Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation Toward Sustainable Rice-based Farming Systems

Biodiversity is severely declining in intensively managed agriculture worldwide. In response, land-management strategies for biodiversity conservation on farmland are in debate, namely ecological intensification and land sparing vs. land sharing. In parallel, there is a recent food vs. energy debate stimulated by an increasing competition for land resources. Despite clear overlaps between these two debates, they were rarely connected in previous research. This paper aims to stimulate a discussion by providing a contextual link between biodiversity conservation strategies and options for future energy crop deployment. Therefore, nine conceptual land-use scenarios are developed, and then, the potential biodiversity implications are discussed based on the findings from past and ongoing research. These scenarios include the integration and segregation of both food and energy crops on lands with a range of productivity and suitability for agricultural production. We assume that the clear segregation between food crops on productive land and energy crops on marginal land is less likely to be a solution of mitigating the problems related to the biodiversity decline, especially in the European agricultural landscape context. In contrast, the integration of food and energy crop production systems at the farm to landscape scale has greater potential for ecological intensification, although conflicts with traditional nature conservation targets may arise. We conclude that broadening the perspectives of biodiversity conservation in agriculture is crucial, and the inclusion of energy crop production into the recent debates on biodiversity conservation strategies is helpful.

The integration of digital technologies in agriculture has the potential to revolutionize biodiversity conservation efforts. This article explores the role of regulations and recommended practices in promoting the adoption of digital technologies for biodiversity conservation in agricultural practices. Through a comprehensive review of the literature and analysis of current trends, the article highlights the importance of regulatory frameworks and recommended practices in shaping the adoption and implementation of digital technologies in agriculture. It examines various policies and initiatives aimed at stimulating the use of digital tools for monitoring, reporting, and mitigating the impact on biodiversity. Furthermore, the article discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption of digital technologies in agricultural practices for biodiversity conservation. It concludes by proposing recommendations for improving the regulatory framework and promoting the sustainable use of digital technologies to enhance biodiversity conservation in agriculture.

Biodiversity loss--one of the most prominent forms of modern environmental change--has been heavily driven by terrestrial habitat loss and, in particular, the spread and intensification of agriculture. Expanding agricultural land-use has led to the search for strong conservation strategies, with some suggesting that biodiversity conservation in agriculture is best maximized by reducing local management intensity, such as fertilizer and pesticide application. Others highlight the importance of landscape-level approaches that incorporate natural or semi-natural areas in landscapes surrounding farms. Here, we show that both of these practices are valuable to the conservation of biodiversity, and that either local or landscape factors can be most crucial to conservation planning depending on which types of organisms one wishes to save. We performed a quantitative review of 266 observations taken from 31 studies that compared the impacts of localized (within farm) management strategies and landscape complexity (around farms) on the richness and abundance of plant, invertebrate and vertebrate species in agro-ecosystems. While both factors significantly impacted species richness, the richness of sessile plants increased with less-intensive local management, but did not significantly respond to landscape complexity. By contrast, the richness of mobile vertebrates increased with landscape complexity, but did not significantly increase with less-intensive local management. Invertebrate richness and abundance responded to both factors. Our analyses point to clear differences in how various groups of organisms respond to differing scales of management, and suggest that preservation of multiple taxonomic groups will require multiple scales of conservation.

Pakistan is an agricultural and developing country. The use of wastewater to irrigate agricultural farms is increasing day by day due to water shortage in the country. This study assessed the Potential Ecological Risk Index (PERI) of soils of agricultural farms (six sites) being irrigated with industrial effluents, urban sewage, canal and tube-well water in suburb of Multan city, Pakistan. Surface soil samples (n = 30) from the six sites were analyzed for cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni) and lead (Pb) by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Samples of wastewater/water (n = 30) used for irrigation from respective sites were analyzed for same metals for statistical analysis. Mean contents (mg/kg) of Cd (5.65), Cr (153.1) and Pb (63.95) in soil under industrial effluents exceeded the threshold limits. The ecological risk factor 5650 > 320 for Cd was the highest and contributed 91-98.6% in raising the ecological risk. Cd, Cr, Cu and Pb were the prominent contaminants in soil across all sites. Soil under industrial effluents showed very high ecological risk (PERI 5730>600) and soils under urban wastewater exhibited moderate risk (PERI 153.5–294) and soils under tube well and canal water indicated low risk (PERI 138–149.7<150). Statistical analysis indicated that soil contamination is sourced from wastewater and water applied for irrigation is. Very high and moderate ecological risk of soils are source of food chain contamination. Proper treatment of wastewater before its use in agricultural farming system may save the health of ecosystem.

