In this groundbreaking volume, Juan Jose Baldrich traces the deep changes affecting Puerto Rican tobacco growers and manufacturers and their export markets from the Spanish colonization of the island to the present. Based on more than twenty years of research in the United States and Puerto Rico, the book sheds light on the important history of tobacco in Puerto Rico while highlighting the people and practices that have indelibly shaped Puerto Rico and its culture. Smoker beyond the Sea: The Story of Puerto Rican Tobacco is a work of recovery that examines tobacco's transitions from medicinal use to rolls fit for chewing and pipe smoking, followed by the appropriation of the Cuban paradigm for cigars and cigarettes, and, finally, to the US models after the 1898 invasion. This pioneering volume also offers the only history of the US tobacco monopoly in local agriculture and manufacture from its beginning in 1899 to the bankruptcy of its last successor company forty years later. Baldrich's extensive research documents the organization of the cigar and cigarette manufacturing sectors and the resulting development of trade unions and socialist ideals. This multidisciplinary investigation gives due attention to the modifications that farmers made to tobacco planting and harvesting techniques in fine-tuning plants to the expected aromas and tastes of the manufactured commodities. In addition, Baldrich pays considerable attention to gender relations in the labor process, not only in the manufacturing sector but also in tobacco agriculture. The book also provides the only narrative of the rise and maturity of the Hermanos Cheos, a powerful apocalyptical movement that began and spread in the tobacco growing regions. Ultimately, this encompassing volume fills a major gap in the histories of tobacco-producing islands in the Caribbean.

This book highlights the environmental footprints and best practices in sustainable agriculture. This first volume includes forty-four interesting chapters that present agriculture in the light of food security, circular economy, sustainability, food exports and imports written by leading experts in the field. It provides and interesting read for researchers, policy makers and professionals in the area of agriculture and economy.

Compiles current research on nanomaterials as well as their versatile applications in plant biotic stress management Describes role of nanomaterials as enzyme-mimicking nanoparticles, nano-pesticides, nano-fertilizers, and nanomaterials Reviews day-to-day problems related to crop plants, their diagnostics and stress management Explores trends in nanomaterials utility towards diagnostics, enzyme-mimicking, crop protection and their possible role in plant disease management Includes pertinent nanomaterials including synthetic strategies, properties, chemistry, and applications

This book provides an introduction to the significant role of physics in evolution, based on the ideas of matter and energy resource flow, organism self-copying, and ecological change. The text employs these ideas to create quantitative models for important evolutionary processes. Many fields of science and engineering have come up against the problem of complex design-when details become so numerous that computer power alone cannot make progress. Nature solved the complex-design problem using evolution, yet how it did so has been a mystery. Both laboratory experiments and computer-simulation attempts eventually stopped evolving. Something more than Darwin's ideas of heredity, variation, and selection was needed. The solution is that there is a fourth element to evolution: ecological change. When a new variation is selected, this can change the ecology, and the new ecology can create new opportunities for even more new variations to be selected. Through this endless cycle, complexity can grow automatically. This book uses the physics of resource flow to describe this process in detail, developing quantitative models for many evolutionary processes, including selection, multicellularity, coevolution, sexual reproduction, and the Serengeti Rules. The text demonstrates that these models are in conceptual agreement with numerous examples of biological phenomena, and reveals, through physics, how complex design can arise naturally. This will serve as a key text on the part physics plays in evolution, and will be of great interest to students at the university level and above studying biophysics, physics, systems biology, and related fields.

