Economics of Share-Cropping in Haryana (India) Agriculture

This study shows that most share -croppers are small farmers. There is some evidence that technical efficiency is lower on share-cropping farms. There is significant allocative inefficiency on both share-cropping and owner-operated farms, but neither group has definite advantage in allocating every input. Above all, there does not seem to be any inherent inefficiencies in the "voluntary sharecropping system". Share-croppers make intensive use of labour, and in the absence of gainful off-farm employment opportunities, share-cropping provides them necessary supplementary income

"Economics of Share-Cropping in Haryana (India) Agriculture" - Rejoinder

Salam [I8] raised a number of questions about my paper, and these can be briefly summarized here. (1) Inadequate description of sample. (2) Treatment of irrigated and unirrigated parts of a farm under same management as separate subfarms is questionable. (3) What prices have been used for farm products and byproducts consumed on the farm. (4) Many heterogeneous inputs have been aggregated together. (5) How the production expenditure presented in Table 3 has been estimated, and what wage rates have been used in these calculations' (6) Data presented in Table 2 and its interpretation are confusing and misleading. (7) The explanation provided for the relatively lower use of purchased inputs on share cropping farms (Table 5) is incorrect. (8) The estimation and discussion of returns to scale is redundant. (9) Some of the explanatory variables e.g. cropping intensity, number of fragments per farm, and managerial ability have been omitted from the model. (10) Operational size of farm is not an appropriate explanatory variable. (II) The effect of farm size on relative economic efficiency has been overlooked. (I2) Aggregation of gross value of output for multicrop farms is likely to bias the results in an unknown direction, because crop composition may not be uniform across farms, and (I3) Measurement of inputs in value terms are affected by prevailing market imperfections

Comment on "Mechanical analog of temperature for the description of force distribution in static granular packings"

It has been proposed by Ngan [Phys. Rev. E 68, 011301 (2003)] that the granular contact force distribution may be analytically derived by minimizing the analog of a thermodynamic free energy, in this case consisting of the total potential energy stored in the compressed contacts minus a particular form of entropy weighted by a parameter. The parameter is identified as a mechanical temperature. I argue that the particular form of entropy cannot be correct and as a result the proposed method produces increasingly errant results for increasing grain rigidity. This trend is evidenced in Ngan's published results and in other numerical simulations and experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, minor editorial correction

Effects of chemical treatments on infestation of Alternaria spp. and Fusarium spp. in correlation with technological wheat quality

In this study, the time of infestation by fungi from genus Alternaria spp. and Fusarium spp. was investigated in different stages of wheat maturity (milk, waxy, and technological maturity); the effects of different fungicides on the yield, technological properties, and content of mycotoxin DON were studied also. The results showed that Alternaria spp. attacked spike and kernel in f lowering and end-f lowering stage, as it was already known for Fusarium species. Fungicide treatment increases the yield up to 20%, test weight by 3.7%, and thousand-kernel weight up to 19.1%. High content of mycotoxin DON, above tolerable limits, was detected only in the treatment with fungicide Caramba and in untreated control

Safe food and feed through an integrated toolbox for mycotoxin management: the MyToolBox approach

There is a pressing need to mobilise the wealth of knowledge from the international mycotoxin research conductedover the past 25-30 years, and to perform cutting-edge research where knowledge gaps still exist. This knowledgeneeds to be integrated into affordable and practical tools for farmers and food processors along the chain inorder to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination of crops, feed and food. This is the mission of MyToolBox – a four-year project which has received funding from the European Commission. It mobilises a multi-actorpartnership (academia, farmers, technology small and medium sized enterprises, food industry and policystakeholders) to develop novel interventions aimed at achieving a significant reduction in crop losses due tomycotoxin contamination. Besides a field-to-fork approach, MyToolBox also considers safe use options ofcontaminated batches, such as the efficient production of biofuels. Compared to previous efforts of mycotoxin reduction strategies, the distinguishing feature of MyToolBox is to provide the recommended measures to theend users along the food and feed chain in a web-based MyToolBox platform (e-toolbox). The project focuseson small grain cereals, maize, peanuts and dried figs, applicable to agricultural conditions in the EU and China. Crop losses using existing practices are being compared with crop losses after novel pre-harvest interventionsincluding investigation of genetic resistance to fungal infection, cultural control (e.g. minimum tillage or cropdebris treatment), the use of novel biopesticides suitable for organic farming, competitive biocontrol treatment and development of novel modelling approaches to predict mycotoxin contamination. Research into post-harvestmeasures includes real-time monitoring during storage, innovative sorting of crops using vision-technology, novelmilling technology and studying the effects of baking on mycotoxins at an industrial scale

