Wandile Sihlobo and Johann Kirsten chose to write The Uncomfortable Truth about South Africa’s Agriculture in a candid, direct and unfiltered tone, not out of disregard, but with the hope of stirring South African agricultural stakeholders from inertia that may have taken hold over time.

One clear example of inertia is the endless policy discussions. When the government proposes policy positions – either good or bad – time is spent discussing these policies instead of anything substantive being done. The divisions amongst South African farmer organisations is the core issue behind the interminable conversations and this results in a ‘performance of productivity’ among participants in these meetings, creating an impression of progress simply because discussions are taking place.

While politicians and farmer representatives debate, farmers suffer, the unemployed languish, and small towns crumble. Poor roads and rising costs choke market access, while collapsing municipalities pile pressure on agribusinesses.

Things don’t have to be this way, and the South African agricultural sector still has great potential to grow, increase employment, and revitalise the rural economy. This book will empower the reader with a clearer understanding of the agricultural constraints and how to overcome them and mobilise the much-needed sectorial focus to implementation.

While the contents may be uncomfortable for some, this book is intended to ignite an urgent call for decisive policy and programme implementation and to demand stronger collaboration among social partners.

Do you love living in the city but dream about growing your own wholesome fruit and vegetables? South Africa’s organic gardening guru, Jane Griffiths, shows you just how easy it is to achieve a flourishing food garden, no matter how small your space.

Jane’s Delicious Urban Gardening is packed with inspirational ideas and practical information on all aspects of urban eco living.

In her trademark sensible and easy-to-follow style, Jane provides a wealth of tips and suggestions for:

• growing organic vegetables just about anywhere – from containers to edible walls, from raised beds to rooftops, from community gardens to neglected pavements
• planting and maintaining a space-efficient urban orchard
• converting an existing lawn or tennis court into an instant edible oasis
• keeping urban bees, hens and aquaponic tanks
• harvesting rainwater and recycling grey water
• introducing solar power into your home
• converting a chlorinated swimming pool into a wetland-filtered haven.

Illustrated with hundreds of beautiful colour photographs, Jane’s Delicious Urban Gardening is essential reading for anyone wanting to live a more sustainable, productive and healthy lifestyle in the city.

This title is intended as a manual for environmental education practitioners. It provides theoretical background with the view of improving environmental education practitioners' practice. Environmental education addresses topics such as: The origin of the term/concept environmental education in southern Africa; a philosophical perspective of environmental education; teaching for the environment; environmental issues; education for sustainability; environmental education in the informal sector; environmental education in business and industry; research in environmental education.

Taking its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world's soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, without soils there will be no food: game over. And time is running out.

From the United Kingdom to Italy, from Brazil to the Gambia to the USA, Philip Lymbery, the internationally acclaimed author of Farmageddon, goes behind the scenes of industrial farming and confronts 'Big Agriculture', where mega-farms, chemicals and animal cages are sweeping the countryside and jeopardising the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the nature that we treasure.

In his investigations, however, he also finds hope in the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life, who are rethinking farming methods, rediscovering traditional techniques and developing technologies to feed an ever-expanding global population.

Impassioned, balanced and persuasive, Sixty Harvests Left not only demonstrates why future harvests matter more than ever, but reveals how we can restore our planet for a nature-friendly future.

