Chaque jour, les professionnels de la santé doivent prendre des décisions dans des environnements complexes où s'affrontent de multiples normes qu'il n'est pas toujours facile de départager ni de mettre au clair afin de prendre une décision éclairée. Pourtant, les modèles de prise de décision dont disposent actuellement les éthiciens cliniques ou les comités de bioéthique comportent souvent des lacunes lorsqu'il s'agit d'aborder des problèmes à plusieurs niveaux (micro, méso et macro). Les décisions reposent ainsi trop souvent sur l'intuition plutôt (...) que sur une démarche systématique rigoureuse et facilement reproductible. Afin de pallier la situation, cet ouvrage fournit des outils théoriques et pratiques facilitant la prise de décision. Fondé sur l'étude collective d'un cas complexe ayant trait aux dimensions tragiques des choix éthiques en fin de vie (doit-on ou non administrer un médicament coûteux pour le traitement d'un cancer au stade avancé?), il réunit les contributions de plusieurs experts reconnus travaillant dans le système de santé (cliniciens, éthiciens, chercheurs, gestionnaires et décideurs publics). En raison de l'actualité des enjeux qui y sont traités et de la qualité des textes qui y sont rassemblés, cet ouvrage sera un outil pédagogique efficace pour les étudiants, les enseignants et les professionnels de la santé et aura certainement une incidence importante sur le mode de prestation des soins. (shrink)

In July 1993, the Scottish Highlands Centre for Human Caring sponsored a conference with the title Exploring the Spirituality in Caring. The papers given at the conference and included in this volume are offered as a contribution to the debate that must take place in nursing and in the wider context of health care provision. Ann Bradshaw's paper puts the debate in context arguing that nursing is fundamentally a loving response to the human being created in the image of God.

"Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked," the editors of The Economist recently observed, "few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself." Indeed, the financial crisis that crested in 2008 destroyed the credibility of the economic thinking that had guided policymakers for a generation. But what will take its place? In How the Economy Works, one of our leading economists provides a jargon-free exploration of the current crisis, offering a powerful argument for how economics must (...) change to get us out of it. Roger E. A. Farmer traces the swings between classical and Keynesian economics since the early twentieth century, gracefully explaining the elements of both theories. During the Great Depression, Keynes challenged the longstanding idea that an economy was a self-correcting mechanism; but his school gave way to a resurgence of classical economics in the 1970s-a rise that ended with the current crisis. Rather than simply allowing the pendulum to swing back, Farmer writes, we must synthesize the two. From classical economics, he takes the idea that a sound theory must explain how individuals behave-how our collective choices shape the economy. From Keynesian economics, he adopts the principle that markets do not always work well, that capitalism needs some guidance. The goal, he writes, is to correct the excesses of a free-market economy without stifling entrepreneurship and instituting central planning.Recent events have shown that we cannot afford to treat economics as an ivory-tower abstraction. It has a direct impact on our lives by guiding regulators and policymakers as they make decisions with far-reaching practical consequences. Written in clear, accessible language, How the Economy Works makes an argument that no one should ignore. (shrink)

The fourth volume in the Criminalization series, this volume explores some of the most general principles and theories of criminalization. It includes not only philosophical work, but also historical, legal, and sociological investigations into criminalization, clarifying the state of the discipline today.

The third book in the Criminalization series examines the constitutionalization of criminal law. It considers how the criminal law is constituted through the political processes of the state; how the agents of the criminal law can be answerable to it themselves; and finally how the criminal law can be constituted as part of the international order.

Let M be a short extender mouse. We prove that if $E\in M$ and $M\models $ “E is a countably complete short extender whose support is a cardinal $\theta $ and $\mathcal {H}_\theta \subseteq \mathrm {Ult}(V,E)$ ”, then E is in the extender sequence $\mathbb {E}^M$ of M. We also prove other related facts, and use them to establish that if $\kappa $ is an uncountable cardinal of M and $\kappa ^{+M}$ exists in M then $(\mathcal {H}_{\kappa ^+})^M$ satisfies the (...) Axiom of Global Choice. We prove that if M satisfies the Power Set Axiom then $\mathbb {E}^M$ is definable over the universe of M from the parameter $X=\mathbb {E}^M\!\upharpoonright \!\aleph _1^M$, and M satisfies “Every set is $\mathrm {OD}_{\{X\}}$ ”. We also prove various local versions of this fact in which M has a largest cardinal, and a version for generic extensions of M. As a consequence, for example, the minimal proper class mouse with a Woodin limit of Woodin cardinals models “ $V=\mathrm {HOD}$ ”. This adapts to many other similar examples. We also describe a simplified approach to Mitchell–Steel fine structure, which does away with the parameters $u_n$. (shrink)

