Charbonneau, Diana (author), Gabbert, Kerry (author), O'Neal, LaToya (author), Burton, Dawn E. (author), Jones, Maggie (author), Katzman, Kate (author), and Rennekamp, Roger (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2025-02-15
Published:
USA: Extension Journal, Inc.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 209 Document Number: D13536
11 pages, Cooperative Extension’s National Framework for Health Equity and Well-Being provides a roadmap for improving the health of communities. Core concepts include installing health equity a systemwide value and catalyzing community-level changes that ensure all people have an opportunity to be as healthy as they can. This article presents findings from a national readiness assessment for implementing the Framework across Extension. Results from a literature scan, national survey, and regional listening sessions identified internal facilitators and barriers to adoption. The article provides ideas for how Extension practitioners can engage in this work and shares an action plan developed from assessment results.
5 pages, Farmers face unique occupational and interpersonal stressors that increase risk for poor physical and mental health outcomes. To educate farmers and their families about these risks, one state’s Family and Consumer Sciences faculty partnered with Agriculture and Natural Resources faculty with input from county agents to develop a series of online educational programs that were delivered as part of the state Agricultural Enhancement Program. Twenty-eight participants completed the pilot project and feedback surveys. Lessons learned include the need to have speakers from farming backgrounds, incorporate health topics that emphasize the connection with farming, and to include engaging visuals.
17 pages, o sustain the economic viability of a livestock farm in a global market, characterised by a price undercutting competition, farmers are forced to adapt to what the market demands. At the same time, they have to care for the functionality of the farm system as a whole and of the subsystems, such as the farm animals, so that they for their part they can contribute to an economic success. Now, that animal health and welfare (AHW) has become an increasingly important issue for citizens and consumers, not only the decision makers but also the disciplines of animal science are challenged to improve an unsatisfying AHW level that has been neglected for long. However, to reduce AHW problems requires a quite different approach than to increase productive efficiency. A common sense can be assumed concerning the need to strive for an optimal cost-to-benefit ratio while balancing positive and negative impacts of production processes on economic and AHW target figures. However, what is often not adequately considered is the fact that economic and biological demands have to be balanced within a living system, e.g. in the individual animal and farm system. These function as the relevant reference systems in all cases where measures to reduce AHW problems are considered. Furthermore, there is a large gap of scientific knowledge, however, not in the traditional sense. While the predominant approaches, scientists generate context-invariant, and thus generalisable disposal knowledge in diversified subdisciplines, problem solving requires contextualisation, orientation and action-guiding knowledge within transdisciplinary approaches. The reason is that AHW problems are highly context-sensitive as well as multifactorial. They develop within the farm specific interconnectedness of manifold and highly varying factors, emerging a complexity that does not allow predictive statements via inductive approaches but requires an iterative procedure to approach to a farm specific AHW level, which is balanced with the overarching goal of economic viability. Recommended action guiding knowledge has to be of high external and ecological validity, before farmers might consider it to be implemented in farm practice. From the reflection about the discrepancy between the knowledge needed to reduce AHW problems and what is offered by animal science, it is concluded that not only the farm systems but also the predominant approaches of animal science have to be transformed. Otherwise, there is not a big chance to considerably reduce AHW problems in farm animals.
Vigne Bennedetti, Luiza (author), Antônio de Almeida Sinisgalli, Paulo (author), Lamano Ferreira, Maurício (author), and Lemes de Oliveira, Fabiano (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2023-01-24
Published:
Netherlands: MDPI
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12839
14pgs, Urban agriculture (UA) can be used as an action to promote sustainability in cities and inform public health policies for urban populations. Despite this growing recognition, its implementation still presents challenges in countries in the Global North and Global South. Background: In this context, this systematic review aims to identify the development of frameworks for the implementation of UA as a sustainable action and its main opportunities and shortcomings in meeting urban socio-environmental demands. Methods: In this review, using the PRISMA protocol, we evaluated 26 studies on the interplay between UA and sustainability surveyed on the Web of Science to provide an overview of the state of the art. Conclusions: In summary, it was possible to identify many key challenges in UA adoption, which regard air and soil contamination, availability of green areas, layout of urban infrastructure, food distribution, among others. Due to numerous socio-economic and environmental contextual factors in cities, especially when comparing realities of the Global North and Global South, there is a need to develop a model that can be adaptable to these different contexts. Thus, it is recognized that the concept of sustainability does not present a universal understanding and that in its search it could be argued that one of the most important gaps is still to address social issues in relation to environmental ones.
6pgs, Small producers won’t have the testing and control tools available to chicken-industry giants, some farmers say. That could give big producers one more advantage in a market where they already exercise a lot of control.
