PENGARUH PENAMBAHAN LIAT DAN BIOCHAR SEKAM PADI PADA PENGOLAHAN MINIMUM TERHADAP DISTRIBUSI PORI TANAH PSAMMENT DAN PERTUMBUHAN SERTA HASIL TANAMAN JAGUNG (Zea Mays L.)

Penelitian mengenai pengaruh penambahan liat dan biochar sekam padi pada pengolahan tanah minimum terhadap distribusi pori tanah Psamment dan pertumbuhan serta hasil tanaman jagung (Zea mays L.) ini dilaksanakan di Nagari Katapiang, Kecamatan Batang Anai, Kabupaten Padang Pariaman, dan di laboratorium Fisika Tanah, Jurusan Tanah, Fakultas Pertanian, Universitas Andalas pada bulan Agustus 2019 sampai Januari 2020. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan Rancangan Acak Kelompok (RAK) dengan 4 jenis perlakuan dan 3 kelompok. Perlakuan-perlakuan tersebut adalah A (Pengolahan tanah minimum tanpa liat dan biochar sekam padi), B (Pengolahan tanah minimum + Liat/Ultisol 20ton/ha), C (Pengolahan tanah minimum + biochar sekam padi 20 ton/ha), dan D (Pengolahan tanah minimum + liat/Ultisol 20 ton/ha dan biochar sekam padi 20 ton/ha). Hasil penelitian ini dianalisis berdasarkan tabel kriteria, analisis sidik ragam, dan uji Duncan’s New Multiple Range Test (DNMRT) pada taraf 5 %. Dari penelitian ini disimpulkan bahwa pemberian liat dan biochar sekam padi dapat memperbaiki sifat fisika tanah Psamment. Pemberian liat 20 ton/ha dan biochar sekam padi 20 ton/ha mampu menurunkan bobot volume tanah Psamment dari 1,40 g/cm3 (kontrol) menjadi 0,84 g/cm3, meningkatkan total ruang pori dari 42,86 % (kontrol) menjadi 65,10 %, merubah persentase distribusi pori dengan meningkatkan pori drainase cepat (31,63 % vol menjadi 41,00 % vol), menurunkan pori drainase lambat (5,80 % vol menjadi 4,53 %vol), dan meningkatkan pori air tersedia (6,00 % vol menjadi 7,50% vol). Penambahan liat dan biochar sekam padi pada tanah Psamment juga meningkatkan pertumbuhan tinggi tanaman jagung (236,2 cm) 8 minggu setelah tanam dibanding kontrol (211,59 cm), dan meningkatkan hasil tanaman jagung berupa bobot tongkol (20,58 ton/ha) dibanding kontrol (13,27 ton/ha). Kata kunci: Psamment, liat, biochar, sekam padi

The role of ecolabeling in fisheries management and conservation

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2005. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Blackwell for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Conservation Biology 20 (2006): 392-398, doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00319.x.The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) regulate the ecolabeling of products from fisheries with the aim of promoting sustainable fishery practices. To date 11 fisheries have attained full certification and a further 7 are under review. Together these fisheries offer 220 ecolabeled marine products to consumers. Despite great potential to encourage sustainable fisheries, and thereby bring conservation benefits to marine systems, there are a range of issues that may serve to limit the wider uptake of MSC ecolabeled products. These include a general lack of consumer concern for marine fish and sustainable fisheries, an absence of guaranteed continued financial benefits to participating fishers and difficulties of quality assurance which are related to the complexities in monitoring compliance of marine fisheries. In addition, it is apparent that property-rights over the fishery seem to be an essential prerequisite for engagement in MSC and this is one major impediment to wider uptake of the scheme in current marine fisheries, which tend to be open access. Some modifications to the current scheme may be needed if wider participation of marine fishers is to be achieved. These may include a tiered approach to certification, certification of fishers rather than fisheries, governmental facilitation to assist the latter, and greater engagement with retailers and buyers rather than individual consumers. None of these changes will occur without constructive engagement of Government, retailers and the fishing industry.MJK was part funded through a Marine Policy Center Senior Research Fellowship

Virtual reconnection: The online spaces of alternative food networks in England

AbstractSpaces of ‘alternative’ food production and consumption have been the subject of considerable interest within agri-food research and policy-making circles in recent decades. Examples of these Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) include Farmers' Markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes and farm shops, where food products are embedded with social and spatial information that serves to differentiate them from conventional agri-food systems. These shorter, more transparent, localised supply chains that characterise AFNs are underpinned by the notion of reconnection – a fundamental set of biological, social and moral processes that enable agri-food stakeholders to participate in ethically minded, transparent systems, where they are better connected to one another and to the markets and environments in which they are immersed. Drawing on a range of eight AFN case studies in England and using a multi-method approach, we explore the notion of reconnection within online space to show how social relations have changed, and are changing as a result of online activity. In examining the websites and social media platforms of AFNs and primary data collected from the creators and users of these spaces, we uncover the notion of ‘virtual reconnection’. We found the embodied, socio-material reconnection processes that occur in-place also occur online. However, by extending AFN spaces, virtual reconnection cannot fully replicate the same embodied and tactile experiences associated with the material spaces of AFNs. As such, online spaces in the context of AFNs provide a useful additional realm for reconnection, but need to be understood as supplementary rather than as a substitution for socio-material reconnections. Future research should consider the moral dimensions of reconnection and the capacity that online spaces have for enhancing the inclusivity of Civic Food Networks (CFNs), and their transformative role in contributing to more sustainable behaviours

Scaling up community action for tackling climate change

Tackling climate change requires a set of deeply intertwined geographical responsibilities whereby actors at and across different geographical scales are intimately connected. Creating effective strategies requires far more than an invocation for individual behavioural change in thinking globally and acting locally, but attention to the multi‐scalar conflicts, tensions and also opportunities to develop the most appropriate collective responses. In this paper, we use the example of community gardening initiatives in a large UK city to critically interrogate the problems facing groups at the local neighbourhood level in pursuing sustainability agendas. We focus on the organizational imperative to create a multi‐scalar food policy partnership at the city level as a way of confronting dominant global neoliberal urban competitiveness agendas. Our results emphasize the critical importance of scalar politics in enabling effective climate change strategies

Community Supported Agriculture is thriving in the Central Valley

Community Supported Agriculture operations (CSAs) have grown rapidly in recent years. The original model, in which members support a farming operation by paying for produce in advance and receive a share of the farm's produce in return, has been adapted, with much innovation. Since little research existed on CSAs in the Central Valley, we surveyed and carried out in-depth interviews with 54 CSA farmers and two CSA organizers in the Central Valley and surrounding foothills. Here we focus on four aspects of these CSA operations: type, economic viability, farmer characteristics and farm attributes. We found two main CSA models, box and membership/share. Fifty-four percent of the CSAs reported being profitable, and the average gross sales per acre were $9,084. CSA farmers are diverse in political orientation, yet are generally younger, better educated and more likely to be women than the general farming population. CSA farms are relatively small, with a median size of 20 acres; have a median membership of 60 (585 average); use agroecological methods; cultivate agrobiodiversity; and utilize growing practices that generally meet or exceed National Organic Program standards

Introduction—Food Security and Food Waste Reduction: A Social Innovation Approach to Current Social, Environmental, and Political Concerns

This chapter presents the research rationale underpinning the book. It addresses the intertwining challenges of food security and surplus food management, discussing recent data and literature. It also presents how social innovation is conceptualized in the book as the theoretical framework to analyse partnerships between business and non-profit organisations in managing food surplus. The methodology of the research is also detailed, along with the book structure