The economics of farming continues to be one of the major agricultural problems in the U.S. One important component of the solution is to increase profitability by crop improvement through plant breeding. Improved forage cultivars provide economic opportunities for livestock and crop farming operations and promote a more stable, sustainable agriculture. Farmers benefit by greater animal product...

means of increasing worker productivity so that higher wages can be paid and as a means of getting the work done with a smaller labor force. A part, at least, of the difference between the level of mechanization here and abroad is explained by differences in wage rates. As wages go up, it pays to use more machines and fewer men. In recent years, for example, it took about 67 gallons of milk to ...

We investigate farmers’ decision to engage in organic production. Our objective is to identify the key factors that promote or hinder the update of organic farming. In particular, we focus on neighborhood factors and the spatial allocation of organic land parcels. A rich spatial panel data of all agricultural parcels is compiled and the information on land use, soil quality, biodiversity, local...

structural characteristics and spatial distribution of major farming systems in mountain environment of the iranian plateau as well as their developments in the past few decades have been studied by statistical analysis. using this new approach, towards the study of natural resource allocation methods in mountains of iran, the following resulted: land and resource use practices have followed a ...

INTRODUCTION Retirement from paid work is a major life change for men and women. It has been suggested that, for men, self-identity is more strongly associated with paid work than is generally the case for women. If this is so, then the retirement transition for men, in which not only the behaviours of a lifetime but also the sense of self must be substantially recast, is of particular interest...

farming practices in many regions are causing land resources to degrade—threatening future food security as well as the livelihoods of poor rural people. But, as new research has shown, tackling local problems requires an understanding of the policies and wider economic and social factors that influence farmers in their decision making processes to adopt inappropriate land use practices. A broa...

Land uses has significant impact on soil biological properties that incessantly intimates the soil quality change and are assessed by soil microbial and biochemical indicators, as they are highly sensitive to change in environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of land use on soil enzyme activities and gene diversity in selected location of Northwestern Himalayas, Indi...

There are large discrepancies among estimates of the cropland area in China due to the lack of reliable data. In this study, we used Landsat TM/ ETM data at a spatial resolution of 30 m to reconstruct spatial and temporal patterns of cropland across China for the time period of 1990–2000. Our estimate has indicated that total cropland area in China in 2000 was 141.1 million hectares (ha), inclu...

During the late nineteenth century, there was a rapid change in land use over a substantial area of Marlborough north of the Wairau River, including the Sounds, from mixed hardwood, podocarp and beech forests to pasture. Much of the hill country has been unable to sustain an economic level of pastoral farming and is currently in varying stages of reversion. A land use survey over an estimated 2...

One of the major environmental issues currently facing New Zealand is that of the sustainability of pastoral farming on North Island hill country. To be sustainable, a system must be resource conserving, environmentally compatible, socially supportive and commer-cially competitive. The Resource Management Act defines sustainable management as managing the use, development and protection of natu...