This paper describes a grading grid (rubric) for argumentative essays consisting of three sections: requirements, content, and mechanics. The first section of the grid verifies whether the student met the minimum requirements of the assignment, e.g. not being plagiarized, being an argumentative essay, etc. The second section of the grid evaluates the content of the essay, looking at parameters concerning whether the thesis is clear, the extent to which it is supported, whether it considers any objections or possible replies, etc. (...) The third and final section of the grid evaluates the mechanics of writing, evaluating parameters like grammar, appropriate length, etc. Finally, the paper details a number of pedagogical benefits to using grading grids and details how best to employ them in the classroom. (shrink)

This study investigated poultry farmers’ perceptions, preferences, and use of commercially compounded and self-compounded feeds in the Oyo Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Data were collected from 120 poultry farmers through a structured interview schedule. The study concluded that poultry farmers prefer and use self-compounded feeds (SCF) instead of commercially compounded feeds (CCF) because (a) self-compounded feeds are of better quality than commercially compounded feeds, (b) there are no quality control measures in the poultry feed industry in the Oyo Area, (...) (c) commercially compounded feeds cost more than self-compounded feeds, and (d) farmers choose feed based on the perceived quality of the feed, their technical ability to produce feed by themselves, the cost of CCF, the storability of feed, and the cost and availability of transportation. Based on these findings, it is recommended that interested public and private agencies should organize annual extension workshops and training for poultry farmers in the study area on (a) feed formulation; (b) feed ingredient mixing and compounding; (c) selection of ingredients, mixtures, and additives; and (d) the establishment, operation, and maintenance of feed mills. Farmers should be encouraged to form feed mill cooperative societies. The performance of the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) should be monitored and evaluated to ensure its effective oversight of quality standards for agricultural products and inputs such as feeds and feed ingredients. (shrink)

The article argues for a Straussian interpretation of Tacitus’ Agricola by showing that Tacitus’ explicit praise of the life of Agricola and criticism of the Stoic martyrs are undermined by his implicit comparisons to other lives within the text and by his allusions to other works of Socratic political philosophy, especially Xenophon’s. The popular teaching of the Agricola is that Agricola’s policy of political quietism is the best way of life for an ambitious young Roman living under a tyrannical emperor, (...) while the Stoic’s political extremism is not beneficial for the common good. The philosophic teaching, by contrast, is that a ‘serious and wise man’ will pursue a kind of Xenophontic approach to politics because he recognizes that the philosophic life is the highest life, but that it is necessary for the philosopher to advise the tyrant if the conditions for a philosophic life are going to be possible. (shrink)

This paper presents an algorithm that, given a finite set E of pairs of second-order monadic terms, returns a finite set U of ‘substitution schemata’ such that a substitution unifies E iff it is an instance of some member of U . Moreover, E is unifiable precisely if U is not empty. The algorithm terminates on all inputs, unlike the unification algorithms for second-order monadic terms developed by G. Huet and G. Winterstein. The substitution schemata in U use expressions which (...) represent sets of terms that differ only in how many times designated strings of function constants follow themselves. The substitution schemata may contain unresolved ‘identity restrictions’; consequently, the members of U generally do not characterize all the unifiers of E in a completely explicit way. The algorithm is particularly useful for investigating the complexity of formal proofs. (shrink)

Le projet de Georges Duby sur l’histoire des femmes au Moyen Âge repose dans une large mesure sur l’anthropologie structurale de Claude Lévi Strauss et le marxisme structuraliste de Louis Althusser : les femmes de l’aristocratie médiévale, selon Duby, étaient des gages dans un système de parenté contrôlé par et pour les hommes ; elles formaient leurs subjectivités propres à partir de l’idéologie dominante que façonnaient les hommes. Les sources, pour Duby, ne révèlent jamais de voix féminines indépendantes. Les historien(ne)s (...) féministes américain(e)s s’accordent bien souvent avec l’opinion de Duby sur les contraintes du système patriarcal qui pesaient sur les femmes au Moyen Âge. Toutefois, à la différence de Duby, leurs recherches ont mis l’accent sur la résistance qu’expriment les voix féminines. Cette insistance de la recherche féministe, outre-Atlantique, est symptomatique du très large intérêt que porte la recherche américaine aux résistances des groupes dominés. De même, le peu d’intérêt porté par Duby aux actions des femmes semble symptomatique de tendances plus larges de la recherche française. (shrink)

Farmers are key actors in the transition towards sustainable agricultural practices. Therefore, it is important to understand farmers’ motivations to encourage lasting change. This study investigated how farmers from the two different social contexts of the northeast US and Denmark perceive sustainability. Twenty farmers constructed Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to model their practices and perceived outcomes. The maps were analyzed using social capital as an analytical framework. The results showed that sustainability perceptions differed between US and Danish farmers. Specifically, Danish farmers (...) focused mainly on environmental sustainability while US farmers distributed their focus more evenly across environmental, social, and economic factors. Further, US and Danish farmers had different notions of community engagement. US farmers emphasized the importance of interdependence with their non-farmer community members, where farmers contributed to the wellbeing and livelihoods of non-farmers and vice versa. For Danish farmers, the importance of community engagement lay mainly in localizing food systems, the public image of farming, and the cultural value of farms. Differences in the dominant types of social capital (farmer-to-government vs. farmer-to-non-farmer-community) can explain this pattern. We argue that understanding social capital and primary level of influence can lead to more effective and efficient policies. (shrink)

