The Organic Research Centre; Elm Farm Bulletin 84 July 2006

Regular bulletin with technical updates of the Organic Advisory Service Issue contains: Battling on for Avian Flu preventive vaccination; Organic Colombian Blacktail eggs; UK Co-existence - GMOand non-GMO crops; Aspects of Poultry Behaviour; CAP in the service of biodiversity; Seeing the Wood, the Trees and the Catch 22; Beware of organic market "statistics"; A central role in energy review

The Organic Research Centre - Elm Farm:Bulletin 87

Bulletin 87 with coverage of Avian Influenza H5N1 in Suffolk,commentary on Biofuels, a paper on the organic "transition to sustainable resilience",paper on participatory approach to agronomy trials,update on evolutionary breeding of wheat project,article on formation of new growers alliance in UK

Emissions from village cookstoves in Haryana, India, and their potential impacts on air quality

Air quality in rural India is impacted by residential cooking and heating with biomass fuels. In this study, emissions of CO, CO2, and 76 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were quantified to better understand the relationship between cook fire emissions and ambient ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Cooking was carried out by a local cook, and traditional dishes were prepared on locally built chulha or angithi cookstoves using brushwood or dung fuels. Cook fire emissions were collected throughout the cooking event in a Kynar bag (VOCs) and on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) filters (PM2.5). Gas samples were transferred from a Kynar bag to previously evacuated stainless-steel canisters and analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to flame ionization, electron capture, and mass spectrometry detectors. VOC emission factors were calculated from the measured mixing ratios using the carbon-balance method, which assumes that all carbon in the fuel is converted to CO2, CO, VOCs, and PM2.5 when the fuel is burned. Filter samples were weighed to calculate PM2.5 emission factors. Dung fuels and angithi cookstoves resulted in significantly higher emissions of most VOCs (p < 0.05). Utilizing dung-angithi cook fires resulted in twice as much of the measured VOCs compared to dung-chulha and 4 times as much as brushwood-chulha, with 84.0, 43.2, and 17.2g measured VOCkgg fuel carbon, respectively. This matches expectations, as the use of dung fuels and angithi cookstoves results in lower modified combustion efficiencies compared to brushwood fuels and chulha cookstoves. Alkynes and benzene were exceptions and had significantly higher emissions when cooking using a chulha as opposed to an angithi with dung fuel (for example, benzene emission factors were 3.18gkgg fuel carbon for dung-chulha and 2.38gkgg fuel carbon for dung-angithi). This study estimated that 3 times as much SOA and ozone in the maximum incremental reactivity (MIR) regime may be produced from dung-chulha as opposed to brushwood-chulha cook fires. Aromatic compounds dominated as SOA precursors from all types of cook fires, but benzene was responsible for the majority of SOA formation potential from all chulha cook fire VOCs, while substituted aromatics were more important for dung-angithi. Future studies should investigate benzene exposures from different stove and fuel combinations and model SOA formation from cook fire VOCs to verify public health and air quality impacts from cook fires

Molecular composition of particulate matter emissions from dung and brushwood burning household cookstoves in Haryana, India

Emissions of airborne particles from biomass burning are a significant source of black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) in rural areas of developing countries where biomass is the predominant energy source for cooking and heating. This study explores the molecular composition of organic aerosols from household cooking emissions with a focus on identifying fuel-specific compounds and BrC chromophores. Traditional meals were prepared by a local cook with dung and brushwood-fueled cookstoves in a village in Palwal district, Haryana, India. Cooking was done in a village kitchen while controlling for variables including stove type, fuel moisture, and meal. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions were collected on filters, and then analyzed via nanospray desorption electrospray ionization-high-resolution mass spectrometry (nano-DESI-HRMS) and high-performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array-high-resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC-PDA-HRMS) techniques. The nano-DESI-HRMS analysis provided an inventory of numerous compounds present in the particle phase. Although several compounds observed in this study have been previously characterized using gas chromatography methods a majority of the species in the nano-DESI spectra were newly observed biomass burning compounds. Both the stove (chulha or angithi) and the fuel (brushwood or dung) affected the composition of organic aerosols. The geometric mean of the PM2.5 emission factor and the observed molecular complexity increased in the following order: brushwood-chulha (7.3±1.8 g kg-1 dry fuel, 93 compounds), dung-chulha (21.1±4.2 g kg-1 dry fuel, 212 compounds), and dung-angithi (29.8±11.5 g kg-1 dry fuel, 262 compounds). The mass-normalized absorption coefficient (MACbulk) for the organic-solvent extractable material for brushwood PM2.5 was 3.7±1.5 and 1.9±0.8m2 g-1 at 360 and 405 nm, respectively, which was approximately a factor of two higher than that for dung PM2.5. The HPLC-PDA-HRMS analysis showed that, regardless of fuel type, the main chromophores were CxHyOz lignin fragments. The main chromophores accounting for the higher MACbulk values of brushwood PM2.5 were C8H10O3 (tentatively assigned to syringol), nitrophenols C8H9NO4, and C10H10O3 (tentatively assigned to methoxycinnamic acid)