"Conservation of agricultural biodiversity is essential in terms of ensuring food security for future generations. Therefore, studies examining the relationship between human health and agricultural biodiversity are increasing recently. In this study, change of bioactive components in foods depending on the genotype has been highlighted. In addition to this, current studies examining the relationship between human health and agricultural biodiversity have been covered. According to the results, various studies have shown that the type and amount of bioactive components in foods can vary significantly depending on the genotype. Moreover, it has been reported that the conservation of biodiversity can play an important role in the prevention of some global-scale health problems. It has been also stated that the factors that threaten biodiversity cause negative effects on the environment and society by putting human and animal health at risk. There is a need for interdisciplinary research in order to examine the effects of biodiversity on human health in detail. The steps to be taken for the protection and improvement of biodiversity will be important investments in terms of both human and public health."

The study1 attempts to investigate the role of education and environmental concerns in conserving ‘agricultural biodiversity’ of diverse farming systems in Sri Lanka. It analyses how farmers’ valuation of agricultural biodiversity alters with education on agricultural biodiversity and environmental concerns. The Choice Experiment (CE) Method, combined with Randomized Control Method (RCM) was used to collect data, while models such as Conditional Logit (CL) and Random Parameter (RP) Logit were used to analyse the collected data. The results clearly illustrate that farmers’ education level, as well as environmental concerns play a major role in the conservation of agricultural biodiversity. The overall findings of this study will help the policy makers to implement relevant policies in reducing degradation of agricultural biodiversity, which is increasingly posing a major impediment to agricultural growth, to the environmental protection and sustainable development.

Introduction: One of the fundamental issues in the agricultural sector in Iran is the absence of optimal water and soil resources utilization and lack of new agricultural science and technology adoption through major prevailing transformations in agricultural land exploitation system. The studies conducted in the history of agricultural development in Iran cast light on the fact that the farming system’s role in the agricultural development in Iran is of great importance. And water and soil resources utilization has been one of the fundamental issues of agriculture which has enjoyed major consideration after the implementation of land restructuring. The agriculture farming systems are referred to as the focus of all activities related to sustainable agricultural development in Iran and it is believed that the shift and transition from traditional agriculture to modern and profitable agriculture through appropriate, improved and newly developed agricultural establishments are the major activities which can increase productivity and improve the overall performance of the agricultural sector and thus contribute to sustainable development more than any other factor. Hence, such significance will be more evident when the small and scattered farmlands in many cases have imposed some limitations in the application of agricultural techniques and machinery, equipping and developing the infrastructure and efficient use of resources with appropriate performance forcing agricultural policymakersto be always looking for ways to deal with it. Therefore, identifying the relative advantage of any farming system specified for each area and region in the country seems important. Accordingly, the Mazandaran province is regarded as one of the production hubs in producing crops such as rice, wheat and canola in the country playing a major role in supplying food. With a detailed analysis of research literature, the economic, ecological, social, technical and policy criteria were identified as sustainability criteria for agricultural activities in the province along with Cooperative, Commercial and Peasant alternatives as the dominant farming system in the present study. Consequently, the identification of the most suitable farming system for sustainable agricultural activities in the province serves as the main objective of this research. Materials and Methods: The study adopted an applied survey approach to conduct the study in 2014 in Mazandaran. The statistical population comprised of all professionals and experts working in the field of sustainability aspects and farming systems with a deep understanding and sufficient information on the issue being selected through purposive and snowball sampling summing up to 15 subjects. A questionnaire was used to collect data. In order to determine the face and content validities, the professors’ and specialists’ comments were taken into account and to estimate the reliability, the inconsistency rate was used. To achieve the main objective, the analytic hierarchy process technique by considering 5 criteria and 33 sub-criteria on three farming types (cooperative, commercial and peasant) were used. The Expert Choice software 2000 was applied for data analysis. It should be noted that the analytic hierarchy process is a multi-criteria decision-making approach being based on paired comparison which enables managers and policymakers to review various scenarios. Likewise, it is sought to consider the experts’ opinions from the most central units involved instead of focusing on the number of decision-makers. Results and Discussion: Based on the results and considering criteria prioritization reveal the fact that the ecological,policy, social dimensions compared with the economic and technical criteria remain more imperative. Therefore, the ecological, political and social dimensions are the most important aspects of agricultural activities sustainability in the province. Hence, it can be concluded that in order to maintain the sustainability of agricultural activities, the emphasis should be placed on ecological issues which are at present a great challenge and crisis at the international level and social policy based on sustainable agriculture. The growing integration of land restructuring and biological and organic farming development in recent years advocates the importance of the ecological aspect. Similarly, considering the ecological, political, economic and technical criteria, the commercial and cooperative farming system ranked first and second, respectively. Nevertheless, consistent with social criterion, the cooperative and commercial farming system kept the first and second priorities. Conclusion: Combining the relative weight of criteria and sub-criteria in agricultural activities sustainability and the farming system, the commercial farming system with good Inconsistency Ratio was the most desired and applicable farming system in sustainable agricultural activities and cooperative farming system with a diminutive difference ranked second. Based on the research findings, the most appropriate system was the commercial farming system and the cooperative farming system was second.However, since such model is not widely applied in the province at present, it is necessary that provincial and even national policymakers and practitioners consider the issue and the agricultural activities development and establishment mechanisms in terms of modern commercial and cooperative farming system be provided. As in most of these types of farming systems, the criteria identified in this research are substantially observed and their emphasis can serve as an effective step towards the development of sustainable agriculture.

