Category Archives: Agriculture

Increased reliance on groundwater resources makes evaluation of new potential sources a priority

While this choice can be painted as paying the class in question not to work and thus may face push back from the public or even within government, it avoids the myriad complications that stem from subsidizing production, including surplus crises, fights over price adjustments, and conflicts with international trade agreements. In short, leaving production to the most efficient, while supporting the less competitive via income payments allows policymakers to open up more market share for the most efficient while protecting the uncompetitive from impoverishment. A second critical juncture concerns rules structuring benefits, specifically the imposition of benefit limits. A decision to forego benefit limits is arguably more inclusive as it does not discriminate based on some measure of success or size of operation but is also more expensive. Alternatively, the decision to restrict benefits can be seen as discriminatory, splintering the target group into the privileged and unprivileged while saving costs in the long run. This decision has important consequences for the scope and type of future reform. Despite repeated attempts, a reform that the CAP has never been able to impose due to ardent opposition from a few member states is a benefit limit. As a result, some farmers receive hundreds of thousands of Euros in CAP income payments every year. Policymakers wishing to minimize the costs of support to extent possible will want to impose benefit limits, whether they be yearly or lifetime, at the time the policy is created. Benefit levels can always be extended and expanded, but it is much harder to retrench these policies. By imposing limits early, policymakers can better contain overall costs. In addition, these choices position politicians to make popular reforms rather than unpopular,nft hydroponic and likely unsuccessful reforms . However, it may be quite difficult to get the target’s representative groups and unions to agree to a policy that essentially imposes a two-tier system.

The third critical decision concerns qualification and/or behavior standards and requirements. On the one hand, avoiding or limiting standards and rules increases the odds of compliance and support from the target population. On the other hand, imposing standards and rules early controls costs and makes future reform easier. The CAP has struggled to evolve over time, largely failing to impose even the most basic of standards on payment recipients. Policymakers who decide to manage class decline through a CAP-style income support system must think carefully about what types of standards and requirements make sense and impose them early. For example, two reforms CAP officials have struggled to impose are environmental standards and eligibility rules . Neither of these ideas, that farmers should have to meet basic environmental standards or that one’s primary profession must be agricultural in order to receive aid for those employed in agriculture, is particularly radical, but since no real rules or standards for good environmental practices or eligibility existed when the CAP was created, it has been nearly impossible to impose them in a meaningful way in subsequent reforms. Taken together, these three junctures identify moments when policymakers must think carefully about their decisions for how to manage a declining class because these decisions are sticky, proving hard to reverse, and carry important long-term implications. My dissertation and its core findings speak to a broader question of what happens to declining social classes. By investigating the current status of farmer power, I cast light on how and when the political power of a social class is affected by a decline in numbers. Farmers are not the only class to have experienced a dramatic reduction in its share of the population; the blue-collar industrial working class has shrunk dramatically with the shift to a service sector oriented economy. European governments have buffered workers against the effects of deindustrialization with generous disability and early retirement benefits. In addition, in many countries, unemployment programs for workers were structured to ensure that benefits would not run out. As this brief example illustrates, the framework I have used to examine the decline of Europe’s farmers can also be deployed to examine and explain the decline of other social classes. For both blue-collar workers and farmers, policy took the same path. It started with an effort to preserve the class by subsidizing employment and ultimately ended up with a policy that paid individuals not to work.

The path to this final policy outcome in both cases was long and expensive. The lesson, then, for reformers is move to an income support policy as quickly as possible. While these policies are expensive and often unpopular, costs can be contained and crises avoided if these types of programs are adopted first, and reasonable benefit restrictions are imposed early. In sum, my project is not only about the intricacies of CAP reform, but also about the conditions that permit or forestall EU and welfare state policy reform, the techniques for overcoming resistance to policy change, and ultimately the politics of and strategies for managing social class decline. This body of research beginning with my study of farmers and expanding to other threatened social classes will further clarify the important puzzle of why some groups are able, against all odds, to exercise strength without numbers.The rising prevalence of drought conditions in California and elsewhere has dramatically increased demands on groundwater for irrigation and human consumption.Organic and inorganic contaminants in the water supply are prevalent in many human impacted sites such as agricultural, industrial, and municipal. However, simply measuring known sources of contamination has the potential to miss the complex effects of microbial communities in the soil and groundwater. Diverse microbial communities in subsurface environments including groundwater systems exhibit extraordinary phylogenetic diversity and metabolic complexity that has only recently become apparent using culture-independent sequencing-based analytics. The impact of changes in water chemistry on these aquifer microbial communities, and ultimately on groundwater quality, is unknown. Nitrogen as ammonia and nitrate are among the most ubiquitous groundwater contaminants due to widespread use in agriculture as fertilizers, as unintentional discharge in septage and effluent. While crops absorb much of the applied fertilizers, significant amounts leach to groundwater. In certain regions of California’s Central Valley, over 40% of drinking water aquifers have elevated levels of nitrates. The impact of these nitrogen compounds on environmental and groundwater microbial communities is not well understood, including the secondary effects on human, livestock, and wildlife health, and the potential for naturally occurring microbial populations to mineralize ammonia and nitrate to non-toxic forms. There thus exists an urgent need to understand these processes and how they may interact with remediation strategies to protect the quality of groundwater supplies.

To explore these important issues, we sampled groundwater from three adjacent wells completed at different depths that are part of a long term study on agricultural groundwater. The wells are affected to different degrees by manure, a common source of aqueous agricultural contamination. We subjected these samples to chemical analytics as well as next-generation sequencing, assembly,nft system and genomic analysis. Our genomic analysis revealed a highly diverse microbial community dominated by many new lineages of the Candidate Phyla Radiation and the Diapherotrites, Parvarchaeota, Aenigmarchaeota, Nanoarchaeota,Nanohaloarchaea superphyla and new lineages of the Planctomycete phylum with metabolic potential for both bio-remediation of the contamination as well as production of potentially hazardous secondary metabolites.We collected individual samples from each of four sites , the contamination source water as well as three wells. The domestic well water sample was clear and colorless in appearance with no odor. This water is pumped from ~100 m depth and used for human and cow consumption. Cow waste is pumped into the effluent lagoon , which was cloudy and brown in appearance with an apparent odor of ammonia and feces. After settlement of particulates, the lagoon water is used as a fertilizer source for the surrounding corn fields. Monitoring well 5 and monitoring well 6 are located immediately down gradient and upgradient respectively from a corn field receiving lagoon water . These wells are screened from 3 m to 10 m below ground surface . Monitoring well samples were clear and yellowish-green in appearance with a slight organic odor. Depth to the water table for the monitoring wells was 3.4 m bgs, and the wells were sampled at a depth of 4.3 m bgs. A previous hydrologic analysis indicated that MW5 is primarily recharged from the manured corn field, MW6 receives partial recharge from the manured corn field and partial recharge from an adjacent unmanured orchard, and DOM is primarily recharged from the adjacent orchard with slight impact from the manured field.Each water sample was tested for the presence of USDA pathogenic bacteria by inoculating liquid enrichment media and plating on selective nutrient media. The specific pathogens tested for were Salmonella, Enterococcus, Escherichia coli, and E. coli O157. Of these, Enterococcus, Escherichia coli, and E. coli O157 were detected in the LAG sample, but no pathogens were detected in any of the groundwater samples. Previous samplings from these and other similar monitoring wells on dairies did reveal the presence of USDA pathogens. However, it is not known how long these pathogens remain viable in the groundwater, and lagoon water had not recently been applied to the field where the monitoring wells are located. Our failure to detect these pathogens in groundwater suggests that they have a limited residence time.We asked whether the microbial composition of the water samples matched the chemical and culture-based observations. We analyzed the water microbial communities for DOM, LAG, MW5, and MW6 by constructing a whole metagenome library for each water sample and shotgun sequencing to a depth of ~50 million paired end 101 bp reads. We analyzed taxonomic makeup of the samples both by 16S rRNA gene profiling and whole metagenome assembly. First, we used EMIRGE to do reference-guided assembly of 16S ribosomal subunit genes and abundance estimation for each of our shotgun sequencing libraries.

We then assigned taxonomy to the 16S assemblies using the RDP web interface. Second, we assembled all of our reads and binned genomes from the assembled contigs and then assigned taxonomy to the genomic bins using RAPSEARCH to the UniProt UniRef100 database. The two metagenomic approaches we took are in good agreement with each other and with the water chemistry, however, we did not detect any of the cultured pathogens from the surface water by sequencing, suggesting they are rare. The shallow groundwater communities of MW5 and MW6 have similar species composition and are similar to the activated sludge bioreactor communities recently reported by Speth et al , a community sampled from the nitrogen removal stage of sewage wastewater treatment. However, in addition to observing 10 of the 12 phylogenetic groups reported by Speth, we additionally see 13 more in the groundwater. Specifically enriched are prokaryotes from the recently described nano-bacterial Parcubacteria and Microgenomates , nano-archaeal DPANN and ThaumarchaeotaAigarchaeota-Crenarchaeota-Korarchaeota superphyla as well as two distinct clades of Planctomycetes: the OM190 group, and the anammox Brocadiaceae group. Examining the EMIRGE data at abundances over 5%, the Archaea dominate, with the Crenarchaeote, Thermocladium , Woesearchaeota , and Methanomassiliicoccus . The Bacteria include anammox Planctomycetes from the Brocadia group , Acanthopleuribacter , Microgenomates genera , Dehalogenimonas , Parcubacteria genera , and Opitutus . The other major lineages in these samples include many known as nitrifiers, denitrifiers and methylotrophs as well as the heterotrophic eukaryote, Chlorella , at 7.4% and 5.4% respectively. In contrast to the similarities seen between the two shallow groundwater samples, the DOM and LAG samples each have their own distinct communities. The DOM sample is dominated by Domibacillusfollowed by Sphingomonasand Nitrospira . Anammox genomes are more rare in the deep groundwater, matching the trend seen in nitrate concentrations. The surface water is dominated by Rikenella ,which is known from animal feces. Several other likely animal-associated genera are abundant, including Anaerorhabdusand Acholeplasma , as well as a photosynthetic bacterium, Halochromatium . Overall, the taxonomic representation in the water samples matches well with expectations based on the chemical data. We note that several taxa appear unexpectedly in both the DOM and LAG samples, and we suspect these are contaminants in DOM from airborne dust. Specifically, Rikenella, the most dominant member of LAG, is present at 2.9% abundance in DOM. Likewise Anaerorhabdus, Coprobacillus, Halochromatium, and Acholeplasma are abundant at >5% in LAG and ~1% in DOM.

The proposal to place an upper limit on direct income payments was completely defeated

This preference was particularly important for the Eastern member states as they had less efficient bureaucracies and more generally struggled to find the administrative capacity necessary to implement the CAP. The Eastern Europe bloc therefore focused most of its political capital on pushing for a system that would redistribute direct payments while opposing a hard upper limit on those payments . The issue of limits on direct income payments was particularly contentious. This time, the new member states were involved, offering potential allies to both sides of the battle. The agricultural ministers of the Czech Republic, Romania, and Slovakia joined Germany, Italy, and the UK in signing a position paper that pledged to reject any agreement that included a cap on direct income payments . The paper argued that a cap on income payments contradicted CAP rules by discriminating against a set of farmers, in this case large farmers. It further argued that this policy would lead farms to split up or fail to merge. Preventing merges and compelling farms to split apart would reduce efficiency and result in more money being spent “administering the collateral costs of capping” income payments rather than supporting agriculture and advancing environmental goals . Though they were not signatories to the position paper, the Netherlands and Sweden also opposed capping. There were also new member states on the other side of the table. The main member states in favor of capping were Bulgaria, Poland, Austria, and the Baltic states. Bulgaria predicted that, unless capping was implemented, 4% of its farmers would receive 80% of the country’s direct payments. The situation in Poland was not as skewed,30l plant pots but there were still some farmers who received far more than others. Poland supported the plan because it viewed it as a way through which the vast disparities in payment levels between the member states could be addressed.

