Download or read book Seeds of Science written by Mark Lynas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fluent, persuasive and surely right.' Evening Standard The inside story of the fight for and against genetic modification in food. Mark Lynas was one of the original GM field wreckers. Back in the 1990s – working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement – he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. Two decades later, most people around the world – from New York to China – still think that 'GMO' foods are bad for their health or likely to damage the environment. But Mark has changed his mind. This book explains why. In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologised for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia, and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts. This book lifts the lid on the anti-GMO craze and shows how science was left by the wayside as a wave of public hysteria swept the world. Mark takes us back to the origins of the technology and introduces the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food, and talks to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. In the process he asks – and answers – the killer question: how did we all get it so wrong on GMOs? 'An important contribution to an issue with enormous potential for benefiting humanity.' Stephen Pinker 'I warmly recommend it.' Philip Pullman
Download or read book Agricultural Internet of Things and Decision Support for Precision Smart Farming written by Annamaria Castrignano and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural Internet of Things and Decision Support for Smart Farming reveals how a set of key enabling technologies (KET) related to agronomic management, remote and proximal sensing, data mining, decision-making and automation can be efficiently integrated in one system. Chapters cover how KETs enable real-time monitoring of soil conditions, determine real-time, site-specific requirements of crop systems, help develop a decision support system (DSS) aimed at maximizing the efficient use of resources, and provide planning for agronomic inputs differentiated in time and space. This book is ideal for researchers, academics, post-graduate students and practitioners who want to embrace new agricultural technologies. - Presents the science behind smart technologies for agricultural management - Reveals the power of data science and how to extract meaningful insights from big data on what is most suitable based on individual time and space - Proves how advanced technologies used in agriculture practices can become site-specific, locally adaptive, operationally feasible and economically affordable
Download or read book Instant Insights Crop Rotations written by Gilbert G. Sigua and published by Burleigh Dodds Science: Instant Insights. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection features five peer-reviewed literature reviews on crop rotations in agriculture. The first chapter discusses the effects of crop rotation and intercropping management practices and their impact on soil health enhancement and stability. It also considers the importance of leguminous crops and soil organic matter in maintaining healthy soils, sustaining crop productivity and enhancing biodiversity. The second chapter examines the principles of crop rotation, precrop effects in crop rotations, and the nutrient effects of legumes and other rotation crops. It also reviews the role of rotation crops in suppressing weeds, diseases and pests and studies rotations and crop yields, as well as the challenge of designing a crop rotation. The third chapter illustrates how crop models account for the interactions between soil, genotypes, management, and climate, on crops grown in various rotations, and their effects on yield and environmental outcomes under current and future climate scenarios. The fourth chapter assesses the potential of decision support systems for crop rotations in improving soil health and agricultural sustainability. The final chapter reviews how crop rotations with non-cereal species can be implemented to substantially reduce inoculum sources for residue-borne cereal leaf diseases. What is an Instant Insight? An Instant Insight gives you immediate access to key research on a topic, allowing you to get right to the heart of a subject in an instant and empowering you to contribute to sustainable agriculture
Download or read book Better Choices written by Greg Mills and published by Pan Macmillan South africa. This book was released on 2022-04-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘A must-read, accessible and skilful account of South Africa’s socio-economic challenges, policy and governance choices.’– THEMBA MASEKO All the numbers on South Africa’s crisis dashboard are blinking red. The economy is failing to grow and more and more young people find themselves on the outside looking in as education falters and jobs disappear. Energy and transport are in crisis. Governance is floundering as debt mounts and government runs out of money. Better Choices is a collection by South Africa’s top thinkers on the political economy, providing an unflinching account of the myriad challenges the country faces. The picture that emerges is of a nation on the brink of a catastrophic slide into failure unless better, if tough, policy choices are made. As stark as these problems are, their solutions are tantalisingly close at hand. The chapters in this book outline exactly the solutions – those ‘better choices’– that need to be made by leadership to alter the country’s bleak trajectory. South Africa cannot talk its way out of trouble. Key to success is removing the sources of friction – the red tape, over-regulation and rents – that slow down investment. This is only possible if a more effective, focused government acts decisively. Compiled by The Brenthurst Foundation, Africa’s leading think tank on economic development, Better Choices is for those who want to build a positive, inclusive future for South Africa.
