Agriculture Reviews

Portable air conditioning for hire is not only an essential option for hotels, pubs and clubs, leisure centres and gyms, but also in the agriculture industry. Read on to find out why portable air conditioning is essential for the agriculture industry.

Article body: Portable air conditioning for hire is not only an essential option for hotels, pubs and clubs, leisure centres and gyms, but also in the agriculture industry. Why? Because without the option of hiring portable air conditioning units and chilling units (-chillers’), many arable farmers and dairy producers would simply go out of business.

What consumers expect Customers can be demanding at the best of times, but never more so than when it comes to food. They want fresh, good quality produce that not only tastes good, but is also reasonably priced and always available when they desire it (seasonal factors notwithstanding, of course).

So what does all this mean for people working in farming and agriculture? And how does hired portable air conditioning play a crucial role in keeping arable farmers and dairy producers in business, and their customers satisfied?

The potato storage process The British are renowned for loving their potatoes (mashed, boiled, roasted, baked, fried-), but there is much more to successfully growing, picking and taking to market a healthy potato crop than one would think (be that a small crop, or one that is grown in fields consisting of hundreds or even thousands of acres, and is managed by a major arable farming company).

The potato storage process must be managed expertly, or the potato crop will be ruined, meaning the arable farmer may well also be. Unless potatoes are stored in a temperature-controlled, well-ventilated environment, then the lot could fall victim to fungal disease, as well as viral and bacterial agents. Storing potatoes at temperatures near 4C / 39F is usually best.

Hiring portable air conditioners is the -perfect insurance’ By hiring the right cooling equipment (portable air conditioners and chillers) and placing the units in the right locations in a potato storage facility (or indeed, a facility used for the storage of other -cornerstone’ vegetables grown on arable farms) the terrifying prospect of losing an entire crop to the aforementioned threats can be removed.

Protecting dairy produce Portable air conditioning and chiller units for hire are no less effective when it comes to protecting dairy produce. Fully cured Cheddar, for example, is a hard, natural cheese that is hugely popular not only across the UK, but also worldwide. The export market is a multimillion pound one, in fact; so imagine how catastrophic it would be for a dairy farmer to lose most or even all of his stock, simply because the existing cooling system failed overnight, or, by some oversight, the system was set at the wrong temperature – a mistake that was only discovered when it was too late.

High quality Stilton is also -not just a cheese’. It is a very valuable commodity, as are most speciality cheeses. A large dairy company can produce tonnes of it (and other dairy foods/products) annually; however some of the biggest producers fail to place enough importance upon having a contingency plan in place, should their built-in cooling system let them down, and all their dairy produce is rendered inedible before it even makes it to the maturing room.

Being prepared is the key Of course, the vast majority of arable farmers and dairy producers take steps to protect their produce from harm, but the smartest ones also have a contingency plan in place, should the unthinkable happen: a cool storage system failure suddenly occurs, and before the crop(s) can be saved, the -rot’ has already set in, and thousands of pounds’ worth of produce is inedible and worthless (sometimes in just as a few hours). The hiring of portable air conditioning units and chillers provides the best solution, a genuine safeguard against every arable farmer and dairy producer’s worst nightmare becoming a reality.

As well as being the ideal emergency back-up option, portable air conditioning units for hire for agriculture applications can be:

– Used immediately; – Easily stored; – Hired on a short contract basis, and then returned. (This is ideal when it comes to getting extra air conditioning and cooling systems in place in, say, the run up to Christmas, when food production is significantly increased to meet massive consumer demand) – The perfect -stop gap’ between the removal of an existing (fixed) air conditioning system, and the installation of a new one at an arable farm or a dairy farm; – Added to an existing air conditioning solution when extra air conditioning is required.

Food for thought indeed. Article submitted by Steve Reeve, Sales Director at Andrews Sykes. Andrews Sykes is the UK’s largest specialist air conditioning hire company, with over 25 years’ experience. The company serves virtually all industry sectors including agriculture and farming using machinery sourced from the world’s top manufacturers.

