists between planting function and the five benefits, followed by central landscape and container planting. Furthermore, the causes behind the correlation between design factors and benefit factors are analyzed, and design strategies for an edible campus under different benefit orientations are proposed. The findings of this study can contribute to the sustainable development of university campuses in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The fragility of agriculture makes the food supply chain vulnerable to external risks such as epidemic, conflict, disaster, climate change, economic and energy crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has spread and continued globally in recent years, resulting in food supply chain disruption and insecurity, which triggers profound reflection on the impacts of public health events (PHEs). Studying the impacts of PHEs on the resilience of food supply chain has great significance to effectively reduce the risks of disruption and insecurity in the future. Methods: Based on the composition of PHEs and the division of food supply chain, this paper adopted the nonlinear Granger causality test to verify the nonlinear causal relationship between PHEs and proxy variables in the food supply chain; then the TVP-VAR-SV model was constructed and its three-dimensional pulse response results were matched with the sensitivity, recovery, and adaptation of the food supply chain resilience to deeply explore the dynamic impacts of PHEs. Results: PHEs has significant nonlinear conduction effects on the resilience of food supply chain, the impacts of PHEs on the partial sector resilience have significant dynamic characteristics in the whole sample period, and the impacts of PHEs on the recovery and adaptation aspects of food supply chain resilience have structural break characteristics. Discussion: The differences, dynamic characteristics and structural breaks of the impacts of PHEs on the resilience of food supply chain are caused by the infectivity and mortality of PHEs, attributes of food products, regulation of supply and demand in the market, behavioral decisions of all participants, changes in the policy environment, and coordination and upgrading of all sectors in the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with consumer behavior in the context of sustainable development of society. A questionnaire survey of 732 respondents was used to understand the determinants of food purchasing behavior toward sustainable consumption. The paper identifies the factors that the consumer determines in food purchasing as critical in terms of sustainable consumption and requiring behavioral change toward sustainability in terms of healthy lifestyle, reduction of food wastage, and conscious consumption. Respondents commented on 22 factors and the quantification of their impact on food waste and expressed the strength of opinion on sustainability issues. To evaluate the collected data, PCA factor analysis was used, which defines the importance of each factor by identifying artificial hypothetical variables, which are “Sustainability” and targeted education as appropriate tools for it, “Food usability,” which is a recommendation to producers by food quality, offering new types of food with longer shelf life, as well as “Pricing,” “Quality” and “Convenience.” The authors also sought to understand what measures they take in relation to waste and how they behave toward sustainable consumption and environmental protection. They created 14 content questions on this topic and by using factor analysis, 3 hypothetical variables were created, namely “Sustainable behavior” which expresses a healthy lifestyle, “Thoughtful purchase” which expresses a relationship with environmental protection before purchasing and “Zero waste” which means that the household tries to make additional use of food. Thus, it seeks a use for the food it cannot consume at a given time and creates a supply for other consumers. This behavior is a good prerequisite for achieving a change in consumption behavior. The influence of selected sociodemographic indicators on the frequency of wastage was also investigated using the χ-squared test. The influence of generation and number of children in the household on the frequency of wastage was demonstrated. The results of the analyses on the importance of individual factors and consumer behavior, especially of the young generation, argue for education on sustainable consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The conventional manual grading of vegetables poses challenges that necessitate innovative solutions. In this context, our paper proposes a deep learning methodology for vegetable quality grading. Methods: To address the scarcity of vegetable datasets, we constructed a unique dataset comprising 3,600 images of diverse vegetables, including lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, garlic, bitter melon, and Chinese cabbage. We present an improved CA-EfficientNet-CBAM model for vegetable quality grading. The CA module replaces the squeeze-and-excitation (SE) module in the MobileNet convolution (MBConv) structure of the EfficientNet model. Additionally, a channel and spatial attention module (CBAM) is integrated before the final layer, accelerating model training and emphasizing nuanced features. Results: The enhanced model, along with comparisons to VGGNet16, ResNet50, and DenseNet169, was subjected to ablation experiments. Our method achieved the highest classification accuracy of 95.12% on the cabbage vegetable image test set, outperforming VGGNet16, ResNet50, and DenseNet169 by 8.34%, 7%, and 4.29%, respectively. Notably, the proposed method effectively reduced the model's parameter count. Discussion: Our experimental results highlight the effectiveness of the deep learning approach in improving vegetable quality grading accuracy. The superior performance of the enhanced EfficientNet model underscores its potential for advancing the field, achieving both high classification accuracy and parameter efficiency. We hope this aligns with your expectations. If there are further adjustments or clarifications needed, please let us know. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioengineered/genome-edited carbon capture and sequestration (BE/GEd-CCS) crops are being developed to mitigate climate change. This paper explores how technology, regulation, funding, and social implications, could shape the development and deployment of these crops. We conclude that some of the technological efforts to create BE/GEd-CCS crops may work. Still, stakeholders must agree on generally accepted methods of measuring how much carbon is captured in the soil and its value. The regulatory space for BE/GEd-CCS crops remains fluid until the first crops are reviewed. BE/GEd-CCS crops have received considerable initial funding and may benefit financially more from other federal programs and voluntary carbon markets. BE/GEd-CCS crops may continue perpetuating social equity concerns about agricultural biotechnology due to a lack of oversight. We argue that stakeholders need to pursue a multidisciplinary view of BE/GEd-CCS crops that draw in varying perspectives for effective development and deployment. Communication is needed between researchers and policymakers involved in either developing BE/GEd-CCS crops or developing voluntary carbon markets. We argue for the start of a conversation both across disciplines and between researchers and policymakers about the development and deployment of BE/GEd-CCS crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literature review focuses on the drivers of Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry Systems (ICLFS) adoption by small farmers. It has enabled us to identify current trends and analyze the various drivers of adoption and knowledge gaps. According to the PRISMA literature review protocol, 1,352 scientific publications have been selected and analyzed after a Scopus database search. Data analysis was carried out in two steps. A systematic review was performed with the metadata of scientific publications using the Biblioshiny package of R 4.3.1 software. Then, the 42 most relevant publications were used for a brief narrative synthesis. The results showed that between 2003 and 2023, publications were made in 587 different sources. 