Download or read book Homesteading Haven written by Barrett Williams and published by Barrett Williams. This book was released on 2024-04-22 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Homesteading Haven* Discover the essence of self-reliant living and prepare to transform your aspiration into a tangible reality with "Homesteading Haven," your comprehensive guide to establishing a flourishing homestead. This eBook serves as a beacon for those yearning to embark on a journey filled with independence, sustainability, and harmony with nature. Begin by defining your homesteading dreams in Chapter 1, where you'll lay the foundation for your adventure, crafting a vision that resonates with your personal goals and desires. Then, arm yourself with the knowledge to prepare for this exciting transition, with Chapter 2 guiding you through essential skills and resources that will ensure your success. Dive into the core considerations of selecting the perfect plot for your homestead in Chapter 3. You'll compile a checklist of spatial needs, must-have features, and a wishlist that aligns with your homesteading objectives. Chapter 4 empowers you with a financial blueprint, helping you navigate costs and uncover ways to finance your sustainable lifestyle without breaking the bank. Understand the complex interplay between ambitions and regulations in Chapter 5, uncovering the legal groundwork and incentives that will shape your homesteading journey. With the strategies outlined in Chapter 6, you'll master the art of unearthing the ideal homestead property using a mix of modern tools and time-honored networking techniques. Quality land assessment takes center stage in Chapter 7, where you'll learn the importance of soil health, terrain, and accessible water resources. Infrastructure and accessibility are the focus of Chapter 8, ensuring that your homesteads foundations are as sturdy as your determination. Embrace the climate's influence on your homestead in Chapter 9, and immerse yourself in the local ecosystem to promote a biodiverse paradise in Chapter 10. From the ground up, assess your land's agricultural potential in Chapter 11, and prepare to turn your green dreams into sustainable, edible schemes. As your journey progresses to making an offer in Chapter 13, feel confident in your negotiating skills, and bask in the achievement of closing the deal. Chapters 14 and 15 will guide you through laying out and cultivating your new homestead, from efficient designs to DIY projects that will set the stage for lifelong learning and growth touched on in Chapters 16 and 17. Finish with a dose of motivation in Chapter 18, where inspiring case studies from various homesteads will infuse you with creativity and the perseverance needed to overcome any challenge. Embrace this chance to craft your own slice of paradise with "Homesteading Haven." Your guide to a resilient and enriching lifestyle is just a click away and the seeds of your homesteading dreams are ready to bloom.
Download or read book Creating Signature Stories written by David Aaker and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “All marketers should heed [the] advice” of this brand marketing guru in his latest book on digital storytelling.” —Joseph V. Tripodi, former Chief Marketing Officer, Subway and Coca-Cola Stories are orders of magnitude which are more effective than facts at achieving attention, persuading, being remembered, and inspiring involvement. Signature stories?intriguing, authentic, and involving narratives?apply the power of stories to communicate a strategic message. Marketing professionals, coping with the digital revolution and the need to have their strategic message heard internally and externally, are realizing that a digital strategy revolves around content and that content is stories. Creating Signature Stories shows organizations how to introduce storytelling into their strategic messaging, and guides organizations to find, or even create, signature stories and leverage them over time. With case studies built into every chapter, organizations will realize the power of storytelling to energize readers, gain visibility, persuade audiences, and inspire action.
