“Our market is our community”: women farmers and civic agriculture in Pennsylvania,USA

Civic agriculture is characterized in the literature as complementary and embedded social and economic strategies that provide economic benefits to farmers at the same time that they ostensibly provide socio-environmental benefits to the community. This paper presents some ways in which women farmers practice civic agriculture. The data come from in-depth interviews with women practicing agriculture in Pennsylvania. Some of the strategies women farmers use to make a living from the farm have little to do with food or agricultural products, but all are a product of the process of providing a living for farmers while meeting a social need in the community. Most of the women in our study also connect their business practices to their gender identity in rural and agricultural communities, and redefine successful farming in opposition to traditional views of economic rationality.     

Parent outcome expectancies for purchasing fruit and vegetables: a validation

OBJECTIVE: To validate four scales -- outcome expectancies for purchasing fruit and for purchasing vegetables, and comparative outcome expectancies for purchasing fresh fruit and for purchasing fresh vegetables versus other forms of fruit and vegetables (F&V). DESIGN: Survey instruments were administered twice, separated by 6 weeks. SETTING: Recruited in front of supermarkets and grocery stores; interviews conducted by telephone. SUBJECTS: One hundred and sixty-one food shoppers with children (18 years or younger). RESULTS: Single dimension scales were specified for fruit and for vegetable purchasing outcome expectancies, and for comparative (fresh vs. other) fruit and vegetable purchasing outcome expectancies. Item Response Theory parameter estimates revealed easily interpreted patterns in the sequence of items by difficulty of response. Fruit and vegetable purchasing and fresh fruit comparative purchasing outcome expectancy scales were significantly correlated with home F&V availability, after controlling for social desirability of response. Comparative fresh vegetable outcome expectancy scale was significantly bivariately correlated with home vegetable availability, but not after controlling for social desirability. CONCLUSION: These scales are available to help better understand family F&V purchasing decisions.     

U-HPLC-MS/MS to quantify liposoluble antioxidants in red-ripe tomatoes, grown under different salt stress levels

The growing interest of consumers in healthy food challenges growers to continuously improve the nutritional quality of their crops. In this research, the potential of a more saline growth environment for improved antioxidant concentration in tomato fruit was studied, and an U-HPLC-MS/MS method for the determination of lycopene, β-carotene, and α-tocopherol was optimized. Analytes were thereby separated on a 1.9 μm Hypersil GOLD C(18) column and quantified on a TSQ Vantage triple-quadropole mass spectrometer. The method displayed a short analysis time (6 min), a high specificity, and an excellent repeatability (≤6.39%). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the electrical conductivity level of the applied nutrient solution did not unambiguously influence antioxidant concentration in tomato fruits. Future research should focus on moderate salt stress only and should aim at reducing natural variation by more closely controlling the growth environment and a more objective determination of the ripening degree.     

The genome of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus

We report the sequence and analysis of the 814-megabase genome of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, a model for developmental and systems biology. The sequencing strategy combined whole-genome shotgun and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) sequences. This use of BAC clones, aided by a pooling strategy, overcame difficulties associated with high heterozygosity of the genome. The genome encodes about 23,300 genes, including many previously thought to be vertebrate innovations or known only outside the deuterostomes. This echinoderm genome provides an evolutionary outgroup for the chordates and yields insights into the evolution of deuterostomes.     

Dietary Selection by Domestic Grazing Ruminants in Temperate Pastures: Current State of Knowledge,Methodologies, and Future Direction

Ruminants grazing mixed-species pastures face many choices, including when and where to graze and how much herbage to consume. These choices affect not only the nutritional status of the animal, but also sward composition and nutritive value through selective defoliation. Limited research has been conducted in the area of dietary selection and preference, most of which has been limited to simple model systems often involving a choice between only two herbage species. Although these studies have provided a vital tool to allow understanding of the fundamental principles of foraging behavior, in reality, grazing ruminants are faced with more complex situations. Understanding and managing animal preferences in mixed swards and thereby altering dietary selection can result in greater primary (plant) and secondary (animal) productivity. Key issues to improve this understanding include a better linking of behavioral and nutritional studies, a better understanding of the genetic factors influencing diet selection, and the development of more explicit spatial models of foraging behavior that incorporate multiple scales of decision making. This article, as part of a set of synthesis articles, reviews the current state of knowledge and research methodologies related to diet selection of grazing domestic ruminants with particular reference to improved temperate grazing environments, including how well we understand each part of the complex decision-making process a grazing ruminant faces, the links with primary and secondary productivity, and developments in methodologies. Finally, we identify key areas where knowledge is lacking and further research is urgently required.