Process hazards review applied to the use of anhydrous ammonia in agriculture: an example of chemical process safety for small business

Process hazards review (PHR) techniques have generally been applied by large, sophisticated companies in the nuclear, aerospace, and chemical process industries. There remains, however, a large population of smaller distributors and consumers of hazardous materials which could benefit equally from the application of PHR. These consumers unfortunately are generally less sophisticated and individually lack the necessary resources required to apply such state-of-the-art safety techniques.

Where common processes can be identified, it is possible to conduct a more generic PHR that will provide a sound technical basis for recognizing and preventing the development of hazards wherever these processes are used. Some facility-specific issues will always need to be considered, but the existence of the generic PHR should make the conduct of a PHR by each facility considerably easier and less costly.

Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) contracted with DNV Technica Inc. to lead a hazard and operability study (HAZOP) of agricultural handling of anhydrous ammonia, from the receipt of ammonia at the retail distribution centre to the application of the ammonia by farmers to the fields. The multidisciplinary HAZOP team consisted of representatives from NIOSH, an agricultural chemical trade association, an ammonia producer, state ammonia facility inspectors, a retail distributor, and an equipment manufacturer. Several participants were part-time farmers with ammonia application experience.

Some specific aspects of applying the HAZOP technique in the context of this study, the findings obtained, and the plans to disseminate the important safety information developed during the course of the PHR are discussed. Finally, it is suggested that this approach could prove to be a useful addition to the product stewardship activities of chemical producers.     

Local Sustainability Indicators

Local Environment has established a bit of a niche in local sustainability indicator studies. In 1997 it published the important debate between Jeb Brugman and Graham Pinfield, which highlighted that sustainability indicators and their role are contested issues (Vol. 2, Nos 1-3). In 1999 it produce a first special issue on the topic (Vol. 4, No. 2). As the editors identified, this special issue probed ‘deeper into aspects of indicator selection, methodology, theory and practice’. The papers presented there began to discuss a theme that is developed further in this special issue, that of the relationship between the objective and the subjective in indicator development and use. Our special issue brings together three full papers and a commentary presenting research and information from the USA, Sweden, France and Austria. In this editorial we are going to review the growth of interest in sustainability indicators and the changing way in which they are viewed and briefly comment on some recent indicator projects that we have been involved in.     

Farm animal welfare policymaking in the European Parliament – a social identity perspective on voting behaviour

ABSTRACT

Sustainable agriculture implies trade-offs with farm animal welfare. Proposals to increase agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability alike, are often linked to intensification, which may restrict animal welfare. Despite the growing importance of farm animal welfare for the alignment of agricultural and environmental policy, determinants of decision-making at the EU level remain unexplored. This article contributes to closing this research gap, broadening our understanding of why policymakers vote for the enactment of animal welfare policies. Applying the Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP) perspective we highlight the role of group membership for individual decision-making. By means of a quantitative analysis of voting behaviour in the European Parliament on two animal welfare policies, we show that different identities are salient. The strongest predictor is political group membership. In case of defections from the group line, the salience of national, sectoral and also demographic identities adds to the understanding of decision-making.     

农业废料的应用价值与开发途径

本文通过对农业废料的物质成分和物理技术特性的总结，分析了其可利用的潜在价值，并对开发利用途径作了简要论述．     

Operational Indicators for Measuring Agricultural Sustainability in Developing Countries