Drawing on the Homeric epics, this multidisciplinary work reveals the cultural transformations which need to take place in order to transition from today's modern extractive agricultural system to a sustainable natural-systems agriculture. In order to provide an imaginative foundation on which to build such a cultural transformation, the author draws on the oldest and most pervasive pair of literary works in the Western canon: the Iliad and the Odyssey. He uses themes from those foundational literary works to critique the concept of state sovereignty and to explain how innovative federalism structures around the world already show momentum building toward changes in global environmental governance. The book proposes a dramatic expansion on those innovations, to create eco-states responsible for agroecological management. Drawing from many years of experience in international institutions, the author proposes a system of coordination by which an international agroecology-focused organization would simultaneously (i) avoid the shortcomings of the world's current family of powerful global institutions and (ii) help create and implement a reformed system of local landscape-based agriculture wholly consistent with ecological principles. Acknowledging the difficulty of achieving reforms such as these, the author suggests that a new cultural-conceptual narrative can be constructed drawing on values set forth 2,700 years ago in the Homeric epics. He explains how these values can be reimagined to drive forward our efforts in addressing today's the climate and agricultural crises in ways that reflect, not reject, the natural processes and relationships that make the Earth a living planet. This book will be of great interest to students, academics and policymakers addressing issues of agrarian values, environmental and agricultural law, environmental restoration, agroecology, and global institutional reform.

Linking traditional and local products to a specific area is increasingly felt as a necessity in a globalised market, and Geographical Indications (GIs) are emerging as a multifunctional tool capable of performing this and many other functions. This book analyses the evolving nature of EU sui generis GIs by focusing on their key element, the origin link, and concludes that the history of the product in the broad sense has become a major factor to prove the link between a good and a specific place. For the first time, this area of Intellectual Property Law is investigated from three different, although interrelated, perspectives: the history and comparative assessment of the systems of protection of Indications of Geographical Origin adopted in the European jurisdictions from the beginning of the 20th century; the empirical analysis of the trends emerging from the practice of EUGIs; and the policy debates surrounding them and their importance for the fulfilment of the general goals of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The result is an innovative and rounded analysis of the very nature of the EU Law of GIs that, starting from its past, investigates the present and the likely future of this Intellectual Property Right. This book provides an interesting and innovative contribution to the field and will be of interest to GI scholars and Intellectual Property students, as well as anyone willing to gain a better understanding of this compelling area of law.

This book examines the role of local food movements, enterprises and networks in the transformation of the currently unsustainable global food system. It explores a series of innovations designed to re-integrate sustainable modes of food production and encourage food sovereignty. It provides detailed insights into a specialised network of social actors collaborating in novel ways and creating new economic arrangements across different geographical locales. In working to devise 'local solutions to global problems', the initiatives explored in the book represent a 'second-generation' food social movement which is less preoccupied with distinctive local qualities than with building socially just food systems aimed at delivering healthy nutrition worldwide. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in sites across Europe, the USA and Brazil, the book provides a rich collection of case studies that offer a fresh perspective on the role of grassroots action in the transition to more sustainable food production systems. Addressing a substantive gap in the literature that falls between global analyses of the contemporary food system and highly localised case studies, the book will appeal to those teaching food studies and those conducting research on civic food initiatives or on environmental social movements more generally.

This book provides a detailed discussion of four class-action discrimination cases that have recently been settled within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and have led to a change in the way in which the USDA supports farmers from diverse backgrounds. These settlements shed light on why access to successful farming has been so often limited to white men and/or families, and significantly this has led to a change for opportunities in the way the USDA supports famers from diverse backgrounds. With chapters focusing on each settlement Jett provides an overview of the USDA before diving into a closer discussion of the four key settlements, involving African American farmers (Pigford), Native Americans (Keepseagle), Woman famers (Love) and Latino(a) farmers (Garcia), and the similarities between each. This title places and emphasis on what is happening in farming culture today, drawing connections between these four settlements and the increasing attention on urban farming, community gardens, farmers markets, organic farming and the slow food movement, through to the larger issues of food justice and access to food. Fighting for Farming Justice will be of interest to scholars of food justice and the farming arena, as well as those in the fields of Agricultural Economics, Civil Rights Law and Ethic Studies.

