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.
17 pages, The purpose of the study was to design a device for the dissolution of fertilizers for agricultural use in an automatic and environmentally sustainable way to facilitate the work of farmers. To achieve this goal, an outdated blade design was used, which generates turbulent and laminar flows thanks to the angle of inclination of its blades. In tests, the combination of these two flows gave a better result compared to laminar and turbulent flows separately. The best results were achieved by varying the spin and speed, the time between spins, and the rest time. The time it would take to dissolve the mixture was drastically reduced if it were conducted in the traditional way (manually) or compared with commercial mixers. In conclusion, the technique used for the dissolution of agricultural minerals is more effective and reduces time, energy, and effort. This was able to reduce the time necessary to dissolve the fertilizer by 93 percent compared to doing it manually and by 66 percent compared to using commercial mixers, in a solution of 100 L of water per 100 kg of ammonium sulfate.
Hundal, Gaganpreet Singh (author), Laux, Chad Matthew (author), Buckmaster, Dennis (author), Sutton, Mathias J (author), and Langemeier, Michael (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2023-01-09
Published:
Switzerland: MDPI
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12835
16 pages, The production of row crops in the Midwestern (Indiana) region of the US has been facing environmental and economic sustainability issues. There has been an increase in trend for the application of fertilizers (nitrogen & phosphorus), farm machinery fuel costs and decreasing labor productivity leading to non-optimized usage of farm inputs. Literature describes how sustainable practices such as profitability (return on investments), operational cost reduction, hazardous waste reduction, delivery performance and overall productivity might be adopted in the context of precision agriculture technologies (variable rate irrigation, variable rate fertilization, cloud-based analytics, and telematics for farm machinery navigation). The literature review describes low adoption of Internet of Things (IoT)-based precision agriculture technologies, such as variable rate fertilizer (39%), variable rate pesticide (8%), variable rate irrigation (4%), cloud-based data analytics (21%) and telematics (10%) amongst Midwestern row crop producers. Barriers to the adoption of IoT-based precision agriculture technologies cited in the literature include cost effectiveness, power requirements, wireless communication range, data latency, data scalability, data storage, data processing and data interoperability. Therefore, this study focused on exploring and understanding decision-making variables related to barriers through three focus group interview sessions conducted with eighteen (n = 18) subject matter experts (SME) in IoT- based precision agriculture practices. Dependency relationships described between cost, data latency, data scalability, power consumption, communication range, type of wireless communication and precision agriculture application is one of the main findings. The results might inform precision agriculture practitioners, producers and other stakeholders about variables related to technical and operational barriers for the adoption of IoT-based precision agriculture practices.
18 pages, The degree of risk to which agricultural farmers are exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they tackle those difficulties is a critical topic. Although the topic has been paid considerable attention by worldwide scholars, this study intends to compensate for it via conducting a ground-breaking analysis based on sample survey data. Integrating theoretical perspectives of individual- and collective-level social capitals rooted in sociology, and using NPRM (Nested Poisson Regression Model) to analyze a sample survey data collected in rural China in August 2020, we generated the following findings. (1) The overall risks and damages to agricultural production and management are relatively minimal. Thus, farmers are highly confident in conquering the pandemic and recovering their business. (2) Compared with micro- and macro-level influencing factors, social capital at both levels could greatly help agricultural farmers obtain informal and formal supporting resources (such as encouragement and financial supports), thus helping them to cope with the pandemic shock. (3) Specifically, the acquisition of informal supporting resources is mainly affected by the size of farmers’ ordinary networks (Spring Festival Visiting Network) and the frequency of public activities held in a village; gaining access to formal supporting resources is also influenced by the frequency of public activities, but the state of farmers’ personal connections with official departments plays a crucial role in determining the amount of such resources can be obtained. According to these empirical findings, suggestions on how to suppress the negative effects and lift the positive effects of dual social capitals in the process of responding to risks are proposed.
