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The objectives of this activity are: 1. increasing beef cattle productivity through early pregnancy detection technology in Sungai Kunyit Village, South Solok District, 2. increasing community knowledge and skills in the application of early pregnancy detection technology, and 3. transferring science and technology from tertiary institutions to the community in Sungai Kunyit Village, South Solok District. This activity was carried out in July 2019 in Sungai Kunyit Village, South Solok District. In this activity involved lecturers, students at Andalas University, breeders, and the community in Sungai Kunyit Village, South Solok District. While the methods used are lecture, question and answer, demonstration, coaching, and evaluation methods. While coaching and evaluating the activities carried out continuously. The results obtained from this activity are 1. the community and breeders are able to implement early pregnancy detection technology in beef cattle, 2. the high response of the community and breeders both in the extension activities and demonstration of early pregnancy detection technology, and 3. increased income of the community and breeders in Sungai Kunyit Village, South Solok District. This activity was attended by community leaders, village apparatus, and Sungai Kunyit village extension officers, South Solok. From the results of the action, it can be concluded that this activity is categorized as very successful and provides benefits to the community. This can be seen at the time when the events of the breeders/farmer groups and the community are substantial towards the development of beef cattle business.

For many seasons now, it has been the season of the witch. Friends I never rated as superstitious check their horoscopes with fresh credulity, validated by the not-quite-jokes Twitter celebrities [...]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Gothic fantasy 'Christabel' (1816) begins with an archetypal moment, familiar to fans of monster stories everywhere. The innocent maiden Christabel has been wandering at midnight in the [...]

Cow candy is a feed supplement that contains a source of protein, energy and minerals needed by livestock. This cow candy is shaped on and rich in nutrients which is used to increase beef cattle productivity. Cow candy is very useful in growing microbes in the rumen, adding energy, growing lust, and fattening. This activity aims to: 1. increase beef cattle population / productivity through cow candy making in Kenagarian Sungai Kunyit Solok Selatan, 2. improve breeders 'understanding of making beef candy as feed for Nagari River Kunyit beef cattle, 3. improve breeders' skills in making candy cattle, and 4. the application of technology from the campus to the Sungai Kunyit nagari community. This activity was carried out in June 2019 which involved Unand students, breeders and the community in Nagari Sungai Kunyit. The method of this activity is in the form of counseling, demonstration, guidance, coaching and evaluation. From the implementation of the activity, the results of the activities are as follows: 1. The response of farmers / community is very high following the activities of counseling and demonstration of cow candy, 2. Improving the understanding of breeders / community in making cow candy, 3. Increasing the income / welfare of the community in the business of cow candy. This activity was categorized as successful after evaluating the activity and benefiting breeders / community of Sungai Kunyit, South Solok.

Kanagarian Preparation Sidodadi is one of the villages in Kinali District, West Pasaman Regency. The majority of the people are eyed as farmers and ranchers. The main commodities produced by farmers are corn, rice and mustard coconut, while the main livestock commodities are cattle. In addition, this nagari has a fairly large area of agricultural land that has great potential to be a place for developing beef cattle. The purpose of this activity is 1. to transfer early pregnancy detection technology and 2. the use of cow candy as a feed supplement for livestock to increase livestock production. While the approach used in the implementation of the KKN-PPM program in the Sidodadi nagari community is a participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach that involves all elements of the community starting from the sub-district, wali nagari, head of jorong, head of hamlet, ninik mamak, housewives and youth. The stages of this activity include the preparation, implementation and evaluation stages. There were 24 students involved, consisting of various faculties at Andalas University. The results of the activities obtained are: 1. Breeders have begun to be motivated to add knowledge in the cultivation of good and profitable beef cattle, 2. Service activities in the form of counseling to maintain beef cattle through the application of technology given to farmers are very attractive to farmers to do cattle business cut apart from rice paddy business to increase family income, 3. Farmers and the community can master the technology of early pregnancy detection of beef cattle, 4. Farmers can make cow candy is very possible to be done at the household scale or can also be a factory to increase income. From the results of the activities it can be concluded that the activities that have been carried out are categorized as successful. This can be seen at the time when the activities of the breeders/farmer groups and the community are very large towards the development of beef cattle business.

