Environmental risks and costs associated with insecticide applications in Maine potato farming have been characterized and estimated using an Aroostook producer survey. The results of this study allow for comparison of pest management strategies based on producer concern for various aspects of the environment, including water quality, human health and animal safety. ‘Willingness to pay’ survey methodology was used to acquire an environmental cost range for insecticide use. Maine potato producers are willing to pay between $1.00 acre−1 (one acre = 0.4047ha) and $26.80acre−1 to avoid or reduce environmental risk associated with a single insecticide application. The Aroostook producer survey indicates that producers with small farms are generally willing to pay more to avoid or reduce environmental risk than producers with large farms. Mean Maine potato farm size has more than tripled over the past 40 years; therefore, concern for environmental quality on Maine potato farms could be decreasing.

The number of retail farmers' markets in the USA increased dramatically in the twentieth century, with a burst of growth experienced after the passage of Public Law 94–463 (PL 94–463), the Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act of 1976. This article inventories the literature since the Second World War on retail farmers' markets and direct marketing in North America. The inventory includes some lesser known studies from 1970 to 1985. The reports are grouped into four categories by topical area: consumers and vendors, economic impact, social impact and farmers' markets as research sites. Overall, the literature on farmers' markets is found to be scant, leaving ample room for new and exciting explorations of this venerable institution.

Land-based systems of low stocking rate are usually associated with low environmental concerns. However, we hypothesized that traditional unrestructured grazing systems may represent more environmental costs than benefits. Community-based research work was conducted in the 1990s in the cereal-sheep system of Castile–La Mancha, with the objective of assessing the typology of the system, including the grazing structures and social groups involved in grazing management. Results showed that traditional management represented a heterogeneous spatio-temporal distribution of grazing at the regional level, with high variability at the local level. Occasional overgrazing may occur, but a trend towards fewer grazing-days with correspondingly more indoor feeding and widespread underuse of grazing resources was more apparent. Proposals to improve the grazing system reached a high degree of consensus among farmers, but the two social groups (cultivators and landless pastoralists) showed divergent views in some important management issues. The imbalance in group numbers indicated that collective action is difficult to achieve. Implementation of improved grazing practices would require a policy intervention based on the disentangled constraints and consensus among interested farmers.

This work focused on the evaluation of undergraduate curricula in agriculture for a selected group of institutions from Louisiana and Texas in the US, and France and Italy. The primary research objective was pursued through the measurement of knowledge acquisition in sustainable agriculture principles of undergraduate students as they were approaching the completion of their curriculum. Quantitative data were collected through the administration of a test to eight samples (n = 20) of senior students from each university participating in the study. An analysis of frequencies for every test question indicated the strengths but also the weaknesses that still exist in the agricultural curricula when students' academic achievement was measured. Every institution acknowledged the emerging sustainable agriculture paradigm in brochures, catalogs and web sites. There is a need for ameliorating agricultural curricula as the long-term productivity of farms is threatened by market policies uncontrollable by single producers and by the manipulation of resources that frequently accelerate environmental degradation. Therefore, we show opportunities for the strengthening of study programs to incorporate sustainable agriculture principles in undergraduate curricula.

Fiber nettle (Urtica dioica L.) has potential as a fiber crop in the natural textiles industry, an industry requiring production by organic methods. No recent data on yield potentials and quality of this crop using these methods are available to farmers. Five fiber nettle clones were cultivated between 1997 and 1999 in a randomized block design with four replications per clone on an organic farm in Lower Austria. The harvests from the second and third cultivation year were used for further analysis. The dry matter yield (stalks) of the five nettle clones in the second cultivation year (1998) ranged from 2.3 to 4.7 Mg ha−1. The dry matter yield of the third cultivation year (5.6 to 9.7 Mg ha−1) was more than double that of the second year. The large increase in the yield of the third year was a result of an increase in the height (20 to 40 cm higher) and a doubling of the number of stalks per plot compared with those from the second cultivation year. Undersowing with clover had a positive effect on fiber nettle growth. The fiber content after chemical processing ranged between 8 and 16% of the dry matter in both the second and third cultivation years. The fiber yields ranged from 335 to 411 kg ha−1 in the second year and from 743 to 1016 kg ha−1 in the third year. Clones with a high dry matter yield had a low fiber content and vice versa. There was no significant difference in the fiber quality (fiber strength, elongation, fiber fineness, length of fiber) of the five nettle clones. Due to the different consistency in the upper and lower part of the stalk and to fiber processing methods, the fiber material is generally very heterogeneous. This work shows that the cultivation of fiber nettle by organic methods in Austria is possible and that it produced well in the third year. Organically grown fibers of nettle are suitable for textile use; however, further development of an economic and functional high-yielding method for fiber processing, and efficient marketing are essential for the success of nettle fiber in the textile market.

America's appetite for all-natural, organic food has grown at the remarkable rate of over 20% annually for the past 10 years. This makes organic agriculture—farming and processing food without the use of synthetic chemicals, such as synthetic pesticides and many inorganic fertilizers—the fastest growing sector of America's agricultural economy. Contrast that to the scarcity of organic items to be found 20 years ago … and those only in specialty shops. Today, organic selections are as easy to find in conventional supermarkets and mainstream stores as in natural food stores.