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In Canada, there exists a noteworthy educational initiative referred to as Environmental Studies Programs (ESPs). These secondary school programs are interdisciplinary, helping to link subject matter and encouraging student responsibility. This paper will present student reports from five case studies where I investigated how ESP participation impacts secondary students' attitudes about the environment, and their willingness to make pro-environmental and pro-social choices. "Food" emerged as a primary theme, along with several subthemes: Farm School; Food Production; Outcomes of Action; Locavore; and Reports of Limited Behaviour Change. The discussion integrates the study results with relevant literature, provides pedagogical recommendations for teachers, and offers ideas for future research.

Amidst much discussion of the values and venues of local food, the Farmers' Market (FM) has emerged as an important, but somewhat uncertain, site of engagement for producers, consumers and local food "champions". Despite the evident certainty of various operational rules, the FM should be seen as a complex and ambiguous space where (contingent) notions of local, quality, authenticity and legitimacy find expression in communications and transactions around food. This paper seeks to extend current reflections on the nature of the contemporary FM and its relationship to the tenets of local food. An empirical analysis involving sellers, shoppers and managers at 15 markets in the Province of Ontario, Canada sought to understand how participants "read" the market as an operating space and subsequently construct the terms of (their) engagement. Findings suggest that Ontario FM customers wish to support farmers and farming via their food-related spending and express attachments to a wide range of alleged benefits pertaining to local food. Yet these values are also malleable in their meaning and amenable to trade-off against other considerations--particularly where social capital is concerned. The notion of "local" emerges as being widely valued but also highly interpretive in its meaning and variable in its absolute importance. The paper concludes with some reflection on the degree to which the findings support, challenge or modify current normative beliefs about local food at the FM.

COVID‐19 has had deep impacts on a wide range of vulnerable communities in Canada. Migrant agricultural workers in the southwestern region of Ontario were particularly impacted. Fearing the threat of the 'racialized foreign other', the Canadian state produced myriad securitization responses with heightened surveillance. This paper will examine both state and non‐state forms of securitization and the response from both workers and activists such as the advocacy group Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW). While there has been ample discussion of how vulnerable migrant agricultural workers were affected during the pandemic, there has been less attention paid to how state policies have heightened and targeted specific groups such as migrant agricultural workers through modes of securitization. Central to this was to ensure that labour needs would be met to ensure the viability of Canada's multi‐billion agricultural industry. This paper shows how securitization and control were vital to ensure no disruptions to production levels and Canada's role as a leading agricultural export producer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural injuries remain a major concern in North America, with a fatal injury rate of 19.5 deaths per 100,000 workers in the United States. Numerous research efforts have sought to compile and analyze records of agricultural-related injuries and fatalities at a national level, utilizing resources, ranging from newspaper clippings and hospital records to Emergency Medical System (EMS) data, death certifications, surveys, and other multiple sources. Despite these extensive efforts, a comprehensive understanding of injury trends over extended time periods and across diverse types of data sources remains elusive, primarily due to the duration of data collection and the focus on specific subsets. This systematic review, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, consolidates and analyzes agricultural injury surveillance data from 48 eligible papers published between 1985 and 2022 to offer a holistic understanding of trends and challenges. These papers, reporting an average of 25,000 injuries each, were analyzed by database source type, injury severity, nature of injury, body part, source of injury, event/exposure, and age. One key finding is that the top source of injury or event/exposure depends on the chosen surveillance system and injury severity, underscoring the need of diverse data sources for a nuanced understanding of agricultural injuries. This study provides policymakers, researchers, and practitioners with crucial insights to bolster the development and analysis of surveillance systems in agricultural safety. The overarching aim is to address the pressing issue of agricultural injuries, contributing to a safer work environment and ultimately enhancing the overall well-being of individuals engaged in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To the extent that social science scholarship engages real-world developments it remains grounded and better able to resist elite agendas. With this in mind this article argues for the critical encounter with what I argue is the most significant struggle around food and agriculture today--the amorphous and broad-based movement that strives to resist the further degradation of food environments and ensure healthy eating in society. This struggle is inevitably engaged with contemporary neoliberal agendas that have transformed and degraded food environments as they have privileged profit making over healthy diets. The article considers different sites where the struggle over healthy eating is taking place, both at the level of the state and more extensively in civil society. It considers the debate over bovine growth hormone in Canada and the wider efforts to turn around school food environments as examples of state-centered and civil-society struggles, respectively, that illustrate different dimensions of the healthy-eating movement today. In each case the agendas of transnational food corporations are seen to be directly contradicting efforts to ensure healthy diets. The article considers some notable successes among advocates of healthy eating, in the United States and Canada and most notably in Britain, and examines some of the factors that may account for this success. Overall, I argue that this struggle has the potential to challenge the hegemony of neoliberal discourse in fundamental ways. The article concludes with a call for academics, and rural sociologists in particular, to give a much greater priority to healthy-eating struggles, and considers a number of areas where academic practitioners can aid activists' efforts to resist the further degradation of diets and establish healthier food environments.

