Small-holder farmers often develop adaptable agroforestry management techniques to improve and diversify crop production. In the cocoa growing region of Ghana, local knowledge on such farm management holds a noteworthy role in the overall farm development. The documentation and analysis of such knowledge use in cocoa agroforests may afford an applicable framework to determine mechanisms driving...

The socio-economic development of largely subsistence-oriented rural areas is a prominent policy objective in Laos. Whereas in the surrounds of major urban centres and regions with favourable infrastructure and market access a dynamic industrial and service sector have emerged, most of the countryside remains economically undeveloped. Cultivation of commercial tree species is acknowledged as a ...

The extraction of wave energy by the Wave Energy Converters (WECs) forming a wave farm results in a milder wave climate in its lee, which can have an impact on coastal processes. The objective of this work is to determine whether the beach morphology can be altered by the operation of the wave farm, and if so, to quantify this alteration. For this purpose, we examine how the farm affects the mo...

Agriculture continues to rank as the most dangerous industry in the United States. The objectives of this pilot study were to identify the incidence of care provided to children involved in farm accidents, examine barriers to utilization of farm safety materiaJs by primary health care practitioners (PHCPs), and determine the percentage of PHCPs who provide anticipatory guidance related to farm ...

Government agricultural programs have a variety of goals, among them is preserving the family farm (U.S. Department of Agriculture 2003, pp. 18–20). While no single program is dedicated to maintaining a certain type of farm structure, program features are sometimes designed so as not to disadvantage family farms. For example, dollar limits may be placed on payments that a single person can rece...

The maintenance of low-intensity farming is important for the conservation of habitats and species and is a particular issue in Europe as areas under extensive farming regimes continue to diminish. Current proposals for agricultural reform in Europe are seeking to retain and encourage extensive farming partly by seeking to redirect farm workers into non-farm activities such as leisure activitie...

The cost of milk production by farm size was decomposed into frontier and efficiency components with a stochastic cost curve using data on 755 USA dairy farms from the year 2000. The estimated frontier function is much flatter than the composite cost curve, and although the frontier cost of production decreases with farm size, that cost reduction is not as pronounced as a cost curve that includ...

A cross-sectional study of lungs from 1,887 randomly selected pigs from 471 farms from two provinces in the Philippines was carried out to estimate the prevalence of gross pathological lesions, identify potential risk factors and spatial clustering associated with high lung or pleurisy score farms. Lungs from pigs were scored at slaughter. Interviews with the farm managers were conducted to col...

UNLABELLED While studies have looked at the relationship of adolescent employment with health outcomes and risk behaviors, few have focused on children of hired farm workers. These children face unique challenges affecting their health and work environment. Exploring the frequency and nature of agricultural work characteristics among adolescent children of Hispanic hired farm workers is importa...

Ammonia (NH) emissions vary considerably among farms as influenced by climate and management. Because emission measurement is difficult and expensive, process-based models provide an alternative for estimating whole farm emissions. A model that simulates the processes of NH formation, speciation, aqueous-gas partitioning, and mass transfer was developed and incorporated in a whole farm simulati...