Production Over Protections

The emergence of nanotechnology and the development of new nanodevices and nanomaterials have opened up exciting opportunities for novel applications in agriculture and biotechnology. Nanotechnology has the potential to modernize agricultural research and practice, but although it has gained momentum in the agriculture sector over last decade, there are still knowledge gaps between scientific communities. This book presents a comprehensive overview of current developments in nanotechnology-based sustainable agriculture. Focusing on various aspects of nanotechnology in different sectors of agriculture, such as crop production, soil fertility management and crop improvement, it offers insights into the current trends and future prospects of nanotechnology, along with the benefits and risks and their impact on agricultural ecosystems. It also highlights the use of nanotechnology to reduce agrochemical usage, to increase nutrient uptake efficiency and to improve water and nutrient management, and the use of nano-biosensors to manage plant diseases. The book is a valuable reference resource for scientists, policymakers, students and researchers who are engaged in developing strategies to cope with current agricultural challenges.

The 2021 Annual Report – Plant Production and Protection provides in-depth information, key facts and figures from the FAO Plant Production and Protection Division (NSP).

Protection is a persistent feature of economic policy in developed and developing countries alike. However, it is now widely accepted that high protection holds back economic growth. Why is protection so pervasive when it is widely recognised to be against the national interest of the countries which impose it? This contradiction is the focus of this important volume, first published in 1986. Economists from the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia have written about their countries and draw conclusions on the causes of protection from statistical analysis and from interindustry structure.

This volume, with contributions from a team of multi-disciplinary team experts, addresses the economic sustainability and clean manufacturing methods to deal with the challenges that water scarcity and water quality are imposing on many countries, particularly on Mediterranean arid areas, that are threatening their economic and social development. Water plays a crucial role in industry, agriculture and daily life. Its use has increased ten-fold between 1900 and 2000. On a global scale, about 70 % of clean water from available sources is used for agricultural purposes, primarily irrigation, the rest of it being used for domestic and industrial purposes. With the actual demographic and economic trends, it is expected that by 2025, two-thirds of the world population will live in water-stressed areas and it is expected a 40 % increase in water consumption.

Berry crops include, but are not limited to, the genera: Fragaria (strawberry, Rosaceae), Ribes (currant and gooseberry, Grossulariaceae), Rubus (brambles: raspberry and blackberry; Rosaceae), Vaccinium (blueberry, cranberry and lingonberry; Ericaceae) and Vitis (grapes, Vitaceae). The significant role of these fruits in maintaining human health has increased their popularity and production, dramatically, across the world. This Special Issue of Agronomy covers berry crops in the areas of breeding, genetics, germplasm, production systems, propagation, plant and soil nutrition, pest and disease management, postharvest, health benefits, marketing and economics and other related areas. The aim will be to bring together a collection of valuable articles that will serve as a foundation of innovative ideas for production and protection of health-promoting berry crops in changed environment.]

Social Protection, Capitalist Production provides a thorough analysis of the genealogy and the functional logic of German capitalism over the last 130 years. It addresses several puzzles of the existing literature, in particular how economic coordination proved possible and remained stable in a (big) country without prominent traits of neo-corporatism, without long government participation of social democratic parties, without centralized wage bargaining, without active economic steering by the government, under a 'monetarist' regime, and under an allegedly liberal, namely 'ordoliberal' economic policy. The central claim of the book is that the functional equivalent was a 'conservative-continental' welfare state which provided labour and capital with the organizational resources and the infrastructure to establish and maintain long-term economic coordination. A better understanding of the German case, which can be seen as prototypical for other continental political economies as well, thus provides us also with a much better understanding of the different variants of coordinated market economies in Northern, Continental, and Southern Europe, i.e. it provides us with a more profound Comparative Political Economy-framework. This has important implications for contemporary debates on Germany's role within international trade, and especially on her role within Europe and especially within the Euro-zone and its crisis. Much of the current debate, so the book claims, is based on an incomplete account of the functional logic of Modell Deutschland.