"Las lanzas se convertirán irrevocablemente en arados": el Instituto agrario de Vicente Rocafuerte y José Indelicato (1838-1839) / “The spears shall become plows”: Vicente Rocafuerte and José Indelicato’s agrarian institute (1838-1839)

El artículo se propone analizar la fundación del primer Instituto agrario del Ecuador mediante una reconstitución del itinerario de su director, el médico siciliano José Indelicato, que permitirá esclarecer el doble contexto en que se creó el establecimiento: la difusión del socialismo utópico, que marcó el recorrido de Indelicato, y el auge de la agronomía como ciencia específica, que llevó a la creación de las primeras escuelas de agricultura en Europa y América a principios del siglo XIX.(AU)

This article aims to analyze the creation of the first Ecuadorian Agrarian Institute by reconstructing the travels of its director, the Sicilian doctor José Indelicato, between Europe and America, which will allow us to clarify the context of the Institute’s creation: the spread of utopian socialism, that influenced Indelicato’s trajectory, and the emergence of agronomy as a separate science that led to the creation of the first schools of agriculture in Europe and the Americas at the beginning of the 19th century.(AU)

Ageing threatens sustainability of smallholder farming in China.

Rapid demographic ageing substantially affects socioeconomic development1-4 and presents considerable challenges for food security and agricultural sustainability5-8, which have so far not been well understood. Here, by using data from more than 15,000 rural households with crops but no livestock across China, we show that rural population ageing reduced farm size by 4% through transferring cropland ownership and land abandonment (approximately 4 million hectares) in 2019, taking the population age structure in 1990 as a benchmark. These changes led to a reduction of agricultural inputs, including chemical fertilizers, manure and machinery, which decreased agricultural output and labour productivity by 5% and 4%, respectively, further lowering farmers' income by 15%. Meanwhile, fertilizer loss increased by 3%, resulting in higher pollutant emissions to the environment. In new farming models, such as cooperative farming, farms tend to be larger and operated by younger farmers, who have a higher average education level, hence improving agricultural management. By encouraging the transition to new farming models, the negative consequences of ageing can be reversed. Agricultural input, farm size and farmer's income would grow by approximately 14%, 20% and 26%, respectively, and fertilizer loss would reduce by 4% in 2100 compared with that in 2020. This suggests that management of rural ageing will contribute to a comprehensive transformation of smallholder farming to sustainable agriculture in China.

Assessing Youth Safety Knowledge through the Agriculture Experience Tracker (AET).

The purpose of this study was to assess high school agricultural education youth safety knowledge. The target population consisted of high school agricultural education youth, ages 14-19 years, who were enrolled in School Based Agricultural Education programs that utilized the AET agricultural safety exam feature between the dates of May 2019 and June 2020 (N=1478). The safety knowledge questions were randomly generated from the National Safe Tractor and Machinery Operation Program instructor curriculum resources. The exam consisted of 50 multiple-choice and true/false questions with one point being awarded for each correct answer and covered topics such as safety basics, agricultural hazards, tractors, connecting and using implements with tractors and materials handling. The majority of respondents were male (n = 865, 58.5%); and in eleventh grade, twelve grade, or beyond high school (33.8%, 34.3%, and 22.9% respectively). Most respondents indicated they were from a rural area (52.5%), and most had not received formal safety training (74.4%). Test scores for the 1478 respondents ranged from a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 98. Within each independent variable, test scores averaged in the low 60's with the exception of test scores from students in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade which averaged 78, 46, and 56 respectively. Research and continuous education are needed to influence the behaviors of young workers in agricultural settings.

Large-scale rollout of extension training in Bangladesh: Challenges and opportunities for gender-inclusive participation.

Despite the recognized importance of women's participation in agricultural extension services, research continues to show inequalities in women's participation. Emerging capacities for conducting large-scale extension training using information and communication technologies (ICTs) now afford opportunities for generating the rich datasets needed to analyze situational factors that affect women's participation. Data was recorded from 1,070 video-based agricultural extension training events (131,073 farmers) in four Administrative Divisions of Bangladesh (Rangpur, Dhaka, Khulna, and Rajshahi). The study analyzed the effect of gender of the trainer, time of the day, day of the week, month of the year, Bangladesh Administrative Division, and venue type on (1) the expected number of extension event attendees and (2) the odds of females attending the event conditioned on the total number of attendees. The study revealed strong gender specific training preferences. Several factors that increased total participation, decreased female attendance (e.g., male-led training event held after 3:30 pm in Rangpur). These findings highlight the dilemma faced by extension trainers seeking to maximize attendance at training events while avoiding exacerbating gender inequalities. The study concludes with a discussion of ways to mitigate gender exclusion in extension training by extending data collection processes, incorporating machine learning to understand gender preferences, and applying optimization theory to increase total participation while concurrently improving gender inclusivity.