Decisions related to animal welfare standards depend on farmer’s multiple goals and values and are constrained by a wide range of external and internal forces. The aim of this paper is twofold, i.e., to develop a theoretical framework for farmers’ AW decisions that incorporates farmers’ goals, use and non-use values and to present an approach to empirically implement the theoretical framework. The farmer as a head of the farm household makes choices regarding production to maximize the utility of (...) the household. The overall utility of the farmer is determined by his multiple objectives. For the analysis of multi-objective problems, the multiple criteria decision - making paradigm provides an appropriate theoretical framework. However, theories from the field of social-psychology are needed to facilitate the identification of all relevant aspects in the decision making. The practical use of the conceptual framework is demonstrated using a simple numerical application of a multi-objective programming model. Two workshops were devoted to examining the scientific consistency and the practical usefulness of the approach. Implementing this approach will increase knowledge of the main factors and barriers that determine farmers’ decisions with regard to AW standards. This knowledge is relevant during the development of new AW concepts that aims to supply products that comply with above-legal AW standards for middle-market segments. (shrink)

The Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy at the heart of the European Union’s Green Deal set out to create a “just transition” towards a sustainable food system, with benefits for all actors. We conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore discourses around power in the food system and farmers’ position in the communication and implementation of the Farm to Fork Strategy. Discourse analysis encapsulates various scientific methodologies for deciphering the meaning behind the creation and communication of different forms of (...) language and identify power dynamics, amongst other aspects. We identified two prior discourses in one of the objectives of the European Union’s new Common Agricultural Policy (2023-27). Our analysis found that the discourses, namely “rebalance power in food system” and “strengthening farmers’ position in value chains,” are marginalized in favour of an innovation-investment discourse, indicative of greater financialization and technologization based on techno-finances fixes in transforming the European Union agri-food system. We argue that entities representing agri-business interests have been influential in the policymaking process and voices representing smallholder and medium-sized farmers’ transformational discourses have been excluded. (shrink)

The study explored the motivations behind Australian wool producers’ intentions regarding mulesing; a surgical procedure that will be voluntarily phased out after 2010, following retailer boycotts led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Telephone interviews were conducted with 22 West Australian wool producers and consultants to elicit their behavioral, normative and control beliefs about mulesing and alternative methods of breech strike prevention. Results indicate that approximately half the interviewees intend to continue mulesing, despite attitudes toward the act of (...) mulesing being quite negative. This indicates that attitudes alone are unlikely to be good predictors of this goal directed behavior. Most respondents believed mulesing was more effective and involved less cost, time, and effort than the currently available alternatives to prevent breech strike. Further, they felt relatively little social pressure, as they believed few consumers were concerned about mulesing. However, they noted that if consumer sentiment changed they would likely change their practices. Thus, attitudes are likely to be only one of several factors influencing intentions to change farm practices to address societal concerns about animal welfare. Further, mulesing appears to be goal - directed behavior , suggesting that other factors depicted by the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB; Perugini and Bagozzi In: Br J Soc Psychol, 40: 79–98, 2001 ) may be worth exploring in this context. Finally, these results provide insight into how policy makers may influence farmers to change practices in response to societal pressure for improving farm animal welfare. (shrink)

Donors, scientists and farmers all benefit when research and development projects have high impact. However, potential benefits are sometimes not realized. Our objective in this study is to determine why resource-poor farmers in Togo (declined to) adopt recommended practices that were promoted through a multi-organizational project on soil fertility management. We examine the processes and outcomes related to the adoption process. The project was undertaken in three villages in the Central Region of Togo in West Africa. The development and research (...) processes that took place during the implementation of the project were critically analyzed using a conceptual framework that may be useful for improving the impact of future participatory projects. At the macro level, opportunities for innovation were not deliberately explored with participating farmers and other village members; consequently “pre-analytical choices” made during the planning phase resulted in practices that resource-poor farmers were, for a variety of reasons, unable or unwilling to adopt. From the outset, donors and scientists focused on soil fertility management, but failed to take into account the wider economic context within which soil fertility management took place. This was a major obstacle to the subsequent adoption of recommended management strategies. Scientists and donor partners measured the success of the Project in terms of crop productivity, but farmers’ choices were influenced by a complex mix of socio-economic, political and technical factors. We also illustrate the importance of selecting appropriate categories of farmers for a particular experiment. We conclude that for participatory research and development projects to be successful, it is not enough to develop technologies that “work” in a technical sense. In order to be scaled up and widely implemented, such technologies must also meet a variety of needs of resource-poor farmers and be acceptable from a socio-cultural point of view. (shrink)

