From planetary to regional boundaries for agricultural nitrogen pollution.

Excessive agricultural nitrogen use causes environmental problems globally1, to an extent that it has been suggested that a safe planetary boundary has been exceeded2. Earlier estimates for the planetary nitrogen boundary3,4, however, did not account for the spatial variability in both ecosystems' sensitivity to nitrogen pollution and agricultural nitrogen losses. Here we use a spatially explicit model to establish regional boundaries for agricultural nitrogen surplus from thresholds for eutrophication of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and nitrate in groundwater. We estimate regional boundaries for agricultural nitrogen pollution and find both overuse and room for intensification of agricultural nitrogen. The aggregated global surplus boundary with respect to all thresholds is 43 megatonnes of nitrogen per year, which is 64 per cent lower than the current (2010) nitrogen surplus (119 megatonnes of nitrogen per year). Allowing the nitrogen surplus to increase to close yield gaps in regions where environmental thresholds are not exceeded lifts the planetary nitrogen boundary to 57 megatonnes of nitrogen per year. Feeding the world without trespassing regional and planetary nitrogen boundaries requires large increases in nitrogen use efficiencies accompanied by mitigation of non-agricultural nitrogen sources such as sewage water. This asks for coordinated action that recognizes the heterogeneity of agricultural systems, non-agricultural nitrogen losses and environmental vulnerabilities.

Importance of legal regulations resulting from technical harmonization in the European Union for improvement of work safety of farmers in Poland.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Accidents exert a negative effect on the quality and standard of living of rural inhabitants, especially when they make it impossible to continue work on a farm, or this work may be performed only to a limited extent. The creation of effective legal mechanisms which would guarantee the safety of operation of machinery is a crucial issue, it is of a preventive character and considerably limits the number of accidents. Approximately 16.1 million people live in the rural areas and around 2.3 million work in the agricultural sector, which represents 14.5% of all labour in Poland in 2019. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the legal regulations resulting from the directives of technical harmonization in the European Union for improvement of safety of work with the use of agricultural machinery in Poland. MATERIALS AND METHOD: The method was critical analysis of legal acts in effect, court rulings, and statistical data concerning accidentsoin farms, made available by the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS). BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE: As a result of Poland's membership of the European Union, rural areas were covered by globalization processes and single market rules, within which there function legal mechanisms of safety and quality of products. CONCLUSIONS: Analysis of the 16 years of Poland's membership of the EU, resulted in positive results being observed in the use of the directives of technical harmonization, especially in reducing the number of accidents involving agricultural machinery. However, this improvement may result from using newly-purchased, modern and safer agricultural machinery covered by the conformity assessment, and preventive actions carried out by the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund. An impact of other factors, not analysed in the study, cannot be ruled out.

Occupational health and safety in agriculture - a brief report on organization, legislation and support in selected European countries.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Agriculture and forestry are among the most dangerous professions in Europe, with a high level of accidents affecting the sustainability and viability of the sector. International conventions, EU directives and national legislation build the fundamental basis for prevention. The aim of the study is to describe and categorize national mechanisms of occupational safety and health (OSH) for agricultural workers in Europe, to assess the extent of implementing safety regulation, the body in charge, and to give examples of health and safety initiatives. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Results of a questionnaire-survey on basic safety regulations on farms sent by e-mail to the representatives of 30 participating European countries in the context of the Sacurima COST action network (CA 16123) are presented. Due to the complexity, only selected countries are described in this study highlighting the regulative bodies, occupational health services or specific training offers, as well as the complexity of the mechanisms. RESULTS: One of the most serious issues and deficits of EU OSH regulation is the exclusion of self-employed farmers who compose nearly 90% of the farming population. This leads to serious under-reporting of accidents, and because one of the most common measures for the performance of health and safety initiatives are the injury and ill health statistics, better registration systems are urgently needed in almost all countries as a basis for preventive efforts. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study provide a basis for raising awareness about the current OSH systems in Europe, and the importance of developing sector specific OSH strategies. The proposed activities should assist in tackling high accident rates and poor occupational health for self-employed farmers.

A global database of plant services for humankind.

