At a 50-acre farm in the California Central Coast1 region, I spoke with Alejandra, who personifies the ideal outcome of the beginning farmer movement. Coming to the United States in the mid-1980s, she described herself as the latest of “three generations of migrant farmworkers” from the Mexican state of Guerrero, following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather, who emigrated for contra...

Common belief and some empirical evidence indicates that productivity of a farmer may increase with age, reach some maximum level, and then decrease with further age (Tauer 1984; Tauer 1995). If productivity exhibits a life-cycle pattern, then productivity of agriculture may decrease as the U.S. farm population continues to age. Lifecycle changes are also critical in planning for succession of ...

The main objective of this study was to assess the impact of farmer field schools on adoption of technical packages of wheat production in Gezira Scheme, Sudan. Field survey was used to collect data from 50 FFS-participants of two schools (25 from each school), and also equal number from Non-FFS participants were selected for comparison. Close ended questionnaire was used in data collection. Th...

The effects of changes in cropping production technologies, systems and input and output markets on smallholders growing tree crops for export, and the consequences on pest management strategies, including augmentative and conservation biological control, are discussed in the context of pest and crop management research, technology development and farmer training. Evolving approaches in extensi...

OBJECTIVES We aimed at testing a model of the direct and indirect effects of being a part-time farmer on the probability of being involved in an agricultural machinery-related accident, considering the role played by unsafe beliefs and the frequency of use of machinery. METHODS Two-hundred and fifty-two Italian men, regular users of agricultural machinery (age: Mean = 45.1 years, standard Dev...

In the mid 1980s, Brassica vegetable production in southern Queensland was at crisis point with insecticide resistance in diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), leading to frequent spray failures. Through a succession of projects, an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system targeted at the local Brassica pest complex was developed with farmers and industry using participative processes. Str...

An on-farm study of 54 representative Wisconsin dairy farms was conducted to evaluate the influence of biophysical and socioeconomic factors on overall feed, fertilizer, and manure nutrient use. This report validates 1) how well data on cow diets, feed analyses, and milk production reflected established feed-milk-manure relationships; and 2) how well farmer-recorded data on manure land applicat...