Innovative Organic and Regenerative Agricultural Production

Declining Agricultural Productivity: the Role of Biotechnology, Organic and Regenerative Agriculture

Agricultural Production

Agricultural production is not keeping up with the world demand for food because the human population is increasing faster than agriculture’s food production capability (Pimentel et al., 1999). Uneven distribution of food, the inability of the poor to purchase food, and political unrest also threaten world food security for human society. Currently, more than 3 billion humans worldwide are maln...

Selection of the optimum prime mover and the working fluid in a regenerative organic rankine cycle

A regenerative organic Rankine cycle (RORC) is modeled and optimized for the use of waste heat recovery from a prime mover (PM). Three PMs including, a diesel engine, a gas engine, and a microturbine are selected in this study. Four refrigerants including isobutane, R123, R134a, and R245fa are selected. The nominal capacity of the PM, PM operating partial load, turbine inlet pressure, condenser...

Thermodynamic Performance of Regenerative Organic Rankine Cycles

ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) has potential of reducing consumption of fossil fuels and has many favorable characteristics to exploit low-temperature heat sources. In this work thermodynamic performance of ORC with regeneration is comparatively assessed for various working fluids. Special attention is paid to the effects of system parameters such as the turbine inlet pressure on the characteristi...

Challenges for farmer participation in integrated and organic production of agricultural tree crops

The effects of changes in cropping production technologies, systems and input and output markets on smallholders growing tree crops for export, and the consequences on pest management strategies, including augmentative and conservation biological control, are discussed in the context of pest and crop management research, technology development and farmer training. Evolving approaches in extensi...