Sparking curiosity and engagement through online curriculum.

In 2020, classrooms across the country abruptly transitioned to emergency remote learning in response to COVID-19. Instructors quickly searched for guidance on ways to present course material in an online format that would still allow for course learning outcomes to be met. Perhaps the greatest challenge cited by instructors was engaging students when face-to-face meetings were not an option. This becomes an even greater challenge in poultry and animal science curricula that encourage hands-on learning. Most first year students are unaware of the opportunities in the animal agricultural industries and engagement in the classroom is one way to spark curiosity and interest in the subject matter. The abrupt change to online teaching challenged many instructors to rethink their teaching strategies and explore teaching pedagogies to engage students in an online student-centered learning environment. An outcome from this challenge was an increased comfort and efficacy, for both students and instructors, of applying pedagogical approaches to enhance online learning. A symposium at the 2021 Poultry Science Association brought together instructors of poultry and animal science courses from across the country to discuss the challenges and successes of implementing on-line instruction and engagement in response to COVID-19. A consistent commentary among the participants of the symposium concerned an increased desire for collaboration and dialog concerning effective pedagogical approaches among instructors of poultry and animal science courses. Thus, a summary of the symposium's presentations, as well as thoughts from a student panel, concerning effective online teaching and learning is presented.

Protecting Young Agricultural Workers: The Development of an Online Supervisor Training.

Adolescents and young adults working in agriculture are at greater risk of injury. We describe the development of an online safety and health training for people who hire, teach, or supervise young agricultural workers. The online training targeted specific skills supervisors can use to effectively supervise, train, and communicate with young workers about health and safety hazards that impact injury risk. Consistent with NIOSH's evidence-based Total Worker Health® approach, the training integrated safety and health promotion and was also informed by behavioral change theories. An iterative approach was used to develop and evaluate the training. A content review provided feedback on topics and organization of material. Safety and health experts assessed the revised training content and rated the training topics on clarity, accuracy, and completeness. Finally, a pilot study with employers and health and safety professionals was used to evaluate the training materials. The content review suggested ways to reorganize the material to improve flow and reduce redundancy. Ratings of clarity, accuracy, and completeness were high, ranging from 5 to 7 (mean ratings from 5.8 to 7.0) on a scale of 1 ("does not do this at all") to 7 ("does this very well"). The pilot study led to changes in wording and items used to assess knowledge. A theoretically-informed approach was used to develop an online supervisor training to increase awareness and build skills. An iterative process that included expert review, evaluation of learning competencies, and a pilot study with the end-users is described.

Irrational career beliefs in agricultural education students, demographics, impacts, and rational career education intervention.

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that a good number of students admitted into Agricultural Science Education program in Nigerian universities exhibit irrational career interest which affects their perceptions, feelings, and academic behaviors. This study, therefore, explored the effect of rational emotive career education on irrational career beliefs among students enrolled in agricultural education program in federal universities in Enugu state. Three null hypotheses guided the study. METHOD: Of the population (N = 79 students) targeted for the study and who underwent a screening exercise, 61 students were recruited as participants/sample size for the study. Sequence allocation software was used to assign 31 students into experimental groups and 30 into waitlisted control group. Participants in the intervention group received a rational emotive career education program that lasted for 12 sessions while those in waitlisted group did not receive the intervention. The participants in both groups were assessed at three points (Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3) using rational and irrational belief scale. A repeated measure (ANOVA) and partial eta square statistical tools were used to analyze the data collected. RESULT: This study result showed that rational emotive career education significantly reduced irrational career beliefs among students enrolled in Agricultural Science Education program exposed to intervention group compared to those in waitlisted control group. It also showed that there was time × group interaction for irrational career beliefs. The follow-up assessment indicated that the efficacy of rational emotive career education was sustained overtime. CONCLUSION: This study concluded that rational emotive career education is beneficial in reducing irrational career beliefs of university students enrolled in Agricultural Science Education program. Recommendations were also made in line with the results.