Water has a significant role in society, whether through human consumption or agricultural use. The [Name] Watershed is an agricultural community affected by nonpoint source pollution, and water quality protection is of high concern. Beef cattle operations are linked to nonpoint source pollution which contaminates surrounding water sources. If proper grazing management practices are not used, wastes from the operation impair water quality in the area. Landowners should use proper stocking rates and implement best management practices to benefit land and water quality in addition to overall operation profit. Females reported a higher intention to adopt, indicating these respondents are more open to practice changes on their own operation. Results indicated a need for the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and [State] Soil and Water Conservation Board to conduct further outreach to increase interaction with landowners. NRCS agencies could help increase the use of water conservation plans and inquiries by making this clear to current landowners participating in their program as well as potential clients by sending informational flyers or speaking at local organizational gatherings. The importance of adopting water management practices and barriers to adoption are ongoing global concerns.

This article deals with continuities and changes in the conceptualization of womanhood among the Guji-Oromo of Ethiopia. Drawing on adults' and children's interpretation of gendered folk narratives, the article discusses the traditional conceptualization of womanhood and the emerging voices that disapprove of it. It argues that adults and children construct contesting images of womanhood through interpreting gendered folk narratives. In explicating the interplay between gender, folk narratives, and intergenerational difference, it looks into the dynamics driving the conceptualization of womanhood in Ethiopia. It shows how individuals' and groups' socio-cultural orientation plays a crucial role in the understanding of gender to which children are introducing new perspectives. It also argues that the role of cultural expression is not only to validate customary perceptions but also reflects the present and emerging changes in the construction of gender. This scenario echoes an emerging resistance that the present generation of children has imposed on the established gender stereotypical views of adults. The article is based on data collected through ethnographic fieldworks done among the Guji-Oromo for ten months in 2015. Key words: gender, folk narratives, continuity and change, Guji-Oromo, Ethiopia, Introduction This article discusses how adults and children uphold and subvert gender relations through the narrative processes of folktales. The discussion follows the notion of 'narrative construction' with a focus [...]

Abstract This study examines the association between Internet use and protest politics in South Korea and Taiwan, using secondary data from the sixth wave (2010-14) of the World Values Survey. [...]

The romantic image of the fierce Iron Age horse-riding pastoralists of the first millennium BC who roamed the Eurasian steppe has dominated our historical imagination of nomadic confederacies. The Scythians, Saka, Sarmatians, Wusun and Yuezhi, when described by ancient Greek historians and Chinese chroniclers, have been identified as the 'barbarians' (Beckwith 2009). In such accounts these nomadic barbarians occupied the 'edges' or peripheries of core agrarian states. In this article I explore how the Iron Age archaeology of settlements and burial mounds (kurgans) of a remote area along the Tian Shan Mountains of south-eastern Kazakhstan provides a different picture of the so-called barbarians. In order to build an archaeological case that allows for a different interpretation of the formation and evolution of Iron Age agro-pastoralism at the southern edge of the Eurasian steppe, this story must be told through the lens of a field archaeologist. KEYWORDS: Iron Age archaeology, nomadic states and confederacies, agro-pastoralism, Eurasia, appanage, The archaeology of the Iron Age (circa 800 BC to AD 400) of the Semirech'ye ('seven rivers') region along the northern edge of the Tian Shan Mountains of south-eastern Kazakhstan [...]

