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Disaster Risk Management (DRM) is complex due to interacting climate risks from interacting hazards and sectors. We develop a synthetic multi‐risk test case to explore the effects of these interactions on decision‐making under deep uncertainty. The test case accounts for changes in hazard impacts and occurrence frequency due to interactions between floods and droughts. Interactions between the shipping, housing and agricultural sectors are considered as well. We use this test case to explore the utility of the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways for Multi‐Risk (DAPP‐MR) framework. DAPP‐MR has been introduced to assess DRM policies' effectiveness under deep uncertainties and to develop integrated adaptive strategies considering interactions across hazards, sectors and time. With the test case, we show that the stage‐wise approach of DAPP‐MR, which gradually increases the complexity of the analysis, can facilitate the evaluation process. Earlier stages of the analysis can be used to establish the direct cause‐effect relations, later stages allow us to identify whether additional interacting factors have a significant effect on the direct cause‐effect relations. As a result, decision‐makers can gain insights into dependencies and their relevance for developing short‐to long‐term strategies under deep uncertainty. We show that multi‐risk interactions can lead to non‐linear effects that influence the outcome of the policy analysis, for example, the indirect influence of a decision in one sector on another. Future work could investigate further improving the operationalization of this staged approach as well as extending the set of uncertainties, dynamics and decision‐rules accounted for in the multi‐risk test case. Plain Language Summary: This paper addresses the complex challenge that many regions face when dealing with multiple interconnected disasters, like floods, droughts and earthquakes. Traditional Disaster Risk Management methods often fall short, particularly in long‐term planning that considers factors such as climate change. We apply a step‐by‐step approach known as "Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways for Multi‐Risk (DAPP‐MR)" to assist decision‐makers in better understanding and planning for these intertwined risks over time. This paper employs a hypothetical test case where different sectors (e.g., agricultural sector) seek effective ways to prepare for and respond to flood and drought risks. The DAPP‐MR method facilitates this by breaking down the process into smaller, more manageable steps. This approach allows for an easier understanding of the direct effects of disasters and gradually incorporates more complex interactions between different risks. Our findings suggest that this step‐by‐step method can aid decision‐makers in grasping the connections between various factors and their significance in formulating both short‐ and long‐term strategies. The study also reveals that interactions between different risks can produce unexpected, nonlinear effects, adding complexity to the interpretation of policy outcomes. Key Points: A multi‐risk modeling case with interacting hazards and sectors is created to explore effects for decision‐making under deep uncertaintyDynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways for Multi‐Risk has proven effective for pathway analysis to grasp interactions and their relevance through a structured, stage‐by‐stage approachMulti‐risk interactions can alter the decision‐making outcome because of changes in performance or timings of potential pathways [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Two main problems the globe currently facing are migration and weather variation. Weather change has a significant impact on the agricultural industry, which affects the majority of poor people. There is a dearth of adequate methodological documentation when examining the relationship between weather variation, agricultural output, and migration. We aimed to identify methodological reporting difficulties by reviewing the quantitative literature on weather‐related migration through agricultural channels. Methods: A systematic evaluation was conducted using papers published between January 2010 and June 2022, indexed in the SCOPUS, PUBMED, and Google Scholar databases. Using inclusion/exclusion criteria, we selected 22 original research articles out of 18,929 distinct articles for review, in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. We extracted data from each study to understand how various concepts, research designs, and investigative techniques influence our understanding of migration patterns related to weather in the agricultural sector. Results: The majority (64%) of the study's data consisted of time series data. In 50% of the studies, secondary data were used. Additionally, 55% of these studies did not state the sample size. In 40% of the studies, model assumptions were fully adhered to, whereas in 36% of the studies, they were not followed at all. The majority of the articles used the Ordinary Least Squares technique, while about 41% applied the Two‐Stage