Download or read book Darwinian Agriculture written by R. Ford Denison and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harnessing evolution for more sustainable agriculture As human populations grow and resources are depleted, agriculture will need to use land, water, and other resources more efficiently and without sacrificing long-term sustainability. Darwinian Agriculture presents an entirely new approach to these challenges, one that draws on the principles of evolution and natural selection. R. Ford Denison shows how both biotechnology and traditional plant breeding can use Darwinian insights to identify promising routes for crop genetic improvement and avoid costly dead ends. Denison explains why plant traits that have been genetically optimized by individual selection—such as photosynthesis and drought tolerance—are bad candidates for genetic improvement. Traits like plant height and leaf angle, which determine the collective performance of plant communities, offer more room for improvement. Agriculturalists can also benefit from more sophisticated comparisons among natural communities and from the study of wild species in the landscapes where they evolved. Darwinian Agriculture reveals why it is sometimes better to slow or even reverse evolutionary trends when they are inconsistent with our present goals, and how we can glean new ideas from natural selection's marvelous innovations in wild species.
Download or read book Amber Waves written by Catherine Zabinski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of a staple grain we often take for granted, exploring how wheat went from wild grass to a world-shaping crop. At breakfast tables and bakeries, we take for granted a grain that has made human civilization possible, a cereal whose humble origins belie its world-shaping power: wheat. Amber Waves tells the story of a group of grass species that first grew in scattered stands in the foothills of the Middle East until our ancestors discovered their value as a source of food. Over thousands of years, we moved their seeds to all but the polar regions of Earth, slowly cultivating what we now know as wheat, and in the process creating a world of cuisines that uses wheat seeds as a staple food. Wheat spread across the globe, but as ecologist Catherine Zabinski shows us, a biography of wheat is not only the story of how plants ensure their own success: from the earliest bread to the most mouthwatering pasta, it is also a story of human ingenuity in producing enough food for ourselves and our communities. Since the first harvest of the ancient grain, we have perfected our farming systems to grow massive quantities of food, producing one of our species’ global mega crops—but at a great cost to ecological systems. And despite our vast capacity to grow food, we face problems with undernourishment both close to home and around the world. Weaving together history, evolution, and ecology, Zabinski’s tale explores much more than the wild roots and rise of a now-ubiquitous grain: it illuminates our complex relationship with our crops, both how we have transformed the plant species we use as food, and how our society—our culture—has changed in response to the need to secure food sources. From the origins of agriculture to gluten sensitivities, from our first selection of the largest seeds from wheat’s wild progenitors to the sequencing of the wheat genome and genetic engineering, Amber Waves sheds new light on how we grow the food that sustains so much human life.
Download or read book Dirt written by David R. Montgomery and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-05-14 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.
Download or read book Indigenous People and Nature written by Uday Chatterjee and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2022-04-08 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigenous People and Nature: Insights for Social, Ecological, and Technological Sustainability examines today's environmental challenges in light of traditional knowledge, linking insights from geography, population, and environment from a wide range of regions around the globe. Organized in four parts, the book describes the foundations of human geography and its current research challenges, the intersections between environment and cultural diversity, addressing various type of ecosystem services and their interaction with the environment, the impacts of sustainability practices used by indigenous culture on the ecosystem, and conservation ecology and environment management. Using theoretical and applied insights from local communities around the world, this book helps geographers, demographers, environmentalists, economists, sociologists and urban planners tackle today's environmental problems from new perspectives. - Includes in-depth case studies across different geographic spaces - Contains contributions from a range of young to eminent scholars, researchers and policymakers - Highlights new insights from social science, environmental science and sustainable development - Synthesizes research on society, ecology and technology with sustainability, all in a single resource
Download or read book The Book of R written by Tilman M. Davies and published by No Starch Press. This book was released on 2016-07-16 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Book of R is a comprehensive, beginner-friendly guide to R, the world’s most popular programming language for statistical analysis. Even if you have no programming experience and little more than a grounding in the basics of mathematics, you’ll find everything you need to begin using R effectively for statistical analysis. You’ll start with the basics, like how to handle data and write simple programs, before moving on to more advanced topics, like producing statistical summaries of your data and performing statistical tests and modeling. You’ll even learn how to create impressive data visualizations with R’s basic graphics tools and contributed packages, like ggplot2 and ggvis, as well as interactive 3D visualizations using the rgl package. Dozens of hands-on exercises (with downloadable solutions) take you from theory to practice, as you learn: –The fundamentals of programming in R, including how to write data frames, create functions, and use variables, statements, and loops –Statistical concepts like exploratory data analysis, probabilities, hypothesis tests, and regression modeling, and how to execute them in R –How to access R’s thousands of functions, libraries, and data sets –How to draw valid and useful conclusions from your data –How to create publication-quality graphics of your results Combining detailed explanations with real-world examples and exercises, this book will provide you with a solid understanding of both statistics and the depth of R’s functionality. Make The Book of R your doorway into the growing world of data analysis.