Many people incorrectly assume they get adequate nutrients from the food they eat. Unfortunately, in todays world it is virtually impossible to get the necessary nutrients to sustain a healthy body and mind by just eating modern foods and drinking liquids.
This means that everyone must look at choosing the right food they eat, organic if possible, and supplementing their diets with multivitamins and minerals to assist in the journey to optimum nutrition.

In an ideal world this would be adequate, but very few people realize that modern lifestyles and current eating habits introduce anti-nutrients into our bodies that deplete nutrition. Modern food is devitalized by man made chemicals, pesticides, contaminants and food processing. These nutrient busters prevent nutrients from being absorbed or used by the body and in some cases promote their excretion. Many modern day diseases and deaths are not only caused by a deficiency of nutrients but also because of an excess of nutrient busters.

Most cancers, for example, are associated with an excess of anti-nutrients, like chemicals and free radicals resulting from smoking.

Unfortunately our lifestyles dictate the extent to which we are exposed to these nutrient busters. It is essential for us to reduce the exposure to anti-nutrients by assessing our lifestyles and the environment we live in, so we can fully understand how to manage this gigantic onslaught of nutrient busters and change our lifestyles accordingly.

How big is the problem ?
There are more than 3,000 man made food chemicals and over 20,000 pesticides registered in the US. American agriculture is reported as using 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides annually, that are used on more than 900,000 farms. The UK is reported as using 250,000 tons of food chemicals a year and 400 million litres of pesticides and herbicides sprayed on to food crops, pastures and surrounding areas. In addition billions of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks are consumed in the UK, not to mention the millions of antibiotics, pharmaceutical drugs, recreational and street drugs taken, and the industrial pollution of more than 50,000 chemicals pumped into the air every day.

Its no wonder we have health problems.

In his article The Amazing Human Being, Richard Penfounde starts by saying,

Human beings are the only creatures on earth that:

smoke tobacco
consume processed foods
drink coffee and tea copiously
eat fried foods continuously
drink cow’s milk throughout our lives
add sugar to our foods and liquids
add salt to our foods and liquids
continue to eat when we are not feeling well
consume social and medicinal drugs

We are the results of the products that we put in our mouths and often those that we do not put in our mouths. Our bodies are eventually shaped and our skin conditioned by these processes over a period of time. Every disease takes time to develop, often 20 or more years. Disease in our body varies from mild to moderate to serious and the progression is often so slow that it is not recognised at the time that it is happening.

The major Lifestyle nutrient busters

As optimum nutrition is the key to a healthy body and mind, we must be aware of how each of our lifestyles expose us to anti-nutrients and subsequent diseases and death.
The main problem is that these nutrient busters build up in the body, slowly over time eventually resulting in one or other serious disease. So before its too late, we must prevent this from happening by having regular check ups and appropriate tests. Richard recommends that it is very important to start a regimented optimum nutrition programme as soon as possible to start combating the nutrition busters onslaught.
You may also, depending on your specific circumstances, look at other appropriate tests like the hair-mineral analysis, food-tolerance tests, vitamin blood tests, the functional homocysteine test and a cholesterol test to establish your risk and to see if you have any specific disease symptom or nutrient deficiency.

For each of us to do a proper analysis of our lifestyles, we must however understand what these nutrient busters are, and make the necessary lifestyle changes to minimize or eliminate them.

Nutrient deficiency and depletion
There are many different nutrient busters that have negative affects on our bodies which can contribute to disease and death. Each contribute in a different way to the depletion of the nutrients we require to achieve and maintain optimum health.

Together with these anti-nutrient activities we must also understand that even refined foods that do not have man-made chemical additives or anti-nutrients, often contribute to nutrient deficiency as they do not have sufficient quantities of nutrients to sustain the body and mind. It is estimated that half of most peoples diets consist of these refined foods which means that the other half of their diets have to make up the full nutrient requirement. This isnt always possible or the case, for most people.