Editorial

Editoria

Impacts of household sources on air pollution at village and regional scales in India

Approximately 3 billion people worldwide cook with solid fuels, such as wood, charcoal, and agricultural residues. These fuels, also used for residential heating, are often combusted in inefficient devices, producing carbonaceous emissions. Between 2.6 and 3.8 million premature deaths occur as a result of exposure to fine particulate matter from the resulting household air pollution (Health Effects Institute, 2018a; World Health Organization, 2018). Household air pollution also contributes to ambient air pollution; the magnitude of this contribution is uncertain. Here, we simulate the distribution of the two major health-damaging outdoor air pollutants (PM2:5 and O3) using state-of-thescience emissions databases and atmospheric chemical transport models to estimate the impact of household combustion on ambient air quality in India. The present study focuses on New Delhi and the SOMAARTH Demographic, Development, and Environmental Surveillance Site (DDESS) in the Palwal District of Haryana, located about 80 km south of New Delhi. The DDESS covers an approximate population of 200 000 within 52 villages. The emissions inventory used in the present study was prepared based on a national inventory in India (Sharma et al., 2015, 2016), an updated residential sector inventory prepared at the University of Illinois, updated cookstove emissions factors from Fleming et al. (2018b), and PM2:5 speciation from cooking fires from Jayarathne et al. (2018). Simulation of regional air quality was carried out using the US Environmental Protection Agency Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system (CMAQ) in conjunction with the Weather Research and Forecasting modeling system (WRF) to simulate the meteorological inputs for CMAQ, and the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem to generate concentrations on the boundary of the computational domain. Comparisons between observed and simulated O3 and PM2:5 levels are carried out to assess overall airborne levels and to estimate the contribution of household cooking emissions

SQUARING THE CIRCLE: An analysis of programmes in Dublin schools to prevent early school leaving. With recommendations for effective best practice

THE DUBLIN EMPLOYMENT PACT represents a very broad range of interests across the Dublin Region. Its aim is to promote practical solutions and recommendations regarding unemployment (particularly long-term unemployment), future sustainable employment policy and the economic growth and development of the Dublin Region. The Pact recognises the key role of educational disadvantage in the continuing problems of long-term unemployment, social exclusion and skills deficits in the labour force in Dublin. The Focus Group on Youth Employment and Education established by the Pact decided that there was a critical need for an in-depth examination of the wide range of interventions and pilot projects implemented in Dublin to tackle early school-leaving. Such a study needed to establish the nature, aims and achievements of these diverse interventions and establish clear and coherent parameters for future policy development in this area. Disadvantaged communities in Dublin in particular have been affected by very high rates of early school-leaving, which is known to be a key adverse factor in the life chances of young people. Tackling this issue is now a major priority of government policy, which includes ambitious national targets for increased retention rates at school. A very large range of quality interventions have been developed and tried, both by the Department of Education and Science and also by youth organisations, schools, other statutory and voluntary agencies and Partnership companies at the local level. Many of these, however, have remained as local pilots, sometimes even in competition for funding. The very diversity, range and uneven spread of these interventions has possibly prevented a coherent overview of their individual and combined effect. The Pact therefore commissioned Dr Ted Fleming and Dr Mark Murphy of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, to examine the nature and structure of the diverse preventative education projects in Dublin and to produce recommendations towards establishing models of best practice. Based on a detailed examination of existing reports and evaluations, the study establishes that interventions tend to be based on one or more of a range of specific assumptions, viz. that the cause of early school leaving lies primarily with either the individual, the parents, the local community, the school or with society. The underlying assumption of a given intervention necessarily influences the intervention. Where the individual child is the focus, programmes will be aimed at enhancing social skills and developing self-esteem. Where the school is the focus, programmes will tend to concentrate on resources, training and syllabus, and where the family is the focus, programmes will concentrate on homework facilities, breakfast provision and parent support. The researchers introduce the concept of the overall âcapital contextâ of early school-leaving, involving personal, social, cultural and economic factors. Each type of capital plays a role in deciding whether or not a child stays on at school. They stress that all of these capital elements must be included in any interventionist programme and to omit any one of them fragments and reduces the effectiveness of the response. The researchers further suggest that, given the strong correlation between socio-economic background and early school leaving, policy must be directed as much towards inequalities in society as towards schools, districts, parents and pupils. In tackling educational disadvantage it is essential that a level playing field be established with access by all children to the key forms of capital. In proposing a model of best practice applicable to all programmes of intervention, they categorise the main components of an integrated response. This must include both adequate human and material resources as well as close attention to how projects are organised internally and externally â i.e. including the involvement of parents, students and the community. The study concludes with a range of recommendations regarding this model of best practic

SQUARING THE CIRCLE: An analysis of programmes in Dublin schools to prevent early school leaving. With recommendations for effective best practice

THE DUBLIN EMPLOYMENT PACT represents a very broad range of interests across the Dublin Region. Its aim is to promote practical solutions and recommendations regarding unemployment (particularly long-term unemployment), future sustainable employment policy and the economic growth and development of the Dublin Region. The Pact recognises the key role of educational disadvantage in the continuing problems of long-term unemployment, social exclusion and skills deficits in the labour force in Dublin. The Focus Group on Youth Employment and Education established by the Pact decided that there was a critical need for an in-depth examination of the wide range of interventions and pilot projects implemented in Dublin to tackle early school-leaving. Such a study needed to establish the nature, aims and achievements of these diverse interventions and establish clear and coherent parameters for future policy development in this area. Disadvantaged communities in Dublin in particular have been affected by very high rates of early school-leaving, which is known to be a key adverse factor in the life chances of young people. Tackling this issue is now a major priority of government policy, which includes ambitious national targets for increased retention rates at school. A very large range of quality interventions have been developed and tried, both by the Department of Education and Science and also by youth organisations, schools, other statutory and voluntary agencies and Partnership companies at the local level. Many of these, however, have remained as local pilots, sometimes even in competition for funding. The very diversity, range and uneven spread of these interventions has possibly prevented a coherent overview of their individual and combined effect. The Pact therefore commissioned Dr Ted Fleming and Dr Mark Murphy of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, to examine the nature and structure of the diverse preventative education projects in Dublin and to produce recommendations towards establishing models of best practice. Based on a detailed examination of existing reports and evaluations, the study establishes that interventions tend to be based on one or more of a range of specific assumptions, viz. that the cause of early school leaving lies primarily with either the individual, the parents, the local community, the school or with society. The underlying assumption of a given intervention necessarily influences the intervention. Where the individual child is the focus, programmes will be aimed at enhancing social skills and developing self-esteem. Where the school is the focus, programmes will tend to concentrate on resources, training and syllabus, and where the family is the focus, programmes will concentrate on homework facilities, breakfast provision and parent support. The researchers introduce the concept of the overall âcapital contextâ of early school-leaving, involving personal, social, cultural and economic factors. Each type of capital plays a role in deciding whether or not a child stays on at school. They stress that all of these capital elements must be included in any interventionist programme and to omit any one of them fragments and reduces the effectiveness of the response. The researchers further suggest that, given the strong correlation between socio-economic background and early school leaving, policy must be directed as much towards inequalities in society as towards schools, districts, parents and pupils. In tackling educational disadvantage it is essential that a level playing field be established with access by all children to the key forms of capital. In proposing a model of best practice applicable to all programmes of intervention, they categorise the main components of an integrated response. This must include both adequate human and material resources as well as close attention to how projects are organised internally and externally â i.e. including the involvement of parents, students and the community. The study concludes with a range of recommendations regarding this model of best practic