Improving production and quality of life for smallholder farmers through a climate resilience program: An experience in the Brazilian Sertão.

We use a combination of economic and wellbeing metrics to evaluate the impacts of a climate resilience program designed for family farmers in the semiarid region of Brazil. Most family farmers in the region are on the verge of income and food insufficiency, both of which are exacerbated in prolonged periods of droughts. The program assisted farmers in their milk and sheepmeat production, implementing a set of climate-smart production practices and locally-adapted technologies. We find that the program under evaluation had substantive and significant impacts on production practices, land management, and quality of life in general, using several different quasi-experimental strategies to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated farmers. We highlight the strengths and limitations of each evaluation strategy and how the set of analyses and outcome indicators complement each other. The evaluation provides valuable insights into the economic and environmental sustainability of family farming in semiarid regions, which are under growing pressure from climate change and environmental degradation worldwide.

Technical inefficiency of Dutch vegetable farms: Specific-input analyses.

Differences in technical efficiency across farms are one of the major factors explaining differences in farm survival and growth and changes in farm industry structure. This study employs Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute technical inefficiency scores for output, energy, materials, pesticides and fertiliser of a sample of Dutch indoor vegetable farms within the period 2006-2016. A bootstrap truncated regression model is used to determine statistical associations between producer-specific characteristics and technical inefficiency scores for the specified inputs. For the sample of indoor growers, the average technical inefficiency was about 14% for energy, 23% for materials, 24% for pesticides and 22% for fertilisers. The bootstrap truncated regression suggested that the degree of specialisation exerts adverse effects on the technical inefficiency of variable inputs. While age, short-term, long-term debt and subsidy were statistically significant, the coefficients were not economically significant. Building the capacity of farmers to reduce input inefficiency will enable farmers to be competitive and reduce the adverse effects of input overuse on the environment.

Lean on Your Land Grant: One University's Approach to Address the Food Supply Chain Workforce during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During the spring 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, faculty and staff within Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences came together from multiple disciplines to support essential agricultural workers. Concerted leadership from administration provided a framework for this interaction to occur while faculty worked off-campus to address the many issues identified by the agricultural community, the industry sector, and other state agencies. During the onset period, much of our work was reactive; our efforts to address worker safety and health involved three primary areas within: 1) production agricultural workers, 2) produce growers and direct marketing enterprises, and 3) meat supply chain workers. Communication to target audiences relied upon our ability to convert face-to-face programming into virtual webinars, social media, and digital publications. A Food System Task Force mobilized specialists to address emerging issues, with one specific topic related to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). As we continue to face new seasons in agriculture production, and pockets of COVID-19 outbreaks within our state, we will continue to address the dynamic needs of our food supply systems. There are implications for how we will teach the agricultural workforce within a virtual platform, including the evaluation of the effectiveness of those training programs. There are renewed opportunities to integrate health and safety content into other Extension teams who conventionally focused on production practices and farm management topics. Several research themes emerged during subgroup dialog to pursue new knowledge in workers' cultural attitude and barriers, PPE design, PPE access, and overall attitude toward COVID-19 health practices.

Active projects for teaching and learning soil microbiology and applications of inoculants to increase perceived subject matter understanding and acquisition of knowledge.

Active methodologies for teaching propose tools and strategies for improving student learning by using participative and integrative approaches. These lead students to autonomous research for industry problems and solutions. This study aimed to apply active-project active methodologies to undergraduate soil microbiology and inoculant courses to verify students' perception of their knowledge levels on these topics. Forty undergraduate students received the traditional methodology that presented theoretical contents referring to the soil microbiology and inoculants; one group of twenty also elected to receive active methodologies based instruction during which they developed active projects that were structured in seven steps: briefing, bibliographic research, problematization and resolution, solutions, abstract and banner creation, and presentation. At the end of the academic year, all students answered a questionnaire to verify the perception of their levels of knowledge of soil microbiology and inoculants. Regarding the topic of microbial inoculants, perceived knowledge was the same for both groups, but overall, the active methodologies group had higher perceived knowledge of good practices of inoculation. The two groups were clustered by a multivariate approach, confirming that the use of active projects can increase the knowledge and level of subject matter understanding. The active projects contributed to undergraduate students' increased assimilation and perceived understanding of soil microbiology subject matter content and microbial inoculant issues. The active projects can be explored in other subdivisions of soil science, including agriculture and environmental studies.

