Search Results (10)

Achieving a Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD)-free status without vaccination marks a significant milestone for Brazil, a major agricultural powerhouse with extensive cattle herds and vast borders. This certification represents not only a scientific and logistical achievement but also an opportunity for enhanced market access and strengthened biosecurity. However, transitioning to this status involves challenges, including maintaining stringent monitoring and surveillance, managing porous border regions, and mitigating risks from neighboring regions with varying FMD statuses. This review explores the expectations surrounding Brazil’s new status, including the anticipated economic benefits, the influence on Brazil’s international trade position, and the role of sustainable disease management practices. We also discuss potential risks, such as accidental reintroduction and surveillance gaps, which could impact livestock health and trade dynamics. With a focus on effective biosecurity, regional cooperation, and advanced diagnostic capabilities, Brazil’s journey to maintaining FMD-free status highlights both the opportunities and complexities of disease control in a nation deeply reliant on its agricultural sector. This status demands ongoing surveillance to support Brazil’s agricultural economy and ensure the long-term health security of its livestock industries. Full article

African economies are undergoing significant structural transformation, transitioning from agriculture to manufacturing, services, and technology-driven industries. Driven by urbanization, technological innovation, and global trade, this shift offers opportunities for sustainable growth but faces challenges such as infrastructure gaps and institutional hurdles. This paper examines the dynamics of structural change in 54 African countries, focusing on the roles of technology, talent, and tourism. Using World Bank data, factor and cluster analyses reveal five latent components: structural conditions, public sector capacities, dynamic conditions, urbanization, and growth. The analysis categorizes countries into six clusters, from Developing Economies to African Powerhouses. The findings emphasize the critical role of technology in boosting productivity, the importance of talent development through education and workforce integration, and the potential of sustainable tourism to drive transformation. This research provides a comprehensive framework for understanding Africa’s structural transformation, offering actionable insights to address disparities and promote equitable development across the continent. Full article

Advancing the construction and application of new quality productive forces is an essential prerequisite for achieving high-quality agricultural development and expediting the establishment of agricultural powerhouses. This study aims to elucidate the internal mechanisms through which new quality productivity contributes to high-quality agricultural development and to explore practical pathways for enhancing agricultural quality through its promotion. Utilizing panel data spanning 2012 to 2021 from 30 provinces and municipalities in mainland China, the entropy method is employed to gauge levels of new quality productivity and high-quality agricultural development. Additionally, employing research methodologies including SYS-GMM and threshold effect models, this study empirically investigates how the advancement of new quality productivity influences high-quality agricultural development. Our research reveals the following key findings: (1) The development of new quality productive forces significantly enhances high-quality agricultural development, exhibiting a heterogeneous distribution pattern favoring the “eastern region > western region > central region” and “northern region > southern region”. (2) New quality productive forces can bolster the level of high-quality agricultural development by fostering innovation, coordination, openness, and shared development within its subsystems. However, they may impede progress by inhibiting improvements in green development within the subsystems. (3) The results of the threshold effect test demonstrate that the promotion effect of the development of new quality productive forces on high-quality agricultural development escalates with the level of high-quality agricultural development. Specifically, as the level of high-quality agricultural development exceeds the first threshold value of 0.1502, the promotion effect becomes significant; crossing the second threshold value of 0.2010 further amplifies this effect. This paper’s primary marginal contribution involves empirically analyzing the potential nonlinear effects of advancing new quality productivity in enhancing the level of high-quality agricultural development. This enriches empirical research on how new quality productivity fosters the development of high-quality agriculture. Full article

Amidst global climate change and unsustainable human exploitation of water resources, water has emerged as a critical factor constraining global agricultural food production and ecological environments. Particularly in agricultural powerhouses like China, irrigation water accounts for a significant portion of freshwater resource utilization. However, the inefficiency of irrigation water usage has become a weak link in water resource management. To better assess irrigation water efficiency, an accurate estimation of regional irrigated areas is urgently needed. This study proposes a method for identifying actual irrigated areas based on remote sensing-derived evapotranspiration (ET) to address the challenge of accurately interpreting irrigated areas in tropical regions. Using Yunnan Province’s Yuanmou irrigation district as a case study, this research combined ground monitoring data and remote sensing data to identify actual irrigated areas through ET inversion and downscaling methods using the Penman–Monteith–Leuning (PML) model. In 2023, the total irrigated area interpreted from remote sensing in the study area was approximately 15,000 hm², with a comparison against validation points revealing an extraction error of 16%. The small error indicates that this method can effectively enhance the reliability of monitoring actual irrigated areas, thus providing valuable data support for agricultural irrigation water management. Full article

This study examines Brazil’s evolution from a primarily agricultural economy to a pivotal player within global supply chains, contesting the traditional view of emerging markets as mere suppliers of raw materials and labor. It closely examines Brazil’s assertive efforts and the obstacles it encounters, focusing on its role within the context of Latin America. Utilizing macroeconomic data, the research reveals the barriers to Brazil’s deeper integration into global supply chains and outlines novel strategies to enhance its global position. The findings highlight Brazil’s capacity to significantly influence and advance the global economic framework, emphasizing its vital role in redefining the narrative on global supply chain engagement from a Latin American perspective. Full article