Crossbreeding has been used to improve performance in beef cattle, however the effects of breed composition on methane (CH4) production, yield and intensity from cattle raised in tropical intensive and integrated systems remain unknown. To assess the impact of breed composition on performance and methane emissions, Nellore (NEL; yr 1: BW = 171.5 ± 19.4 kg; n = 10; yr 2: BW = 215.8 ± 32.3 kg, n = 25) and Angus x Nellore crossbred (AN; yr 1: BW = 214.2 ± 26.4 kg, n = 10; yr 2: BW = 242.5 ± 32.2 kg, n = 25) were compared. The animals grazed on integrated crop-livestock system in the growing phase (stocking rate 2452 kg BW/ha, herbage mass 4,884 kg dry matter (DM)/ha, forage allowance 5.9 kg DM/100kg BW) and then were finished in a feedlot. Steers (n = 8) from each breed composition were randomly selected in each phase to measure CH4 production using a sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) tracer technique and DM intake (DMI) using titanium dioxide. Compared with NEL, AN had both superior total gain and average daily gain (ADG) in the grazing period. The AN presented greater ADG in the feedlot with a shorter finishing period and resulted in greater carcass yield and carcass ADG. Methane production (kg/period) was lower in NEL (19% less) than AN in grazing (P<0.01), and no difference was observed in feedlot. The NEL had less CH4 intensity (CH4/BW) in grazing but greater CH4 per unit of ADG in the feedlot compared to AN. Breed composition did not influence the CH4 yield (CH4/DMI) in either phase, despite the difference in feedlot DMI (kg/day). In conclusion, crossbreeding may be an option to improve performance and reduce the CH4 per ADG in tropical climate conditions, resulting in lower methane emission per kg of meat produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we designed a delayed payment mechanism in laboratory second price auctions (SPAs), under which subjects received a cash endowment two weeks after the experiment day and had to use their own money to pay the experimental losses (if any) on the experiment day. We compared the effect of delayed payment on overbidding in the induced value SPAs with the conventional “on-the-spot” payment mechanism where the subjects received an endowment on the experiment day, and the prepaid mechanism where the subjects received the endowment two weeks before the experiment day. Each auction was repeated for 20 rounds to provide sufficient learning opportunities to the bidders. Our results showed that bids converged to the corresponding values over auction rounds and overbidding was reduced by previous losses, consistently with the adaptive learning theory. Moreover, overbidding seems to depend significantly on bidders’ cash holding, and the magnitude of the payment treatment effects depends crucially on liquidity constraints. In the presence of liquidity constraints, both delayed and prepaid payment mechanisms reduced overbidding, while in the absence of liquidity constraints, only the delayed endowment mechanism reduced overbidding. Furthermore, when controlling the degree of liquidity constraints, subjects with higher GPAs were less likely to overbid and the delayed endowment mechanism significantly reduced overbidding compared to other payment mechanisms. These results suggest that overbidding in SPAs might be caused by bounded rationality and could be reduced by adaptive learning especially when overbidding becomes “truly” costly to subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confined animal feeding operations can facilitate the spread of genes associated with antibiotic resistance. It is not known how cattle removal from beef cattle backgrounding operation affects the persistence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the environment. We investigated the effect of cessation of beef cattle backgrounding operation on the persistence and distribution of ARGs in the beef cattle backgrounding environment. The study was conducted at a pasture-feedlot type beef cattle backgrounding operation which consisted of feeding and grazing areas that were separated by a fence with an access gate. Backgrounding occurred for seven years before cattle were removed from the facility. Soil samples (n = 78) from 26 georeferenced locations were collected at the baseline before cattle were removed, and then one year and two years after cattle were removed. Metagenomic DNA was extracted from the soil samples and total bacterial population (16S rRNA), total Enterococcus species and class 1 integrons (intI1), and erythromycin (ermB and ermF), sulfonamide (sul1 and sul2) and tetracycline (tetO, tetW and tetQ) resistance genes were quantified. Concentrations of total bacteria, Enterococcus spp., class 1 integrons, and ARGs were higher in the feeding area and its immediate vicinity (around the fence and the gate) followed by a gradient decline along the grazing area. Although the concentrations of total bacteria, Enterococcus spp., class 1 integrons and ARGs in the feeding area significantly decreased two years after cattle removal, their concentrations were still higher than that observed in the grazing area. Higher concentrations over two years in the feeding area when compared to the grazing area suggest a lasting effect of confined beef cattle production system on the persistence of bacteria and ARGs in the soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of deforestation in Amazonia are based mainly on a rationalist explanation, with little concern for the power relations between the actors involved or the values that motivate them. This article employs an approach based on the concept of governmentality in order to assess how public and private actors interact in managing the durable soy and beef sectors in the Amazon. I show that the way in which issues of durability have been confronted result from a neoliberal change in the practices of public authorities that aim above all to sustain the Brazilian agro-export model.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle has come to symbolize an era of muckraking and reform. But its author sought revolution, not regulation. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1905) is a well-known novel [...]

