How Much Do Fruits and Vegetables Cost?

Federal dietary guidance advises Americans to consume more vegetables and fruits because most Americans do not consume the recommended quantities or variety. Food prices, along with taste, convenience, income, and awareness of the link between diet and health, shape food choices. We used 2008 Nielsen Homescan data to estimate the average price at retail stores of a pound and an edible cup equivalent (or, for juices, a pint and an edible cup equivalent) of 153 commonly consumed fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. We found that average prices ranged from less than 20 cents per edible cup equivalent to more than $2 per edible cup equivalent. We also found that, in 2008, an adult on a 2,000- calorie diet could satisfy recommendations for vegetable and fruit consumption in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (amounts and variety) at an average price of$2 to $2.50 per day, or approximately 50 cents per edible cup equivalent.food prices, food budgeting, fruit and vegetable consumption, 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

Statutory Reform to Protect Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations capture the human mind and heart like few other natural phenomena. Migrations provide ecological, psychological (e.g., aesthetic), cultural, and economic benefits. Increasingly, though, migrations are being recognized as threatened phenomena-that is, spectacular aspects of the life history of animal species often involving large numbers of individuals, but which are threatened with impoverishment or demise, even though the species per se may not be in peril. Migration phenomena are themselves worthy of protection, as a category of biodiversity Yet, conserving migratory populations and their migrations is particularly problematic. Migratory animals are especially vulnerable to a variety of threats because they come into contact with multiple ecosystems and jurisdictions, tend to congregate in large numbers in discrete and often vulnerable areas, and require considerable fuel for their long-distance journeys. In addition, migration is essentially a phenomenon of abundance-the benefits and values of migrations depend on an abundance of animals taking part and conserving species\u27 populations before they become rare has always been an uphill battle. This Article presents an idea for a new federal law that reflects the perspective that conserving migratory behaviors and processes as phenomena of value in and of themselves, and not only of value for species persistence, can provide unique and important benefits. Current conservation laws generally serve the species-based conservation perspective and, with a few exceptions, are not designed or implemented to protect benefits of abundant animal migrations. The existing fragmented framework of laws and authorities also is insufficient to protect most migratory populations against a diversity of threats across multiple jurisdictions and broad geographic scales. Our proposed federal law would offer a unified framework, require abundance targets, and authorize a comprehensive set of legal tools, including both carrots and sticks, for conserving a limited set of nationally or regionally significant migrations. Such a law would likely improve the current situation for the nation\u27s most notable migratory populations and generally promote the conservation of all migrations as phenomena of abundance

Statutory Reform to Protect Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations capture the human mind and heart like few other natural phenomena. Migrations provide ecological, psychological (e.g., aesthetic), cultural, and economic benefits. Increasingly, though, migrations are being recognized as threatened phenomena-that is, spectacular aspects of the life history of animal species often involving large numbers of individuals, but which are threatened with impoverishment or demise, even though the species per se may not be in peril. Migration phenomena are themselves worthy of protection, as a category of biodiversity Yet, conserving migratory populations and their migrations is particularly problematic. Migratory animals are especially vulnerable to a variety of threats because they come into contact with multiple ecosystems and jurisdictions, tend to congregate in large numbers in discrete and often vulnerable areas, and require considerable fuel for their long-distance journeys. In addition, migration is essentially a phenomenon of abundance-the benefits and values of migrations depend on an abundance of animals taking part and conserving species\u27 populations before they become rare has always been an uphill battle. This Article presents an idea for a new federal law that reflects the perspective that conserving migratory behaviors and processes as phenomena of value in and of themselves, and not only of value for species persistence, can provide unique and important benefits. Current conservation laws generally serve the species-based conservation perspective and, with a few exceptions, are not designed or implemented to protect benefits of abundant animal migrations. The existing fragmented framework of laws and authorities also is insufficient to protect most migratory populations against a diversity of threats across multiple jurisdictions and broad geographic scales. Our proposed federal law would offer a unified framework, require abundance targets, and authorize a comprehensive set of legal tools, including both carrots and sticks, for conserving a limited set of nationally or regionally significant migrations. Such a law would likely improve the current situation for the nation\u27s most notable migratory populations and generally promote the conservation of all migrations as phenomena of abundance

PySimFrac: A Python Library for Synthetic Fracture Generation, Analysis, and Simulation

In this paper, we introduce Pysimfrac, a open-source python library for generating 3-D synthetic fracture realizations, integrating with fluid simulators, and performing analysis. Pysimfrac allows the user to specify one of three fracture generation techniques (Box, Gaussian, or Spectral) and perform statistical analysis including the autocorrelation, moments, and probability density functions of the fracture surfaces and aperture. This analysis and accessibility of a python library allows the user to create realistic fracture realizations and vary properties of interest. In addition, Pysimfrac includes integration examples to two different pore-scale simulators and the discrete fracture network simulator, dfnWorks. The capabilities developed in this work provides opportunity for quick and smooth adoption and implementation by the wider scientific community for accurate characterization of fluid transport in geologic media. We present Pysimfrac along with integration examples and discuss the ability to extend Pysimfrac from a single complex fracture to complex fracture networks