Food quality: A summary of research conducted under the German Federal Programme for Organic Agriculture and other forms of Sustainable Agriculture

Food quality has been a strong focus of the BÖL research programme since it started in 2001. Among other things, the policy on EU organic regulations was supported with research projects; for example regarding the discussion concerning the admission of meat curing agents (nitrite and nitrate) in 2006. In a project on this subject, consumer acceptance of cured meat products, not using these curing agents, has been described as surprisingly positive, and the practical use of alternative materials and technologies was evaluated. It was found that the implementation of new technologies to reduce the use of curing agents was mainly inhibited by their lacking acceptance in practice, technical adaptation needs and investment in product development as well as disputed legal issues. As part of another project, a guide for processors was created, within which the new methods and solutions were presented. To enhance knowledge transfer regarding the new EU hygiene standards for organic meat proces-sors in 2008, a number of general information and specific documents for the admission application as well as templates for the necessary internal controls were developed. The general use and suitability of new organic food additives were also examined. Different sub-stances, which could serve as binding agents or antioxidants, were tested. Locust bean gum, guar gum, xanthan and agar agar showed a sufficient bond-stabilising effect without affecting the sensory quality of the products. Substances such as ascorbic acid, citric acid, rosemary extract, ginger and lemon juice showed a satisfactory effect against oxidative browning reactions. Furthermore, the use of rye sprouts as an ingredient in wheat bread produced very positive results: a study found that the volume, crumb firmness and crumb elasticity could be improved. The use of ingredients from yam (Dioscorea batatas) was investigated regarding the potential sensory and health benefits for flour blends. In another project, the use of yeast extract in organic foods was reviewed. It was shown here that there is very little research about the components and nutritional effects of yeast extract; also a survey among experts could not come to a clear formulation of conclusions. Thus, it was recommended that each processor should decide for or against the use of yeast extract in each particular case. Since 2008, an additive list is now being published annually and a website has been created where the manufacturers of additives can register themselves and sign up their organically certified and non-certified commercial products for evaluation. The data from the National Nutrition Survey II (NVS II) in 2010 were analysed in detail, looking at organic buying habits in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, parameters of health and nutrition behaviour as well as food consumption. Over 13,000 participants, aged between 18 and 80 years, were included in this survey. The derived recommendations show considerable potential. It was found for example, that organic buyers compared with non-organic buyers are more likely to lead a healthier lifestyle. Altruistic buying motives, such as interest in fair trade, animal welfare and the renunciation of the use of genetic modification, have been identified as a central driver of organic buying behaviour. It was also recommended, in addition to ethical arguments, to integrate health benefits more directly into the marketing of organic food. Further results from the BÖLN research on food quality and processing are continuously published at www.bundesprogramm-oekolandbau.de

Recommendation domains for pond aquaculture

This publication introduces the methods and results of a research project that has developed a set of decision-support tools to identify places and sets of conditions for which a particular target aquaculture technology is considered feasible and therefore good to promote. The tools also identify the nature of constraints to aquaculture development and thereby shed light on appropriate interventions to realize the potential of the target areas. The project results will be useful for policy planners and decision makers in national, regional and local governments and development funding agencies, aquaculture extension workers in regional and local governments, and researchers in aquaculture systems and rural livelihoods. (Document contains 40 pages

Assessing the potential economic benefits to farmers from various GM crops becoming available in the European Union by 2025: results from an expert survey

This paper reports on a study that identified a range of crop-trait combinations that are: agronomically suited to the EU; provide advantages to arable farmers and consumers; and are either already available in international markets, or advancing along the development pipeline and likely to become available by 2025. An expert stakeholder panel was recruited and asked for their views, using the Delphi approach, on the impact of these crop-traits on enterprise competitiveness, through changes to yields, production costs and product prices. In terms of input traits, there was consensus that traits such as herbicide tolerant/insect resistant (HT/IR) maize, HT sugar beet and HT soya bean would provide positive benefits for farmers. Output-side traits such as winter-sown rape with reduced saturated fats, were seen as offering benefits to consumers, but were either likely to be restricted to niche markets, or offer relatively modest price premia to farmers growing them. Our analysis of the financial impact of the adoption of GM crops more widely in the EU, showed that the competitiveness of the agricultural sector could well be improved by this. However, such improvements would be relatively small-scale in that large-scale national natural advantages from either economic or environmental conditions is unlikely to be overturned

Application of ERTS-1 data to integrated state planning in the state of Maryland

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Assessing the spatial distribution of crop production using a generalized cross-entropy approach:

While agricultural production statistics are reported on a geopolitical – often national - basis we often need to know the status of production or productivity within specific sub-regions, watersheds, or agro-ecological zones. Such re-aggregations are typically made using expert judgments or simple area-weighting rules. We describe a new, entropy-based approach to making spatially disaggregated assessments of the distribution of crop production. Using this approach tabular crop production statistics are blended judiciously with an array of other secondary data to assess the production of specific crops within individual ‘pixels' – typically 25 to 100 square kilometers in size. The information utilized includes crop production statistics, farming system characteristics, satellite-derived land cover data, biophysical crop suitability assessments, and population density. An application is presented in which Brazilian state level production statistics are used to generate pixel level crop production data for eight crops. To validate the spatial allocation we aggregated the pixel estimates to obtain synthetic estimates of municipio level production in Brazil, and compared those estimates with actual municipio statistics. The approach produced extremely promising results. We then examined the robustness of these results compared to short-cut approaches to spatializing crop production statistics and showed that, while computationally intensive, the cross-entropy method does provide more reliable estimates of crop production patterns.Entropy, Cross entropy, Remote sensing, Spatial allocation, Crop distribution,

