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  The agricultural sector and environmental safety both work hand in hand to promote sustainability in important issues like soil health, plant nutrition, food safety, and security. The conventional methods have greatly harmed the environment and people’s health and caused soil fertility and quality to decline as well as deteriorate. Keeping in view the excessive exploitation and cascade of degradation events due to unsustainable farming practices, the need of the hour demands choosing an appropriate, eco-friendly strategy to restore soil health, plant nutrition, and environmental aspects. The priority highlights a need for a sustainable and environment-friendly upgradation of the present agricultural systems to utilize the beneficial aspects related to harnessing the gene-microbiome strategies which would help in the restoration and replenishment of the microbial pool. Thus, exploring the microbiome is the utmost priority which gives a deep insight into the different aspects related to soil and plant and stands out as an important contributor to plant health and productivity. “Microbes” are important drivers for the biogeochemical cycles and targets like sustainability and safety. This essential microbial bulk (soil microbiome) is greatly influenced by agricultural/farming practices. Therefore, with the help of microbiome engineering technologies like meta-transcriptomics , meta-proteomics , metabolomics , and novel gene-altering techniques , we can easily screen out the highly diverse and balanced microbial population in the bulk of soil, enhancing the soil’s health and productivity. Importantly, we need to change our cultivation strategies to attain such sustainability. There is an urgent need to revert to natural/organic systems of cultivation patterns where the microbiome hub can be properly utilized to strengthen soil health, decrease insect pest and disease incidence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and ultimately prevent environmental degradation. Through this article, we wish to propose a shift in the cultivation pattern from chemical to the novel , upgraded gene-assisted designed eco-friendly methodologies which can help in incorporating , exploring , and harnessing the right microbiome consortium and can further help in the progression of environmentally friendly microbiome technologies for agricultural safety and productivity. Graphical abstract

Under the Canadian labour laws that govern workplace safety, wage, and other work conditions, ‘family’ workers are not covered by the law under special rules for agriculture. Among other legal exclusions, the family farm exclusion contributes to a dearth of basic work, health, and safety standards in the sector, despite the commercialization and industrialization of family farming activities. Through a focus on Alberta, Canada—where farm labour rules have only applied to agriculture since 2016—this article explores the family exclusion in relation to family farming experiences with work and risk, based on interviews with farm operators, their family members, and farm employees in Alberta. While some participants continued to press for exemptions for farms from labour rules under the rationale that there is intrinsic safety within families, the findings also reveal how other participants have begun questioning this rationale, despite their overall support for the family farm exemption in Alberta. Using the lens of legal geography and critical perspectives on the family, we argue that the family is a significant but under-examined dynamic in the legal regimes governing farm labour and agricultural safety and health. Together, the law and dominant narratives about family farming treat farm operations as hyper-private domains, where operators have disproportionate power to dispose of their own work and the work of others how they wish. These legal geographies of hyper-privacy contribute to the indecent work conditions that characterize farm labour systems in Alberta and other jurisdictions.

Soil pollution with toxic elements is a recurrent issue due to environmental disasters, fossil fuel burning, urbanization, and industrialization, which have contributed to soil contamination over the years. Therefore, the remediation of toxic metals in soil is always an important topic since contaminated soil can affect the environment, agricultural safety, and human health. Many remediation methods have been developed; however, it is essential to ensure that they are safe, and also take into account the limitation of each methodology (including high energy input and generation of residues). This scenario has motivated this review, where we explore soil contamination with arsenic, lead, mercury, and chromium and summarize information about the methods employed to remediate each of these toxic elements such as phytoremediation, soil washing, electrokinetic remediation, and nanoparticles besides elucidating some mechanisms involved in the remediation. Considering all the discussed techniques, nowadays, different techniques can be combined together in order to improve the efficiency of remediation besides the new approach of the techniques and the use of one technique for remediating more than one contaminant.

* Airborne microorganism detection methods are summarized. * Biosensors play an important role in detecting airborne microorganisms. * The principle of biosensor detection of airborne microorganisms is introduced. * The application and progress of biosensor in recent years is summarized. * The future perspectives of biosensor are identified. Humanity has been facing the threat of a variety of infectious diseases. Airborne microorganisms can cause airborne infectious diseases, which spread rapidly and extensively, causing huge losses to human society on a global scale. In recent years, the detection technology for airborne microorganisms has developed rapidly; it can be roughly divided into biochemical, immune, and molecular technologies. However, these technologies still have some shortcomings; they are time-consuming and have low sensitivity and poor stability. Most of them need to be used in the ideal environment of a laboratory, which limits their applications. A biosensor is a device that converts biological signals into detectable signals. As an interdisciplinary field, biosensors have successfully introduced a variety of technologies for bio-detection. Given their fast analysis speed, high sensitivity, good portability, strong specificity, and low cost, biosensors have been widely used in environmental monitoring, medical research, food and agricultural safety, military medicine and other fields. In recent years, the performance of biosensors has greatly improved, becoming a promising technology for airborne microorganism detection. This review introduces the detection principle of biosensors from the three aspects of component identification, energy conversion principle, and signal amplification. It also summarizes its research and application in airborne microorganism detection. The new progress and future development trend of the biosensor detection of airborne microorganisms are analyzed.

