Mapping Plastic Greenhouses With LANDSAT 8 Imagery in Valparaiso, Chile

In the last decades there has been a strong increase around the world in the use of plastic greenhouses (PGs). The Valparaíso region, in the central valley of Chile, has not been the exception, and the area covered by greenhouses has also experienced an increase over the years, reaching 1180 ha in 2007. Taking into account that agriculture in this region employs more than 60,000 people and accounts for 4% of the regional GDP, this information should be available to be included in territorial planning and incorporated into hydrological, economic, and food security models. To do this, the authors propose a new method for identifying the surface covered by PGs based on the intersection of the normalized difference indices and the areas excluded by the masks. The results showed that this methodology was able to identify with a general precision of 86.25% which allowed to classify 1409.85 ha. This area is consistent with the agricultural census carried out in 2007 and with the increase of more than 900 subsidies granted by the government for the installation of new structures.

Komitat Somogy im Spiegel der Angaben der landwirtschaftlichen Betriebszählung vom Jahre 1935.

Purpose of the study. The study aims to present the most important findings of the analysis of the 1935 agricultural census in Somogy county, referring to the local solutions to the economic crisis. The situation in Somogy was unique since the county’s weight, dominated by large estates, increased in the Hungarian agricultural policy as the result of the Treaty of Trianon. Moreover, as leaders of national advocacy organizations, local agricultural leaders became key shapers of agricultural policy in these decades. Thus, an important question is to what extent the census’ data examined reflected the dominant role of these large landowners. Applied method. The study analyses statistical data and uses the method of historical comparison. Specifically, the 1935 Somogy County census data were analyzed and compared with the census data of 1895. The results thus obtained were compared with Somogy related conclusions of Kiss Albert’s work. Outcomes. One of the main objectives of the agricultural census carried out at the same time as the surveys of other countries was to test the impact of land reform that had recently been completed. On the other hand, the census was at some level part of the crisis management mechanism of the time, where intensification was the only way out of the agricultural crisis. Although this county was mainy dominated by large estates in the country, this is true even if we know from the analysis that by 1935 the proportion of large estates had decreased compared to the data of the 1895 survey. However, this decrease was not so much due to land reform, but rather to parcels and the increasing number of small leases. Somogy was in the middle in terms of intensification of agriculture, based on the national ranking. Although the division of labour and cooperation between large and small enterprises was becoming more and more common here, at that time, contrary to economic considerations, it was not yet possible completely get rid off the endevour of self-sufficiency on farms.

Analysis of labor resources based on the typology of peasant (farmer) households and agricultural organizations

Subject. The article investigates the system of statistical indicators of agricultural labor resources, and considers three subjects of the Russian Federation with different agro-climatic conditions (the Republic of Buryatia, the Lipetsk Oblast and the Stavropol Territory). Objectives. The aim is to develop the typology of peasant (farmer) households and agricultural organizations, according to the All-Russian Agricultural Census, and to obtain detailed characteristics of labor resources by selected type. Methods. I employ the cluster analysis and the variance analysis. The depersonalized data of the All-Russian Agricultural Census of 2016 served as an information base of the study. Results. The paper unveils a strong differentiation of peasant (farmer) households and agricultural organizations in terms of size, specialization, and production intensity. This indicates the need to develop their typology and to study labor resources by selected type. Based on the developed methodology, I identify three groups from each category of farms (small, medium and large) in the said subjects of the Russian Federation. Within the categories, there are significant differences in terms of the number of employees and supply of labor. In general, in regions with more favorable natural conditions, the proportion of full-time farm laborers is higher. Conclusions. The findings can be used by federal, regional and local authorities for developing measures to increase employment in agriculture and rural areas.

Options to Support Sustainable Trajectories in a Rural Landscape: Drivers, Rural Processes, and Local Perceptions in a Colombian Coffee-Growing Region

Trajectories of many rural landscapes in Latin America remain unsustainable. Options to support sustainable rural trajectories should be comprehensive and rooted in the interests of rural actors. We selected a municipality in a coffee-growing region in Colombia with an increasing urban–rural nexus to describe interactions between rural processes and their drivers while identifying and contextualising the perceptions of local actors on major constraints and opportunities for more inclusive and sustainable rural trajectories. We described these interactions by combining secondary data on main drivers, agricultural census data, and interviews with different local actors. Changes in population structure, volatility in coffee prices, in-/out-migration, deagrarianisation, and rurbanisation, among others, are reconfiguring the rural trajectories of the study area. Despite not being a major coffee region, farmers in the study area have developed different strategies, including intensification, diversification, replacement or abandonment of coffee production, and commercialisation. The perceptions of local actors and the multiplicity of agricultural households, food/land use systems, rural processes, and drivers described in this study suggest that more sustainable rural transitions need to be supported by inclusive, integrated, and transformative landscape planning approaches that align with local priorities. However, this transformation needs to be accompanied by changes at a systemic level that address the fundamental bottlenecks to real sustainability.