Integrated water resources management is one of the major bottom-up alternatives that emerged during the 1980s in North America as part of the trend towards more holistic and participatory styles of environmental governance. It aims to protect surface and groundwater resources by focusing on the integrated and collaborative management of land and water resources and interests on a watershed basis. In this paper, we draw on the policy network perspective on governance to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of watershed-based processes of collaboration and integration for water quality protection in agricultural areas. The policy network perspective focuses on the interaction of actors, institutions and ideas within and among policy sectors to capture the intricacies of the policy process in increasingly complex and fragmented societies. Empirically, this study is based on the analysis of agro-environmental strategies for water quality protection in the Province of Ontario over the last 15 years. The contamination of a rural municipal well in Ontario in 2000, with its tragic consequences, translated into an ongoing pluralistic debate and strong attempts to fundamentally change the provincial policy style for addressing drinking water threats, especially agricultural pollution. Based on our analysis, we suggest that meaningful scales for collaboration and integration of land and water resources and interests at the local level, from the point of view of Ontario's agricultural policy network, do not currently include the watershed. We conclude that, instead of forcing watershed-based governance structures, the exploration and examination of more creative and flexible ways of linking watershed imperatives to existing socially and politically meaningful scales in agricultural areas of Ontario and elsewhere is warranted.

In this paper we hypothesize that farmers with a stronger valuation of family farming will be more resistant to converting farmland to tree plantations. Our survey data analysis from 106 farmers in northern Alberta reveals that general opposition to trees on farmland is the strongest predictor of farmers' resistance to the establishment of poplar tree plantations on privately-owned land. Valuation of family farming is the strongest determinant of resistance to trees on farmland. Among the potential intervening variables influencing support for tree plantations, including county, age, gender, number of children, and percent of income from farming, number of children and percent of income from farming had significant direct effects on valuation of family farming. This study suggests that economic incentives alone are unlikely to influence farmers' willingness to convert their land to non-traditional uses, and that intergenerational transfer of land, and its relationship to valuation of family farming, deserves further attention in rural sociological scholarship. (Contains 3 figures, 4 tables, and 5 footnotes.)

In North America and elsewhere it is frequently asserted that changes in rural society have led to an economic and social "decoupling" of agriculture from the wider rural community. Casual analysis of contemporary media reporting and popular discourse would suggest that interactions between the two spheres are as often characterized by neglect or conflict as by complementarity and collaboration. However, scholarly interpretation of evolving relations between farming and the wider rural community, and whether these constitute a trend to relinking or decoupling, has remained elusive and problematic. This paper advocates for and articulates a case study approach to the analysis of "ambiguous interdependency" at the local level. Specifically, it is argued that much can be learned from a comparative analysis of farm and town views of sector-specific development trajectories and of implications for agriculture-community linkages. Insights obtained from in-depth interviews with 68 farm and town residents of South Huron County, Ontario, suggest a strong tendency for farmers to undervalue their importance and influence within the local community, but also highlight certain consequences of ongoing agricultural change and recent municipal restructuring that point toward the continued reshaping of agricultural community linkages. The research suggests both points of convergence and divergence that may be valuable in understanding, and perhaps managing, future development at the local scale and beyond.

In the context of declining government subsidization of agriculture, many analysts have predicted reversals in certain characteristic trends of post-1945 Western agriculture with positive implications for agroecosystem well-being. One example, investigated herein, is the suggestion that, in the absence of government safety nets, farmers will seek to diversify their operations in order to buffer against production failures or market downturns in any one output. Such a shift is not only consistent with agricultural risk-management theory, but also, at first glance, early "mirror image" conceptualizations of post-productivist agriculture; if (output) specialization has been an observed trend of productivism, then (output) diversification should be the trend of post-productivism. In fairness, however, where diversification has been identified as a manifestation of post-productivism, it has usually implied the development of largely non-agricultural activities that supplement household income. Clearly, a clarification of meaning is needed, and this paper offers some suggestions for doing so. Additionally, crop data from Saskatchewan, Canada are analysed for the years 1994-2000 to determine the degree to which arable producers there have sought to diversify their operations following the loss of an historically and financially significant export subsidy. Given limited evidence of diversification at the level of individual farms, the maximum scale at which crop diversity has any significance in ecological terms, a discussion follows of the various limitations to adopting an output diversification strategy to manage market and other risks, and the likelihood of farmers further pursuing output specialization in an era of reduced government support and increasingly chaotic commodity markets.