Least Squares technique. Various tests were conducted across these studies, such as robustness checks (59.1%), endogeneity tests (31.8%), omitted variable bias tests (22.7%), sensitivity analyses (22.7%), and weak instrument tests (13.6%), to name a few. In the research we selected, the methodology section had various shortcomings and lacked organization. Furthermore, the justifications for deviations from model assumptions were unclear, potentially affecting the study outcomes. Conclusion: This study has important indications for researchers in studying climatic (weather) migration through agricultural channels besides for policymakers by giving a thorough review of the methods and techniques. Key points: Providing narrative insights on how various issues, research designs, and analytical techniques shape our understanding of the association between weather variation and migration via agricultural production.Providing a broad overview of the pertinent literature, covering 22 articles, as a complement to earlier studies.Our study has important ramifications for researchers studying climatic (weather) migration through agricultural channels as well as for policymakers by giving a thorough review of the methods and techniques currently used in this sector.Future studies on weather variation, agricultural production, and migration should use prudent and comparable models that capture whole climatic (weather) impacts on migration through mediating factors like agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders require transparency that companies are conducting business sustainably, which can be provided through non‐financial disclosures. Businesses that act on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters can attain a competitive advantage. ESG has become necessary in the agricultural sector as agribusinesses are considered high‐impact companies. The lack of uniformity in reporting guidelines leads to inconsistent and overloading of information. The objective of this paper is to conduct an evaluation and comparison of the current ESG reporting practices of listed agribusinesses in South Africa, Australia, and Chile. To support the quality and quantity of reporting, the concept of materiality is addressed by recognising what is material to be disclosed to stakeholders. The study evaluates how agribusinesses have incorporated the proposed material topics of the new GRI 13 sector standard into their current reporting practices. A qualitative content analysis was done to identify the presence or absence of the 34 proposed material topics in their reports. The findings indicate a distinct lack of harmonisation in the agri‐food sector disclosures. Topics hardly mentioned included the rights of indigenous people, living income, and climate adaptation. Low disclosures of the keywords Climate adaptation with 3.3% and Climate resilience with 7.0% on average, for all three countries, were reported. It is recommended that the newly proposed GRI 13 sector standard must be implemented as companies can seize this opportunity for increased transparency and gain a strategic advantage. Emphasis on the materiality concept is needed as it connects with the stakeholder theory to disclose only important information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores how beneficiaries of South Africa's land reform programme attempt to navigate the contradictory dynamics of production and social reproduction in collectively owned agricultural enterprises. The Mphuzanyoni Communal Property Association in KwaZulu‐Natal province farms with commercial beef herds and the Mayime Cooperative in the Eastern Cape province is engaged in a joint venture dairy farming scheme in partnership with an agribusiness firm. Severe tensions are evident between the social reproduction of households and the requirements of simple or expanded reproduction of agricultural enterprises. Bernstein's concept of competing 'funds' is used to examine struggles over production and reproduction on the farms, in which members of socially differentiated households contest divergent visions for the collective enterprises. Conflicts centre on how labour and capital should be mobilised, how income and other benefits in kind should be distributed to households and whether or not income should be invested for purposes of simple or expanded reproduction of the enterprise. Challenges of governance are rooted in these conflicts rather than in group ownership as a form of property right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing global consumption of protein over the last five decades, coupled with concerns about the impact on emissions of animal‐based protein production, has created interest in alternative protein sources. Microbial proteins (MPs), derived through the fermentation of agro‐industrial byproducts, present a promising option. This review assesses a century of advancements in this domain. We conducted a comprehensive review and meta‐analysis, examining 347 relevant research papers to identify trends, technological advancements, and key influencing factors in the production of MP. The analysis covered the types of feedstocks and