The Chinese government´s aim to be self-sufficient in food production in combination with the increased food consumption in China has put high pressure on the productivity within the Chinese agricultural sector (He j et al, 2010). In order to increase the productivity, modernization and adoption of new farming techniques are essential. The opportunity to adopt and import foreign technology has lately been possible in China, as more authority and decision rights have been given to the individual farmers and the country has opened up for foreign trade (Zheng, 2012 & Fan, 1991). A more open Chinese market enables new opportunities for foreign agricultural companies to expand their businesses by introducing their products to Chinese farmers. But to succeed with this strategy the Chinese farmers must be willing to adopt these, for them new innovations. Minimum tillage is a tillage practice used worldwide that is suitable in northern China where drought and erosion are the main problems in the crop production (pers.com., Arvidsson, 2012). Potential users? opinion of new innovations such as Minimum tillage is closely related to adoption (Rogers, 2003).

Reduced tillage has increased in Sweden during several years, primarily to decrease costs andincrease efficiency in crop production. Despite this, mouldboard ploughing is still the mostcommon primary tillage method on most farms. The aim with this thesis was to compare theuse of pesticides and the occurrence of weeds on ten farms in Skåne and ten farms inMälardalen that use different soil tillage systems. The object of the study was also to clarifywhy the farms had chosen their specific soil tillage system and the consequences it has had onweed occurrence and use of pesticides. The result showed a slightly higher use of pesticideson the farms that use reduced tillage.

In Sweden, reduced tillage usually means non-inversion tillage, where primary tillage is carried out using chisel ploughs or disc implements. Primary tillage method is mainly determined by the desired soil loosening and the handling of soil residues. The effect of tillage depth was studied in field experiments in Skåne, Väderstad, Uppsala, Örebro och Västerås in different crops; spring oilseed rape, spring wheat, winter wheat and spring barley.The experiments generally had a randomized block design with the treatments mouldboard ploughing, deep chisel ploughing and shallow chisel ploughing, in some cases also shallow discing and no-tillage. In the experiments the following parameters were determined: seedbed properties, saturated hydraulic conductivity, penetration resistance, number of emerged plants and crop yield (all parameters were not determined in all experiments. Root growth and draught requirement were determined in two separate studies. There were no significant differences between tillage depths in non-inversion tillage in seedbed properties, plant emergence or root development.

In order to produce grain in an economically rational manner numerous decisions have to be made. One of these decisions is what tillage system to use. The cost of the tillage system is a large part of the total cost in grain production. Different tillage systems result in different distribution of fixed costs, operating costs and timeliness costs. The price of the produced grain and cost of inputs also affect the best way to produce grain.

Optimization of soil tillage and crop rotation is important in many aspects, but particularly in maximizing profit margins. Since the economic outcome is usually decisive, it can be interesting to study different combinations of soil tillage systems and crop rotations in order to identify the maximum economic outcome. How a crop functions in a particular tillage system determines whether it is profitable to grow that crop. Different tillage systems affect the soil and its processes in different ways. Reduced tillage often works best on weak-structured heavy clays and on silty clays.

Today cultivation of cereal in Sweden has high costs for establishment in relation to the rest of the world, and if this cultivation will be able to continue, the farmers have to control their costs. It is important to see all costs, not the maximum harvest achieved, but the net result. All farmers have different conditions with respect to soil, direction of the farm and were the farm is located geographically. With the right knowledge and ambitions, we think most farmers could change to reduced tillage. In this paper we have tried to find out if reduced tillage is an alternative for farmers.

This is a study made because I would like to see how much money can be saved when reduced soil preparations is used. This is a case study, the farm is located in the north vest part of Skåne, Sweden. I have calculated with four different soilpreparation methods. Alternative 1: Conventional soil preparation, the way the farm is managed today. Alternative 2: Ploughing on depth of 12 centimeters, with a ridge packer followed with sowing. Alternative 3: Eco-tillage Alternative 4: Direct drilling The results of my study showes that Alternative 2 is the most profitable. Alternative 4 is very good if you see to dieselexpenses and hours of work, but the yield is far to low. If the numbers are further analized, it showes that in spring barley the differense between Alternative 2 and Alternative 4 is at a minimum. So if there is lack of time for one reason or another, this might be an alternative in spring barley. The differense in how the farm is managed today and the most profitable alternative in the study, Alternative 2 showes that it can be saved up to 60 940 SEK..

