Category Archives: Agriculture

There is little evidence of increased reliance on comparative advantage in China’s agriculture

Turning to manufacturing, in Table 6, the subgroups that were in surplus in 1980-82 accounted for 31.82% of the value of normalized agricultural trade in 1994-96. Of these goods, 4.93% of trade moved to balance by 1994-96 and 0.81% moved to deficit. Adding up the diagonal elements in Table 6, we find that 65.5% of the trade in manufacturing was persistent, from 1980 to 1996. These results suggest almost as much persistence in manufacturing trade compared to agricultural trade. As a statistical measure of trade persistence, we can use a transformation of the standard chisquared test, Cramer’s C-statistic, suggested by Carolan et. al.. The C-statistic lies between zero and one, with one representing complete association between the beginning and the ending trade balance. From Tables 7, 8 and 9 we find the C-statistic is 0.66 for agriculture, 0.39 for other primary products, and 0.54 for manufactures. These results suggest there was the least change in the trade balances over the 1980-1996 time period for agriculture, because the C-statistic is relatively high. For manufacturing and other primary products the results suggest there was relatively more change in the trade balances over the time period studied, because the C-statistics are lower.9 Rather than just comparing the beginning and ending time periods, we can construct histograms for agriculture and manufacturing, based on the number of years each subgroup runs a surplus . Figure 3 shows histograms for agriculture, “other” primary products, and manufactures. Figure 3 classifies subgroups indicating how many years the subgroup was in surplus. This means, that a subgroup that was in surplus for each of the 18 years would be in the cell at the extreme right of the histogram. The histogram for agriculture displays the strongest evidence of bimodality,plastic planters bulk which indicates persistence in trade flows. These histograms are therefore consistent with the C-statistic results, suggesting more persistence in the composition of agricultural trade, compared to the other two groups. Finally, the results of an additional test for association are reported in Table 6.

We regressed NB1994-96 on NB1980-82. The regression coefficients for all three groups are all statistically significant, but the coefficient for other primary products is smaller than for agriculture or manufacturing. Similarly, the R2 is relatively small for other primary products compared to either manufacturing or agriculture . These results support the conclusion that the trade patterns appear to change the most for “other” primary products, and the least for agriculture. The major finding of this paper is that China’s agricultural trade structure has not changed dramatically since 1980. China’s agricultural trade may loosely correspond to the basic principles of comparative advantage, but that in itself is not such a big achievement. Even under central planning, the obviousness of comparative advantage was such that in general terms, China’s agricultural trade corresponded to basic principles of comparative advantage. What is more striking is the modest and limited way that agricultural trade has expanded along comparative advantage lines, despite an increase in foreign trade overall, and the implicit evidence this provides of foregone opportunities for benefit from agricultural trade.Belize is a country in Central America and the Caribbean that is best described as a melting pot of diversity and culture. The biodiversity and natural heritage of the country is safeguarded through a system of terrestrial and marine protected areas under the National Protected Areas System Act regulating protected areas in Belize. There are 13 categories of protected areas in Belize, each with its own set of policies and procedures regulating permissible socioeconomic activities. The Forest Department manages terrestrial protected areas, while the Fisheries Department manages marine protected areas. Given the very large number of protected areas—approximately 100 in the NPAS—the aforementioned government departments often enter into comanagement agreements with conservation nongovernmental organizations or community-based organizations to accomplish effective management. Belize’s economy has been based on the exportation of raw products to the European Union and the United States of America. Traditional crops such as sugarcane, banana, and citrus products have been the main foreign exports. As global prices for these products change, so does the focus locally.

For example, the number one foreign exchange earner presently is tourism. For this industry to continue, the protection of the environment has become a top priority. This is because one of the main reasons tourists visit the country is for its rich flora and fauna, much of which still thrives in the mosaic of protected areas all over the country. Consequently, Belize really is prioritized as a system of protected areas maintaining interconnectivity from north to south as a wildlife corridor. Small but growing, Belize’s economy is very susceptible to the changes in global economic trends and since most of its foreign exchange is agriculture-based, climate change exacerbates that reality. This requires that climate-smart agricultural practices be adopted to mitigate the effects of changing weather patterns. This is important for continued local and foreign exchange earnings, but more importantly, for food and water security for the Belize population, as many communities still practice and rely on subsistence farming. As a response to changing weather patterns and a need to protect natural resources for both tourism and food security, an agroforestry concession system in the Maya Mountain North Forest Reserve has served as a pilot forest governance model that can be replicated in other forest reserves. Such system allows for greater attention on local communities who rely on granted access in protected areas to enhance their livelihoods. Access to the forest reserve has also created additional opportunities for women farmers of the Trio community, such as incentivizing honey production, an alternative nontimber forest product, as a socioeconomic activity. Apiculture complements the income generated from the sale of cacao beans and other crops and allows women to take a leading role in income-generation for the family in a traditional Maya community.“Forest reserve” is a category of terrestrial protected areas that allows communities to access natural resources in the conserved area. The MMNFR ranks 12th out of 56 protected areas that were evaluated for the National Protected Area Prioritization exercise of 2012, and is recognized as a key biodiversity area , prioritized for increased management effectiveness, under the Global Environment Facility–World Bank “Key Biodiversity Areas” project from 2015 to 2020 . This significant status was a contributing factor in formulating a conservation agreement that allowed for the first agroforestry concession within MMNFR. As a critical wildlife corridor in the Maya Golden Landscape —a large area of protected areas, agricultural and private lands, and communities—access to lands in the form of a concession creates a management presence that requires effective communication and coordination.

Population increase further adds to the pressures on Belize’s natural resources, increasing the priority to develop innovative approaches to provide for Indigenous and local communities who depend on the forest for food, housing materials, medicine and other necessities for their sustenance. This requires a landscape approach to natural resources management that puts forest-dependent communities at the center of the decision making process to implement adaptive ecofriendly extractive measures to ensure forest and livelihood sustainability. The community forest concession model is one of the tools that has been used to ensure that these communities become stewards of their surrounding natural resources. The Trio Farmers Cacao Growers Association from the community of Trio in Belize’s Toledo District is pioneering this community forest governance initiative . This local, organized group of 31 Maya farmers is registered under the Belize’s Company Registry, under Chapter 250 of the Companies Act . Villagers who were seeking access to farmland to continue their traditional farming practices formed TFCGA. In 2015, they signed the first-ever community forest concession in Belize. This is an agreement between the Forest Department and Ya’axché Conservation Trust , on behalf of TFCGA, the associate. The establishment of the conservation agreement grants the group rights to access the MMNFR for cacao-based agroforestry, beekeeping,collection pot and cultivation of annual crops, putting into practice sustainable climate-smart measures. Maya communities have traditionally used slash-and burn as a method of land clearing for agriculture. With the concession agreement and their access to a forest reserve, the organized group has been encouraged to cease this practice by adapting and practicing sustainable farming methods. The cacao-based agroforestry farming practice enhances the production of cacao beans while protecting standing forests and their biodiversity, and maintaining a healthy vegetation cover. This farming system is a long-term investment, as cacao production does not generate immediate income for the farmer, taking up to 4–5 years for the cacao plots to start to generate economically viable yields . This initiative, as part of a Community Outreach and Livelihoods program, targets socioeconomic challenges faced by a local, Indigenous forest community. The main focus is on food security, water conservation, and agricultural good practices, ensuring that anthropogenic disturbances do not continue to encroach on the remaining natural forests of the wild landscapes sought to be conserved. As a result, an annual crops section was considered and integrated as part of the agroforestry concession model.

Crops such as corn, beans, pepper, pumpkin, plantain, and root crops—staples of the Maya culture—are produced and surpluses are marketed locally. The adaptation of the cacao-based agroforestry system helps to ensure that our forests are managed sustainably. Cacao is emerging as a new foreign exchange earner, as there is a shift in the consumer demand for sustainably produced products. Through local observations, Ya’axché noted that most of the cacao currently being produced in Belize is within an agroforestry system. This is important since such an approach to production has minimal impact on the environment. This approach to farming curbs deforestation, creating an opportunity to manage natural forests in such a manner that shade-loving crops, like cacao, can be cultivated. Cacao is culturally important as it can be traced back to the ancient Maya civilization, where it played an important role as a currency and drink of the royal class. Although TFCGA has limited experience in growing cacao and farming within an agroforestry system, progress has been made, especially in shifting from the predominantly slash-and-burn farming practices common in many Maya communities.Empowering forest communities in the MGL to effectively manage their own natural resources fosters an innovative culture to learn and adapt best practices from success stories around the globe. Nontimber forest products are an integral part of Indigenous communities’ dependence on the forest, where beekeeping is placed as a high priority in the MGL for honey extraction. MMNFR has been considered as a location where apiaries can be maintained to boost the production of chemical-free “organic” honey. Seven female farmers from Trio have participated in capacity-building workshops, receiving technical assistance and material support from Ya’axché to continue the expansion of their apiaries. There is an opportunity to diversify the number of products that can be harvested, which can include pollen, wax, and royal jelly, among others. This group of women is a great proponent for the conservation of natural forests within MMNFR and other protected areas. Apiculture is complementing forest communities’ income, while fostering the development of a heightened stewardship of natural forests through an integrated management approach. Cacao has been a traditional crop in Maya communities, being used as a local drink for cultural activities such as communal planting and feasts, and as an offering during ritual ceremonies. To retain this traditional livelihood based on the harvesting of cacao, market demands have prompted initiatives to venture into local investments to increase cacao production as a supplement to the incomes of forest communities who continue with this practice. Ever since Ya’axché started to promote cacao-based agroforestry in the MGL, this climate-smart agricultural measure has gained traction as a response to the deforestation that occurred during Hurricane Iris in 2001 and the fires that followed. The Cacao Conservation Agreement of January 2016 was established after a forest concession was granted by Forest Department in June 2014. This led to the drafting of the 2014–2019 Agroforestry Concession Management Plan for the MMNFR, a conservation tool to oversee the cacao-based agroforestry model . Policies and procedures have been outlined to guide the effective management of the concession in the forest reserve.

The change in farm sales of floral products was much less dramatic

Average hourly earnings rose sharply between 2011 and 2012, and the increase was even greater in the San Joaquin Valley, which has over half of the state’s farm workers . Housing emerged as a major issue. Farm employers wanted to provide housing or a housing allowance only to the W-3 workers who are tied to their farms, but S 744 requires farm employers to provide housing or a housing allowance to both W-3 and W-4 visa holders. U.S. workers employed alongside W-3 and W-4 visa holders would not have to be provided with housing or a housing allowance. The amount of the housing allowance depends on whether the farm employer is in a metro or non-metro county. In California, W-visa workers would receive $295 a month in metro counties and $225 a monthly in non-metro counties in 2013, or $1.84 an hour in metro counties for full-time workers and $1.40 in non-metro counties. Almost all of California’s labor-intensive agriculture is in metro counties. A new W-2 visa program would admit more low-skilled workers, with the number eventually determined by a Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research, located in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Its $20 million budget raised from fees on W-2 workers and their employers. The Bureau would be charged with determining the annual change to the W-visa cap, devising methods to help employers who use guest workers to recruit U.S. workers, creating a methodology to designate “shortage occupations,” and making recommendations on employment-based visa programs. In order to hire W-2 workers, U.S. employers in metro areas with an unemployment rate of less than 8.5% would register themselves and their jobs and request W-2 visas for specific foreigners. Foreigners’ families could also receive W-2 visas, which would be valid for three years. Up to 20,000 W-2 visas could be issued in the first year, 35,000 in the second year, 55,000 in the third year, and 75,000 in the fourth year, and the number could rise further if certain conditions are met. No more than one-third of W-2 visa holders could be employed in construction. Where will U.S. employers get low skilled W-visa workers? Mexico-U.S. migration has been declining,blueberry containers and more Mexicans returned to Mexico, often after being deported from the US, than were admitted in recent years .