microbes, fermentation methods, and the implications of nucleic acid content on the food‐grade quality of proteins. A conditional inference tree model and Bayesian factor were used to ascertain the impact of various parameters on protein content. Out of all the studied parameters, such as type of feedstock (lignocellulose, free sugars, gases, and others), type of fermentation (solid, liquid, gas), type of microbe (bacteria, fungi, yeast, and mix), and operating parameters (temperature, time, and pH), the type of fermentation and microbe were identified as the largest influences on protein content. Gas and liquid fermentation demonstrated higher protein content, averaging 52% and 42%, respectively. Among microbes, bacterial species produced a higher protein content of 51%. The suitable operating parameters, such as pH, time, and temperature, were also identified for different microbes. The results point to opportunities for continued innovation in feedstock, microbes, and regulatory alignment to fully realize the potential of MP in contributing to global food security and sustainability goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to fill the research gap in monitoring agriculture's sustainable development in the European Union (EU) member states. The assessment used a synthetic index based on indicators related to three dimensions: economic, social and environmental. The surveys have a high practical value. Not only did they reveal differences between member states regarding agricultural sustainability, but they also captured the areas of utmost attention to particular countries. The countries were classified into four groups based on the synthetic measure. Member states with the highest level of sustainability in the agricultural sector were Austria, Estonia, Belgium and Czechia. Study outcomes also made it possible to identify the indicators with the strongest impact on the four groups of countries. These included the area under organic farming, ammonia emission, pesticide sales, and labour productivity. Due to the differentiation of agriculture in the EU, the member states largely need to undertake measures towards sustainable development in this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal credit plays an important role for the development of the agriculture sector in developing countries because many farmers are characterized as liquidity constrained. Access to credit can increase farmers' purchasing power for inputs and agricultural technology, thus raising the overall productivity. Farmers in Mali are particularly vulnerable to shocks, such as heavy precipitation events. Access to liquidity to increase the resilience of the agricultural sector is essential. Therefore, higher financing volumes are required, which make the analysis of loan demand in agriculture of interest. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the role of the interest rate, the macroeconomic environment, the agricultural cycle and the gender of the farmer on the loan demand in the agricultural sector from a country in the Sahel. Unique and comprehensive loan data at the farm level, provided by a commercial Malian bank, is used for this analysis. The analysis covers the period from 2010 to 2020. Two different estimation strategies are combined. First, an ordinary least square regression is applied with the granted loan amount as the dependent variable. Second, the machine learning technique, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, is applied to select the most relevant features to be used as explanatory variables in the estimation. The results reveal that the interest rate, the gross value added, the farmer's gender as well as the agricultural cycle have statistically significant effects on the granted loan demand in agriculture. These results are of interest to policymakers, who deal with financial inclusion as well as market failures, and agricultural financial institutions who could incorporate such information in the design of future loan products to stimulate farmers' loan demand, especially for female farmers. [EconLit Citations: G20, G21, O13, O16, Q14, Q18]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Humic acids (HAs) are macromolecules classified within the group of humic substances that are mainly related to the agricultural and environmental sectors, but they have attracted interest from the medicine, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. However, these latter sectors depend on developing extraction and purification technologies for adequate use. Thus, this paper aims to study the partitioning and recovery of HA using alkaline two‐phase aqueous systems (ATPSs) based on alkali metal‐based hydroxides and alcohols. Initially, the influence of alcohols (methanol, ethanol, 1‐propanol, and 2‐propanol) and hydroxides [sodium (NaOH), potassium (KOH) and lithium (LiOH)] in the phase diagrams construction was addressed. RESULTS: The phase formation is correlated to an increase in the hydrophobicity of alcohols and hydroxides, which allows for the enlargement of the biphasic region. In the proposed systems, HA is always partitioned to the hydroxide‐rich phase. Increasing the hydrophobicity of the alcohol favors the migration of HA to the opposite phase, while increasing the hydrophilicity of the hydroxides leads to better partition and recovery values. It was observed that increasing TLL favors the recovery of HA. Furthermore, there was a decrease in alcohol concentration in the hydroxide‐rich phase with an increase in the alkyl chain and TLL, improving the recovery. Finally, the best reached‐recovery value was 98.18 ± 0.41% (KHA = 0.038 ± 0.02) for ATPS formed by 1‐propanol + NaOH with TLL ≈ 55 at 298 K. CONCLUSIONS: Alkaline systems can be a novel route for recovering humic substances from the environment. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the strategic interests that inform deforestation policies in Australia, and the variance in policy selections over time. A theory of deliberate policy disproportionality is used to analyse 20 years of regulatory reform in Queensland, focusing on the Vegetation Management Act (VMA) 1999. Application of the framework to this case suggests that political executives were prone to deliberately adopt (dis)proportionate policies as a strategic response to either manage or capitalise on stakeholder support or opposition to any proposed legislative change. The high variance in (dis)proportionate deforestation policies is attributed to how political executives respond to claims made by competing constituencies regarding the costs versus benefits of successive reforms. During key reform phases, policy under‐reaction was the norm, and political executives intentionally limited the scope and effectiveness of the VMA 1999 due to perceived impacts on the agricultural sector. Political executives were highly responsive to the emotional investment of rural constituents and averse to introducing policies that required difficult trade‐offs. Elections offered strategic opportunities for delivering more proportionate policies that balanced public environmental benefits with economic impacts, as evidenced by a conditional deforestation ban introduced between 2004 and 2012 and reinstated in 2018. Points for practitioners: Variance in Queensland's deforestation policy over time can be attributed to the intentional decisions by political executives to limit or expand the scope of regulations as a strategic response to stakeholder expectations.Political executives were responsive to the costs versus environmental impacts/benefits of any deforestation reforms, but prone to policy under‐reaction when the priority was managing the emotive reactions from rural constituencies.More proportionate regulations, such as the partial deforestation ban of 2004, aimed to balance environmental benefits with compensation for landholders but were only implemented when electorally beneficial.Stakeholders have a significant influence on disproportionate deforestation policy design and governments will need to manage competing claims to deliver more durable policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the dynamic interaction between various fungal strains, substrates, and treatment durations to optimize the nutritional value of these by‐products. Six fungi, including Penicillium chrysogenum, Fusarium sp., Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani, Penicillium crustosum, and Cosmospora viridescens, were evaluated across three substrates: wheat straw (WS), cedar sawdust (CW), and olive pomace (OP) over treatment periods of 4, 8, and 12 weeks. The study discerned profound impacts of these fungi across multiple parameters, including cellulose variation (C.var), lignin variation (L.var), and in vitro true digestibility variation (IVTD.var). Our results demonstrated that the various fungi had a significant effect on all parameters (p <.001). Noteworthy, F. oxysporum and F. solani emerged as exemplars, displaying notable lignin degradation, cellulose liberation, and IVTD enhancement. Importantly, P. crustosum demonstrated substantial cellulose degradation, exhibiting optimal efficacy in just 4 weeks for all substrates. Notably, F. sp. excelled, yielding favorable results when treating WS. P. chrysogenum achieved optimal outcomes with 8‐week treatment for WS. Both Fusarium sp. and P. chrysogenum exhibited slight cellulose release, with remarkable reduction of WS lignin compared to other substrates. Especially, WS and OP displayed superior digestibility enhancements relative to CW. It should be noted that the treatment duration further shaped these outcomes, as prolonged treatment (12 weeks) fostered greater benefits in lignin degradation and digestibility, albeit with concomitant cellulose degradation. These findings underscore the intricate balance between fungal strains, substrates, and treatment durations in optimizing the nutritional value of lignocellulosic agro‐industrial by‐products. The outcomes of this study lead to the enhancement in the overall value of by‐products, promoting sustainable livestock feed and advancing agricultural sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change‐induced shifts in snow storage and snowmelt patterns pose risks for adverse impacts to people, the environment, and irrigated agriculture. Existing research