The Baltic states received among the lowest amount of direct payment per hectare, and thus also supported a payment limit. As very few Austrian farmers would be affected by capping, it was not costly for Austria to support the initiative. Finally, the French tacitly supported a payment cap , but did not wish to expend political capital on this soft preference against the far more vociferous “contra capping coalition” . One point of unity among all key actors was opposition to greening proposals36. COPACOGECA37 , the EU-wide farmer lobby, was particularly critical of the greening component that required farmers to set aside 7% of their land for ecological purposes. COPACOGECA warned that “it would imperil food security, require farmers to find ways of increasing production on remaining land, and damage the ability of farmers to respond to market signals”. Within the Council of Ministers, the general consensus was that the proposals were complex enough to lead to more red tape and bureaucracy and yet insufficient to actually meet the major environmental challenges at hand. The member states as a whole also expressed concern to the Commission that the proposals were too rigid and needed to be made more flexible, so they could be adapted to the circumstances and needs of each member state . Some also argued that the proportion of Pillar I committed to greening was too high at 30%. Here though, there was less consensus, and some thought that environmental matters should be left to Pillar 2, which concerns rural development, while Pillar 1 retained its focus on production and incomes. With respect to greening, the member states shared three goals or preferences: to increase flexibility in order to allow member states to tailor the policies to their own circumstances; to minimize the extent to which the measures would increase bureaucratic and administrative requirements; and to ensure that the greening measures not conflict with or impede production objectives . A first hurdle to tackle in reaching a final agreement was the greening proposals, all of which were widely condemned by the member states.

Beyond their overall negative reactions to the greening proposals, member states were concerned about how to make these policies work in their particular national contexts. As a result, the Commission relented and gave extensive concessions and exemptions in order to forge an agreement. The mandatory Ecological Focus Area was reduced from 7% to 5% of land. This reduction was made even though it was generally believed that most farmers already met EFA standards for 3.5% of their land. Thus they would only need to bring another 1.5% of their land into compliance to meet the new requirement. In addition, changes to rules on compliance and exceptions for certain groups of farmers resulted in 48% of arable land and 88% of arable goods farmers being exempted from the EFA requirement . For those roughly 12% of farmers who would be subjected to the EFA requirement, there was a long list of possible ways to meet this requirement38, some of which permitted the continued use of land and even fertilizers, essentially entirely undermining the idea behind requiring farmers to maintain ecological focus areas in the first place. Similar exemptions were achieved for permanent grassland measures. Concerning crop diversity, the initial proposal stipulated that farmers with more than 3 hectares of arable crops would be required to maintain three or more different crops simultaneously, with the largest crop not to exceed 70% of land and the smallest to represent at least 5% of the land. The proposal was revised, such that the rules applied only to farms over 10 hectares instead of 3 hectares. These farms are required to grow two crops, while those over 30 hectares must grow three, with the main crop not exceeding 75% of land . While this change to the minimum threshold for the holding size may seem like a minor change, it actually served to drastically reduce the number of farmers who were required to comply with this policy. As of 2013, two-thirds of farms in the EU consisted of 5 or less hectares of eligible land and one-fifth of member states reported an average holding size of under 10 hectares . Another point of contention in the proposal was the method and process for achieving both internal and external convergence. The Western member states were amenable to external convergence, as they admitted that an unequal CAP would be politically unsustainable in the long term. Despite this admission, there remained divisions between the old and new member states about how convergence should take place.

The new Eastern and Central European member states preferred rapid convergence while the older and predominately Western European member states preferred that the transition take place gradually. A compromise was reached between the old and new member states with the former accepting eventual convergence and the latter a gradual transition period that would not be complete until after 2020, projected to be in 2028. The Commission was able to forge an agreement, with both camps agreeing to some changes in how the policy would operate. While the new member states agreed to less redistribution at a slower rate than originally proposed, the older member states agreed to transition away from the payment schemes,30 litre pots available only to older member states, that were the source of the growing inequality. In addition, the older member states were afforded “hardship payments” to help farmers adjust to the changes in their income. Under the design of the external convergence program, only €738 million out of a total direct payment budget of €42.8 billion would be redistributed over the period 2014-2020 . As a point of comparison, €4.5 billion would have been needed if the plan had been to bring current payment levels up to parity immediately. The overall period of adjustment for external convergence would be gradual, beginning in 2014. Initially, farmers who previously received their payments based on a historical calculation would receive 50% of the new payment under that calculation while the other 50% would come via the new fixed payment per hectare system . Member states will have some discretion in how this shift takes place, with the expectation that the shift be gradual, and the requirement that by 2019, 100% of the payment be awarded according to the new model . Due to broad member state concerns about the effects of internal convergence, the Commission again relented, resulting in a process that would be slower and less abrupt for farmers. Under this compromise, the target for internal convergence was set at 60% for the “minimum level of average regional payment given to the individual beneficiary” . In addition, in a concession to France, member states were permitted to top up these payments in a sort of reverse degressivity. This position was defended on the grounds that, if production levels were to be maintained, as was the intention, then income supports should not be redirected from more productive to less productive farmers. Capping, in the form of a hard upper limit, once again went nowhere.

The central problem was that the Commission was the only major actor in favor of the proposal. Among the member states, there was a coalition that was staunchly opposed, with the rest of the member states not having a stake in the matter and thus deciding to stay out of the conflict rather than antagonize other member states for whom the issue mattered a great deal. In order to move the negotiations forward, the Commission completely dropped its proposal to place a cap on direct income payments. Degressivity, the other of the Commission’s main proposals seeking to manage payment thresholds, was included in the final agreement by way of a strategic concession by the Commission. Specifically, a final agreement on the issue of degressivity was facilitated by Germany’s acceptance of degressivity of 5% on all payments over €150,000. In exchange for this concession, the Commission allowed member states an additional way to meet the degressivity requirement. Member states were permitted to choose between 5% degressivity for all payments above €150,000, after employee and related costs were subtracted, or to apply a redistributive payment, accounting for at least 5% of the national envelope . Essentially, instead of subjecting individual farmers who earned over €150,000 to this 5% reduction, member states could choose to take 5% of their total national allotment of direct payments and redistribute it amongst their farming community. The final agreement ultimately watered down every element of the Commission’s proposal. For some proposals like external and internal convergence, the process was delayed. Others, like greening, involved the lowering of standards or weakening of requirements. Still others, like a cap on total payments, were defeated outright. The following table presents the initial proposal and final agreement side by side, and summarizes the main points of difference.Of the three central issue areas, nothing from the Commission’s initial proposal remained intact. The greening initiatives and the plan for achieving external convergence were both heavily revised.Regarding direct income payments, while the proposal to transition member states to a single formula for calculating direct payments survived, the plan for addressing the payment disparity between old and new member states was implemented more gradually, with a likely completion date of 2029 instead of 2020. The amount of degressivity was reduced to 5% for any farmer earning over €150,000 instead of a graduated system that would have seen up to 70% garnishment of payments for the largest earners. The overall package of reform for the direct payment system is the only element of the reform that had a clear link to disruptive politics: enlargement. The disruptive politics of enlargement created an opening for the Commission to implement actual change in how this system operated. As with past reforms, lessons from welfare state retrenchment can help explain this outcome. Specifically, the reform of this system serves as a good example of engaging in “vice into virtue” style retrenchment. Reformers were able to achieve policy retrenchment, particularly in area of payments to the largest, richest farmers, by working to correct an existing program that was functioning both unequally. Rather than attempting to adopt an entirely new program that directly attacked the most generous of direct payments, reformers instead focused on fixing an existing program. As a result, policymakers were able to achieve some retrenchment in the realm of direct payments.

Reactions in the member states to the appearance of Mad Cow were varied but swift

These challenges created an opportunity for Fischer to propose and advocate major reforms. They also informed the content of the proposed reforms. WTO pressures facilitated the consideration of policies that made the CAP less trade distorting. Enlargement allowed for deliberations over policies that would improve the financial sustainability of the CAP in the expanding Union. Concerns related to food safety and perceived public dissatisfaction allowed policies to be considered that increased environmental and animal welfare standards and that improved the equity of existing programs. Though these pressures were critical, the MTR was not launched in response to them. Rather, a provision requiring an MTR had been included in Agenda 2000 at Fischler’s insistence. Fischler had been frustrated by the tepid Agenda 2000 agreement and wanted another chance to enact meaningful reform. The MTR was a concession to Fischler in return for Chirac’s last minute revisions to Agenda 2000 at the 1999 Berlin Summit27. The purpose of the MTR was to assess the status of the implementation of Agenda 2000 and to offer improvements, if necessary . While Fischler hoped that the MTR would be his avenue for more far-reaching reform, he was careful to only refer to it as a review, and not a reform . Most member states assumed that the MTR would be merely a review and that no substantial changes would result. Still, pressure was building to overhaul the CAP, starting with the recently launched Doha Development Round. Fischler wanted to avoid a repeat of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations when stalemates in the agricultural sector had caused negotiations to drag out four years longer than planned. European manufacturing and services were angry at agriculture for the difficulties they faced in their negotiations because the structure of the CAP was a major obstacle to reaching a final agreement. Specifically, the EU,square plant containers with its trade-distorting price supports and production-based payments, was at the center of the controversy over how to structure the agricultural component of the GATT.

The European Commission and several member states concluded that entering the WTO negotiations with the CAP in violation of WTO rules once again would weaken the chances that EU representatives would be able to both defend the European Union’s vision for agricultural policy and also extract competitive agreements for services and manufacturing. In the run up to the Doha Round, European manufacturing and services sectors made it clear that they would not allow their bargaining position to be weakened or their interests threatened by European agriculture. These sectors signaled their intention to push aggressively for open markets “regardless of the price paid in terms of additional access to the EU agricultural market, which would presumably have to be borne by their fellow farmers” . In order to gain access to new markets, representatives for manufacturing and services stated their willingness to trade away core components of CAP policy. In addition, the European Commissioners for Trade, Competition, and Industry routinely challenged agriculture’s share of the EU budget and sought to diminish the prominence of the agriculture portfolio. Struggles and delays at the Doha Round caused by agriculture would provide additional ammunition to their efforts to siphon money from agriculture and into their own budgets. Given the clear signals sent by European manufacturing and services, Fischler wanted to enter the Doha Round with the ability to pursue and defend European agricultural interests without the sector being a stumbling block for progress towards Europe’s goals in other domains. The most important and fundamental way to position European agriculture for negotiation success was to ensure that CAP subsidies complied with existing WTO regulations. The WTO used a “subsidy stoplight28” system, containing green, amber, and blue boxes, to evaluate and classify member country subsidies. Permitted subsidies, meaning those that do not distort trade and do not include price supports, are in the green box. Examples of green box programs include decoupled subsidies and rural development supports. The amber box refers to all domestic subsidies that distort production and/or trade. Examples of amber box subsidies are production based subsidies and price supports. As subsidies in the amber box are considered trade and/or production distorting, they are subject to strict limitations, including an agreement to reduce them over time. In developed countries, only 5% of a country’s subsidies can fall into the amber box. Countries that exceed that limit must reduce their subsidies accordingly. The Uruguay Round agreement included a specific commitment by the 30 WTO members whose subsidies exceeded amber box limits to bring those subsidies in line with the 5% rule.

The last category is the blue box, which is also referred to as the “amber box with conditions”. It contains, “any support that would normally be in the amber box [which] also requires farmers to limit production” . It was developed as a way to help states move away from trade and production distorting amber box subsidies without causing too much hardship. Compliance in the agricultural sector was important because it meant that EU could press for market access for goods and services in emerging markets without being told that it first needed to get its agricultural policy in order. Keeping agriculture from hamstringing the pursuit of EU objectives for goods and services was also important for Fischler because it weakened the arguments often used by the EU Commissioners for Trade, Competition, and Industry to call for a reduction in the CAP budget. Speaking about his Doha Round strategy, Fischler noted, “we needed to change the conversation for the WTO. We couldn’t have a Uruguay Round repeat. We needed to be on the offensive. Decoupling was a good start because those types of subsidies [direct income support not linked to production] are already defined as in in the green box” . Fischler’s goal was to have the EU enter the round with its system of payments already in the “green box”. In order to do so, payments would have to be fully decoupled from production. Fischler felt that the EU would be better positioned in the negotiations if it came in with its agricultural subsidies already in compliance with WTO standards, rather than having to play catch up. Fischler was thus able to use the Doha Round to press the member states for more dramatic reform than they might have considered otherwise. Finally, Fischler knew that reform would be easier to pass if it occurred during an already scheduled CAP review, rather than in response to WTO negotiations . If reforms came during WTO negotiations, it would seem as though the CAP was caving into the demands of external actors. Fischler anticipated that the perception that non-EU actors were driving CAP reform would not play well with the public and would make reform even harder . Indeed, MacSharry’s approach to the 1992 reform was driven by this concern, as his reform overlapped with the GATT Uruguay Round. For this reason, MacSharry went to great lengths to present, explain, and justify his reform proposals as responses to internal EU needs and as improvements to CAP functionality rather than concessions to GATT officials, or, even worse, the United States.

