Drawing upon current theoretical debates in social anthropology, development studies and political ecology, and presenting original research from across the Archipelago, this book addresses the changing histories and identities of upland people as they relate in new ways to the natural resource base, to markets and to the state. It is an engaged study, which fills important analytical gaps and addresses real-world concerns, exploring the uplands as components of national and global systems of meaning, power, and production. It offers a significant re-assessment of concepts, processes, histories, relationships and discourses, many of which are not unique to either the uplands or Indonesia, making the book essential and compelling reading for both scholars and practitioners.

This concise, introductory handbook discusses the basic principles of medical ethics, and includes practical, realistic guidance on how to evaluate and manage common ethical problems, focusing on the care of elderly patients Typical scenarios faced in clinical practice, such as issues of mental capacity and consent, resuscitation, near death decisions, quality of life, and health care expenditure, are discussed

Series Information:
Physical Environment Series

The Flora is prepared at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in close collaboration with East African Herbarium and in liaison with the University of Dar es Salaam, the University of Nairobi and the Makerere University. Significant contributions are also made by specialists elsewhere. This reference should be of use to anyone concerned with the identification and utilization of plants in eastern Africa.

Contributed articles presented at an International Workshop on Networking for Low-external-input and Sustainable Agriculture in Silang, Philippines, in March 1992, organized by International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, World Neighbors and ILEIA.

Agricultural droughts affect whole societies, leading to higher food costs, threatened economies, and even famine. In order to mitigate such effects, researchers must first be able to monitor them, and then predict them; however no book currently focuses on accurate monitoring or prediction of these devastating kinds of droughts. To fill this void, the editors of Monitoring and Predicting Agricultural Drought have assembled a team of expert contributors from all continents to make a global study, describing biometeorological models and monitoring methods for agricultural droughts. These models and methods note the relationships between precipitation, soil moisture, and crop yields, using data gathered from conventional and remote sensing techniques. The coverage of the book includes probabilistic models and techniques used in America, Europe and the former USSR, Africa, Asia, and Australia, and it concludes with coverage of climate change and resultant shifts in agricultural productivity, drought early warning systems, and famine mitigation. This will be an essential collection for those who must advise governments or international organizations on the current scope, likelihood, and impact of agricultural droughts.
Sponsored by the World Meterological Organization

Managing climate variability and change remains a key development and food security issue in Bangladesh. Despite significant investments, floods, droughts, and cyclones during the last two decades continue to cause extensive economic damage and impair livelihoods. Climate change will pose additional risks to ongoing efforts to reduce poverty. This book examines the implications of climate change on food security in Bangladesh and identifies adaptation measures in the agriculture sector using a comprehensive integrated framework. First, the most recent science available is used to characterize current climate and hydrology and its potential changes. Second, country-specific survey and biophysical data is used to derive more realistic and accurate agricultural impact functions and simulations. A range of climate risks (i.e. warmer temperatures, higher carbon dioxide concentrations, changing characteristics of floods, droughts and potential sea level rise) is considered to gain a more complete picture of potential agriculture impacts. Third, while estimating changes in production is important, economic responses may to some degree buffer against the physical losses predicted, and an assessment is made of these. Food security is dependent not only on production, but also future food requirements, income levels and commodity prices. Finally, adaptation possibilities are identified for the sector. This book is the first to combine these multiple disciplines and analytical procedures to comprehensively address these impacts. The framework will serve as a useful guide to design policy intervention strategies and investments in adaptation measures.

Large numbers of tropical trees from natural forests or plantation forest are available for human consumption and management. This book focuses on the prospects and utilization of tropical plantation trees in context of economic and business, planting, managing stocks, and uses of trees converted to various wood-based products. It provides information on key areas of tropical plantation trees including growth performance, nursery practices, soil properties, planting stock production, raw material cellulose, anatomy, pulping and papermaking, fiber modification, and properties of wood composites. Features: Comprehensive information on prospects and utilization of tropical plantation tree species. Features information on potential products derived from tropical plantation trees including cellulose-based wood products, particleboard with bioplastic binder, and laminated veneer lumber. Discusses species usage of economic importance other than wood production. Presents information on nursery practices, growth performance, and soil properties of tropical trees. Illustrates methodologies for repeating investigations on work that has been done previously in tropical tree research. This book introduces information for entrepreneurs or researchers before undertaking work with these tree species illustrating technical methodologies allowing for repetition or previous successful works. This information proves valuable to researchers if further work is needed for improvement on these plant-derived products.