Sustainable Agriculture and Integrated Farming Systems. 1985. Proceedings of a Conference held in 1984 at Michigan State University edited by Thomas C. Edens, Cynthia Fridgen, and Susan L. Battenfield. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing 48824. 344p. - Volume 1 Issue 1

The segmentation of crops and weeds from camera-captured images is a demanding research area for advancing agricultural and smart farming systems. Previously, the segmentation of crops and weeds was conducted within a homogeneous data environment where training and testing data were from the same database. However, in the real-world application of advancing agricultural and smart farming systems, it is often the case of a heterogeneous data environment where a system trained with one database should be used for testing with a different database without additional training. This study pioneers the use of heterogeneous data for crop and weed segmentation, addressing the issue of degraded accuracy. Through adjusting the mean and standard deviation, we minimize the variability in pixel value and contrast, enhancing segmentation robustness. Unlike previous methods relying on extensive training data, our approach achieves real-world applicability with just one training sample for deep learning-based semantic segmentation. Moreover, we seamlessly integrated a method for estimating fractal dimensions into our system, incorporating it as an end-to-end task to provide important information on the distributional characteristics of crops and weeds. We evaluated our framework using the BoniRob dataset and the CWFID. When trained with the BoniRob dataset and tested with the CWFID, we obtained a mean intersection of union (mIoU) of 62% and an F1-score of 75.2%. Furthermore, when trained with the CWFID and tested with the BoniRob dataset, we obtained an mIoU of 63.7% and an F1-score of 74.3%. We confirmed that these values are higher than those obtained by state-of-the-art methods.

Farming systems as an approach to agro-ecological engineering

The paper finds that agricultural biodiversity conservation generates several types of benefits, which are realized by different groups in society and over time. The nature and distribution of benefits is an important basis for prioritizing, designing, and financing conservation programs. Maintaining a high level of agricultural biodiversity has been found to have high use values to farm populations in highly heterogeneous and marginal production areas, and many of these areas will also likely be significant providers of option and existence values from in situ conservation. An important means of achieving efficient and equitable agricultural biodiversity conservation is identification of areas where there are high potential productivity gains to be made from increasing and enhancing the diversity available to farmers, as well as those which are likely to provide the highest option values of conservation and targeting these for priority under conservation funding. We have also discussed the effectiveness of various types of payment mechanisms for conservation, depending on the supplier and consumer of the good, as well as its nature. A key theme throughout our discussion has been the importance of recognizing human knowledge as a key component of agricultural biodiversity and, thus, the necessity of incorporating means for knowledge preservation as much as the physical conservation of agricultural biodiversity.