A century ago, most of the state’s farm workers were Asians. A combination of longer periods of U.S. employment and the opportunity to bring family members may bring more Asians to the United States as guest workers.About three-fourths of the hired workers on U.S. crop farms were born abroad, and over half of all farm workers are not authorized to work in the United States. Although most unauthorized workers are employed in non-farm jobs, California has a higher-than average share of unauthorized workers than most other states . The state’s share of unauthorized farm workers is also higher than average, which explains why California farmers have been in the vanguard of those advocating for immigration reform. If S 744 is enacted with its current agricultural provisions, there are likely to be three major changes. First, the hired farm work force is likely to become mostly legal, comprised first of currently unauthorized workers who become legal blue card holders and later legal guest workers. Second, labor costs should be stable, since average hourly earnings in California are well above the minimum wage that must be paid to guest workers. Even if farm employers have to pay a housing allowance of up to $2 an hour, the $9.64 that must be paid to guest workers in 2016, plus a $2 an hour housing allowance, is less than the average hourly earnings of crop workers in California in 2012, which were $12.56 an hour. Third, S 744’s agricultural provisions should provide labor certainty for California farmers, and give them advantages over farmers in lower-wage areas of the United States. The capacity to hire legal guest workers for up to six years at $9.64 an hour, with wage increases limited to 2.5% a year, should make it easier to plan investments in labor-intensive agriculture and secure financing for them. California farmers should benefit by the switch from a national minimum wage for guest workers rather than state-by state wages. The current Adverse Effect Wage Rates that must be paid to legal guest workers in 2013 range from $9.50 an hour in some southern states to $12 in Oregon and Washington; the California AEWR is $10.74.

The agricultural provisions of S 744 benefit currently unauthorized farm workers at the expense of future guest workers. Currently unauthorized farm workers and their families can become legal immigrants and leave the farm work force within five years, while future guest workers will have lower wages and perhaps fewer protections than current guest workers. Farm worker advocates and farm employers negotiated the agricultural provisions of S 744, and both have said they will strongly resist efforts to change what they describe as a “delicately balanced compromise.” If enacted, they should provide California agriculture with a legal work force at current costs.California’s nursery and floral industry will feel the effects of the “housing bubble” and the economic recession following its 2007 “burst” for many years. These effects are evident throughout the industry, ranging from the production of plants and material to structural aspects of product distribution. While there are no readily available empirical studies of the demand for nursery and floral products, it is widely accepted that housing and consumer income are important determinants of their demand. Thus, the economic downturn beginning in 2007, characterized by increasing unemployment, reduced consumer incomes, decreasing home prices, shrinking equities and foreclosures, would be expected to adversely affect the demand for nursery products. This article uses industry data to outline industry changes and to speculate on some possible implications of these changes.The California floral and nursery sector’s ties to the real estate industry, and the unique nature of its crops, contributed to uninterrupted sales growth between 1993 and 2007. This growth continued despite the major challenges presented by shipping restrictions related to pests and diseases, increased competition from imported flowers, the impact of increased energy costs on production and transportation, limited and expensive water supplies, and less-than-ideal weather conditions. As a result of plunging house prices and recession, the combined sales of nursery and floral products dropped in 2008, 2009 and 2010 before recovering slightly in 2011.

Data from USDA’s annual publication, California Agricultural Statistics, indicate that nursery production and sales typically ranked third among all California crops , while floral crops usually ranked around tenth. When combined,best indoor plant pots nursery and floral production typically ranked second in value of production among all California crops. As shown in Figure 1, total sales of California nursery and floral crops increased steadily from $2.71 billion in 1995 to a record $3.97 billion in 2007. Sales then decreased to about $3.37 billion in 2010 before recovering to $3.69 billion in 2011. Nursery and floral products’ share of total California agricultural sales increased from 9.6% in 1995 to a high of 12.5% in 2002 and then, with the exception of 2006, decreased steadily to 7.8% in 2011. Combined sales of nursery and floral products dropped to fourth place among all California agricultural products in 2011, following dairy, grapes, and almonds. Nursery and floral products’ decreasing share of total California agricultural sales beginning in 2002 is due to two major factors. Most important, for most of the period from 2002 through 2007, the rate of growth for other agricultural products outpaced the growth for nursery and floral products. Then with the onset of recession, combined nursery and floral sales decreased while some other major California commodities enjoyed increasing sales. Annual nursery and floral product sales decreased 4.7% from 2007 to 2008, then decreased 9.0% from 2008 to 2009, and 2.2% from 2009 to 2010. Finally, combined farm level nursery and floral sales increased 9.5% from 2010 to 2011.Nursery and floral products take a variety of paths in moving from the California producer to final customers, depending on the product and the nature and location of the customer. Due to the bulky nature and perishability of the products, most of the channels tend to be relatively short. For example, some producers have established retail outlets adjacent to their growing operations, especially in urban areas. Nursery operations supplying inputs to other growers tend to deal directly, or sometimes through a sales intermediary. Even large multi-product retailers who deal through wholesalers and jobbers often receive shipments directly from the nursery producer. While farm level sales of nursery and floral products decreased in both absolute and relative terms, the most dramatic impacts of the recession and housing problems occurred at the retail level.

Increasing unemployment and reduced consumer incomes combined with increased competition from alternative outlets to make retail florists an “endangered species.” At the same time, a collapse in home building put substantial pressure on specialized farm and garden stores and retail nurseries. Data from taxable retail sales reports and the directory of firms licensed to sell nursery products help to outline the changes occurring. Retailers and Taxable Sales: The California State Board of Equalization reports sales by type of retail outlet and the number of outlets. There are two retail store types for which nursery and floral products are the major products sold: florists and lawn and garden equipment and supplies stores . An increasing share of nursery and floral products are sold in other store types such as supermarkets, big box retailers , and food and variety stores, but we have no measure of the breakdown of sales by product line for any retailers. Changes in store numbers and annual sales for California florists between 2000 and 2011 are dramatic . The number of California florists increased from 5161 in 2000 to a peak of 6427 in 2008 , with store numbers increasing in 2008 even as sales began to plunge. Annual florists’ sales decreased over 34% from 2007 to 2008, 41.9% from 2008 to 2009, and another 2.5% from 2009 to 2010. Total sales by California florists in 2010 were only 37.4% of their level just three years earlier in 2007. Large numbers of florists began closing in 2008, with total numbers decreasing 25.3% by 2011 . Sales for California lawn and garden stores increased from just over $2.06 billion in 2000 to a high of over $2.96 billion in 2007 and then decreased over 25.2% the next two years before increasing 2.4% in 2010 and 5.4% in 2011 . However, the number of lawn and garden stores increased each year from 2000 through 2011 even when total sales decreased. Note that average per store sales peaked for both florists and lawn and garden stores in 2006 , decreased and reached a low in 2010 and then recovered with increased sales per store of 6.6% for florists and 2.2% per store for lawn and garden stores. Firms Licensed to Sell Nursery Products: Firms must be licensed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture to sell nursery products in California and licensed firms are listed in the annual Directory of Nurserymen and Others Licensed to Sell Nursery Stock in California. The firms by category were tabulated for 2003 and 2011 in a previous report and data for 2013 were tabulated for this report. The data in Table 2 show a significant reduction in the number of retailers between 2003 and 2011 with a slight recovery in 2013. There were also less dramatic decreases in the total numbers of middlemen as well as landscapers and producers from 2011 to 2013. Changing sales and reductions in the number of firms producing and marketing California nursery and floral products point to some rather basic structural changes with implications for both producers and consumers. First is the sharp reduction in the number of California florists and their total sales associated with the recession. The number of florists in 2011 dropped 1629 from the peak of 6427 in 2008 while sales decreased $753.26 million from 2007 to 2010.California farm-level floral product sales reached a high of $1.036 billion in 2007. Sales then dropped to $1.015 billion in 2008 and further to $937.0 million in 2009 before recovering to $1.015 billion in 2010.

The approach of down scaling IPCC storylines to analyze local land use scenarios is still relatively new

We address this need by investigating the GHG emissions and land use impacts of dramatically different urbanization storylines1 for an agricultural county within one of California’s rapidly growing metropolitan regions. In contrast to traditional urban-growth modeling, which projects scenarios into the future based on current and past policy, we take a “back casting” approach that seeks to consider the implications of radically different alternative strategies at a date far in the future. Accordingly, we propose strongly different story lines for 2050, develop modeling parameters based on these alternative futures, model the spread of new urban development across the landscape between now and then, and then estimate annual emissions from transportation and residential energy use in 2050 as well as the effects of urban growth on agricultural land. In terms of urbanization, our story lines range from business as usual in the county, with 65% of new households in traditional suburban or exurban densities, to a very-compact development scenario with only 10% of new households in these categories. Also factored into the scenarios are differential levels of urban rural connectivity such as local food marketing and consumption, which help build interest and support in the climate-related co-benefits of agriculture. The results are necessarily broad-brush, given that population, economic conditions, and political attitudes cannot be estimated with any degree of precision over such a long period. Still, such an approach can be useful to illustrate dramatically different policy approaches,cut flower transport bucket and indeed can be seen as necessary in order to give policymakers and the public a sense of the level of change required to meet climate change planning goals . As a foundation for our work, we use the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios storylines that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change established in 2000.

According to the IPCC working group, “Scenarios are alternative images of how the future might unfold and are an appropriate tool with which to analyze how driving forces may influence future emission outcomes and to assess the associated uncertainties” . The IPCC scenarios are based on very broad storylines for alternative global futures, specifying different trajectories for population, globalization, economic growth, and environmental protection. The working group intended them to assist in the modeling of future GHG emissions, and also to assist with understanding of global warming impacts, climate adaptation , and mitigation . We chose the A2 and B1 scenarios for higher and lower GHG emissions, respectively, which can be conceptually down scaled to explore how future local land use patterns will respond to climate change . Scenario A2 has higher economic and population growth and less emphasis on sustainability priorities than Scenario B1. Because IPCC storylines do not include specific action to mitigate GHG emissions, we have added a third alternative, called AB32-Plus, which assumes continued development of State of California climate change policy as set out by a 2006 law, Assembly Bill 32 , as well as other state legislation and policy. In particular, Senate Bill 375 of 2008 requires each metropolitan area to develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy aimed at coordinating land use and transportation planning so as to reduce GHG emissions from transportation. Although coordinated transportation–land use planning in California certainly predates these pieces of climate change legislation , the state’s metropolitan areas began developing the new Sustainable Communities Strategies in the early 2010s , potentially establishing a stronger trajectory of urban growth planning. We sought to design urbanization assumptions within the AB32-Plus storyline so as to meet the state’s GHG mitigation goals as well as to achieve other benefits such as farmland preservation, greater provision of ecosystem services at the rural–urban interface, biodiversity conservation, improved rural livelihood options, and business opportunities that build social capital .

