An assessment of biomass for bioelectricity and biofuel, and for greenhouse gas emission reduction in Australia

Adaptation strategies for maize production under climate change for semi-arid environments

A simulation study on CONWIP System Design for Bicycle Chain Manufacturing

Sustainable aquafeed and aquaculture production systems as impacted by challenges of global food security and climate change

Current open field vegetable production systems in The Netherlands do not meet market and society demands. Among the most important demands are: (1) the EU Water Framework Directive, requesting strong reductions in emissions of nutrients and pesticides to surface- and groundwater; (2) continuous delivery of uniform, high quality products by retailers. These demands could not be fulfilled by adapting current production systems, new production systems have to be developed and tested for a number of field grown crops. This paper emphasizes the development of soilless growing systems for leek. Important current product requirements for leek are a white part of the stem of at least 14 cm, a minimal thickness of 2.5 cm and a straight, firm stem. Important system requirements for outdoor cultivation are handling of rainfall, wind and frost. Opportunities for soilless systems for leek are a clean product without soil contamination and a strong reduction in labor need for preparing it for the market. Finally, the developed system needs to be economically viable, acceptable by growers and give sufficient reduction in emissions. From 2008 aspects of plant raising (traditional method with stone wool and coir plugs) were investigated together with demands to get a firm straight stem. Covering of the plants to achieve a long white part was investigated comparing several smart solutions. The use of substrate, NFT and deep flow were also compared. Results show a fast growing crop, where 4 crops per year with at least 80 plants per m2 and a total yield up to 300 t/ha are possible. It can achieve the minimal market weight in a much shorter period (40-60 days in summer) compared to growing in the soil. However, the production of long white stems requires special measures. With a good system design there are hardly any problems with rain and frost.

While Algeria is among the countries with the lowest renewable water resources per capita in the world, agriculture accounts for 70-80% of the total water use and municipal water use is expected to almost double in the next twenty years. As potato is in Algeria the main irrigated crop and the first vegetable crop in terms of area and production, improving the potato production system and rationalizing the use of water is key to sustain the production in the future and to maintain and enhance food safety. Coherent information of the current potato production system is crucial to improve a system and since this is lacking, we research what is the current situation for potato production in two main production areas of Algeria, in a Mediterranean and desert climate. Through interviews with farmers, other stakeholders and field visits in both areas the current systems are described, analysed on main weaknesses, followed by and advice regarding improvement and implementation of the subsequent project which will be a setup of a demonstration farm to introduce a more productive and sustainable system. It was found that the systems have many points for improvement regarding productivity and sustainability. That both regions have a lack of technology and accurate data of 1) the exact inputs applied, and 2) the exact requirements, especially regarding water supply, lies on the basis of most weaknesses, resulting in rough irrigation, fertilizer and pest management. The main recommendation is to elaborate research of the current system with productivity as focal point to make clear what are the economic advantages for a farmer to adapt the new system. Farmer Field Schools are proposed as a practical and hands-on management approach to implement suggested improvement practices and to introduce a new production system.

ISHS IV International Symposium on Ecologically Sound Fertilization Strategies for Field Vegetable Production TECHNOLOGY VERSUS AGRO-ECOLOGY IN DESIGNING VEGETABLE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Interdisciplinary Development of Production Systems Using Systems Engineering

Production and harvesting systems for processing vegetables have been highly mechanized, however, field efficiencies are generally low, and high field losses and fruit damage continue to limit profits for several crops. By comparison, the number of fresh market crops currently machine harvested is small, and research to develop new harvesting technology for these crops is limited. Current mechanization research includes improvements to existing production systems, development of harvesters for crops currently hand-harvested, and the integration of new technologies into current (and future) production systems. Mechanical harvester-based production systems are evolving that reduce field losses and fruit damage, improve recovery, and decrease the foreign materials in the harvested product. However, improved cultural production systems and crop varieties that are adapted for once-over machine harvest are needed. An integrated approach in which crop characteristics along with planting, cultivating, and harvesting techniques are considered will be necessary to develop profitable and highly efficient alternatives to hand-harvest production. The integration of new technologies including differential global positioning systems (DGPS), automatic machine guidance, and computer-based vision systems offers significant performance benefits, and is a substantial component of current vegetable production and harvesting research in the U.S. In time, as the costs of these technologies decline, commercial adoption of these new methods is expected to increase.

The advent of recombinant DNA technology that allows the expression of genes of one organism in another organism, led to the production of pharmaceutical proteins in heterologous systems. Plants and plant cells are among these heterologous systems and have proven to be a suitable host for various proteins of pharmaceutical interest. Over the last two decades plants have been used for the production of (potential) pharmaceutical proteins in relative high amounts. The latter includes cases where isolation from the original source was not possible, laborious and/or resulted in low yields. Currently, almost all biopharmaceutical proteins originate from humans, such as antibodies or hormones, as for instance insulin. Many of these human proteins are glycoproteins implying that they are 'coated' with sugars (glycans). These glycans can be important for protein folding and/or activity, and the composition of the glycans can vary between organisms. Hence, in order to produce a glycoprotein in another organism with (close to) native glycans, the glycosylation pathway has to be comparable or has to be engineered. Various glycoengineering studies have shown the possibilities to "humanise" the plant glycosylation pathway, enabling the production of human glycoproteins with native glycans in plants. Pharmaceutical glycoproteins of human origin often have a high added value. Therefore, research in the field of plant molecular farming mainly focused on the production of human glycoproteins in plants. Other research fields could benefit from the development of this production platform as well. For example, studies on glycosylated vaccine candidates and the immunomodulatory properties of helminth secretions, show the high potential of these helminth proteins as pharmaceuticals. High amounts of native helminth protein are required for vaccine development and research on the biological and biopharmaceutical properties of helminth secretions. The helminth proteins for such research projects cannot be isolated in sufficient quantities from the helminth or its secretions. Moreover, many of these proteins are glycosylated with glycans that cannot be mimicked in current recombinant production systems. For this purpose, the focus in this thesis is on glycoengineering of plants to establish a production system for native helminth glycoproteins.

