This book has been prepared for students taking Agribusiness Management 101 in The Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education at The Pennsylvania State University.

Table of Contents:

Lesson 1: Economics as Limits, Alternatives, and Choices
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1.1 - What Is Economics, and Why Is It Important?
Chapter 1.2 - Confronting Objections to the Economic Approach
Chapter 1.3 - How Individuals Make Choices Based on Their Budget Constraint

Lesson 2: The Market System
Chapter 2: Introduction
Chapter 2.1 - How To Organize Economies: An Overview of Economic Systems
Chapter 2.2 - Introducing the Market System
Chapter 2.3 - The Use of Mathematics in Principles of Economics

Lesson 3: Demand, Supply, and Market Equilibrium Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Introduction
Chapter 3.1 - Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium in Markets for Goods and Services
Chapter 3.2 - Shifts in Demand and Supply for Goods and Services
Chapter 3.3 - Changes in Equilibrium Price and Quantity: The Four-Step Process
Chapter 3.4 - Price Ceilings and Price Floors
Chapter 3.5 - Demand, Supply, and Efficiency

Lesson 4: Market Failures: Public Goods and Externalities
Chapter 4: Introduction
Chapter 4.1 - Why the Private Sector Underinvests in Innovation
Chapter 4.2 - How Governments Can Encourage Innovation
Chapter 4.3 - Public Goods

Lesson 5: Elasticity
Chapter 5: Introduction
Chapter 5.1 - Price Elasticity of Demand and Price Elasticity of Supply
Chapter 5.2 - Polar Cases of Elasticity and Constant Elasticity
Chapter 5.3 - Elasticity and Pricing
Chapter 5.4 - Elasticity in Areas Other Than Price

Lesson 6: Utility Maximization
Chapter 6: Introduction
Chapter 6.1 - Consumption Choices
Chapter 6.2 - How Changes in Income and Prices Affect Consumption Choices
Chapter 6.3 - Indifference Curves
Chapter 6.4 - Behavioral Economics: An Alternative Framework for Consumer Choice

Lesson 7: Production, Costs, and Industry Structure
Chapter 7 : Introduction
Chapter 7.1 - Explicit and Implicit Costs, and Accounting and Economic Profit
Chapter 7.2 - Production in the Short Run
Chapter 7.3 - Costs in the Short Run
Chapter 7.4 - Production in the Long Run
Chapter 7.5 - Costs in the Long Run

Lesson 8 : Pure Competition in the Short Run
Chapter 8 : Introduction
Chapter 8.1 - Perfect Competition and Why It Matters
Chapter 8.2 - How Perfectly Competitive Firms Make Output Decisions

Lesson 9 - Pure Competition in the Long Run
Chapter 9 - Introduction
Chapter 9.1 - Entry and Exit Decisions in the Long Run
Chapter 9.2 - Efficiency in Perfectly Competitive Markets

Lesson 10 - Pure Monopoly
Chapter 10 - Introduction
Chapter 10.1 - How Monopolies Form: Barriers to Entry
Chapter 10.2 - How a Profit-Maximizing Monopoly Chooses Output and Price

Lesson 11: The Demand for Resources
Chapter 11 - Introduction
Chapter 11.1 - Demand for Labor

Lesson 12 - Rent, Interest and Profit
Chapter 12 - Introduction
Chapter 12.1 - Time Value of Money

Lesson 13: Agriculture: Economics and Policy
Chapter 13 - Introduction
Chapter 13.1 - Introduction to the Agriculture Economics

Lesson 14 - International Trade
Chapter 14 - Introduction
Chapter 14.1 - Absolute and Comparative Advantage
Chapter 14.2 - What Happens When a Country Has an Absolute Advantage in All Goods
Chapter 14.3 - Intra-industry Trade between Similar Economies
Chapter 14.4 - The Benefits of Reducing Barriers to International Trade
Chapter 14.5 - Protectionism: An Indirect Subsidy from Consumers to Producers
Chapter 14.6 - International Trade and Its Effects on Jobs, Wages, and Working Conditions
Chapter 14.7 - Arguments in Support of Restricting Imports
Chapter 14.8 - How Governments Enact Trade Policy: Globally, Regionally, and Nationally
Chapter 14.9 - The Tradeoffs of Trade Policy

This open access book approaches the anxieties inherent in food consumption and production in Vietnam. The country’s rapid and recent economic integration into global agro-food systems and consumer markets spurred a new quality of food safety concerns, health issues and distrust in food distribution networks that have become increasingly obscured. This edited volume further puts the eating body centre stage by following how gendered body norms, food taboos, power structures and social differentiation shape people’s ambivalent relations with food. It uncovers Vietnam’s trajectories of agricultural modernisation against which consumers and producers manoeuvre amongst food self-sufficiency, security and abundance.

Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam is explicitly about ‘dangerous’ food – regarding its materiality and meaning. It provides social science perspectives on anxieties related to food and surrounding discourses that travel between the local and the global, the individual and society and into the body. Therefore, the book’s lens of food anxiety matters for social theory and for understanding the embeddedness and discontinuities of food globalizations in Vietnam and beyond. Due to its rich empirical base, methodological approaches and thematic foci, it will appeal to scholars, practitioners and students alike.

This textbook provides an introduction to plant genetics and biotechnology for the advancement of agriculture. A clear and structured introduction to the topic for learners new to the field of genetics, the book includes: an introduction to the life cycle of the cell, DNA and how it relates to genes and chromosomes, DNA analysis, recombinant DNA, biotechnology, and transmission genetics.

Table of Contents
1. Mitosis and Meiosis
2. DNA: The Genetic Material
3. DNA Mutations
4. PCR and Gel Electrophoresis
5. Gene Expression: Transcription
6. Gene Expression: Translation
7. Gene Expression: Applied Example (Part 1)
8. Gene Expression: Applied Example (Part 2)
9. Regulation of Gene Expression
10. Genetic Pathways
11. Recombinant DNA Technology
12. Genetic Engineering
13. Introduction to Mendelian Genetics
14. Deviations from Mendelian Genetics: Linkage (Part 1)
15. Deviations from Mendelian Genetics: Linkage (Part 2)

History and Science of Cultivated Plants narrates how humans transitioned from foragers to farmers and have arrived at present-day industrial agriculture-based civilization. It entails myths, historical accounts, and scientific concepts to describe how human efforts have shaped and produced easier to grow, larger, tastier, and more nutritious fruits, vegetables, and grains from wild plants. Using examples of various economically and socially important crops central to human civilization, the book describes the origin of crop plants, the evolution of agricultural practices, fundamental concepts of natural selection vs. domestication, experimental and methodical plant breeding, and plant biotechnology.

Table of Contents
The Origins of Agriculture
The Origins of Crop Plants
Colonial Agriculture
Cataloging, Classification, and Deliberate Hybridizations
The Early History of Genetics
Genetic Improvement in Cereal Crops and the Green Revolution
Genetically Engineered Crops

Climate is also where we begin the design process in another tool referenced in the Permaculture design system. This is the Scale of Landscape Permanence, originated by P.A.Yeomans, the founder of Keyline™ Design. Yeomans asserts that the order of design is:

Climate
Landshape
Water Supply
Roads/Access
Trees
Structures
Subdivision Fences
Soil

This book is predominantly about climate, and the macro influences of climate and climate change on design. As we get through the topics of climate analogues and climate change forecasting, we will end up moving down this list to see the climate’s influence on specific design choices.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Climate Assessment
1. Climate
2. Climate Classification Systems
3. The Climate Analogue Tool
4. Climate Analogue Examples
5. Climate Change Projections
6. Climate Change Analogue
7. Climate Change Analogue Examples

Part 2: Design Strategies for Climate Resilience
8. Drought, Heat, and Erratic Rainfall
9. Wildfire
10. Tropical Cyclone Effects
11. Sea Level Rise and Flooding

The Soils Laboratory Manual, K-State Edition is designed for students in undergraduate, introductory soil science courses, and highlights the many aspects of soil science, including: soil genesis and classification, soil physical properties, soil-water interaction, soil biology, soil chemistry, and soil fertility. The lab manual includes 15 different laboratories, each one starting with an introduction and pre-lab assignment, followed by in-lab activities, and complimented by post-lab assignment. In-lab activities involve field trips, experiments, observation stations, or problem sets. Post-lab assignments include online quizzes, problem sets, or laboratory summary reports.

Table of Contents
1 Safety Training and Orientation
2 Chemistry and Math Review
3 Soil Formation
4 Soil Classification and Mapping Continued
5 Soil Texture and Structure
6 Soil Density
7 Soil Pit Field Trips
8 Soil and Water Relationships
9 Soil Water Measurement and Movement
10 Compost Facility Field Trip
11 Soil Carbon and Respiration
12 Soil Colloids
13 Soil Acidity and Adjusting Soil pH
14 Soil Nutrient Management
15 Soil and Water Conservation