Our overall process then, was to review relevant literature, assemble storylines and scenario assumptions, model urbanization for the county with geographic information system–based software, calculate likely transportation and building emissions from new residential development for each scenario,and assess land use change implications. The analysis concludes with a number of strategies, some already in progress, which could inform a growth-management framework to limit urban development and enhance preservation of agricultural lands.However, Solecki and Oliveri used this strategy to examine conversion of agricultural to urban land in the New York City area, employing the SLEUTH urban-growth model to investigate A2 and B2 trend scenarios for 2020 and 2050, with 1960–1990 growth as a base. Modeling parameters primarily concerned the ways urban grid cells propagated in relation to existing development, urban edges, and transportation infrastructure. Solecki and Oliveri’s B2 scenario was substantially weaker in managing urban growth than the alternatives we envisioned developing. Although these authors found less urban sprawl with their environmentally oriented alternative, the percentage of land urbanized still more than tripled from 1990 to 2050. Rounsevell et al. Down scaled four SRES storylines for Europe and modeled land use for 2020, 2050, and 2080 time frames, though at a much larger spatial scale than ours . The main drivers for their model were global resource, market, and policy assumptions rather than local land use policy. Not surprisingly, their relatively green B1 and B2 scenarios performed best at preserving agricultural lands. Barredo and Gómez tested a cellular automata–based model through analysis of urban growth on 10,000 square kilometers around Madrid under three SRES scenarios for the 2000–2040 period. Model parameters focused on land accessibility, suitability, zoning status, and neighborhood effects. Their method produced distinctly different spatial clustering and distribution of development for their different storylines. Van Eck and Koomen applied two scenarios based on SRES storylines to model urban concentration and land use diversity in the Netherlands, finding that the latter produced significantly more urban sprawl and less concentration of development. None of these researchers, though, sought to further link their models to GHG emissions from the predicted development patterns.

More general analysis of urban growth has long supported the supposition that low-density suburban sprawl increases motor vehicle use, leading to higher GHG emissions compared with non-urban uses on the same land or with similar new populations living in denser urban environments with greater land use diversity . In a 2009 review of the literature, the National Research Council concluded that doubling residential density across a metropolitan area, combined with improved land use mix and transit, might lower household vehicle miles traveled by 5% to 12%, and perhaps by as much as 25% . The relationship is complex, however . In an analysis of 80 growth-scenario planning exercises in 50 US regions, Bartholomew attributed the relatively modest decreases in VMT usually shown within compact-development scenarios to the traditional insensitivity of travel-demand models to land use patterns,procona flower transport containers as well as the omission of other variables such as land use diversity and pricing. Sheer population and job densities may not be as important as residents’ accessibility to destinations and street-network design . Other factors such as the availability of public transit, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and economic incentives probably play important roles as well.Research on relationships between urban form and GHG emissions is still in the early stages, and is based primarily on modeled rather than observed data. Andrews developed an exploratory land use–GHG emissions analysis framework that considers emissions from buildings, transportation, waste management, landscape management, urban heat islands, and electricity transmission and distribution. Applying this framework to typical types of development found in New Jersey towns, he found per capita CO2 emissions varying by a factor of two, with transportation emissions much lower in dense urban locations than in suburban ones, building emissions somewhat lower, and single family detached homes producing 33% more GHG from energy use than units in multifamily structures. Carbon sequestration within forests substantially lowered per capita human emissions in exurban locations compared with suburban or urban settings around the periphery of these towns in this East Coast location. This is less likely to be important in arid or primarily agricultural areas of the country, where the amount of woody vegetation is much lower. Waste management, urban heat-island effects, and electric transportation and distribution losses all proved relatively small factors in Andrews’s analysis. Ewing and Rong investigated the relation between suburban sprawl and residential-building energy consumption, finding 54% higher energy consumption for space heating for single-family detached units when compared with similar households in multifamily structures. However, they also found that urban areas have somewhat increased energy consumption for cooling, due to urban heat-island effects.

In a study of relatively low-density vs. high-density neighborhoods in the Toronto area, Norman, MacLean, and Kennedy found GHG emissions from the former approximately 81% higher for building operations and 365% higher for transportation activities. In a study of 11 metropolitan regions in the Midwestern US, Stone et al. estimated that an aggressive smart-growth scenario over 50 years could reduce the growth in transportation emissions from business-as-usual development by 34%, and that over business as usual, and that this land use strategy, combined with use of hybrid-electric vehicles, could reduce the growth in emissions by 97%. The relation between transportation emissions and building-related emissions will vary according to climate and geographical region. Randolph believes that in general sprawl has far greater impacts on transportation emissions than on building emissions. However, Andrews points out that, in some locations at least, building emissions are greater in quantity. Although the idea of modeling urban growth with very-low-GHG scenarios has been rare in academia, public agencies are beginning to move toward such back casting approaches in an effort to meet emissions-reduction targets and related legislation. As mentioned previously, California’s 2008 SB 375 legislation begins the process of encouraging such scenarios throughout California. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments , within the preparatory work for its 2012 Sustainable Communities Strategy , developed two significantly different future scenarios for the region based on different assumed energy efficiencies . Apparently, neither spatially explicit modeling of urbanization nor the official Sustainable Community Strategy were included, but this nevertheless represents a relatively strong environmentally oriented urban-growth vision given the current politics around land use. In fact, the Sustainable Community Strategy is not highly conducive to a carbon-neutral future, given that more than 25% of the region’s new housing in 2035 would continue to be built in the form of large-lot single-family homes outside of existing urbanized areas , adding to the region’s large existing stock of such homes. Modeling of the agency’s land use scenario, together with revised transpor-tation priorities, reduces transportation-related GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 compared to 2008, but emissions-reduction progress stalls thereafter, producing only an additional 3% improvement by 2035, far short of the trajectory needed for the state’s 2050 emission-reduction goal . If land use is to contribute toward meeting long-term GHG-reduction targets, dramatically different scenarios appear necessary.Yolo County is generally representative of agricultural counties in California’s Central Valley in that it contains a mix of irrigated perennial and row crops on alluvial plains, upland grazed rangelands, and small towns and cities. These agricultural landscapes also contain riparian corridors and other types of wetlands that are important for natural resource and biodiversity conservation. The Central Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, yet is facing some of the most rapid population growth in the state. Urbanization in Yolo County is somewhat slower than in many other areas of the valley, having fallen to approximately 1% annually during the economic slowdown starting in the late 2000s. Total population was 200,709 in 2009; predictions for 2050 range from 320,000 to 394,000 . Given the county’s geography, urban expansion will almost certainly occur at the expense of farmland and open space if growth is not restricted to infill development within existing urban boundaries. Yolo County includes 653,452 acres of land . The incorporated cities of Davis, West Sacramento, Woodland, and Winters account for about 4.6% of the land area . In 1998, Yolo County alone contained about 40% of the prime farmland in the Sacramento region and yielded the highest farm market values out of all the counties . Thus, the jurisdiction is an important reservoir of productive farmland within an urban region.

Productivity was reported in amount per area with most crops reporting tons per acre

As a pixel is made up of the sum of its fractional surface components, we assume that the temperature of a pixel can be modeled by a linear mixture of its thermal components, that is, the sum of the LST for each of those components multiplied by their fractional portion of the pixel. To capture thermal variability within surface covers, each of the three components is broken down into sub-classes that are expected to share similar thermal properties, referred to as thermal classes going forward. These thermal classes resulted in each of the three surface covers having more than one thermal endmember, one for each thermal class. The endmembers that were used to model the expected temperature of each pixel were determined by the classes that were contained in that given pixel. To further evaluate crop-specific patterns of LST, we tested two hypotheses: 1) Crops with higher LST residuals, on average, will show declining yields over the study period, as would be indicative of stress; and 2) Crops with higher ET rates will shed more energy through latent heat flux and therefore have lower average LST values than crops with lower ET rates. To test the first hypothesis, yield data were obtained at the county level from the four counties that were part of the study area using annual agricultural statistics reports .The overall productivity for each crop type was calculated using an average of the county statistics, weighed by the relative area of that crop in each county. Because yield data are not available at the field-scale, county-level statistics were the closest proxy of productivity in the study area that could be obtained. Therefore, while the yield data and crop LST residuals are not directly relatable since the residuals only refer to a spatial subset of what is reported by the yield data,growing blackberries in containers the yield data is expected to give a general sense of which crops were faring well and which were most stressed within the study area.

To test the second hypothesis, we evaluated the correlation between average crop LST and the daily ET rate of each crop. ET rates were calculated as the product of the daily reference ET, as reported by the Belridge CIMIS station for each of the three dates, and the crop coefficient for each of the studied species, as calculated for June in the Southern San Joaquin Valley of California in a dry year . An evaluation of mean crop temperatures of pure pixels of each species by year showed that the temperature of each species relative to one another did not deviate greatly from year to year . The almonds had one of the top two coolest mean temperatures in each of the three years. The three citrus species, orange, lemons and tangerines, consistently had the three highest temperatures in each year. Cherries always had the highest average temperature of any crop except citrus. Every crop showed its highest mean temperature in 2014, likely attributable to the later flight time. The consistency suggests that thermal patterns are indicative of core biophysical properties, physiological properties, or irrigation practices that stay constant and allow for detailed analysis between species across time.Crops with higher residuals showed warmer measured temperatures than would be expected while crops with low residuals showed cooler temperatures than expected. High residuals are assumed indicative of stress. On average, crop residuals increased from 2013 to 2015 with average residuals of 0.14, 0.97, and 1.1 °C respectively. This positive year-to year trend of residuals indicates an increase in relative stress from the 2013 scene to the 2015 scene. This trend may be indicative of larger environmental and political consequences of the progressing drought with increased stress due to reduced irrigation and increased water restrictions. Alternately, the increase in relative stress could be resultant from more local scene and date-specific factors such as irrigation timing, differences in radiation load, or vapor pressure deficit.Fig 3.11 illustrates that the species-level trends in crop productivity from 2013-2015, as measured by yield per unit area, were captured well by the LST residual data. The percentage change in yield per unit area from 2013 to 2015 was compared with the average residual for each crop over all three years. We expected crops with higher LST residuals to have greater declines in yields, as would be the result of stressed vegetation.

Cherries and pistachios both showed the highest residuals and the largest declines in yields, a result that supported our hypothesis that high temperature residuals indicate unhealthy crops. Crops with the lowest residuals were hypothesized to be the least-stressed and therefore expected to have a relatively stable yield or an increase in yield. The crops with the lowest residuals did not have the largest increases in yield, however there was general agreement between the two trends overall with an inverse relationship apparent. While between-crop residual and yield data from 2013-2015 showed agreement, within-crop changes in residuals from year to year did not correlate with within-crop changes in yields. For example, both the average residual and the average yield of pistachio trees declined from 2013 to 2014, changes in stress that are opposite in implication. This suggests that this method is more suitable for comparing relative stress between crops than comparing stress of one crop over time .We calculated an expected LST for each pixel as a function of its fractional cover of soil, NPV, and GV and the expected temperature for the thermal classes contained within it. Although deviations from this relationship were presumed to indicate relative levels of plant stress, there may have been other factors that contributed to the deviations from the expected GV/LST pattern. For full interpretation of the residual results, the effect of various factors on the modeled, expected LST will be discussed: a) non-linearity of GV fraction estimation, b) shade effects, c) plant stress, d) error in fractional cover estimates, e) timing of flights, f) spatial variability in environmental variables and g) choice of thermal groups. First, expected LST is estimated using pixel fractions derived from MESMA, a linear spectral mixture model. However, in actuality spectral mixing is nonlinear due to multiple scattering of photons . This effect is expected to be prominent in agricultural orchards due to the vertical structure of the canopy, density of trees, and transmittance of radiation through the leaves . As shown in Somers et al., , tree-soil mixtures within a citrus orchard canopy as modeled by a linear mixture analysis will lead to an underestimation of GV for < 50% GV cover and an overestimation of green vegetation when GV cover is >50%.

