The Consequences of Excessive Chemicalization on Fruits Quality

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 1303-1308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Alexandru Gitea ◽  
Simona Bungau ◽  
Daniela Gitea ◽  
Lavinia Purza ◽  
Sebastian Nemeth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Pesticide Residues ◽  
Chemical Engineering ◽  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Pesticide Treatment ◽  
Intensive Intervention ◽  
Optimal Efficiency ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Intensive System

Chemistry in agriculture has been considered for several decades a formula synonymous with progress and development, as chemical engineering, mechanization, irrigation, modern agro-technical processes have contributed to a substantial increase in production. At present, the use of pesticides to increase agricultural productivity is considered to be a global hazard to the environment. This study examines changes in tree tolerance for major diseases and pests, disease and pest behavior, and the changes that occur in the recommended pesticide treatment. The researches were carried out on different species of fruit trees (apple, plum, and almond), cultivated in an intensive system, in five orchards located in Bihor county. The behavior of each species, as well as the behavior of different varieties with respect to tolerance to major diseases and pests, have been observed over the last 5 years (2013-2017). In addition, pesticide residues were monitored from all crops of apple, plum and almond. During 2015-2017, from March to May, the diseases were more virulent, requiring intensive intervention with systemic and contact fungicide combinations to achieve optimal efficiency; this fact has been correlated with the increase in the number of samples containing pesticide residues. This perspective allows an ecological remodeling of current progress in orchard development, including all aspects of environmental protection and the impact on population2 s health.

scholarly journals Corporate Environmental Performance in China: The Moderating Effects of the Media versus the Approach of Local Governments

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Zhiru Guo ◽  
Chao Lu
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Random Effect Model ◽  
Corporate Environmental Performance ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This article selects the listed companies in China’s A-share heavy pollution industry from 2014 to 2018 as samples, uses a random effect model to empirically test the relationship between media attention and corporate environmental performance and examines the impacts of local government environmental protection and property nature on that relationship. Results are as follow: (1) Media attention can significantly affect a company’s environmental performance. The higher the media attention, the greater the company’s supervision and the better its environmental performance. (2) In areas where the government pays less attention to environmental protection, the impact of media on corporate environmental performance is more obvious, but in other areas, the impact of media on environmental performance cannot be reflected; (3) The media attention is very significant for the environmental performance improvement of state-owned enterprises, and it is not obvious in non-state-owned enterprises. (4) A further breakdown of the study found that the role of media attention in corporate environmental performance is only significant in the sample of local governments that have low environmental protection and are state-owned enterprises. This research incorporates the local government’s emphasis on environmental protection into the research field of vision, expands the research scope of media and corporate environmental performance, and also provides new clues and evidence for promoting the active fulfillment of environmental protection responsibilities by companies and local governments.

scholarly journals Association of temporary Environmental Protection Agency regulation suspension with industrial economic viability and local air quality in California, United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Chang ◽  
Kenneth Zhang ◽  
Margaret Paczkowski ◽  
Sara Kohler ◽  
Marco Ribeiro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Economic Viability ◽  
Treatment Control ◽  
Oil Refineries ◽  
Pollution Levels ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background This study seeks to answer two questions about the impacts of the 2020 Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement regulation rollbacks: is this suspension bolstering the economic viability of industries as oil and manufacturing executives claim they will and are these regulations upholding the agency’s mission of protecting the environment? Results To answer the former question, we utilized 6 months of state employment level data from California, United States, as a method of gauging the economic health of agency-regulated industries. We implemented a machine learning model to predict weekly employment data and a t-test to indicate any significant changes in employment. We found that, following California's state-issued stay-at-home order and the agency’s regulation suspension, oil and certain manufacturing industries had statistically significant lower employment values. To answer the latter question, we used 10 years of PM2.5 levels in California, United States, as a metric for local air quality and treatment–control county pairs to isolate the impact of regulation rollbacks from the impacts of the state lockdown. Using the agency’s data, we performed a t-test to determine whether treatment–control county pairs experienced a significant change in PM2.5 levels. Even with the statewide lockdown—a measure we hypothesized would correlate with decreased mobility and pollution levels—in place, counties with oil refineries experienced the same air pollution levels when compared to historical data averaged from the years 2009 to 2019. Conclusions In contrast to the expectation that the suspension would improve the financial health of the oil and manufacturing industry, we can conclude that these industries are not witnessing economic growth with the suspension and state shutdown in place. Additionally, counties with oil refineries could be taking advantage of these rollbacks to continue emitting the same amount of PM2.5, in spite of state lockdowns. For these reasons, we ask international policymakers to reconsider the suspension of enforcement regulations as these actions do not fulfill their initial expectations. We recommend the creation and maintenance of pollution control and prevention programs that develop emission baselines, mandate the construction of pollution databases, and update records of pollution emissions.

