Post‐Brexit Policies for a Resilient Arable Farming Sector in England

In Nigeria, climate change is not a new phenomenon and arable crop production is vulnerable to climate change. Arable crop farmers have always responded to climate change with local strategies believed to be climate-smart. Arable crop farmers' knowledge of climate change is an important step in understanding any action to be taken to reduce its effect. However, empirical studies on the link between climate change and crop farmers’ adaptation strategies are still relatively scanty in the area. This presents a dearth in research. Therefore, our paper examined how arable crop farmers adapt to climate change using cross-sectional data obtained through a structured focused group discussion and questionnaire from 120 arable farmers across critical farming communities in Imo State, Nigeria. We utilized multistage and purposive sampling procedure in the selection of arable crop farmers. The reason we utilized purposive sampling procedure was to select areas with high intensity of arable crop farmers and farming. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistical tools and mean (x̄) score analysis. Our result shows that the mean age was 42.00 years. Greater proportions (73.00%) were female. The average farm size was 1.45 hectares. Vegetables (100.00%), maize (99.17%), cassava (98.33%) and rice (96.67%) were among the crops produced in the area. The result confirmed the incidence of climate change in the area and farmers perceived rightly the direction of the change, which includes declining crop yields (x̄ = 3.00; σ = 0.50), increased in new pests and diseases infestation (x̄= 2.88; σ = 0.58); unstable decrease and increase in temperature and rainfall (x̄=3.63, σ = 0.83) among others. Our study further shows that the major climate change adaptation measures farmers practiced were diversification of livelihood (99.17%) and changing planting/harvesting dates (97.50%). Farmers identified inadequate information (99.17) and inadequate climate change adaptation fund (98.33%) among others as the barriers they faced in adapting to climate change in the area. We recommend that, since arable crop farmers are members of cooperatives, they are encouraged to take advantage of their strength to collectively project a common demand in obtaining funds and other necessary inputs in adapting to climate change in the area. Finally, our study also suggests that the agricultural extension service system should be strengthened so as to provide farmers with stable and right early warning signs which will be critical in minimizing risks of climatic threats in the area.

This paper investigated the arable crop farmers’ perception of youth roles in agricultural innovation management system in farming communities of Osun State. Specifically, problems militating against the effective participation of youths in innovation management system among the arable crop farmers were empirically investigated. Quantitative data were collected through a multi-stage sampling procedure, using structured interview schedule to elicit information from one hundred and twenty six respondents. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The mean age of respondents was about 53 years, while majority (96.0%) were married with about 5 people as mean household size. Also, the identification of youth roles in agricultural innovation management system (r=0.721, P ≤0.01) had a positive and significant relationship with the perception of youth roles in agricultural innovation management. Among others, the study concluded that arable farmers have access to few innovations while non-lucrativeness of farming accounts for the major problems militating against effective youth participation in arable farming. In

Although Indonesia has recorded good performance in its national economic development, especially in the agriculture sector during the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the pandemic on farming and food systems has not been evaluated yet. This study has evaluated the resilience of the two dominant existing farming systems in West Timor, i.e. (i) wetland farming system and (ii) dryland farming system. This research aims to understand the resilience of farming after the Covid-19 pandemic and to develop strategic policies that could be adopted to increase the resilience of the farming system in West Timor. A quantitative analysis using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to evaluate the relationship and impact of the following seven generic aspects: labour movement, sustainability, economy, socio- culture, output markets, input markets, farming system resilience, and 27 reflective indicators. The analysis shows that dryland farming systems are more resilient than wetland farming systems. It might be understood from the size of the regression coefficient, as the impact of exogenous construct variables of the environment, socioculture, input, and output on the resilience of dryland farming systems is more significant than on wetlands. Economic performance rather than labour movement factors will create better resilience of farming systems for wetland or dryland after the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, the economic recovery process and the ongoing input supply mechanism after the Covid-19 pandemic have increased the resilience of the dryland food system more than the resilience of the wetland farming system.