Assessing Economic Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation in Indo-Gangetic Basin

Agriculture in South Africa sustains about 70% of the region’s population for food, income and employment, playing an important role for food security and the local economy. The focus of the study was the commercial maize farms of the Free State Province given their importance in the National economy. The Regional Integrated Assessment (phase I) was implemented to assess climate change and adaptation that links climate, crops, economic data and tools developed by the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). In this context, the “system” is defined as a whole of agronomic and socio-economic factors. Within that framework three core questions were being evaluated: (i) Impacts of climate change under current system; (ii) Impacts of climate change under future system; (iii) The role of adaptation under climate change and the future system. Maize production will decrease between 10% to 16% as a result of projected climate impacts. Also, current agricultural production systems are negatively affected by climate change with an increase in poverty rates between 2% to 3%. The projected adoption of the adapted technology would result in positive increased net returns and a decrease in poverty rate of between 12% and 22%. The results of this study show that implementing adaptation measures, including strategies indicated by the local stakeholders, will have positive impacts on the agricultural production systems and can contribute to support and inform climate change policy decision making such as the development of National Adaptation Plans.

Agricultural production includes not only crop production, but also food processing, transport, distribution, preparation, and disposal. The effects of all these must be considered and controlled if the food chain is to be made sustainable. The goal of this case study was to identify and review the significant areas of potential environmental impacts across the whole life cycle of cane sugar on the island of Mauritius. The functional unit was one tonne of exported raw sugar from the island. The life cycle investigated includes the stage of cane cultivation and harvest, cane burning, transport, fertilizer and herbicide manufacture, cane sugar manufacture and electricity generation from bagasse. Data was gathered from companies, factories, sugar statistics, databases and literature. Energy depletion, climate change, acidification, oxidant formation, nutrification, aquatic ecotoxicity and human toxicity were assessed. The inventory of the current sugar production system revealed that the production of one tonne of sugar requires, on average, a land area of 0.12 ha, the application of 0.84 kg of herbicides and 16.5 kg of N-fertilizer, use of 553 tons of water and 170 tonne-km of transport services. The total energy consumption is about 14235 MJ per tonne of sugar, of which fossil fuel consumption accounts for 1995 MJ and the rest is from renewable bagasse. 160 kg of CO2 per tonne of sugar is released from fossil fuel energy use and the net avoided emissions of CO2 on the island due to the use of bagasse as an energy source is 932,000 tonnes. 1.7 kg TSP, 1.21 kg SO2,1.26 kgNOxand 1.26 kg CO are emitted to the air per tonne of sugar produced. 1.7 kg N, 0.002 kg herbicide, 19.1 kg COD, 13.1 kgTSS and 0.37 kg PO4 3- are emitted to water per tonne of sugar produced. Cane cultivation and harvest accounts for the largest environmental impact (44%) followed by fertilizer and herbicide manufacture (22%), sugar processing and electricity generation (20%), transportation (13%) and cane burning (1%). Nutrification is the main impact followed by acidification and energy depletion. There are a number of options for improvement of the environmental performance of the cane-sugar production chain. Cane cultivation, and fertilizer and herbicide manufacture, were hotspots for most of the impact categories investigated. Better irrigation systems, precision farming, optimal use of herbicides, centralisation of sugar factories, implementation of co-generation projects and pollution control during manufacturing and bagasse burning are measures that would considerably decrease resource use and environmental impacts. LCA was shown to be a valuable tool to assess the environmental impacts throughout the food production chain and to evaluate government policies on agricultural production systems.

Differential transcriptomic changes in low-potassium sensitive and low-potassium tolerant tea plant (Camellia sinensis) genotypes under potassium deprivation

Have the agricultural production systems in the North China Plain changed towards to climate smart agriculture since 2000?

Most Malawians directly depend on cereal production. Smallholder farmers in central Malawi are affected by declining soil fertility, especially because of Nitrogen depletion, due to crop harvest removals, soil erosion and leaching. The consequence is declining productivity and food insecurity. Legume intercropping is promoted in the tropics to replenish soil fertility. The importance of legumes include: the potential to improve soil fertility, improve nutrition to humans and income source for the smallholder farmers. This study evaluate the financial implications on smallholder farmers regarding the implementation of BNF (Biological Nitrogen Fixation) and inoculant technologies in current production systems. It focused on specific districts in Malawi: Ntcheu, Dedza, Mchinji, Salima and Kasungu. Gross margins increased for all the crops and all the districts after the adoption of the legume technologies. Intercropping system helps the farmers minimize risk against total crop failure and maximize cultivation per area. This lessens the challenges of small farms to some extent. The results indicate that farmers benefit financially from legume technologies. The gain from the inclusion of legume technology is, however, indicative of the low yield levels before the adoption. The legume technologies can contribute to productive and sustainable agricultural systems for the smallholder farmers in Malawi. Acknowledgement : We would like to acknowledge the Kellogs Foundation for financial support and the N2Africa project for information shared.