Why don’t pesticide applicators protect themselves? Exploring the use of personal protective equipment among Colombian smallholders

The misuse of personal protective equipment (PPE) during pesticide application was investigated among smallholders in Colombia. The integrative agent-centered (IAC) framework and a logistic regression approach were adopted. The results suggest that the descriptive social norm was significantly influencing PPE use. The following were also important: (1) having experienced pesticide-related health problems; (2) age; (3) the share of pesticide application carried out; and (4) the perception of PPE hindering work. Interestingly, the influence of these factors differed for different pieces of PPE. Since conformity to the social norm is a source of rigidity in the system, behavioral change may take the form of a discontinuous transition. In conclusion, five suggestions for triggering a transition towards more sustainable PPE use are formulated: (1) diversifying targets/tools; (2) addressing structural aspects; (3) sustaining interventions in the long-term; (4) targeting farmers’ learning-by-experience; and (5) targeting PPE use on a collective level

Normative, systemic and procedural aspects: a review of indicator‐based sustainability assessments in agriculture

Several methods for assessing the sustainability of agricultural systems have been developed. These methods do not fully: (i) take into account the multi‐functionality of agriculture; (ii) include multidimensionality; (iii) utilize and implement the assessment knowledge; and (iv) identify conflicting goals and trade‐offs. This paper reviews seven recently developed multidisciplinary indicator‐based assessment methods with respect to their contribution to these shortcomings. All approaches include (1) normative aspects such as goal setting, (2) systemic aspects such as a specification of scale of analysis, (3) a reproducible structure of the approach. The approaches can be categorized into three typologies. The top‐down farm assessments focus on field or farm assessment. They have a clear procedure for measuring the indicators and assessing the sustainability of the system, which allows for benchmarking across farms. The degree of participation is low, potentially affecting the implementation of the results negatively. The top‐down regional assessment assesses the on‐farm and the regional effects. They include some participation to increase acceptance of the results. However, they miss the analysis of potential trade‐offs. The bottom‐up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches focus on a regional scale. Stakeholders are included throughout the whole process assuring the acceptance of the results and increasing the probability of implementation of developed measures. As they include the interaction between the indicators in their system representation, they allow for performing a trade‐off analysis. The bottom‐up, integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches seem to better overcome the four shortcomings mentioned above

Reducibility for a class of weakly dispersive linear operators arising from the Degasperis Procesi equation

We prove reducibility of a class of quasi-periodically forced linear equations of the form $$\partial_tu-\partial_x\circ (1+a(\omega t, x))u+\mathcal{Q}(\omega t)u=0,\quad x\in\mathbb{T}:=\mathbb{R}/2\pi\mathbb{Z},$$ where $u=u(t,x)$, $a$ is a small, $C^{\infty}$ function, $\mathcal{Q}$ is a pseudo differential operator of order $-1$, provided that $\omega\in\mathbb{R}^{\nu}$ satisfies appropriate non-resonance conditions. Such PDEs arise by linearizing the Degasperis-Procesi (DP) equation at a small amplitude quasi-periodic function. Our work provides a first fundamental step in developing a KAM theory for perturbations of the DP equation on the circle. Following \cite{Airy}, our approach is based on two main points: first a reduction in orders based on an Egorov type theorem then a KAM diagonalization scheme. In both steps the key difficulites arise from the asymptotically linear dispersion law. In view of the application to the nonlinear context we prove sharp \emph{tame} bounds on the diagonalizing change of variables. We remark that the strategy and the techniques proposed are applicable for proving reducibility of more general classes of linear pseudo differential first order operators