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Crop identification and classification are of great significance to agricultural land use management. The physically constrained general model-based decomposition (PCGMD) has proven to be a promising method in comparison with the typical four-component decomposition methods in scattering mechanism interpretation and identifying vegetation types. However, the robustness of PCGMD requires further investigation from the perspective of final applications. This paper aims to validate the efficiency of the PCGMD method on crop classification for the first time. Seven C-band time-series RADARSAT-2 images were exploited, covering the entire growing season over an agricultural region near London, Ontario, Canada. Firstly, the response and temporal evolution of the four scattering components obtained by PCGMD were analyzed. Then, a forward selection approach was applied to achieve the highest classification accuracy by searching an optimum combination of multi-temporal SAR data with the random forest (RF) algorithm. For comparison, the general model-based decomposition method (GMD), the original and its three improved Yamaguchi four-component decomposition approaches (Y4O, Y4R, S4R, G4U), were used in all tests. The results reveal that the PCGMD method is highly sensitive to seasonal crop changes and matches well with the real physical characteristics of the crops. Among all test methods used, the PCGMD method using six images obtained the optimum classification performance, reaching an overall accuracy of 91.83%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural industrialization is the adoption by an agricultural system of an industrial mode in its orientation and operation. Similarities and distinctions between agricultural industrialization in Canada and in the United States are examined. (RM)

The Windsor-Quebec City axis is Canada's most important economic entity. The axis comprises four distinct physiographic units, with considerable climatic variation across the area. Containing two distinct linguistic groups (English and French), the axis has a rich agricultural system and is the manufacturing heartland of Canada. (RM)

The Canadian International Food Security Research Fund programme supported research and scaling up of nutrition‐ and gender‐sensitive agriculture innovations from 2009 to 2018. Women and girls were identified as agents of change and were targeted as the main programme beneficiaries. Projects were implemented in 25 countries through multistakeholder partnerships among universities, research institutions, public and private sectors, and civil society groups, reaching over 78 million people, mainly women and children. Approaches specific to nutrition included growing more nutritious crops, improving dietary diversity, value added processing, food fortification, and nutrition education. Scale‐up for impact was achieved through a number of pathways that started with evidence through rigorous research, followed by a combination of elements such as understanding local and regional contexts to identify specific bottlenecks and opportunities for the deployment and adoption of successful innovations, selecting politically effective or influential partners to lead the scaling up process, and investing in long‐term local capacity and leadership building. Overall, the knowledge generated in the programme indicate that well‐designed nutrition‐sensitive agriculture and food‐based interventions can have meaningful impacts on pathways that will lead to better health and well‐being of women and children through improving household and individual access to nutrient‐rich foods. Longer intervention times are needed to demonstrate changes in health indicators such as reduced stunting. This overview paper summarises the programme and showcases examples from studies that demonstrate the impact pathway for nutrition interventions that encompass efficacy and effectiveness studies, value‐added processing, cost effectiveness of interventions, and bringing a proven intervention to scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing crisis of bee health has shone a spotlight on the problems facing pollinator populations in many parts of the world, the worrying implications for agriculture and ecosystems, and some of the risks of pesticides. Although this attention is important and can open a range of critical vistas, the threats to bees, other pollinators, and the future of pollination are too often framed in narrow ways. The goal of this paper is to provide a systematic way of thinking about the crisis of bee populations by examining the changing dynamics of pollination within industrial agriculture, drawing heavily on transformations in the United States and Canada. We set out a case for understanding pollination as a biophysical barrier to industrial organization and the rise of pollination services as a response that temporarily fixes (or overrides) this barrier, while containing an internal set of contradictions and overrides. We argue that these dialectic relations are continually generating further problems and hope that this lens can help inform critical education, outreach, and movement building with respect to the urgent problems of bee and pollinator health. In particular, we stress the need to connect growing bee‐related advocacy with struggles to confront industrial capitalist agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that interspecies justice is integral to rising decolonizing nationalist 'reconciliation' efforts in Canada and that such an interspecies perspective on reconciliation carries a significant promise for developing a new legal subjectivity for animals in settler colonial law to change the conditions of the lives of animals materially. I demonstrate that the personhood ascribed to animals in numerous Indigenous legal orders in Canada, as well as underlying non-anthropocentric worldviews where animals are not considered inferior to humans but are to be regarded as kin, should stimulate a new legal conversation in Canadian law about who/what animals are and the legal subjectivity and regard they merit among all those committed to reconciliation. Indigenous legal orders offer animal advocates a new and potentially transformative legal argument as to why the continued legal classification