Commercial conflict has limited American soy exports to the biggest market, China, providing Russian farmers an opportunity to enter the Chinese market. The Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Russian Soybean Union have established a program to promote soybean production and processing. Chinese farmers in the Russian Far East (RFE) and high profits from soybean production make new opportunities and challenges for local farmers. We analyze how the soybean development plan has fared so far and the role of Chinese farmers in Russia. The current Sino-Russian agricultural agreement has little chance of increasing soybean production because of tariffs, unstable regulatory policies, and restrictions on seeds and labor. The scope of the soybean industry can be developed if Russian authorities will take a more liberal approach in Chinese-Russian cooperation.
Dairy industries in Eastern and Western Europe have different history, heritage, but the same aim to produce cheap, high quantity of good quality milk with the care of dairy welfare. Member countries of European Union had choice to either implement minimum standards provided by the European Commission, like in Hungary, or to create their own legislation also covering minimum standards, like in the Great Britain. British, Hungarian and European Union legislation was compared with dairy welfare measures taken on 53 farms in the UK and on 27 farms in Hungary. Among 13 welfare measures observed 8 were found to be statistically different (p<0.05. p<0.01 or p<0.001) between countries. Fewer cows were reported with dirty hind limbs, hock hair losses, non hock injuries, being dull or with greater flight distance on Hungarian farms than in the UK. There were fewer cows with dirty udders, being fat or lame in the UK in comparison to Hungarian farms. Cheaper bedding materials in Hungary are thought to be the major factors cows are found cleaner. More farm workers per one animal make more attention is paid for providing cattle with suitable conditions for resting what also might impact shorter flight distance. In the Great Britain cleaner udders might be related to modern husbandry systems providing cleaner conditions. Education is also thought to be playing a great role in lower proportion of cows being lame, with digestion problems and mastitis in the UK in comparison to Hungary.
Lameness in dairy cattle is the third most expensive outbreak after mastitis and reproductive disorders. 25 Holstein-Friesian herds in Hungary were observed for two years to estimate the impact of different trimming methods and managements for the controll of the incidence of lameness. Professional trimming was found to be more effective on farms with no nutritional disorders and where refurnishment works were carried out. The greatest decrease in the prevalence of lameness was observed on farms which provided professional trimming, effective footbathing, improved walking and resting surfaces and which treated severely lame cows between regular trimmings. The greatest increase in occurrence of lameness was reported on farms with on-farm trimmers and where building projects were carried out and nutritional disorders found
Animal welfare is a hot topic among consumers, producers and researches nowadays. The major welfare problems of dairy cows are mastitis, lameness, and any conditions which lead to impaired reproduction, inability to express normal behaviour, emergency physiological responses or injury. This paper summarizes preliminary results of project taken in 27 Hungarian dairy farms evaluating general animal welfare. The most important areas for improving animals' wellbeing are related to facilities and comfort of resting. Findings include slippery floors, cows struggling laying and standing in cubicles. Other measures include hair loss, hocks, neck rail injuries and number of thin cows (Body Condition Score 1 and 2). Mouldy silage and low quality of other feedstuff was also found. In conclusion, preliminary results confirm strong demand for monitoring farms and discussions with managers and farmers about welfare measures needed to be taken on farms immediately.
This study aims to estimate the value of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecasting to China’s agricultural sector. This study applies the Weibull distribution to model crop yields under different ENSO phases. Under the framework of Bayesian decision theory, this research pioneers the application of China’s Agricultural Sector Model to translate the yield effects resulting from ENSO variations into economic effects. Results show that ENSO exerts noticeable and heterogeneous effects on crop yields over selected crops across different regions. In addition, ENSO forecasting is useful for farmers’ cropping decisions and positively impacts economic surplus. The findings present that the value of this information is generally positive and rises with improved forecast accuracy, with the value of perfect forecasting estimated to be as substantial as CNY 3168 million. However, the value of ENSO forecasting is relatively small in the context of China’s tremendous agricultural output. This study is the first to evaluate the value of ENSO forecasting to China’s agriculture sector and has critical implications for the promotion of a Chinese ENSO forecast system.
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