Force correlations and arches formation in granular assemblies

In the context of a simple microscopic schematic scalar model we study the effects of spatial correlations in force transmission in granular assemblies. We show that the parameters of the normalized weights distribution function, $P(v)\sim v^{\alpha}\exp(-v/\phi)$, strongly depend on the spatial extensions, $\xi_V$, of such correlations. We show, then, the connections between measurable macroscopic quantities and microscopic mechanisms enhancing correlations. In particular we evaluate how the exponential cut-off, $\phi(\xi_V)$, and the small forces power law exponent, $\alpha(\xi_V)$, depend on the correlation length, $\xi_V$. If correlations go to infinity, weights are power law distributed.Comment: 6 page

Average stresses and force fluctuations in non-cohesive granular materials

A lattice model is presented for investigating the fluctuations in static granular materials under gravitationally induced stress. The model is similar in spirit to the scalar q-model of Coppersmith et al., but ensures balance of all components of forces and torques at each site. The geometric randomness in real granular materials is modeled by choosing random variables at each site, consistent with the assumption of cohesionless grains. Configurations of the model can be generated rapidly, allowing the statistical study of relatively large systems. For a 2D system with rough walls, the model generates configurations consistent with continuum theories for the average stresses (unlike the q-model) without requiring the assumption of a constitutive relation. For a 2D system with periodic boundary conditions, the model generates single-grain force distributions similar to those obtained from the q-model with a singular distribution of q's.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures. Uses aps,epsfig,graphicx,floats,revte

Stress and Strain in Flat Piling of Disks

We have created a flat piling of disks in a numerical experiment using the Distinct Element Method (DEM) by depositing them under gravity. In the resulting pile, we then measured increments in stress and strain that were associated with a small decrease in gravity. We first describe the stress in terms of the strain using isotropic elasticity theory. Then, from a micro-mechanical view point, we calculate the relation between the stress and strain using the mean strain assumption. We compare the predicted values of Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio with those that were measured in the numerical experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 1 table, 8 figures, and 2 pages for captions of figure

Internal states of model isotropic granular packings. I. Assembling process, geometry and contact networks

This is the first paper of a series of three, reporting on numerical simulation studies of geometric and mechanical properties of static assemblies of spherical beads under an isotropic pressure. Frictionless systems assemble in the unique random close packing (RCP) state in the low pressure limit if the compression process is fast enough, slower processes inducing traces of crystallization, and exhibit specific properties directly related to isostaticity of the force-carrying structure. The different structures of frictional packings assembled by various methods cannot be classified by the sole density. While lubricated systems approach RCP densities and coordination number z^*~=6 on the backbone in the rigid limit, an idealized "vibration" procedure results in equally dense configurations with z^*~=4.5. Near neighbor correlations on various scales are computed and compared to available laboratory data, although z^* values remain experimentally inaccessible. Low coordination packings have many rattlers (more than 10% of the grains carry no force), which should be accounted for on studying position correlations, and a small proportion of harmless "floppy modes" associated with divalent grains. Frictional packings, however slowly assembled under low pressure, retain a finite level of force indeterminacy, except in the limit of infinite friction.Comment: 29 pages. Published in Physical Review