Download or read book The Third Plate written by Dan Barber and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[A] renowned chef ... Barber explores the evolution of American food from the "first plate," or industrially-produced, meat-heavy dishes, to the "second plate" of grass-fed meat and organic greens, and says that both of these approaches are ultimately neither sustainable nor healthy. Instead, Barber proposes Americans should move to the "third plate," a cuisine rooted in seasonal productivity, natural livestock rhythms, whole-grains, and small portions of free-range meat"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Successful Farming written by Ernest E. Faville and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 1172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes various special sections or issues annually: 1968- Harvesting issue (usually no. 7 or 8); 1968- Crop planning issue (usually no. 12; title varies slightly); Machinery management issue (Usually no. 2); 1970- Crop planting issue (usually no. 4; title varies slightly.)
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Big History written by Craig Benjamin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Big History guides readers though the variety of themes and concepts that structure contemporary scholarship in the field of big history. The volume is divided into five parts, each representing current and evolving areas of interest to the community, including big history’s relationship to science, social science, the humanities, and the future, as well as teaching big history and ‘little big histories’. Considering an ever-expanding range of theoretical, pedagogical and research topics, the book addresses such questions as what is the relationship between big history and scientific research, how are big historians working with philosophers and religious thinkers to help construct ‘meaning’, how are leading theoreticians making sense of big history and its relationship to other creation narratives and paradigms, what is ‘little big history’, and how does big history impact on thinking about the future? The book highlights the place of big history in historiographical traditions and the ways in which it can be used in education and public discourse across disciplines and at all levels. A timely collection with contributions from leading proponents in the field, it is the ideal guide for those wanting to engage with the theories and concepts behind big history.
Download or read book Ohio Practical Farmer written by and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind written by Julian Jaynes and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000-08-15 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry
Download or read book Insect Resistance Management written by David W. Onstad and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2007-12-05 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insects, mites, and ticks have a long history of evolving resistance to pesticides, host-plant resistance, crop rotation, pathogens, and parasitoids. Insect resistance management (IRM) is the scientific approach to preventing or delaying pest evolution and its negative impacts on agriculture, public health, and veterinary issues. This book provides entomologists, pest management practitioners, developers of new technologies, and regulators with information about the many kinds of pest resistance including behavioral and phenological resistance. Abstract concepts and various case studies provide the reader with the biological and economic knowledge required to manage resistance. No other source has the breadth of coverage of this book: genomics to economics, transgenic insecticidal crops, insecticides, and other pest management tactics such as crop rotation. Dr. David W. Onstad and a team of experts illustrate how IRM becomes efficient, effective and socially acceptable when local, social and economic aspects of the system are considered. Historical lessons are highlighted with new perspectives emphasized, so that future research and management may be informed by past experience, but not constrained by it.* First book in 15 years to provide the history and explore aspects of a variety of stakeholders* Contributors include experts on ecological aspects of IRM, molecular and population genetics, economics, and IRM social issues* Biochemistry and molecular genetics of insecticides presented with an mphasis on past 15 years of research including Cry proteins in transgenic crops* Encourages scientists and stakeholders to implement and coordinate strategies based on local social conditions
