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Now showing items 201-210 of 333
Aufsatz
Index-based agricultural insurance products: challenges, opportunities and prospects for uptake in sub-Sahara Africa
(Kassel University Press, 2017-07-25)
Agricultural insurance products have been piloted in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to address climate related risks faced by farmers. However, these products in general face low rates of adoption in SSA. Factors and challenges that may explain the low uptake of index-based insurance products in SSA are reviewed in this paper with the objective of assessing and documenting (i) the insurance products available to farmers, (ii) factors influencing farmers to purchase insurance products, (iii) challenges limiting farmers ...
Aufsatz
Reinventing the academic conference: how delegates design productive cities
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-05-20)
During the 6th International Sustainable Food Planning Conference, the so-called Design LABs partly replaced the regular parallel sessions. The reason for this change was twofold. On the one hand it aims to break through an endless series of parallel presentations, and on the other hand the LAB’s aim was to produce innovative design solutions for increasing the amount of food production in the city. This article describes this experiment to enhance the delivery of urban design concepts, which could substantially ...
Aufsatz
Recycling urban waste as possible use for rooftop vegetable garden
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-05-20)
Urban authorities in Europe are confronted with increasing demands by urban dwellers for allotment gardens, but vacant urban soil tends to be scarce and/or polluted by past industrial activities. A possible solution for local authorities could therefore be to promote rooftop gardening. However little technical information exists on certain forms of rooftop urban agriculture, called Z-Farming. In 2012, a pilot experiment was run in Paris (France). Simple and cheap systems of rooftop gardening were tested on a rooftop ...
Aufsatz
Integrating top down policies and bottom up practices in Urban and Periurban Agriculture: an Italian dilemma
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-05-20)
The paper deals with some relevant and contradictory aspects of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Italy: the traditional exclusion of agricultural areas from the goals of territorial planning; the separation between top-down policies and bottom-up practices; the lack of agricultural policies at local scale. In the first part the paper summarises the weak relation between urban planning and agriculture, showing how in Italy this gap has been only partially overcome by new laws and plans. Moreover the paper focuses ...
Aufsatz
Extracting Urban Food Potential: design-based methods for digital and bodily cartography
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-05-20)
Sweden’s recent report on Urban Sustainable Development calls out a missing link between
the urban design process and citizens. This paper investigates if engaging citizens as design
agents by providing a platform for alternate participation can bridge this gap, through the
transfer of spatial agency and new modes of critical cartography. To assess whether this is the
case, the approaches are applied to Stockholm’s urban agriculture movement in a staged intervention.
The aim of the intervention was to engage ...
Aufsatz
Moisture-dependent physical properties of locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) seeds
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-12-16)
Seed moisture content is significant in the handling and processing of seeds. This work therefore determined the physical properties of Locust bean seeds as functions of seed moisture content in the moisture range of 5.9 – 28.2% dry basis. Mohsenin, Stepanoff and ASAE standard methods were used in determining the properties. Increases in seed dimensions vitz length = 10.2±1.0 – 11.3±0.9 mm; width = 8.5±0.8 – 9.1±0.6 mm; surface area = 191.2±24.6 – 208.3±26.3 mm2 ; geometric mean diameter = 7.78±0.49 – 8.12±0.03 and ...
Aufsatz
Planning Urban Food Production into Today's Cities
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-05-20)
If cities are to become more sustainable and resilient to change it is likely that they will have to engage with food at increasingly localised levels, in order to reduce their dependency on global systems. With 87 percent of people in developed regions estimated to be living in cities by 2050 it can be assumed that the majority of this localised production will occur in and around cities. As part of a 12 month engagement, Queen’s University Belfast designed and implemented an elevated aquaponic food system spanning ...
Aufsatz
The circular economy and the water-food nexus
(Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture at the University of Kassel, Germany and Federation of German Scientists (VDW), 2015-12-16)
The global economy is based on a take-make-consume and dispose model where natural resources are turned into products and the waste disposed of instead of being reused as a resource. In the Asia-Pacific region climate change along with rapid population and economic growth is resulting in increased demand for water and food, potentially leading to economic and political instability. Europe has developed policy and technological innovations that can facilitate the transition towards a circular economy where waste becomes ...
Aufsatz
Are practice recommendations for the prevention of feather pecking in laying hens in non-cage systems in line with the results of experimental and epidemiological studies?
(Elsevier B.V., 2017-10-14)
Feather pecking (FP) in laying hens is an important animal welfare problem in practice, despite extensive research and increasing sources of advice for farmers. We aimed to give an overview over results from experimental and epidemiological studies. We included non-cage systems, covering the rearing and laying phase. The investigated factors were categorised into those with either good, contentious or no evidence regarding preventive effects on FP. Moreover, we wanted to know to what extent recommendations for farmers ...
Aufsatz
How to measure dairy cows´ responsiveness towards humans in breeding and welfare assessment? A comparison of selected behavioural measures and existing breeding traits
(Elsevier B.V., 2017-08-08)
For dairy cattle breeding as well as animal welfare science reliability and validity issues regarding measures of cows’ responsiveness towards humans are relevant. The objective of this study was to investigate reliability and validity aspects of four selected behavioural measures at the feeding gate (BM) and to compare them with existing breeding traits and with observations of cows’ behaviour during milking. This included the analysis of criterion validity at animal and at herd level and of repeatability of the BM ...