Modelling regional cropping patterns under scenarios of climate and socio-economic change in Hungary

SUMMARYThe effects of projected changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration on productivity and nitrogen (N) leaching of characteristic arable and pig farming rotations in Denmark were investigated with the FASSET simulation model. The LARS weather generator was used to provide climatic data for the baseline period (1961–90) and in combination with two regional circulation models (RCM) to generate climatic data under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A1B emission scenario for four different 20-year time slices (denoted by midpoints 2020, 2040, 2060 and 2080) for two locations in Denmark, differing in soil and climate, and representative of the selected production systems. The CO2 effects were modelled using projected CO2 concentrations for the A1B emission scenario. Crop rotations were irrigated (sandy soil) and unirrigated (sandy loam soil), and all included systems with and without catch crops, with field operation dates adapted to baseline and future climate change. Model projections showed an increase in the productivity and N leaching in the future that would be dependent on crop rotation and crop management, highlighting the importance of considering the whole rotation rather than single crops for impact assessments. Potato and sugar beet in arable farming and grain maize in pig farming contributed most to the productivity increase in the future scenarios. The highest productivity was obtained in the arable system on the sandy loam soil, with an increase of 20% on average in 2080 with respect to the baseline. Irrigation and fertilization rates would need to be increased in the future to achieve optimum yields. Growing catch crops reduces N leaching, but current catch crop management might not be sufficient to control the potential increase of leaching and more efficient strategies are required in the future. The uncertainty of climate change scenarios was assessed by using two different climate projections for predicting crop productivity and N leaching in Danish crop rotations, and this showed the consistency of the projected trends when used with the same crop model.

