Strategies to improve quality and safety and reduce cost of peroduction in organic and low-input crop production systems

Organic crop production seeks to produce high quality foods while reducing the inputs in order to promote environmental quality and conserve resources. This necessitates optimal production systems in terms of soil fertility and plant health. Studies in QLIF subproject 3 have shown that soils may gain an improved potential to release N from badded amendments through adaptation of management practices. Likewise, long-term management strategies may influence suppressiveness of soils to economically important diseases. Application of manures and other organic soil fertility inputs do not pose any additional safety risk in ready-to-eat vegetables, such as head lettuce, if good farming practice is applied. Even under experimental worst-case conditions, pathogen transfer from soil treated with farmyard manure to vegetables was not substantial. Pest and disease control was studied both at seed and field levels, and it was shown, e.g., that ß-amino-butyric acid was efficient in controlling downy mildew in lettuce under field conditions. Finally, for organic wheat production systems, an integrated assessment indicated that yields and protein contents can be increased by improved cultivar choice and fertility management regimes promoting biological N fixation in the soil

Strategies to improve quality and safety and reduce cost of production in organic and low-input crop production systems. QLIF subproject 3: Crop production methods

Organic crop production seeks to produce high quality foods while reducing the inputs in order to promote environmental quality and conserve resources. This necessitates optimal production systems in terms of soil fertility and plant health. Studies in QLIF subproject 3 have shown that soils may gain an improved potential to release N from added amendments through adaptation of management practices. Likewise, long-term management strategies may influence suppressiveness of soils to economically important diseases. Application of manures and other organic soil fertility inputs do not pose any additional safety risk in ready-to-eat vegetables, such as head lettuce, if good farming practice is applied. Even under experimental worst-case conditions, pathogen transfer from soil treated with farmyard manure to vegetables was not substantial. Pest and disease control was studied both at seed and field levels, and it was shown, e.g., that ß-amino-butyric acid was efficient in controlling downy mildew in lettuce under field conditions. Finally, for organic wheat production systems, an integrated assessment indicated that yields and protein contents can be increased by improved cultivar choice and fertility management regimes promoting biological N fixation in the soil

The Effect of Poverty on the Health of Newborn Children – Evidence from Germany

This paper analyses the association between health outcomes of newborn children and mother’s poverty status during pregnancy.We use a new questionnaire accompanying the GSOEP which collects abundant information on health outcomes. The findings indicate that there is generally no effect from poverty to health, except on the probability of preterm birth. Furthermore,we find some indication of intergenerational transmission of health status.Poverty, child birth, doctor visits

System failures in public sector innovation support measures: The case of Estonian innovation system and dairy industry

The external and internal context of the firms is influenced by governmental interventions. For a long time the discussion over government interventions to the market processes and economic environment has taken place. It is accepted by different researchers including supporters of social market economy that some interventions are necessary to create general framework for and achieve desirable outcomes of economic processes through laws, regulations etc. There are different approaches discussing whether and how strongly government should intervene. Reasons for and circumstances in what public sector should intervene and weather the intervention itself creates additional failures or not have mainly been rested on two concepts: market and system failures (Edler, Georghiou 2007: 952). --Innovation Molkereiindustrie,Estland

Does Money Buy Higher Schooling? Evidence from Secondary School Track Choice in Germany

The German schooling system selects children into different secondary school tracks already at a very early stage in life. School track choice heavily influences choices and opportunities later in life. It has often been observed that secondary schooling achievements display a strong correlation with parental income.We use sibling fixed effects models and information on a natural experiment in order to analyze whether this correlation is due to a causal effect of income or due to unobservable factors that themselves might be correlated across generations. Our main findings suggest that income has no positive causal effect on school choice and that differences between high- and low-income households are driven by unobserved heterogeneity, e.g. differences in motivation.Child poverty, educational attainment, secondary schools, sibling differences, natural experiment

Could phosphite be a new fungicide for organic farming?

Quote from the article "Potassium phosphite, also called «phosphonate», is a salt of phosphonic acid with the formula K2HPO3. It should not be confounded with phosphates, nor with the organophosphorous insecticides which are also called «phosphonates». Potassium phosphite can be used as a fungicide against oomycetes in various crops. In the early 1990ies, it was extensively tested on organically grown grapevines in Switzerland. It was effective against downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola), and blocked the disease up to 3 days after infection. Phosphite was mobile and very persistent in plants and could be detected in grapes harvested one year after the last application. Analyses of 53 wine samples reveiled that the treatment inevitably leads to phosphite residues in wine, usually ranging between 5000 – 10000 ppb phosphite. Phosphite residues were also found in other crops (e.g. potato, celery) treated with potassium phosphonate. From a toxicological point of view, these residues are of no concern. However, consumers of organic wine expect to buy a «natural» product, and we assume that they would not approve the presence of such quantities of fungicide residues in organic wine. Currently, potassium phosphonate is not authorized as a fungicide for organic farming in the EU, and we do not recommend its use in the future”

The Impact of a Large Parental Leave Benefit Reform on the Timing of Birth around the Day of Implementation

The introduction of the German parental leave benefit (Elterngeld) applied to all children born on January 1st, 2007 or later. The new Elterngeld considerably changed the amount of transfers to families during the first two years postpartum. We show that the incentives created by using a cut-off date led more than 1000 parents to postpone the delivery of their children from December 2006 to January 2007. Besides analyzing the timing of delivery the paper focuses on potential adverse health outcomes of children affected by the shift in date of birth.Cut-off date effect, fertility, policy evaluation