A range of determinants at multiple socio-ecological levels operate in small farm households' use and handling of hazardous pesticides, suggesting the need for integrated health and agriculture promotion approaches. The aim is to assess changes in health promotion outcomes relevant to highly hazardous pesticide use associated with a multi-component community program. A longitudinal evaluation d...

Climate is the primary important factor for agricultural production. Concerning the potential effects of climatic change on agriculture has motivated important change of research during the last decade. The research topics concentrate possible physical effects of climatic change on agriculture, such as changes in crop and livestock yields as well as the economic consequences of these potential ...

Best management practices (BMPs) are widely promoted in agricultural watersheds as a means of improving water quality and ameliorating altered hydrology. We used a paired watershed approach to evaluate whether focused outreach could increase BMP implementation rates and whether BMPs could induce watershed-scale (4000 ha) changes in nutrients, suspended sediment concentrations, or hydrology in a...

A standard description of growth stages for crops/plants is necessary not only for determining and improving cultural practices, but also to facilitate enhanced communication among producers, researchers, and educators. It also could help in unifying experimental results. Many different descriptions of growth stages are currently available for many crops, but there are no codes for sesame (Sesa...

The huge changes in agricultural activities, which may be amplified by the forthcoming Common Agriculture Policy reform, call the future of crop-livestock systems into question and hence the impact of these changes on landscapes and biodiversity. We analyzed relationships between agriculture, landscape and biodiversity in south-western France. The study area covered about 4,000 ha and included ...

Crop yield is influenced over time and space, namely, by a wide range of variables linked with crop genetics, agronomic management practices and the environment under which the crop dynamically responds to maximize growth potential and survival. Such variability can pose substantial uncertainty and risks in the use of agricultural sustainability decision-making frameworks that include crop yiel...

Complex ecological issues like depredation and its management are determined by multiple factors acting at more than one scale and are interlinked with complex human social and economic behaviour. Depredation by wild herbivores can be a major obstacle to agricultural community support for wildlife conservation. For three decades, crop and fence damage, competition with livestock for native rang...