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Agricultural engineering

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Adoption of non-labor agricultural inputs, including pesticides and mineral fertilizers, remains low among small-scale farmers in many low-income countries. Accurate measurement of the quality of these inputs and of quantities deployed is essential for assessing economic returns, understanding the drivers of agricultural productivity, and proposing and evaluating policies for increasing agricultural production. Reviewing evidence regarding the quality of mineral fertilizers and pesticides available to small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper summarizes four key findings. First, the available evidence on non-labor input quality to date centers mostly on urea fertilizer and glyphosate herbicide, with limited assessment of other important inputs, including multi-nutrient fertilizers. Second, the evidence shows that nitrogen shortages are exceedingly rare for urea, although quality problems are more common in fertilizer blends including nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium blends, as well as diammonium phosphate, and in glyphosate herbicide. Third, although nutrient shortages in nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium fertilizer blends and diammonium phosphate fertilizer blends are likely attributable to problems with manufacturing and storage, problems with available herbicides could be due to manufacturing issues, counterfeiting, or adulteration. Fourth, although farmers are broadly suspicious of the quality of mineral fertilizer and pesticides, evidence from several studies suggests that these beliefs do not reflect lab-based assessments of quality. In light of these findings, this paper recommends best practices for evaluation of non-labor input quality and summarizes research evaluating farmer assessment of fertilizer and pesticide quality. The paper concludes by identifying key evidentiary gaps related to measuring non-labor agricultural input quality and use, and recommends specific topics for future research.

Agricultural industries.

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Economic statistics are frequently produced at an administrative level such as the sub-national division. However, these measures may not adequately capture the local variation in the economic activities that is useful for analyzing local economic development patterns and the exposure to natural disasters. Agriculture GDP is a critical indicator for measurement of the primary sector, on which 60 percent of the world's population depends for their livelihoods. Through a data fusion method based on cross-entropy optimization, this paper disaggregates national and subnational administrative statistics of Agricultural GDP into a global gridded dataset at approximately 10 × 10 kilometers using satellite-derived indicators of the components that make up agricultural GDP, namely crop, livestock, fishery, hunting and timber production. The paper examines the exposure of areas with at least one extreme drought during 2000 to 2009 to agricultural GDP, where nearly 1.2 billion people live. The findings show an estimated US$432 billion of agricultural GDP circa 2010.

Agricultural productivity.

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"Foundations of Agricultural Education, Fourth Edition is designed for college students in agricultural education and others interested in agricultural education as fundamental preparation for the profession. Teachers of agricultural education and those in support roles will find this book to be a helpful resource. This fourth edition is updated to reflect current educational theory and practices, and includes changed laws and initiatives since the third edition. This updated textbook is appropriate for both introductory and advanced courses. Each chapter begins with a scenario designed to engage the learner in thinking about the content of that chapter and draws from relevant research and literature. Photos, illustrations, and tables provide greater context to key concepts, and every chapter concludes with questions for review and discussion, as well as additional activities designed to guide the learner into further exploration. Foundations of Agricultural Education, Fourth Edition is an engaging, immersive guide that will help prepare the next generation of agricultural educators"--

Agricultural education.

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Agricultural ecology