Enlargement, like WTO negotiations, was placing pressure on the CAP. The accession of ten new member states,plastic pot manufacturers all poorer and less developed Central and East European countries, posed a serious threat to CAP spending. A CAP that remained coupled would be completely untenable under enlargement, when millions of new farmers would join the CAP. These new member states, where 26% of employment was in farming, were far more agrarian than the EU 15, which employed only 2-3% of the population in agriculture, and agriculture accounted for a much higher share of GDP . According to some estimates, the number of farmers in the EU would increase by 120% and the area of land under agricultural cultivation would increase by 42% after enlargement . The CAP would be responsible for providing income support to these farmers and rural development assistance for all agricultural land. Projections of the financial impact of enlargement suggested that, if the CAP remained unreformed, the budget would need to double. At the time of the MTR, the CAP was already the EU’s single largest program, consuming approximately 40% of the total EU budget. A doubling of CAP spending was political and financially unfeasible. At the time the member states agreed to the Agenda 2000 program, it was thought that the accession countries would not receive direct payments. The prevailing belief was that the new member states had no right to payments that were compensating current CAP farmers for price cuts they had been forced to accept in past reforms. The new member state farmers had not been part of the CAP at the time of these price cuts, and thus had no right to compensatory payments. In 2002, however, the Commission, anticipating that a two-tier CAP would be politically unsustainable, reversed course and decided that the accession states would be allowed to receive direct payments. The new member states would be allowed to access these payments gradually, not reaching payment levels commensurate to the existing EU-15 until 2013. Direct payments were to be phased in starting in 2004 from a base of 25% of the EU level upon accession and increasing by 5% per annum until 2007. Then, in 2008, the EU base payment would increase by 10% annually until 2013 at which point direct payments received by the new member states would be equal to the level of those received by the EU-15 . The graduated plan of access to the CAP bought EU reformers a small window of relief, but did not solve the fundamental problem of reconciling the existing CAP budget with the addition of ten new, largely agrarian, member states. Even though the new member states would not be integrated fully into the CAP payment system until 2013, Fischler needed to adopt change quickly because the new member states would be party to CAP negotiations upon formally joining the EU in 2004. Reform needed to happen before these new member states could enter and block changes that threatened to reduce the amount they received. The MTR was thus the last opportunity for reform before the new member states would be included in CAP negotiations. Enlargement’s threat to the budget gave Fischler a real, time-sensitive justification to push for massive and immediate changes in the operation of the CAP. These financial concerns allowed Fischler to construct a narrative that reform was not only desirable to improve the operation of the CAP, but necessary to save the CAP itself from total collapse. In addition, by arguing that decisions could be taken more easily now than after ten new member states joined the EU, he was able to make reform an immediate priority. Another problem facing the CAP was food safety. Consumer advocates were critical of the CAP in light of recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, and the apparent failure of the CAP to do anything to address or control them. Agenda 2000, the most recent CAP reform, did nothing to assuage these concerns, and on top of that inaction, new crises continued to emerge. In 1999, there was a dioxine crisis in Belgium and in 2001 an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK . The UK’s second bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis broke out in 1998 , concurrent with Agenda 2000 reform discussions. Logically, the BSE crisis in the UK should have compelled reformers to realize that existing environmental, animal welfare, and food safety standards were not sufficient. Making matters worse, new cases of BSE were detected in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. These crises also coincided with increasingly heated debates over the presence of GMOs in food for both human and livestock consumption .All of the member states with confirmed cases of BSE moved to quarantine areas near the infection and culled herds containing cows that tested positive. In France, officials also tripled funding for the study of BSE, ordered a review of slaughterhouse practices, banned the use of animal feed containing meat, and extended an import ban on British beef for a further three years beyond the EU-imposed ban.

There were three broad camps that emerged after the reform was officially announced

The income support system linked to production compounded the effect of these high prices, raising expenditure even further by fostering excess production that the EU was responsible for storing and dumping. Instead of proposing to scrap and redesign the entire program, an initiative almost certain to fail, MacSharry sought to make fundamental alterations to the aspects of the program that were most problematic. Specifically, MacSharry proposed lowering prices and removing land from production in order to address problems related to over production, ballooning costs, and environmental damage. The contents and overall design of the reform as elucidated in the leaked report were a product of MacSharry’s fundamental belief that price cuts and quota reductions were unavoidable. From his experience working on budgets in Ireland , MacSharry knew that “the EU could not keep spending 75% of its budget on agriculture. With twenty other Commissioners, one could not control 75% of spending” . Indeed, in Agricultural Council meetings, MacSharry warned that without correction, the CAP budget would overrun the ceiling placed upon agricultural spending. At the same time, MacSharry wanted to keep European farmers on the land. He argued that, “desertification of the rural area would be a disaster, and very expensive [for national governments]. There were no jobs, so people would be on the dole. The infrastructure already existed in the countryside for them: houses, roads, schools, and so on. If there was a rural exodus, new housing, roads, schools,blueberry production and so forth would have to be built to accommodate all of these people” . MacSharry’s plan for reform was first formally presented to the member states via a “Reflections Paper” published by the Commission in February of 1991.

The paper was purely qualitative and provided no specific numbers on cuts, compensation amounts, or any other action, unlike what had been published in the leaked document. The purpose of the document was to explain the proposed reforms in broad terms and to push forward and focus the debate on these matters . The Reflections Paper began with a discussion of two major problems that needed to be addressed in the subsequent reform. The first problem was production. Production had been increasing far more rapidly than consumption, resulting in the accumulation of massive stocks. Excess goods were then dumped onto an already stagnant world market, angering the EU’s trading partners. This problem of surplus dumping was one of the core sources of tension in the GATT that was forestalling progress toward an agreement. The second problem related to the economic well-being of farmers. Inequality was increasing. CAP support payments concentrated on the largest and most productive farms such that 20% of the Union’s farmers received 80% of the support. Meanwhile, the overall agricultural population continued to decline and the per capita income of farmers improved very little. This income problem highlighted a failure of the CAP to achieve one of the basic goals laid out in the Treaty of Rome, which formally proposed the creation of the CAP: to improve the standard of living and decrease income inequality in agriculture. These income problems persisted even though spending on the CAP was increasing rapidly from year to year The Commission argued that any reform undertaken needed to keep a sufficient number of farmers on the land because farmers play an essential role in preserving the natural environment and traditional landscapes of Europe. The Commission suggested that more emphasis be placed on this environmental role of the farmer and that rural development be promoted more broadly. Keeping farmers on the land was also tied to preserving the family farming model, which the Commission asserted was “the model…favoured by society generally” . Finally, the Commission suggested that reforms needed to make the agricultural budget “an instrument for real financial solidarity in favour of those in greatest need” by which it meant a more equitable distribution of support . Specifically, the Commission proposed that compensatory payments be modulated based on size of holding and income level. In other words, full compensation would be allowed up to a certain amount.

After that, the payment would be decreased, and the money saved would be redirected to smaller farmers and rural development objectives. Exemptions under quota and set-aside policies were also to be targeted towards the smallest and weakest producers. The broad objectives on market issues concerned re-balancing markets by bringing production back under control, promoting a system of production that relied on fewer inputs , and encouraging the spread of technology. The document singled out cereals, suggested that previous policies for the sector were flawed and instead proposed price cuts and mandatory removal of land from production. Lower cereals prices were needed to make European cereals competitive with animal feed substitutes, which were already a threat to grains in the European market, and stood to be an even bigger threat if and when the new GATT agreement was ratified. Overall, the contents of the Reflection Papers marked a sharp break with past practice in CAP reform . Instead of trying to make the existing system work, MacSharry was proposing systemic change and the, at least partial, introduction of new instruments, most notably a direct income payment. In addition, these reforms marked the first time that a proposal was made to directly and intentionally privilege smaller farmers. The proposals as first outlined by MacSharry in the leaked document were officially presented by the Commission in July of 1991, formally kicking off the CAP reform debate. This official proposal matched the specifics of the initial leaked document, with minor changes to the systems for managing price cuts and compensation payments. The Commission projected that, due to the extension of compensatory payments and the other new programs created for early retirement, afforestation, and environmental measures, total CAP spending would increase by 2.24 billion ECU. The Commission anticipated however, that expenditure on the CAP would decrease in the long run as stocks of cereals, beef, and dairy, as well as the agricultural population itself, declined . Still, estimates of how much savings there would be and how far into the future they would come were vague and unspecified.

The first group, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, though in favor of the market liberalizing price cuts, was staunchly opposed to any “special treatment” for small farmers. Their farming sectors were comparatively large and efficient. With less protectionism and more liberalization, representatives for these member states believed that their farmers would gain market share at the expense of EU farmers who were propped up via protectionist policies. Countries in this group strongly opposed the Commission’s proposal to modulate aid in favor of small farmers, since their agricultural sectors were dominated by larger farmers. They believed that their farmers would be unfairly forced to bear the financial burden of sustaining unviable farms. In addition, the UK argued that modulated compensation offered farmers a perverse incentive to “split their holdings, becoming pensioners and non-competitive” . British Agricultural Minister John Gummer summed up his opposition to a program of modulation by stating that the United Kingdom was “not prepared to buy a reform at the expense of turning Europe’s agriculture into a tourist attraction for people who liked farming in Marie Antoinette style” . Fundamentally, all three countries advocated the largest possible price cuts with the lowest possible, ideally temporary,blackberry container size compensation administered at a flat rate to all farmers. France and Germany formed the second main group and maintained their traditional CAP alliance despite somewhat contradictory positions on the proposal. Germany, whose support for high prices, particularly for cereals, dated to the creation of the CAP , unsurprisingly objected to MacSharry’s proposed price cuts. German Agricultural Minister Ignaz Kiechle questioned the link between price cuts and production, suggesting that cutting prices for cereals would have little to no effect on production levels12 . That said, as one of the member states that underwrote most of the CAP budget, Germany generally favored all measures for controlling production, including set-asides and reductions of dairy quotas. France, however, rejected set-asides outright and was internally divided over the issue of price cuts for cereals. In addition to questioning the need for such a deep cut in cereal prices, French Minister Louise Mermaz called for the continuation of Community Preference, which would provide adequate protection for domestic supplies on the European market . Ireland’s main concern was over the cuts to beef prices, which it opposed even though it had no stake in the debate over cereals, as its cattle industry was grass fed. Finally, Ireland joined Germany and France in favor of a program of modulation that would focus support on the neediest farmers. This second group of countries was important for an additional reason.