Humanity faces the challenge of conserving the attributes of biodiversity that may be essential to secure human wellbeing. Among all the organisms that are beneficial to humans, plants stand out as the most important providers of natural resources. Therefore, identifying plant uses is critical to preserve the beneficial potential of biodiversity and to promote basic and applied research on the relationship between plants and humans. However, much of this information is often uncritical, contradictory, of dubious value or simply not readily accessible to the great majority of scientists and policy makers. Here, we compiled a genus-level dataset of plant-use records for all accepted vascular plant taxa (13489 genera) using the information gathered in the 4th Edition of Mabberley's plant-book, the most comprehensive global review of plant classification and their uses published to date. From 1974 to 2017 all the information was systematically gathered, evaluated, and synthesized by David Mabberley, who reviewed over 1000 botanical sources including modern Floras, monographs, periodicals, handbooks, and authoritative websites. Plant uses were arranged across 28 standard categories of use following the Economic Botany Data Collection Standard guidelines, which resulted in a binary classification of 9478 plant-use records pertaining human and animal nutrition, materials, fuels, medicine, poisons, social and environmental uses. Of all the taxa included in the dataset, 33% were assigned to at least one category of use, the most common being "ornamental" (26%), "medicine" (16%), "human food" (13%) and "timber" (8%). In addition to a readily available binary matrix for quantitative analyses, we provide a control text matrix that links the former to the description of the uses in Mabberley's plant-book. We hope this dataset will serve to establish synergies between scientists and policy makers interested in plant-human interactions and to move towards the complete compilation and classification of the nature's contributions to people upon which the wellbeing of future generations may depend.

Towards poverty alleviation in developing countries: An empirical study of the impact of land tenure reforms in Kati, Mali.

Post-colonial land tenure reforms in emerging countries have partly aimed at poverty reduction through equitable land access. However, the poverty rate keeps rising in rural and peri-urban settings in Sub-Saharan Africa dominated by agricultural activities. This article reviews land tenure reforms in Mali, from the year 2000 to 2017 regarding poverty alleviation and evaluates their impacts on indigenous smallholder farmers, using multiple linear and logistic regression models and local experts' elicitations. The results indicate that the advent of land titles as the only definitive evidence of land ownership, following the reforms, has generally weakened customary land management. Smallholder farmers face several barriers to obtaining land titles, limiting equity in land access and security. This has paved way for land markets marred by irregularities and resulted in colossal loss of agricultural lands, which are the main source of rural livelihood. Thus, the reforms have not yielded the intended poverty reduction outcomes. The study recommends that land transfers must be authorised by a single institution, represented at the various administrative levels, which issues an authentic and incorruptible document using appropriate technology. Moreover, since pro-poor provisions in the reforms usually lack implementing decrees in Mali, political will is key to achieving equitable land access and security.

Composting of winery waste and characteristics of the final compost according to Brazilian legislation.

The waste generated in the production of wine and grape juice is characterized by a high concentration of organic matter, when properly treated, can serve as sustainable strategies for its use and destination, and among these, the production of biocompost. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the process of composting grape marc, sheep manure, and mango leaves, evaluating in the biocompost its physical-chemical, nutritional and microbiological characteristics for use in agriculture. The composting pile assembly followed the proportion of 30% of sheep manure as nitrogenous material and 70% of carbon-rich material (divided into 50% of grape marc and 20% of hose leaves), the initial C/N ratio was 33:1, and the process lasted 120 days according to legislation. When evaluating the results, the process occurred in an accelerated manner, where at 30 days the biocompost was already stabilized, and at the end of the process (120 days) it presented a C/N ratio of 5.85, as well as acceptable levels for the macronutrients K and P, and without risk of phytotoxicity, and could be used as organic fertilizer or as soil conditioner, reducing environmentally inadequate destination and generating savings with their reinsertion in the production chain.

Empirical evidence on factors influencing farmers' administrative burden: A structural equation modeling approach.

Direct payments represent a large share of Swiss farmers' total household income but compliance with related requirements often entails a high administrative burden. This causes individuals to experience policy implementation as onerous. Based on a framework for administrative burden in citizen-state interactions, we test whether farmers' individual knowledge, psychological costs and compliance costs help to explain their perception of administrative burden related to direct payments. We refine this framework by testing different specifications of interrelations between psychological costs and perceived administrative burden based on findings from policy feedback theory and education research. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is applied to data collected from a representative sample of 808 Swiss farmers by postal questionnaire in 2019. We find that compliance costs and psychological costs contribute significantly to the perceived administrative burden. In contrast, farmers' knowledge level contributes to this perception not directly but indirectly, with higher knowledge reducing psychological costs. Our results support policy feedback theory, in that a high level of administrative burden increases psychological costs. Furthermore, well-educated and well-informed farmers show a more positive attitude toward agricultural policy and thus perceive administrative tasks as less onerous. Policy-makers should invest in the reduction of administrative requirements to reduce compliance costs.