These errors will likely be smaller with dark soils than bright soils because there are fewer photons reflected by darker objects . Nonlinearity can result in RMSE values of between 4 and 10% in citrus orchards for cover fractions . This error in GV fraction will lead the LST model to overestimate temperatures when pixels contain less than 50% GV and underestimate temperatures when the GV fraction exceeds 50% . Subsequently, pixels with low GV fraction will overestimate temperature, reducing the residual, while pixels with a high GV fraction will underestimate temperature,square pot increasing the negative residual. However, the errors due to multiple scattering in this study are expected to be low because canopy endmembers were used in the linear unmixing and these endmember already capture multiple scattering. Second, just as the linear spectral mixture does not account for photon interactions when estimating fractional cover, the linear thermal model used to model LST is also subject to nonlinear effects. Shade will cause error in soil temperature estimation that can lead to an overestimation of soil temperatures in mixed pixels. Thermal soil endmembers for the model were calculated based on the average temperature for pure soil pixels. A pure soil pixel is unlikely to be influenced by shadows, and its temperature will be a function of full solar radiation. However, as vegetation cover increases in a pixel, a larger percentage of the present soil will be shaded, up until the vegetation fraction reaches 100% and the effect cancels out . Shaded soil would be expected to be cooler than non-shaded soil, therefore the soil endmembers that are being used to model the soil temperature will be warmer than the actual shaded soil in mixed pixels. This will lead the temperatures of mixed pixels to be modeled as too warm, and the corresponding residuals to be too low. Similarly, vegetation is subject to shading effects as well as differences in structure and orientation that influence LST. Jones et al. found that leaf temperatures vary by as much as 15°C between full sun and deep shade. Therefore, factors such as the orientation of the leaves, canopy structure, and row spacing are all important controls on plant temperatures as they influence the amount of vegetation in a field that is shaded. These factors also affect the surface aerodynamic roughness, which governs how readily vegetation can transfer heat and moisture to the atmosphere. The height and structure of a crop canopy determines its aerodynamic roughness, with rougher vegetation being more tightly coupled to the atmospheric moisture deficit, which increases plant ET and decreases canopy temperature . In an aerodynamically rougher crop canopy, heat is also more readily transferred to the atmosphere by sensible heat flux. For these reasons, the remotely sensed surface temperature depends not only on the fractional cover of a pixel, but also on the composition of vegetation within a pixel. Two pixels with the same fractional cover of vegetation can have different thermal behaviors due to differences in the distribution of that vegetation, its height, and structure . The model aims to account for these influences by using canopy-level image endmembers and creating multiple thermal classes for different groups of perennial crops, so the overall error attributable to canopy shading is assumed to be small. Third, plant stress will alter the GV/LST relationship in a way that, while not introducing error, will lead LST residuals to vary by GV fraction. If a plant is stressed, its actual temperature will be warmer than expected, leading to a positive residual. While the model is designed for such a result, the side effect is that pixels with larger fractions of stressed vegetation will have higher residuals than pixels that have small fractions of stressed vegetation, as indicated by the increasing LST residuals with GV fractions in Fig 3.13C. Therefore, if plants are stressed, we expect that GV fraction and LST residual will have a positive correlation. We examined the relationship between LST residual and GV fraction for each of the studied crops in Figure 3.13 and found a trend of increasing residuals with increasing fractional cover, a result that we believe is indicative of crop stress. The relationship between residuals and GV fraction is shown by the positive linear trend lines in Figure 3.14 and the growing shaded area with fractional cover between the modeled and observed lines in Figure 3.13C. Fourth, an under or over estimation of fractional cover will propagate into LST residual errors; however, we do not believe that the distribution of errors will change the robustness of the results. Given mean LST values of 306.3 K, 321.3 K and 326.6 K for GV, NPV and soil respectively over all years and within the fields studied, the largest LST residual errors would result from a fraction error between soil and GV. MESMA has proven high fractional estimation accuracy for green vegetation. When looking at spectral separability between turfgrass, tree, paved, roof, soil, and NPV, Wetherley et al. found that mixtures of tree/soil were the second most separable pair after turfgrass/soil. Using synthetic mixtures, this study observed that soil, when mixed with tree, had a fractional accuracy of 0.976 while tree, when mixed with soil, had a fractional accuracy of 0.896. Therefore, we believe that fraction errors between GV and soil will be less than 10%. Furthermore, partitioning the landscape into soil and green vegetation is a necessary step in estimating crop stress and water use, and is therefore included in comparable models such as the VHI and WDI.

Transient responses to bio-available fractions may have occurred prior to our first measurement

As attested by the reduced MBC0 but increased CminSoil observed at 42 DAI, the community at this point appeared to be slower growing but better able to metabolize organic matter in an acid environment . A high rate of respiration to growth is a well-documented characteristic of stress adapted microbial communities . Stoichiometrically, a lower community metabolic efficiency could also help explain the observed increase in Nmin-Soil . Significant shifts in community tolerance to acidity have been observed within 36 d , making it plausible that some shift in acid tolerance could be observable within the 42 d under strong acid stress. The tendency towards higher net N mineralization in the S+ soils than the S- soils was much more pronounced with the addition of legume residues. The fact that both C and N mineralization responded so much more strongly to residue additions in the S+ than S- soils despite the former’s higher levels of soluble organic matter suggests that the mineralization pulses were not due to relief of substrate limitation. Since legume residues can complex with Al and reduce its activity , as well as temporarily consume protons through decarboxylation and ammonification of soluble organic acid anions , it is possible that the residues stimulated activity by relieving acid cation toxicity which had been limiting metabolism . As decarboxylation and ammonification produce CO2 and NH4 +, respectively , such detoxification products could also have contributed to the observed mineralization pulses. Liming produced mixed effects on C and N cycling processes. The most obvious effect of liming was a very large CO2 pulse from the unamended soil,growing blueberries in containers far exceeding the DSOC0 pool. It is likely that at least part of this was abiotic, issuing from the decomposition of carbonic acid from the liming reaction to CO2 .

While it is not possible to separate biotically and abiotically generated CO2, the fact that additional respiration due to residues was remarkably similar before and after leaching suggests that liming did not increase the capacity for respiration when adequate substrate was present. Contrary to our hypothesis, MBC0 and potential BG0 activity showed no signs of recovering after alleviation. However, the tendency towards higher MBC-Res with equivalent CO2-Res suggests that the community that grew in response to residue additions after liming was more efficient than that which responded at 42 DAI. The high Nmin-Res during stress and decline after liming suggests that high net N mineralization in response to substrate addition was caused by an inefficient community whose growth was limited by the adaptations required to survive in a stressful environment. Our results are in line with several studies which found that net N mineralization was not inhibited by salinity and acidity to the same extent as C mineralization and nitrification . Indeed, both net and gross N mineralization have sometimes been observed to be highest in the most acid soils within an experimental gradient . Similarly, a 400% increase in net N mineralization from vetch residues was measured in response to Al additions, despite reductions in C mineralization and MBC . The most direct explanation for this effect is that immobilization is slower than mineralization at low pH ; however, this does not always seem to be the case . The fact that the increase in MBC-Res after liming was not proportional to the decline in Nmin-Res suggests that reduced immobilization did not entirely explain the mineralization pulse. Other hypothesized mechanisms include increased losses by denitrification or volatilization as pH increases . Contrary to our hypothesis, compost had no effect on stress response and did not affect most indicators, regardless of S treatment. Compost is generally a stable, microbially processed product, rich in condensed, high molecular weight compounds, phenols and lignin and depleted in energetic compounds such as sugars .

This may explain why it did not have a measurable effect on microbial growth or most activity within our experimental time frame.Conversely, compost strongly and consistently increased Nmin-Res across all three sampling dates. As an increased Nmin-Res was likely a stress response, compost appears to have exacerbated the effects of stress, rather than buffering it as hypothesized. This paradoxical result could be explained if the increased net N mineralization under stress was partly due to a community shift towards one with less need for N relative to C. Fungi tend to have a higher C:N ratio than bacteria and are thought to generally be more acid tolerant . Rapid fungal but not bacterial growth rates have been observed within days of a labile residue addition to acid soils , and high fungal: bacterial ratios have been observed in experimentally acidified grassland soils . Since fungi generally have a wider C:N ratio than bacteria, they immobilize less N per unit C fixed. A faster fungal than bacterial growth response to residue additions could help explain why Nmin-Res values in the S+ treatments were on average more than double those in the S- treatments. The presence of a carbon source such as higher SOM or crop inputs often improves community stress adaptation . Adding compost could have facilitated that stress-induced community shift, such that the organisms which responded to residue additions in the C + S+ soil needed less N than their counterparts in the C-S+ soil . Strong community shifts are not necessarily evident in respiration measurements due to functional redundancy. For example, at the Hoosfield acid strip, fungal growth rates increased 30- fold as pH declined from 8.3 to 4.5, while respiration changed by less than one third . A compost-facilitated shift towards a less N-retentive community would be in line with two recent studies which observed that soils which were fungally dominated due to acid stress tended to use substrate less efficiently . This work presents the first data on the ability of a compost to moderate the effects of acid stress on nutrient cycling.

Green waste compost was chosen for this experiment, as it is typical of the type of compost the production and use of which is predicted to rapidly expand in California . It is important to note that these results may not be typical of all compost types. For example, a strong liming effect has been observed when poultry manure from layer hens was applied to an acid soil, likely due to the calcium carbonate in the feed . However, the strong and unexplained effect on N cycling suggests that further investigation with additional soil and compost types should be pursued. In particular, compost effect on microbial community structure under chemical stress should be investigated further. Additionally, the use of isotopically labeled residues would allow for mechanistic exploration of mineralization and immobilization dynamics. California’s agricultural sector critically affects both the national food supply and regional water resources. California has the largest agricultural sector in the country, producing two thirds of the fruits and nuts in the United States and approximately one third of its vegetables . California’s crop supply is also significant to the United States in that many crops grown in the state, such as almonds, garlic, olives, raisin grapes, pistachios, and walnuts,square pots are exclusively produced there . However, while California’s more than 400 commodities are central to US food supplies, they also necessitate high water inputs. High crop production and a semi-arid climate result in agricultural needs using over eighty percent of the state’s managed water supply . This reliance on irrigated inputs means that yearly crop prices and food supplies in the United States are susceptible to changes in the available water supply of California and impacted by local water management decisions . As California’s water supply becomes increasingly unpredictable due to changes in climate, this interconnection of food and water supplies at local to national scales is ever more important to understand. California’s highly variable water supply is a factor of its natural climatology but is further exacerbated by larger climate trends shaped by manmade influences. California has, for centuries, experienced oscillations between wet and dry periods that result in California having the greatest variations in annual precipitation of any state in the country . However, over the past century, an increase in surface temperature by 0.6-0.7° C has led to changes in California that are attributable to human GHG emissions and further affect water availability: earlier spring snow melt , an increase in percent of precipitation as rain rather than snow , warmer winter and spring temperatures , and less snow accumulation over the last fifty years .