Sub-Saharan Africa countries face the challenge of reducing rural poverty and reversing the declining trends of agricultural productivity and the high levels of soil nutrient depletion. Despite of numerous efforts and investments, high levels of poverty and resource degradation persist in African agriculture. The Millennium Development Goals Report (MDGR) states that the majority of people living below the poverty line of $1.25 a day belong to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia. About two thirds of the global rural population lives in mixed crop-livestock systems (CLS), typical of SSA, where interactions between crops and livestock activities are important for the subsistence of smallholders. CLS are characterized by high degree of biophysical and economic heterogeneity, complex and diversified production system that frequently involves a combination of several subsistence and cash crops and livestock. Increasing crop productivity is clearly a key element to improve living standards and to take these people out of poverty. However, agricultural productivity in most of SSA has been stagnant or increased slowly. In addition, the likely negative impacts of climate change on agriculture have accentuated the vulnerability of smallholders. The international research community has once more the eyes on SSA with the recently proposed post-2015 MDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals that emphasize the need to achieve sustainable development globally by 2030 by promoting economic development, environmental sustainability, good governance and social inclusion. Governments and scientists are making considerable efforts to develop strategies that include structural transformations of the different sectors of the economy in search of the recipe to achieve the SDGs. Most of these strategies are based on policy and technology interventions that seek to achieve the “win-win” outcomes and move from the usual “tradeoffs” between poverty-productivity-sustainability to synergies. A key message of this thesis is that achieving the goal of sustainable development in semi-subsistence African agriculture will require better understanding of the poverty-productivity-sustainability puzzle: why high poverty and resource degradation levels persist in African agriculture. I hypothesize that the answer to this puzzle lies, at least in part, in understanding and appropriately analyzing key features of semi-subsistence crop-livestock systems (CLS) typical of Sub-Saharan Africa. The complexity and diversity of CLS often constrain the ability of policy or technology interventions to achieve a “win-win” outcome of simultaneously reducing poverty while increasing productivity sustainably (i.e., avoiding soil nutrient losses). This thesis focuses on the Machakos Region in Kenya. Machakos has been the center of many studies looking at soil fertility issues and its implications for poverty and food security, including the well-known study by Tiffen et al. (1994). Recently, the Government of Kenya developed the Kenya Vision 2030, a long-term development strategy designed to guide the country to meet the 2015 MDGs and beyond. The agricultural sector is recognized as one of the economic actors that can lead to reduce poverty if appropriate policies are in place. For the Vision 2030, the key is to improve smallholder productivity and promote non-farm opportunities. The Vision 2030 was used to assess if the implementation of some of the proposed plans and policies can lead to a sustainable agriculture for smallholders in the Machakos region. This thesis describes and uses the Tradeoff Analysis Model (TOA), an integrated modeling approach designed to deal with the complexities associated to production systems such as the CLS and at the same time, quantify economic and sustainability indicators for policy tradeoff analysis (e.g., poverty indexes and measures of sustainability). The TOA was linked to Representative Agricultural Pathways and Scenarios to represent different future socio-economic scenarios (based on the Vision 2030) to assess the impacts of policy interventions aimed to move agricultural systems towards meeting sustainable development goals. One important finding is that the complex behavior of CLS has important implications for the effectiveness of policy interventions. The Machakos analysis provides important findings regarding the implementation and effectiveness of policy interventions addressing poverty and sustainability in Africa and other parts of the developing world. The analysis shows that policy interventions tend to result in much larger benefits for better-endowed farms, implying that farm heterogeneity results in differential policy impacts and that resilience of agricultural systems is likely to be highly variable and strongly associated with heterogeneity in bio-physical and economic conditions. The results shows that a combination of these interventions and strategies, based on the GoK Vision 2030 and the Machakos County plans, could solve the poverty-productivity-sustainability puzzle in this region. The pathway from tradeoffs to synergies (win-win) seems to be feasible if these interventions and strategies are well implemented, however the analysis also shows that some villages may respond better to these strategies than others. The analysis suggests that these interventions may actually benefit most the areas with better initial endowments of soils and climate. The analysis also suggested that prices (e.g., maize price) play a key role in the assessment of policy interventions. There is an increasing recognition that analysis of economic and environmental outcomes of agricultural production systems requires a bottom-up linkage from the farm to market, as well as top-down linkage from market to farm. Hence, a two-way linkage between the TOA model and a partial equilibrium market model (ME) was developed. The TOA model links site-specific bio-physical process models and economic decision models, and aggregate economic and environmental outcomes to a regional scale, but treats prices as exogenous. The resulting TOA-ME allows the effects of site-specific interactions at the farm scale to be aggregated and used to determine market equilibrium. This in turn, can be linked back to the underlying spatial distribution of economic and environmental outcomes at market equilibrium quantities and prices. The results suggest that market equilibrium is likely to be important in the analysis of agricultural systems in developing countries where product and input markets are not well integrated, and therefore, local supply determines local prices (e.g., high transport costs may cause farm-gate prices be set locally) or where market supply schedules are driven not only by prices but also by changes in farm characteristics in response to policy changes, environmental conditions or socio-economic conditions. The results suggest that the market equilibrium price associated to a policy intervention could be substantially different than the prices observed without the market equilibrium analysis, and consequently could play an important role in evaluating the impacts of policy or technology interventions. As mentioned above, climate change poses a long-term threat for rural households in vulnerable regions like Sub-Saharan Africa. Policy and technology interventions can have different impacts under climate change conditions. In this thesis the likely economic and environmental impacts of climate change and adaptations on the agricultural production systems of Machakos are analyzed. Climate change impact assessment studies have moved towards the use of more integrated approaches and the use of scenarios to deal with the uncertainty of future condition. However, several studies fall short of adequately incorporating adaptation in the analysis, they also fall short of adequately assessing distributional economic and environmental impacts. Similarly, climate change is likely to change patterns of supply and demand of commodities with a consequent change in prices that could play an important role in designing policies at regional, national and international levels. Therefore, a market equilibrium model should also be incorporated in the analysis to assess how markets react to changing prices due to shifts in supply and demand of commodities. The TOA-ME was used to incorporate the elements mentioned above to assess the impacts of climate change. Using data from 5 Global Circulation Models (GCMs) with three emission scenarios (SRES, 2000) to estimate the climate change projections, these projections were used to perturb weather data used by a crop simulation model to estimate the productivity effects of climate change. Land use change and impacts on poverty and nutrient depletion at the market equilibrium were then assessed using the TOA-ME model. The simulation was carried out for three scenarios, which are a combination of socio-economic and climate change scenarios: a baseline scenario that represents current socio-economic conditions and climate conditions, a climate change and current socio-economic scenarios (i.e., future climate change with no policy or technology intervention), and a climate change and future socio economic conditions which are a consequence of rural development policies. Our findings show that in this particular case, the changes on precipitation, temperature and solar radiation do not show a significant difference among the selected emission scenarios. However, the variability is significant across GCMs. The effects of climate change on crop productivity are negative on average. These results show that policy and technology interventions are needed to reduce this region’s vulnerability. Furthermore, the socio-economic scenarios based on policy and technology interventions presented in the case study would be effective to offset the negative effect of climate change on the sustainability (economical and environmental) of the system across a range of possible climate outcomes represented by different GCMs. Finally, the results show that ignoring market equilibrium analysis can lead to biased results and incorrect information for policy making, in particular for the scenario based on policy and technology interventions. One of the major conclusions of the thesis are that policy interventions aimed to deal with poverty and sustainability can have unintended consequences if they are not accompanied by a set of policy strategies and investments. For example, increasing the maize price can result in substitution from subsistence crops to maize, without much increase in nutrient inputs, thus increasing soil nutrient losses. The analysis shows that improving soil nutrient balances by increasing fertilizer and manure use is critically important, but is not enough to move the system to a sustainable path. There is no one factor that can reverse the negative nutrient balances and move the system towards sustainability. Rather, a broad-based strategy is required that stimulates rural development, increases farm size to a sustainable level, and also reduces distortions and inefficiencies in input and output markets that tend to discourage the use of sustainable practices. The Machakos case shows that a combination of these interventions and strategies, based on the GoK Vision 2030 and the Machakos County plans, could solve the poverty-productivity-sustainability puzzle in this region.

