A study was conducted in northern Thailand to characterize Campylobacter spp isolated from chickens at farms, slaughterhouse, and chicken meat at fresh markets, and stools from chicken farmers as well as neighboring crop farmers who served as controls. The Campylobacter isolates were collected during the rainy months of the years 2000, 2001, and 2002. Standard methods were used for primary isol...

BACKGROUND The improper use of pesticide is associated with respiratory morbidity in many developing countries. AIM The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and its association with the use of agricultural pesticide among crop farmers in three rural communities in Ekiti State, South Western Nigeria. SUBJECTS AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional stu...

This paper identified the factors influencing the rice crop residue burning decision of the farmers and the potential of the burnt residue to generate electricity. For this study, data were collected from 400 farmers in the rice-wheat cropping system. Effects of different variables on the burning decision of rice residue are investigated through logit model. A number of factors had significant ...

The paper describes how stochastic optimization techniques can be used to model profit maximizing producer behaviour in a spatial continuum. The main methodological issues to be addressed are, first, that the representation of optimal allocations in a spatial continuum naturally leads to models that contain integrals over space, and the second that the resulting model tends to have a multi-leve...

Intensive human-environment interactions are taking place in Midwestern agricultural systems. An integrated modeling framework is suitable for predicting dynamics of key variables of the socio-economic, biophysical, hydrological processes as well as exploring the potential transitions of system states in response to changes of the driving factors. The purpose of this dissertation is to address ...

Introduction: This study is aimed at analyzing farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change in the Dabus watershed. It is based on analysis of data collected from 734 randomly selected farm householdheads substantiated with Focus Group Discussions and field observations. Methods: The study employed descriptive methods to assess farmers’ perception of climate change, localindicators of c...

To increase agricultural productivity and promote efficient management in modern agriculture, it is important to monitor the field environment, crop conditions, and farming operations instead of simply relying on farmers’ experiences and senses. However, it is difficult to realize such monitoring automatically and precisely, because agricultural fields are widely spaced and have few infrastruct...

The population of Africa will double in the next 33 years to reach 2.5 billion by 2050. Although roughly 60% of the continent’s population is engaged in agriculture, the produce from this sector cannot feed its citizens. Hence, in 2013 alone, Africa imported 56.5 million tons of wheat, maize, and soybean at the cost of 18.8 billion USD. Although crops cultivated in Africa play a vital role in t...

Nutrient management for production, profit, and environmental protection: Striking the balance Strategies to manage nutrients in crop production were first designed to maximize crop yields, an objective that became increasingly possible with the development of inorganic fertilizers during the past century. Later, as economic analysis of farm profitability became more sophisticated, strategies s...

Theoretically we understand the dimensions of both generic and specific adaptive capacity, however, there are few studies which document actual observed adaptive capacity. This study aims to address this gap by documenting the adaptive capacity of Indian rice production systems, an agrosocio-ecological system. We explore how Indian rice production systems have responded to historical climate sh...