Conversion to organic field vegetable production OF0126T

Despite a high and growing demand for organic vegetable UK growers have been slow to convert to organic production. One of the reasons has been the lack of data and information relating to the conversion period. This roject aims to rectify this by collecting and evaluating agronomic and econmic data from farms undergoing conversion to organic fiel vegetable production. A total of eleven farms are being monitored; one main site (Hunts Mill at HRI Wellesbourne) and 10 commercial reference farms. The results of these studies are being made available for farmers undergoing or considering conversion. The project if of direct relevance toDEFRA's objectives of encouraging organic production, of substituting imports, protecting the environment and providing a firm scientific base for policy decisions. The main conclusions from the first phase of the project (1996-2000) were that most farmers have managed the initial stages of their conversions to organic vegetable production satisfactorily. Growers' anticipated problems with pest, disease and weeds were found to be less serious than they had expected. Difficulties with soil management, however, have been on established organic farms, though the lower yields have often been offset by significant price premiums which have made overall financial returns competetive with comparable conventional crops. Many of the farmers have experienced a decline in Net Farm Income during the in-conversion period. The decline in income has been partly offset when there is the ability to claim organic aid and set aside payments on fertility building leys. Growers require a number of positive messages from policy makers and from the market to encourage them to make the decision to convert to organic production

Economics of organic fruit production (OF0151)

This is the final report of Defra project OF0151 Despite a very strong consumer demand for organic fruit, it is the least developed sector of the UK organic industry. The main constraint to growth in supply is the lack of organic fruit growers, especially those on a large enough scale to supply the wholesale, multiple and processing markets. The UK Organic Fruit Focus Group was set up in 1997 as a producer initiative to develop the market and production of UK organic fruit. At the first meeting of the group it was concluded that a) the absence of written technical information on how to grow organic fruit b) the lack of experienced advisors c) the lack of fruit and d) a lack of information on the economics of organic fruit were major barriers to grower confidence and hence expanding production. In June 1998 HDRA began a one year study into the Economics of Organic Fruit Production. The study aims to provide information on: • the size of the organic fruit market and potential for future growth • returns and costs of growing organic top and soft fruit Information for this study has been obtained through contact and visits to marketing organisations, fruit processors and growers. For information on the market major buyers of organic fruit have been contacted to ascertain quantities bought and market trends. In consultation with the ADAS Fruit Team and the Welsh Institute of Rural Studies, data collection forms were devised to enable full costing techniques (all costs allocated to different cost centres) to arrive at net margins and costs of producing organic fruit per hectare (acre), and per kg (lb). In determining the financial returns, average yields over a number of years (5-10) have been used rather than those related to a specific year and where necessary costs were related to those yields. Presently there are a very small number of specialised organic fruit growers, therefore the sample was small: dessert apples (5), culinary apples (3) pear growers (3), strawberry growers (5). It was not possible to find any commercial data from growers of other organic fruit. Case study data from these growers of apples, pears and strawberries were used to provide ‘best possible estimates’ for the physical and financial performance of these organic fruit enterprises. The general conclusions are that despite low (lower than conventional) and sometimes variable yields most organic fruit growers are currently able to generate economic returns. Profitability is related to current high prices (premiums of 60 100% over conventional) for fruit and ability to sell the whole crop to various outlets. Although individual costs differ the overall costs of production are similar between conventional and organic fruit. The profitability of organic fruit appears to be similar or greater than average conventional production. Break even budgets indicate that even if prices fell by approximately 20% then organic fruit production could still be profitable. Price premiums of approximately 40% are still required to enable organic fruit production to be profitable at current yields. Current price premiums offer potential economically profitable returns; however, conventional growers are reluctant to convert. To give growers confidence to take up the challenge of organic fruit production they need encouragement from government and industry in terms of continued aid to assist conversion, more money for research to improve the quantity and quality of economic data available, to improve production techniques, and finally, money to disseminate this information to growers. This report suggests that continued economic monitoring of converting and existing organic fruit farms should be undertaken. Fruit buyers should also encourage UK growers by offering them market incentives. Unless the UK organic fruit growers receive this encouragement, the majority of organic fruit may continue to be imported

Back-to-front Down-under? Part-time/Full-time Wage Differentials in Australia

In 2003, part-time employment in Australia accounted for over 42% of the Australian female workforce, nearly 17% of the male workforce, and represented 28% of total employment. Of the OECD countries, only the Netherlands has a higher proportion of working women employed part-time and Australia tops the OECD league in terms of its proportion of working men who are part-time. In this paper we investigate part-time full-time hourly wage gaps using important new panel data from the new Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find that the usual negative part-time wage penalty found in other countries is not found in Australia once unobserved individual heterogeneity has been taken into account. Instead, part-time men and women typically earn an hourly pay premium. This result survives our numerous robustness checks and we advance some hypotheses as to why there is a positive part-time pay premium.part-time, full-time; efficiency hours; gender

The use of mixed species cropping to manage pests and diseases – theory and practice

This paper was presented at the UK organic research 2002 on behalf of colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR). Mixed species cropping is often perceived as a viable tool to increase on-farm biodiversity in organic agriculture and is a potentially important component of any sustainable cropping system. Apart from increasing total farm productivity, mixed species cropping can bring many important benefits such as improvement of soil fertility management and suppression of pests and/or diseases. In this sense it can be seen as performing different eco-services in the farm system. This paper discusses mixed cropping in this context while focusing on its potential and actual use as a tool to manage pests and diseases in organic farming systems

