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In Peru, formal and informal organizations are key actors in promoting agroecological farming and related social goals but struggle to make significant changes for gender equality. In this study, I seek to understand how organizations conceptualize their role in gender equality throughout project design, implementation, and presentation. While the organizations designed their projects around organizational change, the implementation and presentation of their work focused on improving financial security and agricultural literacy for individual women rather than systemic conditions. Despite this, their efforts underscored the importance of women’s contributions and furthered the conversation about gender in Peruvian agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging climate-development processes jeopardize water supply, especially in the Global South. In the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, disrupted water flows driven by climate change and hydropower development have caused water scarcity, threatening agricultural systems in both upstream and coastal areas. Based on insights from desk reviews, stakeholder workshops and interviews with local informants, this paper argues that while grey (engineered) solutions take precedence in addressing water scarcity, securing water sustainability (water retention) for agricultural resilience demands integrated 'grey–green' (engineered-nature-based) solutions. This paper suggests demands for translating this approach into the water governance framework for the delta's agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, headspace gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (HS–GC/MS) was applied to profile volatile components of Bunium persicum samples (rhizomes, roots, stems, leaves, flowers and unripe & ripe seeds), which were collected from two locations of Indian alpine Himalaya. Thirty-six different volatile metabolites were characterized in all samples, representing (77.9-96.9%) of the total oils. Extracted volatile oils (VOs) were dominated by monoterpenes (37.9-94.8%), oxygenated monoterpenes (0.1-28.8%) and sesquiterpenes (0.2-24.3%) hydrocarbons. γ-Terpinene (6.0-64.1%), α-terpinolene (1.1-43.7%), p-cymene (0.4-8.9%), o-cymene (1.4-14.8%), sabinene (0.1-12.3%), β-pinene (0.7-14.2%), β-myrcene (1.2-11.0%), limonene (1.3-9.3%), sylvestrene (3.1-7.7%), and cymen-7-al (6.9-10.9%) were key volatile components identified in different parts of B. persicum using HS–GC/MS. These findings revealed a very high quantitative variation of VOs composition among the samples. The multivariate statistical analysis also classified these variations within the plants and their parts at two locations. HS-GC/MS technique can be utilized for the quality assessment and discrimination analysis of B. persicum, especially its essential oil (BEO). Further, essential oils of both the seed samples showed significant antioxidant activity in DPPH and ABTS assay. The current methodology will help to monitor the varietal development and smart agriculture practices as quality perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become a new trend for the future development of Chinese agriculture to accelerate the transformation from increasing production to improving quality and realizing green growth. This paper uses the sequential DEA to measure the agricultural green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 306 Chinese cities from 1996 to 2017, then tests its convergence. The results show that the average growth rate of Chinese agricultural GTFP is 0.58%; the main driving force coming from technical progress. The convergence of agricultural GTFP has dual characteristics of stages and regions, and the significant σ convergence only exists in the central region during 1996–2003. There is significant β convergence at the national level, in the eastern and central regions, and neither convergence nor divergence in the western region. However, during 2004–2017, only the eastern region had β convergence. Finally, the conditional convergence speed is higher than the absolute convergence, and the eastern region is higher than the central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers' use of agricultural technology is necessary for reducing poverty. However, women make up most poor smallholder farmers in India and are generally unable to access relevant opportunities. Tandem to supporting women farmers in technology adoption is increasing their empowerment. While women's empowerment has been on policy agendas in India for several years, progress has been slow and results are mixed. Using primary data from West Bengal, this study finds that female farmers with access to agricultural technologies will likely have social advantages over those without, but institutional and social support is necessary to facilitate real empowerment and overall development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon literature from both impact assessment of development projects and agricultural research, the aim of this article is to analyse the pilot testing of a new multi-dimensional assessment framework for defining and evaluating the societal impact of agricultural research and corresponding education. The research approach involves an action research effort of pilot testing in three case studies from three different countries. The framework assumes a systems view, understands impact as socially embedded, and adopts the concepts of contribution and productive interactions rather than cause-and-effect attribution. The emerging experiences include developing both project-specific and universal indicators; gauging impacts at different levels and sustainability dimensions; handling the issues of attribution and time frame; and the role of stakeholder involvement. The results have the potential to support the development of a new role for impact assessment, by enabling principal actors in research and higher education institutions to take responsibility for contributing to concrete and demonstrable sustainability changes in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse on knowledge integration persists in research and development practice. The need for traditional and Western knowledge systems to work together to achieve sustainable agricultural development in Ghana's rural areas has become evermore relevant to achieve household food security in the context of changing climate, declining soil fertility, and labour challenges. The authors examined the role of knowledge integration in shaping the food security outcomes of socially differentiated smallholders' households in Kassena-Nankana Municipal District and the Kassena-Nankana West District in the Upper East Region of Ghana, where food insecurity prevalence is very high. Using mixed methods approach, they found that most low resource endowed households that were unable to combine traditional and Western farming methods were more likely to experience food insecurity than were other households. Farmers with higher resource endowments integrated knowledges from both traditional and Western systems leading to better yield outcomes. However, combining both knowledge systems did not guarantee automatic success due to intervening factors. The authors conclude that different categories of smallholders' resource endowment significantly impacts the smallholders' food security status, and recommend that policy and development programming should promote integration of traditional and Western farming knowledge systems to achieve sustainable food crop production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ProSAVANA was a technical cooperation program signed between the governments of Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique. Its aim was to promote agricultural development in the northern region of this African country. In this article, I give an ethnographic account of ProSAVANA's implementation and the different struggles that emerged in opposition to its undertakings. As I describe, the program promoters constantly mobilized three allegories evocative of connections and flow in their fieldwork, speeches, or documents: parallels, chains, and corridors. Although, at the territorial level, these were connected to effects of isolation and fixation of the local population and their agriculture. Based on this controversy, I suggest that ProSAVANA can be understood as those world design projects that perform what Anna Tsing called a "plantation ecology," that is, machines to produce the same, that operate to expand their scale while creating simplified, homogenized, and standardized models on diverse landscapes. Nevertheless, throughout the ProSAVANA implementation, their plantation designs were (re)composed both by technicians who aimed to promote its development model and by peasants and activists critical of the program, showing that these configurations alone cannot comprehensively circumscribe human agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout British membership of the European Union (EU), agricultural policy was largely determined by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This was viewed by the UK as a dysfunctional policy and while periodic reforms meant that the EU moved slowly in the direction advocated by the UK, many of the main policy elements remained in place. The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have always enjoyed a measure of policy freedom in agriculture and have diverged from England in some areas. This article explores the extent of de-Europeanisation in the agricultural sectors in the UK and the patterns of divergence between them, focusing primarily on the development of policies for agricultural support that will replace those in place under the CAP. Overall, there has been substantial divergence in policy, but also areas of continuity, which means that processes of de-Europeanisation in the UK agricultural sectors has been uneven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging donors have paid little attention to recipient agency in South-South Cooperation (SSC), instead emphasizing the supposedly horizontal character of South-South relations and the respect for (governmental) sovereignty. Focusing on the ProSavana, the Brazil-Japan-Mozambique large-scale agricultural project that was supposed to transform the Mozambican savannah into a commodities exporter, this article explores the political battle between the proponents of the ProSavana and the transnational movement of peasants that contested it. Drawing on the theory of discourse, the article offers a reconceptualization of agency in SSC as the capacity and ability (of indigenous populations) to transform Northern hegemonic discourses (embodied by the ProSavana) and replace them with the South's own view of development. Based on similarity claims between Brazil and Mozambique's experience with agricultural development, the peasants' movement was successful in contesting the project by discursively linking 'ProSavana' with 'land grabbing' and 'food insecurity' but was not able to promote a more propositional discourse that would replace the ProSavana. My analysis shows that successful strategies of transformation will depend on the mobilization of discursive resources that resonate with the greater community as a 'common good'. The article draws broader implications for movements that seek to contest large-scale (agricultural) projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livelihood diversification is a coping strategy that functions as a cushioning effect owing to dwindling income from agriculture. This study examined the significant differences in income between males and females before and after livelihood diversification. The multi-stage sampling procedure was employed to select the respondents. Data were collected through the administration of well-structured questionnaires and were analyzed using both descriptive and multiple regression analyses. The mean annual income of male and female household heads before livelihood diversification was N195,200 ± 4,135 and N220,203 ± 5,300, respectively, while annual income after livelihood diversification averaged N206,195 ± 6,540 and N275,105 ± 4,100 for male and female, respectively. Age (p < 0.01) and years of formal education (p < 0.05) both had positive influence, and farm size (p < 0.01) which was negative were the determinants of livelihood diversification among males. The determinants of livelihood diversification of females were age (p < 0.05) which was negative, while positive factors included household size (p < 0.05), and access to credit (p < 0.01). It was concluded that livelihood diversification increased the earnings of the rural dwellers, with females earning higher marginal incomes than their male counterparts. The study, therefore, recommended that government policy focus on assistance for female rural dwellers in credit accessibility should be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze to what extent engagement with fresh produce global value chains (FP-GVC) may contribute to a country overcoming the middle-income trap (MIT). We propose a conceptual framework for analyzing the FP-GVC-MIT nexus and apply it to Peru, which has become a global powerhouse in FP exports. The framework connects GVC and MIT analysis, two areas generally discussed in separate literatures. It highlights the role of global and product-specific factors, which are a given for any country, and country-specific factors, which may change as a result of government interventions and political economy considerations. We show that FP-GVC participation can only make a limited contribution to overcoming the MIT due to conflicts between production expansion and water availability and inclusion, as well as limited sector-transcendent impacts. While global and product-specific factors circumscribe the possibilities of a FP-GVC-MIT nexus everywhere, government policies can expand the boundaries in some areas. We conclude that an escape from the MIT warrants active industrial policies for a multi-pronged strategy, where FP-GVC participation can be but one element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a mega-project of primarily infrastructure-related loans and investments in Pakistan. Recently, the official discourse has increasingly shifted to the agricultural sector. For the region of Gilgit-Baltistan bordering China, academic and policy debates highlight the potential boost of fruit exports to China as the most promising opportunity to be leveraged through the CPEC. This paper scrutinizes these promises from a locally grounded perspective, investigating potential benefits and risks for local farmers. To make sense of the complex interplay between external and local actors, interests, markets and (infra)structures, the paper follows an assemblage-inspired approach to map out local trajectories. Contrary to the CPEC narrative, agricultural exports from Gilgit-Baltistan recently came to a halt, due to increasing trade barriers and seemingly competing agricultural developments in neighboring Xinjiang, China. Moreover, the economically most promising local crop for export to China, namely cherries, does not seem too promising for the majority of small farmers. There are other commodities with export potential, but overall, prospects appear to be limited. There is a need for a deeper engagement with the inherent complexities of CPEC trajectories, particularly in regards to local farming