The effects of rural development on main sources of farm households

In line with the development of the rural villages, rural employment changes. Consequently, the job opportunities of some farmers will also change. This study aims to estimate the effect of rural development and some other factors on the primary source of household income of farmers in several agroecosystems. The data analyzed were the 2013 Agricultural Census, Village Potential and “PATANAS” data. The results showed that farmers’ opportunity of leaving agriculture as the main source of household income increased if cultivated land was smaller and the inequality of landholding in the village increased. In the set of variables that determine rural development, improvements in the dimensions of basic services and basic infrastructure of non-accessibility/transportation positively affect the opportunities of farmers’ households to make non-agricultural work as their source of income. Improvements in the accessibility/transportation dimension, on the other hand, strengthen the ability of farm households to rely on agriculture as a source of household income. Based on the research results, increasing the agricultural sector as a significant contributor to farmer household income can be achieved by increasing accessibility/transportation facilities and improving the distribution of cultivated land.

US farm typology from agricultural census: labor resource analysis

This article analyzes the labor resources by farm type in the United States based on the 2017 Agricultural Census. The subject of the research is the system of statistical indicators of the availability and composition of labor resources, the object is the population of farms in the United States. Based on the study of the US experience, it is proposed to expand the program of the agricultural census of the Russian Federation under the section “Labor resources” and the system of groupings of observation units, including typological ones, when publishing the results. The analysis of labor resources by types of farms in the United States showed that there are significant differences in the availability and composition of labor resources.

Estimating Historically Cleared and Forested Land in Massachusetts, USA, Using Airborne LiDAR and Archival Records

In the northeastern United States, widespread deforestation occurred during the 17–19th centuries as a result of Euro-American agricultural activity. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much of this agricultural landscape was reforested as the region experienced industrialization and farmland became abandoned. Many previous studies have addressed these landscape changes, but the primary method for estimating the amount and distribution of cleared and forested land during this time period has been using archival records. This study estimates areas of cleared and forested land using historical land use features extracted from airborne LiDAR data and compares these estimates to those from 19th century archival maps and agricultural census records for several towns in Massachusetts, a state in the northeastern United States. Results expand on previous studies in adjacent areas, and demonstrate that features representative of historical deforestation identified in LiDAR data can be reliably used as a proxy to estimate the spatial extents and area of cleared and forested land in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the northeastern United States. Results also demonstrate limitations to this methodology which can be mitigated through an understanding of the surficial geology of the region as well as sources of error in archival materials.

Agriculture Census in Qatar (2021): Towards Sustainable Food Security

The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University is implementing the agricultural census in Qatar (2021), which is funded by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment. Agricultural census is a statistical process based on collecting, processing, and disseminating data on the structure of agriculture, which often covers the whole country or a large part of it. It usually involves collecting agricultural data such as the size of properties, land usage, cropping areas, irrigation, number of farm animals, resources, and manpower. Censuses are conducted regularly every ten years to provide more recent data for agricultural policy purposes. The data provided by the census is important for food security policies and Qatar National Vision 2030, which aims at the development and expansion of the agricultural sector. This requires the introduction of “finest practices” and an agricultural business model focused on economic efficiency, profitable and sustainable agriculture, optimal use of scarce resources, and a minimal impact on the environment. The objectives of the project are summarized as follows: • Provide sample frame for agricultural surveys. • Provide data of agriculture structure in the State of Qatar, which include properties, resources, production, and cost. • Provide up-to-date data for crops, vegetables, livestock, and used areas.

The Role of Cooperatives in Brazilian Agricultural Production

Much of the established literature on agricultural cooperatives describes their myriad contributions to farmers’ economic performance. In Brazil, one of the world’s leading agricultural exporters, there were more than 1500 agricultural cooperatives with 1 million members in 2020, and in 2017, 11% of all Brazilian farms were associated with one of these cooperatives. In this paper, we estimate the factors associated with the municipality share of cooperative membership (MSCM) and how municipality-level production value changes with MSCM. Our analysis is at the municipality level using aggregate data from the 2017 Agricultural Census. We find that in Brazil, higher education and smaller property sizes are associated with membership in agricultural cooperatives. To estimate how MSCM is associated with farm profits, we use a generalized propensity score and find that an increase in MSCM increases net municipal farm income, driven mostly by an increase in the value of agricultural production compared to a smaller increase in the cost of production.