Climate change will continue to augment the patterns of precipitation in California and intensify effects on water resources and agriculture. By early in the 21st century, the Bureau of Reclamation predicts that the Central Valley will experience a 1-degree Celsius rise in annual average temperature and a 2-degree C increase by mid-century that will likely be accompanied by a north-to-south trend of decreasing precipitation . This shift in temperature is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts over the next century that will make our current water system performance levels impossible to sustain in the Central Valley . One way to prepare for the anticipated increase in drought is to study past events as an indicator of future effects. From 2012 to 2016 California experienced its worst drought in history . Water allotments were cut across the board and farmers, as the users of the majority of the state’s water, were especially hard hit . With the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project allocations cut to zero in some areas, agricultural communities in the Central Valley faced surface water reductions of an estimated 8.1 billion cubic meters a year from 2013 to 2014, amounting to a 36% reduction in surface water availability for farms . The study found that a 62% increase in groundwater extraction partially compensated for the reduction in surface water but threatened the health of California’s aquifers and moreover, still left farmers with an overall deficit of 1.9 bcm/y . This extreme event and climatological anomaly presents an opportunity to better understand how managed crops are impacted by water limitation. As lack of water will be a major limiting factor for agricultural production within the next century , patterns of crop water use and their response to reduced water availability need to be carefully analyzed so impacts to long-term food and water security can be better understood as we move into a new climate regime. Remote sensing provides new opportunities to monitor agricultural change with drought and capture spatial variations and trends in plant water use that traditional on-the ground methods like county-level reporting, lysimeters and eddy flux towers are unable to do given their limited spatial scope and significant time and labor inputs . Current crop monitoring initiatives in the United States primarily rely on imagery from earth-observing satellites such as Landsat , Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer to map crops and assess health and water use information . However, a new satellite, the Surface Biology and Geology Mission, has been proposed as an improvement in both spatial and spectral performance for ecosystem study . The SBG Mission will combine two sensors, a hyperspectral sensor in the visible through shortwave infrared at a 30 m resolution and a thermal sensor at a spatial resolution of 60 m for global coverage and a 5-19 day revisit. This mission has the potential to improve ability to assist crop and water managers in dynamic and diverse environments, such as the Central Valley of California, with resource accounting and drought response by capturing refined spectral information at a spatial scale that is fine enough to resolve individual fields. With the impending launch of this satellite, it is important to determine its scientific capabilities for routine observation of crops in California at a level that is of use to water managers. To test the capabilities of the SBG sensor, the Hyperspectral Infrared Imager Airborne Campaign flew the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer and MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator sensors on NASA’s ER-2 plane throughout California from 2013 to 2017 to simulate expected datasets from SBG . AVIRIS is a 224 band imaging spectrometer that captures spectral information from 350 to 2500 nm at ~10 nm increments .

Hiring and wages in casual labor markets in India are generally determined on a daily basis

FarmOS have not only defined data structures for many agricultural entities, but made it trivial to expand them in order to develop custom data structure’s using their schema. Agricultural data privacy laws surely have a ways to go in order to protect farmers from untrustworthy institutions. This issue, however, paired with the problem of data being leaked in breeches has led to the extensive research and development of new technologies which put precedence on data security and allow for operations, especially in machine learning, to be performed without compromising security. These new technologies include trusted execution environments , cloud operated machine learning as a service and fully homomorphic encryption amongothers. In this paper I express a collection of architectures built on a combination of some of these technologies as well as others for trusted and secure machine learning model training. A key software utilized is FarmStack. Digital Green is developing FarmStack as a peer-to-peer network protocol which secures data in transit through periodic attestation, network policy enforcement and endpoint application enforcement. Providing agricultural data owners with the means to allow others to use their data securely is the primary goal of the proposed data sharing and model training network architectures.Soil salinity is a known constraint on agricultural production in the Central Valley, particularly in the western San Joaquin Valley , where soils are naturally high in salts due to the marine origin of their Coastal Range alluvium parent material . In such a large region, it is difficult to quantify and map the full extent of soil salinity and its impact on agricultural production and profits. Many geological, meteorological and management factors affect the salinity levels of irrigated soils,raspberry cultivation pot including irrigation water quality, irrigation management, drainage conditions, rainfall and evapotranspiration totals and cultural practices.

Across a region such as WSJV, most of those factors vary at multiple spatial and temporal scales, making it difficult to extrapolate local point measurements of soil salinity to regional scales. Although agricultural salinity is a generally well known issue, communicating the full extent and severity of the problem to policymakers, stakeholders and other nonspecialists is a challenge. Detailed regional maps present the problem visually and can help spur action on planning, management and conservation. Letey argued that long-term sustainable and profitable agriculture in California can be achieved only if regional-scale salt balances can be obtained. Regional-scale salinity maps provide irrigation district managers, water resource specialists and state and federal authorities with timely information that can guide decisions on water allocation needs and groundwater regulation 2015. We qualitatively evaluated the correspondence of remote-sensing high salinity predictions with the presence of salt crusts. To map salt crusts across the WSJV, we used imagery from the 2014 USDA’s National Aerial Imagery Program survey . A supervised classification was used to identify salt crusts. The classification identified NAIP pixels with reflectance properties similar to those observed at locations known to be affected by salt crusts. This analysis identified salt crusts over 0.5% of WSJV farmland. Figure 3A depicts a site near Bakersfield where salt crusts are clearly visible in the NAIP ortho-imagery over fallow land but not in the neighboring corn field. There is excellent correspondence between the high salinity sections of the site as estimated by the remote-sensing map and the location of the salt crusts . To properly compare the NAIP salt pixel classification with figure 1, we aggregated the NAIP classification at the 32.8 × 32.8 yard resolution. Only the 32.8 × 32.8 yard cells that included more than 50% of NAIP salt crusts at the original 1.09 × 1.09 yard resolution were retained for further analysis. A total of 162,829 “salt-crusted” cells were identified. About 94.3% of the salt-crusted pixels were predicted by equation 2 to be ECe > 4 dS/m. In total, the salt crusted pixels had average ECe of 13.6 dS/m, first quartile of 9.7 dS/m, median of 13.5 dS/m and third quartile of 18.2 dS/m, indicating good correspondence between visibly saline soils and predictions of high salinity by equation 2.

Scudiero et al. indicated that remote-sensing estimations at low salinity levels might be imprecise because plants may not be sufficiently osmotically stressed at low salinity to affect crop health. The spatial variability of other soil properties that influence crop yield within a single field could lead to salinity estimation errors at low salinity. Although sub-field variations in soil texture are typically minor in WSJV, some fields exhibit significant variability over short distances. In these cases, soil heterogeneity influences crop performance, introducing uncertainty into the remote-sensing estimations of soil salinity. As an example, consider the remote-sensing salinity predictions for a slightly to moderately saline where NIRWV2 , REDWV2 and BLUEWV2 are the WorldView-2 bands employed in the calculation. The EVI was selected to show that vegetation indices other than CRSI can be used to assess soil salinity, provided they reflect plant status at the target location. The multi-temporal maximum EVI map from the three WorldView-2 images is visually similar to the ground-truth salinity map . The two maps are negatively correlated, with a coefficient of determination of 0.45 . Both maps were resampled to coarser resolutions to study the changes in the strength of their relationship. As shown in figure 5D, the strength of the salinity-EVI relationship increases as block support decreases. In particular, the scaled explained variance and the strength of spatial correlation increase to a maximum at block support of 20 meters , then steadily decrease as the resolution becomes coarser. The strength of the salinity relationship with EVI at the Landsat block support was similar to that at 20 meters, indicating that it could properly represent the salinity spatial patterns at this site, despite being slightly coarser than ideal. Since the early 1950s, irrigation has played an important role in improving the quality of WSJV soils. As an example, the long-term change in soil salinity for western Fresno County is discussed by Schoups et al. . Schoups and colleagues found that long-term irrigation helped reduce soil salinity across western Fresno County throughout the second half of the 20th century. When irrigation stops, there is a risk that these trends will reverse and that salinity will rapidly increase in lands with shallow groundwater, as observed in the long-term study of Corwin . Reduced water allocations have caused farmers to use potentially higher salinity groundwater in place of lower salinity surface water and to fallow fields during the ongoing drought. According to the CropScape database, during the drought, fallow land in WSJV increased from an average of 11.8% during the years 2007 to 2010 to 19.2%, 21.0%, 21.6%, 25.9% and 33.7% through the years 2011 to 2015. Land fallowing could lead to increases in root zone salinity, thereby potentially negatively affecting future crop growth in the WSJV .

When reducing water allocations to farmland, the risks of quick land salinization should be considered. Updated regional-scale inventories of salinity will provide information for better water management decisions to support statewide agriculture and preserve soil productivity, especially in years of drought, when water resources are limited. With water shortages and droughts likely to become longer and more frequent in the future , threats from increasing soil salinity are also likely to become more severe and should, therefore, be given serious consideration by landowners,low round pots water district managers, and federal, state and local agencies. Individual soil salinity maps such as presented in this paper can help landowners and water district managers select land they wish to retire or convert to other uses . But a much greater benefit would be realized if a soil salinity remote-sensing program were established in which maps were created every 5 to 10 years for salinity-affected areas of statewide importance, including the Central and Imperial Valleys. Such a remote-sensing program would allow for the first-time monitoring of soil salinity at regional and state levels, would permit new understandings of drivers and trends in agricultural soil salinity and would aid in the development and assessment of mitigation strategies and management plans. Our primary sample is spread across 12 blocks within 4 districts of the Jhark hand state in eastern India. The blocks were identified as being suitable for a drought-tolerant rice seed variety that we were testing using a randomized controlled trial. We selected a random sample of villages amongst those with 30 to 550 households. Within each village, enumerators located a village leader and asked for names of 35 people from separate households: the 25 largest rice farmers, male individuals that work on other farmer’s fields, and 3 female individuals that also work as casual agricultural laborers. Enumerators carried out a baseline survey with the farmers and workers during the period from late April to early June 2014. Our sample of laborers consists of people that are landless or have small amounts of land. This population makes up a non-trivial share of the people dependent on agriculture in rural India. In contrast to large landowners, these workers generate most of their income from supplying labor to the casual labor market.