contexts in Pakistan and relevant developments in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translation, broadly defined as the articulation of the relationship between different cultural, social and legal systems, is at the heart of the anthropologist's or linguist's role as an expert witness in a native title hearing. It occurs at the level of individual lexemes, in categorising cultural concepts, and in the frame of the legal context. We exemplify the interrelationships between these by focussing on the quasi-legal use of the English word 'permission', a key concept in native title and land claim discourse. In the Blue Mud Bay case, Yolngu Matha was the first language of the witnesses, and there is no straightforward translation for this use of 'permission' in Yolngu Matha. As the 'experts' we needed to anticipate how Yolngu would understand the concept and its relevance to the court case. We first summarise our exploration of 'permission' with the claimants and show how a cross-cultural understanding of the 'legal' English concept emerged. We then focus on one of the court's main artefacts of translation—the witness statement—which must be produced or be translated into English. In our experience the witness statement is a product of a dialogical process involving the close collaboration of applicant (witness), counsel and expert. We reflect on the complexity of this process and how it operated in the Blue Mud Bay case. We conclude that translation is both possible and necessary in the conduct of native title cases. But it is not straightforward, nor should it be an unexamined process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African smallholders have disengaged from cultivation in recent decades despite the lack of alternative incomes. The Covid-19 pandemic led to further rises in poverty and food insecurity. Between March and May 2022, we asked respondents from all 104 households in one village in the Eastern Cape province about how the pandemic had impacted their lives, and their perspectives on and engagement in agriculture. The majority reported that school closures and loss of incomes had led to increased food insecurity. Overall the respondents did not report that the pandemic had had any significant positive or negative impact on cultivation. Material limitations (purchased seed, fertiliser, fencing and traction) were widely mentioned as hampering the possibility of cultivating land already before the pandemic. At the same time, many respondents expressed a love for farming. Future agricultural development support could be directed at promoting farming systems that are less dependent on external inputs and that can support rural livelihoods in the face of external shocks and crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus) is a weed crop in the temperate and Mediterranean areas. Its sweet almond-like tubers are considered important for their health and nutritional. Recent investigations have shown that tiger nuts are a valuable source of vegetable oils, rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, polyphenols, tocopherols, and phytosterols, as well as high-value compounds such as proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds. Despite its high nutritive quality, tiger nut oil is used in the food industry compared to other vegetable oils. These dietary fibers are being used to prepare of fiber-rich meat products with higher physicochemical and nutritional properties. Since these by-products contain polyphenols, their application may be extended to control or inhibit lipid oxidation in foods. Tiger nuts and their by-products from the "horchata de chufa" production process have a resources for large of vitamins and minerals, fiber and bioactive compounds. Collected data that present the possible uses of this fantastic plant to the food industry, pharmaceutical application, agricultural development, and the generation of biofuels are also clarified. The aim of this study is to review the findings of the research on tiger nut and its food applications. The current review presents an overview of these studies and seeks to reveal possible future avenues for further research in the economic interests of tiger nuts and their by-products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary forest conservation is essential for limiting climate change, for meeting conservation objectives, and the Sustainable Development Goals. Schemes that compensate communities for forgone extractive uses are important policy tools, but effective deployment demands an understanding of local deforestation drivers and host communities' preferences. We use Q-methodology to reveal discourses present in three communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our results reveal three factors with a common emphasis on forest conservation and preferences for compensation in the form of social investments, rather than cash. The main contrasts were in attitudes towards farming. The first discourse, we call conservationist—open to ideas, displayed a commitment to learning better practices for community material benefit in service of forest conservation. The second discourse, which demonstrated greater confidence in their capacity to support livelihoods from farming, we call aspirational artisans. The third, which was acutely aware of the impact of their farming on forest conservation, we called passive, conflicted farmers. We also demonstrate an aspiration for the continued development of farming amongst participants, which although still correlated with preferences for forest conservation, may lead to compensation schemes inadvertently stirring future land use tensions if design does not reconcile agricultural development and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pine nuts from stone pine are important non-wood forest products produced in Turkey. Thus, cooperative organizations engaged in the production and marketing of pine nuts play an important role in the development of forest villages in Turkey. This study reports and evaluates the effect of Kozak Subdistrict Agricultural Development Cooperative on economic development of the township. In this regard, a survey was conducted with 190 participants, and data were evaluated statistically. After villagers participated in this cooperative, forest villagers' income from pine nuts increased and constituted 59.8% of total household income. Although the cooperative has no effect on the animal production of forest villagers, it has positive effects on migration, income level, agricultural production, land used for pine nut cultivation, fuel use and standards of living. Therefore, the number of cooperatives utilizing non-wood forest products should be increased, and efforts should be made to conserve non-wood forest products to increase their added value and sustainable use in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to show how neocolonial development has led to increasing 'de-agrarianisation' despite agricultural expansion, and this is at the expense of peasant production and pastoralism. Based on the authors' own ethnographic research and literature studies, the article presents two cases of agricultural expansion: the Mahaweli Development Programme in Sri Lanka, aimed at redeveloping small-scale agriculture, and the reorganisation of pastoralist areas into large-scale cash cropping areas in Ethiopia. The authors find that recent agricultural 'developers' have failed to acknowledge the role and value of the traditional agrarian economy, as well as the pressure put on small-scale farmers and pastoralists through increasing capitalism in agriculture, land grabbing, and expropriation for agri-business. In conclusion, despite the historical and cultural differences between Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, both countries exemplify how the expropriation of state land under colonialism and after has facilitated the development of capitalist agriculture, involving irrigation, new settlements and migration, cash cropping, land alienation, and external public and private control. In Sri Lanka, increasing capitalism and technical reforms have led to social inequity and de-agrarianisation among small-scale farmers. In Ethiopia, agricultural development has been a political and economic process of alienation and exploitation for pastoralists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food regime theory identifies three distinct food regimes on a world scale: the British (1870–1930s), American (1945–1970s), and corporate food regimes (since the 1980s). In the first two regimes, political economic orders were dominated by two separate nation states, whereas the current third regime is dominated by a few mega-corporations. Consequently, traditional super nation states are finding it challenging to use food trade measures to ensure favourable world orders. However, China's state-owned agribusiness enterprises are quickly joining hands with the corporate food regime. This study aims to answer the following questions: Where is the state in the contemporary corporate food regime? How are these rising Chinese state-owned agribusiness enterprises changing the current food regime context? Applying the food regime theory, this paper aims to analyse the expansion of China's influence in the global soybean commodity chain, which is driven by four forces from the corporate food regime: liberalisation, technologicalisation, securitisation, and accumulation. These forces lead the Chinese state apparatus to address China's domestic food needs and then to establish agricultural free trade projects, biotechnology projects, soybean commodity-chain nationalisation projects, and transnational land-grabbing investments. Furthermore, such a dynamic Chinese food security context is gradually moving towards a "state-owned enterprise corporate food regime." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All-out war prompts an urgent search for food security. Looking ahead, we also seek ways and means of sustainable development for the agricultural sector. In reviewing promising activities for farmers that can be implemented within the next 5 years, each individual approach is considered from technological, financial, and legal angles, and guidelines are developed for the agricultural enterprises of the near future. Despite the daunting challenges, agribusiness in Ukraine has great prospects through adoption of precision agriculture, zero tillage, and diverse cropping systems; high-quality products in tune with international standards, including substantially more organically grown products; digital literacy and new technical solutions; and more resilient logistics. Of course, all depend on a secure knowledge base and proper financing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface water pollution is a huge issue worldwide that keeps growing in magnitude and complexity which leads to millions of people don't have access to clean water resource. Numerous studies on vulnerability, hazard and risk assessment of water pollution had been conducted yet most of them only focused on one of the three risk components. Therefore, the objective of this study was to apply a geospatial approach that integrated hydrogeological and anthropogenic parameters to assess the risk of surface water pollution in Selangor River Basin, Malaysia. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) were applied in hydrogeological vulnerability assessment. WRASTIC index was used in anthropogenic hazard assessment. The risk map showed that high-risk zones were mainly located in areas where development and agricultural activities are extensive. Conversely, low-risk zones were in areas that were mostly covered by forest with few developments, such as the upstream region. The results also revealed that high and very risk levels were dependent on soil media and presence of land use and anthropogenic activity especially agriculture, industry, and wastewater presence. The risk map also showed that developed area with high hydrogeological vulnerability would have higher risk of pollution compared to areas without any anthropogenic hazard. The risk map can assist stakeholders to identify at risk of pollution. This allows for better decision-making in integrated river basin management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gene editing technologies are emerging as powerful tools for agricultural development, spurring both hopes and concerns in society. To understand emerging discourses and coalitions around the role of CRISPR gene editing in food and agriculture we map the main actors and themes emerging from English-speaking Twitter networks over the course of one year (2021). Scientific actors are the most active and best networked in the debate. They promote a positive image of CRISPR gene editing and actively work to strengthen their network. A smaller but equally distinct group comprises civil society actors, who voice skepticism towards the technology and sometimes questions scientists' claims, but without eliciting responses from the scientists. We conclude that emerging discourse coalitions forming around the topic of CRISPR in food and agriculture on Twitter are siloed, with limited interaction between contrasting perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development Cooperation initiatives face complex real-world decision-making problems. The present action research investigates the use of Simplified Pairwise Ranking in a case study related to the identification of priority agricultural development interventions in the Collectivity of Katoyi, Nord Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. The study identifies roads building, technical training and follow-up, and improved varieties' introduction as the first three priority interventions. The dissertation about the applied methodology against the existing criticism provides information on how simplified pairwise ranking can be a useful and scientifically sound technique for eliciting discussion among a multidisciplinary group and for prioritising alternatives in agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory research is widely practised in agricultural research for development (AR4D). Yet, it is often applied technocratically by facilitators who are ill-prepared to engage with the unequal power relations that embed AR4D. We contend that participatory research has the potential to foster inclusive spaces for local identification of development challenges and solutions but that this requires a skilled and self-reflective facilitation of participatory processes. Several strategies can enhance the meaningful participation of women and marginalised groups in participatory research. Understanding these strategies and how to implement these thoughtfully should be integral to a facilitator's preparation and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this expository essay, we argue for building a fresh research programme in the political economy of development to analytically investigate and empirically substantiate the specificities of postcolonial capitalism. A key theoretical framework developed through the work of Kalyan Sanyal may be built upon, reformulated and productively deployed for this purpose. We provide a purposive engagement with this framework, its critiques, and the extant literature that develops it further. Some illustrations based on the agricultural and non-agricultural informal economies in India are provided to highlight the significance of