Towards domestic fair trade? Farm labor, food localism, and the ‘family scale’ farm

Over the past several decades, consumers in the global North have increasingly looked to fair or alternative trading systems as a means to promote ecologically and socially sustainable agricultural production. While fair trade has historically been limited to international commodity networks, US-based agro-food activists have recently turned their attentions towards building a domestic movement, to bring fair trade principles and standards ‘home.’ Through an exploration of this growing movement, we consider the potential for third party certification and labeling to incorporate social justice into US-based agricultural production, with a particular focus on the implications for farm workers. We view current efforts to bring the principles of fair trade to the domestic arena as a reflection of several interrelated developments: a growing need on the part of small and mid-sized farmers to garner price premiums due to the erosion of the organic price premium; a recognition of the failure of organic certification to advance a holistic vision of sustainability; and the strategic embrace of voluntary regulatory mechanisms as an alternative to public regulation and collective bargaining. Initial research suggests that this has led to particular framings of the domestic fair trade concept, which may undermine the movement’s ability to address the social relations of agro-food production. Specifically, prioritization of the ‘family-scale’ farm and an undercurrent of food localism may obscure farm workers’ role in valorizing the US agricultural landscape.

Functional,Phylogenetic and Host-Geographic Signatures of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Labyrinthula</Emphasis> spp. Provide for Putative Species Delimitation and a Global-Scale View of Seagrass Wasting Disease

Seagrass meadows form ecologically and economically valuable coastal habitat on every continental margin except the Antarctic, but their areal extent is declining by approximately 2–5 % per year. Seagrass wasting disease is a contributing factor in these declines, with the protist Labyrinthula identified as the etiologic agent. To help elucidate the role of Labyrinthula spp. in global seagrass declines, we surveyed roughly one fourth of all seagrass species to identify Labyrinthula diversity at the strain and/or species level, combining results from culturing methods and two common nuclear DNA markers: the ITS and 18S regions of the ribosomal RNA gene complex. After assaying a subset of the resulting isolates (of which 170 were newly sequenced), we produced a cladogenic context for putative seagrass-pathogenic versus non-pathogenic Labyrinthula while also defining host and geographic ranges. Assays also suggest that pathogenicity is consistently high (when present; and, even when comparing susceptibility of US East- versus West Coast Zostera marina hosts) while virulence is variable, that some isolate-host combinations have the potential for host cross-infection, and that several modes of transmission can be effective. Taken together, these data provide additional means for delimiting putative species of Labyrinthula, suggesting at least five seagrass-pathogenic and perhaps ten or more non-pathogenic marine “species”, yielding a working definition for ecologists and epidemiologists attempting to reconcile the sundry data related to seagrass wasting disease.     

A fully coupled hydro‐thermo‐poro‐mechanical model for black oil reservoir simulation

A fully coupled formulation of a hydro‐thermo‐poro‐mechanical model for a three‐phase black oil reservoir model is presented. The model is based upon the approach proposed by one of the authors which fully couples geomechanical effects to multiphase flow. Their work is extended here to include non‐isothermal effects. The gas phase contribution to the energy equation has been neglected based on a set of assumptions. The coupled formulation given herein differs in several ways when compared to the earlier work and an attempt is made to link the flow based formulation and mixture theory. The Finite Element Method is employed for the numerical treatment and essential algorithmic implementation is discussed. Numerical examples are presented to provide further understanding of the current methodology. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the efficient calculation of ordinary and generalized spherical harmonics

Algorithms for the stable computation of generalized and ordinary spherical harmonics are presented. The algorithms are fast and have the useful property that they can compute harmonics for isolated harmonic degrees. fortran and C programs implementing these algorithms are available from the authors.     

Surface-wave polarization data and global anisotropic structure

In the past few years, seismic tomography has begun to provide detailed images of seismic velocity in the Earth's interior which, for the first time, give direct observational constraints on the mechanisms of heat and mass transfer. The study of surface waves has led to quite detailed maps of upper-mantle structure, and the current global models agree reasonably well down to wavelengths of approximately 2000 km. Usually, the models contain only elastic isotropic structure, which provides an excellent fit to the data in most cases. For example, the variance reduction for minor and major arc phase data in the frequency range 7–15 mHz is typically 65–92 per cent and the data are fit to within 1–2 standard deviations. The fit to great-circle phase data, which are not subject to bias from unknown source or instrument effects, is even better. However, there is clear evidence for seismic anisotropy in various places on the globe. This study demonstrates how much (or little) the fit to the data is improved by including anisotropy in the modelling process. It also illuminates some of the trade-offs between isotropic and anisotropic structure and gives an estimate of how much bias is introduced by neglecting anisotropy. Finally, we show that the addition of polarization data has the potential for improving recovery of anisotropic structure by diminishing the trade-offs between isotropic and anisotropic effects.