In large parts of the developed and developing worlds soil tillage by plough or hoe is the main cause of land degradation leading to stagnating or even declining production levels and increasing production cost. It causes the soil to become more dense and compacted, the organic matter content to be reduced and water runoff and soil erosion to increase. It also leads to droughts becoming more severe and the soil becoming less fertile and less responsive to fertiliser.

This book brings together the key notes lectures and other outstanding contributions of the I World Congress on Conservation Agriculture and provides an updated view of the environment and economic advantages of CA and of its implementation in diferent areas of the World.

The contributions to this collection focus on the intersecting dynamics of gender, generation and class in Southeast Asian rural communities engaging with expanding capitalist relations, whether in the form of large-scale corporate land acquisition or other forms of penetration of commodity economy. Gender, and especially generation, are relatively neglected dimensions in the literature on agrarian and environmental transformations in Southeast Asia. Drawing on key concepts in gender studies, youth studies and agrarian studies, the chapters mark a significant step towards a gendered and 'generationed' analysis of capitalist expansion in rural Southeast Asia, in particular from a political ecology perspective. The collection highlights the importance of bringing gender and generation, in their interaction with class dynamics, more squarely into agrarian and environmental transformation studies. This is key to understanding the implications of capitalist expansion for social relations of power and justice, and the potential of these relations to shape the outcomes for different women and men, younger and older, in rural society. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Oil palm is widely cultivated in tropical countries for use in food processing, personal care products and other applications such as biodiesel. Cultivation faces a range of challenges such as its environmental impact (e.g. in deforestation and biodiversity loss) as well threats from pests and diseases. There is an urgent need to make oil palm cultivation more efficient and environmentally sustainable. This collection reviews the key research addressing this challenge. Volume 1 begins by reviewing trends in production and key challenges facing the sector. Part 2 focusses on developments in understanding oil palm physiology, genetics and genetic diversity and their application to improved breeding techniques. The final part of the book discusses developments in cultivation practices. With its distinguished editor and international team of expert authors, this collection will be a standard reference for researchers, oil palm growers, palm oil processors as well as government and non-governmental agencies responsible for more sustainable oil palm cultivation. Volume 1 is accompanied by Volume 2 which covers pests and diseases, quality and sustainability issues

Rich countries are paying poor countries to fight climate change on their behalf - and one way they are doing it is through carbon sinks. These are reservoirs of organic carbon tied up in plants and in the earth, rather than being in the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. This book looks critically at this mode of climate change mitigation. Can it work? Is it just? Will poorer countries benefit? The book considers the scientific, economic and ethical basis for this type of mitigation.

Previous attention has been focused mainly on reducing emissions from deforestation and land degradation (REDD), but this book is one of the first attempts to examine the potential for carbon sinks in agriculture in crop plants and the soil. In assessing this, the author examines exactly how north-south climate mitigation trading works, or does not, and what the pitfalls are. It highlights the complex relationship between agriculture, particularly different forms of farming systems, and the mitigation of climate change. The arguments are backed up by original research with farmers in Brazil to demonstrate the challenges and prospects which these proposals offer in terms of payments for environmental services from agriculture through carbon trading.

Of related interest . . .

FOOD CHEMISTRY

A Laboratory Manual

Dennis D. Miller

A superb educational resource in food science and technology, this manual is an excellent source of ideas and guidance for students enrolled in food chemistry laboratory courses. Featuring experiments designed to illustrate key concepts under discussion, this manual also includes concise reviews of chemical principles, data analysis tips, and useful formulas and calculations. Topics range from acids and bases to chemical leavening agents, from properties of sugars and proteins to additives, pigments, and tenderizers. The use of high-performance liquid chromatography is also covered.

1998 (0-471-17543-9) 153 pp.

FOOD PROCESSING

An Industrial Powerhouse in Transition

Second Edition

John M. Connor and William A. Schiek.

