Al-Jumaili, Wisam Salim (author), Al-Jebory, Hashim Hadi (author), Al-Jebory, Rasha Fajer (author), Al-Khafaji, Luai Saleh Khlaif (author), and Saeedi, Mohammed Khalil Ibrahim Al (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2025-04-15
Published:
India: Scripown Publications
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 212 Document Number: D16166
5 pages, The current study was conducted at “Al-Anwar Poultry Company” farm twice, the first for the heat stress (HS) group for the period and the second for the period for the oxidative stress (OS) group, to study the effect of rearing conditions with heat and (OS) stress on the welfare of broilers. In this study, 460 Ross 308 broiler chicks were used, divided into 60 chicks raised in natural conditions (C), 200 chicks raised in (HS) conditions (CH) and 200 chicks raised in (OS) conditions (adding 0.5 ml/liter of drinking water of hydrogen peroxide) (CO). As a result of the study, a significant increase in E. coli bacteria and the total account of bacteria in the (OS) group, whereas, the litter moisture increased in the (HS) treatments, especially in the last three weeks of the experiment. The weight of the droppings and the pH also increased and the percentage of clean spray decreased in both the heat and (OS) groups, the percentage of plantar fasciitis increased significantly in the (HS) group.
11 pages, Existing research and practice related to digital agriculture technology adoption is largely focused on large-scale producers. In this paper, we describe a case of adopting an advanced soil monitoring system in a community-based agricultural organization. We provide guidance for Extension professionals seeking to implement or promote digital agriculture technology adoption on: selecting appropriate technology, incorporating new technology into existing practices, harnessing local technology champions, and avoiding data-driven mission creep.
21 pages, first_pagesettingsOrder Article Reprints
Open AccessArticle
Decoding the Secrets of Agricultural Light, Heat, and Water Resources in Beijing Under Climate Change: Spatio-Temporal Variations on a Small Scale and Future Prospects
by Hongrun Liu 1ORCID,Yanan Tian 1,He Zhao 1,Song Liu 1,Ning Zhu 2,Yanfang Wang 1,Wei Li 1,Dan Sun 1,Tianqun Wang 1,Lifeng Li 2,Shangjun Wu 1,Fudong Wang 1 andXihong Lei 1,*
1
Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station, Beijing 100029, China
2
Beijing Changping District Agricultural Technology Extension Station, Beijing 102299, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Agriculture 2025, 15(4), 371; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15040371 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 22 December 2024 / Revised: 1 February 2025 / Accepted: 6 February 2025 / Published: 10 February 2025
(This article belongs to the Section Ecosystem, Environment and Climate Change in Agriculture)
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Abstract
As an international metropolis, Beijing still plays a key role in the development of national agricultural production technology despite its small regional scale. Climate change has a great impact on agricultural production. Previous studies often focus on a single short-term meteorological factor and lack a more systematic analysis of climate resources in Beijing. Based on the daily temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, wind speed and sunshine hours of 17 meteorological stations in Beijing in the past 42 years, this study analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of agro-climatic resources and predicted the future climate change trend under different climate scenarios. The climate resource tendency rate is calculated on a time scale of every ten years (10a). The results showed that (1) the light resources are decreasing at a rate of 44.9~156.3 MJ m−2 10 a−1, and the downward trends in light resources in the northeastern plain areas as well as in June and July are more significant; (2) the thermal resources are increasing at a rate of 34.2~176.4 °C·d 10 a−1, and the upward trends in thermal resources in the southeastern plain areas and in March are more remarkable; (3) the water resources represented by the soil humidity index are changing at a rate of −1.6~6.1% 10 a−1. The situation is complex, and the fluctuations of water resources in the central and western regions as well as in July, August and September are more significant; and (4) compared with the low-emission “dual carbon” scenario, the decrease in water volume and the overall increase in temperature in the high-carbon scenario are larger, and this trend is particularly obvious in the long run. This study provides a basis for Beijing’s agricultural layout and response to climate change, and its methods and results are also valuable for other regions to promote green, high-quality and sustainable agricultural development.
14 pages, One of the tools middle school SBAE teachers can use to deliver the total program is research-based SAEs, for which students can receive recognition through the FFA Agriscience Fair. This study examined why middle school SBAE teachers implemented the FFA Agriscience Fair into their programs. This study built on previous literature in this area, but with a specific focus on middle school programs. Using a qualitative case study, seven teachers that had various levels of use with Agriscience Fair were interviewed. Teachers were categorized into their levels of use for this innovation and spanned across multiple levels. Major themes from the interviews emerged that found the Agriscience Fair award area was a tool that teachers used to help strengthen their program by enriching the program offering and providing hands-on learning for students. Themes of teachers learning to figure out the complex rules of the competition to be successful as well as using relationships to help students be successful emerged. Recommendations were made to make the award area more intuitive, especially for teachers who are newer to the implementation including providing examples of manuscripts and presentation materials, providing lesson planning resources, and professional development.
