A history of agricultural production at Neolithic Catalhoyuk East, Turkey

A history of agricultural production is proposed for Neolithic Catalhoyuk East, central Turkey, using archaeobotanical, environmental, population and settlement studies. In the aceramic early phase of site occupation, intensive strategies developed as changes in population and environment caused stress on food supplies produced within a limited territory. Food exchange may have been part of the social means by which Catalhoyuk and nearby contemporary settlements amalgamated into the single site of the main occupation phase. Population change, inherited territories and continuing environmental impact led to the development of an extensive system of agriculture using widely dispersed dry soils, with an intensive regime applied to nearby alluvial soils. Social tensions caused by the evolution of this system contributed to the fissioning of the site by the Chalcolithic.

Migration of Husbands, Remittances and Agricultural Production: Impacts when Wives Head Households in Rural Kenya

This paper uses data collected from migrants' wives in the Nyeri district of Kenya. The main objective is to determine whether migration and remittances contribute to the development of agriculture. Our results suggest that most migrants are pushed out of rural areas, belong to the group of low-paid workers in urban areas, send little and irregular remittances to their wives back in rural areas and that these remittances are mainly used for consumption purposes and do not contribute to any significant development in agriculture. Our results also indicate that altruism or social obligation might be the main reason for migrants sending remittances back to their rural wives.

Agri-food restructuring: A synthesis of recent Australian research

Globalizing tendencies within capitalism are leading to important alterations in the structure of agricultural production and the ways food companies are involving themselves in processing and marketing. Increasingly, finance capital and transnational agribusiness have sought ways to influence, and in some cases redirect, farming activities in Australia. The penetration of farming structures by corporate capital has been hastened by state deregulation. Rather than providing detailed empirical evidence, this paper presents a broad synthesis of recent Australian research with the aim of informing readers otherwise unaware of events in the Antipodes of the forms and impacts of agri-food change in Australia.

Archaeological Identification and Significance of ÉSAG (Agricultural Storage Pits) at Kaman-Kalehöyük, Central Anatolia

Evidence for the presence of storage pits described in Hittite texts by the Sumerogram "ÉSAG" is presented from Kaman-Kalehöyük, a multi-period tell site in central Turkey occupied during the second and first millennia BC. Small earthen pits matching the description of "ÉSAG" were part of the normal suite of domestic installations at the site throughout the period. Similar to pits seen across western Eurasia, they were probably used to store seed corn or seed for trade. Large earthen pits (>7m in diameter) were also present that matched the description of the "ÉSAG" form, and in some cases contained archaeological cereal remains. Evidence from Kaman shows "ÉSAG" were part of Anatolian life for at least 4,000 years and suggests that the term was generic for lined, earthen storage pits. The presence of so many small pits at Kaman-Kalehöyük showed that it was an agricultural production site for much of its existence. The appearance of the large pits, confined to the Hittite period, reflects centralised control of grain supply, probably by the Hittite Kingdom, and fits a pattern seen at other sites in the region during the second millennium BC. /// Hitit metinlerinde Sumerogram "ÉSAG" ile tanimlanan depo çukurlarinin varliğina dair kanit, Orta Anadolu'da M.Ö. İkinci ve Birinci binde iskan edilmiş çok dönemli bir yerleşim alani olan Kaman-Kalehöyük'ten taninmaktadir. Küçük toprak çukurlar "ÉSAG" in tanimlamasina uygun olarak bu dönem süresince normal ev düzeninin bir parçasi olarak karşimiza çikmiştir. Çukurlar, Bati Avrasya'daki benzer çukurlar gibi olasilikla ticaret maksadi ile misir tohumu ya da tohum muhafaza etmişlerdir. "ÉSAG" formunun tanimina uyan büyük toprak çukurlara (çapi 7m. den büyük) rağmen bunlarin tahil depolama ile ilgili bağlantilari tam olarak belirlenmemiştir. Kaman'daki delil, "ÉSAG" in en az 4,000 yildir Anadolu yaşaminin bir parçasi olduğunu ve bu sözcüğün sivanmiş toprak çukurlar için kullanildiğini işaret etmektedir. Kaman-Kalehöyük'te ele geçen birçok küçük çukur, yerleşimin varliğini sürdürdüǧü sürecin büyük bir bölümünde zirai üretim yapildiğini göstermektedir. Hitit Döneminde büyük çukurlarin ortaya çikmasi muhtemelen Hitit Kralliği tarafindan gerçekleştirilen tahil tedarikinin merkezi kontrolünü yansitmakta ve M.Ö. İkinci binde bu bölgedeki diğer yerleşim alanlarinda görülen şekle uymaktadir.

