Organic Dairy Farming

The technical guide addresses the issues relevant to the organic dairy sector sector, acknowledging the questions that are frequently directed to the technical ‘Helpline’ of Organic Centre Wales. It is intended as a guide document for those with an interest in organic dairy production and points the way to those who wish to look in greater depth at the issues raised. This guide is in three interrelated parts. The first part, written principally by Richard Weller of IGER, deals primarily with technical issues of grassland and dairy herd management, and provides practical information for dairy farmers on key factors influencing the performance of the system and also provides options for changing to alternative strategies. It draws heavily on studies at carried out at IGER’s organic dairy farm, Ty Gwyn, which have been conducted over a number of years and funded by a number of awards. Ty Gwyn is a Farming Connect Organic Development Farm and is frequently used to demonstrate good practice. Part 2 is a review of the financial performance of dairy farming in Wales is provided by Andrew Jackson, of the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth. It is based mainly on two DEFRA funded studies: • Data for organic farms extracted from the main Farm Business Survey in Wales • A four year project focusing specifically on organic farms, drawing on all Farm Business Survey data collected for organic farms across England and Wales as well as independently collected data. From these data, it is possible to derive whole farm income data, gross margin and cost of production data to give an overview of the economics of organic dairy farming in Wales for the latest recorded financial periods (2004/05). The third and final part consists of 2 farmer case studies, which put many of the issues discussed in parts 1 and 2 in the context of individual farm businesses. We are grateful for the co-operation of the Fordham and Ridge families

Proofing rural lifeling learning

The countryside covers 85% of England’s land surface and the people who live and work in it comprise one fifth of the population. Yet in lifelong learning discourse, (as so often elsewhere) the countryside rarely receives much specific attention as the focus for elaboration and critique of policy. This Occasional Paper builds on a recent ‘rural proofing’ study undertaken for the Countryside Agency, which reviewed the application of government lifelong learning policies in, and their implications for, rural areas. In particular it attempted to identify and examine existing evidence for differential impacts of lifelong learning policies for rural people and businesses compared to their urban counterparts. The Countryside Agency study shows how little attention has to date been paid specifically to rural aspects of lifelong learning policy. It emphasises well known and long standing problems of access to learning opportunity, to do with inadequate and localised provision within a dispersed population, which are exacerbated by poor transport, concealed poverty (and other dimensions of social exclusion) and (for vocational training) by the specific difficulties faced by small rural enterprises. Beyond this, however, it confirms how little information exists regarding rural needs and uptake, which might allow such problems to be addressed in policy terms. It argues that existing research activities, (for example those of the Centre for the Wider benefits of Learning) should accommodate the rural dimension. In particular, local plans of the 47 regional Learning and Skills Councils (LSC) currently in production should be monitored to see to what extent they take the rural dimension into account, and how. It asserts that Non Departmental Public Bodies outside DfES (including Defra funded agencies such as the Countryside Agency) also have a role to play, in incorporating lifelong learning into their own policies (in the case of the CA especially within protected landscapes which are the focus of a number of new initiatives related to sustainable rural governance). Alongside these conclusions, however, lie other considerations. Neither lifelong learning nor rural proofing are unproblematic categories. This paper examines some of the political and ideological assumptions and constructs which underpin the categories of ‘lifelong learning’ and ‘rural proofing’. It argues that rural proofing (a government commitment to subjecting all its policies to scrutiny for rural relevance or bias) needs to reflect on its own assumptions as well as recognise contested paradigms of lifelong learning (as an umbrella term for all post school ‘adult learning’). It argues that the distinction between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ needs to be mapped onto contested paradigms of lifelong learning, and, with them, seen in an historical context. Within New Labour, lifelong learning and rural governance are both subsets of a broader agenda that has to do with entrepreneurship and competitiveness; economic well-being and environmental quality; social inclusion, citizenship, civic participation and social engagement. It concludes that the new administrative and funding structures of lifelong learning may permit a closer strategic focus on perceived regional needs, particularly those to do with skills and employment. However they are unlikely to encourage a revival and re-focusing of non-vocational (and especially non-formal) learning opportunities. Moreover to the degree that the emphasis on widening participation and social inclusion may secure access to work for some, they do little in themselves to address structural problems of rural inequality and poverty. Current instrumental trends in lifelong learning are closely focused on perceived ‘human capital’ requirements but do not necessarily take into account the specific requirements either of rural enterprises or of the diversity of rural people and their needs. Any radical developments in rural areas will need to be part of a new rural settlement in which longstanding social and economic problems of rural areas are addressed