Technological Innovation and the Agricultural Sustainability

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Rachida Khaled ◽  
Lamine Hammas
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Agricultural Sustainability ◽  
Net Income ◽  
Agriculture Sector ◽  
The Impact

The diffusion of the technological innovation can affect the agricultural sector in the three-sided (social, economic and environmental), a hand, it can contribute to solve problems of the agricultural sector: the effects of the climatic changes, the farming exodus and the migration and the problems of poverty and it can improve the agricultural productivity. But on the other hand, he can lead to new problems, such as depletion of energy resources caused by excessive use of energizing technologies, pollution of air and water and the destruction of soil by industrial waste. This paper aims to theoretically and empirically analyze the role of technological innovation in improving agricultural sustainability through the impact of mechanization on agricultural productivity, energy production and net income per capita for a panel of three Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) during the period 1997-2012. By using simultaneous equations, the authors' finding that technological innovation cannot achieve the purpose of sustainable development in the agriculture sector in the Maghreb countries through the negative impact of mechanization and research and development on agricultural productivity.

scholarly journals First Report of Apricot vein clearing-associated virus (AVCaV) infecting Prunus domestica revealed by High-Throughput Sequencing in Morocco

Plant Disease ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachid Tahzima ◽  
Radouane Qessaoui ◽  
Yoika Foucart ◽  
Sebastian Massart ◽  
Kris De Jonghe
Keyword(s):  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Plant Viruses ◽  
Amino Acid Sequences ◽  
Stone Fruit ◽  
Replicase Gene ◽  
Prunus Domestica ◽  
Prunus Species ◽  
First Report ◽  
Vein Clearing ◽  
The Impact

Plum (Prunus domestica L., Rosaceae) trees, like many stone fruit trees, are known to be infected by numerous plant viruses, predominantly as consequence of their clonal mode of propagation and perennial cultivation (Jelkmann and Eastwell, 2011). Apricot vein clearing-associated virus (AVCaV) is a member of the genus Prunevirus in the family Betaflexiviridae. AVCaV was first reported in Italy infecting apricot (P. armeniaca L.) associated with foliar vein clearing symptoms (Elbeaino et al. 2014). It has also been detected in various Prunus species, like plum, Japanese plum (P. salicina L.), sour cherry (P. cerasus L.), and Japanese apricot (P. mume L.), apricot and peach (P. persica L.) sourced from Asian and European countries (Marais et al. 2015), as well as in the ornamental Myrobolan plum (P. cerasifera L.) in Australia (Kinoti et al. 2017). In 2018, during the vegetative season, a survey was carried out in two different apricot and plum orchards in the southern region of Agdez (Agadir, Morocco) where stone fruit trees are grown. Five branches with leaves were sampled from three apricot and three plum trees of unknown cultivars, all asymptomatic. Total RNA was extracted from 100 mg plant tissue (leaves and cambial scrapping) using RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (QIAGEN, Hilden, Germany) and separate samples (one per species) were used for library preparation (NEBNext Ultra RNA library kit; New England BioLabs, MA, USA), and sequencing (Illumina NextSeq v2, totRNA sequencing) at Admera Health (New Jersey, USA). All generated reads (6,756,881) from the plum sample were quality filtered and submitted to the VirusDetect pipeline (Zheng et al., 2017). The plum cDNA library, a total of 20 viral contigs (68-1928 bp) mapped to several AVCaV accessions in GenBank. A reference mapping (CLC Genomics Workbench 12, Qiagen, Denmark) was conducted against all four available AVCaV full genomes (KM507062-63, KY132099 and HG008921), revealing 100% coverage of the full sequence (8358 nt) with 97-98 % nucleotide (nt) identities (BLASTn). Analysis of the derived sequences allowed to identify the location of the four predicted ORFs i.e. (ORF1: 6066 nt/2,021 aa), (ORF2: 1383 nt/460 aa), (ORF3: 666 nt/221 aa) and (ORF4: 420 nt/139 aa), previously described for the AVCaV genome (Elbeaino et al. 2014). The amino acid sequences of the encoded proteins of AVCaV isolate from Morocco also shared 97-98% identities with the corresponding sequences of complete genome AVCaV isolates in GenBank. To confirm the detection of AVCaV in the three plum samples, specific RT-PCR primers (VC37657s: 5’-CCATAGCCACCCTTTTTCAA-3’ / VC28239a: 5’-GTCGTCAAGGGTCCAGTGAT-3’) (Elbeaino et al. 2014) were used and the expected 330 bp fragment from the replicase gene was amplified in all three samples and subsequently sequenced (MT980794-96). Sanger sequences were 100% identical to corresponding HTS derived sequence. This is the first report of AVCaV infecting plum in Africa. The incidence of AVCaV in Moroccan Prunus species is unknown. Plum trees from the surveyed orchards were also confirmed to be co-infected with little cherry virus 1 (LChV-1) using HTS. Further investigation is required to determine the impact of AVCaV on these asymptomatic plum trees and other stone fruits species.

scholarly journals Does agricultural diversification build economic resilience to drought and flood? Evidence from poor households in Zambia

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80
Author(s):  
Shun Chonabayashi ◽  
◽  
Theepakorn Jithitikulchai ◽  
Yeqing Qu ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Productivity ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Weather Extremes ◽  
Economic Resilience ◽  
Economic Diversification ◽  
Maize Production ◽  
Drought And Flood ◽  
Agricultural Diversification ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
The Impact

The adverse effects of weather extremes produce widespread damage and cause severe alterations in the normal functioning of household agricultural production in Zambia. Extreme weather events such as floods and drought are expected to increase in intensity and frequency due to climate change. Coupled with high poverty levels and limited institutional capacity, the country is highly vulnerable to the impact of extreme events. We quantify the effects of economic diversification on agricultural productivity of poor farm households with a skew-normal regression approach while accounting for drought and flood shocks. Our analysis finds that economic diversification is a strategy to increase agricultural productivity and mitigate the adverse impact of droughts and floods on agricultural households. The results also support the country's policies to encourage hybrid maize production and to provide crop seeds and fertiliser to poor farmers. This paper provides a framework to plan and inform interventions to enhance household economic resilience to weather shocks through agricultural diversification in Zambia and other countries.

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