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Agricultural production responds to social, political, economic, environmental, and technological drivers that influence producers' decisions and shape the individual systems through modification of management practices, crop and livestock mix, and marketing strategy. We use an interview and discussion approach with producer panels to examine production systems in the eastern United States and explore key drivers impacting their unique characteristics and development. The internal social driver that values the farming lifestyle is a principle factor that leads people to choose farming. Irrespective of location, farming is first and foremost a lifestyle choice. The choice of type of production system is partly a lifestyle preference and partly influenced by other external factors, including economic and environmental elements. A second principle driver is economic, arising from a need to make a living, and tempers the internal social driver. Economic return is partially a function of the marketability of products. Marketing channels are dependent on social drivers, including education of producers and consumers, community support and community values. Farmers in the Northeast are able to take a more active role in determining contract terms than those in the Southeast, and are also more aggressive in developing new markets. Development of local markets and community support strengthens the link between farmers and consumers, and reinforces the economic sustainability of Northeastern production systems. With decreased reliance on external risk reduction approaches, Northeastern producers bear greater risk, but also have greater flexibility in altering the crop and livestock mix and are better able to respond to consumer demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native plant biodiversity loss and exotic species invasions are threatening the ability of many ecosystems to maintain key functions and processes. We currently lack detailed plant biodiversity data at a national scale with which to make management decisions and recommendations based on current conservation challenges. We collected plant biodiversity and exotic species richness data from 4 sites in the Northern Great Plains using the modified Whittaker (MW) and Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) methods to evaluate any major differences between indicators generated from these methods and offer recommendations based on findings. Our data indicated that the NRI protocols underestimated both total plant species richness and exotic species richness compared with the MW approach. More importantly, however, results show that biodiversity indicators from the two methods showed similar trends. Increasing time spent on making species richness measurements and implementing a more systematic approach to detecting species within a plot could improve biodiversity inventory and monitoring efforts in NRI while also providing a link between existing long-term data and any new information collected. These adjustments would ultimately help those interested in adopting NRI methods and using plant biodiversity data to increase the amount and quality of information collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine whether the availability of primary medical care on-site at addiction treatment programs or off-site by referral improves patients' addiction severity and medical outcomes, compared to programs that offer no primary care., Design: Secondary analysis of a prospective cohort study of patients admitted to a purposive national sample of substance abuse treatment programs., Setting: Substance abuse treatment programs in major U.S. metropolitan areas eligible for demonstration grant funding from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration., Respondents: Administrators at 52 substance abuse treatment programs, and 2,878 of their patients who completed treatment intake, discharge, and follow-up interviews., Measurements: Program administrators reported whether the program had primary medical care available on-site, only off-site, or not at all. Patients responded to multiple questions regarding their addiction and medical status in intake and 12-month follow-up interviews. These items were combined into multi-item composite scores of addiction and medical severity. The addiction severity score includes items measuring alcohol and drug use, employment, illegal activities, legal supervision, family and other social support, housing, physical conditions, and psychiatric status. The medical severity score includes measures of perceived health, functional limitations, and comorbid physical conditions., Main Results: After controlling for treatment modality, geographic region, and multiple patient-level characteristics, patients who attended programs with on-site primary medical care experienced significantly less addiction severity at 12-month follow-up (regression coefficient, -25.9; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], -43.2 to -8.5), compared with patients who attended programs with no primary medical care. However, on-site care did not significantly influence medical severity at follow-up (coefficient, -0.28; 95% CI, -0.69 to 0.14). Referral to off-site primary care exerted no detectable effects on either addiction severity (coefficient, -9.0; 95% CI, -26.5 to 8.5) or medical severity (coefficient, -0.03; 95% CI, -0.37 to 0.44)., Conclusions: On-site primary medical care improves substance abuse treatment patients' addiction-related outcomes, but not necessarily their health-related outcomes. Further study is needed to discern the mechanism through which on-site primary care might improve the addiction-related outcomes of substance abuse treatment.