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Commercial Farmers (commercial + farmer)
Selected AbstractsA past and a future for diversification on farms?GEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2003Some evidence from large-scale, commercial farms in South East England Abstract Diversification has been identified as a common response to the agricultural crisis of the 1980s and to the changing ethos of agricultural policy in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In particular, farmers operating large-scale farms have been prominent in adopting this approach, just as they were innovative across a range of farming practices in the expansion and modernisation of their agricultural production in earlier decades. Can we identify serial diversifiers within this sector of the farming community, who are disposed to react in an entrepreneurial fashion to the changing fortunes of agriculture? The paper draws on results from a survey of large-scale commercial farmers in South East England and, by examining the sequence in which various forms of diversification were adopted, identifies a temporal pattern as farmers responded to the fluctuating fortunes of the agricultural industry over the past thirty years. But has the potential for diversification been exhausted? The paper also considers future prospects for diversification within the large-scale, commercially oriented sector of the agricultural industry. [source] FIGHTING FIRE WITH A BROKEN TEACUP: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOUTH AFRICA'S LAND-REDISTRIBUTION PROGRAM,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 3 2008WILLIAM G. MOSELEY ABSTRACT. Since the rise of its first democratically elected government in 1994, South Africa has sought to redress its highly inequitable land distribution through a series of land-reform programs. In this study we examine land-redistribution efforts in two of South Africa's provinces, the Western Cape and Limpopo. By analyzing a cross-section of projects in these two locales we develop a political ecology of stymied land-reform possibilities to explain the limited progress to date. Given South Africa's ambitious goal of redistributing 30 percent of its white-owned land by 2014 and the incremental and flawed nature of its redistribution program, we argue that the process is like trying to put out a fire with a broken teacup. Our results are based on interviews with policymakers, commercial farmers, and land-redistribution beneficiaries, as well as on an analysis of land-use change in Limpopo Province. [source] The Chilean Agrarian Transformation: Agrarian Reform and Capitalist ,Partial' Counter-Agrarian Reform, 1964,1980JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 1 2007Free-Market Neoliberalism, Part 1: Reformism, Socialism This article, which is published in two parts, is an empirical analysis of the Chilean agrarian reform (1964,1973) and ,partial' counter-agrarian reform (1974,1980). Its aim is to explain and interpret their logic and the changes they brought to Chile's agrarian property regime in particular and Chilean life in general. Chile's agrarian reform was successful in expropriating (under the Frei and Allende administrations, 1964,1973) the great estates of the hacienda landed property system. The capitalist ,partial' counter-reform then redistributed them (under the military, 1974,1980). CORA, the country's agency for agrarian reform, expropriated and subsequently redistributed 5809 estates of almost 10 million hectares, or 59 per cent of Chile's agricultural farmland. A large amount of the expropriated land (41 per cent) benefited 54,000 peasant households with small-sized family farms and house-sites. The rest of the farmland benefited efficient and competitive commercial farmers and agro-business and consolidated medium-sized farms. Of central concern is the role of the agrarian reform and subsequent ,partial' counter-reform processes in fostering the transformation of the erstwhile agrarian structure of the hacienda system toward agrarian capitalism. The redistribution of the agricultural land previously expropriated made possible the formation of an agro-industrial bourgeoisie, small commercial farmers, an open land market and a dynamic agricultural sector. While, however, under military rule, a selected few benefited with family farms and became independent agricultural producers, a large majority of reformed and non-reformed campesinos were torn from the land to become non-propertied proletarians in a rapidly modernizing but highly exclusionary agricultural sector. [source] Estimating digestible protein requirements of silver perch, Bidyanus bidyanus MitchellAQUACULTURE RESEARCH, Issue 5 2001G L Allan Abstract In this study, we estimated requirements for digestible protein, using intact protein sources, at one digestible energy content. Using digestibility data for silver perch (Bidyanus bidyanus Mitchell) for a large number of ingredients, we formulated a ,summit' diet to contain between 1.4 and 1.8 times the ,expected requirements' for digestible essential amino acids (based on requirements for channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus Rafinesque). A ,diluent' diet was formulated to contain 0.4,0.5 times the expected requirements of digestible essential amino acids. Both ,summit' and ,diluent' diets contained similar digestible energy (14.7 MJ digestible energy kg,1 for the summit and 13.4 MJ digestible energy kg,1 for the diluent). Six diets were prepared with the following amounts of summit,diluent diets: 100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80 and 0:100. A practical diet widely used by commercial farmers was also included as a control. Ten juvenile fish (2.1,2.6 g) were stocked into each experimental 70-L acrylic aquarium, and each dietary treatment was randomly assigned to five replicate aquaria. Fish were fed twice daily to apparent satiation for 54 days. Final individual fish weight ranged from 4,15.5 g. Results were analysed using intersecting linear regression analysis. The optimum digestible dietary protein for diets with 13.4,14.7 MJ digestible energy kg,1, after which protein deposition did not increase significantly, was 28%. Although this study did not determine requirements for individual amino acids, for diets with the digestible energy content used here, requirements for individual amino acids obviously did not exceed the content in the 28% protein diet. These contents are useful as an estimate of ,recommended levels' for silver perch diets with 13.4,14.7 MJ digestible energy kg,1. The proximate composition of fish was affected by diet. Whole body protein and moisture increased, whereas lipid content decreased with increasing dietary protein content (and increasing protein,energy ratio and decreasing lipid). Fish size was also affected by diet; however, the changes in whole carcass proximate composition also occurred for fish fed diets 60:40, 80:20 and the summit diet which were a similar final weight. [source] | ||||||||||