This book represents collaborative teamwork on agriculture, biodiversity and markets by a number of concerned researchers and contributors. It gives an extensive and unique overview of livelihoods and agroecology from a comparative perspective and envisions a related future. In striving to stimulate attention to this topic, the authors do an excellent job of bringing together a rich diversity of empirical material from around the world to analyze the complex interdependencies between biodiversity protection and agricultural livelihoods. The book provides new and better insights into whether, why and how biodiversity values should be given pride of place in agroecosystems. Biodiversity plays a pivotal role in determining agricultural production and shaping the livelihoods of agricultural communities. This volume examines the relationships among agricultural biodiversity, livelihoods and markets effectively. These authors argue that no single disciplinary position does justice to the range of strategies that farmers use to manage agrobiodiversity and other livelihood assets as they adapt to changing social, economic and environmental circumstances. Chapters explore relationships among the exploitation and conservation of agricultural biodiversity and the livelihoods of agricultural communities; and evaluate the capacity of national and multilateral institutions and policy settings to support the protection and capture by communities of agrobiodiversity values. The place of ecosystem services in valuing biodiversity in the marketplace is emphasized. A number of authors in this book assess the potential for market-based instruments and initiatives to encourage the protection of biodiversity. Others compare agrobiodiversity/community relationships, and the effectiveness of instruments designed to enhance these across international boundaries. In four parts, the editors and chapter authors emphasize the need for new approaches to biological diversity and the sustainability of the global ecosystem in general and of agriculture in particular. In the opening section, the editors and contributors attempt to introduce two seemingly contradictory things. On the one hand, they problematize the notion of biodiversity as it is applied to agricultural systems and their sustainability; on the other, they seek to restore some clarity by highlighting the conceptual issues, research questions and policy dilemmas of significant importance for biodiversity and agricultural communities’ sustainability. Part 2 effectively addresses agro-biodiversity and modernization, while emphasizing their contribution to intensive farming systems. This section argues that when farmers and farming businesses are well informed about the benefits of conservation, they are able to integrate conservation goals into decision making through agricultural production practices. Part 3 examines how certification systems affect farm and forest level biodiversity, and clarifies the specific impacts of the international standardization of environmental certification procedures and related markets. Part 4 brings out the conservation values resulting from eco-agriculture systems and discusses the rationale behind payments for ecosystem services schemes as they apply to different stakeholder groups. The book chapters draw on empirical case studies from across the developed and developing worlds. In so doing, the book not only points to similarities and differences in the experience of rural communities. It also shows how F. Mirzaei (&) Department of Livestock Production and Management, Animal Science Research Institute, 31585 Karaj, Iran e-mail: farmir2003203@yahoo.com

Indian economy heavily depends on agriculture and livestock. Integration of livestock with crop provide scope for effective utilization of byproducts which assures the profitability of the farming system. Integrated farming system approach is required to enhance the living standards of small and marginal farmers. A study was conducted on ‘Sustainable livelihoods for small and marginal farmers through agriculture and livestock activities – A study of farming systems in Kurnool district’ with an objective to identify profitable and sustainable farming systems under major farming situations of Kurnool district. The results revealed that the farming systems with one or more livestock components were found profitable. The economic sustainability of the faming systems was evolved through Sustainability Value Index (SVI). 3 out of 5 farming systems in the rainfed black soils were found sustainable. But only one farming system in rainfed red soils was found sustainable and none of the farming systems in irrigated black soils were found sustainable. The results of the study are useful for small and marginal farmers to adopt the suitable farming system.

Perennial crops can complement semi-natural habitats in enhancing ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) diversity in agricultural landscapes

Brazil is one of the most biodiversity rich countries in the world, including a wealth of agricultural biodiversity in both wild and cultivated forms. This is particularly noticeable in southern Brazil, home to a wide array of underutilized food species whose genetic diversity is maintained mostly by farmers through on-farm management practices. Farmers’ contribution in safeguarding and keeping alive traditional knowledge (TK) essential for recognizing, cultivating, valorising and consuming these resources is critical to their conservation. Part of this diversity, a rich basket of native fruits and landraces of vegetables and grains, is also maintained through ex situ collections managed by Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and its partners. This article discusses the integrated efforts for in situ/on-farm and ex situ conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity in southern Brazil. This diversity represents an important cultural heritage, since its use, cultivation and associated knowledge result from the dynamic history of the Brazilian population, including colonisation and immigration by several different ethnicities. Many of these species are sources of genes that convey tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, as a result of the combined action of natural selection and artificial selection by farmers in agricultural systems with low inputs and diverse environmental conditions. Due to their importance for food security, use in breeding programs, high nutritional value, and potential for income generation, Embrapa has taken responsibility for the ex situ conservation of these species. The genebanks that safeguard against the loss of these resources do also play an important role in the restoration of this germplasm to farming communities.