13 pages, Grassland farms form the basis of grassland resource management in China. Farm sizes in China are generally small, which obviously increases the risk of grassland ecosystems. It is necessary to analyze the impact of farm size on grasslands from the perspective of livestock production in order to improve grassland management. This study combines field investigations and statistical analysis from 2004 to 2020, using a total of 126 farms from the Xilinguole League of Inner Mongolia in China as samples. These sample farms are divided into large farms and small farms. Different production scale and management behaviors are explored, along with their different impacts on grassland resources use. The results show that the expansion of farm size is constrained by the government management policies. Different behaviors are adopted by large and small farms in terms of finance, grassland circulation, and overgrazing management. The differentiation mechanisms of different farm size and the utilization of grassland resources are clarified in this study. This work suggests that managers promote sustainable use based on farm size and build appropriate policies to avoid future risks. The results of this study can provide a framework for solving similar problems.
23 pages, As the media have continued to pay increasing attention to pig epidemic events, some local pig epidemic events may have a large degree of negative impact on the pork market and the whole pig industry chain, leading to pork price fluctuations. Strengthening pig epidemic control, monitoring media reporting sentiment, and stabilizing pork price fluctuations are important measures to improve the economy and people’s livelihood. This paper sets out to identify the relationship between the negative media sentiment about the pig epidemic and the market risk of pork prices within a setting with pig epidemic risk. Based on the provincial panel data of China from January 2011 to December 2022, this paper uses the spatial panel Durbin model to investigate the impact of negative media sentiment about the pig epidemic on pork price fluctuations from the perspective of local and spillover effects, and further discusses the mechanism of consumer sentiment. The empirical results show that: (1) The negative media sentiment about the pig epidemic significantly exacerbates pork price fluctuations, and there is a single threshold effect, which is weakened after crossing the threshold value. (2) The negative media sentiment about the pig epidemic has a significant positive spillover effect on pork price fluctuations, showing the characteristics of “being a neighbor”. The spatial spillover effect shows a significant spatial attenuation feature and an inverted U-shaped change with the inflection point at 1400 km. (3) The effect is related to the heterogeneity of media reputation. The local aggravation effect of local media’s negative sentiment on pork price fluctuations is greater than that of central media and information network platforms. In terms of the spatial spillover effect, the negative sentiment of the information network platforms has the strongest effect on the aggravation of pork price fluctuations in neighboring regions. (4) The mechanism study finds that the negative media sentiment about the pig epidemic positively affects pork price fluctuations through the path of “consumer sentiment”. Therefore, this research recommends that the government department should strengthen the supervision of media sentiment about the pig epidemic and reasonably guide consumer sentiment to stabilize the pork market.
17 pages, Southern Australian farming systems operate predominantly under Mediterranean climatic conditions, which limit the choice of cover crops suitable for enhancement of ground cover and soil moisture retention, erosion control, atmospheric soil nitrogen (N) fixation, and weed suppression between cash crop rotations. Given that the successful establishment of cover crops is climate-driven and also influenced by edaphic factors such as soil pH and salinity, there has been increased interest by southern Australian producers in identifying potential cover crop species well adapted to specific Australian farming systems, which provide vital ecosystem services and sustainable economic benefits through the improvement of soil properties. This review summarises recent findings on cover crop inclusion in diverse farming systems in southern Australia, including continuous and mixed broadacre cropping as well as viticulture and horticulture systems, to identify opportunities and limitations related to their use. Cover crop inclusion in viticulture and pasture systems with lower moisture stress was observed to benefit the subsequent cash crop through enhanced production potential. Long-term, multi-site field experimentation incorporating summer cover crops in winter crop rotations showed that cover crops enhanced ground cover and soil water infiltration in some locations across southern Australia while sometimes increasing winter crop yield, suggesting that soil type and regional climatic conditions greatly influenced the delivery of multiple cover crop benefits. Collectively, these studies have suggested a need for longer-term field evaluations using multiple cover crop species and investigations of termination options under varying environmental and soil conditions to better quantify the legacy effects of cover crops.
