A critical physical geography of no-till agriculture: Linking degraded environmental quality to conservation policies in an Oregon watershed

A variety of agricultural conservation trends have gained and lost favour throughout the years, with farm bills in the United States often influencing which conservation practices are implemented. This paper explores the consequences of a set of conservation techniques loosely defined as “no-till agriculture,” focusing on their implementation and adoption since 1985, at which point such approaches began to be explicitly encouraged under US Farm Bill soil conservation mandates. We begin by noting a core contradiction that has characterized these approaches in the Fifteenmile Watershed of Wasco County, Oregon, where despite high rates of farmer enrollment in no-till programs, both no-till agriculture and sustained tillage have led to the increased use of herbicides and sustained sediment runoff. Using a critical physical geography framework that integrates intensive physical field data collection, spatial analysis, social surveys, and interviews, we address the biophysical and social factors collectively driving changes in herbicide use and variable erosion estimates. We draw particular attention to how farm bill support for no-till has enrolled farmers in a vaguely defined and underregulated conservation practice that may ultimately undermine environmental quality.     

Agricultural Development and Household Incomes in Central Asia: A Survey of Tajikistan, 2003-2008

Two noted specialists on the agricultural economies of the former Soviet Union examine the effects of land reform on agricultural production and the income of rural house-holds in Tajikistan. The authors utilize official government statistics to discern trends of agricultural output at the national level, and the results of three extensive surveys conducted in 2007-2008 (N > 2,000) and one in 2003 (N = 4,000 respondents) by international organizations (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Asian Development Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Bank) to identify household-level changes. They also review the legislative framework for agrarian reform in the country; examine national-level trends in farm structure and organization, livestock production, farm productivity, and cropping patterns; and analyze shifts in size of land holdings and rural family incomes at the household level. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D130, O130, P320, Q150. 11 figures, 10 tables, 42 references.     

The little ice age in the Scottish Highlands and Islands: Documenting its human impact

This paper examines the Little Ice Age in the Scottish Highlands and Islands and uses documentary evidence to show its impact on the farm economy. It has three sections. The first examines how Highland climate may have changed during the Little Ice Age, and notes that increased storminess was probably as much a factor as lower annual mean temperatures. The second takes the most severe phase of the Little Ice Age, the Maunder Minimum, 1645–1715, and uses rests or eases of rent to show how it stressed the farm economy. The third examines evidence for the abandonment of land during the Maunder Minimum. As well as arguing that we need to see abandonment in its social as well as physical setting, it highlights the role played by the temporary abandonment of land and suggests that such abandonment along the western seaboard probably indicates the impact of increased storminess.     

西汉铁官“大器”问题探讨

西汉铁官作坊生产的"大器"是装有犁鐴的大型铁犁,是为了满足政府推行代田法,特制的一种耦犁,大多供应于政府组织生产的西北垦区等地。     

Knowing “Good Food”: Immigrant Knowledge and the Racial Politics of Farmworker Food Insecurity

Abstract: This article explores the ways that farmworkers, many of whom come from a culture deeply rooted in food and agricultural practices, cope with food insecurity by utilizing their agricultural and nutritional knowledge. Food assistance providers in the USA often treat farmworkers' inability to afford healthy food as a lack of knowledge about healthy eating, reinforcing racialized assumptions that people of color don't know “good” food. I argue that in contrast to food banks and low‐income nutrition programs, home and community gardens provide spaces for retaining and highlighting agricultural, cultural, and dietary practices and knowledge. This paper investigates the linkages between workers' place in the food system as both producers and consumers, simultaneously exploited for their labor, and creating coping strategies utilizing agrarian and culinary knowledge. I argue that food security and healthy eating, rather than being a matter of consumers making healthy “choices”, is a matter of class‐based and racial differences in the food system.     

从清静无为到奋发进取——《淮南子》思想研究

成书于西汉文景之世的<淮南子>以道家思想为基础,兼容并包儒道墨法等各家学说,努力为汉代长治久安构造思想体系,其主题表现为从清静无为到奋发进取的转化,其合理价值在当代仍具有重要理论意义与现实意义.     

《史记》早期版本源流研究

《史记》自问世以来 ,经两千余年的流传 ,产生了众多的写本、刻本 ,构成了庞大的《史记》版本体系。研究《史记》各本的文本形态及各本之间文字的异同 ,是为《史记》版本学。本文客观地疏理了历代《史记》版本研究的状况 ,评述了前人研究的成就及不足 ,揭示了《史记》版本的传承系统。     

A manuscript of Rochester’s “Upon Nothing” in a newly recovered eighteenth-century miscellany of Restoration verse

In this article, I present a previously unexplored verse miscellany, which contains 18 poems and begins with a copy of the Earl of Rochester’s “Upon Nothing.” The miscellany, held at Staffordshire Record Office, was compiled around 1703 by Sir John Bridgeman, 3rd baronet, a Shropshire gentleman and grandson of the politician Sir Orlando Bridgeman. While many of the contents relate to the political events surrounding the accession to the throne of Queen Anne, the collection reveals a pervasive interest in the turbulent years of the Restoration period. The cultural memory of the Exclusion Crisis casts its shadow over Bridgeman’s collection, and many of the topical poems touch upon the ramifications of an unstable line of royal succession. Tracing the political and scribal communities to which Bridgeman might have belonged, I explore the ways in which Rochester, and the Restoration, were being refigured in the earliest years of the eighteenth century.     

非动力性与动力性的合奏——新时期中国农村改革后蓬勃发展的纵向条件分析

20世纪70年代末80年代初中国农村改革顺利铺开,并取得了举世嘱目的成就。但这并不仅仅在于当时农民的探索、地方官员的默许以及中央控制的放松和政策的支持。如果从社会发展的纵向来分析,这一时期的中国农村与50年代初期相比,已经具备了推进改革的较充分的历史条件,而正是有了这些历史条件,中国在这一时期进行的农村改革,才能够顺势启动并迅速发展,从而实现了中国农村"水到渠成"的伟大历史转折。     

Hispanic population change in southwestern Detroit and surrounding suburbs, 1990–2000: a study of the succession process

Rapid growth in Hispanic population in southwestern Detroit during the 1990s led to a transformation of the area from predominantly non-Hispanic white to Hispanic. Focusing on the Hispanic population, a typology of racial/ethnic changes between 1990 and 2000 is undertaken in 99 census tracts in southwestern Detroit and surrounding suburbs. Two of the tract types that experienced the greatest transition to Hispanic underwent substantial declines in non-Hispanic white population, but still experienced growth in total population. At the same time, these tracts experienced a decline in housing stock, which undoubtedly put pressure on the ability to secure housing. Although Hispanics could afford to reside in predominantly black tracts, few did so, probably indicating competition for scarce housing resources. Contiguous to the rapidly transitioning tracts is the suburb of Dearborn, which contains an established Arab enclave. Median housing values in these tracts were about three times that of tracts in the area undergoing succession to Hispanic population, which helps to explain why these tracts experienced little growth in Hispanic population. Not surprisingly, predominantly white tracts in the suburbs also experienced little growth in Hispanic population due to higher housing values. It is concluded that limited financial resources of Hispanics as well as competition for affordable housing in the city were responsible for the rapid growth and concentration of the Hispanic population in southwestern Detroit.