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)

Michigan is a critical agricultural state, and small family farms are a crucial component of the state’s food sector. This paper examines how the race/ethnicity of the family farm owners/operators is related to farm characteristics, financing, and impacts of the pandemic. It compares 75 farms owned/operated solely by Whites and 15 with People of Color owners/operators. The essay examines how farmers finance their farm operations and the challenges they face doing so. The article also explores how the Coronavirus-19 pandemic affected (...) farming operations, the financial viability of farms, and how farmers responded to the challenges posed by the pandemic. The study found that People of Color farm owners/operators were younger than White farm owners/operators. The People of Color farm owners/operators tended to manage smaller farms for shorter periods than White farm owners/operators. Though two-thirds of the Farmers of Color owned their farms, they were more financially vulnerable than White farm owners/operators. The farmers studied had difficulty obtaining loans to finance their farms. Farmers reported increasing requests from people for food assistance during the pandemic. Farmers responded to the pandemic by participating in government programs such as the Farm to Families Food Box Program that purchased their produce. It allowed farmers to supply emergency food assistance programs with products from their farms. The products went to families receiving food assistance from soup kitchens, food banks, and other community-based nonprofits. (shrink)

This article presents a detailed study of an early section of the actual works and days of Hesiod's Works and Days. The treatment consistently eschews obsolete assumptions about this poem, in particular that it reduces to a didactic presentation to the early Greek farmer. A key principle of the method followed is to pay closer attention to the text's relation to epic forms than has been typical among the poem's commentators. The result is to find that a certain literary (...) figure gradually develops in the section discussed. Namely, the plowing nominally covered there stands for the section's portion on the human condition, a condition implicitly compared with that associated with traditional epic. The figure evokes a well-rounded person, aware of the divine and of the world's uncertainties, with a long-term sense of purpose involving good organization of one's life, as opposed to someone engaged in helter-skelter pursuit of transitory activities, perhaps war specifically. With this identification of virtual protagonist established by the end of the section, the ground is prepared for any further development of the figure as that entity's undertakings or adventures in the remainder of the poem. (shrink)

This paper examines farmer intentions to adapt to global climate change by analyzing responses to a climate change scenario presented in a survey given to large-scale farmers across the US Corn Belt in 2012. Adaptive strategies are evaluated in the context of decision making and farmers’ intention to increase their use of three production practices promoted across the Corn Belt: no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. This paper also provides a novel conceptual framework that bridges a typology of (...) adaptation with concepts that help predict intentionality in behavior change models. This conceptual framework was developed to facilitate examination of adaptive decision making in the context of agriculture. This research effort examines key factors that influence farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the practices evaluated given a climate change scenario. Twenty-two covariates are examined across three models developed for no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. Findings highlight that farmers who believed they should adjust their practices to protect their farm from the negative impacts of increased weather variability were more likely to indicate that they would increase their use of each of the practices in response to climate change. Additionally, visiting with other farmers to observe their practices was positively associated with farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the adaptive strategies examined. Farmers who were currently using no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage were also more likely to plan to increase their use of these practices in response to increased weather variability associated with climate change. However, farmers who reported high levels of confidence in their current practices were less likely to plan on changing their use of these practices in response to climatic changes. (shrink)