This study uses farm-level information from the ARMS database to evaluate the distribution of payments from major 2014 Farm Bill safety net programs – federal crop insurance, Agricultural Risk Coverage, and Price Loss Coverage – across farm size. Results indicate that farms within the top decile for crop sales receive over two-thirds of the total payments from these programs. Recent legislative proposals to implement payment caps on each farm are shown to impact a relatively small percentage of farms that are almost entirely within the top decile of crop sales. However, implementing these caps is likely to result in as much as $2.51 billion in taxpayer savings. These help provide direction for continued efforts to design cost-effective, equitable agricultural safety net policies.

The fugitive dust generated by agricultural harvesting machinery not only causes harm to production safety, but also affects the living environment of people in agricultural areas. This is also one of the hot issues that have emerged in the green development of rural areas in recent years, which is related to agricultural safety and hygiene culture. Due to the lack of relevant research, many researchers still have considerable controversy on the issue of agricultural dust. Therefore, in combination with the actual production of agricultural mechanization, according to the cause of dust generation and particle characteristics, the selection of appropriate dust reduction technology and detection methods is of great significance for the research on the control of dust from agricultural harvesting machinery. Aiming at the dust problem in agricultural mechanization production, this research first introduces the relationship between fugitive dust and atmospheric particulate matter and the main components of fugitive dust, and then focuses on the causes of dust generated by wheat harvesters and peanut harvesters in field operations, and explains the main hazards of dust to human health, ecological environment, and climate. This study introduces four fugitive dust emission reduction technologies and five particle measurement methods, and compares and analyzes their feasibility in the application of agricultural harvesting machinery dust control. Finally, we put forward conclusions and suggestions on the dust control technology of agricultural harvesting machinery in order to provide reference for the control of agricultural harvesting machinery dust, improve the field operation environment, and promote the green development of modern agriculture.

Most hyperaccumulator and economic crops do not grow year-round, leading to limited remediation efficiency. Implementing year-round rotation patterns with known and potential hyperaccumulators or economic crops can improve remediation efficiency. This study evaluated the remediation efficiency and agricultural safety of 10 winter crops and 12 summer crops in field-scale trials. Sedum alfredii Hance (SA) and Cichorium intybus L. (CI) exhibited the highest cadmium (Cd) accumulation among winter crops, reducing soil Cd content by 12.1% and 10.4%, respectively. Helianthus annuus Linn. (HA) was the most effective summer crop, reducing soil Cd content by 3.7%. The vegetable oils of all oil crops were within safe heavy metal limits, whereas the edible parts of other economic crops exceeded Cd limits. A combination of the best winter and summer crops was chosen to comprehensively evaluate the remediation efficiency and economic benefits of three rotation patterns: SA + HA, CI + HA, and Linum usitatissimum L. (LU) + HA. SA + HA and CI + HA were more effective than LU + HA, reducing soil Cd by 12.5%, 8.9%, and 3.7%, respectively. The net profits were −27591.19, 749.50, and 3309.76 US$/ha, respectively. Overall, CI + HA demonstrated the highest combined capacity (comprehensive index = 1.79) for both remediation efficiency and economic benefits, achieving safe production and effective restoration of Cd-contaminated agricultural land. However, the accumulation of heavy metals in oilseed meals warrants further attention.

This article assesses the political economy of the 2014 U.S. farm bill, with a focus on the farm support safety net. The farm bill secured substantial bipartisan majorities in a politically contentious Congress. Planned outlays are predominately for nutrition assistance programs directed toward a traditional nonfarm constituency in the farm bill coalition, while annual fixed direct payments to farmers are eliminated but replaced with enhanced downside risk protection against low prices or revenue. The new support programs may prove more or less costly than the foregone fixed payments, with farmers offered a choice between a price countercyclical program with increased reference prices and a revised moving-average revenue guarantee program. The role of insurance is enhanced, notably by replacing past support programs with a new upland cotton revenue insurance program and dairy milk-to-feed margin protection program. Open policy issues that are highlighted include the costs and distortionary effects of moving-average revenue benchmarks versus fixed reference prices, the overall level of insurance premium subsidies, the potential for overlap between commodity and insurance programs, and lastly, food, environmental, and biofuels concerns that reflect the diverse portfolio of products demanded from agriculture. In an international context, we conclude that the 2014 farm safety net likely would not have been enacted had multilateral agreement been reached on the 2008 Doha Round World Trade Organization negotiating documents. Conversely, the 2014 farm bill makes achieving those limits more difficult. Research is discussed that can elucidate the ongoing political economy of U.S. farm policy and help shape future program design.

This paper employs a dataset of 7,500 Northern Irish farms over the period 2015–2019 to investigate the factors that affect the number of workdays lost in agriculture, one of the most hazardous sectors in terms of occupational injuries. Results indicate that public policies aimed at improving farm safety should focus on dairy farms, young workers, family members other than the main farmer, and dangerous working practices related to machineries and vehicles. Additionally, results indicate that more than 18,000 workdays are lost every year on Northern Irish farms.

Several diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi affect plant crops, resulting in losses and decreasing the quality and safety of agricultural products. Plant disease control relies mainly on chemical pesticides that are currently subject to strong restrictions and regulatory requirements. Antimicrobial peptides are interesting compounds in plant health because there is a need for new products in plant protection that fit into the new regulations. Living organisms secrete a wide range of antimicrobial peptides produced through ribosomal (defensins and small bacteriocins) or non-ribosomal synthesis (peptaibols, cyclopeptides and pseudopeptides). Several antimicrobial peptides are the basis for the design of new synthetic analogues, have been expressed in transgenic plants to confer disease protection or are secreted by microorganisms that are active ingredients of commercial biopesticides.