Exploring the Determinants of Aspects of Rotational Grazing in the U.S. Great Plains

Pasture and rangeland make up about 45 percent of the agricultural land in the U.S. Great Plains and one of the most common form of mismanagement of this pasture is overgrazing. Which results in many detrimental effects on environment. Many practitioners endorsed Rotational grazing (RG) as an improved grazing management practice over season-long continuous grazing. The overall goal of the current study is to assess the certain aspects of using RG in the U.S. Great Plains. Using mail survey data of the of 874 beef cattle producers of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas, the study found that neighborhood practice, government agencies, education, and slope of a land significantly affect nonadopters perceived benefits of RG practices. The results of the study further reveal that adopters with a higher proportion of grassland, less liability ratio, a lower share of leased land, and located relatively less steep sloped land generally perceive higher benefits from RG practices. The results of the study also indicate that the RG adopters who received cost share generally have higher proportion of grassland, higher ranch income ratio, fewer adoption years, put higher importance to the university extensions as information source, operate an increased proportion of land with LCC I and II, and located further north to the study region. The results from ordered logistic regression model further indicate that producers are more willing to adopt RG practices in the future with different subsidy amounts those who had more farming experiences, had less grassland acreage, and more liability ratio, emphasize the importance of university extensions, neighboring farms adopted the practices in their region. Furthermore, those who perceive lower initial investment and maintenance costs, and located further west/arid region of the study region are more likely to accept subsidy amount to adopt the practices. Our findings suggest that perceived benefits of RG could vary for producers with different ranch characteristics and regional factors and non-adopters with the aforementioned characteristics may be a suitable target group for public fund investment. Therefore, ranch characteristics, regional factors, non-adopters’ characteristics should be considered in future research and outreach programs formulate the incentive levels required to successfully promote the adoption of RG practices in the U.S. Great Plains

Market Access of Bangladesh’s Jute in the Global Market: Present Status and Future Prospects

Among the export items of Bangladesh, prior to the advent of garments, jute occupied third important place after fish, shrimp and prawn. The awareness and demand of jute products is increasing in both international and domestic market which creates the opportunity for Bangladesh’s jute again. The study aims to analysis the comparative growth and development of jute production of Bangladesh with other major jute producing countries to avail the opportunities of jute growing demand in the world market. The results indicate that both world jute production and production area has decreased with fluctuating trend over the period. The total production of jute and yield of Bangladesh has increased with fluctuating trend, whereas the cultivation area of jute has decreased slightly with fluctuating trend over the period. At the end, the paper made number of recommendations for the growth and development of jute production of Bangladesh. Keywords: Area, Bangladesh, Jute, Production, Yield, Growth.

An Evaluation of the Trade Relations of Bangladesh with ASEAN: Justification of Being a Future Member

The government of Bangladesh wants to reduce the dependency of export from West by creating new market to East and South East Asian countries. The paper aims to evaluate the present trade performance of Bangladesh with ASEAN countries and to provide the strategies to develop this trade relationship. The data of export and import of Bangladesh with ASEAN countries has been analysed for the period 1999-2010 in this study. The study has used financial ratio, percentage, mean, growth, covariance, and hypothesis test etc. for analysis of data and drawing inferences. Our results indicate that the growth rates of export are fluctuating but increasing positively and the average growth rate of export is 16%. The average import from ASEAN is 16%, while the average export to ASEAN is only 1.6%. The growth rates of trade deficit are positive with increasing trend and the average growth rate of trade deficit to ASEAN is 18%. The export-import ratio of Bangladesh with ASEAN countries is steady with fluctuating trend and the average export-import ratio to ASEAN countries is 0.06 but the total export–import ratio of Bangladesh is 0.57, which is much higher. To improve the country’s overall trade balance, especially trade balance with ASEAN countries some policy recommendations are offered in this paper. Keywords: ASEAN, Export, Import, Export-Import Ratio, Trade Deficit

SmallSat Images Need Closed-Form Method for Atmospheric Correction (CMAC)

A new method to correct any satellite to surface reflectance is undergoing completion to be ready for commercial release in two years. The method applies a conceptual model based on observations of the change in reflectance caused by atmospheric transmission and uses only scene statistics to correct images in near real-time