Farmers’ markets have enjoyed a resurgence in the past two decades in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This increase in popularity is attributed to a host of environmental, social, and economic factors, often related to the alleged benefits of local food, alternative farming, and producer–consumer interactions. Steeped in tradition, there are also widely held assumptions related to the type of food and food vendors that belong at a farmers’ market in addition to the type of experience that (...) should take place. There remains a need to explore and analyze these fundamental aspects of the farmers’ market and to consider how they influence their formation and function. This paper argues that discourses of authenticity are central to the identity of the farmers’ market, and that they are constructed differently “from above” by those seeking to regulate farmers’ markets in particular jurisdictions and “from below” by managers, producers, and consumers at individual markets. A literature-based discussion is complemented and grounded by consideration of institutional statements regarding authenticity and of key results from a survey of managers, food vendors, and customers at 15 farmers’ markets in Ontario, Canada. It is demonstrated that while the general discourse about authenticity at the farmers’ market is built around strict, almost ideological assumptions about the presence of “local food” and those who produce it, community-level responses reflect considerable diversity in the interpretation and composition of the farmers’ market. It is suggested that a binary view of authenticity, where some farmers’ markets are cast as “real” and others presumably not, is highly problematic as it tends to ignore a large and important middle ground with multiple identities. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that mineral fertilizers must play an important part in improving agricultural productivity in western Kenyan farming systems. This paper suggests that for this goal to be realized, farmers’ knowledge must be strengthened to improve their understanding of fertilizers and their use. We analyzed smallholder knowledge of fertilizers and nutrient management, and draw practical lessons from empirical collective fertilizer-response experiments. Data were gathered from the collective fertilizer-response trials, through focus group discussions, by participant observation, and via in-depth (...) interviews representing 40 households. The collective trials showed that the application of nitrogen (N) or phosphorous (P) alone was insufficient to enhance yields in the study area. The response to P on the trial plots was mainly influenced by incidences of the parasitic Striga weed, by spatial variability or gradients in soil fertility of the experimental plots, and by interactions with N levels. These results inspired farmer to design and conduct experiments to compare crop performance with and without fertilizer, and between types of fertilizers, or responses on different soils. Participating farmers were able to differentiate types of fertilizer, and understood rates of application and the roles of respective fertilizers in nutrient supply. However, notions were broadly generated by unsteady yield responses when fertilizers were used across different fertility gradients, association with high cost (especially if recommended rates were to be applied), association of fertilizer use with hybrids and certain crops, historical factors, among other main aspects. We identified that strengthening fertilizer knowledge must be tailored within existing, albeit imperfect, systems of crop and animal husbandry. Farmers’ perceptions cannot be changed by promoting more fertilizer use alone, but may require a more basic approach that, for example, encourages farmer experimentation and practices to enhance soil properties such as carbon build-up in impoverished local soils. (shrink)

Salmon farming is a rapidly expanding industry. In order for it to develop in an ethical manner, many ethical issues must be confronted. Among these are questions regarding the quality of life of salmon on farms. To develop reasonable answers to these questions considerable thought must be devoted to developing appropriate standards of care for salmon. If these questions are not addressed the results could be bad both for salmon and for salmon farmers.

Farmers in a southwestern Ontario watershed were surveyed to determine factors influencing their attitudes towards adoption of soil conservation practices. The majority of farmers in the watershed were internally motivated which indicates they believe that their own actions determine their successes and failures. Most respondents were also environmentally oriented. However, although many farmers in the study area have adopted crop rotations and cross-slope tillage, the adoption rate of conservation tillage is low. The survey suggests that the low adoption rate may (...) be more a function of perceived economic risk associated with the tillage practice than lack of farmer motivation. (shrink)

In 2004, the agricultural economies of many rural communities in the United States were impacted by the cessation of a price-support and supply-control program for tobacco production. Tobacco was not only an important livelihood, but also was central to social and cultural life. Using a social–ecological systems lens and the adaptive cycle metaphor, we examine the reorganization of agriculture in communities that previously produced tobacco under the program. Specifically, we seek to understand how transitional policy that provided financial support to (...) tobacco farmers interacted with other social, cultural, physical and human capitals to condition system reorganization. We conducted semi-structured interviews with farmers, extension agents, and policy makers in Kentucky as well as examined trends in income and number of farmers before and after the transition as indicators of reorganization. We determined that the financial support was perceived as helpful in supporting the transition and that tobacco farmers reorganized their livelihoods primarily around existing, remnant assets and endogenous capacities. In addition, we determined that though the agricultural system may be reorganizing economically, it is not necessarily supportive of the same social bonds and values that co-existed with tobacco economy. Understanding agricultural economies as part of complex social–ecological systems that consist of interconnected values, identities, ecology and social ties is important for developing policies to support systems and communities through economic transitions. (shrink)

Since the turn of the century, the number of small-scale farmers in the U.S. and farmlands they owned have declined very sharply (structural change). Although the decrease in number is generally true for both white and Black farm operators, it has been more significant for Blackfarm operators than whites. The declining trend in the number of Blackfarm operators in the country is derived from individual state experiences that resulted from a combination of various political and economic factors. Using the census (...) of agriculture data from 1900 to 1987, this paper gives a brief historical overview of Black farm operators in Maryland. The census data for the study period shows that at their peak number in 1910, there were 6,382 Blackfarmers in the state of Maryland. However, by 1987, only 371 of that number remained, representing a loss of 94 percent since 1910. According to the 1987 census data almost all Black operated farms in Maryland were not only small-scale but also in the lower sales class, less than $20,000 a year. Their household net family income is below that of non-metropolitan median household income. This concentration of Blacks in the lower economic class of farm operators in the state, for the most part, is closely related to their resource endowments, patterns of tenure, type of farm enterprises, and government farm programs and policies. On the average, Blackfarmers in Maryland have less land, capital and management skills than their white counterparts. Government policies and programs had, and continue to have, a devastating effect on Maryland Black farmers because they were tied to productive resources rather than farm income needs. Under conditions of low income, years of neglect by federal and state programs and policies, and limited resources Blackfarmers were unable to adopt capital intensive production practices and expand their farm operations. This resulted in most of them leaving agriculture, in the past and today, at a faster rate than whites. To avert or at least lessen the unfortunate situation of Black farm operators, projections and possible solutions are offered. This includes how the 1890 Land-Grant institutions because of their tradition, expertise and experience of research, teaching and outreach can take the leadership role in shaping the future direction of these farmers and their operations. (shrink)

