Growing concern about water quality issues, along with a series of fish kills in 1997, prompted Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia to adopt regulations to reduce nutrient pollution from agricultural nonpoint sources. All three states required farmers to follow a state-certified nutrient management plan that would "optimize crop yields and minimize environmental losses," although the policy-making...

The present study was undertaken on 125 broiler farmers randomly selected from five districts, Hisar, Jind, Fatehabad, Sirsa and Bhiwani of Hisar division of Haryana to assess extent of adoption of various scientific practices by the broiler farmers. The package of practices recommended by regional state agricultural university was adopted as the set of scientific practices. The information was...

BACKGROUND COPD is one of the most common chronic diseases, and more and more farmers who were frequently exposed to greenhouse environments were diagnosed with COPD. However, little information is available on the prevalence of COPD among the greenhouse farmers. This study was conducted to assess the prevalence of COPD and investigate the potential risk factors for COPD among the Chinese green...

A 2012 telephone survey of 1565 farmers from across pastoral, pig and poultry livestock sectors aimed to benchmark farmer awareness of and self-reported compliance with the Animal Welfare Act 1999 and codes of welfare, and to explore the factors that drive or hinder that compliance. Eighty-two percent of respondents assessed their knowledge of statutory animal-welfare requirements as above aver...

A total of 177 free-ranging chickens from 19 Qwa-Qwa villages were bled from wing veins over a period of 6 months (June-November 2000). Serological tests indicated that 5% of chickens tested had been exposed to Newcastle disease, 43% to infectious bronchitis and 63% to Mycoplasma gallisepticum infection. McMaster and Visser sieve techniques were used to determine helminth and coccidia from pool...

Economic evaluations are critical for the assessment of the efficiency and sustainability of animal health surveillance systems and the improvement of their efficiency. Methods identifying and quantifying costs and benefits incurred by public and private actors of passive surveillance systems (i.e. actors of veterinary authorities and private actors who may report clinical signs) are needed. Th...