Data reveals how organic costs compare with those for conventional production

Organic Centre Wales, supported by Farming Connect, is benchmarking organic dairy, beef and sheep enterprises. The results provide a good basis for understanding the financial contribution of individual enterprises to the farm business, as well as a better basis for price setting. This article presents organic and conventional milk, beef and lamb production costs and net margins for 2004/05

Mixed valence on a pyrochlore lattice - LiV2O4 as a geometrically frustrated magnet

Above 40K, the magnetic susceptibility of the heavy Fermion spinel LiV2O4 has many features in common with those of geometrically frustrated magnetic insulators, while its room temperature resistivity comfortably exceeds the Mott-Regel limit. This suggests that local magnetic moments, and the underlying geometry of the pyrochlore lattice, play an important role in determining its magnetic properties. We extend a recently introduced tetragonal mean field theory for insulating pyrochlore antiferromagnets to the case where individual tetrahedra contain spins of different lengths, and use this as a starting point to discuss three different scenarios for magnetic and electronic transitions in LiV2O4.Comment: 15 pages latex, 12 eps figures, uses EPJ macro

“He was my best subaltern#8221;: The Life and Death of Lieutenant Herrick S. Duggan, 70th Field Company, Royal Engineers

At 0400 hours on 21 October 1915, 24 year–old First Lieutenant Herrick “Heck” Stevenson Duggan died of wounds in Béthune, France. One of the 61,000 casualties suffered by the British Army during its failed Loos offensive (25 September to 19 October 1915), Herrick differed from the vast majority of the dead and wounded because he was Canadian, not British. Based primarily on correspondence between Herrick Duggan and his family during the years 1913–15, this article explores Duggan’s life and experiences leading up to, and during, the Great War. In doing so it examines how the “war to end all wars” impacted one Canadian and his family, as well as exploring the nature of British society during the early years of the war. Indeed, Duggan’s letters are a valuable source for understanding the social and military aspects of the Great War. Duggan was a candid and observant writer who held little back. He was not afraid to tender criticism and concern about the Allied war effort and objectives—not to mention government figures—when he felt it was necessary to do so. Furthermore, he was often quite open with his own feelings and emotions with regard to the position in which he found himself

Development of organic farming Europe – implications for Agenda 2000. Paper presented to Soil Association seminar, Organic Farming and Agenda 2000 CAP Reform, Highgrove, 18th February 1999

Organic farming is increasingly recognised, by consumers, farmers, environmentalists and policy-makers, as one of a number of possible models for environmental, social and financial sustainability in agriculture. It has taken a long time to get this far. Organic farming’s roots can be traced back more than 100 years. Certified organic production dates back 25-30 years (70 years in the case of Demeter-certified bio-dynamic production). Yet little more than one percent of agriculture in Europe is organic, and much less than that in other parts of the world. Many have argued that organic farming will never capture the hearts and minds of the majority of farmers, because it is too idealistic and restrictive. What is needed, they argue, is an intermediate approach, such as integrated crop management or an ill-specified ‘low-input’ or ‘sustainable’ agriculture that is not as ‘extreme’ as organic farming and is therefore more likely to be acceptable to the majority of farmers. Policy-makers face a difficult choice. Should they encourage more organic farming, which, as research increasingly demonstrates, often offers more environmental and other benefits than the intermediate approaches, but is believed to be only a minority interest? Or should they encourage the intermediate approaches, which, although the environmental benefits are more limited, may be adopted by more farmers, with possibly greater overall impact? This paper discuses the growth of organic farming in Europe, the potential and pre-conditions for widespread conversion, integraed action plans and the policy challenge for farmers

A Preliminary Analysis of SACMEQ III South Africa

The many and varied links between student socio-economic status and educational outcomes have been well documented in the South African economics of education literature. The strong legacy of apartheid and the consequent correlation between education and wealth have meant that, generally speaking, poorer students perform worse academically. The present study uses the recent Southern and East African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ III) dataset for South Africa to identify those factors that have a significant effect on student maths and reading performance in Grade 6. The research confirms previous findings that socio-economic status, and particularly school socioeconomic status, is important when understanding student success or failure. Other factors which contribute significantly to student performance are homework frequency, preschool education, and the availability of reading textbooks. In contrast, teacher-subject knowledge was found to have only a modest impact on Grade 6 student performance. Policy interventions are also highlighted. The study concludes that South Africa is still a tale of two schools: one which is wealthy, functional and able to educate students, while the other is poor, dysfunctional, and unable to equip students with the necessary numeracy and literacy skills they should be acquiring in primary school. Nevertheless, it suggests that there are some options available to policy-makers which are expected to have a positive effect on student performance.SACMEQ, South Africa, primary education, education, education production function, education policy, economics of education