This paper reviews relevant literature on the sustainability indicators theoretically proposed and practically applied by scholars over the past 15 years. Although progress is being made in the development and critical analysis of sustainability indicators, in many cases existing or proposed indicators are not the most sensitive or useful measures in developing countries. Indicator selection needs to meet the following criteria: relative availability of data representing the indicators, sensitivity to stresses on the system, existence of threshold values and guidelines, predictivity, integratability and known response to disturbances, anthropogenic stresses, and changes over time. Based on these criteria, this paper proposes a set of operational indicators for measuring agricultural sustainability in developing countries. These indicators include ecological indicators involving amounts of fertilizers and pesticides used, irrigation water used, soil nutrient content, depth to the groundwater table, water use efficiency, quality of groundwater for irrigation, and nitrate content of both groundwater and crops. Economic indicators include crop productivity, net farm income, benefit–cost ratio of production, and per capita food grain production. Social indicators encompass food self-sufficiency, equality in food and income distribution among farmers, access to resources and support services, and farmers knowledge and awareness of resource conservation. This article suggests that the selection of indicators representing each aspect of sustainability should be prioritized according to spatial and temporal characteristics under consideration.     

DBO模式在医疗废物集中处置设施中的应用探讨

我国医疗废物集中处置行业呈现多种投资来源和多种运营模式并存的格局,医疗废物集中处置设施建设和运营主要采用以BOT为主的特许经营模式,部分设施由于模式选择不当,导致产权边界不清、稳定运行困难等问题,一定程度限制了行业的可持续发展。近年来开始应用于我国污水处理设施的DBO模式具有责任主体一致、建设运营效率较高等特点,在环境污染治理领域的应用前景较为广阔。本文通过对DBO模式和BOT模式的所有权归属、责任主体、实施期限等方面进行对比,分析得出DBO模式较BOT模式在设施的运营阶段具有突出优势,应用于医疗废物集中处置设施可以更有效地保证运营效率、节约财政支出、强化政府监管。同时,预期在医疗废物集中处置项目中推行DBO模式可能存在的阻碍,包括政府积极性不高、招商面临一定难度、实施过程的不确定因素较多等,并有针对性提出了在中小城市开展试点、发放环境基础设施建设债券、邻近区域多个项目捆绑招商等建议,以促进DBO模式在医疗废物集中处置设施中的应用。     

Innovative approaches to rural development: Moving from state-controlled towards market-based land reform

Among the world's poor, approximately 75% of those in extreme poverty live and work in rural areas and two‐thirds of them depend mainly on farming or farm labour for their livelihood. Policies to grant the rural poor secure access to land and water for irrigation — and to improve the economic efficiency of small‐scale agriculture — can thus play a critical role in the implementation of rural development strategies, including efforts to combat rural poverty. Since inadequate access to arable land is probably the most important cause of rural poverty, redistributive land reform is increasingly seen as crucial for socio‐economic development and poverty alleviation in many developing countries with substantial amounts of (unused) arable state land or (under‐utilized) large private landholdings. This article argues that market‐based land redistribution schemes, such as the one being implemented in South Africa, can be considered one of the most innovative approaches to land reform that have emerged over the last decade. These schemes thus provide a useful alternative to more conventional, state‐controlled land redistribution programmes. The article concludes, however, that when countries opt for market‐based approaches to land redistribution, the State still has an important role to play, without necessarily deciding which land parcels change hands.     

A forage-based vision of Ontario agriculture

The necessity of incorporating societal and environmental concerns into publicly funded agricultural initiatives in research, extension, and practice is increasingly evident. Agriculturalists are urged to acknowledge and respond to societal concerns before an insensitive and largely ill-informed urban majority assumes a dominant posture in agricultural policy. In recent history, the availability of unrealistically cheap energy encouraged the evolution of a form of commercial agriculture unfettered by sound ecological principles. At present, external, resource-intensive intervention of increasing magnitude is needed to compensate for the apparent ecological instability generated by practices such as intensive cereal management or conservation tillage practices. Polarization of the enterprises of plant and animal agriculture to enable centralized, concentrate-intensive, confinement feeding has disrupted the natural cycling of nutrients and carbon in the soil, encouraged the withdrawal of perennial forages from crop rotations, and invoked a widely ramifying network of agricultural and societal problems. Solutions to these problems must evolve from a holistic and far-reaching appraisal of causes, rather than from a piecemeal approach to individual symptoms.