The ever-increasing number of pollutants discharged into the environment drives the search for new treatment technologies or the modification of the existing ones. In this sense, innovation in bio nanofiltration systems seems very promising and therefore, a book on the current advances and innovations on his topic is highly appropriate. Bio nanofiltration is a relatively emerging new technology applied to the treatment of wastewater and other toxic compounds. In the last two decades, this technology has begun to emerge as an economically viable process to treat the great variety of recalcitrant pollutants discharged into the environment. Thus, the US biofiltration market is speculated to reach over $100 million by 2020. This book aims to present how innovation in bio nanofiltration can provide effective solutions to overcome the serious problem of water pollution worldwide. The removal of contaminants will be the result of the combined effects of biological oxidation, adsorption, and filtration processes. Features: Describes the microbial ecology of bio nanofiltration Describes the modelling of bio nanofiltration Describes designing of bio nanofillers

Systemic change is required move to a circular economy (CE) model which can meet the demands of a growing population in a manner that is decoupled from resource use and waste generation. This book takes a deep dive into the innovation aspect of the circular economy (CE), with a specific focus on India as a geography, where the transformation to a circular economy is underway. How a developing country like India is tackling the complexities in the transformation and creating innovative solutions is showcased in this book through many practical examples and inspirational case studies. The book lays the foundations for mainstreaming Resource Efficiency (RE) / CE in India, and covers innovation led by businesses and start-ups, along with innovative policies, financing and collaborative models required to spur and accelerate circular economy approaches and provides linkages to the international context. Features: * Provides insight into role of innovation in circular economy transition. * Helps to develop and facilitate adoption of resource efficiency policy and strategy with particular focus on key resource sectors and waste streams. * Treats circular economy as a holistic approach across the entire lifecycle, and places emphasis on upstream interventions and systems change. * Examines current context of COVID19 and its impact on circular economy models and practices. * Touches upon how the EU-based approach was adapted and contextualized significantly to work in the unique Indian landscape. This book is aimed at students, researchers and professionals in circular economy, sustainability, business innovation, environmental studies, natural resources management, environmental and resource conservation policy.

Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider’s Guide identifies the principal challenges that scientists face when communicating with different stakeholder groups and offers advice on how to navigate the maze of competing interests and deliver actionable science when the clock is ticking. If a scientist’s goal is to deliver content and expertise to the people who need it, then other stakeholder groups—the media, the government, industry—need to be considered as partners to collaborate with in order to solve problems. Written by established scientist Christopher Reddy, who has been on the front lines of several environmental crisis events, the book highlights ten specific challenges and reflects on mistakes made and lessons learned. Reddy’s aim is not to teach scientists how to ace an interview or craft a soundbite, rather, through exploring several high-profile case studies, including the North Cape oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, and the 2021 Sri Lanka shipping disaster, he presents a clear pathway to effective and collaborative communication. This book will be a great resource for junior and established scientists who want to make an impact, as well as students in courses such as environmental and science communication.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and challenges of intensifying groundwater irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for improving smallholder agrarian livelihoods. Only about 3% of the groundwater resources of Sub-Saharan Africa are used for irrigated agriculture despite the subcontinent’s relative abundance of groundwater. The majority of the region’s smallholders are highly dependent on seasonal dryland cropping, making them extremely vulnerable to uncertain weather patterns and droughts. Improved irrigation capabilities through sustainable groundwater development could unleash smallholder farming and make it a major driver of economic growth, poverty reduction, climate resilience, and improved food security. So, why is groundwater so underused? Tapping into groundwater requires a major shift in farming practices and it has its own challenges and requirements – smallholder access to land and finance for irrigation infrastructure and equipment, gendered and equitable adoption options. This whole list is framed in terms of what the smallholder farmers need. Hence, this should also be put in this context, supply chains, energy access, resource availability, and institutional support. The chapters in this book present a picture that is not only heterogeneous across the region, but also hold some common denominators. They serve to enrich the discourse and help better understand the barriers along the pathways toward the sustainable and transformative adoption of groundwater irrigation. The scientific information provided herein would be of interest to researchers, practitioners, decision makers and planners with interest in the region. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Water International journal.