Welfare-friendly outdoor poultry husbandry systems are associated with potentially higher public health risks for certain hazards, which results in a dilemma: whether to choose a system that improves chicken welfare or a system that reduces these public health risks. We studied the views of citizens and poultry farmers on judging the dilemma, relevant moral convictions and moral arguments in a practical context. By means of an online questionnaire, citizens (n = 2259) and poultry farmers (n = 100) judged three practical (...) cases, which illustrate the dilemma of improving chicken welfare or reducing public health risks for Campylobacter, avian influenza and dioxin. Furthermore, they scored the importance of moral arguments and to what extend they agreed with moral convictions related to humans and chickens. Citizens were more likely than farmers to choose a system that benefits chicken welfare at the expense of public health. These different judgments could be explained by differing moral convictions and valuations of moral arguments. Judgments of citizens and farmers were associated with moral arguments and convictions, predominantly with those regarding the value of chickens and naturalness. Citizens agreed stronger with moral convictions regarding the intrinsic value of chickens and regarding naturalness than farmers did, while farmers agreed stronger with conviction regarding fairness. We argue that opinions of citizens and farmers are context-dependent, which may explain the differences between these groups. It implies that opinions of different stakeholder groups should be considered in order to achieve successful innovations in poultry husbandry, which are supported by society. (shrink)

The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11673-012-9361-3 Authors Dominique E. Martin, 39 Eltham Street, Flemington, 3031 Australia Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529.

The welfare of farmed fish is often regarded with less concern than the welfare of other husbandry animals, as fish are not universally classified as sentient beings. In Norway, farmed fish and other husbandry animals are legally protected under the same laws. Additionally, the legislature has defined a number of aquaculture-specific amendments, including mandatory welfare courses for fish farmers who have a key role in securing animal welfare, also with regards to noting welfare challenges in the production process. This article (...) uses fish welfare courses as a site from which to inquire about the common-sense understanding of fish welfare in Norwegian fish farming. The focus is specifically on fish farm employees, their experiences of welfare-related issues and contradictions in their daily work, and the struggle to act responsibly in aquaculture settings. Through participant observation at welfare courses, as well as interviews and conversations with fish farm workers, the article details how challenges are experienced ‘on the ground’, and suggests how fish farm workers’ own experiential knowledge might be mobilized to improve the general welfare of farmed fish. (shrink)

Changes in global patterns of grain production have affected the profitability of commercial, cash-crop agriculture in North America. The current financial crisis has highlighted a perceived conflict between the priorities of (1) strengthening net farm profit, (2) maintaining the productive potential of the land base, (3) enhancing the health and cohesiveness of the agricultural community, and (4) addressing societal demands for safe foodstuffs. Reducing input costs by reducing the need for privately owned machinery can minimize the scale-dependence of agricultural practices, (...) as illustrated with examples involving silage and intensively managed pasture in Ontario. This approach could improve farming opportunities for nontraditional, part-time farmers, and at the same time, create a niche for professional custom operators and managers. Enhancing the viability of nontraditional farm operations, a historically neglected component of the farming community, as well as commercial farms is viewed as one approach to sustaining and improving both the agricultural land base and the agricultural community. Applying resource-extensive rather than resource-intensive approaches to forage management reveals that these apparently divergent priorities are, in fact, interlocking pieces of the same puzzle. (shrink)

There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system correctly diagnoses (...) Custard Apple disease to make it easier for farmers to find the right treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: A specialized syllable language system was established for the diagnosis of Custard Apple plant disease. (shrink)

This case details the new product development and approval of Posilac®, an animal drug product pioneered by the Monsanto Company. The product is a genetically engineered hormone known as bovine somatotropin and was targeted for sale to dairy farmers to enhance the milk production of their herds. At the time of its development and subsequent introduction to the market, Posilac® represented one the first applications of genetic engineering in food production and as such, it became a lightning rod for controversy. (...) As Monsanto sought approval for this product from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it encountered vigorous opposition from a variety of consumer and trade interests. The case recounts the arduous approval process and explains how industry and public policy debates largely focused on issues of product labeling. (shrink)