Miller, Amelia (author), Warnick, Brian K. (author), Spielmaker, Debra M. (author), Pate, Michael L. (author), Judd-Murray, Rose (author), and Longhurst, Max L. (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2025-01-17
Published:
USA: American Association for Agricultural Education
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 210 Document Number: D13469
16 pages, It is commonly held that parents have a profound impact on child development. Decades of research investigated the ways parents, the community, and school staff interact to foster student learning during kindergarten through twelfth grade education. Agriculture provides for daily needs through the growth, harvest, and processing of food, fiber, fuel, and forestry products. This research sought to understand the level of importance parents place on their children learning about agriculture in school. A 26-question survey was distributed to a nationally representative sample of parents having at least one child in K-12 education within the United States. Results of this study indicate parents found it important, even very important, for students to learn about many agricultural topics in school. Factors historically associated with parent perceptions and support of student learning proved to not significantly impact this indicated level of importance. Therefore, further research is needed to understand what impacts parents’ value of their students learning about agricultural topics in school. The conclusions of this study are of primary importance to entities conducting agricultural education outreach such as Agriculture in the Classroom programs, Extension, Career and Technical Education, agricultural industry organizations, and others interested in agricultural literacy.
16 pages, Background
An estimated 140 million people in Africa face acute malnutrition. By impacting agricultural production, climate change is likely to further decrease food consumption, particularly in sub-Saharan African states. Against this backdrop, various actors have called for more attention to alternative farming and food systems based on traditional agricultural knowledge capable of ensuring access to sufficient, nutritious, and safe food. So far, however, we have limited systematic evidence on which traditional agricultural practices may promote the food resilience of households exposed to extreme climatic conditions. Focusing on the most prevalent traditional diversification practices in Tanzania, this study assesses the extent to which crop diversification, annual crop intercropping, crop-tree intercropping, crop-livestock integration, and the cultivation of traditional crops increase the food availability and dietary diversity of smallholders facing extreme weather events in Tanzania.
Methods
We combine temperature and rain data with information on farming practices and food consumption information provided by the Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for more than 25,000 Tanzanian households nationwide. We rely on a matched differences-in-differences approach to account for selection bias and allow for causal inference.
Results
Our matching models consistently show that the planting of traditional crops (in particular sorghum) promotes dietary diversity and reduces the need for food rationing in households experiencing climate shocks. In contrast, households relying on maize cultivation show less dietary diversity and increased food rationing behavior. In addition, we find that—under extreme weather conditions—crop diversification furthers households’ dietary diversity, and crop-livestock integration, as well as crop-tree intercropping, seem to reduce households’ need to ration food.
Conclusion and policy recommendation
This study has important implications for policymakers. In light of climate change and weather variability, it underscores the need to better integrate indigenous knowledge into farming systems. Our results call for greater dissemination of traditional diversification strategies and more reliance on indigenous, drought-tolerant crops. Traditional farming practices can function as a safety net, protecting smallholders in Tanzania against the detrimental consequences of weather shocks.
11 pages, Given that the pig behavior reflects their health status, continuous and precise monitoring of behavior is important for effective health management and welfare protection. To mitigate potential tracking failures during analysis of video footage, we introduced a novel multi-target pig tracking method that consisted of detection and tracking components. The detection model was enhanced with an efficient attention mechanism and a Cross Stage Partial Darknet backbone network, which significantly improved detection accuracy. The tracking component used the Bytetrack algorithm to accurately track the movement trajectories of individual pigs. Together, these components were combined into the Dual-YOLOX-Tiny-ByteTrack (DYTB) model, which demonstrated superior performance in automatic monitoring of pig behaviors compared to previously published approaches. We established multi-object pig tracking datasets with 180,321 images to evaluate this method. The DYTB method achieved a pig detection accuracy of 98.3% and tracking accuracies of 95.3% and 97.1%. Compared to the YOLOX-Tiny-ByteTrack base model, DYTB showed a 3.4% improvement in multiple object tracking accuracy, making it a robust method for non-contact, intelligent monitoring of pig health and contributing to advances in precision livestock farming.
22 pages, The objective of this study was to provide a comprehensive overview of the recent advancements in the use of deep learning (DL) in the agricultural sector. The author conducted a review of studies published between 2016 and 2022 to highlight the various applications of DL in agriculture, which include counting fruits, managing water, crop management, soil management, weed detection, seed classification, yield prediction, disease detection, and harvesting. The author found that DL’s ability to learn from large datasets has great promise for the transformation of the agriculture industry, but there are challenges, such as the difficulty of compiling datasets, the cost of computational power, and the shortage of DL experts. The author aimed to address these challenges by presenting his survey as a resource for future research and development regarding the use of DL in agriculture.
2pgs, For farmers, filling out the USDA’s Census of Agriculture before the February 6 deadline is more than a legal obligation. It’s a way to keep watch over our farmlands and help bring about necessary changes.
21 pages, Climate change continues to impact the livelihoods of smallholder farmers due to low adaptive capacity. In South Africa, the challenge is exacerbated by water scarcity and shortened crop-growing seasons. Climate-smart irrigation innovative technologies (CSIT) enhance smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate change. However, there is still a limited level of effective adoption and usage of these technologies in smallholder communities. This study investigated the barriers affecting the adoption of CSIT in rural areas of the Vhembe and Capricorn districts in Limpopo Province, South Africa. We explored the farmers’ socioeconomic factors extracted from farmers’ perceptions of CSIT-specific attributes. A multi-stage randomized sampling technique was used to select 100 smallholder farmers (SHF). Data analyzed by descriptive statistics such as percentages and frequency distribution are presented in graphs and tables. According to the findings, insufficient communication channels, a lack of financial availability, unstable land tenure systems, and insufficient training are the main obstacles to implementing CSIT. There is a need for policy and decision-makers to improve the communication channels for disseminating agro-meteorological information to the intended beneficiaries.
