17,945 research outputs found
VIRGINIA FARMERS' SOIL CONSERVATION DECISIONS: AN APPLICATION OF TOBIT ANALYSIS
Using data from a survey of farm operators in two Virginia counties, the authors analyze farmers' soil conservation decisions. Results indicate that financial factors, including income and debt, are the most important influences on the sample farmers' use of conservation practices. Additional factors such as perception of erosion, education level, off-farm employment, and tenancy also influence conservation expenditures. Factors influencing conservation tillage acreage differ from those influencing expenditures for other conservation practices. In particular, age and race of the operator and on-farm erosion potential are significantly related to the use of conservation tillage but not other practices. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for conservation programs.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi People and their Neighbours
The Kamilaroi people and their neighbours, the Euahlayi, Ngemba, and
Murrawarri, are an Aboriginal cultural grouping located in the northwest and
north central of New South Wales. They have a rich history, but have been
missed in much of the literature concerned with sky knowledge in culture. This
study collected stories, some of which have not previously been reported in an
academic format, from Aboriginal people practicing their culture, augmented
with stories from the literature, and analysed the data to create a database of
sky knowledge that will be added to the larger body of Aboriginal cultural
knowledge in Australia. We found that there is a strong sky culture reflected
in the stories, and we also explored the stories for evidence of an
ethnoscientific approach to knowledge of the sky.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure
SETTING THE ANIMAL WASTE MANAGEMENT POLICY CONTEXT
Livestock Production/Industries,
Orientations of linear stone arrangements in New South Wales
We test the hypothesis that Aboriginal linear stone arrangements in New South
Wales (NSW) are oriented to cardinal directions. We accomplish this by
measuring the azimuths of stone arrangements described in site cards from the
NSW Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System. We then survey a subset
of these sites to test the accuracy of information recorded on the site cards.
We find a preference recorded in the site cards for cardinal orientations among
azimuths. The field surveys show that the site cards are reasonably accurate,
but the surveyors probably did not correct for magnetic declinations. Using
Monte Carlo statistics, we show that these preferred orientations did not occur
by chance and that Aboriginal people deliberately aligned these arrangements to
the approximate cardinal directions. We briefly explore possible reasons for
these preferred orientations and highlight the need for future work.Comment: Australian Archaeology, Volume 75 (December 2012), accepte
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