Oral health beliefs and behaviors of nurse and nurse practitioner students using the HU-DBI inventory: An opportunity for oral health vicarious learning

Background: Oral health access to care issues are resulting in curricular changes to train nursing students as oral health educators and providers. However, little data are available concerning their personal oral health beliefs/behaviors. The study purpose was to gather information from nurse and nurse practitioner students regarding their oral health beliefs and behaviors. Methods: Using the Hiroshima University Dental Behavioural Inventory (HU-DBI), survey data were gathered from nurse and nurse practitioner students as well as dental hygiene students as controls concerning their oral health beliefs and behaviors. Results: Mean HU-DBI scores were higher among nurse practitioner than nursing students, indicating more positive beliefs/behaviors, but both were lower than dental hygiene students. Both nurse and nurse practitioner students reported significantly fewer dental visits and some poorer hygiene practices than controls. Additionally, nursing students were more likely to believe that their teeth were worsening despite brushing. Conclusions: Assessment of personal oral health beliefs/behaviors should occur early in nursing education with mentoring so that optimal modeling can positively impact patients’ oral health. Oral health education opportunities within and among disciplines are discussed

Data catalog series for space science and applications flight missions. Volume 3B: Descriptions of data sets from low- and medium-altitude scientific spacecraft and investigations

The main purpose of the data catalog series is to provide descriptive references to data generated by space science flight missions. The data sets described include all of the actual holdings of the Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), all data sets for which direct contact information is available, and some data collections held and serviced by foreign investigators, NASA and other U.S. government agencies. This volume contains narrative descriptions of data sets from low and medium altitude scientific spacecraft and investigations. The following spacecraft series are included: Mariner, Pioneer, Pioneer Venus, Venera, Viking, Voyager, and Helios. Separate indexes to the planetary and interplanetary missions are also provided

Television image compression and small animal remote monitoring

It was shown that a subject can reliably discriminate a difference in video image quality (using a specific commercial product) for image compression levels ranging from 384 kbits per second to 1536 kbits per second. However, their discriminations are significantly influenced by whether or not the TV camera is stable or moving and whether or not the animals are quiescent or active, which is correlated with illumination level (daylight versus night illumination, respectively). The highest video rate used here was 1.54 megabits per second, which is about 18 percent of the so-called normal TV resolution of 8.4MHz. Since this video rate was judged to be acceptable by 27 of the 34 subjects (79 percent), for monitoring the general health and status of small animals within their illuminated (lights on) cages (regardless of whether the camera was stable or moved), it suggests that an immediate Space Station Freedom to ground bandwidth reduction of about 80 percent can be tolerated without a significant loss in general monitoring capability. Another general conclusion is that the present methodology appears to be effective in quantifying visual judgments of video image quality

Trade, standards, and the political economy of genetically modified food

A common-agency lobbying model is developed to help understand why North America and the European Union have adopted such different policies toward genetically modified (GM) food. Results show that when firms (in this case farmers) lobby policy makers to influence standards and consumers and environmentalists care about the choice of standard, it is possible that increased competition from abroad can lead to strategic incentives to raise standards, not just lower them as shown in earlier models. We show that differences in comparative advantage in the adoption of GM crops may be sufficient to explain the trans-Atlantic difference in GM policies. On the one hand, farmers in a country with a comparative advantage in GM technology can gain a strategic cost advantage by lobbying for lax controls on GM production and usage at home and abroad. On the other hand, when faced with greater competition, the optimal response of farmers in countries with a comparative disadvantage in GM adoption may be to lobby for more-stringent GM standards. Thus it is rational for producers in the EU (whose relatively small farms would enjoy less gains from the new biotechnology than broad-acre American farms) to reject GM technologies if that enables them and/or consumer and environmental lobbyists to argue for restraints on imports from GM-adopting countries. This theoretical proposition is supported by numerical results from a global general equilibrium model of GM adoption in America without and with an EU moratorium.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Health Economics&Finance