Now in a second edition, this work updates all information involving the growth, economic development, and business management of the booming U.S. food processing industry. Comprehensive, timely coverage includes distribution channels, the effects of biotechnological and regulatory developments, as well as an analysis of the contributions made by the food processing industry to the U.S. economy.

1997 (0-471-15515-2) 688 pp.

ELECTRONIC GUIDE TO FOOD REGULATIONS

Tracy A. Altman

This CD-ROM helps food industry professionals cut through the morass of federal regulations affecting the food industry. Users get fast access to the actual texts of FDA, USDA, and EPA rules along with in-depth analyses and clear interpretation of the legal and regulatory requirements affecting the production, packaging, and sale of meat, poultry, seafood, dietary supplements, and other food products. Features compliance diagrams and keyword indexes for quick reference.

1999 (0-471-32584-8) CD-ROM

The literature of Africa is dominated by accounts of crisis and gloom. But Thomas Bassett, a distinguished American geographer well known in the field of development, tells an unusual story of the growth of the cotton economy of West Africa. One of the few long-running success stories in African development, change was brought about by tens of thousands of small-scale peasant farmers. While the introduction of new strains of cotton in French West Africa was in part a result of agronomic research by French scientists, supported by an unusually efficient marketing structure, this is not a case of triumphant top-down 'planification'. Employing the case of Cote d'Ivoire, Professor Bassett shows agricultural intensification to result from the cumulative effect of decades of incremental changes in farming techniques and social organization. A significant contribution to the literature, the book demonstrates the need to consider the local and temporal dimensions of agricultural innovations. It brings into question many key assumptions that have influenced development policies during the twentieth century.

Dioscorea species, commonly known as yams, are tuberous plants that constitute a major staple food in many parts of Africa, South East Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific. Yams are cultivated in about 50 mainly tropical countries, and the world annual production of edible tubers is around 73 million tonnes. This book evaluates the current state of knowledge about yams, and how this knowledge affects practices in production, cultivation and postharvest technology. Dioscorea is a diverse genus in terms of its geographical origin, domestication, morphology, chemistry and breeding. Therefore, besides concentrating on the dozen or so species that are used as major food crops, the book examines species that have limited commercial or domestic value at present, but have the potential in future to contribute to the production and utilization of this crop. This book: * Covers botany, taxonomy, composition, uses, cultivation, handling, storage, diseases, pests and production. * Describes the yam industry in the main producer countries, and around 100 of the most commonly grown species. * Reviews many Dioscorea species that may be developed in the future. It is an essential resource for researchers in horticulture, yam growers, breeders and postharvest technologists.

Based on the author's widely used earlier text African Farm Management, this account updates the economic analysis of tropical agriculture and broadens its perspective to include examples from all parts of the developing world. Writing in a clear, concise style, Professor Upton explains the essential theories of farm economics without numerous mathematical formulae. The text is completely revised, with increased emphasis on farm household economics, in which farms are seen as consumers as well as producers. Also included is a new chapter on the economics of irrigated agriculture. This book provides an invaluable economic framework for better understanding the operation and management of farming systems in the tropics, and will be welcomed by students of tropical agriculture worldwide. From reviews of African Farm Management: "The author produces an authoritative text interlaced with many relevant and illustrative references." -- Experimental Agriculture

In tropical developing countries farmers tend to grow a wide range of crops in a small area for subsistence or sale. To make full use of often limited resources, a good understanding of how environmental conditions affect the characteristics and performance of these crops is essential. This book considers the response of tropical food crops to environmental factors such as climate, soil and farming system. Three types of crop are considered: cereals, legumes and non-cereal energy crops, with individual chapters on the four most important crops in each group. This material is set in context by introductory chapters on tropical farming systems, tropical climates and tropical soils. This new, updated edition retains the successful formula of the first edition while placing additional emphasis on tropical environmental conservation. It will serve the needs of advanced students of tropical agriculture, as well as professionals engaged in research and extension work in tropical crop production.

Tropical Environments presents a comprehensive introduction to the complex systems of the tropics. Covering a broad, cross-regional range of humid through to semi-arid tropical climate zones, the book features a wealth of case studies drawn from throughout the tropical world. The authors tackle the major problems within the tropics, from complex biological interactions and soil nutrient deficiencies, offering a balanced integration of biophysical and human management issues.