Farming under constrained budgets: Practices of agricultural credit users in central Lombok, Indonesia

There has been a long dependency on credit by Indonesian farmers as a result of the lack of capital to apply proper farming practices. This paper describes the farming activities applied by agricultural credit users in Central Lombok, Indonesia. A survey was conducted during July 2001- March 2002 of 65 farmers making use of government or private credit in three villages within the Regency. Data from the farmers were collected using face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. Survey results indicated that on average, farmers had some 20 years experience of farming, were aged 40 years, but lacked of formal education. Their main asset was cropping land with average landholding of 0.69 ha. As a consequence of their capital constraints, farmers were commonly making use of credit to finance their farming activities, including both production of rice as the main crop and secondary crops. Farmers generally applied less than recommended amount of inputs in their farming practices, since the amount of credit they obtained was limited. As a result, their farms become less productive and their repayment capability of loans diminished. Of 65 farmers interviewed, 54 could earn extra income by engaging in a variety of non-farm activities, which contributed on average some 36% to family incomes of over Rp 5 million (A$ 1 thousand). The average credit repayment rate made by agricultural producers was 60%. The repayment made did not always reflect farm production capacity, being sometimes supported by other borrowings. The greater role of credit is not in increasing agricultural production or improving farmers’ income, but in helping them to sustain farm production and their living. Farmers need a bigger amount of credit to make an impact on their livelihood. This should be accompanied by extension services for farmers to enable better use of credit and to change their attitude towards it. As well, farmers require to be equipped with technical and market skills to run a business. Interdisciplinarity, holistic analysis, and an expansion of traditional ‘agricultural’ interests to embrace the span of interests included in rural livelihood, are each critical features of revision of the existing system.

Erosion/productivity modelling of maize farming in the Philippine uplands part II: Simulation of alternative farming methods

A version of the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) capable of simulating the key agronomic aspects of intercropping maize between legume shrub hedgerows was described and parameterised in the first paper of this series (Nelson et al., this issue). In this paper, APSIM is used to simulate maize yields and soil erosion from traditional open-field farming and hedgerow intercropping in the Philippine uplands. Two variants of open-field farming were simulated using APSIM, continuous and fallow, for comparison with intercropping maize between leguminous shrub hedgerows. Continuous open-field maize farming was predicted to be unsustainable in the long term, while fallow open-field farming was predicted to slow productivity decline by spreading the effect of erosion over a larger cropping area. Hedgerow intercropping was predicted to reduce erosion by maintaining soil surface cover during periods of intense rainfall, contributing to sustainable production of maize in the long term. In the third paper in this series, Nelson et al. (this issue) use cost-benefit analysis to compare the economic viability of hedgerow intercropping relative to traditional open-field farming of maize in relatively inaccessible upland areas. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Erosion/productivity modelling of maize farming in the Philippine uplands part III: Economic analysis of alternative farming methods

Two previous papers in this series (Nelson et al., this issue) described the use of the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) to simulate the effect of erosion on maize yields from open-field farming and hedgerow intercropping in the Philippine uplands. In this paper, maize yields simulated with APSIM are used to compare the economic viability of intercropping maize between leguminous shrub hedgerows with that of continuous and fallow open-field farming of maize. The analysis focuses on the economic incentives of upland farmers to adopt hedgerow intercropping, discussing farmers' planning horizons, access to credit and security of land tenure, as well as maize pricing in the Philippines. Insecure land tenure has limited the planning horizons of upland farmers, and high establishment costs reduce the economic viability of hedgerow intercropping relative to continuous and fallow open-field farming in the short term, In the long term, high discount rates and share-tenancy arrangements in which landlords do not contribute to establishment costs reduce the economic viability of hedgerow intercropping relative to fallow open-field farming, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modelling socially optimal land allocations for sugar cane growing in North Queensland: a linked mathematical programming and choice modelling study

A modelling framework is developed to determine the joint economic and environmental net benefits of alternative land allocation strategies. Estimates of community preferences for preservation of natural land, derived from a choice modelling study, are used as input to a model of agricultural production in an optimisation framework. The trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental protection are analysed using the sugar industry of the Herbert River district of north Queensland as an example. Spatially-differentiated resource attributes and the opportunity costs of natural land determine the optimal tradeoffs between production and conservation for a range of sugar prices.

Modelling basin level allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin in a world of uncertainty, Murray-Darling Program Working Papers WPM05-1, Risk and Sustainable Management Group, 8 February 2005

Abstract: The Murray-Darling Basin comprises over 1 million km2; it lies within four states and one territory; and over 12, 800 GL of irrigation water is used to produce over 40% of the nation's gross value of agricultural production. This production is used by a diverse collection of some-times mutually exclusive commodities (e.g. pasture; stone fruit; grapes; cotton and field crops). The supply of water for irrigation is subject to climatic and policy uncertainty. Variable inflows mean that water property rights do not provide a guaranteed supply. With increasing public scrutiny and environmental issues facing irrigators, greater pressure is being placed on this finite resource. The uncertainty of the water supply, water quality (salinity), combined with where water is utilised, while attempting to maximising return for investment makes for an interesting research field. The utilisation and comparison of a GAMS and Excel based modelling approach has been used to ask: where should we allocate water?; amongst what commodities?; and how does this affect both the quantity of water and the quality of water along the Murray-Darling river system?