The study investigated the perception of arable crop farmers on climate change variability and the mitigating measures taken by them. It was carried out in Ahoada-East Local Government Area of Rivers State. Interview schedule was used to elicit information from the respondents. Proportionate sampling technique was employed to select ninety arable crop farmers from the study area. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and simple Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression at 0.05 significant level was used to test the hypothesis. The findings from the study revealed that female dominated arable crop, and have been farming for the past 12 years. A higher percentage of the arable farmers were aware of climate change and were of the opinion that climate change was caused by bush burning, desertification, clearing of land for agriculture and act of gods. The effects of climate change on arable crops were poor/low yield, increased incidence of pest and diseases and induce spoilage of crops very fast. The mitigating strategies adopted by arable farmers to reduce the effects of climate change on their crops were, early harvesting of crops and mixed farming. Excessive rainfall and sunshine which were some of the signs of climate change affect arable crops when planted, which had led to low yield.

Assessing climate change and associated socio-economic scenarios for arable farming in the Netherlands: An application of benchmarking and bio-economic farm modelling

Empirical evidence suggests that there has been an increasing negative impact of climate change on the production of arable crops in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), particularly in Nigeria. Farmers must critically evaluate and adjust to the challenges presented by climate change in order to build resilience. Global, national, and local adaptation efforts have progressed through international debate, national programs, and community-based initiatives. Adaptation has been seen as a vital component of the all-encompassing, long-term global response to climate change, protecting farmers, livelihoods, and ecosystems. However, even though there are several studies regarding the factors influencing farmers' decisions to adapt to climate change. There is still a need for the present study for a deeper understanding and new knowledge about the discourse. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors that influence farmers' decisions about climate change adaptation in order to guarantee that the right policies are put in place to support their efforts. In light of this, our study examined the factors that influence arable crop farmers' decisions about climate change adaptation. We made use of cross-sectional data from 144 arable crop farmers who were chosen from critical farming villages in Southeast Nigeria using a standardized questionnaire. To choose farmers who farmed arable crops, we used purposive and multistage sampling techniques. The purposive sampling approach was employed in order to identify regions with a high concentration of farmers producing arable crops. Multinomial logit regression and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the gathered data. Our study found that the arable crop farmers employed a variety of adaptation strategies to manage the climate risks, including migration (Y1), changing the dates of planting and harvesting (Y2), altering tillage operations (Y3), intercropping crops (Y4), crop rotation (Y5), mixed cropping (Y6), agroforestry practices (Y7), introducing well-acclimated crop varieties (Y8), mulching (Y9), and crop and livelihood diversification (Y10). Our study also demonstrates that the following factors influenced the climate change adaptation strategies of arable crop farmers in the study area: sex (X2), age (X1), education (X3), farming experience (X4), household size (X5), farm income (X6), participation in a cooperative (X7), and extension contact (X8). We found that the high cost of climate change adaptation strategies and inadequate knowledge of adaptation strategies, among others, were the barriers facing arable crop farmers adaptation decisions to climate change in the study area. Our study recommended that the arable crop farmers should take advantage of their various cooperative societies so as to jointly pool productive resources and adapt adequately to climate change in the area. Ultimately, it is important that the government strengthen the agricultural extension service system so as to provide up-to-date modern climate change information, training, and capacity building to arable crop farmers for improved yield, income, and standard of living in the study area.