Yet, most studies rely on data that aggregates labor market outcomes over a longer time period. This potentially misses short-term movement between occupations. To better measure labor-market outcomes in our context, we collected daily data on wages and employment. We did this by conducting phone surveys that took place during the transplanting and harvesting periods across the 2014, 2015, and 2016 cultivation seasons. Rice is the dominant crop in our sample area and is planted in late July / early August and is harvested in late November. Our phone surveys took place during these times to coincide with the peak periods for agricultural labor demand. During the first year surveyors attempted to contact the 10 laborers in each of the 200 villages. During each call respondents were asked whether they worked on another person’s farm or their own farm, the wage they received, whether the work took place in their own village, and their activity if they did not work in agriculture. This information was collected for the seven days preceding the phone call. We repeated this same process in the 2015 and 2016 seasons with a few important differences. First, we expanded the sample to include 6 female laborers per village. The additional three laborers were selected from a census that had been conducted in all villages on households with casual laborers.Second, starting with the 2015 harvesting survey, we expanded the recall window to 14 days to more easily capture the entire planting or harvesting period for each village. The phone surveys produced a high response rate: an average of 86 percent of the workers in the baseline sample were reached.These data allow us to observe daily employment outcomes for planting and harvesting across three agricultural seasons. In addition, we collected non-agricultural wages in the 2015 planting and both 2016 surveys. These observations consist mostly of casual work for a daily wage — rather than self employment. We observe the daily wage for 82 percent of the non-agricultural work days in these three surveys. This information, along with the individual-level panel on agricultural outcomes, allows us to measure the agricultural wage gap while controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across individuals.Since the people switching sectors give identification, it is useful to compare them to the individuals that work in agriculture for the entire sample period. About 20 percent of the workers from the baseline survey switched sectors. Table 1 shows the differences between these two groups. Switchers are predominantly male and generally poorer in several dimensions. For example, they are less likely to have access to electricity, more likely to be in households using the government’s rural employment guarantee , have larger households, and more likely to belong to lower castes. They are also more likely to have household members that migrate temporarily , but are not more likely to engage in permanent migration. Yet, switchers have no less land. The average laborer household cultivates 0.57 acres during the rainy season and only about 16 percent of households cultivate no land at all.Overall, the people that switch between local agricultural and non-agricultural work are neither the wealthiest or most educated. If anything, the switchers tend to come from poorer households.

Enforcement of immigration laws or immigration reform could raise labor costs

The main reason for this was that breaking the application into smaller hydraulic loadings resulted in O2 concentrations to recover to background atmospheric conditions faster than the larger allat-once application in scenario S1. In fact, the O2 concentration differed slightly between S2 and S3. Because O2 inhibits denitrification, we conclude that these conditions resulted in the different denitrification capacity across application frequency and duration. In summary, we find that larger amounts of water applied all-at-once increased the denitrification capacity of the vadose zone while incremental application of water did not. However, NO3 – movement to deeper depths was slower under S2 and S3. Because initial saturation conditions impact nitrogen leaching, we also simulated the impact of wetter antecedent moisture with 15% higher saturation levels than the base case simulation for the ERT profile. Simulated profiles of liquid saturation, NO3 – , NO3 – :Cland acetate for the simplified ERT stratigraphy under wetter conditions are shown in Figure 10. Model results demonstrate that the water front moved faster and deeper into the soil profile under initially wetter conditions for all three scenarios. Within the shallow vadose zone , across AgMAR scenarios, O2 concentrations were similar initially, but began differing at early simulated times, with lower O2 under wetter antecedent moisture conditions than with the base-case simulation. In addition, both oxygen and nitrate concentrations showed significant spatial variation across the modeled column. Notably,fodder system nitrate concentrations were 166% higher in the preferential flow channel compared to the sandy loam matrix under wetter conditions, while only 161% difference was observed under the base case simulation .

Nitrate movement followed a pattern similar to water flow, with NO3 – reaching greater depths with the wetter antecedent moisture conditions. Under S1, however, at 150 cm-bgs, NO3 – decreased more quickly under the wetter antecedent moisture conditions due to biochemical reduction of NO3 – , as evidenced by the decrease in NO3 – :Clratio, as well as by dilution of the incoming floodwater. In the wetter antecedent moisture conditions, 39%, 31%, and 30% of NO3 – was denitrified under S1, S2, and S3, respectively. For S1, where water was applied all at once, more denitrification occurred in the wetter antecedent moisture conditions, however, the same was not true of S2 and S3 where water applications were broken up over time. This could be due to the hysteresis effect of subsequent applications of water occurring at higher initial moisture contents, allowing the NO3 – to move faster and deeper into the profile without the longer residence times needed for denitrification to occur. Thus, wetter antecedent moisture conditions prime the system for increased denitrification capacity when water is applied all at once and sufficient reducing conditions are reached, however, this is counteracted by faster movement of NO3 – into the vadose zone. Simluations from our study demonstrate that low-permeability zones such as silt loams allow for reducing conditions to develop, thereby leading to higher denitrification in these sediments as compared to high permeability zones such as sandy loams. In fact, the homogenous silt loam profile reported the maximum amount of denitrification occurring across all five stratigraphic configurations . Furthermore, the presence of a silt loam channel in a dominant sandy loam column increased the capacity of the column to denitrify by 2%. Conversely, adding a sandy loam channel into a silt loam matrix decreased the capacity of the column to denitrify by 2%. These relatively simple heterogeneities exemplify how hot spots in the vadose zone can have a small but accumulating effect on denitrification capacity . Note that differences in denitrification capacity maybe much greater than reported here because of increased complexity and heterogeneity of actual field sites when compared to our simplified modeling domains.

Another observation of interest for silty loams is the prominence of chemolithoautotrophic reactions and Fe cycling observed in these sediments. In comparison, sandy loam sediments showed persistence and transport of NO3 – to greater depths. A reason for this is that oxygen concentration was much more dynamic in sandy loams, rebounding to oxic conditions more readily than in silt loams, even deep into the vadose zone . Dutta et al. found similar re-aeration patterns in a 1 m column experiment in a sand dominated soil, with re-aeration occurring quickly once drying commenced. Even with the presence of a limiting layer, defined by lower pore gas velocities and higher carbon concentration, a sandy loam channel acted as a conduit of O2 into the deep vadose zone maintaining a relatively oxic state and thus decreasing the ability of the vadose zone to denitrify. In systems with higher DOC loadings to the subsurface, oxygen consumption may proceed at higher rates creating sub-oxic conditions in the recharge water and more readily create reducing conditions favorable to denitrification in the subsurface . We note here that microbial growth, which was not modeled in this study, could also affect the rates of O2 consumption and re-aeration, which could lead to underestimation of O2 consumption . Overall, denitrification capacity across different lithologies was shown to depend on the tight coupling between transport, biotic reactions as well as the cycling of Fe and S through chemolithoautotrophic pathways. Under large hydraulic loadings , overall denitrification was estimated to be the greatest as compared to the lower hydraulic loading scenarios . The main reason for the higher denitrification capacity was the significant decline in O2 concentration estimated for this scenario, whereas such conditions could not be maintained below one meter with lower hydraulic loadings under scenarios S2 and S3. However, nitrate was also transported deeper into the column under S1 as compared to S2 or S3. Tomasek et al. found the reverse in a floodplain setting, where intermittent indundation with flood water, comparable to our S2 and S3 contexts, resulted in higher rates of denitrification in the zone that was always inundated, due to priming of the microbial community and pulse releases of substrates and electron donors.

Future studies examining the impact of AgMAR on denitrification should include processes such as mineralization to see if the same behavior would be observed. It seems that there may exist a threshold hydraulic loading and frequency of application that could result in anoxic conditions and therefore promote denitrification within the vadose zone for different stratigraphic configurations, although this was not further explored in this study. In another study, Schmidt et al. found a threshold infiltration rate of 0.7 m d-1 for a three hectare recharge pond located in the Pajaro Valley of central coastal California, such that no denitrification occurred when this threshold was reached. For our simulations, we used a fixed, average infiltration rate of 0.17 cm hr-1 for our all-at-once and incremental AgMAR scenarios, however,fodder system for sale application rates can be expected to be more varied under natural field settings. Our results further indicate that the all-at-once higher hydraulic loading, in addition to causing increased levels of saturation and decrease in O2, resulted in leaching of DOC to greater depths in comparison to lower, incremental hydraulic loading scenarios . Akhavan et al. 2013 found similar results for an infiltration basin wherein 1.4% higher DOC levels were reported at depths down to 4 m when hydraulic loading was increased. Because organic carbon is typically limited to top 1 m in soils , leached DOC that has not been microbially processed could be an important source of electron donors for denitrification at depth. Systems that are already rich in DOC within the subsurface are likely to be more effective in denitrifying, and thus attenuating, NO3 – , such as floodplains, reactive barriers in MAR settings, or potentially, organically managed agroecosystems .. This finding can also be exploited in agricultural soils by using cover crop and other management practices that increase soluble carbon at depth and therefore remove residual N from the vadose zone . While lower denitrification capacity was estimated for scenarios S2 and S3, an advantage of incremental application was that NO3 – concentration was not transported to greater depths. Thus, higher NO3 – concentration was confined to the root zone. If NO3 – under these scenarios stays closer to the surface, where microbial biomass is higher, and where roots, especially in deep rooted perennial systems such as almonds, can access it, it could ultimately lead to less NO3 – lost to groundwater. While there is potential for redistribution of this NO3 – via wetting and drying cycles, future modeling studies should explore multi-year AgMAR management strategies combined with root dynamics to understand N cycling and loading to groundwater under long-term AgMAR. Simulation results indicate that wetter antecedent moisture conditions promote water and NO3 – to move deeper into the domain compared to the drier base case simulation. This finding has been noted previously in the literature, however, disagreement exists on the magnitude and extent to which antecedent moisture conditions affect water and solute movement and is highly dependent on vadose zone characteristics. For example, in systems dominated by macropore flow, higher antecedent soil moisture increased the depth to which water and solutes were transported . In a soil with textural contrast, where hydraulic conductivity between the topsoil and subsoil decreases sharply, drier antecedent moisture conditions caused water to move faster and deeper into the profile compared to wetter antecedent moisture conditions.

In our system, where a low-permeability layer lies above a high permeability layer , the reverse trend was observed. Thus, a tight coupling of stratigraphic heterogeneity and antecedent moisture conditions interact to affect both NO3 – transport and cycling in the vadose zone, which should be considered while designing AgMAR management strategies to reduce NO3 – contamination of groundwater. Furthermore, dry and wet cycles affect other aspects of the N cycle that were not included in this study . Specifically, the effect of flood water application frequency on mineralization of organic N to inorganic forms should be investigated to assess the full N loading amount to groundwater under AgMAR.The value of California’s fruit, nut, and vegetable crops was $20 billion in 2009, almost 60% of the state’s farm sales of $35 billion. California dominates U.S. production of these crops and currently accounts for about half of the U.S. fresh vegetable production and about half of total fruit production. Many of these fruits and vegetables are labor intensive; labor costs for fruit and vegetables average 42% of variable production costs. Over half of the state’s hired farm workers are unauthorized, and most move on to non-agricultural employment within a decade of beginning to work in the fields. The California produce industry depends on a constant influx of new, foreign-born labor attracted by wages above those in their countries of origin, primarily Mexico.Enforcement of immigration laws has increased recently in two major ways. First, the U.S. government has erected fences and vehicle barriers on a third of the 2,000 mile Mexico–U.S. border to deter unauthorized entries. Second, the Immigration and Enforcement Agency that enforces immigration laws inside the United States has begun to audit more of the I-9 forms completed by newly hired workers and their employers. After these audits, employers are asked to inform workers whose data do not match government records to clear up discrepancies. Most workers instead quit, which has prompted some farm employers to invest in housing in order to hire legal H-2A guest workers . H-2A workers must be paid at least the so-called Adverse Effect Wage Rate , which in 2011 is $10.31 an hour in California, higher than the state and federal minimum wages. AEWRs were established in the 1960s to prevent the presence of legal foreign workers from depressing the wages of U.S. farm workers. Immigration reform could also raise farm labor costs by legalizing currently unauthorized farm workers and encouraging farm employers to turn to H-2A guest workers if legalized workers find non-farm jobs, which could raise labor costs. Efforts to enact immigration reform between 2005 and 2007 failed, but in his 2011 State of the Union speech, President Obama urged Congress to try again. He said: “I know that debate will be difficult. I know it will take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort.” This paper reviews the three most likely adjustments in the fruit and vegetable industry to higher labor costs: mechanization, imports, and labor aids.U.S. production of fresh-market fruit and vegetables has increased in the last two decades—up 12% for fresh fruit and 41% for fresh vegetables .

