Beef production from feedstuffs conserved using new technologies to reduce negative environmental impacts

End of project reportMost (ca. 86%) Irish farms make some silage. Besides directly providing feed for livestock, the provision of grass silage within integrated grassland systems makes an important positive contribution to effective grazing management and improved forage utilisation by grazing animals, and to effective feed budgeting by farmers. It can also contribute to maintaining the content of desirable species in pastures, and to livestock not succumbing to parasites at sensitive times of the year. Furthermore, the optimal recycling of nutrients collected from housed livestock can often be best achieved by spreading the manures on the land used for producing the conserved feed. On most Irish farms, grass silage will remain the main conserved forage for feeding to livestock during winter for the foreseeable future. However, on some farms high yields of whole-crop (i.e. grain + straw) cereals such as wheat, barley and triticale, and of forage maize, will be an alternative option provided that losses during harvesting, storage and feedout are minimised and that input costs are restrained. These alternative forages have the potential to reliably support high levels of animal performance while avoiding the production of effluent. Their production and use however will need to advantageously integrate into ruminant production systems. A range of technologies can be employed for crop production and conservation, and for beef production, and the optimal options need to be identified. Beef cattle being finished indoors are offered concentrate feedstuffs at rates that range from modest inputs through to ad libitum access. Such concentrates frequently contain high levels of cereals such as barley or wheat. These cereals are generally between 14% to 18% moisture content and tend to be rolled shortly before being included in coarse rations or are more finely processed prior to pelleting. Farmers thinking of using ‘high-moisture grain’ techniques for preserving and processing cereal grains destined for feeding to beef cattle need to know how the yield, conservation efficiency and feeding value of such grains compares with grains conserved using more conventional techniques. European Union policy strongly encourages a sustainable and multifunctional agriculture. Therefore, in addition to providing European consumers with quality food produced within approved systems, agriculture must also contribute positively to the conservation of natural resources and the upkeep of the rural landscape. Plastics are widely used in agriculture and their post-use fate on farms must not harm the environment - they must be managed to support the enduring sustainability of farming systems. There is an absence of information on the efficacy of some new options for covering and sealing silage with plastic sheeting and tyres, and an absence of an inventory of the use, re-use and post-use fate of plastic film on farms. Irish cattle farmers operate a large number of beef production systems, half of which use dairy bred calves. In the current, continuously changing production and market conditions, new beef systems must be considered. A computer package is required that will allow the rapid, repeatable simulation and assessment of alternate beef production systems using appropriate, standardised procedures. There is thus a need to construct, evaluate and utilise computer models of components of beef production systems and to develop mathematical relationships to link system components into a network that would support their integration into an optimal system model. This will provide a framework to integrate physical and financial on-farm conditions with models for estimating feed supply and animal growth patterns. Cash flow and profit/loss results will be developed. This will help identify optimal systems, indicate the cause of failure of imperfect systems and identify areas where applied research data are currently lacking, or more basic research is required

Remembering the City: Changing Conceptions of Community in Urban China

Adopting complimentary integrative research methodologies, this article examines changing conceptions of community amongst urban residents within the city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. Whilst the impact of urban transformation from a macro-perspective, deploying large scale quantitative measures to capture resident perceptions within China’s mega-cities, has been addressed, there is something of a scholarly lacuna that adopts a micro-perspective to explore the nation-state’s smaller developing cities. Thus, through local residents’ past memories, ‘everyday’ experiences of (former) urban communities, and reflections on a particular way of life, we focus upon the subjective/affective meanings and memories attached to processes of urban change. We place emphasis on the manner in which residents make sense of socio-spatial transformations in relation to the (re)making of community, local social interaction, and a sense of belonging. Discussion centres on the affective and embodied notions of a particular way of life in (older) communities; sensory performances that were deemed difficult to replicate within modern development zones and the broader field of contemporary Chinese society

Social Geography

No generally accepted definition of social geography exists. The variety of literature which has appeared under the title of social geography is astounding; even within particular schools there are wide disparities of approach and definition. With some notable exceptions, for example, in Sweden and Holland, social geography can be considered a field created and cultivated by a number of individual scholars rather than an academic tradition built up within particular schools. Furthermore, for many people the term “social geography” itself is in disfavor because its past association with various forms of determinism that postulated a causal connection between society and the geographical environment. Perhaps, therefore, the best way to examine social geography is to establish a general theoretical outline of the field and, on this basis, to review the existing literature. Naturally, many of the works relevant to what is here called social geography will have been written as contributions to some other discipline