Consumption of Foods Derived from Subsidized Crops Remains Associated with Cardiometabolic Risk: An Update on the Evidence Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009-2014.

In this study, we examined the associations between the consumption of foods derived from crops subsidized under the 2008 United States (US) Farm Bill and cardiometabolic risk factors and whether the magnitude of these associations has changed since the 2002 US Farm Bill. Four federal databases were used to estimate daily consumption of the top seven subsidized commodities (corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy, and livestock) and to calculate a subsidy score (0-1 scale) for Americans' daily dietary intake during 2009-2014, with a higher score indicative of a higher proportion of the diet derived from subsidized commodities. The cardiometabolic risk factors included obesity, abdominal adiposity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and dysglycemia. Linear and logistic regression models were adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, the poverty-income ratio, the smoking status, educational attainment, physical activity, and daily calorie intake. During 2009-2014, adults with the highest subsidy score had higher probabilities of obesity, abdominal adiposity, and dysglycemia compared to the lowest subsidy score. After the 2002 Farm Bill (measured using data from 2001-2006), the subsidy score decreased from 56% to 50% and associations between consuming a highly-subsidized diet and dysglycemia did not change (p = 0.54), whereas associations with obesity (p = 0.004) and abdominal adiposity (p = 0.002) significantly attenuated by more than half. The proportion of calories derived from subsidized food commodities continues to be associated with adverse cardiometabolic risk factors, though the relationship with obesity and abdominal adiposity has weakened in recent years.

A Review of Leadership and Capacity Gaps in Nutrition-Sensitive Agricultural Policies and Strategies for Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

BACKGROUND: Agriculture policies and strategies designed, purposefully, to address malnutrition are considered nutrition-sensitive and are a critical component of global efforts to address malnutrition in all its forms. However, limited evidence exists on extent and how nutrition is being integrated into agriculture sector policies, strategies, and programs. A review was conducted to address 2 questions: How nutrition-sensitive are agriculture policies, plans, and investments in selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and Asian countries? and Which capacity and leadership gaps limit scale up of nutrition-sensitive agriculture policy and programs? METHODS: The review of existing policies was conducted for 11 selected focus countries (9 in SSA and 2 from Asia) of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) Collaborative Research Programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health led by the IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)'s 10-point key recommendations for designing nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions was used as an analytical framework. Additionally, a rapid systematic review of published peer-reviewed and grey literature was carried out to identify capacity gaps based on the United Nations Development Program's capacity assessment framework. RESULTS: We found that there is nutrition sensitivity of the policies and strategies but to varying degrees. There is limited capacity for optimum implementation of these policies, programs, and strategies. For most of the countries, there is capacity to articulate what needs to happen, but there are important capacity limitations to translate the given policy/program instruments into effective action. CONCLUSIONS: The gaps identified constitute important evidence to inform capacity strengthening of nutrition-sensitive actions for desired nutrition and health outcomes in Africa and Asia.

The Potential Impact of COVID-19 on H-2A Agricultural Workers.

The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on farmworker communities has been well documented by the media. The virus overlays existing health disparities among farmworkers, but the population is not homogenous. One group of workers that may be even more vulnerable to the transmission of COVID-19 is the H-2A temporary worker population, because they have less control over their physical environments than domestic farmworkers, who may obtain their own housing and transportation. The H-2A program was recently altered at the federal level to ensure a steady flow of essential workers that can protect the nation's food supply during a crisis. Yet, in spite of increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in states with significant H-2A worker populations, the federal rule that temporarily expanded the H-2A program did not address needs to protect workers' health. Although the CDC has developed recommendations for the agricultural industry to safeguard against COVID-19, most health and safety regulation for farmworkers are left to state and local agencies that may lack knowledge or resources to effectively address the needs of a specialized growing workforce such as H-2A workers. More research is needed on the disparate health and safety needs of H-2A workers to assess how policy can be tailored to reduce the transmission of the COVID-19 virus among the population.