Under the rules of Qualified Majority Voting France, Germany, and Ireland formed a blocking minority, while the Denmark, Netherlands, and the UK did not. So, while MacSharry and the Commission wanted to pass the reform with unanimous support, particular attention was directed to winning the cooperation of the group with the potential to block reform. All of the remaining countries, primarily the southern bloc, composed of Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, accounted for the third group. The main agricultural sectors of these countries were largely excluded from the reform. Because farmers in these countries were typically poorer and less efficient than their northern counterparts, they stood to benefit from any redistributive programs, and thus were supportive of modulation. The minority of farmers in these countries that did grow products that were to be subjected to price cuts objected to a yield based calculation for compensation, as the yields in these countries were the lowest in the Union. If compensation for the price cuts was calculated on the basis of the historical yield in the area , then farmers in these countries would be paid a smaller direct income payment than farmers in other member states. Finally, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, and Italy most of all were particularly focused on the debates surrounding the milk quotas, hoping to preserve existing levels, if not increase them. The fact that every member state objected to at least some aspect of the program, and that many of these CAP positions put member states in direct opposition to one another, might seem to have doomed the negotiations from the start. However, as Dutch Farm Minister Piet Bukman, who chaired the Agricultural Council while the Netherlands held the rotating presidency noted, “all delegations agree that if there is no fundamental reform we will have an unbearable situation” . The common belief in the necessity of some kind of reform allowed for compromises to be made and an agreement to be reached, despite the wide range of positions held by the member states. In addition to internal conversations that each member state government held, part of the process of reaching the final agreement involved MacSharry and Arlindo Cunha, Portugal’s Agricultural Minister and Chairman of the Agricultural Council16 each working with the member states one by one. While Cunha toured the capitals in an effort to determine each country’s bottom line, MacSharry met with each minister privately, requesting a list of the 4-5 items most important to them. MacSharry agreed to include at least some of the requests in the reform in exchange for that minister’s support for the passage of the overall package of reforms . The bargaining that followed centered primarily on three core issues: level of price cuts for cereals, modulation, and milk quotas. Typically united in the CAP, France and Germany were divided over if and how much cereal prices should be cut. A major step in clearing the way for a deal was the reaching of an informal agreement between Mitterrand and Kohl. Germany agreed that it would not veto a cereal price cut in exchange for a promise from the French not to veto a new GATT deal, or at the bare minimum, to display “good will” . While Germany was opposed to any price cut for cereals since most of the farmers in the East grew that crop, it placed far more importance on a GATT deal. Conversely, France, favored cuts to cereal prices but had broad objections to liberalizing the CAP.

Binding changes to programs rarely amount to more than a minor tweak or surface adjustment

Many of the proposals are defeated outright. Those that are not rejected are often made voluntary or watered down so significantly that the resulting policy has little impact on CAP operations. The second potential condition involves what I refer to as “disruptive politics”. Under this condition, reformers are not only concerned with the CAP itself , but must also consider the problems and consequences of the application of the CAP and its policies beyond the agricultural sector. Specifically, when negotiating the CAP in the context of disruptive politics, reforms are shaped by non-agricultural considerations, such as trade negotiations and enlargement. CAP reformers have considerably more success when they are able to expand the proposal’s scope, tying it to these broader issues. The reform success under “disruptive politics” tracks with what Baumgartner and Jones describe as “Schattschneiderian moments”. In Schattschneiderian moments, issues or policy proposals are reframed or repackaged so as to change the scope of conflict. Much like these moments, disruptive politics allows CAP reformers to reframe the policy under discussion by tying agricultural reform to a broader issue or challenge. By managing the scope of conflict and shifting the agenda CAP reformers have a greater chance of successfully pursuing far-reaching agricultural change. While both types of negotiation scenarios may be motivated by a similar set of core common pressures, including the budget, environment, and rural community, at times of disruptive politics,plants pots plastic additional pressures including trade negotiations and enlargement come to bear. These additional pressures bring about a difference in the actors involved. When the CAP is considered in an environment of politics as usual, the actors involved are agricultural stakeholders only.

By contrast, discussions of the CAP at a time of disruptive politics often entail intervention from non-agricultural actors. For example, when trade negotiations are concurrent with CAP reform, member state governments often feel pressure from business leaders who do not want agriculture to jeopardize an important trade deal. At the EU level, other commissioners who may have a stake in negotiation outcomes, such as the commissioners for trade or the environment, may lobby or pressure the agricultural commissioner to reach an agreement in line with their preferences. Although reformers under both politics as usual and disruptive politics push for bold, broad reforms, the ultimate outcomes vary across the two contexts. When negotiations involve politics as usual, reforms are muted. New programs and initiatives are voluntary, often including a lot of member state discretion for if, when, and how to implement them. When EU officials and the member states operate under disruptive politics, including the extension of the CAP to new member states or its application in global trade agreements, the outcome is different. Proposals to make fundamental changes to the operation of the CAP are adopted and reforms are binding, rather than optional. These changes are made in order to ensure that the CAP can survive and continue to meet its operating objectives given the broader issues confronting negotiators, like enlargement and trade negotiations. Of the four CAP reform initiatives since 1992 analyzed in this dissertation, one has involved politics as usual , two have been marked by disruptive politics , and the most recent took place under mixed conditions. The MacSharry and Fischler Reforms occurred in times of disruptive politics, with trade negotiations and enlargement looming large, and resulted in systemic change to the operation of the CAP. Not only were new rules and conditions adopted for determining eligibility for CAP income payments, but the entire system of calculation and delivery of CAP payments was revised.

By contrast, the Agenda 2000 and the 2013 reforms, which occurred under politics as usual conditions , resulted in little meaningful change. New initiatives were optional and non-binding, and no systemic changes occurred to the structure or operation of the CAP. In the case of the CAP for 2020, the only change of note that occurred could be clearly linked to disruptive politics5 , demonstrating the importance of such conditions in facilitating reform. CAP reforms have often defied expectations. The outcome of the Fischler Reforms, for example, was supposed to be a mere “review” of existing policies. While the member states expected little change, the Fischler Reforms resulted in major alterations to the operation of the CAP. Conversely, Agenda 2000 was supposed to bring about a new CAP for the new millennium, but instead yielded no major changes. Ultimately, a pattern can be identified whereby, regardless of member state expectations, major change is possible when negotiations grapple with disruptive politics while only narrow, limited change is possible during politics as usual. Table 1.2 summarizes the key similarities and differences of these two types of CAP negotiations.The third part of my argument concerns the forms that CAP reform takes when it does occur. Many of the ways in which reformers endeavor to change the CAP echo the politics of welfare state retrenchment described by Pierson. Reformers of the social and agricultural welfare state must navigate a host of obstacles, in particular, resistance by the beneficiaries of the policies they seek to retrench. The set of possible reform outcomes is contingent upon navigating the influence of farmers. This dissertation explains CAP reform outcomes by highlighting five different strategies for dealing with farmers that reformers employ. Four of the five strategies are loosely modeled on the strategies used by welfare reformers as described by Pierson , while the other applies Levy’s “vice into virtue” to agricultural policy reform. The first strategy is obfuscation. Using this tactic, reformers attempt to hide or disguise cuts and manipulate information about policy changes. One way technocrats can engage in manipulation is to “lower the salience of consequences”, for example, by freezing a program, such as unemployment benefits, in a growing economy, thus not adjusting for inflation .

The ramifications of non-adjustment build slowly and are unlikely to attract attention. At first glance, it appears as though there is no change, but in the long run, spending is reduced greatly. In the realm of agricultural policy, an example of obfuscation is to freeze the subsidy payment levels and not adjust for inflation. Another example is to increase the complexity of the reform. Simple cuts are easy to detect, but complex rules and standards can make potential losses much harder to detect and trace. The CAP is already among the EU’s most complex policies, offering ample opportunity to veil cuts in obtuse Eurospeak. If the procedures and rules are sufficiently complex, reformers can restrict the population of beneficiaries and/or the total amount of benefits delivered. Obfuscation strategies have the potential for meaningful change because reforms can be imposed without causing immediate pain to the farmers themselves,blackberry pot the member state representatives answerable to the farmers, or the EU policymakers. A second option for reformers is to “divide and conquer” the target population. In the welfare state, cuts can be designed, typically through changes to eligibility rules, so that only some benefit recipients are affected . For example, many pension reforms exempt existing retirees and those nearing retirement from the new, less generous calculation of benefits. Such divide-and-conquer strategies find success because they are able to limit the size of opposition, in this case objection from senior citizens. In the domain of agricultural policy, a divide-and-conquer strategy involves proposing changes that will affect only some farmers, such as big farmers or commodity producers. Policy examples include price cuts for only some crops, or changing eligibility rules of certain types of income-aid payments. This strategy has the potential for meaningful change because either the farmers are no longer united and thus less able to resist change, or the reforms have targeted those sectors that are most amenable to change, while avoiding producers who would resist reform. Certain types of producers are more willing to accept retrenchment or reform than others. In particular, reforms that target large-scale and/or commodity producers tend to be more successful because many of these farmers believe that they can compete internationally without assistance and could take markets from weaker competitors.A third approach for reformers is to enact reform in exchange for “compensation”. Under this strategy, the potential for fierce opposition is quelled by offering a positive gain to victims of cuts . For example, while cutting general pension levels, reformers offer better or more attractive pension plans to women who have taken time off from work to raise children or lower the retirement age for people who have been working since their teens. A compensation strategy is the mostly likely to succeed and provides the most protection to loss-imposing politicians, but is also the most expensive avenue. Under the CAP, this strategy involves advancing policies that buy off or incentivize farmers for adopting certain behaviors, for example offering farmers direct payments in exchange for price cuts and or paying farmers for meeting specific environmental benchmarks. The fourth route is for reformers to engage in what Pierson calls “systemic retrenchment”.

Following this strategy, reformers implement changes that may increase the prospects for future cutbacks or reform. This strategy is indirect, and potential consequences will only be realized in the long term. Examples include institutional reforms that limit the government’s revenue base, strengthen the hand of budget cutters, or undermine the position of pro-welfare state interest groups. Ronald Reagan engaged in systemic retrenchment by introducing tax cuts that significantly weakened the government’s ability to finance social programs . In the realm of the agricultural welfare state, systemic retrenchment takes a slightly different form. Rather than using fiscal tools to strengthen the hand of reformers, systemic retrenchment within the agricultural welfare state plants the seeds of future reform by introducing controversial proposals on an optional basis at first. Once a policy is established, even on an optional basis, reformers have an easier time converting the voluntary provision into a mandatory policy. Typically, they rely on the argument that the member states had already agreed to the idea in principle, so the conversion to a permanent rule is simply a matter of implementing what has been agreed to. Indeed, this exact logic was used in the 2003 Fischler reform to convert an optional set of environmental standards into a compulsory greening program. As in the social welfare state, the inclusion of optional rules in 1999, did not change anything initially, but opened the door to deeper reforms down the line. The fifth strategy entails turning “vice into virtue” by reforming existing policies that are operating unequally and are also a source of “economic inefficiency or substantial public spending” . Reformers can work on correcting these programs rather than taking the much harder road of eliminating the program and attempting to adopt an entirely new program that functions better. In addition, by correcting the program, reformers are often able to extract new revenue streams that can then be redirected and redeployed toward achieving other policy objectives . Elements of “vice into virtue” overlap with Sheingate’s discussion of how CAP reformers take advantage of opportunities to control and manage issue definition. For Sheingate , CAP reform is possible when these changes are tied to broader objectives, like increasing animal welfare standards or promoting good environmental practices. CAP reformers have taken advantage of many opportunities to use the both “vice into virtue” approach and the issue definition strategy, particularly when changing to the system of income assistance for farmers. In some cases, this strategy is employed in order to shift money from one program to another, so that farmers still get paid the same amount, but the money comes from a different program. More often than not, the money is shifted out of a program that has been tagged as operating inefficiently or perpetuating harmful practices and into an existing program that corrects for these problems. For example, income assistance payments were channeled out of a system that paid farmers based on output that encouraged environmentally destructive industrial farming and massive surpluses, and into a new system that paid farmers a flat rate based on holding size. This shift did not reduce CAP spending, but by delinking payments and production, it reduced the incentive to produce no matter the consequences for the environment. All five of these strategies have been deployed by CAP reformers.

The livelihoods made possible by the infrastructure contribute to infection risk in this landscape

Parasitic worms of the genus Schistosoma inhabit the urogenital or the intestinal tract of the human host, with parasite eggs excreted in human urine and feces, respectively. Freshwater snails of the genera Bulinus serve as the intermediate host of S. haematobium while Biomphalaria transmit S. mansoni. These snail genera have distinct ecologies: Bulinus snails are able to withstand prolonged periods of drying while Biomphalaria are sensitive to saline conditions. Species from both genera, however, can colonize irrigation canals. Expansion of snail habitat and increased human activity in the aquatic environment both increase transmission in dammed and irrigated areas. However, few studies disentangle the environmental and socio-behavioral mechanisms of schistosomiasis occurrence in areas where water resources are actively managed. Of the approximately 800 million people at risk for schistosomiasis worldwide, 100 million live in close proximity to dams and irrigation schemes. An estimated 200 million are infected, the majority of which live in sub-Saharan Africa. Parasites exiting snail hosts penetrate the skin of people who are in direct contact with water. Acute symptoms of schistosomiasis include hematuria for S. haematobium infection and diarrhea and abdominal pain for S. mansoni infection. Prolonged infection can lead to anemia, organ damage, and cancer. While lethal pathologies are linked to infection with both S. haematobium and S. mansoni, deaths are not often officially attributed to infection, and as a result, are likely underestimated. Because available treatments do not prevent re-infection, regular contact with water can lead to chronic infection and severe disease. In some settings, prevalence and intensity of infection remain high even in the presence of treatment programs. Existing evidence linking irrigated agriculture and schistosome infection relies on village- or landscape-level aggregations of disease occurrence and agricultural activity ,plastic pots plants but finer-scale processes associated with irrigation influence exposure to parasites present in surface water.

