THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF CONSUMING A CANCER PREVENTION DIET

This study measures the welfare changes in agriculture and to consumers should people eat the recommended levels of fruits and vegetables for a cancer prevention diet. An equilibrium displacement model is used to measure the change in welfare to fruit and vegetable industries, other commodities, and agricultural input markets.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Linkages Between Greater Fruit and Vegetable Consumption and Agriculture

This study will estimate the benefits to fruit and vegetable industries and consumers should people in the U.S. meet the USDA minimum dietary guidelines. Specifically the objectives of the study are to 1) estimate the benefits to fruit and vegetable industries and consumers should people eat the general and subgroup 7-a-day and 9-a-day recommendation; 2) estimate the benefits should smaller increases of only 10 percent or 25 percent be achieved; and 3) determine how agricultural inputs, including land and labor, would be affected by the increase in demand for fruits and vegetables. To protect against the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer the 2005 USDA dietary guidelines recommend the consumption of 3 to 4 fruit servings and 4 to 5 vegetable servings a day. They also provide recommendations on the composition of fruit and vegetable consumption as well as the level. For example, almost one serving of dark leafy vegetables is recommended per day. Depite the known health benefits, many people do not eat the amounts recommended in the USDA dietary guidelines and low income consumers (those whose median household income is less than $25,000 a year) eat fewer servings. Based on the NHANES4 (National health and nutrition examination survey) and NHANES5, average consumption of fruit by low-income consumers would need to increase by at least 83 percent at meet the 3 a day recommendation and 39 percent in order to meet the 4 a day recommendation. People in higher-income households only need to increase consumption by only 60 percent for fruit and 30 percent for vegetables. The proportional increases in consumption assume that people no longer eat potato chips or french fries in order to meet dietary guidelines on fat consumption. A shift in consumption patterns to the recommended levels would cause the demand for fruits and vegetables to rise significantly, leading to higher prices and increased production, shifting the use of agricultural resources (such as land, labor, and water) into the production of those commodities, and benefiting the entire agricultural sector. Despite the potential gains to agriculture, these values have been ignored in previous studies of improved nutrient intake. Such a benefit to producers might justify additional public sector investment in promoting healthier diets. The changes in prices, agricultural production, agricultural input usage, and trade will be simulated using an equilibrium displacement model. The dual approach used in this analysis lays out basic demand and supply equations from demand and cost functions to show how equilibrium conditions change in response to shocks, such as an increase in the demand for fruits and vegetables. The functions characterize the final market, allow for substitutability between marketing and non-marketing inputs in the marketing sector, includes the farm sector, and changes in input use resulting from changes in crop mix and substitutability in land, labor and other inputs. Equilibrium displacement models have been widely used to estimate the benefits of agricultural research agricultural policies and the benefits to the dairy industry of a social marketing program to middle school children. The model is parameterized with farm, market and consumption data. The increase in fruit and vegetable consumption is modeled as a shift in the demand curve with the shift equal to the percentage increase needed to meet the USDA dietary guidelines. Producer surplus is estimated from the changes in grower prices and agricultural production, less changes in the cost of inputs. Consumer surplus for people living in low-income households (less than$25,000 a year median income) and higher income households is estimated from the changes in retail prices and final market quantities consumed by each income group.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Visualizing thickness-dependent magnetic textures in few-layer Cr2Ge2Te6\text{Cr}_2\text{Ge}_2\text{Te}_6

Magnetic ordering in two-dimensional (2D) materials has recently emerged as a promising platform for data storage, computing, and sensing. To advance these developments, it is vital to gain a detailed understanding of how the magnetic order evolves on the nanometer-scale as a function of the number of atomic layers and applied magnetic field. Here, we image few-layer $\text{Cr}_2\text{Ge}_2\text{Te}_6$ using a combined scanning superconducting quantum interference device and atomic force microscopy probe. Maps of the material's stray magnetic field as a function of applied magnetic field reveal its magnetization per layer as well as the thickness-dependent magnetic texture. Using a micromagnetic model, we correlate measured stray-field patterns with the underlying magnetization configurations, including labyrinth domains and skyrmionic bubbles. Comparison between real-space images and simulations demonstrates that the layer dependence of the material's magnetic texture is a result of the thickness-dependent balance between crystalline and shape anisotropy. These findings represent an important step towards 2D spintronic devices with engineered spin configurations and controlled dependence on external magnetic fields.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, and supplementary informatio