Despite a widely agreed necessity for agroecological transition, there are various substantial constraints that hinder the adoption of alternative, more sustainable, practices. We employ the niche management concept to examine the initial phases of transition in the local wine-growing niche in Israel, or specifically, the replacement of herbicides with the use of cover-crops combined with the practice of mowing of herbaceous growth using specialized trimming machines. Our goal is to uncover the triggers, drivers and agents of change in farming practices (...) within the agroecological system in which it happened, despite entrenched, widely recognized risk perceptions among farmers. The problem-oriented research design revolved around a transdiciplinary team that included ecologists and social scientists. We identified three groups of frontrunners who initiated, developed and sustained the adoption of the more sustainable agricultural practices. The two-year study focused on interviewing vineyard farmers who were transitioning to cover crops, and this qualitative research was paralleled with continuous ecological monitoring. The farmers believed that the risks inherent in the new practice, if any, were preventable and manageable. The transdisciplinary research design, which integrated farmers into the social and ecological research process, further assisted in facilitating a transition by creating a forum for stimulating communication between diverse stakeholders during the transition, increasing trust between actors from the various sectors and identifying key issues of concern (e.g., risk and associated costs) to better align the motives of farmers, wine-makers, and ecologists. The research design may have also contributed to the adoption of a more holistic view of the agroecological system by various stakeholders and the belief that one cultivation method clearly benefits the system, particularly in the long-term. We therefore conclude with key-insights on the role of the research itself in agroecological transition processes. (shrink)

Understanding the causes of maize landrace loss in farmers’ field is essential to design effective conservation strategies. These strategies are necessary to ensure that genetic resources are available in the future. Previous studies have shown that this loss is caused by multiple factors. In this longitudinal study, we used a collection of 93 maize landrace accessions from Morelos, Mexico, and stored at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Maize Germplasm Bank, to trace back to the original 66 donor (...) families after 50 years and explore the causes for why they abandoned or conserved their seed lots. We used an actor-centered approach, based on interviews and focus group discussions. We adopt a Multi-Level Perspective framework to examine loss as a process, accommodating multiple causes and the interactions among them. We found that the importance of maize landrace cultivation had diminished over the last 50 years in the study area. By 2017, 13 families had conserved a total of 14 seed lots directly descended from the 1967 collection. Focus group participants identified 60 accessions that could still be found in the surrounding municipalities. Our findings showed that multiple interconnected changes in maize cultivation technologies, as well as in maize markets, other crop markets, agricultural and land policies, cultural preferences, urbanization and climate change, have created an unfavorable environment for the conservation of maize landraces. Many of these processes were location- and landrace-specific, and often led to landrace abandonment during the shift from one farmer generation to the next. (shrink)

A critical comparative analysis of howfarmers and scientists classify and manage soilsreveals fundamental differences as well assimilarities. In the past, the study of local soilknowledge has been predominantly targeted atdocumenting how farmers classified their soils incontrast to understanding how such classificatoryknowledge was made use of in actually managing soilsfor sustaining production. Often, classificatorydesigns – being cognitive and linguistic in nature –do not reflect the day-to-day actions in farming.Instead of merely describing local soil classificationin relation to scientific criteria, understanding howdifferent types (...) of ethnolinguistic soil categories arerelated to crops, climate, subsistence needs,fertility, market demand, and cultural norms of thesociety would be far more effective in focusingresearch and development efforts. (shrink)

Despite concerns of consumer protection andenvironmental groups that the use of geneticallyproduced growth hormone in milk-producing cows mayadversely impact the safety of the milk supply,scientific evidence and governmental findings from theUSA appear to indicate that milk fromtreated cows is identical in quality, taste, andnutritional value to milk from untreated cows. Limitedexperience to date in the USA demonstrateslittle consumer resistance to milk from cows that havereceived the growth hormone, which can lead to a 15%increase in milk production. In fact, if there (...) is noperceived differentiation between the two forms ofmilk, the issue offers little choice to consumers atlarge, and may result in economic benefit only toselected dairy farmers, as well as the producers ofthe genetically produced growth hormone. Thissituation in the USA may be an example ofdysfunctional technology transfer, with desirablebenefits to a few, and as yet unknown benefits to thesociety. The USA has taken a bold move inapproving the use of bovine growth hormone in milk-producing cows, while the European Union has takena divergent approach by enacting lengthy moratoriumsagainst its use. The basic lesson to be learned fromthe bST case is that lack of awareness amonggovernment officials and the public at large serves asa significant impediment to the adoption of newtechnologies. Accordingly, delays may occur indelivery of significant social benefits to thepopulation as a whole. Obviously, the issue extendsbeyond bST. (shrink)