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Buzz the bees to the flowers to collect pollen and then back to the hive to make honey for feeding and growing your very own bee colony. The player with the largest colony wins! Based on the ancient gameplay of mancala, Beehive Mancala is a fun strategy game for adults and children aged 6+. Includes facts about the bees and flowers featured, plus details on the honey-making process and the importance of bees from the beekeeper at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The latest edition of Animal Nutrition has been updated thoroughly to provide a clear and comprehensive introduction to the science and practice of animal nutrition. This classic, market-leading text is a trusted resource for undergraduates studying Animal Science, Veterinary Science, Agriculture, Biology and Biochemistry. It is supported by key experimental evidence throughout about modern advancements in animal food nourishment, composition of foods and feeding standards for dairy and beef cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, horses, and cats and dogs. It is split into six main sections covering: The components of food; The digestion and metabolism of nutrients; Quantifying the nutrient content of foods: digestibility, energy and protein values; The nutrient requirements of animals; The nutritional characteristics of foods; and Animal products and human nutrition. Quantitative aspects of the subject are clearly explained and illustrated by worked examples. Problems have been added to all chapters to aid student learning and the appendices include solutions to all chapter-end numeric questions. This edition includes nutritional topics related to molecular biology, the environment, and companion animals - dog and cat nutrition has been expanded. Under nutrient requirements of animals, usage of novel foods such as insects has also been added. Chapter-end summaries and questions allow students to recap and test their knowledge of the chapter topic.

The Protection of Subjects in Human Research rule by the USEPA, including the establishment of the Human Studies Review Board (HSRB), has resulted in changes to both study design and study evaluation processes, particularly with respect to ethical considerations. Non-Dietary Human Exposure andRisk Assessment is a compilation of the presentations given in a symposium of the same name at the 238th ACS National Meeting in Washington D.C. The purpose of the symposium was to provide a forum for scientists from industry, academia, and government to share investigative methods used to generate data for use in non-dietary human risk assessments and to share methodology for performing and evaluating those assessments.
This compilation is intended to provide the reader with a concise overview of the current status of both the scientific and regulatory aspects of non-dietary human exposure and risk assessment as applied to pesticides. It is the hope of the editors that it will also be the starting point for discussions leading to the further refinement of study and risk assessment design, data evaluation, and regulatory harmonization.
Three major areas are covered in this symposium edition. The first area is regulatory issues including the development of the Protection of Subjects in Human Research rule and the HSRB, statistical procedures involved in designing human exposure studies, handling of the data generated in those studies, and quality assurance processes related to worker exposure studies. The second area, study design, includes processes for the identification and recruitment of volunteers for human exposure studies, overviews of several studies that have been recently performed, the development of procedures for evaluating the resulting data by Regulatory Agencies, and efforts towards international cooperation in the generation and use of exposure data. The final area, methodology, includes examples of the development of methods for the analysis of samples generated in non-dietary human exposure studies with particular emphasis on the use of hyphenated techniques and the development of a model for determining greenhouse exposures that is currently being used in Europe.

Chirality as an environmental phenomenon was dealt with in a thorough and interesting manner in a series of three symposia entitled "Modern Chiral Pesticides: Enantioselectivity and Its Consequences," sponsored by the Agrochemical Division of the American Chemical Society and held in Washington, DC (2005), Boston, MA (2007) and San Francisco, CA (2010). All three symposia included speakers from industry, government and academia, representing several European countries, China, and the United States. Corresponding to this broad group of countries, institutions and speakers, the range of topics touched on almost all facets of chirality as it is manifested in environmental and human exposure and toxicity. The 40 oral and 20 poster presentations indeed approached comprehensive coverage: analysis of enantiomers and other stereoisomers; preparative separation of enantiomers; stereoselective occurrences of chiral pesticides in environment soil and water and in wildlife and human tissues and fluids; stereoselective degradation and metabolism of chiral pesticides; and stereoselective toxicity.
This book is a result of manuscript contributions by some of the oral and poster presenters to the third symposium in 2010. In addition to symposium participants, invitations were extended to the environmental chiral chemistry community in general, including most of the speakers in the 2005 and 2007 symposia, in an attempt to attain good coverage of this rather broad topic. Thus, this ACS Symposium book will generate many new ideas from interested readers and inform them of useful techniques for experimental exploration of the somewhat exotic, but important, area of chiral chemistry of pesticides.