The intensification of beef cattle production in dryland areas of East Indonesia has the potential to substantially raise the incomes of smallholder farmers that dominate the sector. In this study we assess the potential for intensifying beef production on Sumbawa Island, by introducing a household feedlot production system (2–20 animals) based on the Leucaena leucocephala (leucanea) tree legume as an improved source of feed. We used a system dynamics approach to model the entire value chain, accounting for herd dynamics, demand dynamics and seasonality. Our findings complement the growing body of biophysical evidence about the potential success of this intervention, by simulating improvements in the annual profitability for beef farmers in the project area of up to 415% by 2023. Increases in farm profit were shown to depend near equally on the higher productivity of the leucaena feeding system and an associated price premium, demonstrating the importance of supporting improved agricultural production with better marketing practices. The intervention was also shown to generate positive or neutral benefits for the main post-farm value chain actors. Importantly, it also reduced the GHG emission intensity of outputs from the beef herd by 16% by 2020. We explored number of scale-out pathways, including a relatively moderate pace of autonomous adoption for our main analysis, resulting in the accumulation of 3,444 hectares of leucaena 20-years after the initial project phase, which could sustain the fattening of 37,124 male cattle per year. More ambitious rates of scale-out were found to be possible without exceeding the animal and land resources of the island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier this year, a woman was brought before the traditional court in the village of Gciriku in eastern Kavango. She had to face the traditional leaders who were of the contention that the woman brought hardship to her in-laws and that she needed to be punished in order to appease the dead husband's family. To be precise, the traditional court ruled that the woman paid a fine amounting to either 15 heads of cattle, or its monitory equivalent of Namibian Dollars 30 000 to her late husband's family, as she was held responsible for causing the 'tragedy in the family.', The circumstances of the Gciriku case are typical: A distressed husband threatened to kill the apparently envious wife after she caught him in flagrante with another woman. In fact, he [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.12.008 Byline: Kelsey Needham Dancause (a), Helen A. Akol (b), Sandra J. Gray (b) Abstract: Karimojong agropastoralists of Uganda have employed a dual subsistence strategy of cattle herding and sorghum cultivation to survive in an unpredictable environment, one afflicted by a severe humanitarian crisis. Armed raiding since the 1970s has led to devastating cattle losses, high male mortality, and increased sedentarization of women and children in densely populated homesteads, where infectious diseases and malnutrition rates are prevalent. Fieldwork in 1998-1999 confirmed the detrimental effects of armed raiding on child growth and development. During this period, however, women maintained largely traditional subsistence patterns. Follow-up fieldwork in 2004 revealed surprising subsistence changes: sorghum beer, an important food and ritual item, was being brewed for sale, which had not been noted in previous literature on the Karimojong. We outline the role of beer in the diet by analyzing the nutritional profile of Karimojong women and children, nutrients supplied by beer, and those supplied by foodstuffs purchased with sales profits. Commercial beer supplied from 3 to 6% of energy intake, and grains leftover from brewing (dregs) supplied from 3 to 12%. Selling beer was women's preferred form of casual labor, with differing patterns of participation in brewing between rural and peri-urban areas. Women who were paid in currency relied on profits to purchase nutrient-rich supplemental foodstuffs important in an otherwise marginal diet, as well as beer. The households of women who worked for other brewers or purchased beer wholesale and sold it retail relied heavily on dregs for daily subsistence. Nutrient intake was highest among women with cattle and sorghum who brewed and sold beer from their homesteads, and lowest among women who lacked sorghum and worked for commercial brewers in urban centers. Because nutritional status remains marginal in Karamoja, beer commercialization as a consequence of subsistence changes could have dramatic health consequences for women and children. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA (b) Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA