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Vitali, A., Lana, E., Amadori, M., Bernabucci, U., Nardone, A., & Lacetera, N. (2014). Analysis of factors associated with mortality of heavy slaughter pigs during transport and lairage. J. Anim. Sci., 92(11), 5134–5141.
Abstract: The study was based on data collected during 5 yr (2003-2007) and was aimed at assessing the effects of the month, slaughter house of destination (differing for stocking density, openings, brightness, and cooling device types), length of the journey, and temperature-humidity index (THI) on mortality of heavy slaughter pigs (approximately 160 kg live weight) during transport and lairage. Data were obtained from 24,098 journeys and 3,676,153 pigs transported from 1,618 farms to 3 slaughter houses. Individual shipments were the unit of observation. The terms dead on arrival (DOA) and dead in pen (DIP) refer to pigs that died during transport and in lairage at the abattoir before slaughtering, respectively. These 2 variables were assessed as the dependent counts in separate univariate Poisson regressions. The independent variables assessed univariately in each set of regressions were month of shipment, slaughter house of destination, time traveled, and each combination of the month with the time traveled. Two separate piecewise regressions were done. One used DOA counts within THI levels over pigs transported as a dependent ratio and the second used DIP counts within THI levels over pigs from a transport kept in lairage as a dependent ratio. The THI was the sole independent variable in each case. The month with the greatest frequency of deaths was July with a risk ratio of 1.22 (confidence interval: 1.06-1.36; P < 0.05) and 1.27 (confidence interval: 1.06-1.51; P < 0.05) for DOA and DIP, respectively. The lower mortality risk ratios for DOA and DIP were recorded for January and March (P < 0.05). The aggregated data of the summer (June, July, and August) versus non-summer (January, March, September, and November) months showed a greater risk of pigs dying during the hot season when considering both transport and lairage (P < 0.05). The mortality risk ratio of DIP was lower at the slaughter house with the lowest stocking density (0.64 m(2)/100 kg live weight), large open windows on the roof and sidewalls, low brightness (40 lx) lights, and high-pressure sprinklers as cooling devices. The mortality risk ratio of DOA increased significantly for journeys longer than 2 h, whereas no relationship was found between length of transport and DIP. The piecewise analysis pointed out that 78.5 and 73.6 THI were the thresholds above which the mortality rate increased significantly for DOA and DIP, respectively. These results may help the pig industry to improve the welfare of heavy slaughter pigs during transport and lairage.
Keywords: Abattoirs/*statistics & numerical data; Animals; *Data Interpretation, Statistical; Humidity/adverse effects; Light/adverse effects; *Mortality; Retrospective Studies; Seasons; Swine/*physiology; Temperature; Time Factors; Transportation/*statistics & numerical data; lairage; mortality; pigs; temperature-humidity index; transport
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Twardy, S., & Kopacz, M. (2014). Comparison of concentrations and loads of macronutrients brought with precipitation and leaching from the soil profile. Pol. J. Environ. Stud., 23(3a), 132–136. |
Rusu, T., Moraru, P., Coste, C., Cacovean, H., Chetan, F., & Chetan, C. (2014). Impact of climate change on climatic indicators in Transylvanian Plain, Romania. Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment, 12(1), 469–473.
Abstract: The condition of land degradation in Transylvanian Plain and its effects, being the result of local extreme physical-geographical conditions, is susceptible to degradation (evidenced by the erodibility index), which overlaps the extreme climatic conditions. Thermal and hydric regime monitoring is necessary in order to identify and implement measures of adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Soil moisture and temperature regimes were evaluated using a set of 20 data logging stations positioned throughout the plain. Each station stores electronic data of ground temperature at 3 depths (10, 30, 50 cm), the humidity at the depth of 10 cm, the air temperature (at 1 m) and precipitations. Climate change in the past few years has significantly altered the climatic indicators of the Transylvanian Plain. Precipitations, although deficient in terms of annual amounts, through their regime, have a negative influence on the plant carpet. Pluvial aggressiveness index reveals, for the research period, a first peak of pluvial aggressiveness during the months of February-April, then in July and in autumn, the months of October-November. This requires special measures for soil conservation, both in autumn and early spring, soil tillage measures being recommended, which ensure the presence of plant debris and vegetation in early spring but especially in summer and autumn. Climatic indicators determined for the period 2008 – 2012 point out, in Transylvanian Plain, a semi-arid Mediterranean climate through the rain factor Lang, respectively semi-arid (in the South) – semi-wet (in the North) according to the De Martonne index. This climatic characterization requires special technological measures for soil conservation.