Development and Application of a Performance and Operational Feasibility Guide to Facilitate Adoption of Soil Moisture Sensors

Soil moisture sensors can be effective and promising decision-making tools for diverse applications and audiences, including agricultural managers, irrigation practitioners, and researchers. Nevertheless, there exists immense adoption potential in the United States, with only 1.2 in 10 farms nationally using soil moisture sensors to decide when to irrigate. This number is much lower in the global scale. Increased adoption is likely hindered by lack of scientific support in need assessment, selection, suitability and use of these sensors. Here, through extensive field research, we address the operational feasibility of soil moisture sensors, an aspect which has been overlooked in the past, and integrate it with their performance accuracy, in order to develop a quantitative framework to guide users in the selection of best-suited sensors for varying applications. These evaluations were conducted for nine commercially available sensors under silt loam and loamy sand soils in irrigated cropland and rainfed grassland for two different installation orientations [sensing component parallel (horizontal) and perpendicular (vertical) to the ground surface] typically used. All the sensors were assessed for their aptness in terms of cost, ease of operation, convenience of telemetry, and performance accuracy. Best sensors under each soil condition, sensor orientation, and user applications (research versus agricultural production) were identified. The step-by-step guide presented here will serve as an unprecedented and holistic adoption-assisting resource and can be extended to other sensors as well

Recommendation domains for pond aquaculture

This publication introduces the methods and results of a research project that has developed a set of decision-support tools to identify places and sets of conditions for which a particular target aquaculture technology is considered feasible and therefore good to promote. The tools also identify the nature of constraints to aquaculture development and thereby shed light on appropriate interventions to realize the potential of the target areas. The project results will be useful for policy planners and decision makers in national, regional and local governments and development funding agencies, aquaculture extension workers in regional and local governments, and researchers in aquaculture systems and rural livelihoods.Pond culture, Freshwater aquaculture, GIS

Spatial aspects of the design and targeting of agricultural development strategies:

Two increasingly shared perspectives within the international development community are that (a) geography matters, and (b) many government interventions would be more successful if they were better targeted. This paper unites these two notions by exploring the opportunities for, and benefits of, bringing an explicitly spatial dimension to the tasks of formulating and evaluating agricultural development strategies. We first review the lingua franca of land fragility and find it lacking in its capacity to describe the dynamic interface between the biophysical and socioeconomic factors that help shape rural development options. Subsequently, we propose a two-phased approach. First, development strategy options are characterized to identify the desirable ranges of conditions that would most favor successful strategy implementation. Second, those conditions exhibiting important spatial dependency – such as agricultural potential, population density, and access to infrastructure and markets – are matched against a similarly characterized, spatially-referenced (GIS) database. This process generates both spatial (map) and tabular representations of strategy-specific development domains. An important benefit of a spatial (GIS) framework is that it provides a powerful means of organizing and integrating a very diverse range of disciplinary and data inputs. At a more conceptual level we propose that it is the characterization of location, not the narrowly-focused characterization of land, that is more properly the focus of attention from a development perspective. The paper includes appropriate examples of spatial analysis using data from East Africa and Burkina Faso, and concludes with an appendix describing and interpreting regional climate and soil data for Sub-Saharan Africa that was directly relevant to our original goal.Spatial analysis (Statistics), Agricultural development., Burkina Faso., Africa, Sub-Saharan.,

Spatial analysis of sustainable livelihood enterprises of Uganda cotton production:

"Because the conditions for agricultural development vary considerably across space, we need to develop methods that allow us to take such variability into account when evaluating development strategies for particular crops or farming systems. This paper addresses spatially varying characteristics in an evaluation of the potential economic benefits of three cotton development strategies for Uganda: area expansion, productivity improvement, and domestic consumption increase. We begin with a historical review of cotton production in Uganda. We then described the major challenges and opportunities for Ugandan cotton production, including farm-level production constraints. Household-level production data from the 2000 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) are used to estimate the current spatial distribution of cotton production (called the cotton production area, or CPA), based on the association of household cotton production with ranges in mapped variables (altitude, length of growing period, and population density), district cotton production statistics and expert knowledge of local production patterns. Cotton development domains (CDDs) are then defined by agroclimatic suitability, market/ginnery access, and inclusion in the CPA. We use the UNHS data to evaluate the importance of cotton as a livelihood enterprise and its role in rural livelihood strategies. Key ecosystems and protected areas are considered in conjunction with the CDDs in defining feasible areas for expansion of production. Finally, the Dynamic Research Evaluation for Management (DREAM) model is used to estimate benefits that accrue from the three development strategies considered." Authors' AbstractDREAM, Spatial analysis (Statistics),