of animals as a property in Canadian law is exploitative and incompatible with a dominant legal order seeking to foster genuine reconciliation. Notwithstanding the residual anthropocentric elements of Indigenous worldviews promoting 'respectful' or 'reciprocal' relations with animals, and how such elements might be co-opted by settler society, this new reconciliation-originating animal-friendly argument has the potential, if adopted, to alter the material conditions of lives of many animals, most notably in intensive agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been particular interest in ‘alternative’ food over the last 10 years, with many policymakers and researchers throughout the Minority World following a growing number of consumers and producers in supporting organic farming and a host of ‘alternative’ food networks. To date, there has been a tendency for theory and policy to emerge somewhat divorced from the grounded practices and experiences of producer-suppliers themselves within these networks. Urging a shift from ‘alternativity’ to ‘sustainability’ as a more critical and valuable tool to analyse food networks, this paper draws upon in-depth ethnographic research with small-scale producer-supplier case studies in south Wales and southern Ontario. In so doing it explores often overlooked voices and stories within sustainable food discourses. Focusing on the value of farmer-led understandings and responses, the paper highlights important implications for policymakers and consumers and outlines future research on sustainable food networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Farming in Canada and the USA is dominated by row cropping concentrated in central regions. Using the Corn Belt of Iowa and the Lake Erie Lowlands of Ontario—sources of pollution affecting the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes—as exemplary regions, this paper provides a retrospective review of the landscape effects of policies and practices related to environmental stewardship and agricultural trade. Conservation policies and typical farm practices are described and compared for the two regions with an emphasis on lasting beneficial environmental outcomes. Connections among land cover changes, environmental consequences, and changes in environmental and trade policies and programs are considered along with future changes in farm management, trade liberalisation, and farm revenue sources. The paper concludes with prospective ideas of how policies and practices can maintain or enhance environmental benefits within intensively farmed landscapes as best approaches for agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Water Resources Journal / Revue Canadienne des Ressources Hydriques is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper situates Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) within the policy and scholarly debates on 'best practices' for the management of temporary migration, and examines what makes this programme successful from the perspective of states and employers. Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative study of temporary migration in Canada, this article critically examines this seminal temporary migration programme as a 'best practice model' from internationally recognized rights-based approaches to labour migration, and provides some additional best practices for the management of temporary labour migration programmes. This paper examines how the reality of the Canadian SAWP measures up, when the model is evaluated according to internationally recognized best practices and migrant rights regimes. Despite all of the attention to building 'best practices' for the management of temporary or managed migration, it appears that Canada has taken steps further away from these and other international frameworks. The analysis reveals that while the Canadian programme involves a number of successful practices, such as the cooperation between origin and destination countries, transparency in the admissions criteria for selection, and access to health care for temporary migrants; the programme does not adhere to the majority of best practices emerging in international forums, such as the recognition of migrants' qualifications, providing opportunities for skills transfer, avoiding imposing forced savings schemes, and providing paths to permanent residency. This paper argues that as Canada takes significant steps toward the expansion of temporary migration, Canada's model programme still falls considerably short of being an inspirational model, and instead provides us with little more than an idealized myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Droughts can have severe negative effects on the environment, society and economy. The drought of 2001-2002 caused severe strain on economic and social activities in western Canada, particularly on rural communities through changes in water resources. This paper examines physical and social vulnerabilities and associated adaptation measures undertaken and the adaptive capacity in communities in the South Saskatchewan River Basin, Canada. Although all of these communities were exposed to the 2001-2002 drought, they had different levels of impacts, resulting in different types of drought adaptation measures, some due to experience with previous droughts and some in response to the 2001-2002 drought. Communities with unreliable water supply were the most vulnerable to these droughts. This vulnerability resulted in historic adaptations being implemented (e.g., Hanna, Alberta) and re-active adaptations (e.g., Cabri, Saskatchewan). It is important to examine the effectiveness of the current adaptive strategies to cope with more extensive and extended drought situations. First Nation communities, such as the Kainai Blood Indian Reserve, have many social and environmental issues but the impacts from the drought were minor. The Reserve had implemented economic changes in the late 1980s to make it less vulnerable to drought but resulted in negative impacts to the Reserve's social health. It is imperative to determine how vulnerable First Nation communities are and will to improve future adaptive capacity. This paper provides a snap shot view of how Canadian Prairie Communities have adapted to drought and how vulnerable they are to future drought situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a broad survey of 149 producers who identify their product as ‘pasture-finished’ beef. Returns are from 46 different US states and Canada. Survey responses provide information on farm background characteristics, production systems, and marketing. Results show consensus on many points, and diversity on many others. The structure of the pasture-finished beef enterprise is built on direct marketing, niche marketing, source identification, value added, and rising consumer consciousness of health, environmental, and social benefits. There is a need for more attention to the role of animal husbandry in sustainable agriculture. Recent years have seen renewed interest in grazing systems, and a growth in market demand for pasture-finished beef. This is can be seen in popular press and consumer trends. The industrial food system does not take good advantage of the natural characteristics of cattle. In traditional farming systems, cattle perform the useful work of harvesting and concentrating nutrients from outlying pasturelands and transporting them to the human homestead or household. Cattle grazing can be accomplished with minimal material and management inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During early 1997, after focus groups, interviews and a mail survey were administered to a random sample of Grand River watershed dairy farmer in the Grand River watershed of southwestern Ontario. This paper summarizes the main results of the study. We concluded that these farmers have achieved a very good average quality of life. Their farming systems display good productivity, excellent viability and stability and moderate average environmental protection-all important elements of sustainability. This is mainly because they have steady incomes as a result of their supply managed system, excellent cattle genetics, strong family relationships and spirituality. If they had to leave their dairy farms they would miss the open space and country living more than anything else. There is some concern that international free trade agreements may threaten supply management to which the majority attribute their stable and reasonably good incomes. Environmental protection may also be at risk for many dairy farmers. For instance, their present manure management system is a limiting factor preventing as many as a third of them from expanding their herds in addition to such other barriers as the high price that they must pay for the milk quota that they must purchase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss the clash of values between the Old Order Amish community of Ontario and the dominant social paradigm in agriculture. Land-use and agricultural regulations, designed for an industrial style of agriculture, are experienced as a threat to the survival of the Old Order Amish agricultural social economy and community. The paper describes how I have worked with the Old Order Amish to respond to these challenges and to create public policies that will allow them to maintain their human and agricultural diversity and small-scale sustainable farm practices. Four case studies illuminating the oppressive land-use regulations along with the emancipatory responses to the oppression are examined. The social transformation themes include principles and processes for community psychologists, land-use planners, and community economic development practitioners to consider. The article has heuristic value for a practice-based approach to social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is endowed with abundant lignocellulosic biomass from agriculture and forestry. These sources provide a foundation for the development of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept which is supported by government renewable energy policy initiatives. However, the chemical structure of lignocellulosic biomass comprising carbohydrate polymers and lignin makes the structure recalcitrant to deconstruction, thereby constraining the ability of enzymes to convert these polymers into fermentable sugars without expensive and highly capital intensive pretreatment processes. The challenges are further compounded by the diversity of lignocellulosic biomass available in Canada, which typically necessitates commercial pretreatment pathways optimized for each feedstock type. In turn, these conditions constrain the development of viable business models for the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept. In order to address these challenges, Canadian researchers have continued to undertake research to develop pretreatment technologies applicable to several Canadian lignocellulosic biomass sources. The objective of this paper is to review contributions by Canadian researchers vis-à-vis the development of bioconversion pretreatment technologies needed to advance the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic biorefinery concept. These pretreatment technologies include physical, physico-chemical, biological, and processes that combine these methods. This paper also highlights the role of multi- institutional science and innovation collaborative approaches for advancing Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept further downstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the book "World Agriculture in a Post-GATT Environment: New Rules, New Strategies: Proceeding of a symposium in Organized by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the University of Saskatchewan held at Saskatoon, June 13 through 15, 1994," edited by Richard Gray, Tilman Becker and Andrew Schmitz. Here nineteen papers originally presented at a conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in June 1994, analyze the implications of the GATT for agricultural trade and discuss the rules and strategies required to compete in the new GATT setting. Papers focus on implications of the Uruguay Round for agricultural policy; agricultural trade dispute settlement and the GATT; traffication in the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and its significance for Europe; an Australian perspective on world agriculture in a post-GATT environment: U.S. agriculture in a post-GATT world; the implications of GATT for agriculture in East Asia; the effects of GATT on Canadian environmental and farm policy; trade, agriculture, and the environment.

