Archive for the ‘agriculture’ Category
Metropolitan Agriculture
March 21st, 2011 | 
Author: 
Short impression of the new approach on sustainable agriculture in metropolitan regions.
Duration : 0:7:24
Minnesota Agriculture Week Message
http://www.mda.state.mn.us Governor Mark Dayton has proclaimed March 13-19 as Minnesota Agriculture Week. The designation is an effort to raise awareness of the positive and important contributions agriculture makes to Minnesota’s economy and its people.
Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson recorded this message urging all Minnesotans to take time this week to recognize the contributions of the state’s farmers and ranchers.
Nearly one in five jobs in the state are linked to agriculture. And according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, Minnesota agriculture generated $13.3 billion in farm income and $4.3 billion in exports in 2009.
Minnesota Agriculture Week is being recognized in conjunction with National Ag Week. 2011 marks the 38th anniversary of the national celebration.
Duration : 0:0:28
Posted in agriculture | 
Tags: agriculture, Commissioner, dave, Dayton, Department, farmers, Frederickson, governor, Income, jobs, Mark, MDA, Minnesota, MN, National, of, ranchers, Week | 
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Burkina Faso: Agricultural Diversification
For years now Burkina Faso has heavily relied on agriculture to create jobs and income for its people. But environmental degradation and climate change threatens the livelihood of 86 % of the employment and income, generated by agriculture. To combat the threat, the Government of Burkina Faso is shifting its rural strategy to encourage those living off the land to diversify.
Duration : 0:3:8
Posted in agriculture |
Tags: africa, agriculture, bank, Burkina, change, climate, development, economy, employment, environment, farmers, Faso, jobs, world |
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Florida Agriculture commish wants control of School Lunch
Ag Commissioner Adam Putnam says Department of Education should hand over control of School Lunch programs. He promises swifter policy implementation to get more fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunchrooms.
Duration : 0:5:30
Posted in agriculture |
Tags: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Department of education, Florida, food, health, junk food, nutrition, School Lunch, sunshine state news |
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Interview with Ugo Vallauri from Royal Holloway University of London
Ugo Vallauri, ICT4D Researcher at the Royal Holloway University of London, speaks with the e-Agriculture Team and shares his insights on impact assessment. Filmed at the ICT4D Conference in December 2010.
Duration : 0:3:23
How is agriculture a source of air pollution?
I’m supposed to do a poster on air pollution so on one side is stuff that humans can do more to reduce air pollution and on the other side is what humans can reduce on doing that causes air pollution. So my teacher showed us a chart that says the sources of air pollution, one source is agriculture. So my question is how does agriculture create air pollution?
Air pollution is the volume of particulates in the atmosphere. The agriculture process has many contributing factors to pollution, depending on how finite you break it down.
Agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14-25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. A significant portion of these emissions come from methane, which, in terms of its contribution to climate change, is 23 times more potent then carbon dioxide (CO2).
Some of the contributing factors are:
The world’s 1.5 billion cows and billions of other grazing animals emit dozens of polluting gases, including lots of methane. Two-thirds of all ammonia comes from cows as well. Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence. Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day (or about 26 gallons to about 53 gallons), while others say it’s up to 500 liters (about 132 gallons) a day. In any case, that’s a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.
Another way is to look at the processes that go into agriculture:
To feed animals that will be consumed in the future, they need to be fed. That means energy needs to be put into growing crops that will feed them (water irrigation/storage, seed distribution, harvesting, processing and distributing). That energy in turn creates more emissions.
Also, a problem with the current form of industrialized agriculture used in developed countries, is that they tend to stick to a "cash crop" or non-indigenous crop. This means that more fertilizer and pesticides will need to be used to mitigate the soil depletion and lack of natural defenses by the plant/crop. Not only does the use of these lead to irrigation run-off that take chemicals and nutrients to larger waterways which then deposit into ground water supply or even the ocean. (the ocean is bad because it creates a hypoxic deadzone the kills all sea life in that area – http://lab.visual-logic.com/2010/02/agricultural-runoff-in-the-mississippi-river-basin-and-the-dead-zone/)
To summarize – the manufacturing processes of agriculture and use of pesticides and fertilizers, fuel and oil for tractors, equipment, trucking and shipping, electricity for lighting, cooling, and heating, along with emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases bumps the impact up quite a bit.
Lastly, land use effects the impact to air pollution as well. In developing nations, money for crops is at a premium – oppose to rainforest concentration. So as a result, clear-cutting of heavily forested areas is common which not only releases carbon contained in the plants and soil. But it minimizes the capacity of the larger trees and plants to absorb carbon.
Lastly
National agriculture Science mesum hindi by ICAR posted by om
National agriculture Science mesum hindi posted by omprakash
Duration : 0:12:29
TUFTS UNIVERSITY AND U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE PIN THEIR SIGHTS ON HEALTHY EYES
Tufts University with the assistance and support of the U-S Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service are looking at ways to keep our eyesight healthy as we age. The USDA’s Mark Ennis has more.
Duration : 0:1:34
Posted in agriculture |
Tags: agriculture, ARS, degeneration, eye, eyesight, macular, research, tufts, USDA |
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What are the primary theoretical models for the origins of agriculture?
I am writing a paper on the origins of agriculture (plant domestication) in the ancient Near East, but I’m not sure where I should start my research. Can anyone tell me what the primary theories for the origins of agriculture are? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
One theory is that even hunter/gatherers were doing agriculture. It is stupid easy to take the seed of a plant that you like eating, and plant that in the ground when you are in a region where you naturally find those plants. Then the hunters/gatherers moved on, following game. Somewhere along the line, they began to discover that if they planted lots of seeds, and then returned next season as they followed the herds they hunted, they would find lots of edible stuff growing.
So, according to the theory, they realized that if they got organized on this seed planting, then next season that spot would be a good place to camp because there would be abundant food. But, this agriculture HAD to go hand in hand with animal domestication and husbandry. Or else, what are you going to eat while waiting for the food to grow?
So, when they domesticated the more stupid animals and built a means to keep them in the same place where they planted lots of seeds in an organized fashion, then they could live in one spot and have a stable food supply. The theory goes that this practice took over like wild fire and people quickly figured out how to really be organized with planting and tending to seeds of all kinds of plants, and got real good fast with mass producing their domesticated animals.
Keep in mind, the early plants that people planted were not genetically modified in anyway. They were essentially the original forms of the plant that they liked to eat, only planted in large quantities in cleared land next to a trustworthy water source, like a river in a flood valley. And, with all that time that you are not constantly moving after herds of wild animals, you have time to experiment with your food to get more out of what you produce – like bread.
Eye on Rivers – Agriculture Revolution
(www.abndigital.com)
Rivers State is transforming its economy through agriculture despite its status as an oil rich state.
Duration : 0:5:48