Mirrors, masks and diverse milieux

Was Ihr den Geist der Zeiten heist Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln… (Faust) (And what you call the Spirit of the Ages Is that the spirit of your learned sages The times a-mirroring…) At Columbus, Ohio, where the Association of American Geographers met in 1965, there was obviously something new in the air. Eminent geographers and psychologists charmed a packed auditorium with ideas about environmental behaviour and perception. This new frontier was to welcome not only interdisciplinary research, but it was also to offer a common focus of curiosity to geographers of both ‘man-land’ and ‘spatial’ traditions. Why, even the age-old impasse between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ orientations could be transcended. Some 17 years later in San Antonio, Texas, the same Association hosted sessions on environmental perception. One caught a glimpse of the volume and variety of research which the intervening years had produced and, even more, one noted the drama of a selective migration of ideas back and forth across the Atlantic: Marxist, positivist, phenomenological, and structuralist approaches were juxtaposed, not always too harmoniously

Grasping the Dynamism of Lifeworld

Recent attempts by geographers to explore the human experience of space have focused on overt behavior and its cognitive foundations. The language and style of our descriptions, however, often fail to speak in categories appropriate for the elucidation of lived experience, and we need to evaluate our modes of knowing in the light of modes of being in the everyday world. Phenomenologists provide some guidelines for this task. They point to the preconsciously given aspects of behavior and perception residing in the “lifeworld”—the culturally defined spatiotemporal setting or horizon of everyday life. Scientific procedures which separate “subjects\u27’and “objects,\u27’thought and action, people and environments are inadequate to investigate this lifeworld. The phenomenological approach ideally should allow lifeworld to reveal itself in its own terms. In practice, however, phenomenological descriptions remain opaque to the functional dynamism of spatial systems, just as geographical descriptions of space have neglected many facets of human experience. There are certain avenues for dialogue between these two disciplines in three major research areas: the sense of place, social space, and time-space rhythms. Such a dialogue could contribute to a more humanistic foundation for human geography

Humboldt, Granö and Geo-poetics of the Altai

The Altai region of Siberia has held magnetic appeal for explorers and scientists down the centuries. Two of these explorers, Alexander von Humboldt (1769−1859) and Johannes Gabriel Granö (1882−1956), were especially gifted in yielding both geo-scientific and geo-poetic accounts of their surveys, Granö especially evoking a “geo-poetics” of the Altai, possibly inspired by Humboldt’s American journeys. Though their career trajectories spanned very different periods and circumstances, these two scholars have bequeathed legacies of enduring value − conceptually and substantively − in bridging the worlds of science and humanities and revealing innovative insight into interactions of society and environment. As Humboldt eventually based the principles of his Cosmos on travels made earlier in life, so too Granö would later build on the experiences in Altai to develop his major theoretical work, Reine Geographie (1929). This paper describes the journeys through Altai of Humboldt and Granö, and some discursive strategies used by both writers in yielding dynamic pictures of mountain landscapes and ways of life

Gatekeeping Geography through National Independence: Stories from Harvard and Dublin

