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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
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Pre-Agricultural Soil Erosion Rates In The Midwestern U.S., Caroline Lauth Quarrier
Pre-Agricultural Soil Erosion Rates In The Midwestern U.S., Caroline Lauth Quarrier
Masters Theses
Soil erosion undermines agricultural productivity, limiting the lifespan of civilizations. For agriculture to be sustainable, soil erosion rates must be low enough to maintain fertile soil, as was present in many agricultural landscapes prior to the initiation of farming. However, there have been few measurements of long-term pre-agricultural erosion rates in major agricultural landscapes. We quantified geological erosion rates in the Midwestern U.S., one of the world’s most productive agricultural areas. We sampled soil profiles from 14 native prairies and measured concentrations of the cosmogenic nuclide 10Be and chemically immobile elements to calculate physical erosion rates. We used the erosion …
Songbird-Mediated Insect Pest Control In Low Intensity New England Agriculture, Samuel J. Mayne
Songbird-Mediated Insect Pest Control In Low Intensity New England Agriculture, Samuel J. Mayne
Masters Theses
Global agricultural intensification has caused large-scale wildlife declines, but agricultural lands that maintain natural habitats can support healthy wildlife populations and receive significant ecosystem services from these natural communities. However, how on-farm biodiversity results in beneficial ecosystem services is highly variable and is reported to differ among taxa and guilds. One group that has attracted attention for their potential beneficial role in reducing pest abundance are birds. Understanding the role of bird communities and individual species in pest control could be important for managing farms under a low intensity agroecological framework. In New England, farmers are increasingly applying low intensity …
Reclaiming The Future Through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy And Sustainability In The Caribbean, Dana M. Conzo
Reclaiming The Future Through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy And Sustainability In The Caribbean, Dana M. Conzo
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation, “Reclaiming the future through Small-Scale Agriculture: Autonomy and Sustainability in the Caribbean,” is a political-economic analysis of land politics, foodscapes and foodsheds, and small-scale agricultural activities in plantation economies on the Caribbean island of St Kitts. Using ethnographic and geographic methods, such as participant observation, interviews, social network analysis, and foodshed mapping, I investigate the cultural and economic niche of local farmers, documented and analyzed the island’s foodshed, and provide a historical and economic background of St Kitts to link historical processes to contemporary spatial organization and agricultural practices. I consider the complexities of food inequalities and food …
Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration Into The Growing Trend Of Farm-To-Table Communities Across The United States, Benjamin Breger
Understanding Agrihoods: An Exploration Into The Growing Trend Of Farm-To-Table Communities Across The United States, Benjamin Breger
Masters Theses
Agrihoods are a recent trend in real estate development that integrate agricultural amenities - such as working farms, orchards, or community gardens - into residential or mixed-use communities. As an emergent trend, agrihoods have the potential to enhance farmland preservation and local and regional food systems, making them a ripe area for research. However, very little scholarly research has been carried out to characterize, contextualize or evaluate agrihood developments. Thus far, the development model has primarily been detailed in popular media sources. This thesis serves as a baseline study that seeks to understand how neighborhood food systems operate within agrihood …
Assessing Adaptive Capacity Of Pioneer Valley Farmers, Angelica Carey
Assessing Adaptive Capacity Of Pioneer Valley Farmers, Angelica Carey
Masters Theses
This thesis explores Pioneer Valley farmers and their agricultural practices, knowledge and resources as they relate to climate change. Adaptive capacity is used throughout scientific literature, and often includes numerous components; for this thesis the measurement of farmers’ adaptive capacity would be assessed according to only three components: knowledge, past experiences and use of resources. Climate change and its impacts on agriculture have been studied but what is unclear is how prepared farmers are to deal with these impacts. Through literature review, survey development and recorded interviews, data was then analyzed both for quantitative and qualitative results to understand farmer’s …
Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History, Dan Allosso
Peppermint Kings: A Rural American History, Dan Allosso
Doctoral Dissertations
Explores rural history through the experiences of three families that dominated the American peppermint oil business from its beginning in the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. The rural entrepreneurs who became Peppermint Kings acted in ways that challenge traditional historical depictions of rural people. The freethinking Ranney clan built a family business that extended from Massachusetts to western New York and Michigan during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Hotchkiss brothers entered the international market and ventured into finance and banking at a time when the United States government was reducing opportunities for regional bankers. …
Generating Best Management Practices For Avian Conservation In A Land-Sparing Agriculture System, And The Habitat-Specific Survival Of A Priority Migrant, Jeffrey D. Ritterson
Generating Best Management Practices For Avian Conservation In A Land-Sparing Agriculture System, And The Habitat-Specific Survival Of A Priority Migrant, Jeffrey D. Ritterson
Masters Theses
A large amount of the world’s biodiversity is located in a disproportionately small amount of area, namely the tropics. Many of these areas are experiencing rapid landscape changes, mainly in the form of deforestation for agricultural practices. Current conservation efforts are focused on agricultural areas and their ability to provide habitat. The conservation value of a novel land-sparing agroforestry system, known as Integrated Open Canopy (IOC), was recently demonstrated on the study site when applied to coffee. IOC coffee supports forest species that are uncommon or absent in shade grown coffee. I generated best management practices for IOC farms relative …