16 pages, The importance of smallholder farming is increasingly recognized in rural areas where increased crop productivity and market participation can effectively improve their dietary diversity and nutrition quality. However, rural households are still faced with severe food insecurity and malnutrition. The study sought to assess the role of smallholder farming in crop productivity and market access on rural household dietary diversity. The secondary data were collected using a quantitative research method, and 1520 participants were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. The descriptive results showed that cereals were the most (98%) consumed food group, while vegetables and fruits were the least consumed food groups, at 37% and 23%, respectively. The results from the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) showed that 57% of smallholder farmers consumed highly diverse diets (more or equal to six food groups), whereas 25% and 18% of smallholder farmers consumed medium dietary diversity (four to five food groups) and low diverse diets (less or equal to three food groups), respectively. The findings from the Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) and Poisson endogenous treatment effect models showed that household size, ownership of livestock, wealth index, and involvement in crop production positively influenced household dietary diversity. On the other hand, output and access to market information showed a negative effect. Social grants had contradicting effects: they had a negative impact on the HDDS received from crop productivity while they had a positive effect on the HDDS from market participation. Providing different ways smallholder farmers can use their funds effectively can help improve household dietary diversity and nutrition quality. The study recommended that more workshops and training be conducted that cover all the sustainable production systems that smallholder farmers can undertake to produce different food groups. These will raise awareness among smallholder farmers about the requirements for balanced diets for food and nutrition security.
26 pages, Agricultural productive services are an important means to achieve effective allocation of regional resources and play an important role in ensuring food security and improving farmers’ welfare. However, the development process of agricultural productive services still faces problems such as large differences in service levels in different segments and low participation rates in the full service. In order to investigate the influential paths of the low participation rate of farmers in the full-service process, this study takes maize farmers in northeast China as the research object. Based on 937 survey data from six cities in three northeastern provinces, we used the Item Response Theory (IRT) model to measure farmers’ information acquisition ability and constructed the Heckman two-stage model and the IV-Heckman model to analyze the logical framework of “information acquisition ability—farmers’ choice of productive agricultural services”. The main findings are as follows: firstly, the more channels there are, the stronger the farmers’ channel internalities; the higher the degree of channel differentiation, the stronger the farmers’ channel internalities. Second, after addressing the sample selection bias and endogeneity, there is a small rise in the facilitation effect of information acquisition ability on farmers’ productive agricultural service behavior. Third, this facilitation effect is achieved through farmers’ perceived usefulness of productive agricultural services, and the mediating effect of perceived ease of use is not significant. Therefore, fostering farmers’ self-perceptions and optimizing information delivery strategies are effective ways to promote farmers’ choice of agricultural productive services and to facilitate the modernization of Chinese agriculture. In general, this study helps to reveal the theoretical mechanism of farmers’ information asymmetry, and provides empirical evidence for how to promote the development of agricultural productive services.
16 pages, Climate change is impacting the ecological, social and technological aspects of urban gardens. Gardens experience threats (e.g., water scarcity) but are also responding through adaptation strategies (e.g., selecting drought-resilient plants). A synthetic overview of how urban gardens are affected by climate change and responding to climate change is unclear. Here, we systematically reviewed articles and book chapters published in the last two decades (2000–2022) to illustrate the relationship between climate change and urban gardening. From 72 documents analyzed with Nvivo Software, we found that there has been an increase in academic publications. Universities from the US (14) and Germany (9) universities are the dominant producers. Evidence shows that climate change can have negative impacts on cities, people and urban food. Suggestions on how to build the adaptation capacity of urban gardens include collecting rainwater, changing plant selection, changing planting times, applying vegetative cover on the soil and other practices. For cities, community and allotment gardens are helpful for adaptation, mitigation and resilience. This includes the capacity to regulate the microclimate, to reduce urban heat island effects and to buffer urban floods, the power to capture carbon, the ability to create social networks and other socio-environmental benefits for urban climate planning.