Assessing the costs and returns of on-farm food safety improvements: A survey of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training participants.

Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training programs were developed to provide guidance to fruit and vegetable growers on how to reduce food safety risks on the farm. These programs have been enhanced over the years due, in part, to increasing buyer and regulatory requirements. However, the costs of implementing additional food safety practices has been identified as a primary barrier to long-term farm financial feasibility, particularly for smaller scale producers. A survey of past participants in New York State revealed that increasing food safety improvements facilitated by GAPs have not significantly impacted the size of farm operations or the types of crops grown. In terms of farm size, we show that both the financial costs and financial benefits of food safety improvements increase with farm size, but at decreasing rates. In so doing, relatively higher market sales gains per acre by smaller farms from additional food safety investments offset the relatively higher costs to them of their implementation. We also demonstrate that benefits of food safety improvements were significantly higher for farms that had third-party food safety audits and for those that market primarily through wholesale channels. The results should prove welcome by educators as they encourage participation by all scales of producers in GAPs trainings and for growers in understanding that food safety investments can support both reduced microbial risks and sales growth.

Agricultural and nutritional education interventions for reducing aflatoxin exposure to improve infant and child growth in low- and middle-income countries.

BACKGROUND: Aflatoxins are carcinogenic mycotoxins that contaminate many food crops. Maize and groundnuts are prone to aflatoxin contamination, and are the major sources of human exposure to aflatoxins, due to their high intake as staple foods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Observational studies suggest an association between dietary exposure to aflatoxins during pregnancy and early childhood and linear growth in infants and young children. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effects on pre- and postnatal growth outcomes when agricultural and nutritional education interventions during the post-harvest period that aim to reduce aflatoxin exposure are compared to usual support or no intervention. We assessed this in infants, children, and pregnant and lactating women at the household or community level in LMICs. SEARCH METHODS: In July and August 2019, we searched: CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science Core Collection, Africa-Wide, LILACS, CAB Abstracts, Agricola, and two trials registers. We also checked the bibliographies of the included studies and contacted relevant mycotoxin organisations and researchers for additional studies. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and cluster-RCTs of agricultural education and nutritional education interventions of any duration, at the household or community level, aimed at reducing aflatoxin intake by infants, children, and pregnant and lactating women, in LMICs during the post-harvest period, compared to no intervention or usual support. We excluded studies that followed participants for less than four weeks. We assessed prespecified prenatal (at birth) and postnatal growth outcomes (during infancy, childhood, and adolescence), with linear growth (as the primary outcome), infectious disease morbidity, and unintended consequences. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two authors independently assessed study eligibility using prespecified criteria, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias of included RCTs. We evaluated the certainty of the evidence using GRADE, and presented the main results in a 'Summary of findings' table. MAIN RESULTS: We included three recent cluster-RCTs reporting the effects of agricultural education plus post-harvest technologies, compared to usual agricultural support or no intervention. The participants were pregnant women and their children, lactating women and their infants (< 6 months), women of childbearing age, and young children (< 59 months), from rural, subsistence maize-farming communities in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. Two trials randomised villages to the intervention and control groups, including a total of at least 979 mother-child pairs from 60 villages. The third trial randomised 420 households, including 189 mother-child pairs and 231 women of childbearing age. Duration of the intervention and follow-up ranged between five and nine months. Due to risk of attrition bias, the overall risk of bias was unclear in one trial, and high in the other two trials. None of the included studies addressed the effects of nutritional education on pre- and postnatal growth. One trial reported outcomes not prespecified in our review, and we were unable to obtain unpublished growth data from the second trial, even after contacting the authors. The third trial, in lactating women and their infants in Tanzania, reported on the infants' weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) after six months. This trial found that providing agricultural education aimed at changing farmers' post-harvest practices to reduce aflatoxin exposure, by using demonstrations (e.g. handsorting, de-hulling of maize, drying sheets, and insecticides), may improve WAZ in infants from these farmers' households, on average, by 0.57 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.16 to 0.98; 1 study; 249 participants; very low-certainty evidence), compared to infants from households where the farmers received routine agricultural extension services. Another way of reporting the effect on WAZ is to compare the proportion of underweight infants (WAZ > 2 SD below the reference median value) per group. This trial found that the intervention may reduce the proportion of underweight infants in the intervention households by 6.7% (95% CI -12.6 to -1.4; 249 participants; very low-certainty evidence) compared to control households. No studies reported on unintended effects of agricultural and nutritional education. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Evidence on the effects on child growth in LMICs of agricultural or nutritional education interventions that reduce aflatoxin exposure was very limited; no included study reported on linear growth. Very low-certainty evidence suggested that agricultural education aimed at changing farmers' post-harvest practices to reduce aflatoxin exposure by using demonstrations, may result in an increase in WAZ, when compared to usual or no education.

Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources: Developing Future Agricultural Leaders.

The agricultural leadership discipline is rooted in public speaking and parliamentary procedure instruction for the youth members of 4-H and FFA. In the mid-1960s, the focus shifted to include collegiate level academic programs serving future agricultural leaders and has grown to include programs at 26 land-grant institutions.

A botanic garden as a tool to combine public perception of nature and life-science investigations on native/exotic plants interactions with local pollinators.

Life-sciences are pointing towards an alarming worldwide pollinator decline. This decline proceeds along with overall biodiversity losses, even in the context of urban landscapes and human welfare. At the same time, social-sciences are arguing an increased distance from nature, experienced by citizens. The strong connection between the public good and pollinator sustainability, even in urban areas, is well-documented. However, usually basic and applied life-sciences tend to underestimate public perception of nature, which is better tackled by the fields of social-sciences. Therefore, more efforts are needed to link scientific questions and public 'perception' of nature. We designed a transversal project where research questions directly confront public concerns: i.e., even while addressing scientific knowledge gaps, our questions directly arise from public concerns. Social studies highlighted that appreciation of (exotic) plants is related to the impact they may have on the surrounding natural environment: therefore, we investigated links of native and exotic flowers to local pollinators. Other studies highlighted that scientific results need to link to everyday individual experience: therefore, we investigated pollination modes of the renown Salvia, native and exotic, largely used in cuisine and gardening. The botanic garden was the promoter of scientific questions addressed by the public, and also collated the results in a travelling exhibition. The exhibition, together with a dedicated catalogue, were especially designed to enlighten the wide public on the relationships that plants, native and exotic alike, establish with the surrounding world.

Agricultural Safety Comic Book for Latinx Migrant Families: Development and Evaluation.

INTRODUCTION: Comic books and graphic novels have been used in health education. The youth of migrant and seasonal agricultural workers are highly vulnerable to the health hazards associated with agricultural work and the migrant workers' itinerant home environment. METHOD: The purpose of the study was to create a bilingual, culturally specific educational comic book to inform families of safety issues in youth hand-harvesting agricultural work and provide anticipatory guidance safety tips for agricultural work camp residence. In a mixed-methods design, a multistate and multidisciplinary team used focus groups to obtain the voice of potential users regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the comic book prototype and scales on satisfaction, helpfulness, and usability. RESULTS: Focus group participants contributed constructive criticism to modify the prototype. Quantitative surveys found the comic book to be satisfactory, helpful, and highly usable. DISCUSSION: This report describes the steps in the creation of the comic book that can be used for health promotion education.

Safe Farmer Common Sense' - A National Five-Year Education-Based Program for Prevention of Occupational Injuries in Swedish Agriculture-Background, Process, and Evaluation.

Background: This paper provides background and a process description for a national initiative ('Safe Farmer Common Sense') on prevention of occupational injuries in Swedish agriculture.Methods: This initiative, which received investment funding of 65 million SEK (6.5 million USD) from the European Union (EU) over the 5-year period 2009-2013, was jointly developed by researchers, agricultural organizations, authorities, and politicians. The program had a farmer-centered perspective and included short courses, on-farm visits by supervisors, and a number of education events and awareness-promoting activities.Results: Our analysis showed that the concept was successful, since it involved farmers to a greater extent and prompted a high proportion of these to introduce injury prevention measures on their farms compared with a control group. The analysis also confirmed that these activities continued two-three years after participation in the program.Conclusion: The program was not found to have any major effect on the number of occupational injuries, although the level of occupational fatalities was lower during the intervention period. Thus the investment can be questioned as regards the limited impact on the number of work-related injuries in Swedish agriculture and may have been too short to have a lasting effect.