Sustainable food production is an important part of dietetic education and training; however, the focus in the dietetic sphere is often on the environmental aspect. Understanding the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability can enhance dietetic students' sustainability competences–such as empathy and change of perspective, systems thinking, and critical thinking and analysis–to help them in their future careers and strengthen their position in society as trusted and knowledgeable food and nutrition professionals. Enhancing public understanding of sustainable food production is imperative as populations become more urban, are less connected to agriculture, and have expectations for sustainably grown/raised food, often without knowing current food production practices or the multiple aspects of sustainability that must be in place for farmers to meet those demands. The goal of this research was to understand Canadian farmers' perceptions of environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainable food production. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach and constant comparative analysis, four food and nutrition researchers analyzed interviews from 52 farmers from across Canada. Participants had to be English-speaking, produce food through farming on land, and own or rent the land on which they farm. Telephone/video interviews revealed five overarching social themes: (1) the importance of community and social capital, (2) public perception and social license to operate, (3) lack of infrastructure, and (4) deep connections to personal lives. The final theme, mental health issues (5), reflected the consequences of the multiple sources of stress that can undermine the social sustainability of farmers, farm communities, and food production. These findings may help various audiences appreciate the multiple dimensions of sustainable food production; reflect on their values, perceptions, and actions with regard to agriculture; and enhance their compassion and empathy for all farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The number of older workers is increasing throughout the industrialised world and older workers are known to be more frequent in the injury-prone agricultural sector. OBJECTIVE: This paper sought to extend knowledge by reviewing evaluated intervention studies intended to decrease risks and work injuries among older workers in agriculture. METHODS: A systematic literature review regarding: evaluated intervention projects on injury prevention, including participants aged 55 years and older, and working in agriculture. RESULTS: This review identified evaluated intervention projects regarding: i) intervention in injury prevention; ii) interventions to increase knowledge in health and safety tasks and practice; and iii) interventions to increase the use of safety equipment in work. The evaluations reviewed showed that the interventions were less successful in involving older agricultural workers than their younger counterparts. The evaluations also showed that the outcome of interventions was generally less positive or brought about no significant difference in risk awareness and behaviour change among older agricultural workers. CONCLUSIONS: Many articles and statistics describe injuries in agriculture. Especially older farm workers are one of the groups with most work injuries and deaths. Despite this, an important finding in this review was shortage of implemented and evaluated intervention studies orientated toward reduce injuries among older workers in agriculture. This review also found that no intervention project in the evaluations studied had a clear positive effect. Many intervention studies have problems with or lack of evaluation in the study design. Based on the results in this review, important future research tasks are to improve the design of interventions, devise implementation methods and formulate appropriate evaluation methods to measure the outcome of the interventions. Intervention programmes also need to involve older workers specific physical and cognitive age aspects in the design to increases their willingness to participate and to be successful to reduce injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nymphaea loriana Wiersema, Hellq. & Borsch (Lori's Water-lily) is a newly described, Canadian endemic species that has been found in central Manitoba and east-central Saskatchewan. To assess the status of a species, data regarding its distribution, population size, habitat, and search effort are needed. The purpose of this paper is to document these factors for this species. The extent of occurrence of N. loriana is approximately 15 100 km2 but the known area of occupancy is a mere 20 km2. The estimated population size of N. loriana is about 750 individual plants, although more may exist on poorly explored rivers and lakes within the extent of occurrence and possibly in northeastern Ontario. Nymphaea loriana occurs in fresh, stagnant, or slowly moving water in boreal lakes and rivers and is typically associated with N. leibergii (Dwarf Water-lily), Schoenoplectus tabemaemontani (Soft-stemmed Bulrush), Potamogeton natans (Floating-leaved Pondweed) and Nuphar variegata (Variegated Pondlily). Potential threats to the persistence of this species include low water quality resulting from mining, forestry, and agriculture, and changes to water flow because of dam construction and climate change. Monitoring known populations and searching for additional ones may be needed to assess the status of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental Reviews is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on recent scholarship on the financialization of agro-food systems and the global land grab, this paper examines new forms of financial investment in agriculture in the Canadian prairie provinces. We examine the factors underpinning investor involvement in the sector, including its anticipated financial performance as well as processes of agricultural restructuring that, combined with government actions to liberalize farmland ownership, have facilitated the enrollment of land and labour into new financial vehicles. We focus in particular on the emergence of two new forms of investment vehicles – farmland investment funds and an exchange-traded farming corporation – comparing the business model and investment strategy of each. In doing so, we highlight the ways in which the new investment patterns may propel the restructuring of the agricultural sector, alter power relations among key actors, and introduce new logics into the farming landscape. Our findings allow us to comment on the relevance of the land grabbing frame for making sense of the financialization of agriculture in the global North. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aquaculture eco-certification is associated with some producer-level benefits including price premiums and market access; however, reputational benefits from eco-certification are unclear. A public survey was used to understand the effect of eco-certification on opinion of salmon farming in two Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Nova Scotia) and differences between communities where farms are located (communities of place) and communities geographically distant from farms (communities of interest). Eco-certification had an overall positive effect on opinion, especially amongst people with a negative opinion of salmon farming who value far-reaching social outcomes of farming. Communities of interest had a more negative opinion of salmon farming and eco-certified salmon farming and were more concerned about local environmental impacts than communities of place while communities of place valued economic outcomes more than communities of interest. The role of eco-certification in public acceptance of aquaculture is limited by a lack of trust in eco-certification and failure to address local issues including conflict amongst marine users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

International labour migration programs provide a vulnerable workforce that services various sectors in developed economies. The agriculture sector is one arena in which the employment of migrant workers has become more pervasive. Annually, approximately 30,000 workers are employed in the Canadian agriculture sector through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). In this paper, I focus on the SAWP workers in tobacco farming, and investigate the ways that labour control is achieved on two small-scale farms. I draw upon original empirical evidence from interviews with three Mexican and nine Jamaican workers, two union representatives, and two farm owners in South-Western Ontario, Canada. My findings show that various factors at multiple scales shape the labour control regime and significantly advantage farm owners over workers. Based on my findings, I argue that the labour control regime is conditioned exogenously by multi-scalar factors and generated endogenously at the point of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on changes that have occurred in Agriculture in Canada between 1995-1997. Examination of these changes; Reference made to food safety regulations and animal welfare; Role of marketing boards in agriculture; Details on trade policy changes; Information on the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement (CUSTA).

In this paper we report upon research conducted with two First Nations located in British Columbia, Canada (Saulteau First Nations and West Moberly First Nations) on their preferences regarding forest operations within their community forest license. We confirmed the forestry-related values previously documented in other research, and we are able to determine specific parameters with regard to the protection or integration of these values, particularly those that are ecologically based. In addition, we identify significant cultural values expected in forestry planning and management, their parameters, as well as values not commonly discussed within the literature, such as concerns over non-indigenous access and conflicting, overlapping resource tenures. We conclude that further research, which accounts for and readily accommodates indigenous values and preferences, is needed to examine North American indigenous participation in both community forest tenures and in developing forest operation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Natures Sciences Sociétés is the property of EDP Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many cooperatives in rural areas of Canada had their beginnings in agriculture and in serving farmers and farming communities. They developed to market products, access inputs, process outputs, and to provide mutual insurance services and cooperative banking services. Over time, other players performing similar functions have left as agricultural communities have experienced population losses, while many cooperatives remain. The cooperatives provide access to services crucial for small businesses, producers, and households in rural areas, as well as representing access to networks within and beyond the community. This paper investigates whether a positive impact of the presence of credit unions in rural communities can be discerned in the community's ability to retain and attract population. Our quantitative results do not support the hypothesis of a positive influence, although limited results of a qualitative case study suggest that credit unions perform a different function in rural communities than commercial banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Atmosphere -- Ocean (Taylor & Francis Ltd) is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This review paper provides an overview of waste management practices for typical livestock mortalities in Canada. Provincial guidelines and regulations are provided (if available) for these practices. It is shown that there is significant variation amongst provincial guidelines for livestock mortality management and these guidelines and regulations are often based on ''rules of thumb'' borrowed from other waste disposal practices. From the information presented in this paper, it appears more research is needed to ensure that current guidelines and regulations for livestock mortality disposal are sufficient to protect human and environmental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen major changes to the agricultural landscape in Canada and with them major changes to the co-operative sector. The grain handling co-operatives in Western Canada have disappeared, as have their counterparts in the dairy and poultry sectors. Outside of Western Canada, and particularly in Quebec, co-ops in the latter sectors have remained successful, while rural retail and farm input co-operatives continue to thrive in all parts of the country. The purpose of this paper is to trace the changes that have occurred in the rural co-operative sector in Canada over the last 10-15 years. Particular attention is paid to the large agricultural co-operatives in Western Canada, since their decline has been particularly acute. It is argued that the overconfidence and hubris of co-op management were major contributing factors to the conversion of these co-ops to IOFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based simulation modeling (or ABM) is used to examine the evolution of farm size and financial structure in Canadian prairie agriculture over the period 1960–2000. Individual farm agent interaction and dynamics in this model occur through land ownership and leasing markets. A base scenario is developed and the model is validated against actual data from a typical Saskatchewan farm region. Subsequently, we simulate counterfactual policy scenarios applicable to farms in this region. Overall, we view the contribution of this paper as twofold—first, it represents a “proof of concept” of ABM's ability to simulate farming on a medium to large scale. Second, the model allows us to examine the contributions of entrepreneurship, factor endowment, and historical government agricultural support payments on the evolution of Canadian prairie farm structure. Dans le présent article, nous avons utilisé un modèle multi-agent pour analyser l'évolution de la taille et de la structure financière de fermes dans les Prairies canadiennes, de 1960 à 2000. Dans ce modèle, les agents interagissent dans le temps par le biais des marchés de la propriété foncière et du bail foncier. Nous avons élaboré un scénario de référence et nous avons validé le modèle à partir de données réelles tirées d'une région agricole typique de la Saskatchewan. Ensuite, nous avons simulé des scénarios contrefactuels de politiques applicables à des fermes de cette région. Le présent article poursuivait un double objectif. Le présent article est à double volet. Premièrement, il comprend une démonstration de faisabilité de la capacité du modèle multiagent à simuler l'agriculture de moyenne à grande échelle. Deuxièmement, le modèle a permis d'examiner l'apport de l'entrepreneuriat, de la dotation en facteurs de production et des paiements de soutien agricole sur l'évolution de la structure des fermes dans les Prairies canadiennes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The expert-based approach to landscape assessment developed in North America during the 1970s is still largely used in planning. It has proved its usefulness for the protection and the management of landscapes with remarkable visual attributes. However, facing growing social demands for the quality of surroundings, ordinary landscapes also raise great challenges for planning. But, to what extent is the expert-based approach to landscape assessment able to capture the value of these ordinary landscapes? What might be the more appropriate method for this purpose? This paper addresses these questions through an empirical research project in areas of intensive agricultural use in Quebec (Canada). The aim of this research was to measure and compare the ability of an expert-based approach and of a lay people-based approach, also named experiential approach, to capture the most valued components of ordinary landscapes. These methods were applied to two study areas. The first one has no recognised landscapes in any planning document while the second one has recognised landscapes for regional tourism. Forty-six inhabitants and an expert were invited to evaluate the landscapes of the study areas. The results have allowed comparison of the components valued by the expert and by the inhabitants as well as the criteria used in the assessment. They revealed differences between the expert and the lay people assessment. For inhabitants, the value of ordinary landscapes is based on a set of criteria related to emotion, to everyday experience and to their intimate knowledge of places. Thus, the formal visual criteria used by the expert appear to be clearly less important in the evaluation by lay people. As the expert perspective in landscape assessment is more closely associated to the experience of an individual which cross the territory (ex.: tourist), this paper concludes that to capture the value of ordinary landscapes in a planning perspective, a combination of approaches is necessary. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the dominant discourses utilized by 21 farmwomen with children in three regions of Canada in relation to their talk of household food provisioning. We define food provisioning as the acquisition, preparation, and consumption of food that draws on personal, family, and community resources and supports. Farmwomen expressed their position as gatekeeper of the family meal through traditional gender role discourses. Feeding their families was constructed as a task that determined the health of their family members; it reflects the dominance of a healthism discourse wherein being “healthy” is the desired end that is constructed to be under the control of the individual (mother/wife). Farmwomen's description of farming practices relied heavily on the dominant discourse of food safety/risk avoidance, which they used to justify a protectionist orientation to agriculture. Although uniquely positioned to express a dual consumer/producer role, farmwomen instead spoke of an individualistic orientation to health as consumers, and employed system-oriented discourses of the food safety system as producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the history of farm mechanization in Canada and the CO2 emissions from farm energy. Tractor sizes increased steadily from 1920 to 1975, then leveled off after 1981. Canadian farms changed from one tractor for every ten farms following World War I to almost three tractors per farm by 2001. Simulation was used to compare two Canadian model farms. While the larger Saskatchewan farm generated more fossil CO2 than the Ontario farm, it used energy less intensively. Another simulation showed that tractors vastly out work horses and emit less GHG on a unit of work basis. Roughly four times as many Prairies farmers owned tractors exceeding 75kW as farmers in Quebec and Ontario. Total CO2 emissions from Canadian agriculture increased 11% between 1981 and 2001. Chemical N-fertilizer rose sharply while machinery-related fossil energy declined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001 a coalition of actors including farm, consumer, health, environmental and industry organizations announced its opposition to Monsanto's attempts to commercialize GM wheat in Canada. Although this coalition consisted mostly of rural and agricultural groups, the three arguments that came to dominate the discourse advanced by the coalition seem, at first glance, to characterize a politics of consumption. These three arguments revolve around market acceptance, environmental risk, and the lack of democratic and transparent process in biotech regulation and policy. This paper argues that producer interests were not displaced by, but rather articulated alongside and through consumer-driven discourses. In fact, farmers used claims about the supremacy of the consumer and impending environmental change to advance their vulnerable political and economic positions as producers of food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]