Aims and Scope Growing social and economic needs exert major pressures on landscapes, challenging preserved landscape values and the regional significance of places. As a result, the scope oflandscape management has broadened and diversifiedin response to international calls for greater landscape protection, and to existing and new challenges, such as thoserelating to climate change adaptation and ecosystem services. Within this context, landscape impact assessment and more in general landscape planning have been regarded as effective mechanisms for promoting and, at the same time, as the basis of sustainable landscape development. Set within the European context, thisbookaims to provide acontemporary review of landscape impact assessment theory and practice, looking at both the project and planning level. It coversthe overall process, content and scope of landscape impact assessment, including the main principles for good practice. Thisbook also provides guidance on a rangeof methods and techniques for different aspects of landscape impact assessment and public participation needs; and explains the advantages of close co-ordination between landscape impact assessment and landscape planning, especially in land use planning. Finally, a selection of case studies reviewing different aspects and practices of landscape impact assessment are reviewed. This book will be of interest to professionals involved in the day-to-day application of landscape impact assessment, as well as scholars and teachers working in the broad area of landscape planning andmanagement. The authors of thisbook have vast experiencein the research and practice of environmental assessment and landscape management.

Nearly three decades after the dawn of democracy, South Africa has remained a country of ‘two agricultures’. On the one hand we have a subsistence, primarily non-commercial, black farming segment. On the other hand, however, we have a predominantly commercial and white farming sector that is well-resourced and has access to domestic and international trade networks.

These disparities can be traced back to South Africa’s painful history where, for decades, black farmers were on the margins of government support and also experienced land dispossession and livestock plunder.

A Country of Two Agricultures focuses less on history and more on the present and the future, explaining why these disparities have persisted in the democratic era, and what it will take to overcome them. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the variety of agricultural forces, taking into account both questions of domestic political economy and external factors, as well as to bring to light new risks and opportunities.

Wandile Sihlobo offers insights into the role of agriculture in the South African economy from an agricultural economy perspective, and provides political economy insights that are rooted in the experiences of farming communities on the ground and right through the value chain.

Beyond insights on the realities this book offers the government, the private sector, and anyone interested in the betterment of the South African economy, tools to grapple with this duality, and proposes a framework for bolstering the black farming segment for growth and competitiveness – and ultimately food security.

A combination of population growth, public health failures, environmental degradation and rapid global transportation has resulted in a world that is at increasing risk to vectorborne and other infectious diseases. A large percentage of emerging diseases are vectorborne and over one-third of the agents on the list of greatest concern from bioterrorism are vectorborne. Many of these diseases are viral that have no effective drug or vaccine treatments. Drug and insecticide resistance is now common and has greatly compromised our ability to provide effective and affordable control. Parasitic diseases, including malaria, leishmmaniasis and African trypanosomiasis are likewise increasing in many parts of the world. Control programs for onchocerciasis and to some extent filariasis are reducing the impact of these diseases, largely due to the availability of filaricides such as ivermectin. Chagas disease has also declined significantly through home improvements and indoor insecticide application against the domicilary kissing bug vectors.
Despite these gains, this tend has not been sustainable. Instead, infectious disease is now responsible for greater than 25% of all deaths and nearly 50% of premature deaths among those under 45 years of age, and 63% for children less than 4 years of age. A significant proportion of these deaths is attributed to vectorborne diseases, particularly from malaria ( 11%). Indeed, more that 1 million people are killed annually by malaria, about 3000 per day. It is estimated that 700,000 children under the age of 5 die of malaria and at least 300 million are ill due to malaria each year. In response, the American Institute of Medicine (2003) has called for a renewed effort to rebuild public health infrastructures needed to conduct disease surveillance and vector control programs and to increase research to provide improved pesticides and their use, new repellents, new biopestcides and biocontrol agents to augment pesticidal control, as well as novel strategies to interrupt pathogen transmission.
With these goals in mind, we convened the first vector control symposium as part of the scientific program of the 3rd Pan-Pacific Conference of Pesticide Science in 2003. Five years after (2008), we re-convened this expanded topic at the 4th Pan-Pacific Conference on Pesticide Science and the scientific presentations made over two days comprise this current volume, Advances in Human Vector Control. The book covers two major areas: 1) Current Status and Control Practices, covering malaria, dengue, Chagas, human lice, cockroach and house dust mite issues; and 2) Novel Approaches and Resistance Management of these diseases. Chapters are provided by internationally-recognized experts who are actively involved in vector control and management, providing an up to date summary of this critically important area of public health. The effective use of novel control strategies is stressed and the status of recently acquired genomic approaches is critically reviewed.

This book brings together current thought on several aspects of the use of pesticides in and around homes, schools and workplaces. The book addresses several parts of the process, from the discovery and development of new active ingredients, their formulation, use, longevity, environmental fate and human exposure.

Developed for Introduction to Soils or Soil Science courses, The Nature and Properties of Soils, 15th Edition, can be used in courses such as Soil Fertility, Land Resources, Earth Science and Soil Geography. The Nature and Properties of Soils is designed to engage today's students with the latest in the world of soils. This hallmark text introduces students to the exciting world of soils through clear writing, strong pedagogy, and an ecological approach that effectively explains the fundamentals of soil science. Worked calculations, vignettes, and current real-world applications prepare readers to understand concepts, solve problems, and think critically. Written for both majors and non-majors, this text highlights the many interactions between the soil and other components of forest, range, agricultural, wetland and constructed ecosystems. Now in full-colour, the 15th Edition includes hundreds of compelling photos, figures, and diagrams to bring the exciting world of soils to life. Extensively revised, new and updated content appears in every chapter. Examples include: coverage of the pedosphere concept; new insights into humus and soil carbon accumulation; subaqueous soils, soil effects on human health; principles and practice of organic farming; urban and human engineered soils; new understandings of the nitrogen cycle; water-saving irrigation techniques; hydraulic redistribution, soil food-web ecology; disease suppressive soils; soil microbial genomics; soil interactions with global climate change; digital soil maps; and many others.

McKittrick’s history of the 1918 Kalahari Thirstland Redemption Scheme reveals the environment to have been central to South African understandings of race. The plan fanned white settlers’ visions for South Africa, stoked mistrust in scientific experts, and influenced ideas about race and the environment in South Africa for decades to come.

In 1918, South Africa’s climate seemed to be drying up. White farmers claimed that rainfall was dwindling, while nineteenth-century missionaries and explorers had found riverbeds, seashells, and other evidence of a verdant past deep in the Kalahari Desert. Government experts insisted, however, that the rains weren’t disappearing; the land, long susceptible to periodic drought, had been further degraded by settler farmers’ agricultural practices—an explanation that white South Africans rejected. So when the geologist Ernest Schwarz blamed the land itself, the farmers listened. Schwarz held that erosion and topography had created arid conditions, that rainfall was declining, and that agriculture was not to blame. As a solution, he proposed diverting two rivers to the Kalahari’s basins, creating a lush country where white South Africans could thrive. This plan, which became known as the Kalahari Thirstland Redemption Scheme, was rejected by most scientists. But it found support among white South Africans who worried that struggling farmers undermined an image of racial superiority.

Green Lands for White Men explores how white agriculturalists in southern Africa grappled with a parched and changing terrain as they sought to consolidate control over a black population. Meredith McKittrick’s timely history of the Redemption Scheme reveals the environment to have been central to South African understandings of race.

While Schwarz’s plan was never implemented, it enjoyed suffi cient support to prompt government research into its feasibility, and years of debate. McKittrick shows how white farmers rallied around a plan that represented their interests over those of the South African state and delves into the reasons behind this schism between expert opinion and public perception. This backlash against the predominant scientific view, McKittrick argues, displayed the depth of popular mistrust in an expanding scientific elite.

A detailed look at the intersection of a settler society, climate change, white nationalism, and expert credibility, Green Lands for White Men examines the reverberations of a scheme that ultimately failed but influenced ideas about race and the environment in South Africa for decades to come.

In the later part of the 20th century, the United States experienced a remarkable surge in public interest toward medicinal and aromatic crops and this trend continues. This consumer interest helped create a significant demand for plants with culinary and medicinal applications as the public discovers their benefits for a wide range of applications. Consequently, this consumer call has generated a huge demand on farmers, but has also provided opportunities for new agricultural crops to support both fresh and dry raw material markets. Processing raw materials for end use by consumers introduces even more variables at all levels from harvesting to final desired product. Maintaining quality and authenticity throughout this process has inspired farmers, processing facilities, and regulatory agencies to adopt new practices and new laws to maintain safety and quality. Maintaining this quality and authenticity is often made possible using analytical methods for quality control, which subsequently triggered a demand for both regulatory agencies and scientists throughout the world. For aforementioned reasons, it is imperative that scientists continue to explore related topics from the field to the final consumer product. This book touches on many of the issues currently being addressed by scientists working to produce the desired consumer product while maintaining authenticity and quality and environmental stewardship.

Cereal grains have been the principal component of human diet for thousands of years and have played a major role in shaping human civilization. Around the world, rice, wheat, and maize, and to a lesser extent, sorghum and millets, are important staples critical to daily survival of billions of people. More than 50% of world daily caloric intake is derived directly from cereal grain consumption. Most of the grain used for human food is milled to remove the bran (pericarp) and germ, primarily to meet sensory expectations of consumers. The milling process strips the grains of important nutrients beneficial to health, including dietary fiber, phenolics, vitamins and minerals. Thus, even though ample evidence exists on the health benefits of whole grain consumption, challenges remain to developing food products that contain significant quantities of whole grain components and meet consumer expectations.
This book presents some of the latest research endeavors that aim to improve our understanding of how the chemistry of various grain components can be manipulated to improve contribution of cereals to human health. Most of the topics are based on the Cereal Grains Symposium, at the 2011 American Chemical Society held in Anaheim, CA, March 27-31.

The book will tell the history and story of Down East Maine lobster fishing. Author Christina Lemieux's family has been lobster fishermen for four generations, and the book draws from their personal recollections and documentation. It will then bring to life the experience of Down East Maine lobster fishing and living in a lobster fishing community. The book details how one goes about catching lobster, the seasons of lobster fishing and the perils of such a physically grueling job. It also talks about "lobster culture" some of the unique pastimes of lobster fishermen, such as the sport of Maine lobster boat racing. Finally, the book will give a brief overview of how to properly cook Maine lobster and provide some of the area's favorite lobster recipes.

Though there are more automobiles than harvesters on the roads these days, folks in "Wythe County," Virginia, keep their memories and traditions preserved in these conversations with the local twentieth-century farmers who spent their entire lives working this land. Visit with James Kegley, a fourth-generation farmer discussing his family's cattle and poultry drives to the train in Wytheville, and Agnes Eades as she shares stories about the night before butchering day for the hogs; join Fred Etter as he remembers the first tractor he ever saw and June Huffard as she talks about her dairy farm. Picture the days when starting the plow meant cracking the whip and "Wythe County" was the 'Cabbage Capital of the World.'