this framework in examining the contemporary processes of capitalist development in the global South. The informal segments are marked by a persistence and reproduction of large swathes of non-capitalist economic spaces that are majorly structured around the logic of satisfying consumption needs, without discernible tendencies towards a classical pattern of capitalist transition. These spaces act as holding grounds of the population that is excluded from the capitalist growth poles of the economy and are often rendered as an undesired excess (as a surplus population) for the process of capitalist reproduction. Such a framework may also provide a compelling theoretical structure to interrogate the vast economic and political changes in the global landscape in the current conjuncture, and their implications for labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to agricultural credit contributes to rural development by allowing farmers to carry out profit-maximising investments that increase productivity and income, underlining the importance of exploring ways to increase access to this resource. This paper analyses the role of Rural Producer Organisations (RPOs) in easing access to formal agricultural credit. We build an original dataset comprising 15,000 municipality-year observations of RPO creation and credit allocation in Colombia to estimate a fixed effects model. We show that when the number of RPOs increases in a municipality, aggregate access to credit increases. This positive relation also holds at the individual level, with RPO membership increasing both the likelihood of a farmer requesting credit and of receiving the requested credit. We discuss demand and supply-side mechanisms that plausibly explain these results, and we further show that the relation between RPOs and access to credit is heterogeneous according to the source of credit (public vs. private bank) and the type of farmer to whom it is allocated (low-wealth, mid-wealth or high-wealth farmers). Our results point to the potential of RPOs to improve access not only to input and output markets but also to financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change in the land spatial structure affects regional development and stability. In the context of the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, studying the spatial structure changes in its important cities will contribute to the coordinated development of the region. This study uses spatial analysis and coupling models to explore the basic characteristics and evolutionary trends of the land spatial structure in Zhongshan city in 2000, 2011, 2022, and 2035. Through research, it is found that (1) in general, the urban space is divided into different geometric forms by the water network system. The spatial structure of living land is 'fragmentation-aggregation-aggregation and fragmentation'. (2) Ecological land is concentrated in the southeast and remained relatively stable. Productive land accounts for the largest proportion in Northeast China, becoming the main area of agricultural development. (3) From 2022 to 2035, the area of productive land will increase in different ranges under four scenarios, and the area of productive land will increase the fastest under the urbanization development scenario (UDS). (4) The ecological land area increases only in the ecological protection scenario (EPS), and the area decreases in the other three scenarios. An increase in construction land area occurs in the urbanization development scenario (UDS) and nature development scenario (NDS). (5) The habitat quality of Zhongshan city showed a significant decline from 2000 to 2022. In 2035, the habitat quality will significantly improve in the ecological protection scenario (EPS) and sustainable development scenario (SDS) scenarios, and the ecological regions in Southeast China will be significantly clustered and expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents efforts to support a feedback and sharing process using Community Cinema and Participatory Video (PV), in the context of ending a five-year agricultural research for development (AR4D) project. By the final year, some troubling patterns of transactional interaction between researchers and farmer-participants had become established. This multimedia essay documents and describes our imperfect yet hopeful attempts to disrupt relationship patterns at the end of the project. Contributing to debates around collaboration within AR4D projects, we specifically highlight our disruption of: (i) a well-trodden communication path enrolling intermediary "gatekeepers" to contact participating farmers; and (ii) the protocol of paying participants to attend meetings. We reflect on how—at times—the changes we made, while implementing creative, participatory methods, opened up a newly interactive space to support reflection, feedback and sharing processes at the end-phase of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze land-use change and urban expansion in Binh Duong province, Vietnam, from 1995 to 2020. Multitemporal Landsat images were used to develop land-use maps. Area statistics and transition matrices were employed to explore the land-use change; meanwhile, annual expansion rate (AER), expansion contribution rate (ECR), and district-, ring-, and sector-based analyses were employed to analyze the urban expansion. The results showed that there was a large transition from agricultural and unused lands to other uses. This resulted in an expansion of developed areas, recreational regions, mining sites, and water surfaces, a drastic decline of agricultural land for annual crops, and a fluctuation of perennial cropland and unused land. The study also indicated that the urban area has expanded 65 times within 25 years at an increasing rate. The AER and ECR were uneven between subregions, and there was a gradual expansion and shift from south to north of the province. The factors affecting the changes comprise natural conditions, development histories, policies and practices for urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural development, and product price fluctuations in the market. Practical lessons learned from this study could be useful for land planning and policymaking in other localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land Cover or Land Use (LCLU) classification is an important, challenging problem in remote sensing (RS) images. RS image classification is a recent technology used to extract hidden information from remotely sensed images in the observed earth environment. This classification is essential for sustainable development in agricultural decisions and urban planning using deep learning (DL) methods. DL gets more attention for accuracy and performance improvements in large datasets. This paper is aimed to apply one of the DL methods called transfer learning (TL). TL is the recent research problem in machine learning and DL approaches for image classification. DL consumes much time for training when starting from scratch. This problem could be overcome in the TL modeling technique, which uses pre-trained models to build deep TL models efficiently. We applied the TL model using bottleneck feature extraction from the pre-trained models: InceptionV3, Resnet50V2, and VGG19 to LCLU classification in the UC Merced dataset. With these experiments, the TL model has been built the outdate performance of 92.46, 94.38, and 99.64 in Resnet50V2, InceptionV3, and VGG19, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the establishment and maintenance of a housing system for cattle by farmers, their perception of housing systems plays an important role in their decision to choose the environmentally sustainable housing system. The aim of this study was to determine