A cleaner burning biomass-fuelled cookstove intervention to prevent pneumonia in children under 5 years old in rural Malawi (the Cooking and Pneumonia Study): a cluster randomised controlled trial

Medical Research Council, UK Department for International Development, and Wellcome Trust

Crop Updates 2003 - Cereals

This session covers twenty one papers from different authors: PLENARY 1. Recognising and responding to new market opportunities in the grains industry, Graham Crosbie, Manager, Grain Products Research, Crop Breeding, Plant Industries, Department of Agriculture 2. Stripe rust – where to now for the WA wheat industry? Robert Loughman1, Colin Wellings2 and Greg Shea11Department of Agriculture, 2University of Sydney Plant Breeding Institute, Cobbitty (on secondment from NSW Agriculture) 3. Benefits of a Grains Biosecurity Plan, Dr Simon McKirdy, Plant Health Australia, Mr Greg Shea, Department of Agriculture 4. Can we improve the drought tolerance of our crops? Neil C. Turner, CSIRO Plant Industry, Wembley 5. The silence of the lambing, Ross Kingwell, Department of Agriculture AGRONOMY AND VARIETIES 6. Maximising performance of wheat varieties, Brenda Shackley, Wal Anderson, Darshan Sharma, Mohammad Amjad, Steve Penny Jr, Melanie Kupsch, Anne Smith, Veronika Reck, Pam Burgess, Glenda Smith and Elizabeth Tierney, Department of Agriculture 7. Wheat variety performance in wet and dry, Peter Burgess 8. e-VarietyGuide for stripe rust – an updated version (1.02 – 2003), Moin Salam, Megan Collins, Art Diggle and Robert Loughman, Department of Agriculture 9. Baudin and Hamelin – new generation of malting barley developed in Western Australia, Blakely Paynter, Roslyn Jettner and Kevin Young, Department of Agriculture 10. Oaten hay production, Jocelyn Ball, Natasha Littlewood and Lucy Anderton, Department of Agriculture 11. Improving waterlogging tolerance in wheat and barley, Irene Waters and Tim Setter, Department of Agriculture 12. Broadscale variety comparisons featuring new wheat varieties, Jeff Russell, Department of Agriculture, Centre for Cropping Systems BIOTECHNOLOGY 13. Barley improvement in the Western Region – the intergration of biotechnologies, Reg Lance, Chengdao Li and Sue Broughton, Department of Agriculture 14. The Western Australian State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre – what we are and what we do, Michael Jones, WA State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, Murdoch University 15. Protein and DNA methods for variety identification, Dr Grace Zawko, Saturn Biotech Limited 16. The Centre for High-throughput Agricultural Genetic Analysis (CHAGA), Keith Gregg, CHAGA, Murdoch University NUTRITION 17. Potassium – topdressed, drilled or banded? Stephen Loss, Patrick Gethin, Ryan Guthrie, Daniel Bell, Wesfarmers CSBP 18. Liquid phosphorus fertilisers in WA, Stephen Loss, Frank Ripper, Ryan Guthrie, Daniel Bell and Patrick Gethin, Wesfarmers CSBP 19. Wheat nutrition in the high rainfall cropping zone, Narelle Hill1and Laurence Carslake2, 1Department of Agriculture, 2Wesfarmers Landmark PESTS AND DISEASES 20. Managenent options for root lesion nematode in West Australian cropping systems, Vivien Vanstone, Sean Kelly and Helen Hunter, Department of Agriculture STORAGE 21. Aeration can profit your grain enterprise, Christopher R. Newman, Department of Agricultur