The result of all of this is that it is essential to be aware of these conditions and to eat according to our individual nutrient requirements, but more importantly to change our lifestyles to avoid nutrient busters where possible, and then to supplement the nutrients through our diets and an appropriate optimum nutrition supplement programme containing multivitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, essential fats, phytochemicals and amino acids.

This is the only way to achieve optimum health.

So lets look at the major nutrient busters.
Lifestyle, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Living in a city or near an industrial area
o Eating fast foods regularly
o Smoking cigarettes
o Drinking alcohol
o Taking recreational or street drugs
o Taking birth control pills
o Taking antibiotics regularly
o Limited or no regular exercise
o Limited sleep
o Highly stressful lifestyle
The environment we live in, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Traffic pollution, time spent in heavy traffic
o Industrial air and water pollution
o Drinking water contamination
o Pesticide and herbicide utilization and distribution
o Living or working in a smoking environment
The food we eat, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Man made food chemicals, additives, preservatives and food colouring agents
o Genetically modified foods
o Consumption of fast foods, fried foods and fatty foods
o Food processing using heat
o Food browned or burnt using heat
o Fruit and vegetables contaminated by pesticides and herbicides
o Foods wrapped in PVC plastic film
o The consumption of tea, coffee, sugar, salt and alcohol
o Household drinking water from taps
The drugs we take taking into account the effect of the following:
o Pharmaceutical drugs and antibiotics
o Recreational and street drugs
o Birth control pills
The exposure to nutrient busters depends on your specific lifestyle and therefore defines the activities you need to take to minimize or eliminate the exposure, to assist in achieving optimum nutrition.

Richard Penfounde

Natural Health Advisor

www.naturallyhealthylifestyles.com

Main points of Rostows stages of growth model:

-Rostows stages of growth model is of the Neo-Classical tradition.
-The model takes a linear view of development, this means that countries are believed to develop in the same way over time.
-It is a structuralist model, it analyses development as the result of complex interactions between a number of different societal parts.

Rostow believed that economies develop by going through a number of stages. He attempted to define the characteristics of each of the 5 stages of development.

Traditional Society Stage
-Economic activity is on a subsistence basis, output (food etc) is consumed by those who produced it rather than traded. Economic activity is dominated by agriculture and is labour intensive.

Transitional Stage
-This stage is when a society has the preconditions for takeoff (the characteristics a society must have before it can start to grow quickly such as with the UK industrial revolution) in place but has not yet entered a period of high growth. Trading increases supported by an emerging transport infrastructure, savings and investment grow and entrepreneurs emerge.

Take Off Stage
-Industrialisation takes place, workers transfer from the agriculture to manufacturing. Growth is concentrated in to certain parts of the country and in one or two industries (for example, cotton processing in Manchester during the industrial revolution). New political and social institutions emerge to support industrialisation.

Drive to Maturity Stage
-The economy diversifies from the industries that originally drove growth. The massive poverty caused by the Take Off Stage starts to be reduced.

High Mass Consumption Stage
-The stage that countries reach once they have developed. Rostow, writing in 1960, believed that this was the stage which Western countries were in. Living conditions are good and the economy is baed on the consumer society.

Limitations of Rostow’s Stages of Growth Model:

-The Rostow starts with the assumption that countries will develop along the same path, that countries cannot skip stages, do stages in a different order. Splitting the process of development into stages may be simplifying what actually occurs.
-The model is ethnocentric, it is based on American and European history and shows American high mass consumption to be the end result of development.
-The model assumes that capitalist development is the only way to achieve economic development his model represents a non-communist manifesto.

How to use Rostow’s Stages of Growth Model in Essays and exams:

The ideal use of Rostow’s Stages of Growth Model in A level exams is to set it up as a straw man to knock down. The model is a good way of setting out a basic model which is easily criticised using more up to date models or models from a different political viewpoint. Dont worry about spending too much time writing about Rostows model, just give the examiner an outline of your knowledge referring to the main points of the model (see start of article). This will then allow you to spend more time showing off your knowledge to the examiner about other more complex development models.