What Are The Easiest Plants To Grow With Hydroponics

Hydroponics can be a great way to grow a variety of plants, and some are easier to cultivate using this method than others. Here are some of the easiest plants to grow with hydroponics,dutch buckets making them suitable choices for beginners:

Lettuce: Lettuce is a popular choice for hydroponic cultivation due to its rapid growth and relatively simple nutrient requirements. Various types of lettuce, such as leaf lettuce and romaine, thrive in hydroponic systems.
Herbs: Herbs like basil, cilantro, parsley, and mint are well-suited to hydroponics. They have compact root systems and grow quickly, making them ideal for small-scale hydroponic setups.
Spinach: Spinach is another leafy green that does well in hydroponic systems. It grows quickly and doesn’t require a lot of space.
Swiss Chard: Swiss chard is a nutrient-dense leafy green that can be grown hydroponically. It’s relatively easy to maintain and produces colorful, edible stems.
Kale: Kale is a hardy leafy green that is well-suited to hydroponics. It’s a nutrient-rich plant and can thrive in a controlled hydroponic environment.
Cherry Tomatoes: Compact varieties of cherry tomatoes, such as “Tiny Tim” or “Patio Princess,” can be grown in hydroponic systems. They require some support for the vines but can yield a good harvest.
Peppers: Bell peppers and chili peppers can be grown hydroponically. They thrive in warm conditions and can produce abundant fruits with proper care.
Cucumbers: Compact cucumber varieties like “Bush Pickle” or “Spacemaster” can be grown in hydroponic systems. Trellising is essential to support their growth.
Green Onions: Green onions, also known as scallions, are easy to grow hydroponically. They don’t require much space and have a relatively short growth cycle.
Radishes: Radishes are fast-growing and can be cultivated hydroponically. They are a good choice for those looking for a quick harvest.

Remember that successful hydroponic gardening requires attention to factors like water quality, nutrient levels, pH, and lighting. While these plants are generally considered easy to grow hydroponically,grow bucket it’s important to research each plant’s specific requirements and tailor your hydroponic system accordingly. Additionally, starting with a simple system and gaining experience will help you become a more proficient hydroponic gardener over time.

Hedgerows may therefore represent a source of bee diversity in the landscape

Of the species only at controls, 80% were represented by a single individual. The species only at hedgerows tended to have more specialized nesting requirements , whereas those only at controls were primarily generalists . Also, although the majority of the species were found at both hedgerows and unrestored controls , species ranging from relatively rare to common were infrequent at controls and more abundant in hedgerows . Interestingly, the three species observed over 100 times, Lasioglossum incompletum, Halictus tripartitus and Halictus ligatus, all small-bodied floral and nesting resource generalists, were at similar abundances in hedgerows and unrestored controls, if not slightly more abundant in controls .Although hedgerows may help counter homogenization of pollinator communities in simplified agricultural landscapes, comparing the spatial heterogeneity they support to that which is observed in natural communities is important in assessing their overall conservation value. In remnant chaparral/oak woodland communities in the same ecoregion and adjacent to our study landscapes , an average of 30% of species were not shared across sites located within 3.5–50 km of each other. The Central Valley, which was once described as ‘one vast, level, even flower-bed’ , has been extensively converted to agriculture, likely limiting the species pool due to local extinctions. Even so, at hedgerows an average of 15 km apart, we found between 36% and 67% of species were not shared between sites, depending on the year. Both the spatial scale and biota of our study and that of are comparable, suggesting that hedgerows are, in fact,grow strawberry in containers restoring spatial heterogeneity to approximately the same range as might occur in adjacent natural systems. In addition, in the disparate landscape of the southwestern United States, a diversity hot spot for bees , 61% of species were not shared across sites within 1–5 km of each other .

Although the species pool is richer in the southwest, the amount of species turnover at hedgerows is not unlike what is observed in that highly heterogeneous region . Thus, across many aspects of biodiversity, hedgerows might provide a valuable measure for conserving biodiversity . Only mature hedgerows in this study supported higher trait and b-diversity when compared to non-restored farm edges. Thus, the processes that lead to a buildup of spatial turnover in pollinator communities are slow and may take considerable time before observably affecting pollinator communities. However, we have recently shown that hedgerow restoration leads to increased rates of colonization and persistence of pollinators in maturing hedgerows and that this effect becomes stronger over time . Further, we found that maturing hedgerows differentially support more specialized species over time . These two temporal studies on the early phases of hedgerow maturation show that hedgerows begin to impact pollinator communities much earlier than 10 years. Combined, these findings suggest a possible mechanism whereby restoration might lead to increases in species turnover; as a hedgerow matures, species with a wider variety of life-history traits are better able to colonize and persist there, thus leading to the accumulation of differences in community composition between sites over time. This then leads to greater spatial heterogeneity in pollinator communities at hedgerows. Conversely, in unrestored areas, the rate of colonization and persistence is lower, particularly for species with more specialized habitat requirements, thereby creating an ecological filter that limits the total diversity and, thus, turnover that is possible. This above-described process can be, in part, deterministic; restored and non-restored farm edges differ fundamentally in which pollinator species are able to colonize and/or persist in them . Thus, pollinators respond to the differences in the plant communities between hedgerows and controls, and the pollinator community at mature hedgerows tracks floral hosts. Interestingly, however, the pollinator communities at hedgerows that were closer to one another were not necessarily more similar than sites that were further apart.

In addition, hedgerows maintain b-diversity in the landscape by supporting unique combinations of species, and we did not find evidence that communities at hedgerows were nested subsets of one another . Because hedgerows are planted, the floral communities the pollinators are tracking will not necessarily be spatially structured like natural communities. In addition, bees are known to be highly spatially and temporally variable and thus, stochastic processes that do not result in spatial structuring are likely operating as communities assemble. In contrast to within hedgerows, the dissimilarity of pollinators at unrestored controls responded positively to geographic distance. Because the conditions at controls are relatively uniform across space, this suggests a role for dispersal limitation in determining pollinator community composition at unrestored controls . In addition, the number of shared species between hedgerows and controls was also positively related to distance , suggesting the communities at controls may be influenced by landscape context such as the presence of nearby hedgerows.Here we focus on the effects of hedgerows on b-diversity, but there are likely other contributions to spatial heterogeneity in our landscape. There are a number of crops that provide floral resources to pollinators in our area, including mass-flowering sunflower, melons, and almonds . Different crops attract different pollinators and thus may affect the spatial heterogeneity of communities. In addition, some crops might also pull resident species from the hedgerows , while others may attract species that may subsequently colonize hedgerows . Differences in adjacent crops between hedgerows and unrestored controls thus may add noise to the underlying signal of b-diversity. However, because hedgerows and controls are matched for crop type, while there may be a contribution of crop type on b-diversity, it should be a random one affecting hedgerows and controls simultaneously. To achieve sustainable food production while protecting biodiversity, we need to grow food in a manner that protects, utilizes, and regenerates ecosystem services, rather than replacing them .

Diversification practices such as installing hedgerows, when replicated across a landscape, may provide a promising mechanism for conserving and restoring ecosystem services and biodiversity in working landscapes while potentially improving pollination and crop yields .Increasing population and consumption have raised concerns about the capability of agriculture in the provision of future food security. Te overarching effects of climate change pose further threats to the sustainability of agricultural systems. Recent estimates suggested that global agricultural production should increase by 70% to meet the food demands of a world populated with ca. 9.1 billion people in 2050. Food security is particularly concerning in developing countries, as production should double to provide sufficient food for their rapidly growing populations. Whether there are enough land and water resources to realize the production growth needed in the future has been the subject of several global-scale assessments. Te increase in crop production can be achieved through extensifcation and/or intensifcation. At the global scale, almost 90% of the gain in production is expected to be derived from improvement in the yield,hydroponic nft channel but in developing countries, land expansion would remain a significant contributor to the production growth. Land suitability evaluations, yield gap analysis, and dynamic crop models have suggested that the sustainable intensification alone or in conjugation with land expansion could fulfil the society’s growing food needs in the future. Although the world as a whole is posited to produce enough food for the projected future population, this envisioned food security holds little promise for individual countries as there exist immense disparities between regions and countries in the availability of land and water resources, and the socio-economic development. Global Agro-Ecological Zone analysis suggests that there are vast acreages of suitable but unused land in the world that can potentially be exploited for crop production; however, these lands are distributed very unevenly across the globe with some regions, such as the Middle East and North Africa , deemed to have very little or no land for expansion. Likewise, globally available fresh water resources exceed current agricultural needs but due to their patchy distribution, an increasing number of countries, particularly in the MENA region, are experiencing severe water scarcity.

Owing to these regional differences, location-specific analyses are necessary to examine if the available land and water resources in each country will suffice the future food requirements of its nation, particularly if the country is still experiencing significant population growth.As a preeminent agricultural country in the MENA region, Iran has long been pursuing an ambitious plan to achieve food self- sufficiency. Iran’s self- sufficiency program for wheat started in 1990, but the low rate of pro-duction increase has never sustainably alleviated the need for grain imports. Currently, Iran’s agriculture supplies about 90% of the domestic food demands but at the cost of consuming 92% of the avail-able freshwater. In rough terms, the net value of agricultural import is equal to 14% of Iran’s cur-rent oil export gross revenue. Located in a dry climatic zone, Iran is currently experiencing unprecedented water shortage problems which adversely, and in some cases irreversibly, affect the country’s economy, ecosystem functions, and lives of many people. Te mean annual precipitation is below 250 mm in about 70% of the country and only 3% of Iran, i.e. 4.7 million ha, receives above 500 mm yr−1 precipitation . The geographical distribution of Iran’s croplands shows that the majority of Iran’s cropping activities take place in the west, northwest, and northern parts of the country where annual precipitation exceeds 250 mm . However, irrigated cropping is practiced in regions with precipitations as low as 200 mm year−1, or even below 100 mm year−1. To support agriculture, irrigated farming has been implemented unbridled, which has devastated the water scarcity problem.The increase in agricultural production has never been able to keep pace with raising demands propelled by a drastic population growth over the past few decades, leading to a negative net international trade of Iran in the agriculture sector with a declining trend in the near past . Although justified on geopolitical merits, Iran’s self-sufficiency agenda has remained an issue of controversy for both agro-ecological and economic reasons. Natural potentials and constraints for crop production need to be assessed to ensure both suitability and productivity of agricultural systems. However, the extents to which the land and water resources of Iran can meet the nation’s future food demand and simultaneously maintain environmental integrity is not well understood. With recent advancement in GIS technology and availability of geospatial soil and climate data, land suitability analysis now can be conducted to gain insight into the capability of land for agricultural activities at both regional and global scales. Land evaluation in Iran has been conducted only at local, small scales and based on the specific requirements of a few number of crops such wheat, rice and faba bean. However, there is no large scale, country-wide analysis quantifying the suitability of Iran’s land for agricultural use. Herein, we systematically evaluated the capacity of Iran’s land for agriculture based on the soil properties, topography, and climate conditions that are widely known for their relevance with agricultural suitability. Our main objectives were to: quantify and map the suitability of Iran’s land resources for cropping, and examine if further increase in production can be achieved through agriculture expansion and/or the redistribution of croplands without expansion. The analyses were carried out using a large number of geospatial datasets at very high spatial resolutions of 850m and 28m . Our results will be useful for estimating Iran’s future food production capacity and hence have profound implications for the country’s food self-sufficiency program and international agricultural trade. Although the focus of this study is Iran, our approach is transferrable to other countries, especially to those in the MENA region that are facing similar As a preeminent agricultural country in the MENA region, Iran has long been pursuing an ambitious plan to achieve food self- sufficiency. Iran’s self- sufficiency program for wheat started in 1990, but the low rate of production increase has never sustainably alleviated the need for grain imports. Currently, Iran’s agriculture supplies about 90% of the domestic food demands but at the cost of consuming 92% of the available freshwater. In rough terms, the net value of agricultural import is equal to 14% of Iran’s current oil export gross revenue. Located in a dry climatic zone, Iran is currently experiencing unprecedented water shortage problems which adversely, and in some cases irreversibly, affect the country’s economy, ecosystem functions, and lives of many people.