farmers' attitudes towards their role, environmental sustainability, and perceived government support, to determine whether the role of cattle farmers influences their perceptions of different cattle housing systems, and to create a typology of cattle farmers based on these attitudes. The paper was based on online surveys (n = 306) and five focus groups with Slovenian cattle farmers (n = 42). Results show that the majority of participants placed a higher value on production than on the environment, but had adopted animal and environmentally friendly housing systems to achieve higher production and profits and to receive full direct payments. Four groups of cattle farmers based on the attitudes towards their role, environmental sustainability, and perceived governmental support were identified: Productivists, Traditionalists, Abandoners, and Environmentalists. Most respondents belonged to the Productivist group, who believed that environmental measures have a negative impact on agricultural development. A characteristic of the smaller Traditionalist group is that these farmers claimed to have an obligation to preserve or improve the environment for future generations. For Environmentalists, environmentally friendly agriculture is most important. The smallest group identified consists of farmers who indicated their role as a farmer was not important because they were likely to give up farming. Systematically planned communication aimed at different groups of farmers is needed to promote acceptance of changes in housing systems for cattle that reduce the greenhouse effect. The majority of farmers placed a higher value on production than on the environment. They had adopted animal and environmentally friendly housing systems to achieve higher production and profits and to receive full direct payments. There were four groups of cattle farmers: Productivists, Traditionalists, Abandoners, and Environmentalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large scale agricultural projects driven by a high modernist ideology have been closely interlinked with the process of state building at the Ethiopian lowland frontier since the second half of the twentieth century. This paper provides a diachronic analysis of the political economy of agricultural development and the associated frontier effect in the western and north-eastern lowlands of the country across three different political regimes. A comparative assessment of these patterns suggests that the high modernist paradigm should be applied with some qualification to the agenda of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the coalition that ruled Ethiopia from 1994 to 2019. The EPRDF was far more pragmatic than its predecessors; the oscillation between different degrees of state intervention was based upon past experiences of success and failure in the territorialization of state power in contested borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article views regional and sectoral peculiarities of Agenda-2030 realization in Russian agricultural sector. The aim of the research was to determine the degree of the SDGs achievement in agribusiness on national, regional and local levels in the absence of quantitative markers. Based on the conclusion on insufficient integration of the SDGs in business strategies, we proposed the six-staged scheme to promote and realize the SDGs in national agri-food system, involving all the parties concerned. In the course of the scheme realization, we conducted the survey among the representatives of agribusiness from 26 regions, located in four agro-climatic zones of Stavropolskii krai. The results provided quantitative assessment of the SDGs awareness degree in agri-food sphere and demonstrated its low level. Also, we managed to get information on the goals of high priority for the experts (SDGs 8, 3, 6, 4, 11, 7, 9 and 16) and distinguish the importance of social, economic and ecological problems, which prevent the SDGs realization in agricultural sector and rural areas. The problems of negative impact of climatic changes, rise in price for goods and services, limited resources for the production improvement and innovation turned out to be the major ones in the view of the experts. The main result of the research consists in providing the quantitative data and determination of the priority areas for the sustainable development in the regional agricultural sector, with the aim of further transformation of the policy to achieve the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study draws inference on the impact of agricultural trade openness, total factor productivity (TFP) growth, and domestic agriculture support on food security in Africa. To retain estimates efficiency and consistency in the presence of complex error terms, we employed the Panel-Corrected-Standard-Error (PCSE) estimator on panel data spanning 2005–2016 for 13 African countries. Results suggest that agricultural trade liberalisation and TFP have significant and favourable effects. Moreover, we find that reducing agricultural support beyond distortion-free levels enhances food security. Further to trade openness, we call for export growth-oriented domestic support anchored on agricultural human-capital development, innovation, and research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural economies in sub-Saharan Africa are rapidly changing. While these changes are viewed by policymakers as rural development, limited attention has been paid to how this transformation has precipitated intergenerational conflict. This qualitative research examines the consequences of a rapidly changing cash-crop economy on women's ageing experiences. Based on a purposive sample of 14 participants, I argue that while agrarian rural development has led to strong marketisation practices aimed at accumulating capital and alleviating poverty, it has also contributed to tension between young people and those ageing in rural villages, most especially older women. This tension has created a sense of invisibility among older women, which some described as 'being counted among the dead'. Through an inductive analysis of participants' life stories, three overarching themes are discussed to reveal older women's experiences of intergenerational conflict: marketisation and distorted land relations; labels of disconnect and broken social bonds; and destructive leisure consumerism. With a focus on Uganda, the paper contributes to articulating new dimensions to older women's experiences of material and non-material deprivation within shared resource bases in transitioning rural economies of sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to promote smallholders to adopt the commercial farming of crops, it is important to understand the factors that affect their decisions to commercialize. However, little empirical research has looked at what has shaped smallholders' decisions to adopt commercial farming of vegetable crops. This study investigates the factors that influence smallholders' commercialization of vegetables in Central Vietnam. A sample size of 277 was randomly taken from a total population of 525 smallholders, and a structured questionnaire was created to gather data. The results show that, among the explanatory variables, participation in training programmes, distance from home to the nearest local markets, having an existing vegetable customer, number of plots of land, mobile phone ownership, and participation in community-based organizations, are the significantly important determinants of smallholders' commercialization of vegetables. Any agricultural development programmes that help smallholders to adopt the commercial farming of vegetables, such as financial support and the provision of training courses on methods