The Economics of Famine presents an important collection of outstanding contributions to the economic analysis of famine. The first part consists of theoretical papers, including Amartya Sen's classic exposition of the entitlement approach to famine analysis, various extensions and critiques of this approach, and more recent developments in the economics of famine. The second part consists of empirical case studies of famine in specific countries or regions, including Ireland, Russia, China, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. This innovative volume provides invaluable reference material for development economists and all those concerned with the persistence of famine in the modern world.

Floricultural crops all over the world are challenged by a number of insect and mite pests. The pest scenario is changing, and with climate change the instances of new pest incidences have become a more common problem. Like other crops, the intensive cultivation of commercial flowers has accentuated pest problems, as farmers tend to use more agricultural chemicals, which, in turn, increase the problems of pesticide resistance, pest resurgence, and residues leading to health hazards. This volume, Advances in Pest Management in Commercial Flowers, looks at the major challenges and improvements in this growing area today. It first provides an informative overview of worldwide pests of important commercial flowers. It explores a number of important issues in this area, such as the role of climate change on insect pests of commercial flowers and the synthetic chemicals and their possible harmful effects on the environment.

Microbes are the most abundant organisms in the biosphere and regulate many critical elemental and biogeochemical phenomena. Because microbes are the key players in the carbon cycle and in related biological reactions, microbial ecology is a vital research area for understanding the contribution of the biosphere in global warming and the response of the natural environment to climate variations. The beneficial uses of microbes have enabled constructive and cost-effective responses that have not been possible through physical or chemical methods. This new volume reviews the multifaceted interactions among microbes, ecosystems, and their pivotal role in maintaining a more balanced environment, in order to help facilitate living organisms coexisting with the natural environment. With extensive references, tables, and illustrations, this book provides valuable information on microbial utilization for environmental sustainability and provides fascinating insights into microbial diversity. Key features include: Looks at enhancing plant production through growth-promoting arbuscular mycorrhizae, endophytic bacteria, and microbiome networks Considers microbial degradation and environmental management of e-wastes and azo dyes Explores soil-plant microbe interactions in metal-contaminated soils Examines radiation-resistant thermophiles for engineered bioremediation Describes potential indigenous/effective microbes for wastewater treatment processes Presents research on earthworms and microbes for organic farming

This informative volume provides new insights with scientific evidence on the uses of medicinal plants in the treatment of certain diseases. It reviews various therapies with herbal phytoconstituents for certain types of disorders, modes of action, and pharmacological screening. It focuses on potential benefits of herbal extracts and bioactive compounds for human health care, provides a comparative phytoconstituent analysis of selected medicinal plants using GCMS/FTIR techniques, and discusses the role of herbal medicines in female genital infections. It goes on to look at the health-boosting properties of cabbage and the functional properties of milk yam (Ipomoea digitata L.).

This book examines social processes that have contributed to growing pesticide use, with a particular focus on the role governments play in urban aerial pesticide spraying operations. Beyond being applied to sparsely populated farmland, pesticides have been increasingly used in densely populated urban environments, and when faced with invasive species, governments have resorted to large-scale aerial pesticide spraying operations in urban areas. This book focuses on New Zealand's 2002-2004 pesticide campaign to eradicate the Painted Apple Moth, which is the largest operation of its kind in world history, whether we consider its duration (29 months), its scope (at its peak the spraying zone was 10,632 hectares/26,272 acres), the number of sprayings that were administered (the pesticide was administered on 60 different days), or the number of people exposed to the spraying (190,000+). This book provides an in-depth understanding of the social processes that contributed to the incursion, why the government sought to eradicate the moth through aerial pesticide spraying, the ideological strategies they used to build and maintain public support, and why those strategies were effective. Urban Aerial Pesticide Spraying Campaigns will be of great interest to students and researchers of pesticides, environmental sociology, environmental history, environmental studies, political ecology, geography, medical sociology, and science and technology studies.

delivers a realistic and feasible framework for creating resilient landscapes in an era of anthropogenic climate change. presents fifteen case studies of differing sociocultural, economic, and biophysical backgrounds that showcase opportunities and limitations for creating resilient landscapes throughout the world. provides that much-needed link between theory and practice to deliver forward-thinking, practical solutions. This book will be of great interest to students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers who are interested in the complex relationship between landscapes, climate change, biodiversity loss, and land-based conversion at local, national and global scales.

* Discuss an integral part of molecular biology and pivotal tool for molecular breeding and enables breeders to design cost-effective and efficient breeding strategies for sugarcane * Discuss the harnessing genomics technologies for genetic engineering and pathogen characterization and diagnosis of sugarcane * Provides new examples and problems, added where needed * Provides insight from contributors the drawn from around the globe

Provides new insights into the persistent species "problem." Focuses on conceptual history and identifies pivotal landmarks in the history of the concept of species Argues for a scientific consistency of species pluralism. Discusses the "evolving species-hood" in the context of new essentialism.

Insects as Sustainable Food Ingredients: Production, Processing and Food Applications describes how insects can be mass produced and incorporated into our food supply at an industrial and cost-effective scale, providing valuable guidance on how to build the insect-based agriculture and the food and biomaterial industry. Editor Aaron Dossey, a pioneer in the processing of insects for human consumption, brings together a team of international experts who effectively summarize the current state-of-the-art, providing helpful recommendations on which readers can build companies, products, and research programs. Researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers, policymakers, and anyone interested in insect mass production and the industrial use of insects will benefit from the content in this comprehensive reference. The book contains all the information a basic practitioner in the field needs, making this a useful resource for those writing a grant, a research or review article, a press article, or news clip, or for those deciding how to enter the world of insect based food ingredients.

This volume of 30 chapters contributed by reputed authors covers: Diversification of livestock and crops. Integration of livestock systems with forestry and crop production. Drought and heat wave tolerant varieties. Strategies for reduction of Green House Gases emission from ruminants. Application of GIS and remote sensing technologies. Breeds with inherent genetic capabilities to adapt to climate change. This book also takes into account the climate change adaptation, mitigation practices, and policy frameworks for promotion of sustainable livestock and poultry production. This book is co-published with NIPA. Taylor and Francis does not sell or distribute its print and electronic editions in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This book provides basic knowledge of the programming and interfacing of devices with IoT modem and programming. The aim is to explain the basic steps to understand the IoT and its application in agriculture field. It will serve be a reference book for postgraduate and undergraduate Engineering students. Students from Electronics, Electrical, Mechatronics, Robotics, Mechanical, Computer science can use the book for their projects and research. This book is based entirely on the practical experience of the authors while undergoing projects with the students and industries. This book is co-published with NIPA. Taylor and Francis does not sell or distribute its print and electronic editions in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The origin of agroforestry practices-growing trees and shrubs with food and fruit crops and grasses is traditional and very old-but the science of agroforestry is new. Years of experience and experiments have shown that agroforestry as a land-use system is capable of yielding both food and wood and at the same time helps in conserving and rehabilitating the ecosystems. It has the capability to increase the overall productivity of land, maintain the nutrient balance in the soil, and above all, protect the nature. In the recent years, agroforestry has been recommended as a core subject in the curriculum of B. Sc. (Forestry) and B. Sc. (Agriculture) courses of agricultural universities. This book has been divided into ten chapters covering very comprehensive information on all aspects of agroforestry including history, concepts, systems classification, tree-crop interactions, planning and management, diagnosis and design, policy and projects, and propagation and management practices of multipurpose trees. This book is co-published with NIPA. Taylor and Francis does not sell or distribute its print and electronic editions in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

What role did the agricultural sector play in the economic crash of 1929? Taking evidence from country cases across Europe and the Americas, this edited volume explores short-, medium- and long- term perspectives on the primary sector. The monograph brings together the voices of an international panel of contributors who examine issues such as falling prices, industrial production, unemployment and the stagnation of aggregate demand. Together, they frame the interwar period as a pivotal turning point in the decline of subsistence agriculture and the growth of agricultural subsidies, which remain a key policy tool in many economies today. This illuminating book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in economic history, agricultural history, globalization and economic development.