The household is a particularly relevant unit for both agricultural activity and water contact behavior. However, few studies investigate whether household-level circumstances compound infection risk present in the environment. In this study, we investigated whether participation in agriculture at the household level was associated with individual-level schistosome infection. We assumed that in rural areas, the majority of schistosome exposure would occur at water access sites within a village and hypothesized that household-level cultivation of irrigated crops may represent additional exposure beyond the village-based exposure that occurs for most people. As a result, we suspected that children living households that cultivated irrigated land would be more likely to be infected with both species of schistosome. We further reasoned that, because larger areas of irrigated land are served by greater lengths of irrigation infrastructure, the occurrence of schistosomiasis would further increase in households that were cultivating larger areas of land. Larger fields served by more irrigation infrastructure would require more person-time to manage, harbor more snails, produce more parasites and, ultimately, increase schistosome exposure. With this rationale, we examined the relationship between area of irrigated land reported at the household level and individual-level infection outcomes, focusing on school-aged children who are often the target of mass drug administration campaigns. While studies of both schistosomiasis ecology and water contact behavior often focus on the water access sites within a village, human contact with agricultural water sources could play an important role in sustaining schistosome transmission in a way that threatens the success of ongoing schistosomiasis control efforts. While the spatial distribution of agricultural water sources makes them difficult to monitor, processes of exposure and contamination in agricultural water sources may contribute to the contamination of village water sources and lead to re-infection after treatment. Such processes may contribute to the development of persistent hot spots of schistosomiasis transmission. For schistosome transmission to be successfully suppressed, the implementation of interventions needs to account for the spatial scale of all the transmission sites in and around a village and the human movement between them. Te lower basin of the Senegal River became hyperendemic for schistosome transmission following the construction of the Diama dam in 1986, which was designed as a saltwater barrier to support agricultural development.

Prior to dam construction, S. haematobium infections occurred seasonally at low levels, while S. mansoni was absent from the region. By preventing saltwater intrusion, stabilizing water levels, promoting vegetation growth and disrupting the life histories of snail predators, the dam triggered environmental changes that favored the snail-borne transmission cycles of both S. haematobium and S. mansoni. Salt-sensitive Biomphalaria have since become established in the perennially freshwater environment, while the irrigation infrastructure provides new habitat for both Bulinus and Biomphalaria. The prevalence and intensity of both infections remain high today in human populations, and agricultural practices have increasingly shifted to the cultivation of irrigated crops. Given the environmental changes affecting both parasite transmission and livelihoods in this setting, we aimed to understand whether household engagement in irrigated agriculture compounds the infection risk created by the dam, and whether agricultural sites of water contact may be involved in schistosome transmission in this setting. Specifically, we investigated whether schistosome infection increased in school-aged children living.This is study used cross-sectional data collected as part of a longitudinal study of schistosome infection in school aged children and the socio-economic conditions of the households where those children resided. Sixteen villages along the Senegal River, its tributaries and the Lac de Guiers in northwest Senegal were chosen to represent rural, high-transmission sites common in the region . Village selection criteria are described in detail elsewhere, but included proximity to freshwater and presence of water access sites, presence of a school with sufficient enrollment in target grades and a non-zero prevalence of self-reported infection as well as accessibility in the rainy season. School-aged children were recruited from grades 1–3 in village schools. Agriculture was common in all villages with cultivation of irrigated rice using constructed irrigation infrastructure undertaken primarily in river villages and gardening and monocropping supported by hand-dug infrastructure in lake villages.Parasitological data were derived from a single year of a longitudinal, school-based parasitological study in all 16 villages.

A total of 1480 school-aged children were enrolled at baseline in February–April 2016. Of those, 1479 remained enrolled in January–April 2017 and 1414 successfully produced urine or stool samples on the two testing days that year . On each testing day, one urine and one stool sample were collected from each child enrolled in the study. Urine and stool sample collection was organized at the school by trained personnel from the Biomedical Research Center Espoir Pour La Sante. Sampling pots were provided to each participant 24 h in advance, and samples were kept in isothermal boxes during transport back to the laboratory. Samples were analyzed by urine fltration for S. haematobium infection and duplicate Kato-Katz examination of stool samples for S. mansoni infection by standard methods. In each year of the longitudinal study, all children were treated with 40 mg/kg of praziquantel following sample collection. The cross-sectional parasitological data from 2017 data used in this study, thus, refect post-treatment re-infection over the preceding year.Household survey were data collected in August 2016, during the rainy season preceding the 2017 parasitology data collection. We aimed to reach all the households where school-aged children enrolled in the parasitology study resided. The household survey instrument included six modules . The modules used in this analysis included demographic and occupational information for every member of the household,plastic nursery pots agricultural land use for all parcels owned and/or cultivated by household members, and data on building materials and durable assets, which were used to approximate socio-economic status. Surveys were completed in 655 households . The questionnaire was developed in English and translated to French by native speaking members of the field team. A team of eight Senegalese enumerators were trained to obtain verbal informed consent, pose survey questions in Wolof and record data in French. Prior to data collection, all survey questions were reviewed in French and the proper Wolof translations of key terms and ideas were discussed at length and agreed upon by all members of the enumerator team.We find evidence that the occurrence of S. haematobium but not S. mansoni infections in a dammed landscape is compounded by engagement in agricultural livelihoods. In the lower basin of the Senegal River, the presence of S. haematobium infections in school-aged children increase with irrigated area cultivated by members of their households. This may result from greater contact with Bulinusand S. haematobium-laden water among children whose families use and manage infrastructure for irrigating crops, compared to those whose contact occurs primarily at village water access sites. The observed association between irrigated area on S. mansoni infection presence was smaller and more uncertain, as were the associations of irrigated area with both measures of infection intensity, preventing frm conclusions about these outcomes. The contrast between S. haematobium and S. mansoni outcomes may reflect different sources of contamination in agricultural surface waters, such that the circulation of S. haematobium is more easily sustained by the input of urine than S. mansoni by the input of feces.

Our use of individual- and household-level data suggest that irrigated agriculture contributes to increased infection risk beyond the environmental consequences of infrastructure development. Previous meta-analysis on the topic revealed a greater increase in the occurrence of S. mansoni compared to S. haematobium in irrigated areas at the landscape scale. This and other studies that have examined landscape-scale measures of disease occurrence and land use support the notion that human-mediated environmental change is associated with elevated infection prevalence, but do not shed light on the finer-scale mechanisms that influence individual infection risk. The relationship between disease risk and environmental exposures depends on the scales at which the relevant biotic, abiotic and human factors operate, such that individual- and landscape level processes of disease and land use are not interchangeable and may represent distinct constructs. In the lower basin of the Senegal River, dam construction in support of agricultural development has altered the landscape by stabilizing water levels, preventing saltwater intrusion and expanding the aquatic habitat available to the snails that transmit schistosomes. Our use of finer-scale data establishes that processes related to household land use also play a role in determining risk for acquiring infection from the environment.These findings also suggest that—beyond the in-village water access sites that are the typical focus of studies of schistosome ecology and water contact behavior—agricultural water sources play a role in sustaining schistosome transmission and connecting transmission sites to each other. Te frequent use of irrigation canals for a wide variety of activities is likely to result in both snail-to human and human-to-snail transmission in water sources outside a village. This may be particular true for S. haematobium, whose eggs can be introduced more easily into the environment through urination compared to S. mansoni, whose eggs get introduced into the environment through defecation. If exposure and contamination occurs in both village and agricultural water sources, the human movement and water contact behaviors that connect these water sources will inevitably expand the spatial scope of transmission and the interventions needed to interrupt it. Networks of water sources may ensure continuous introduction of parasites into a village, perpetuating transmission, threatening the success of both MDA and environmental interventions and potentially leading to the formation of persistent hot spots. In this way, the design of interventions must account for the influence of human behavior on the ecological processes that affect infection risk at the proper scales. As calls continue for environmental interventions to complement mass drug administration, the development of implementation guidelines should consider for the full spectrum of water contact activity and the disperse water sources that might contribute to transmission in a particular setting. The ability of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions to reduce both exposure- and contamination-related behaviors, for example, may not be effective if agricultural water sources are disregarded. Environmental complements to MDA interventions may include cleaning aquatic vegetation to reduce snail habitat and chemical and biological control of snail populations in both water access points and irrigation canals. This research has some limitations. Odds only approximate risk when outcomes are rare. Because the outcomes in this study are not rare, our estimates are biased away from the null compared to prevalence ratios. We attempted to directly estimate prevalence ratios by fitting log-binomial models, but these models did not converge.

A main contributor of heterogeneity in gains future geographic distribution of acreage growth

Therefore, by specifying the means and covariance matrix of predicted chill in our five counties for 2025- 2050, we simulate the natural chill realization from a 5D multivariate normal distribution.To determine the potential growth in pistachio output by the year 2030, we consider bearing acreage growth in the past. Since the year 2000, harvested acreage grew by an average 10% yearly. Since 2010, the average rate was 13.5% . To assess the gains from MCE in the year 2030, we need to stipulate the total acreage at that year, and its distribution among our counties. We create acreage growth scenarios to get the edges of a potential acreage range in 2030. Two factors influence scenarios: growth rate and geographic distribution. For a high growth rate scenario, we let the total acreage grow by 13.5% yearly for six years , and then by then 10% yearly until 2030 . For a low growth scenario, we let acreage grow by 10% yearly for six years, then by 5% yearly until 2030 . Some counties are more prone to low chill years than others, and future growth in acreage might take this into account. If the counties’ acreage shares stay the same, i.e. all grow at the same rate, each county’s acreage in 2015 is thus multiplied by the growth factor to calculate county acreages in 2030. This represents a world where growers might not be aware of the perils of climate change, or trust MCE in solving future problems even in the risky counties. However, growers could also divert growth to the less affected counties, Madera and Tulare. To model this, we increase each county’s 2015 acreage by the appropriate growth factor for the first 6 years ,garden plastic pots to account for acres already planted. The difference between the sum of predicted acreage in 2021 and the total predicted acreage in 2030 is then allocated evenly between Tulare and Madera. First, we want to get a sense of the magnitude of loss, brought by insufficient chill without MCE.

Figure 4 shows the empirical cumulative distribution of total potential loss rate by scenario. For each simulation, the chill realization is used to construct a vector of county specific loss rate. This is multiplied by the share of that county in total acreage in 2030, which varies by scenario. Summing these, we get the weighted average loss rate for all our counties. The figure shows, as expected, that scenarios in which acreage growth is shifted north have lower probabilities of large loss events. About 30% of chill portion vector draws result in virtually no loss. The CDFs seem step-like, indicating the sharp decline in yield at the chill threshold for each affected county. The average expected loss by scenario is specified in Table 1. In our simulations, MCE seems to revert the market outcomes of insufficient chill almost completely. When simulated without MCE, the outcome market price ranges between $5,625 / ton and $36,019. However, simulation with MCE result in a price range between $5,625 and $5,704 – a minimal increase. This is probably the result of a relatively low price of MCE, compared to the output price. To get a better sense of the effect, Figure 5 shows the distributions of MCE effects in percent change for price and quantity. That is, the percent increase in quantity and decrease in price when using MCE, compared with the non MCE simulation. The mean price decrease is 13-31%, and the mean quantity increase is 32-88% . These averages include years, where the climate damages are nearly zero for all counties, about a third of simulations. Thus, the actual effects in insufficient chill years are actually higher. We now turn to look at the gains from MCE on aggregate profits, consumer surplus, and total welfare. Figure 6 presents the distribution of these gains, and they are almost exclusively positive. That is not very surprising for consumer surplus, as MCE lowers the price on a good with modeled elastic demand. Average consumer surplus gains from MCE range between $0.68 – 2.60 billion , scenario depending. Grower profits gains are almost always positive as well, with an average ranging between $0.49 – 1.22 billion .

