Policy-related challenges to building community-based agriculture and food systems that are ecologically sustainable and socially just are also highlighted.

The Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada was established in 1988 despite the U.S.’s controversial proposal to eliminate trade-distorting government subsidies to agriculture. Originally published in 1988, this volume brings together a collection of essays which identify and debate the difficulties associated with agricultural trade between the U.S. and Canada and explore common interests in the resolution of global agricultural issues. This title is a valuable resource for students interested in environmental studies and international agricultural relations.

In farming systems across Canada, effective risk management is necessary to deal with drought, flooding, and extreme weather, and to adapt to altered climate and weather conditions. Unfortunately, climate change risks and opportunities are not always well understood among researchers and policy makers in the Canadian agri-food sector. This book addresses that gap by providing a wide-ranging synopsis of what climate change means for Canadian agriculture, exploring different approaches to the topic, and presenting examples of current research. It covers all agricultural regions and a wide variety of commodity production and farming systems. This comprehensive survey synthesizes twenty years of research on climate change and Canadian agriculture.

Precision agriculture (PA) and its suite of information technologies-such as soil and yield mapping using a global positioning system (GPS), GPS tractor guidance systems, and variable-rate input application-allow farm operators to fine-tune their production practices. Access to detailed, within-field information can decrease input costs and increase yields. USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey shows that these PA technologies were used on roughly 30 to 50 percent of U.S. corn and soybean acres in 2010-12. Previous studies suggest that use of PA is associated with higher profits under certain conditions, but aggregate estimates of these gains have not been available. In this report, a treatment-effects model is developed to estimate factors associated with PA technology adoption rates and the impacts of adoption on profits. Labor and machinery used in production and certain farm characteristics, like farm size, are associated with adoption as well as with two profit measures, net returns and operating profits. The impact of these PA technologies on profits for U.S. corn producers is positive, but small. Keywords: Crop production information technologies, precision agriculture, variablerate technology, soil tests, global positioning system maps, guidance systems.

The fourteenth joint edition of the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook provides market projections for major agricultural commodities, biofuels and fish, as well as a special feature on the prospects and challenges of agriculture and fisheries in the Middle East and North Africa.

The book covers the spread of conservation agriculture (CA) to regions including Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Europe and emerging CA destinations in Asia and Africa. ÿTopics covered include the various components of CA, and how their individual and combined implementation influence productivity, soil health and environmental quality under diverse edaphic and climatic conditions. The book will be useful to teachers, researchers, extensionists, farmers, and students interested in environmental quality.