The coefficients indicate that all three inputs impacted knowledge production positively

Expenditures on salaries act as an incentive system to make the current advisor FTE more productive, which enhances productivity, as is indicated by our results. Expenditures on infrastructure have a positive impact on knowledge production before the threshold level is reached, beyond which the impact becomes negative. In this respect, our findings for the extension system in California suggest that the research and dissemination by agricultural extension is similar to that of a research only system. The quadratic behavior of the expenditures on infrastructure was found significant, with a negative sign for the quadratic term. This finding is similar to the results in Roper and Hewitt-Dundas , Jordan and O’Leary , and Charlot et al. . Such results suggest an inverse U-shaped relationship between knowledge production and fixed infrastructure investment. The support in findings on the inverse U-shaped impact of research infrastructure on knowledge production we get from literature on non-agricultural research, is very helpful for validating the results in our analysis with focus on agricultural research and extension in California.We found that expenditures on infrastructure per-unit FTE as a research input has diminishing marginal effects on knowledge production. Marginal product of advisor FTE calculated at the mean value of the input and knowledge index equals 106.33; this implied that one unit increase in county FTE led to nearly 106 additional counts of knowledge production. Marginal products of expenditures on salaries per FTE and infrastructure per FTE are 0.003and −0.0003,respectively. Marginal products values calculated at the mean emphasized the importance of advisor FTE as a research input.

hey also brought forward the issue of diminishing returns on investments in incentives and infrastructures. We conducted several robustness checks by running regression for models using each of the three broad categories of knowledge production and dissemination instead of the calculated knowledge index. The three broad categories are: direct contacts, indirect contact, and publications and research projects as dependent variables. The results of the robustness checks are reported in Appendix Tables A2, A3, and A4. The results suggest similar range of coefficients for each of the variables,hydroponic bucket similar signs and significance levels across the various estimated models. Thus, these results suggest that the empirical knowledge function we use is robust. Endogeneity, if exists, could be found in the sphere of budget allocation for extension work at the county level. It could be argued that level of budget allocation is a function of the agricultural performance of the county, and thus introducing endogeneity biases in our estimates. However, following interviews with county directors, decisions on budget allocations among the counties in California are made based on political negotiations between the county directors and the UCCE system. Furthermore, as suggested by Guttman , Rose-Ackerman and Evenson , Pardey and Pardey and Craig , political rather than just economics efficiency criteria influence the allocation of public agricultural research and extension resources.We have estimated the contemporaneous impact of UC Cooperative Extension on the production of knowledge through research and extension work that is conducted in all California counties. Available data on R&D expenditures and knowledge products was used to construct a unique data set for seven years, spanning from 2007 to 2013. The data contained information on extension advisor FTE, expenditures on advisor FTE salaries, and on advisor FTE infrastructure. We obtained data on a number of knowledge production and dissemination methods. They are categorized into 11 subcategories, and three broad categories.

We computed a weighted average knowledge index variable with the weights provided by UCCE county directors via an electronic survey. The contribution of this work is the quantification of extension research input and in the fact that the trends and relative importance of research variables found in an extension research and dissemination system in California are similar to previous results of the agricultural research system in the USA, and previous results from several industrial research and development activities around the world. Both these similarities suggest that a research and dissemination agricultural extension behaves similarly to industrial research systems. One limitation of the study is that we were able to capture only the contemporaneous impact of research inputs on the production and dissemination of knowledge, due to data constraints. With further availability of data, analysis of long-run impact will enable policymakers to make informed decisions on investments in research inputs. This will enable sustained knowledge production and dissemination. Another limitation of the study is the lack of information on components of the research inputs, such as attributing research outcomes and extension impact to advisors, rather than distinguishing among advisors, based on seniority and experience. Such a distinction related to university research was performed in a study by Gurmu et al. . Some potential issues with the variable specifications deserve a mention. The variable FTE includes UCCE county advisors. Incorporation of detailed data on knowledge produced and disseminated by UCCE specialists at the county level would provide a more complete picture of the knowledge production mechanism. Data on FTE experience and expertise could also refine our results and understanding of the input-output relationship. Research-based agricultural knowledge is one of the most important inputs in the enhancement of agricultural productivity , and evidence suggests significant impacts on current productivity from the past 35 years of research-based knowledge . Therefore, better understanding of relevant research inputs, environments in which substitution between inputs is viable, and long-term impact of shifts in investments in research inputs have a great deal of importance for policy purposes.

This paper poses and provides answers to some of these questions and indicates possible directions for future study on this issue. Another point to address is the international and national relevance of this work to the literature and to policy practitioners. California is a leader in agricultural production. California extension system is a leader in extension knowledge that feeds into the agricultural production in the state. Therefore, understanding the process of knowledge creation by agricultural extension in California is of interest to researchers and practitioners in other states and countries. The finding in this study suggests that data collection and analysis for public extension activities are essential for proper policy consideration of a public knowledge system, which faces budget pressure world-wide. While the coefficients estimated for the case of California represent California situation, the trends of the coefficients are general and relevant to other states and countries around the world. With the data challenges we faced in this study, our results indicate the importance of the policymaker to be able to quantify the process of knowledge production in the agricultural extension systems. California ranks first among the top five national agricultural producers,stackable planters according to the California Statistical Review 2014–15 , with crop cash receipts amounting $53.5 billion . Irrigated agriculture in California consumes on average about 85% of the available renewable water resources in the state . Agricultural extension plays a major role in keeping agriculture sustainable and profitable . Therefore, the need for a reliable system of data collection on agricultural extension activities and knowledge produced at the state and county levels would enhance the ability to identify the determinants of knowledge production by the extension system. Finally, we observed, as Pardey and Alston et al. also did, that the public budget allocated to agricultural and extension has declined over time. The lesser funding allocated to UCCE over time is not because knowledge has decreased; in fact, we claim that it is the opposite, knowledge production has declined because there was less funding due to recession or/and budgetary constraints in the University of California system as a result of financial difficulties faced by the state of California during the years we analyze.Human-altered landscapes are expanding globally and are often associated with declining natural habitat, non-native species, fragmentation, and transformations in structure, inputs, climate, and connectivity. These changes collectively have resulted in shifts in both spatial distributions and species diversity across many taxa including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and plants.

One common driver of global change is urbanization, which in the extreme is associated with a reduction in biodiversity compared to habitats in their more natural state. However, in moderately urbanized areas, the effects of urban impacts on species distribution and diversity can vary greatly and depends on region, type of change, and taxonomic group, among other factors. Documenting the effects of urbanization compared to natural communities has proven problematic, making predictions of community change associated with urbanization difficult. Human-altered landscapes are often associated with many non-native species which add to species diversity but also can obscure changes in community dynamics. Thus, to assess accurately the complex impacts of land use change on ecological communities, one must look beyond species richness to investigate ecological processes themselves. Ecological processes are the links between organisms in a functioning ecosystem, and are critical in understanding how altered biodiversity can lead to changes in ecosystem functioning. Global environmental change has been found to have a wide variety of impacts on ecological processes in different systems. Pollinator-plant relationships in particular are found to be particularly vulnerable to land use change, resulting in decreases in interaction strength and frequency. Pollination services are crucial ecosystem processes in natural systems, but also in agricultural and urban areas. Bees provide the majority of animal-mediated pollination services on which it is estimated 87.5% of flowering plants depend. The value of pollination in agriculture is estimated at $200 billion worldwide, largely due to many foods that are essential for food security and a healthy human diet, including numerous fruits, vegetables, and nuts that require bee pollination. As urban areas expand, there has been increasing interest in urban agriculture to ensure food security and access to healthy foods for growing populations, and these systems also depend on pollination. For example, Kollin estimated that the economic value of urban fruit trees to be worth $10 million annually in San Jose, California. Despite the important role of pollinators and concerns about bee declines, there remain many uncertainties regarding the impact of land use change on pollinators. Urbanization has resulted in more interfaces with both natural and agricultural landscapes, creating new transitional zones of peri-urbanization. While there has been extensive pollinator research in agricultural and natural systems, less attention has focused on pollination in neighboring urban areas and how the changing landscape has impacted pollination. In addition, very few studies of urban areas have looked beyond changes in bee diversity to understand explicitly the effect of urbanization on pollinator-plant interactions. Here, we investigate the effect of land use change on pollinator plant ecosystem processes. We make use of a ‘‘natural experimental design’’ in which urban, agricultural, and natural areas intersect. Bees visit flowers for both pollen and nectar resources, and floral visitation is a commonly used as an index of pollination services. However, depending on the flower, certain bee groups are much more effective pollinators than others. Thus, while visitation is important, it alone does not definitively indicate whether pollination services were received by the plant. When pollen is limited by other factors, consequences for plant fitness can include failure to set seed, production of smaller fruits, and even complete lack of reproduction. By looking at rates of bee visitation and comparing this with other measures of plant fitness, such as seed set, we can develop a more complete understanding of how shifts in bee distributions between areas that differ in land use are impacting pollination services. To study the impact of changing land use on pollinator-plant interactions, we focus on bee pollination of a widespread plant, yellow starthistle , a common weed found in natural, agricultural, and urban habitats. Using standardized observations of floral visitation and seed set measurements of yellow starthistle, we test the hypotheses that increasing urbanization decreases 1) rates of bee visitation, 2) viable seed set, and 3) the efficiency of pollination . In addition to contributing to a better understanding of how change in landscape use, particularly urbanization, affects pollination-plant interactions, the study illustrates the importance of use of neighboring lands for pollination services.We observed visits by all bee species to yellow starthistle at all sites 3 times for a 30 min period for a total of 90 min of total observation time per site within the same 2 wk period in August 2011.

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