We hypothesize that biological diversification across ecological, spatial, and temporal scales maintains and regenerates the ecosystem services that provide critical inputs—such as maintenance of soil quality, nitrogen fixation, pollination, and pest control—to agriculture. Agrobiodiversity is sustained by diversified farming practices and it also supplies multiple ecosystem services to agricul...

The sustainability of breeding activities in 15 pig farming systems in five European countries was evaluated. One conventional and two differentiated systems per country were studied. The Conventional systems were the standard systems in their countries. The differentiated systems were of three categories: Adapted Conventional with focus on animal welfare, meat quality or environment (five syst...

How did modern and centralized fiscal institutions emerge? We develop a model that explains (i) why pre-industrial states relied on private individuals to collect taxes; (ii) why after 1600 both England and France moved from competitive methods for collecting revenues to allocating the right to collect taxes to a small group of financiers—an intermediate institution that we call cabal tax farmi...

This paper focuses on the role of scavenging poultry in integrated farming systems and is mainly based on previous studies and past research and development attempts to improve scavenging poultry in Ethiopia. Village poultry production is an integral part of a balanced farming system and has a unique position in the rural household economy, supplying high quality protein to the family. In this ...

Sustainability is de®ned as the ability of a system to `continue'. In view of this de®nition, several aspects of the crop protection activity in organic farming are reviewed according to their ability to `continue'. As no absolute measure of sustainability is available, this analysis takes the form of a comparison between organic and conventional crop protection methods. Two elements of crop pr...

The present practice of traditional slash-and-burn agriculture (locally called jhum kheti) by the ethnic Noctes in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, India is a part of history of rural landscapes. Even today, the local jhumias totally depends on this traditional farming system for their livelihood. Nonetheless, it is time and again considered as ‘traditional’ and firm in contrast to modern m...

The growth of organic farming practices in the last few decades is continuing to stimulate the international debate about this alternative food market. As a p art of a PhD project r esearch about embeddedness in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), this paper focuses on the promotional aspects of organic farms websites from the Madrid region. As a theoretical tool, some knowledge categories drawn ...

An extensive global system of private food regulation is under construction, one that exceeds conventional regulation thought of as being driven by public authorities like FDA and USDA in the U.S. or the Food Standards Agency in the UK. Agrifood and grocer organizations, in concert with some farming groups, have been the primary designers of this new food regulatory regime. These groups have es...

Private veterinary practice has existed in Kenya for more than half a century. Between the early 1930s and the mid-1960s, provision of clinical and advisory services almost entirely involved servicing commercial ranches and dairy farms. The Department of Veterinary Services (VSD) was mainly responsible for providing regulatory services in these areas. Until the mid-1960s, public sector veterina...