"Gralshüter" der Geographie im Kontext nationaler Unabhängigkeit: Die Beispiele Harvard und Dublin Der Stellung der Geographie als Wissenschaft spiegelt die wechselnden Geschicke von Nationen und Staaten wider, blühend in Zeiten gesellschaftlichen Selbstvertrauens, des Altruismus oder der expansionistischen Herausforderung; erschlaffend beim Rückzug auf Routineaufgaben nationaler Haushaltsführung und Bestandsaufnahme, im Schreiben von Lehrbüchern bzw. in praxisorientierten Untersuchungen in Zeiten der Stabilität oder Depression. Perioden des Strebens nach Unabhängigkeit sind besonders geeignet, Zusammenhänge zwischen geographischern Denken und politisch-sozialem Kontext zu untersuchen. Wie sich solche Ereignisse auf die wechselnden Strömungen der Geographie als akademische Disziplin auswirken, ist von Ort und Zeit abhängig; die wechselnden Trends im politischen und geistigen Leben sind selten gleichlaufend. Dieser Beitrag untersucht Elemente des geographischen Denkens in den Programmen nationaler Unabhängigkeit in Amerika im 18. und in Irland im 20. Jahrhundert am Beispiel der Curricula zweier kolonialer Colleges: des Harvard College in Massachusetts und des Trinity College in Dublin. Ähnliche Ideen und sogar ähnliche Texte wurden unterschiedlich ausgelegt und spiegeln somit die Bedeutung der "Gralshüter" und Zeitumstände. Obwohl beträchtliche Unterschiede in den historischen Rahmenbedingungen bestanden, gab es doch bemerkenswerte Ähnlichkeiten in der Abfolge von Denkstilen und -praktiken, die der jeweiligen nationalen Befreiung vorausgingen bzw. ihr folgten. Drei zentrale Themen lassen sich herausarbeiten: Erstens muss auf der Ebene der politischen Rhetorik unterschieden werden zwischen den durch die Gedanken der Aufklärung getragenen "Revolutionen" des 18. Jahrhunderts und der damit verbundenen Vorstellung vom Staat als einem rationell organisierten Mechanismus auf der einen Seite und den romantisch inspirierten" Höhenflügen" des späten 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts und den damit assoziierten Vorstellungen von der Nation als Verkörperung von Identität und kultureller Integrität eines Volkes andererseits. Zweitens wird auf der Ebene der Denkmuster ein wesentlicher Unterschied zwischen den engeren Weltsichten gemacht, die politische Bewegungen im Vorfeld der Unabhängigkeit hervorbrachten, gegenüber weiteren Weltsichten, die im Nachhinein Sensibilität für Landschaft, Kultur und die Aufgaben des Staates begünstigten. Untersucht man drittens die Ebene der allgemeinen Akzeptanz, dann ist zu unterscheiden zwischen der "Befreiung von" und der "Freiheit zu": das Schwergewicht auf ersterer begünstigt häufig Strukturen, die Unterdrückung verschleiern bzw. rechtfertigen. In Anbetracht der sich dramatisch verändernden politischen Voraussetzungen lassen sich für die Praxis geographischer Forschung im späten 20. Jahrhundert sicherlich mancherlei Lehren aus diesen Beispielen ableiten

Lar, horizontes de alcance e o sentido de lugar

O lugar é construído, significado, recomposto e criado pelas pessoas que nele vivem. Mas é impossível desconsiderar a ação de agentes externos, sobretudo no que concerne as ações de planejamento, frequentemente liderada por agente públicos que obedecem normas e critérios universais, ignorando o conhecimento e as especificidades que só as pessoas do lugar podem conhecer. Assim, a partir de sua experiência pessoal, Anne Buttimer traça um vibrante e intricado relato que nos esclarece questões conceituais centrais sobre nossas relações com o lugar e com a comunidade. A autora explora um dos mais fortes paradoxos da relação homem-lugar, demonstrando o conforto e as limitações do lugar e, ao mesmo tempo, a busca pelo desafio e pelas potencialidades dos horizontes de alcance, que projetam nossos desejos e anseios ao nos lançarmos no mundo. Publicado originalmente em 1978 e reeditado em 1980, o texto emerge de uma das mais ricas décadas para a discussão do lugar enquanto essência fundamental para a geografia humanista e para a compreensão da geografia que produzimos enquanto experienciamos o mundo

Le temps, l'espace et le monde vécu

Cet article essaie d'évaluer les implications des courants phénoménologiques et existentialistes pour la géographie. Le relativisme socio-culturel conteste des modèles de recherche que la pratique contemporaine n'avait pas questionnés. En transposant la notion de Lebenswelt (monde vécu) en termes de genre de vie, on présente un schéma d'analyse qui pourrait encourager la réflexion critique sur (a) les rapports sociologiques et les relations de pouvoir associés au vécu du géographe luimême, dans sa pensée et dans sa pratique; (b) la capacité des modèles courants à expliquer l'expérience vécue. Time, space and lifeworld. — This article interprets some claims made by phenomenology and existentialism and evaluates their potential significance for geography. Questions are raised regarding socio-cultural relativism in taken-for-granted research models and their applications. Translating Lebenswelt (lifeworld) in terms of genre de vie, a framework is presented which could facilitate critical reflection on (a) sociological construction and power relations associated with the geographer's own lifeworld of thought and praxis, and (b) selectivity and relative appropriateness of current models for the elucidation of lived experience