This result was less obvious a priori, as there is some measure of oligopolistic power in each simulation. These gains in grower profits are not distributed evenly between counties. As the baseline climate is not homogeneous among counties, and climate change might be different as well, not all counties would be affected the same. Sharing the market with Kern and Kings counties, which are more susceptible to insufficient chill, the cooler counties of Madera and Tulare are predicted to be less affected by climate change. Yet, MCE lowers the price and their share of the market on years with insufficient chill, compared to the non-MCE baseline. That is, while the industry gains in total are positive, these counties’ profits are mostly negative. Figure 7 shows the profit gains distribution by county. Kern and Kings counties have mostly positive profit gains. Madera and Tulare counties have mostly negative gains, and positive ones only in the worst chill years, when they lack chill portions as well. Fresno county is somewhere in the middle. This result reflects a broader aspect of climate change and adaptation. Areas who are affected very little by climate change can still feel its effects. As there are winners and losers from climate change, there will be winners and losers from MCE.Note how the gain distributions vary between scenarios. The two “Same” scenarios, keeping the distribution of future acreage the same as 2014’s, but varying in total acreage by roughly a twofold, generate gain distributions that are closer to each other than to the “North” scenarios with respective growth rates. To see the effect of other parameters on welfare outcomes, we plot them separately. In Figure 8, the gains are plotted against each parameter, using the “High Same” acreage growth scenario. Recall that, since we did not include parameter realizations resulting in P C > 6, there are slight correlation between the parameters. This is therefore an approximation of an “all else equal” plot, which we still consider useful to see the effects of each parameter on gains. To start, we note that the gains from MCE increase with the potential loss rate, as expected. The profit gains seem to increase linearly with the potential loss rate, but consumer surplus seems to grow exponentially. This is probably due to the choice of our demand function: with elastic demand, the inverse demand function is an exponential function with negative exponent that is greater than .

Therefore, the integral below the inverse demand function, from zero to any quantity, is infinite. As the potential loss rate increases, this integral should grow in a non-linear fashion. When demand is more elastic, gains from MCE increase for growers and decrease for consumers, as expected. When supply is more elastic,raspberry plant pot gains from MCE decrease for everyone, as expected. Looking at the effects of market power, we notice that monopolistic power seems rather uncorrelated with consumer surplus. This is somewhat surprising, as we expected monopolistic power to decrease consumer’s benefits from MCE. However, note that we assumed monopolistic power does not change with loss rate. Had we modeled them with a correlation, the trend line would probably slope up. Monopsony power increases consumer surplus, prob-ably through the monopsony rents: as demand is elastic, restricting quantities lowers surplus. An increase must be the result of the rents. In a more realistic situation, where these rents are not necessarily included in consumer’s surplus, the result might be different. However, this does not change the total welfare outcomes. With respect to the entire market power measure, P C, it seems to increase both consumer surplus and profits from MCE. This also means that the potential losses from insufficient chill increase with market power, a point worthy of consideration in other settings as well. Crop breeding centers in agricultural research institutes around the world played a major role in feeding the world’s population during the 20th century . In the immediate aftermath of World War II and through the 1960s, scientists and politicians forecast serious food shortages and starvation across large parts of the world. Between 1960 and 2000, the world’s population doubled, but over the same period, grain production more than doubled, an increase almost entirely attributable to unprecedented increases in yields. The Malthusian nightmare never materialized, mainly because scientific innovations produced new technological packages that raised productivity and expanded output beyond anyone’s expectations . New crop varieties made up the heart of these packages, although they were supplemented by improved water control, greater use of chemical fertilizers, and increased know-how. Despite the enormous successes in the second half of the 20th century, science has not eliminated the possibility of serious global food shortages, and agricultural research establishments must meet even greater challenges in the 21st century . Growth rates of yields slowed during the 1980s and 1990s and the yield gap—the difference between yields on experimental plots and farmers’ fields—has shrunk .

When the slower growth rate of yield is coupled with rising demographic pressures and water and environmental concerns, new varieties that produce more food under increasingly challenging environments will be essential to meeting world demand, which is predicted to rise by 40 percent between now and 2025 . The task of those responsible for breeding new varieties, however, will have to be executed at a time when support for agricultural research in both developed and developing countries is waning. During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, agricultural scientists enjoyed rapidly expanding budgets, but during the past two decades the growth has slowed. Pardey and Beintema reported a real growth rate of global agricultural research spending during 1976-1981 of 4.5 percent per annum , but by 1991-96 this growth rate had fallen to 2.0 percent per annum . It has continued to decline since then. China is no exception. China’s real annual growth rate of agricultural research expenditure fell from 7.8 percent in 1976-81 and 8.9 percent in 1971-86 to 5.5 percent in 1991-96 . Similar patterns but in more exaggerated terms can be seen in the expenditures of research institutes in developed or developing countries, and in the international agricultural research system that are dedicated to crop varietal improvement . Hence, in an era of slower growth in agricultural research expenditures and increased demands for output, there will be rising pressure on the research system to come up with ways to produce more for less. In the parlance of production economics, this means that it will be necessary to become increasingly efficient at producing new varieties. Although several authors have recognized the importance of economies of scale and economies of scope in agricultural research , few studies have attempted to measure the nature of the processes used by the agricultural research “industry” to create new varieties—the technology used to produce varietal technology, sometimes called the research production function. Since the seminal work of Baumol et al. , economies of scale andeconomies of scope have been studied in a wide range of industries . However, only two studies—Branson and Foster and Byerlee and Traxler —have produced empirical evidence on economies of size in agricultural research, and there have not been any empirical studies on economies of scope. Moreover, the limited evidence on economies of size in agricultural research is mixed. Based on a unique set of data, collected specifically to examine the production economics of crop breeding centers, we use a cost function approach to estimate economies of scale, economies of scope and other aspects of the technology of crop varietal production in China.1 Although we are interested in the production economics of crop breeding, in general, our focus on China is appropriate for several reasons. First, China has a long and successful history of crop breeding and, although it is a developing country, its breeders have made breakthroughs that rival those of most developed countries . Hence, in some sense, our findings are relevant for the breeding programs of all nations. In addition, China is important in its own right as the largest country in the world, and as an example of a large developing country.

These choices are provided new meanings and significance in the experience economy

Adding to this argument is the fact that organic food has provided an alternative to “conventional” food products. Its importance is thus two-fold, as it simultaneously presents itself as an alternative, while – by its mainstream presence and appropriation by consumers – questioning the legitimacy of “conventional” food, on the basis of different essential and previously unquestioned parameters: “Concern about animal welfare is more important for particular organic products and countries where intensive animal farming systems are commonly used. This includes chicken meat and eggs, pork products and, to a lesser extent, beef and dairy products” . This point is also reflected in a 2007 EC report: “The combined benefits of agriculture through the production of safe food, respect of environmental and animal welfare standards is more likely to be selected as important by respondents in most Member States, but particularly northern European countries” . Perceptions of individual health and safety are, still, considered the most important explanatory factors to the consumption of organic foods, which is even the more interesting as organic food products have no documented “extra” positive health effects on the individual’s health when compared to conventionally grown food products . Indeed, individual economic-choice-rationalities , have been shown to be after-rationalisations themselves. Some research suggests instead that the consumption of organic food for most consumers in Western Europe is actually, primarily, motivated by their belief in organic foods’ universal “goodness” . And then, secondly, these beliefs are dressed in the cloak of the “rational” economic optimizing consumer, as post-rationalizations, in order to present oneself as a critical and/or authentic consumer,macetas cultivo or true to ones own tastes . Instead, perceptions relating directly to the environment and overall societal sustainability might play an even larger role than previously assumed when determining what foods to eat or not.

This is perhaps especially true for organic foods, as the procurement of these is never done entirely on price. If this were the case, very few, if any, organic food products would probably be available outside of home gardening; instead organic food is highly dependent on the perceptions of the consumers choosing these: “Perceptions of organic food are affected by their beliefs about the safety and quality of conventional food production and subsequent attitudes to conventional versus organic products. Purchasing behaviour is affected by their perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and the ability to pay premiums for organic products” . The perceptions – not necessarily knowledge – consumers have of agricultural production and its effects on the environment, in general, exercise considerable influence over their final food choices. These issues of place and related values will be explored next. If we are to believe contemporary theory, we live in a “post-modern” “post-industrial” world with all the ontological insecurities this can cause, as already briefly mentioned . The values and meanings inherent in societies are, apparently, shaped not by the present as much as what came before, which probably, also, speaks to the ambiguity of using post-modernism as a “unique” historical category. Indeed, the initial experiences of early twentieth-century industrialization share thematic similarities with the early experience of the, arguably, post-modernist “knowledge” society in the twenty-first century. The alienating effects of urbanity witnessed by Engels and Marx comes into play in the post-modern societies, where the fear of loosing both industry and nature are prevalent. We live in a time where development/progress, be it technical or social, is moving faster than ever before, but also, it seems, is fuelled with more anxieties than before. It is perhaps not surprising if people participating in such societies are looking for authenticity, and associated/related events. Farmers markets, for instance, at once represent something old and something new. It is a re-imagination of the past, legitimized by the beliefs in its intrinsic and real capabilities to effect change in our contemporary food consumption and production. Interestingly, new food experiences and/or consumptive initiatives are, often, legitimized by narratives/perceptions imagined or replicated from the past – they are, in other words, deemed authentic. Authenticity does not have to adhere specifically to linear time, rather place and frequency are significant parameters.

Starbucks is older than New York’s Union Square Farmers Market for instance. But visitors might attach greater authenticity value to the latter than the former due to its “pre-modern” spatiality and perceived sociability. Though it could, reasonably, be argued that Starbucks is a more authentic representation of consumption than the farmers market. Perhaps therefore, or thereof, much attention for the last 10-15 years has been afforded to document the discursive and performative meanings of farmers markets , alternative food systems and outlets often coupled with notions of an emerging “creative countryside,” and not infrequently postulated as part of the perceived development of agriculture in most advanced countries, moving from a productivist to a post-productivist regime , though this concept is, rightly, not without its critics . The recognition and use of authenticity as a concept of meaning and therefore potential agent of change is widespread in contemporary literature, on food experiences , food services , in a tourist perspective , on hospitality , on governance and mediatisation , consumer culture , consumption and consumers , event studies , and within many more areas of research. Its critics are often quick to dismiss authenticity as a backward concept, or a form of left-wing conservatism or defensive localism, reducing ‘the search for authenticity’ to mere marketing strategies, or even a hoax as described by popular author Andrew Potter or in classical Marxist terms an advanced form of “commodity fetishism” or a commodifica-tion of culture – and sometimes rightly so, as authenticity can be utilized for monetary means . But, again, authenticity and its uses is not such a new thing. Outka , in her “Consuming Traditions,” shows how the concept of authenticity was used and misused by different manufacturers and retailers as early as the nineteenth century in order to increase sales and as a promotional tool. Importantly, in the case of Cadbury Outka also shows that the ideal of the authentic was at times, actually, translated into concrete better social conditions for its workers: ‘Wages were better, benefits were greater, the housing was better built’ . The point being, that though food is not something we can very easily ever establish as something completely authentic, its associated values and/or perceptions of authenticity still influence how we understand them and how we choose to consume, for instance. The attempts to bridge the two separate environments of food consumption and production also seem particular to recent times. The huge mainstream success of food writer Michael Pollan and his books is surely an indicator of such holistic interest, along with the mediatisation of “celebrity” alternative farmers like Joel Salatin in a US context. The sentiment guiding these attempts to re-connect food production with its end-consumers, if only on a perceptual level, is eloquently summed up by Vileisis: “Typically, the history of America’s remarkable food system has been recounted as a singularly progressive tale. Yet for many of us, the marvel of fresh leafy lettuce in the winter nests right aside the uneasiness that our children don’t know milk comes from cows” .