Papaya (Carica papaya) is an important and widely-cultivated tropical fruit, grown in more than 60 countries of the world. Global papaya production has grown significantly over the last few years, mainly as a result of increased production in India. Papaya has become an important agricultural export for developing countries where export revenues of the fruit provide a livelihood for thousands of people, especially in Asia and Latin America. This book includes coverage of recent research developments with the potential to improve crop yields and quality. New research has contributed to our understanding of the crop environment, plant growth and physiology of tree and fruit development with implications for both breeding and cultivation. It looks at how analysis of the papaya genome promises new, faster breeding techniques to improved cultivars and how these and other advances are helping to tackle disease like papaya ring spot viruses and major pests which cause significant losses. Key features include: updated information for sustainable papaya cultivation research developments in tackling the major production and post-harvest problems interdisciplinary and collaborative research With contributions from international experts, the book presents the current state of knowledge concerning the history, physiology, culture and marketing of papaya throughout the world. It is an essential resource for researchers, growers and all those involved in the papaya industry.

This textbook aims to describe the role of minerals in plant life cycle; how these nutrients are absorbed, distributed, stored; what functions each mineral plays and the disorders that their excess or absence may cause. From an agronomic perspective, such knowledge is key to boost crop production and improve its quality, and it also helps understand how to better manage fertilizers and prevent environmental issues. The book has focus on tropical agriculture and its specific demands, providing examples of major crops (such as sugarcane, soybeans, coffee etc), silviculture and pasture species.

First published in 1991. This is a more portable version of the Booker Tropical Soil Manual, in which the format (and weight) of the first edition have been reduced whilst retaining as much as possible of the original clarity. It also includes new content and appendices that cover the revised FAO publications on soil classification and on water quality for agriculture.

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 2 TYPES OF LAND RESOURCE FIELD STUDIES 3 SURVEY ORGANISATION AND PRACTICE 4 CLASSIFICATION AND MAPPING OF SOILS 5 LAND EVALUATION 6 SOIL PHYSICS 7 SOIL CHEMISTRY 8 SOIL AND WATER SALINITY AND SODICITY 9 SOIL AND LAND SUITABILITY REPORTS AND MAPS

Parasitic weeds of the families Cuscutaceae, Orobanchaceae and Scrophulariaceae are considered to be among the major problems facing agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics. In the last decades, enormous efforts have been made and success achieved by scientists all over the world in gaining a better understanding of their biology and ecology as well as of control methods. However, no substantial reduction of infestation has been achieved in the past and control strategies specific to the different parasites, crops and farming systems must be further developed or adapted and realised among a wider farming population with suitable extension methods. This `Technical Manual' provides up-to-date methodologies for various aspects of research and extension related to parasitic weed species of the genera Striga, Alectra, Orobanche and Cuscuta. It has the intention to support scientists and extension workers of international and national research and extension institutes and universities, who are either new to the subject or plan to apply further techniques they are not yet familiar with.

The development of the cotton economy in West Africa is an African success story. This enduring agricultural revolution was brought about by tens of thousands of small-scale peasant farmers. Drawing on archival research, oral histories, and long-term fieldwork on the small farms of northern Ivory Coast, this book places the rural African actors center stage and brings out the complex and manifold ways in which they shaped farming systems and influenced the government policies that brought the cotton economy into being, and sustained it from the 1880s to the 1990s.

This introduction to tropical food science is meant for two groups of people. First, there are those living in the tropics who require a simple introductory text. Food science is perhaps the most important science affecting their lives. The second group consists of students, administrators and workers in industry and research in temperate zones, who are concerned with food problems but who have no first-hand knowledge of the tropics. The text provides a concise and accessible guide to all the major elements of the subject, including the nutritional value of tropical foodstuffs, its digestion, and the preparation and preservation of food. The author has taken care to avoid the use of jargon and the text is supplemented by many useful explanatory illustrations. The volume is suitable for first-year food science students at universities, polytechnics and colleges; graduate students taking conversion courses in food science; administrators, practitioners and students of food science in the tropics.