Swedish agriculture has gone through big changes in the latest 60 years. The farm sizes have increased, which has led to raised tractor and machinery sizes and therefore increasing problems with soil compaction. A method to reduce these problems is to implement controlled traffic farming, CTF. All field operations are then concentrated to specific tracks by using GPS guidance. The aim of this work was to study how the tillage regime, with or without CTF, affects the soil, with the main focus on macroporosity. In Säby close to Uppsala, and Alnarp close to Malmö, randomized block trials has been carried out, and the data has mainly been taken from these trials.

It is important for today?s farmers to minimize the costs for crop establishment, because of decreased prices and support from the EU. Farmers, who plow in autumn on heavy clay soil, often do some kind of tillage in autumn to get better soil structure before spring seeding. This is especially important when growing small seed crop, e.g. sugar beet and oil plants.

The agricultural sector accounts for about 13 percent of the total load of greenhouse gas emissions from Sweden (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2007). The Swedish objective to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions with 40 percentage units to the year of 2020, based upon the year of 1990, might imply stricter regulations for Swedish farmers. A regulation or other forms of economic incentives is probably necessary to reduce the emissions originating from the agricultural sector. This study aims to investigate the economic and managerial impact on two agricultural firms with differing production system given that a constraint on green house gas emissions is introduced. Gases included in this study are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The background of this study is the fact that it nowadays is more common to grow wheat after wheat. Usually we plow every autumn to remove the straw, and we wanted to study the effect of alternative methods to do it. We have done this experiment to answer the question if no tillage is better than conventional plowing. The results of the field experiment indicate that there is a link between plant establishment and the choice of equipment, but also a higher weed pressure in experimental plots with only ground tillage. The equipments which left much straw on the top of the ground the problems with fungi were more severe.

To investigate the possibilities for effective soil tillage, that could imply lower costs, lower negative environmental impact and in addition a meaningful occupation for foraging pigs, a field experiment was carried out in Gränna, Småland, during growing season 2006. The experiment contained two treatments that were repeated three times and were carried out on a couch grass-infected fallow on a light soil close to Sweden?s second largest lake, Vättern. Ploughing was one treatment and pig rooting followed by ploughing, was the other. The experiment was conducted according to the guidelines of organic growing and seedbed preparation was done the same way in the two treatments. The pigs, three groups of five half-year old Linderödssvin (an old Swedish breed), was encouraged to perform an even tillage by strip-grazing, i.e.

In this thesis, two studies with different drills were included. In one of the studies two drills were compared: Väderstad Rapid and Väderstad Spirit. In the other study various drills for direct drilling were compared. The study with Rapid and Spirit was placed in two locations with different autumn tillage; one on ploughed land in Uppsala and one on cultivated land in Västerås, both with relatively high clay content. Rapid drills have a single disc coulter, while the Spirit drills have a double disc coulter. Various aspects were compared such as aggregate distribution, seed placement, emergence, crop yield and economic outcome.

In 2007 the Swedish government appointed a commission of inquiry with the task to submit a proposal of reduction in the requirement of a minimum legal capital for private limited liability companies. The commission of inquiry?s main proposal involved a reduction to SEK 50,000 compared to the prevailing SEK 100,000. Following a complementary proposal from the Justice Department suggesting a reduction to SEK 1, this paper aims at providing an understanding of the function and purpose of a minimum legal capital and the consequences that follows from an abolition of the statutory capital requirement. The thesis concludes that the legal capital?s main purpose is that of a standard contract internalizing the shareholder?s risk in business.

Vilket arbetssätt har den svenska styrkan i Afghanistan, specifikt i PRT Mazar-e-Sharif, i förhållande till arbetsmetoderna minimum force och show of force? Har det skett någon förändring i arbetssättet mellan 2006/07 och 2009/10? Vad kan en eventuell förändring bero på och kan man se någon inriktning för framtiden? Genom en jämförande fallstudie skall uppsatsen analysera hur den svenska styrkan i Afghanistan förhöll sig till arbetssätten minimum force och show of force vid två olika tidsperioder. Genom att analysera två tidsperioder kan man komma fram till om en förändring i arbetssätt skett samt undersöka anledningarna till den. Resultatet av analysen visar att under åren 2006/07 arbetade svenskarna i mångt och mycket efter metoden minimum force genom användandet av lätta fordon och små patruller. Under 2009/10 har dock en förskjutning mot arbetssättet show of force upptäckts genom införandet av tyngre fordon och fler vapensystem.