Armstrong and Neely-Kinyon Research Farms Summary

Includes Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development 2010 President's Report, Farm and Weather Summary, Research Farm Projects and Information on Experiments in Previous Annual Progress Reports.

La identidad y la memoria : Una experiencia de campo en el norte cordobés

En los últimos 20 años se han producidos en el norte de la provincia de de Córdoba, cambios en la estructura agraria -uso, tenencia y distribución de la tierra-. Los cambios en el uso del suelo como desmonte para la producción ganadera bovina, produjeron variaciones en la distribución de la tierra, provocando la concentración de este recurso. Esto ha acentuado la ya existente marcada polarización de pequeñas y grandes explotaciones. En cuanto a la tenencia, se agrava la situación de algunas familias campesinas sin título de propiedad, generándose conflictos por la permanencia de dichas familias, que hace más de 20 años no constituía una limitante para éstos sistemas productivos. En el contexto descripto, se llevó adelante el trabajo en terreno que tuvo por objetivo apoyar el proceso de organización por medio de la construcción de la historia de la comunidad y su reconstrucción a partir de los integrantes de la misma. Es así que del análisis de la memoria surge la asociación de ésta con la identidad de los sujetos que recuerdan: los campesinos. En el presente trabajo se busca explicar la relación entre la memoria colectiva y la identidad de la comunidad campesina de "La Costa", situada en el noroeste de la provincia de Córdoba, República Argentina.

La identidad y la memoria : Una experiencia de campo en el norte cordobés

En los últimos 20 años se han producidos en el norte de la provincia de de Córdoba, cambios en la estructura agraria -uso, tenencia y distribución de la tierra-. Los cambios en el uso del suelo como desmonte para la producción ganadera bovina, produjeron variaciones en la distribución de la tierra, provocando la concentración de este recurso. Esto ha acentuado la ya existente marcada polarización de pequeñas y grandes explotaciones. En cuanto a la tenencia, se agrava la situación de algunas familias campesinas sin título de propiedad, generándose conflictos por la permanencia de dichas familias, que hace más de 20 años no constituía una limitante para éstos sistemas productivos. En el contexto descripto, se llevó adelante el trabajo en terreno que tuvo por objetivo apoyar el proceso de organización por medio de la construcción de la historia de la comunidad y su reconstrucción a partir de los integrantes de la misma. Es así que del análisis de la memoria surge la asociación de ésta con la identidad de los sujetos que recuerdan: los campesinos. En el presente trabajo se busca explicar la relación entre la memoria colectiva y la identidad de la comunidad campesina de "La Costa", situada en el noroeste de la provincia de Córdoba, República Argentina.

La identidad y la memoria : Una experiencia de campo en el norte cordobés

En los últimos 20 años se han producidos en el norte de la provincia de de Córdoba, cambios en la estructura agraria -uso, tenencia y distribución de la tierra-. Los cambios en el uso del suelo como desmonte para la producción ganadera bovina, produjeron variaciones en la distribución de la tierra, provocando la concentración de este recurso. Esto ha acentuado la ya existente marcada polarización de pequeñas y grandes explotaciones. En cuanto a la tenencia, se agrava la situación de algunas familias campesinas sin título de propiedad, generándose conflictos por la permanencia de dichas familias, que hace más de 20 años no constituía una limitante para éstos sistemas productivos. En el contexto descripto, se llevó adelante el trabajo en terreno que tuvo por objetivo apoyar el proceso de organización por medio de la construcción de la historia de la comunidad y su reconstrucción a partir de los integrantes de la misma. Es así que del análisis de la memoria surge la asociación de ésta con la identidad de los sujetos que recuerdan: los campesinos. En el presente trabajo se busca explicar la relación entre la memoria colectiva y la identidad de la comunidad campesina de "La Costa", situada en el noroeste de la provincia de Córdoba, República Argentina.

The development of private farms in Vietnam

The objective of this paper is to explore the entities that have developed private farms (trang trai) in Vietnam. Various types of private farms have emerged in the last ten years. It is noteworthy that the owners of private farms are not necessarily agricultural households but also include government officials and the urban rich. Based on data collected from the author’s field surveys in Vietnam from 2006 to 2011, the paper attempts to categorize patterns in the development of private farms and analyze their differences. The paper argues that private farms developed by agricultural households are still limited because of the difficulty of consolidating land.

Methodology for the design of offshore wind farms

Although still in an early stage, offshore wind development is now characterized by a boom process. This leads to the necessity of applying an integral management model for the design of offshore wind facilities, being the purpose of the model to achieve technical, economical and environmental viability, all within a sustainable development framework. The foregoing led to the research project exposed in this paper, consisting of drawing up an offshore wind farms methodological proposal; this methodology has a global and/or general nature or point of view whilst searching for optimization of the overall process of operations leading to the design of this type of installations and establishing collated theoretical bases for the further development of management tools. This methodological proposal follows a classical engineering thought scheme: it begins with the alternatives study, and ends with the detailed design. With this in mind, the paper includes the following sections: introduction, methodology used for the research project, conditioning factors, methodological proposal for the design of offshore wind farms, checking the methodological proposal, and conclusions