In a globalized world with increasing trade of food products, foods might appear to have become more homogenous and standardized as part of the McDonaldization of Society , which, in sentiment, mirrors the “mythic roots” of “massification” , which is often invoked to illustrate the perpetual decline of society. These are perceived developments that have instigated food movements – now themselves globally present – whose primary role is to support local alternatives to what they perceive as a threat to not just nutritional standards and traditional cuisine but also to local culture and communities, to which local food, both its production and consumption, is perceived to have a stabilizing and positive effect, which can counter the influences of the global markets. Again we find a dichotomous and oppositional interpretation of market and community, and the close alignments between global structures as market driven and local structures based and orientated in community. These perceptions of global homogenization and standardization might be influenced by the fact that the global food systems have not brought us less choice but much more, which in itself might trigger responses of insecurity and even anxiety – or the paradox of choice .We apparently live in an “Experience Economy” ,maceta de plastico cuadrada where services and experiences are replacing production as primary economic pursuits, or perhaps more correctly, because of increased productive capabilities and gained efficiencies, more time and money can be spent in the service and leisure industries. Significantly, only eight years should pass until an addition to Pine and Gilmore’s hugely successful book was apparently needed; it was titled “Authenticity: What consumers really want” . “The only thing constant is change” an old saying goes, and in contemporary society in the developed world where knowledge, communication, values and meaning are mediated and often interwoven, the planned event and or experience becomes simultaneously, and paradoxically, the symbol of authenticity and/or something “real” because it is requires a spatial reality and an accelerator/medium for further mediation, change and increased consumption of services and experiences . This call for spatiality could, also, partly, work as an explanatory factor contributing to the rise of food as a symbol and medium. “Food is not only a metaphor or vehicle of communication; a meal is a physical event” reads Mary Douglas’ cautionary warning when food is overtly loaded with cultural symbolism and discourses. Ironically it seems to be exactly the physicality of food that makes it such a potent symbol and/or medium in present society. It both transgresses boundaries and establishes them, and by its tropic nature is always in flux, changeable but stable, intimate to the extreme but part of the mundane features of everyday life. In other words food as medium and mediator is perfect in the experience economy exactly because of these qualities – imagined or otherwise. Food and related experiences can thus be perceived as the perfect “Levinisian” bridge to the “other,” or the closest one gets to an intimate, yet still impersonal, experience in public. Farmers markets, as already mentioned, could thus be perceived as, and actually work as, promoters of community in urban areas, promoting “gemeinschaft”/community but using the cloaks of “gesellschaft”/business for implementation – trying to bridge the dichotomous divide between “gemeinschaft” and “gesellschaft” according to the now classic divide described by Tönnies and Simmel .

This division can, also, reenforce withdrawal. Indeed, the making, of two separate spheres of public and private interaction is noted by Elias, as a “basic condition” of modern civilization: “[W]ith the advance of civilization the lives of human beings are increasingly split between an intimate and a public sphere”. This sentiment, again, carries with it some notions of the supposed decline of community values, or the urban realm as an anti-environment for community, due to its fragmented nature and general anonymity of its participants/inhabitants. It should be noted that Simmel did, also, see the anonymity of urban life as liberating for its participants, exactly due to its impersonal nature. This is a sentiment also found in more recent “urban” sociologist Richard Sennet’s work for whom the complexity and the many different roles afforded to those willing to accept the impersonal nature of urban public life is very rewarding, as it furnishes the self with the complexity of the surrounding objects and people: “[T]he experience of urban life can teach people to live with multiplicity within themselves. The experience of complexity is not just an external event, it reflects back on individuals’ sense of themselves” . Farmers markets, and other related food experiences like food festivals etc., could thus be seen as a contributing factor to the diversity and community of life as they, supposedly, differ from mainstream food outlets in both aesthetics and possible social interaction, as these are often viewed derisively as “non-places” and “Like going to the movies, shopping engaged them in a public culture – but in a private space of their own” . But farmers markets can also work as tools for urban gentrification and symbols of inequality, as participation in these markets often come with a costly prize tag compared to mainstream food outlets like supermarkets: “Their desire for alternative foods, both gourmet and organic, and for ‘middle class’ shopping areas encourages a dynamic of urban redevelopment that displaces working-class and ethnic minority consumers” . Again, the medium of food is shown not to be either inherently good or bad for community, but rather dependent on the context, implementation and aims of its instigators.

A record of agricultural burn events was provided by the Air Pollution Control District

Our study found that the incidence of drift-related pesticide poisoning was higher among female and younger agricultural workers and in western states. These groups were previously found to have a higher incidence of pesticide poisoning . It is not known why the incidence is higher among female and younger agricultural workers, but hypotheses include that these groups are at greater risk of exposure, that they are more susceptible to pesticide toxicity, or that they are more likely to report exposure and illness or seek medical attention. However, we did not observe consistent patterns among workers in other occupations. This finding requires further research to identify the explanation. The higher incidence in the western states may suggest that workers in this region are at higher risk of drift exposure; however, it may also have resulted from better case identification in California and Washington states through their higher staffed surveillance programs, extensive use of workers’ compensation reports in these states, and use of active surveillance for some large drift events in California. Nonoccupational exposure. This study found that more than half of drift-related pesticide poisoning cases resulted from nonoccupational exposures and that 61% of these nonoccupational cases were exposed to fumigants. California data suggest that residents in agriculture-intensive regions have a 69 times higher risk of pesticide poisoning from drift exposure compared with other regions. This may reflect California’s use of active surveillance for some large drift events. Children had the greatest risk among nonoccupational cases. The reasons for this are not known but may be because children have higher pesticide exposures,macetas por mayor greater susceptibility to pesticide toxicity, or because concerned parents are more likely to seek medical attention. Recently several organizations submitted a petition to the U.S. EPA asking the agency to evaluate children’s exposure to pesticide drift and adopt interim prohibitions on the use of drift-prone pesticides near homes, schools, and parks . Contributing factors. Soil fumigation was a major cause of large drift events, accounting for the largest proportion of cases.

Because of the high volatility of fumigants, specific measures are required to prevent emissions after completion of the application. Given the unique drift risks posed by fumigants, U.S. EPA regulates the drift of fumigants separately from non-fumigant pesticides. The U.S. EPA recently adopted new safety requirements for soil fumigants, which took effect in early 2011 and include comprehensive measures designed to reduce the potential for direct fumigant exposures; reduce fumigant emissions; improve planning, training, and communications; and promote early detection and appropriate responses to possible future incidents . Requirements for buffer zones are also strengthened. For example, fumigants that generally require a > 300 foot buffer zone are prohibited within 0.25 miles of “difficult to-evacuate” sites . We found that, of the 738 fumigant-related cases with information on distance, 606 occurred > 0.25 miles from the application site, which suggests that the new buffer zone requirements, independent of other measures to increase safety, may not be sufficient to prevent drift exposure. This study also shows the need to reinforce compliance with weather-related requirements and drift monitoring activities. Moreover, applicators should be alert and careful, especially when close to non-target areas such as adjacent fields, houses, and roads. Applicator carelessness contributed to 79 events , of which 56 events involved aerial applicators. Aerial application was the most frequent application method found in drift events, accounting for 249 events . Drift hazards from aerial applications have been well documented . Applicators should use all available drift management measures and equipment to reduce drift exposure, including new validated drift reduction technologies as they become available. Limitations. This study requires cautious interpretation especially for variables with missing data on many cases . This study also has several limitations. First, our findings likely underestimate the actual magnitude of drift events and cases because case identification principally relies on passive surveillance systems. Such under reporting might have allowed the totals to be appreciably influenced by a handful of California episodes in which active case finding located relatively large numbers of affected people. Pesticide-related illnesses are under reported because of individuals not seeking medical attention , misdiagnosis, and health care provider failure to report cases to public health authorities . Data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey suggests that the pesticide poisoning rates for agricultural workers may be an order of magnitude higher than those identified by the SENSOR-Pesticides and PISP programs . Second, the incidence of drift cases from agricultural applications may have been underestimated by using crude denominators of total population and employment estimates, which may also include those who are not at risk. On the other hand, the incidence for agricultural workers may have been overestimated if the denominator data under counted undocumented workers. Third, the data may include false-positive cases because clinical findings of pesticide poisoning are nonspecific and diagnostic tests are not available or rarely performed. Fourth, when we combined data from SENSOR-Pesticides and PISP, some duplication of cases and mis-classification of variables may have occurred, although we took steps to identify and resolve discrepancies.

Also, SENSOR-Pesticides and PISP may differ in case detection sensitivity because the two programs use slightly different case definitions. Lastly, contributing factor information was not available for 48% of cases, either because an in-depth investigation did not occur or insufficient details were entered into the database. We often based the retrospective coding of contributing factors on limited data, which may have produced some misclassification.Burning fields to remove crop stubble, weeds and pests occurs worldwide, and California’s estimated emissions from the burning of crop residue ranks fifth nationally . These emissions potentially contribute to particulate matter levels in the San Joaquin Valley, which often exceed standards for ambient air each season of the year . Studies have documented thousands of chemicals in smoke; they can exist in gas, liquid and solid form. During burning, plant matter breaks apart and gases condense on particles or form particles. Most particulate matter in smoke is smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and can be transported over long distances . The California Air Resources Board estimates annual tons of particulate matter and gases emitted from field, orchard and weed burning for California counties ; their estimates are derived from burns of crop residue in a laboratory . Studies have documented emissions of 14 semivolatile polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons , the most abundant of which is naphthalene . A respiratory carcinogen , naphthalene is predominantly found in the gas phase of air sampling, with the remainder measured in the particulate phase . Few ambient air monitoring studies have been conducted in the United States during agricultural burns, either adjacent to burns or in towns and communities . Educational efforts for the general public have mostly focused on smoke from wildfires and have included public health recommendations for those exposed to elevated particulate matter and visibility guidelines for those air levels . CARB has also distributed a lengthy educational pamphlet for farmers . However, it was unknown whether health educational outreach efforts specifically targeting agricultural burning were needed. Particulate matter emissions from field burning in Imperial County — a rural desert county in California’s southeast corner — rank among the highest for any county in the state . The agricultural area of Imperial County is anirrigated desert valley, where a variety of crops including vegetables, hay and grain are grown . Fields of bermudagrass, which is grown both for hay and seed, are burned primarily in the winter, while wheat stubble is burned during the summer. Less than 3% of homes in Imperial County use wood as a house heating fuel . During the winter when night temperatures drop, inversions commonly occur; cooler ground level air, including pollutants, are trapped near the Earth’s surface by an upper layer of warmer air. For fields to be burned,macetas por mayor plastico the Air Pollution Control District requires that the estimated inversion layer must be at 3,000 feet or higher, and the burn must be initiated between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Farmers who have applied for burn permits are usually notified by the district the day before the targeted burn date that their fields may be burned. Thus, our air monitoring studies required methods that could be rapidly deployed. Our methods and results are described in greater detail in a report to the funding agency .We selected three schools and one church based on their proximity to burns in previous years and installed portable Environmental Beta Attenuation Monitors . We measured hourly average concentrations of PM2.5 and meteorological variables for 69 days starting on Jan. 14, 2009. E-BAM PM2.5 measurements are not recognized as a Federal Equivalent Method or a Federal Reference Method , one of which is required to determine if levels legally exceed air standards. However, E-BAM measurements have proven comparable to FRM measurements in field tests .