primarily focuses on evaluating these risks to irrigated agriculture at large scales, overlooking the role of local context in shaping risk dynamics. Consequently, many "at‐risk" areas lack insight into how adaptation strategies for managing risk through water supply augmentation or water conservation vary across contexts and over time. To address this gap, we develop a comprehensive index for evaluating irrigated agriculture's risk and adaptation potential to changes in snow at local scales and apply it throughout the western US. Results confirm trends toward escalating risk for changes in snow storage and snowmelt patterns over the century. However, substantial heterogeneity in the extent and drivers of risk exists due to variability in localized interactions between declines in water supply (approximately −9% ± 13% by 2100) and increased agricultural demand (approximately 7% ± 5% by 2100). Despite an existing focus on supply augmentation as a critical adaptation strategy to reduce risk, we show its effectiveness diminishes for many areas over time, declining to an average of −54% of historical augmentation potential by 2100. Conserving water through historical changes in crop acreage and type emerges as a more stable adaptation measure, reducing demand by 7%–8% regardless of time. While particularly relevant for higher elevation, less intensive agricultural settings in snowmelt‐dependent regions, findings underscore the need for strategies that support local‐scale, context‐appropriate adaptation to effectively manage escalating risk as snow changes. Plain Language Summary: Climate change‐induced shifts in snow storage and snowmelt patterns threaten water supplies for irrigated agriculture, necessitating adaptation. In agriculture, adaptation requires balancing water supply and demand locally, which is often overlooked in larger‐scale analyses. We develop a framework for evaluating risk and adaptation at local scales in the agricultural sector and apply it to the western US, which is broadly at risk for adverse effects (i.e., physical harm, economic losses, and socio‐cultural damage) if water demand cannot be met. Changing snow dynamics negatively impact many local areas over time, although impacts can often be reduced through supply augmentation and water conservation. While the degree of risk and the effectiveness of these adaptation strategies vary across regions and time, increasing demand and supply volatility diminishes opportunities for supply augmentation. This trend underscores the importance of supporting context‐appropriate adaptations for agricultural communities facing increased risk to their water supplies. Key Points: Changes to snow storage and release patterns pose localized and heterogeneous risks to irrigated agriculture, which accelerate in the futurePotential to manage risk from less snow by augmenting water storage is limited by water supply‐demand imbalances in many locations over timeConserving water by reducing demand could buffer irrigated agriculture against increased risk even as augmentation potential diminishes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved the Country Strategy Paper (CSP) for Zambia for 2024-2029. The CSP focuses on two priority areas: boosting the development of the private sector through investments in infrastructure and developing the country's agricultural value chain. The Bank's interventions will include expanding the road and rail network, improving access to water and sanitation facilities, and supporting the agricultural sector. In addition, the AfDB has signed a loan agreement with the Fonds d'équipement communal (FEC) in Morocco to fund sustainable infrastructure projects, and a Trade Finance Transaction Guarantee Facility with NMB Bank Limited Zimbabwe to unlock trade finance opportunities for Zimbabwean small and medium-sized enterprises. These initiatives aim to improve livelihoods, create job opportunities, and support economic growth in the respective countries. [Extracted from the article]

Access to credit has been a key component in protecting a country's agriculture sector against uncertainties and climate‐related shocks. Agricultural credits may also increase both agribusiness sectors' and farming‐related commercial activities' exposure to world markets. This study aims to investigate agricultural credits' short‐run and long‐run effects on agricultural production using control variables such as foreign direct investments, inflation rate, and government expenditures. We found that credits to agriculture affect value‐added agriculture positively in the long‐run; specifically, when agricultural credits increase by 1%, value‐added agriculture will increase by 0.19%; that is, an increase in credits to the agricultural sector leads to a significant increase in value‐added agriculture, while FDI and government size both reduce agricultural value‐added across countries. The findings of the pairwise causation test show that bidirectional causal links exist among almost all variables, validating feedback among agricultural value‐added, credit to agriculture, FDI, government expenditures, and inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]