Sustainability and Production Costs in the Global Farming Sector: Comparative Analysis and Methodologies

This report constitutes a comprehensive compilation and synthesis of the principle issues and outcomes of the joint Institute for prospective Technological Studies / Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development workshop on "Sustainability and Production Costs in the Global Farming Sector: Comparative Analysis and Methodologies" held in Brussels between 21-22 June 2011. Gathering a range of international experts and specialists in the field of production costs analysis and development, covering a range of strategic agricultural sectors of global importance, the workshop aimed to review methodologies and approaches to calculating production costs used in various sectors nationally and globally, with emphasis on exploring the applicability for effective international comparisons. A special attention was given to the methodologies and approaches for data collection and processing, factor market structure and policy inter-linkages, sectoral coverage, horizontal technical issues, and the implications for global agricultural markets. Based on the participant deliberations and discussions, a number of practically based policy recommendations towards achieving such comparisons were highlighted. The production of this report, following completion of the workshop, has been the responsibility of the IPTS. This task has been facilitated through collaboration with four internationally recognised experts (Folkhard Isermeyer, von Thünen-Institute, Germany (Chapter 2), Dan L. Cunningham, University of Georgia, USA (Chapter 3), Jean-François Garnier, ARVALIS, France (Chapter 4), Ashok K. Mishra, Louisiana State University, USA (Chapter 5)) acting as rapporteurs for each of the workshop's four technical sessions, whose efforts in capturing the principle issues and outcomes of their respective session has been instrumental towards realisation of this report. Stephen Langrell, Pavel Ciaian and Sergio Gomez y Paloma acted as Editors and compiled Chapters 1 and 6. This report constitutes a particular and comprehensive technical overview of the state of production costs calculations for the sectors under consideration at global level, and a consideration of the prospects for effective international comparison. It reviews methodologies applied for production costs calculation at national and global level followed by the discussion on methodologies used for animal and arable crop sectors. Finally, the report discusses horizontal issues related to production costs calculations. The report closes with policy-relevant conclusions as a basis for policy recommendations. It is envisaged that this report will provide a valuable source of technical and conceptual information for on-going policy considerations, both at EU and third country/international level.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

More Obstacles for the Graduate Student Author: Open Access ETDs Trigger Plagiarism Detectors

Supporting graduate students as authors is one of the many services we provide at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan (USask). Graduate students often submit articles to journals based on content from their electronic theses or dissertations (ETDs). Recently, we have noticed an increase in the number of such article submissions being flagged for possible rejection on “plagiarism” or “prior publication” grounds. We suspect this may be because plagiarism detection software is increasingly being integrated into publishers’ article submission systems. This software is triggered by the existence of the student’s open access (OA) ETD in our institutional repository. This happens despite OA ETD inclusion in repositories being a common practice and despite journal policies often allowing submission of articles based on ETDs. We review common practices and guidelines around publishing of ETD content, two recent cases of journals initially rejecting such submissions by graduate student authors of our institution, and our reflections on this issue and how to address it

The role of the Eurasian wheat belt to regional and global food security

Food security remains to be a major societal concern. In the light of the current expectations of population growth, world food production has to be massively increased to sustain the associated food demand rise. While agricultural productivity was rising during recent decades in the US, Europe and also in some developing countries, the corresponding growth rates lately appeared to be slowing down. In fact, the only world region with a significant amount of arable land, which currently is not under cultivation and which at the same time is, moreover, experiencing rising productivity figures, is the so called 'Eurasian wheat belt', comprising of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian countries, namely Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kirgizstan. In this light, the Joint Research Centre and the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development organized a thematic workshop, held during 20 – 22 May 2014 in Istanbul/Turkey, set up to bring experts on the matter together and to discuss to what extent these countries could play a role for regional and international food security. Following the workshop analysis and discussion, this report provides a comprehensive technical overview of the wheat production, and the main factors to achieve full production potential across the Eurasian wheat belt with regards to national, regional and global issues of cereal supply and food security in evolving global markets. It reviews key horizontal issues, such as land policy, credit and finance, privatization, farm structures, social consequences of transition, environmental challenges, against the backdrop of agrarian reforms implemented during the transition period. In addition the report explores production potential and corresponding institutional and policy restrictions in a series of Eurasian countries. Finally, the report closes with expert opined policy-relevant conclusions as a basis for policy suggestions and recommendations.JRC.J.4-Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Econom

Rapid nested PCR-based detection of Ramularia collo-cygni direct from barley

International audienc

Mandatory Integrated Pest Management in the European Union: Experimental insights on consumers' reactions

A realistic experiment with 189 French consumers was conducted to analyse consumers\u27 reaction to the transition towards Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as the standard in European farming. Results indicate high substitutability between IPM and organic tomatoes. It suggests IPM sales will benefit from the withdrawal of conventional products from the market only if there is a significant reduction in the price of IPM products as compared to organic ones and/or an important increase in the shelf space dedicated to IPM products. While information on IPM guidelines increases IPM products purchases, providing extra information on residue levels in IPM tomatoes has no further impact on consumers\u27 choices in this experiment

How copyright impedes creativity and learning, and how Canadian Media Studies communities can take action

Open access. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0) applie

Genetic signatures of variation in population size in a native fungal pathogen after the recent intensive plantation of its host tree

Historical fluctuations in forests’ distribution driven by past climate changes and anthropogenic activities can have large impacts on the demographic history of pathogens that have a long co-evolution history with these host trees. Using a population genetic approach, we investigated that hypothesis by reconstructing the demographic history of Armillaria ostoyae, one of the major pathogens of the maritime pine (Pinus pinaster), in the largest monospecific pine planted forest in Europe (south-western France). Genetic structure analyses and approximate Bayesian computation approaches revealed that a single pathogen population underwent a severe reduction in effective size (12 times lower) 1080–2080 generations ago, followed by an expansion (4 times higher) during the last 4 generations. These results are consistent with the history of the maritime pine forest in the region characterized by a strong recession during the last glaciation (~19 000 years ago) and massive plantations during the second half of the nineteenth century. Results suggest that recent and intensive plantations of a host tree population have offered the opportunity for a rapid spread and adaptation of their pathogens

Molecular phylogeny, detection and epidemiology of Nectria canker (Nectria Galligena Bres.)

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN030271 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo