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The Future Of Agriculture In Miami, Siyu Zheng

Masters Theses

Miami is facing an inevitable future in which sea level rise will submerge some of the city and most of the Everglades and agriculture area by 2100.

Phase one investigates the impact on ecosystems surrounding Miami due to climate shift and rising sea level. During this phase, the effect of sea level rise (SLR) on ecosystems in Miami will be analyzed using the existing Land Cover Distribution Map and Land Cover Change Report posted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Phase two talks about the farming land being taken over by the wetland. However, both wetland and farming …

Analyzing College Students' Perceptions Of The Dairy Industry Through A Dairy Farm Visit: A Convenience Sample Approach, Erin Nicole Allen

Masters Theses

Potentially due to a lack of trust and limited communication between farmers and consumers, there is an issue of consumer misinformation about the dairy industry. Consumer perception is negatively impacting the industry and hurting dairy farmers across the country. Agritourism and dairy farm visits have had limited study. From the standpoint of consumer perception, today’s college students make up an intriguing study population. This generation, Generation Z, is in the process of developing their buying behaviors; they will eventually make up a significant portion of consumers with a great deal of buying power (Priporas, Stylos & Fotiadis, 2017). The purpose …

A Quantitative Analysis For Improving Harvest Productivity For Biomass Crops, Magen Elizabeth Shedden

Masters Theses

Harvest cost is a major concern for making biomass a viable option. Unproductive time in-field significantly contributes to this cost. Variability of harvest timeliness is largely due to maneuvering equipment in-field, operator experience, equipment failures, and field and crop conditions, among other reasons. These are particularly important for farm management to know how to best handle interruptions during harvest. Consequently, there is a serious need to better account for harvest untimeliness. For this research, the crops of interest are Miscanthus and shrub willow. These crops are attractive for several reasons. They do not compete with cash crops because they grow …

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 …