Strength determination for band-loaded thin cylinders

Cylindrical shells are often subjected to local inward loads normal to the shell that arise over restricted zones. A simple axisymmetric example is that of the ring-loaded cylinder, in which an inward line load around the circumference causes either plasticity or buckling. The ring-loaded cylinder problem is highly relevant to shell junctions in silos, tanks and similar assemblies of shell segments. The band load is similar to the ring load in that a band of inward axisymmetric pressure is applied over a finite height: when the height is very small, the situation approaches the ring loaded case: when the height is very large, it approaches the uniformly pressurised case. This paper first thoroughly explores the two limiting cases of plastic collapse and linear bifurcation buckling, which must both be fully defined before a complete description of the non-linear and imperfection sensitive strengths of such shells can be described within the framework of the European standard for shells EN 1993-1-6 (2007). Finally, the application of the Reference Resistance Design (RRD) over the complete range of geometries for the perfect structure is shown using the outcome of the limiting cases. (EN1993-1-6, 2007; Rotter, 2016a; 2016b; Sadowski et al., 2017)

Population ageing, taxation, pensions and health costs, CHERE Working Paper 2007/10

This paper argues against the policy position that begins with a doomsday scenario of publicly provided health insurance and pension systems threatened with collapse under the stresses imposed by population ageing, and instead contends that the threat of crisis in these systems is policy driven. The central thesis of the paper is that a range of policies lead to the creation of an ageing crisis by inhibiting the efficient reallocation of female labour from the home to the market in response to the decline in fertility. The analysis focuses on family support policies that create large effective tax burdens on female labour supply, by means testing the support on family income, or selectively on the second income. Examples include Family Tax Benefit Part A and Part B, the Medicare Levy and the Medicare Safety Net. The analysis draws on household survey data to show that female labour supply is strongly positively associated with household saving, the purchase of private health insurance and spending on family health generally. Policies that inhibit female labour supply therefore have the effect of reducing the tax base for funding public pensions and health care, while simultaneously reducing the capacity of families to fund them privately.life cycle, health costs, pensions, household taxation

Unjuk Kerja Computed Tomography (CT) - Scan Optik Menggunakan Laser Diode 625 nm

Rekonstruksi citra dengan metode proyeksi balik hasil unjuk kerja CT Scan Optik telah dilakukan. Rancang-bangun ini merupakan prototipe awal sistem CT-Scan Optik, sebagai alternatif pengganti alat CT (Computed tomography) Scan yang saat ini banyak digunakan dalam dunia kedokteran. Sistem ini menggunakan sepasang laser diode 625 nm sebagi sumber berkas cahaya dan fotodioda sebagai detektor. Phantom (benda uji) yang digunakan adalah sebuah media silinder transparasi dengan di dalamnya ada dua gabus persegipanjang dan segitiga. Proses akuisisi data dilakukan dengan menjatuhkan berkas laser dioda ke phantom dan selanjutnya berjas yang lewat mengenainya dideteksi oelh fotodioda. Untuk menghasilkan data proyeksi pada setiap sudut, phantom digerakkan secar translasi dan rotasi. Proses akuisisi data dan gerak mekanik phantom secara keseluruhan dikontrol oleh komputer dengan program Delphi. Citra tomografi optik direkonstruksi dengan menggunakan program MATLAB. Dalam makalah ini metode rekonstruksi citra proyeksi balik diterapkan sebagai metode yang paling sederhana. Hasil rekonstruksi menunjukkan bahwa citra tomografi optik mirip dengan suatu tampang lintang phantom aslinya meskipun masih nampak kabur. Hasil yang diperoleh telah sesuai dengan standart teknik tomografi konvensional dan menjanjikan untuk dikembangkan lebih lanjut untuk aplikasi kedokteran dan atau dunia industri

Comparison of Machine Learning Algorithms for Modeling Species Distributions: Application to Stream Invertebrates from Western USA Reference Sites

Machine learning algorithms are increasingly being used by ecologists to model and predict the distributions of individual species and entire assemblages of sites. Accurate prediction of distribution of species is an important factor in any modeling. We compared prediction accuracy of four machine learning algorithms-random forests, classification trees, support vector machines, and gradient boosting machines to a traditional method, linear discriminant models (LDM), on a large set of stream invertebrate data collected at 728 reference sites in the western United States. Classifications were constructed for individual species and for assemblages of sites clustered a priori by similarity on biological characteristics. Predictive accuracy of the classifications was evaluated by computing the percent of sites correctly classified, sensitivity, specificity, kappa, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve on 10-fold crossvalidated predictions from each classification method on each individual species and assemblage of sites. The predictions from each type of classification were used to estimate the Observed over Expected (O/E) index of taxa richness. Random Forests generally produced the most accurate individual species models . However, none of the machine learning algorithms showed significant improvement over LDMs for classifications of assemblages of sites and precision of the O/E index. The performance of Support Vector Machines was particularly poor for classifying individual species and assemblages of sites, and resulted in greater bias in the O/E index. We believe that the performance of models developed for species at such large spatial scales may depend more on the predictor variables available than the classification technique