This study investigates the potential of agricultural industrial agglomeration to bolster agricultural economic resilience and identifies the underlying pathways. We developed an analytical framework for agricultural economics that integrates the concept of “resilience”. This framework facilitates an examination of the influence of agricultural industrial agglomeration on agricultural economic resilience, focusing on two key aspects: enhancement of income and reduction of costs. Utilizing panel data from 30 provincial-level regions in China covering the period from 2006 to 2021, this research empirically assesses the impact, underlying mechanisms, and regional variations of agricultural industrial agglomeration on agricultural economic resilience. The findings reveal that agricultural industrial agglomeration significantly boosts agricultural economic resilience. This positive influence manifests through two primary channels: firstly, “agricultural industrial agglomeration → enhancement of socialized services → agricultural economic resilience” and secondly, “agricultural industrial agglomeration → improvement of agricultural production efficiency → agricultural economic resilience”. The contribution of agricultural industrial agglomeration to agricultural economic resilience is particularly pronounced in major grain-producing regions, notably enhancing capabilities for reconstruction and reinvention, as well as adjustment and adaptation. The study concludes with recommendations aimed at strengthening agricultural economic resilience. These recommendations emphasize the critical role of agricultural industrial agglomeration in fostering agricultural economic resilience, its contribution to the growth of rural economies and the enhancement of socialized services, and the need to consider regional disparities in the process of developing agricultural economic resilience. Full article

Market access has a deep impact on farmers’ decisions, influencing their choice of crops and technology adoption. Crop diversification depends on the availability of markets to trade the agricultural portfolio. This study explored how market access impacted the level of diversification in 5565 Brazilian municipalities from 2013 to 2021. We developed a regression model considering how variables related to market access and commercialization (storage, roads, distribution centers, commercialization credit, among others) affected a local (municipality level) diversification index. After environmental variables were controlled, the results indicated that most of the market access variables have a significant impact on diversification. We also used map analysis to analyze the regional patterns of specialization in Brazilian agriculture, concluding that logistics and commercialization infrastructure have strong influence on the level of diversification in Brazil, a major agricultural powerhouse in the world. The results indicate that market access variables affect diversification and should be considered by policy makers aiming to increase sustainability in agriculture and livestock. Full article

China stands as one of the world’s largest agricultural powerhouses, boasting abundant crop resources. Nonetheless, there remains a lack of clarity regarding the extensive scale of crop residue return in the fields. Drawing from direct field measurements and comprehensive survey data, this paper pioneers the reporting of residues from the five primary crops, shedding light on the associated nutrient components, including carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) replenishment via crop roots, stubble, and straw in the Southwest China region for the year 2012. The results showed that the total amount of the main crop residue resources was 97.4 Mt, which was composed of 17.8 Mt, 12.6 Mt, and 67 Mt for crop root, stubble, and straw, respectively. After crops harvested, there were 7165.8 kilotonne nutrient C, 132.2 kilotonne nutrient N, and 9.8 kilotonne nutrient P of crop residues returned to the fields through crop root, respectively, accounting for 44.6%, 48.2%, and 43.4% of the total nutrient returned, which was the main part of crop nutrients return to fields. The amount of nutrient C, N, and P returned through stubbles were 5017.3 kilotonne, 75.9 kilotonne, and 6.8 kilotonne, respectively, accounting for 31.3%, 27.6%, and 30.6% of the total return of crops. From the composition proportion of residues nutrients return to field, the orders were all expressed as follows: root > stubble > straw. According to the optimum fertilization amount of the main crops in Southwest China, the returned of crop residues nutrient N in maize, rice, rapeseed, and wheat can replace approximately 5.6%, 18.4%, 11.2%, and 14.8% of nitrogen fertilizer, and 2.4%, 8.3%, 3%, and 9.2% of phosphate fertilizer, respectively. This conclusion is beneficial for regulating the practice of returning crop residues to the fields and the use of agricultural fertilizers, aiming to achieve sustainable development in agricultural production. Full article

Concerns over climate change have led to increased interest in renewable fuels in recent years. Microbial production of advanced fuels from renewable and readily available carbon sources has emerged as an attractive alternative to the traditional production of transportation fuels. Here, we engineered the yeast Pichia pastoris, an industrial powerhouse in heterologous enzyme production, to produce the advanced biofuel isobutanol from sugarcane trash hydrolysates. Our strategy involved overexpressing a heterologous xylose isomerase and the endogenous xylulokinase to enable the yeast to consume both C5 and C6 sugars in biomass. To enable the yeast to produce isobutanol, we then overexpressed the endogenous amino acid biosynthetic pathway and the 2-keto acid degradation pathway. The engineered strains produced isobutanol at a titer of up to 48.2 ± 1.7 mg/L directly from a minimal medium containing sugarcane trash hydrolysates as the sole carbon source. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of advanced biofuel production using agricultural waste-derived hydrolysates in the yeast P. pastoris. We envision that our work will pave the way for a scalable route to this advanced biofuel and further establish P. pastoris as a versatile production platform for fuels and high-value chemicals. Full article

In the last decades, pollinators have drastically declined as a consequence of anthropogenic activities that have local and global impacts. The food industry has been expanding intensive agriculture crops, many of them dependent on animal pollination, but simultaneously reducing native pollinator habitats. Chile is a good example of this situation. Chile is becoming an agro-alimentary powerhouse in Latin America, where intensive agriculture expansion is performed at the expense of natural lands, posing a major threat to biodiversity. Here, we discussed the drivers responsible for the decline of pollinators (including habitat loss, pesticides, invasive species, and climate change) and its synergistic effects. This is particularly critical considering that Chile is a hotspot of endemic bee species locally adapted to specific habitats (e.g., Mediterranean-type ecosystems). However, there is a lack of data and monitoring programs that can provide evidence of their conservation status and contribution to crop yields. Based on our analysis, we identified information gaps to be filled and key threats to be addressed to reconcile crop production and biodiversity conservation. Addressing the local context is fundamental to undertake management and conservation actions with global impact. Full article