During the E-BAM monitoring period, 15,686 acres were burned on 35 allowable burn days; the acreage burned daily ranged from 0 to 1,400 acres. Average 24-hour PM2.5 concentrations were highest — 12 micrograms per cubic meter — at the northern station and lowest at the western station . The lower levels in Seeley may have been because the predominant wind direction was from the west, and sources of pollution, including burned fields, were predominantly to the east of the Seeley station. All daily PM2.5 levels were below the federal standard for unhealthy air, 35 µg per cubic meter. However, at the Calipatria station the 95th percentile of 24-hour concentrations was above 16 µg per cubic meter, which corresponds to moderate air quality where “aggravation of heart or lung disease in people with cardiopulmonary disease and older adults” is possible . We also compared 8-hour average PM2.5 concentrations at the four locations. There was little difference during the day , with levels slightly lower on field-burn days compared to no field-burn days . In contrast, from the early evening to the morning of the next day , average PM2.5 concentrations on field-burn days were 23% higher than on no-field-burn days. Additionally, on days when there was an agricultural burn within 2 miles of the Calipatria station , during the evening-to-morning period the average 8-hour concentrations were 19.5 to 20.7 µg per cubic meter, 170% higher than on days when there were no burns within 2 miles . Following the burns near the Calipatria station, on the subsequent 2 days when there were no additional burns , the evening-to-morning levels remained slightly above levels on days with no burns . Higher particulate matter levels from evening-to-morning hours associated with agricultural burning in Imperial County are consistent with air pollution dynamics. Air pollutants may rise during the day as the Earth’s surfaces are heated and then be brought down to ground level by the descent of an evening inversion layer. The night and next-day accumulation of smoke is described in a CARB pamphlet for farmers .We monitored five specific burns of 65 to 150 acres of bermudagrass stubble during the E-BAM monitoring period. For four burns, ground-level winds were low at 2 to 3 miles per hour , and the plume from the burn rose up to the apparent height of the inversion layer where it was observed to spread out, sometimes in the opposite direction of the ground wind direction. The ground-level plumes dispersed within about an hour, but the upper plumes remained visible, apparently limited by the inversion layer, until sunset. At one of the five burns, the Dunham burn, the wind speed was higher , and the ground-level smoke plume engulfed a house on the same property as the burned field and drifted onto an adjacent field. We deployed portable particulate matter monitors — active-flow and passive personal DataRAM nephelometers — which continuously measured PM2.5 and PM10 , respectively. This monitoring was done at three locations surrounding each of the five burns for 24 to 72 hours. Two locations were near the burns and were places of public access, homes or telephone poles; the other was at the nearest E-BAM, which was farther away . At the 15 locations, field difficulties including power outages, supply delivery problems and apparent equipment or software malfunctions limited monitoring to 11 and 13 locations for the PM2.5 and PM10 nephelometers, respectively.

The coconut palm also gave back to the communities who tended to the trees

GS1 transcripts and glutamine synthetase enzyme activity also increased with increasing NH4 + and NO3 – availability in sorghum roots, suggesting this response may be widespread among plant species. Interestingly, inclusion of soil GWC in multiple linear regression models increased the proportion of GS1 expression variability explained to nearly 30% ; soil water content increases microbial activity as well as the mass flow and diffusion of inorganic N to roots. Further research will undoubtedly show how other factors like crop physiological N demand relative to C fixation and P availability increase the interpretability of N uptake and assimilation gene expression in roots.The N cycling scenarios identified on this set of organic fields corresponded at least in part with landscape clusters based on landscape and soil characteristics . Fields that balanced high yields with low potential for N loss and high internal N cycling capacity were part of PAM cluster 1, which had the highest productive capacity rating . Landscape clusters encompassing more marginal soils included both low-yielding fields exhibiting N deficiency or high-yielding fields that used inputs of highly available N like seabird guano to alleviate N deficiency . But these inputs led to the highest soil NO3 – levels and thus came at the cost of higher potential for N loss. Long-term efforts to increase internal soil N cycling capacity would help alleviate both N deficiency and the need for such large inputs of labile N. Whether farmers are willing to invest in management to increase soil N cycling capacity depends in part on how likely they perceive the benefits to be, especially on marginal soils. The discussions that we had with each farmer in this study indicated genuine interest in adaptive management to further tighten plant-soil N cycling, but this may not always be the case. Indeed,macetas redondas grandes the proportion of management vs. inherent soil characteristics responsible for driving differences in N cycling is challenging to untangle. Farmers may allocate more resources to more productive land and likewise fewer resources to more marginal land, or may selectively transition more marginal land to organic management.

Documenting the multiple services provided by increases in soil quality and facilitating information exchange among organic growers such as through the landscape approach used here may help build momentum for efforts to improve soil quality and plant-soil-microbe N cycling.The health food movement’s latest trend in its ongoing rejection of carbohydrates in favor of fats alarmed cardiologists and public health experts. Studies in the journal of the American Heart Association noted a possible link between coconut oil’s high levels of LDL cholesterol, colloquially known as the “bad cholesterol” which carries a higher risk for coronary disease.In a now infamous 2018 talk at the University of Freiburg, Harvard epidemiologist Karin Michels called coconut oil “pure poison.”Delivered in German, the talk captured headlines in countries that are net importers of coconut products and also commanded the attention of exporting nations and industry trade groups. India’s horticultural minister demanded that Michels retract her statement while the International Coconut Community , a twenty-nation member organization headquartered in Jakarta, issued multiple defenses of coconut oil’s superfood status.Setting aside the merits of competing health claims, the ICC’s response to Michels was a rare albeit brief instance in which the global political economy of coconut oil became visible to North American consumers. The North American demand for coconut products tethers small- and large-scale coconut planters and wage pickers in the South and Southeast to a multitude of producer associations, cooperatives, national governments, and multinational marketing companies who deliver the product to health-conscious consumers. Coconuts—an enduring symbol of tropical ease—are big business. The Philippines, which the Calboms held as evidence of the oil’s benefits, produces an estimated 1.9 million tons of coconut products each year and account for forty-nine percent of the world’s exports. Coconut farms are found in most of the country’s eighty-one provinces, covering 3.3 million hectares or thirty percent of farmlands.

This high output persists despite high poverty rates among coconut farmers, maturing trees with waning production, recurring infestations of coconut scale insects requiring tree felling, and an intensification of destructive typhoons precipitated by the climate crisis.Production depends on forest clearing for new planting, in turn exacerbating the climate crisis behind the industry’s woes. How does a commodity produced by an ailing industry attain and sustain the allure of a natural superfood? Adrienne Bitar’s Diet and the Disease of Civilizationoffers an answer from the perspective of consumption. Coconuts, she writes, play a leading role in a larger North American “food story” in which eating against the grain can recapture “an original, innocent world and mourn the descent of the human race into modern disease.”Diet jeremiads decrying the “fall of man” include the Paleo diet, in which men and women are urged to eat like evolutionary ancestors and the Detox diet, which calls for abstention from refined and processed foods. Coconuts also feature in Pacific Islander efforts to decolonize the everyday dietary. Citing alarmingly high rates of diabetes and obesity, Dr. Terry Shintani’s The HawaiiDiet positions the replacement of fried and refined foods with “foods eaten in Hawai’i before the onset of Western influence” as part of a larger personal, cultural, and ecological healing from the ravages of colonialism.But in making this case, fall of man diets “eternalize a timeless past,” homogenize diversity among Pacific Islanders, and sharpen alleged innate and biological differences between Pacific Islanders. The diets, Bitar writes, exemplify what Renato Rosaldo calls “imperialist nostalgia”—a romanticization of that which has been lost to colonial violence in the name of progress of development.This nostalgia for the coconut echoes outside of diet culture as well. Recall, for example, LinManuel Miranda’s invitation to “consider the coconut” as the Motunui villagers of Disney’s Moanapraise the tree, its husk, fibers, water, and meat as “all we need”. Hsu and Vázquez’s “molecular intimacies of empire” can move us toward an account of the coconut’s superfood status that incorporates production. Indeed, the seemingly paradoxical relationship between “superfood” and “ailing agriculture” illuminates the processes by which US empire and capital accumulation extend across geographic space and render biological materials into component parts such as oil and synthetic materials while relegating the risks of those processes to producers and laborers at the supply end of the commodity chain. This essay’s focus is therefore on the American agricultural entrepreneurs, tropical research stations, and penal farms that built a coconut plantation economy in the southern Philippines after 1898.

These Southern Philippine plantations were just one site in what others identify as a transimperial “coconut zone” extending west from the equatorial Pacific Islands to southern India and were also akin to Dole’s pineapple empire in Hawai’i and United Fruit’s banana empire in Central America.Coconuts, pineapples, and bananas constituted an American equatorial fruit empire that fed upon and nurtured discourses of tropicality—the late nineteenth century division of the globe into tropical and temperate worlds. Tropicality held that planning for temperate winters instilled EuroAmericans with traits conducive to industry while the heat and humidity of tropical climes produced a fecund nature and indolent natives who lived off, rather than mastered,maceta 25l the land.The exaggerated fecundity of the tropics was simultaneously a threat to white bodies and a justification for Indigenous dispossession that imagined precontact idylls in which fruits sprang forth from nature rather than human cultivation. The agricultural entrepreneurs of the fruit empire cast coercive labor regimes as necessary improvements on primitive agricultural methods. They neutralized fears of tropical landscapes by stressing their singular ability to “tame” jungles and domesticated foreign foods by emphasizing health. The promotional materials of United Fruit anointed the banana a “superfood” as early as the 1920s.A robust scholarship on tropical commodities has since reconnected the American appetite for bananas and pineapples to colonial plantation.The colonial plantations of the southern Philippines, however, were severed from the this larger history of fruit empires largely because the sites produced copra, the dried kernels from which the oil is expelled, and coconut oil was initially valued for its industrial applications. Coconut plantations preceded the embrace of coconut as a food by decades. The following essay offers an episodic accounting of the American coconut empire in the southern Philippines. It begins with the union of Euro-American industrialization and economic botany and colonial state power in the making of coconut plantations and a Philippine copra export industry in the early twentieth century. Coconut oil oozed unseen into soap, candles, and dynamite before making a more visible debut during the first world war as an ingredient in the butter substitute oleomargarine. Because Euro-American consumers already saw oleomargarine as unnatural, advertisers emphasized coconut oil’s whiteness as a sign of purity, healthfulness, and closeness to nature. But in the interwar period, North American dairy and cottonseed farmers cast Filipinos and their copra as impure in their effort to restrict its import. Their campaign blurred what were already fuzzy boundaries between the natural and the primitive, and between individual bodily risk and risk to the body politic. Yet the nearly four million Filipinos linked to the coconut commodity chain ultimately bore a collective risk that scholars call the “body burdens” of toxic exposure.Imprisoned laborers risked malaria by clearing forests for plantations while planters and pickers later faced exposure to the pesticides and herbicides used to manage the ecological risks of monocropping.

The US racialization of Philippine copra as impure placed what one Philippine official called a “black mark” on the country’s copra in global markets.Independence and the looming loss of US markets in 1946 led Philippine planters to encourage Filipinos to bear the risks of monocropping by eating more of the coconuts they grew and to forge new alliances with other Southeast Asian producers. Such alliances paved the way for the International Coconut Committee. The marketing machinery of the ICC coupled with the interwar association of coconut oil as “unrefined,” and a second world war literature on the coconut as a survival food primed the coconut for its reinvention as a superfood. Far from a traditional food of the tropical Pacific, the coconut’s place in the Philippine economy and dietary is an exemplar of the edible and unequal intimacies of empire.Botanists have long debated the origins and migration of the coconut palm tree across the equatorial Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. Because the husks containing the kernel, water, and meat can root after exposure to seawater, nineteenth-century plant geographers speculated that maritime currents, rather than mariners, carried the husks from a singular origin point in either the Americas or East Asia. The thesis, much like tropicality, minimized the human role in plant propagation and has since yielded to a new consensus that allows for a multisited provenance and a guiding human hand.Asian–mainland travellers likely introduced the tree to the Philippine archipelago between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, where it coevolved with the coastal ecology. Coconut palms thrive in sandy soils with circulating ground water. It gives back to the coast by blunting the impact of typhoons and absorbing “wash-over” into its dense root systems.Coconut fronds became shingles that roofed nipa homes; its husked fibers caulked ships; shells and husks could be used as household tools and burnt for fuel. Food vendors sweetened rice cakes with coconut sugar and fermented the tree’s sap into vinegar and tuba, a potent alcohol. Baked in open air under the hot sun, the kernels of the coconut formed copra, from which oil for cooking, washing, lubricating, and medicine was pressed. These myriad uses may have protected small cultivators from debt tenancy as financial capital encouraged the planting of sugar and hemp. The coconut was so ubiquitous that landlords in southeastern Luzon’s hemp exporting Kabikolregion allowed fallen nuts to compost in the soil.This would change within two decades of US rule at which point copra constituted thirty percent of Philippine exports—third behind the far more established trade in sugar and hemp.The rapid rise in copra exports points to the centrality of economic botany and scientific agriculture in making the American colonial state in the Philippines. The US declared war on Spain in 1898, the same year that the United States Department of Agriculture opened an Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction .

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