Offshore Wind Farms: Foundations and influence on the Littoral Processes

Offshore wind farms are beginning to form part of coastal and marine landscapes located in dynamic surroundings. An integral management model must therefore be applied to achieve not only technical and economic viability of the project but also respect for the environment. Amongst other aspects, the latter calls for an analysis of the possible impact these facilities may have on littoral processes and this requires the differences between littoral processes prior and subsequent to the facility’s construction to be known. The maritime climate, the composition of the coast, lay-out distribution and characteristics of the facility’s components need to be known, particularly foundations as they are the main obstacles waves and currents meet. This article first addresses different aspects related to an offshore wind farm’s influence on the analysis of how it affects littoral dynamics and, because of their importance in this study, pays special attention to foundations. Coastal erosion due to this type of facility is then examined. The main conclusion of this article is that, whilst there are certain opinions claiming the coast is not affected by the presence of this kind of facility since the distance from location to coast and between wind turbine generators themselves is long, the impact must be analysed in each specific case, at least until experience proves otherwise and criteria are adopted in this respect.

Foundations for offshoe wind farms

Análisis de las cimentaciones de los parques eólicos marinos situados en aguas de transición y en indefinidas, tipo gravedad; rozamiento, tipo pilotes; plataformas y flotantes, estudiando el fenómeno conjunto de interacción suelo - estructura y socavación

Field analysis of solar PV-based collective systems for rural electrification.

This article analyses the long-term performance of collective off-grid photovoltaic (PV) systems in rural areas. The use of collective PV systems for the electrification of small medium-size villages in developing countries has increased in the recent years. They are basically set up as stand-alone installations (diesel hybrid or pure PV) with no connection with other electrical grids. Their particular conditions (isolated) and usual installation places (far from commercial/industrial centers) require an autonomous and reliable technology. Different but related factors affect their performance and the energy supply; some of them are strictly technical but others depend on external issues like the solar energy resource and users’ energy and power consumption. The work presented is based on field operation of twelve collective PV installations supplying the electricity to off-grid villages located in the province of Jujuy, Argentina. Five of them have PV generators as unique power source while other seven include the support of diesel groups. Load demand evolution, energy productivity and fuel consumption are analyzed. Besides, energy generation strategies (PV/diesel) are also discussed.

An economic modelling approach for vulnerability assesment in irrigation farms in Spain

In the last years, vulnerability assessment has emerged as a need for policy making instead of being a pure academic exercise (Hinkel, 2010). In the current context of changing climate, increasing water scarcity threatens economic activities in many arid or semi-arid regions of the World. Climate change (CC) science and policy debates have traditionally focused on CC mitigation and impact assessment (Krysanova et al., 2010). However, even if mitigation policies are successfully enforced some climate change is still expected. Then, adaptation is strongly necessary and, for that, improved knowledge on vulnerability and adaptive capacity is required.

Do PGI integrated farms perform better? The case of the beef farms in Spain

European rural development policy is gaining in importance through one of its key instruments, the Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) system, which is designed to improve quality standards. Previous research has shown that PGI-certified beef farms tend to be more extensively managed operations that are better adapted to mountainous areas. This paper describes a comparative study of two production systems, one with PGI certification and one without, focusing on a number of economic variables. The results show a positive association between PGI production and profitability. In efficiency terms, non-certified farms show better pure technical efficiency scores, while PGI-certified holdings score higher on scale efficiency.

Use of STATCOM in wind farms with fixed-speed generators for grid code compliance

The increasing penetration of wind energy into power systems has pushed grid operators to set new requirements for this kind of generating plants in order to keep acceptable and reliable operation of the system. In addition to the low voltage ride through capability, wind farms are required to participate in voltage support, stability enhancement and power quality improvement. This paper presents a solution for wind farms with fixed-speed generators based on the use of STATCOM with braking resistor and additional series impedances, with an adequate control strategy. The focus is put on guaranteeing the grid code compliance when the wind farm faces an extensive series of grid disturbances.

Scour prediction and scour protections in offshore wind farms

This paper is the result of research whose main objective is to analyse different methods used for the prediction of maximum scour depth and scour extension, and for the design of scour protections in offshore wind farms located in shallow water, using medium and large diameter monopile foundations. Physical agents such as waves, currents and wind play a major role in the design of structures like offshore farms. As a result, the study has highlighted the need for introducing experience backed climate monomials such as the dimensionless wave height parameter (H0) and proposes the use of formulations that can express the extent of scour protections as a function of waves in transitional waters.

Dimensionless wave height parameter for preliminary design of scour protection in offshore wind farms

This article describes the results of an investigation aimed at the analysis methods used in the design of the protections against scour phenomenon on offshore wind farms in transitional waters, using medium and large diameter monopile type deep foundations.

Flow and wakes in large wind farms in complex terrain and offshore

Power losses due to wind turbine wakes are of the order of 10 and 20% of total power output in large wind farms. The focus of this research carried out within the EC funded UPWIND project is wind speed and turbulence modelling for large wind farms/wind turbines in complex terrain and offshore in order to optimise wind farm layouts to reduce wake losses and loads.