Why farmers continue to use pesticides despite environmental, health and sustainability costs

Use of chemical inputs such as pesticides has increased agricultural production and productivity. However, negative externalities from such use have increased too. These externalities include damage to agricultural land, fisheries, fauna and flora. Another major externality is the unintentional destruction of beneficial predators of pests thereby increasing the virulence of many species of agricultural pests. Furthermore, increased mortality and morbidity of humans due to exposure to pesticides are recorded especially in developing countries. The costs from these externalities are large and affect farmers' returns. However, despite these high costs, farmers continue to use pesticides and in most countries in increasing quantities. In this paper, we examine this paradox and show why farmers continue to use pesticides despite the increasing costs. We also emphasize 'lock-in' aspects of pesticide use. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of a generic crop model template in the cropping system model APSIM

The Agricultural Production Systems slMulator, APSIM, is a cropping system modelling environment that simulates the dynamics of soil-plant-management interactions within a single crop or a cropping system. Adaptation of previously developed crop models has resulted in multiple crop modules in APSIM, which have low scientific transparency and code efficiency. A generic crop model template (GCROP) has been developed to capture unifying physiological principles across crops (plant types) and to provide modular and efficient code for crop modelling. It comprises a standard crop interface to the APSIM engine, a generic crop model structure, a crop process library, and well-structured crop parameter files. The process library contains the major science underpinning the crop models and incorporates generic routines based on physiological principles for growth and development processes that are common across crops. It allows APSIM to simulate different crops using the same set of computer code. The generic model structure and parameter files provide an easy way to test, modify, exchange and compare modelling approaches at process level without necessitating changes in the code. The standard interface generalises the model inputs and outputs, and utilises a standard protocol to communicate with other APSIM modules through the APSIM engine. The crop template serves as a convenient means to test new insights and compare approaches to component modelling, while maintaining a focus on predictive capability. This paper describes and discusses the scientific basis, the design, implementation and future development of the crop template in APSIM. On this basis, we argue that the combination of good software engineering with sound crop science can enhance the rate of advance in crop modelling. Crown Copyright (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

The GP problem: quantifying gene-to-phenotype relationships

In this paper we refer to the gene-to-phenotype modeling challenge as the GP problem. Integrating information across levels of organization within a genotype-environment system is a major challenge in computational biology. However, resolving the GP problem is a fundamental requirement if we are to understand and predict phenotypes given knowledge of the genome and model dynamic properties of biological systems. Organisms are consequences of this integration, and it is a major property of biological systems that underlies the responses we observe. We discuss the E(NK) model as a framework for investigation of the GP problem and the prediction of system properties at different levels of organization. We apply this quantitative framework to an investigation of the processes involved in genetic improvement of plants for agriculture. In our analysis, N genes determine the genetic variation for a set of traits that are responsible for plant adaptation to E environment-types within a target population of environments. The N genes can interact in epistatic NK gene-networks through the way that they influence plant growth and development processes within a dynamic crop growth model. We use a sorghum crop growth model, available within the APSIM agricultural production systems simulation model, to integrate the gene-environment interactions that occur during growth and development and to predict genotype-to-phenotype relationships for a given E(NK) model. Directional selection is then applied to the population of genotypes, based on their predicted phenotypes, to simulate the dynamic aspects of genetic improvement by a plant-breeding program. The outcomes of the simulated breeding are evaluated across cycles of selection in terms of the changes in allele frequencies for the N genes and the genotypic and phenotypic values of the populations of genotypes.

An overview of APSIM, a model designed for farming systems simulation

The Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) is a modular modelling framework that has been developed by the Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit in Australia. APSIM was developed to simulate biophysical process in farming systems, in particular where there is interest in the economic and ecological outcomes of management practice in the face of climatic risk. The paper outlines APSIM's structure and provides details of the concepts behind the different plant, soil and management modules. These modules include a diverse range of crops, pastures and trees, soil processes including water balance, N and P transformations, soil pH, erosion and a full range of management controls. Reports of APSIM testing in a diverse range of systems and environments are summarised. An example of model performance in a long-term cropping systems trial is provided. APSIM has been used in a broad range of applications, including support for on-farm decision making, farming systems design for production or resource management objectives, assessment of the value of seasonal climate forecasting, analysis of supply chain issues in agribusiness activities, development of waste management guidelines, risk assessment for government policy making and as a guide to research and education activity. An extensive citation list for these model testing and application studies is provided. Crown Copyright (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.