Robert Netting had a central role in establishin g agricultural anthropology. Many people rightly remember him as an astute ethnographer of farming communities‚ focused on analyzing the empirical details of changing patterns of household composition ‚ land holding size and labor use. Yet‚ during his career he was increasin gly concerned about the sustainability of smallholder vs. conventional i...

In the recent past there has been concern to address the declining trends and deteriorating ecological elements and their functions in productive agricultural landscapes. The efforts to revive the ecological functions needs multiple scale approach, which include scientific understanding, time dependent restorative activities and incorporation of wisdom of the stakeholders. Conservation initiati...

Groundwater provides a reliable tap to sustain agricultural production, yet persistent aquifer depletion threatens future sustainability. The High Plains Aquifer supplies 30% of the nation's irrigated groundwater, and the Kansas portion supports the congressional district with the highest market value for agriculture in the nation. We project groundwater declines to assess when the study area m...

Agricultural policies are increasingly replaced by agro-environmental and rural-development polices. The rationale behind this evolution is that the policies seek to enhance the sustainability of agricultural systems and contributions from these systems to sustainable development at large. The same can be argued for agricultural innovations; they are increasingly aimed at serving a range of sus...

1. introduction the phenomenon of land consolidation has been the concern of economists, geographers, soil scientists, anthropologists, and politician in the last decades. it has achieved little success for agricultural development in iran. most of iranian land consolidation schemes ignore to meet sustainability criteria as a critical phase in the planning process. therefore, they have caused m...

Nanotechnology monitors a leading agricultural controlling process, especially by its miniature dimension. Additionally, many potential benefits such as enhancement of food quality and safety, reduction of agricultural inputs, enrichment of absorbing nanoscale nutrients from the soil, etc. allow the application of nanotechnology to be resonant encumbrance. Agriculture, food, and natural resourc...