Keywords: Climate change; climatic indicators; Transylvanian plain
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Sanz-Cobena, A., García-Marco, S., Quemada, M., Gabriel, J. L., Almendros, P., & Vallejo, A. (2014). Do cover crops enhance N2O, CO2 or CH4 emissions from soil in Mediterranean arable systems? Science of the Total Environment, 466-467, 164–174.
Abstract: This study evaluates the effect of planting three cover crops (CCs) (barley, Hordeum vulgare L.; vetch, Vicia villosa L.; rape, Brassica napus L.) on the direct emission of N(2)O, CO(2) and CH(4) in the intercrop period and the impact of incorporating these CCs on the emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) from the forthcoming irrigated maize (Zea mays L.) crop. Vetch and barley were the CCs with the highest N(2)O and CO(2) losses (75 and 47% increase compared with the control, respectively) in the fallow period. In all cases, fluxes of N(2)O were increased through N fertilization and the incorporation of barley and rape residues (40 and 17% increase, respectively). The combination of a high C:N ratio with the addition of an external source of mineral N increased the fluxes of N(2)O compared with -Ba and -Rp. The direct emissions of N(2)O were lower than expected for a fertilized crop (0.10% emission factor, EF) compared with other studies and the IPCC EF. These results are believed to be associated with a decreased NO(3)(-) pool due to highly denitrifying conditions and increased drainage. The fluxes of CO(2) were in the range of other fertilized crops (i.e., 1118.71-1736.52 kg CO(2)-Cha(-1)). The incorporation of CC residues enhanced soil respiration in the range of 21-28% for barley and rape although no significant differences between treatments were detected. Negative CH(4) fluxes were measured and displayed an overall sink effect for all incorporated CC (mean values of -0.12 and -0.10 kg CH(4)-Cha(-1) for plots with and without incorporated CCs, respectively).
Keywords: Agriculture/*methods; Air Pollutants/*metabolism; Brassica napus/growth & development/metabolism; Crops, Agricultural/growth & development/*metabolism; Gases/metabolism; Greenhouse Effect; Hordeum/growth & development/metabolism; Manure/*analysis; Nitrogen/metabolism; Nitrogen Dioxide/metabolism; Spain; Vicia/growth & development/metabolism; Zea mays/growth & development; Cover crops; GHG emissions; Green manure; Irrigation; Maize
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Porter, J. R., Dyball, R., Dumaresq, D., Deutsch, L., & Matsuda, H. (2014). Feeding capitals: Urban food security and self-provisioning in Canberra, Copenhagen and Tokyo. Global Food Security, 3(1), 1–7.
Abstract: Most people live in cities, but most food system studies and food security issues focus on the rural poor. Urban populations differ from rural populations in their food consumption by being generally wealthier, requiring food trade for their food security, defined as the extent to which people have adequate diets. Cities rarely have the self-provisioning capacity to satisfy their own food supply, understood as the extent to which the food consumed by the city’s population is produced from the city’s local agro-ecosystems. Almost inevitably, a city’s food security is augmented by production from remote landscapes, both internal and external in terms of a state’s jurisdiction. We reveal the internal and external food flows necessary for the food security of three wealthy capital cities (Canberra, Australia; Copenhagen, Denmark; Tokyo, Japan). These cities cover two orders of magnitude in population size and three orders of magnitude in population density. From traded volumes of food and their sources into the cities, we calculate the productivity of the city’s regional and non-regional ecosystems that provide food for these cities and estimate the overall utilised land area. The three cities exhibit differing degrees of food self provisioning capacity and exhibit large differences in the areas on which they depend to provide their food. We show that, since 1965, global land area effectively imported to produce food for these cities has increased with their expanding populations, with large reductions in the percentage of demand met by local agro-ecosystems. The physical trading of food commodities embodies ecosystem services, such as water, soil fertility and pollination that are required for land-based food production. This means that the trade in these embodied ecosystem services has become as important for food security as traditional economic mechanisms such as market access and trade. A future policy question, raised by our study, is the degree to which governments will remain committed to open food trade policies in the face of national political unrest caused by food shortages. Our study demonstrates the need to determine the food security and self-provisioning capacity of a wide range of rich and poor cities, taking into account the global location of the ecosystems that are provisioning them. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: cities; food security; self-provisioning; provisioning ecosystems
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