of vegetable marketing, should take into account these determinants. This research provides an important understanding about the determinants of commercialisation of vegetable crops by smallholders, and highlights aspects that need to be considered when devising development policies to improve the smallholders' uptake of commercial farming in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of an ongoing research project on production and allocation of the biomass of agricultural origin (BAO), a key resource in ecological and energy transitions. The production and allocation of BAO are changing under the current development of the bioeconomy, which is the narrative promoted for intensifying the use of BAO, that we question through the lens of the scientific paradigm of bioeconomics. We developed a metabolic approach to agriculture, that we applied to the case study of northern Aube (France), an area specialized in intensive crop farming, undergoing rapid development of agricultural biogas production. Our results indicate that the ongoing changes influence BAO production and allocation at several scales (farm, small collective of farms, value chain, territorial). Development of the bioeconomy strongly influences the socioeconomic metabolism of the territory's agriculture. Diversion of BAO flows due to biogas production are increasing structural imbalances and have some negative impacts on flows and ecological or economic funds strategic for sustainability, agronomic and economic balances of agricultural activities at multiple scales and as a whole. The changes described are especially disruptive since they strengthen competition and have blocking effects for the existing and potential agricultural metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enduring appearance of agriculture landscapes in the American West belies their dynamic nature. The Clover Tract, a 4,000-acre agricultural development in southern Idaho, was part of a reclamation and irrigation infrastructure project that transformed the landscape through topographical reshaping, new technologies, and cultural and economic forces. Geographic, heritage, and thingly theoretical approaches are used to analyze this cultural landscape. The interdisciplinary approach demonstrates the physical landscape's entanglement with everyday human actions and meanings. Heritage professionals should consider how cultural geographers' approaches reveal heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of agriculture played an important role in the development of society during the early medieval period. This paper presents an insight into the changes in crop and animal husbandry for early medieval Yorkshire (fourth – late thirteenth century). A synthesis of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological evidence from 163 sites revealed multiple changes in the presence of different cereal types and main domesticates. While a high presence of wheat and barley was observed across the period, an increased use of both oats and rye has been highlighted. Faunal evidence has emphasised the different sub-regional developments of cattle and sheep/goats within Yorkshire. These trends suggest that agricultural development went initially through a phase of abatement marked by the apparent taking up of subsistence-oriented crop and unspecialised animal husbandry practices. A phase of agricultural intensification was observed during the Anglo-Scandinavian and later phases as the arable was enlarged through the use of more specific cereals (like oats and rye). It is suggested that this was accompanied by an increasingly specialised animal economy focusing on their secondary products. Additionally, Anglian estate organisation might have been an important contributor towards the development of agricultural methods in areas like the Yorkshire Wolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frontiers of national development and agricultural expansion constitute spaces of intense interaction, disputes and contestation. The Brazilian economy continues to largely rely on the opening of agribusiness frontiers in the west of country and, similar to what happened in the past, this is a phenomenon shaped by acute racism and discrimination against the Indigenous population. This article is focused on the emblematic experienced by the Guarani-Kaiowa on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Their unique socio-spatial trajectory is analysed, making use of empirical results and regular visits to Indigenous communities. To understand this highly variegated geographical terrain, a new spatial typology is introduced. One of the key findings of the research is the latent agency by the Guarani-Kaiowa, which emerges from attachments to places, heritages and socio-ecological practices that led to an ability to take the initiative to advance their cause whenever and however the opportunities arise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major changes in the archaeological material in Rogaland, southwestern Norway, from the mid-6th century AD have been interpreted as a population decline and an economic recession connected to the 6th century crisis. This event is known from historical and archaeological sources in continental Europe and has recently gained much attention in the Scandinavian archaeological debate. Sudden climate change, pandemic and collapsed trading networks likely induced new conditions, which would have had a major impact on the society in southwestern Norway. This paper uses plant-macrofossil data, supplemented by zooarchaeological data, and radiocarbon dates, from two archaeological sites with different prerequisites and trajectories, to reconstruct agricultural development. Based on this reconstruction, it explores agricultural resilience in connection with the 6th century crisis and investigates the merits of various agricultural strategies and adaptations. The macrofossil data reveals a change in crop composition, with a temporary introduction of rye at one of the sites, suggesting an adjustment to new circumstances. The studied sites display different subsistence strategies based on local conditions, and the data suggests complete abandonment of the site that probably depended on trade, while the people living at the more self-sufficient site were able to adapt their agriculture and survive the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread, severe negative impacts of human activities on Earth's ecosystems over the past few decades have highlighted the importance of continuous and up-to-date monitoring of ecosystems health. On the other hand, it has been proven that the use of remote sensing technology in environmental studies can lead to accurate and reliable results with spending less cost and time. This research attempts to use remote sensing indicators and the framework of Vigour, Organization, Resilience, and Services (VORS) to assess ecosystem health by introducing Remotely Sensed Ecosystem Health Assessment (RSEHA) Model. By applying 10 spatiotemporal indices, ecosystem health has been assessed in Lake Urmia Basin (LUB) during the years 2001–2014. The results showed that the health status of LUB in its different parts varied from 'very strong' to 'very poor'. The health status around LUB has changed from 'poor' to 'very poor', while it has improved, especially in cultivated lands. The health of the lake has been sacrificed in favour of the development of agricultural areas in the basin. Based on validation results, the RSEHA model can determine the ecosystem conditions at pixel level at any time at reasonable cost and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water infrastructure occupies a central role in achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in