'An important and timely book' from the Foreword by Stanley Johnson 'A complete and absorbing history of a decade of intense international politics offers many insights for future negotiators of sustainable solutions' Stephen Bass, International Institute for Environment and Development 'Skillfully navigates the jungle of forest politics, leaving us in no doubt that the verbal commitment to save the world's forests has yet to be translated into action on the ground. The way forward must clearly lie in political commitments and international cooperation if forests are to continue to preserve life on Earth' Francis Sullivan, World Wide Fund for Nature Global deforestation and its attendant processes - including soil degradation, climate change and the loss of biological diversity - emerged as international political issues during the 1980s, prompting politicians to seek consensus on programmes and policies for the conservation and sustainable management of forests. Yet global initiatives have been bedevilled by tensions between the North and South and between governments, industry, local communities and indigenous peoples. Meanwhile, rates of deforestation in the tropics are increasing, and international political efforts are demonstrably failing. Forest Politics carefully traces the evolution of international cooperation on forests, from the inception of the controversial International Tropical Timber Organization and the failed Tropical Forestry Action Programme in the mid-1980s, to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests in the mid-1990s. The book also provides a detailed analysis of the negotiating stances of the parties involved in the divisive negotiations that rook place prior to the 1992 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro and the equally factious negotiations for the International Tropical Timber Agreement of 1994. It provides a fascinating insight into the nature of such processes, illustrating the difficulties that arise when concepts such as 'global commons' come into conflict with national sovereignty. Complete with annexes of important political documents, and making extensive use of primary source material and interviews with participants. Forest Politics presents case studies of all the major forest negotiations over the last 13 years. It is an essential reference point for policy makers, environmental campaigners and students, and required reading for all those who care about the future of the world's forests. David Humphreys is Research Fellow in Global Environmental Change at the Open University. Originally published in 1996

The depletion of the tropical rain forests has attracted considerable attention in recent times, and the serious consequences for the global biosphere are widely acknowledged. Yet deforestation continues apace, and in some areas (for example, southeast Asia) the very existence of the forests is seriously threatened. Contrary to popular belief, evidence suggests that local economic and living conditions are more significant in this than timber exploitation for exports to the Northern countries."Tropical Deforestation: A Socio-Economic Approach" offers a new perspective on the economic imperatives which encourage indigenous populations to encroach upon their own forests, and shows how action against deforestation must form part of a wider movement to improve both the living conditions of the local inhabitants and the durability of their national economies.Part One offers an overview of the processes surrounding deforestation, and an assessment of the current situation. Part Two analyses the land-use issues, and explains the socioeconomic imperatives in the affected regions. In an absorbing conclusion. Part Three guides the reader through a series of hypothetical policy scenarios, using a specially adapted economic computer model, to predict which combinations of policies and trade arrangements might bring about a more beneficial state of affairs.

Freedom Mazwi examines patterns of agricultural finance in Zimbabwe since the radical Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme (FTLRP) was implemented in 2000-and, especially, the varying impact that the FTLRP reforms have had not only on land use, but also on the well-being of farmers.Focusing on contract farming in the tobacco and sugarcane sectors, Mazwi offers penetrating insights into social contradictions and power relations in Zimbabwe's rural areas. He also assesses the institutional finance mechanisms that have emerged in response to the radical land reforms and reflects on the related political and economic isolation of the country since 2000. Not least, he suggests how agrarian policy could be restructured to better benefit small-scale farmers.

Farming – whether domestic crops, forestry, fish or livestock – is one of the pillars of human civilization, dating back to the early settlements of Neolithic times. Today, approximately one billion people work the land, providing food and other products for our ever-increasing human population. Arranged geographically, Farming explores the many types of farm and farming that exist today. See how farmers in Malaysia extract milky latex from the bark of rubber trees, used to make everything from protective gloves to vehicle tires; be amazed at the gorgeous stepped rice fields of Bali, where the traditional subak irrigation system is created around ‘water temples’ and managed by Hindu priests; marvel at the vast corn and soya bean fields of Ontario, much of it used for animal feed to support Canada’s beef industry; learn about nomadic pastoralism in low rainfall areas such as Somalia, where herders move camels, cattle, sheep and goats in search of grazing; explore the wineries and vineyards in Bordeaux, where more than 700 million bottles of wine are produced each year by more than 8,500 châteaux; and see how freshwater prawns are harvested for export in the watery deltas of Bangladesh. Presented in a landscape format and with more than 180 outstanding photographs of farming from every part of the planet, Farming offers a pictorial celebration of mankind’s deep connection with the land that sustains us.