There has been broad interest in the so-called rise of women farmers in United States (US) agriculture. Researchers have elucidated the diverse ways farmers ‘perform’ gender, while also examining how engaging in a masculine-coded industry like agriculture shapes individuals’ gendered identities as well as their social and mental wellbeing. While illuminating, this work is mostly focused on sustainable or direct-market farmers, with surprisingly little research examining women on conventional row crops operations. This paper works to fill this empirical gap and (...) further theorize gender-agriculture intersections through analyzing interviews with Iowa women row-crop farmers to understand the ways they perceive their gendered identities, and how they see them shaping their farming experience and mental wellbeing. Deploying a conceptual understanding of gender as both discursive and embodied as well as relational and fluid, I find respondents see themselves operating in a somewhat liminal gender identity, where they feel adept at moving between masculinized spaces of agriculture and more feminized domains of homes and office jobs. Critically, while women rarely expressed stress about doing “masculine” coded agricultural labor, they had more complex feelings towards either disliking or imperfectly completing feminized care and reproductive labor. Younger women expressed particular ambivalence about assuming the identity of farmer while also fulfilling gendered norms around (heterosexual) marriage and childbearing. The liminality of women’s gender performance also cut both ways, and while they feel able to access different gendered spaces some feel they are not fully accepted in either. I conclude by reflecting on what these particular forms of gendered subjectivity might mean for women’s mental wellbeing and how agencies might better support gender equity in agriculture. (shrink)

Understanding farmers’ values that underpin crop choices is pivotal for designing effective and adequate sustainable agricultural policies. While significant attention has been given to the agronomic, economic and socio-cultural values of smallholder farmers in the Global South, the plural values held by commercial farmers in the Global North—specifically ascribed to perennial crops—remain underexplored. Here, we adopt an emic perspective to investigate farmers’ values involved in past and anticipated choices of grapevine varieties in the Gaillac region (southwestern France). We conducted 35 (...) interviews with farmers, and recorded 962 expressions of values for 50 cultivated grapevine varieties. Using a mixed deductive-inductive approach, we classified these values, and identified groups of farmers and varieties based on shared values using a network analysis. Farmers’ expressions of values were grouped into five domains: wine-growing (21.9%, e.g., yield), wine-making (21.8%, e.g., organoleptic properties), economics (20.7%, e.g., specific market), sense-based (23.7%, e.g., attachment to place), and external factors (11.9%, e.g., varietal regulations). Results suggest that the diversity and variation of values held by different groups of farmers and groups of varieties are key to supporting the high level of crop diversity observed at both farm and vineyard scales. Specifically, the feelings of attachment and sense of belonging to the Gaillac region are effective triggers in the maintenance of local grapevine varieties. Our research emphasizes the diverse place-based values attributed to crops, and highlights the importance of integrating sense-based values in developing biodiversity-based policies. (shrink)

Welfare-friendly outdoor poultry husbandry systems are associated with potentially higher public health risks for certain hazards, which results in a dilemma: whether to choose a system that improves chicken welfare or a system that reduces these public health risks. We studied the views of citizens and poultry farmers on judging the dilemma, relevant moral convictions and moral arguments in a practical context. By means of an online questionnaire, citizens and poultry farmers judged three practical cases, which illustrate the dilemma of (...) improving chicken welfare or reducing public health risks for Campylobacter, avian influenza and dioxin. Furthermore, they scored the importance of moral arguments and to what extend they agreed with moral convictions related to humans and chickens. Citizens were more likely than farmers to choose a system that benefits chicken welfare at the expense of public health. These different judgments could be explained by differing moral convictions and valuations of moral arguments. Judgments of citizens and farmers were associated with moral arguments and convictions, predominantly with those regarding the value of chickens and naturalness. Citizens agreed stronger with moral convictions regarding the intrinsic value of chickens and regarding naturalness than farmers did, while farmers agreed stronger with conviction regarding fairness. We argue that opinions of citizens and farmers are context-dependent, which may explain the differences between these groups. It implies that opinions of different stakeholder groups should be considered in order to achieve successful innovations in poultry husbandry, which are supported by society. (shrink)

The agricultural communicator is a key link in transmitting information to farmers. If agricultural communicators' ethics are compromised, the resulting biases in news production could have serious detrimental effects on the quality of information conveyed to farmers. But, to date, agricultural communicators' perceptions of ethical problems they encounter at work has not been examined. This study looks at the dimensions of ethical concerns for topics area (agricultural) journalists as defined by practitioners. To determine these dimensions, we sent open ended questionnaires (...) (50 percent response rate) to members of two professional agricultural journalist associations: the Newspaper Farm Editors of America and the American Agricultural Editors' Association.Agricultural communicators overwhelmingly focus on one specific threat to objectivity—advertising pressure. Both NFEA and AAEA respondents indicated that agricultural journalists' responses to advertising pressure adversely affected the entire profession. The responses indicated that agricultural writers were concerned with the different types of pressures and the effects of advertising pressure on the industry as a whole. NFEA and AAEA respondents mentioned both indirect pressure, “freebies,” conferences, trips and press releases from advertising or public relations sections of agri-business firms, and direct pressures from advertisers, salesmen and publishers. The respondents were clearly more comfortable when newspaper policy protected them from advertising pressure and when they had techniques to reduce this pressure. The editors' and reporters' perceptions of advertising pressure clearly indicates that advertising abuses are a clear and present danger and one worthy of far more attention than it has previously received. (shrink)