water supply, sanitation and health, agricultural development, and energy production. However, Nigeria, and many Sub-Saharan African countries face specific challenges around infrastructure financing, systemic and repeated malfunctioning, and decentralized infrastructure types. This review provides insights into the current state of water infrastructure governance research in Nigeria and presents a research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the dramatic progress in poverty reduction, China's vast rural areas of backwardness, environmental degradation and low labour productivity are a long-standing challenge to achieve common prosperity and sustainable development. Finding a balance between ecological conservation and socioeconomic development is a solution. However, previous studies have largely neglected the concept. Here, we proposed a framework that integrates the ecological environment and socioeconomic wellbeing via farm management and the use of ecosystem services (ES) to assess rural sustainability and explore a suitable balance and pathways from the perspective of the human dimension. Taking Yan'he Township in China's Loess Plateau as an example, a clustering analysis was performed to group farm households based on their behaviour in cropping, land rental, and off-farm work. A composite index was built to assess rural sustainability at the farm household level, while a structural equation model was performed to estimate the effect of land-use practices on rural sustainability and explore adequate farm management and policy interventions. The results show that households with different farm management and land-use strategies had divergent agricultural performance, use of ES, and environmental and wellbeing outcomes. Increasing legume cropping with conservation approaches (e.g., rotation) and extended irrigation while encouraging migrant work with ensured equal urban-rural social welfare and property rights may contribute to balancing socioeconomic development with ecological conservation. The findings indicate that both interventionist policies and independent market support are vital for individual and community capacity building and public infrastructure development to stimulate agricultural adaptation and rural transformation towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biotelemetry of Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus has exposed spawning behaviors in ever-smaller estuaries, surprising for the NW Atlantic's largest anadromous species. Small estuary — the Nanticoke River and Marshyhope Creek (Chesapeake Bay) — spawning-run adults and their habitat affinities are described based upon direct sampling and biotelemetry for the period 2014–2018. High rates of recapture over this period indicate a very small adult population size. Genetics revealed a very small effective population size (Ne = 12.2, 95% CI = 6.7–21.9). Most returns occurred during September at 20–27 °C. All fish departed as fall temperatures declined below 20 °C. Multi-beam sonar identified small-dispersed areas of sand-cobble and cobble, which could support adhesive embryo attachment. Movements of adults were higher during nighttime than daytime, with habitat preference for hard bottom habitats. Genetic evidence indicates that the sudden discovery of this population was unrelated to a hatchery release of several thousand juvenile sturgeon (Hudson River progeny) in 1997. The newly discovered population in the Nanticoke River exhibits a degree of resilience including multiple spawning regions and suitable spawning habitat. Still, critical vulnerabilities persist including curtailed habitat, continued agricultural and maritime development, invasive blue catfish, and a very small apparent population size. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/23308249.2021.1924617 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the type of organization for achieving social efficiency for agricultural development remains a challenge. In this study, the relationship between the financial and social efficiency of South African agricultural cooperatives was examined. Data, comprising 1788 agricultural cooperatives, were obtained from the Cooperative Data Analysis System database. Only 387 observations without missing values were predicted in the empirical model. Data envelopment analysis scores for the financial and social efficiency indicators were computed. A two-stage residual inclusion method estimated the social efficiency model. The results show that social efficiency is positively influenced by financial efficiency and other factors. These include the number of employees, the enterprise type, and compliance with internal control practices. The social efficiency of agricultural cooperatives decreases for institutions that have recently been trained and that comply with the annual financial audits and profit tax. Social efficiency also decreases with age, but it increases with the square of the agricultural cooperative's age. This suggests that financially-efficient agricultural cooperatives may achieve social efficiency, that young agricultural cooperatives are not the ideal candidates for addressing the social efficiency challenges of agricultural cooperatives, and that the current training received by agricultural cooperatives does not empower them with social efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is an example of a complex dynamic socio-hydrological system in which societies and hydrology interact and co-evolve. The dominant engineering approach in the VMD has enhanced the dynamics of society and hydrology. This study looks at the implications of socio-hydrological dynamics in the coastal VMD where saline water is controlled by various infrastructures. In the first phase, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were used to explore socio-hydrological dynamics in the study area. The results show divergence in livelihood strategies inside the freshwater-projected area, shaping a heterogeneous agricultural landscape of fresh- and brackish-water livelihoods manifested by four socio-hydrological groups. Next, the Motivation and Ability (MOTA) framework and household surveys were used to assess the adaptability in the agricultural development pathway advocated by the freshwater policy. The result revealed differentiations among these socio-hydrological groups. The findings suggest other practices may be required to help the area navigate towards future adaptations to socio-hydrological changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the effects of sustainable development of agricultural IoT are being investigated in 13 cities of Anhui province in China by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and drivers-pressures-state-impact-response (DPSIR) models. The relevant theories are combined with agricultural IoT research, and an effective evaluation system is proposed. The main goals of this study are to recognize the essential parameters in the study of agricultural IoT; investigate the effects of the technological and economic environment of agricultural IoT. The sustainable development model and evaluation index system are combined with the driving force-state-response framework. The PCA algorithm is used for index value assignment. The scores of sustainable developments of agricultural IoT in each city of province A are calculated. In the balance ranking of sustainable development of agricultural IoT, city A ranks first with the driving force score of 0.233, the state score of 0.2, and the response score of 0.281. The results provided the data support for the investigation of supportable expansion of emerging industries in the economic globalization field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]