73% of publications were scientific articles. 91% of publications were written by an average of 05 co-authors. The effectiveness of Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry Systems (ICLFS) practices, the production of organic matter and the effects on farmers' livelihoods are the research topics considered. Five categories of factors were identified to facilitate the adoption of ICLFS by small farmers: (i) farmer profile, (ii) farm characteristics, (iii) economic factors, (iv) institutional factors and (v) biophysical factors. Policy orientations are the most decisive of all the factors identified, followed by the establishment of extension systems and social networks between farmers. This paper makes three main recommendations. Firstly, it recommends the implementation of collaborative research frameworks between West African researchers and those from East Africa, Asia and South America, who have more experience in this area. In addition, this study suggests that future research on the adoption of ICLFS should take into account herd mobility issues in the adoption process. Finally, it suggests that ICLFS should be taken into account in development policies and implemented through action research projects, mostly in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The presence of excessive heavy metal content in food poses potential risks to human health. Methods: This paper presents the fabrication of a novel type of Carbon Dots (CDs) using green tea residue as a carbon source, which can be applied for simultaneous detection of Hg2+, Pb2+, Fe3+, and Cu22+ through particle swarm optimization (PSO) based optimized variable-weighted least-squares support vector machine (VWLS-SVM) model and the partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLSDA) method. Results and Discussion: The utilization of PSO-VWLS-SVM model discovered and verified two fluorescence enhancement markers of CDs, namely isoquercitrin and 5-methyl furfural in green tea residues. By employing PLSDA, simultaneous qualitative and quantitative determination of these four metal ions was achieved. These CDs are capable of detecting four types of metal ions at low concentrations even when there are high concentrations of other metal ions and amino acids. More importantly, the CDs were successfully applied for the detection of Hg2+, Pb2+, Fe3+, and Cu2+ in real food samples. The recovery rates of four metal ions spiked into five different matrices were found to be the range of 99.1-101.3%, while both intra-day and inter-day relative standard deviations remained below 0.5% for all samples. This study on chemometrics-assisted exploration into formation mechanisms of endogenous CDs provides theoretical guidance for enhancing their fluorescence properties and expanding their application in heavy metal detection in food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing is an inevitable step in the manufacturing of animal-based foods (ABF) and animal by-products (ABP). However, our society has reached a point where our food systems have reached unsustainable levels. The impact of ABF/ABP processing on sustainability has been arguably overlooked in comparison with production. This perspective paper aims to discuss and identify research gaps regarding the assessments of the sustainability of ABF/ABF processing. First, we describe why processing techniques can have various levels of complexity, with uses that are more or less impactful on the environment depending on the products and possible synergies. In the second part, we review how impacts on sustainability have been evaluated at global and local scales using life cycle assessments (LCA). To contribute to such an approach, we suggest novel or recently introduced types of indicators that would improve future LCA studies by capturing relevant information. In the third part, we encourage a systemic view of sustainability by considering the complexity of the whole supply chains of ABF and ABP. We highlight the current gaps or challenges in evaluating sustainability across supply chains and point the readers toward recent studies that address these limitations. We hope this perspective will help improve the design of academic and industrial studies or evaluation of ABF and ABP sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing awareness of microplastics in the environment, the question of microplastics as remnants of biodegradable plastic (BDP) products is gaining momentum. BDP bags for kitchen waste collection are often certified as fully compostable as proof of industrial compostability. Frequently certification is done using under standardized laboratory conditions within 12 weeks. Composting plants often process biowaste into compost in a shorter time under inhomogeneous conditions. This study investigates the decomposition behavior of commercially available BDP bags for kitchen waste collection at an industrial composting plant within a practically realistic time frame of 6 weeks. The research determines the decomposition behavior under practice conditions. Four bag types, two made from thermoplastic starch (TPS) blends and two from polylactic acid (PLA) blends underwent composting. The decomposition was evaluated by examining the remaining macro- (> 8 mm), meso- (2-8 mm), and microparticles (1-2 mm) in the compost with different methods. After 6 weeks, the mass-based decomposition rate of TPS blend bags exceeded 95%. In contrast, PLA blend bags failed to reach a decomposition rate of 90%. The study did not depict very small particles <1 mm. However, they are present. The study findings indicate that composting time and conditions, inhomogeneities, as well as the bag type are crucial factors influencing the decomposition of BDP bags. Concerns are raised about the usefulness of DIN 13432 as certification scheme for industrial conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land consolidation has become an organized and widely implemented project in rural areas. However, research remains somewhat scarce on the contributing mechanism of land consolidation to farmer income in developing countries. Using provincial panel data from China, this study employs a fixed effects model to analyze the influence of high-standard farmland construction on farmer income and underlying mechanisms. Results suggest that the implementation of high-standard farmland construction can significantly augment farmer income. Reduction in agricultural production cost, improvement in agricultural management benefit and increase in non-farm income have led to the boost in income. The relationship between income and high-standard farmland construction exhibits regional disparities, with the most significant impacts concentrated in economically developed areas and low relief degree areas. Our findings suggest that it is imperative for the Chinese government to persistently promote the establishment of high-standard farmland, and further enhance its positive influence on advancing agricultural cost-effectiveness and expanding non-farm income channels for farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]