Arable lands under the pressure of multiple land degradation processes. A global perspective

Two major issues that have recently dominated international development debates are climate change on the one hand and the survival of agricultural production systems on the other hand. This study therefore attempts to provide sufficient empirical evidence-base for invigorated debate on the development of the agricultural sector in Nigeria in the context of climate change. The data analysis follows two approaches: when climate change is captured in the model and when it is not. After extensive and rigorous analysis of data, results reveal that if climate change is isolated from the model, irrigation, fertilizer, arable land and agricultural labour significantly correlate with crop production both on the aggregate and on individual samples; agricultural labour is a significant factor influencing livestock production; while agricultural machinery and population density significantly determine forestry output. After accounting for climate change, analysis indicates that crop and livestock sub-sectors are impacted by rainfall alone, while both rainfall and temperature impact on fishery. Conversely, forestry is not significantly affected by climate change. Findings equally reveal that the impact of other agricultural inputs is significantly reduced by climate change, indicating that beside the direct negative impact of climate change on agriculture, it can also have an indirect negative effect by reducing the impact of other agricultural production inputs. Further breakdown of the crop sub-sector shows that only the rainfall component of climate change will impact on cassava alone. The impact of climate change on yam, rice, sorghum, millet and maize is found to be insignificant. Also, irrigation, fertilizer, arable land and agricultural labour are found to be

A new method for analyzing agricultural land-use efficiency, and its application in organic and conventional farming systems in southern Germany

Abstract. Arable crops in the UK make a large contribution to nitrate leaching by virtue of the land area they cover (>4.5 million ha). By contrast horticultural crops occupy only a small area (< 0.2 million ha) but can leach very large amounts of nitrogen. The application of nitrogen fertilizer to arable and horticultural crops is very cost‐effective, stimulating its use. MAFF's Nitrate Research Programme for arable and horticultural crops aims to reduce nitrate leaching and maintain productive farming through Best Management Practice. The Programme has led to the development and testing of methods to measure nitrate leaching, the identification of ‘leaky’ crops, soils and practices, and strategies to optimize the use of fertilizer nitrogen. Data have been used to construct and test models of nitrate leaching, which in turn have been used to evaluate the leakiness of potential rotations. Current best practice to minimize nitrate leaching requires measures to improve the efficiency of nitrogen use by crops, combined with measures to protect soil nitrogen from leaching during the late autumn to spring drainage period. This involves consideration of many factors: an appropriate crop variety must be chosen; a green cover must be maintained for as much of the year as is practicable; crops should be drilled early; fertilizer requirements should be calculated using a recommendation system and allowing for soil mineral nitrogen and any manures applied; fertilizers should be spread evenly with a properly calibrated spreader, perhaps using split applications; starter fertilizers and banding of fertilizers should be used where appropriate to reduce losses from vegetables; pest and disease infestation must be minimized; any irrigation must be applied carefully with scheduling. Research is now moving on to study whole farm systems and the interactions between losses of nitrogen and other pollutants to the environment with the aim of minimizing total environmental impact.

The steady decline in agrobiodiversity is not only a significant threat to the genetic stability of the rural agroecosystems but also places a huge impediment to the realization of global food security. Climate change and decline in arable land is forcing subsistence farmers to abandon the less productive but well-adapted local crops for the newer short term and drought-tolerant crops decimating agrobiodiversity further. This study sought to establish the on-farm species and genetic diversity status among the family farming systems of semiarid areas of Eastern Kenya and effect on food security, agrobiodiversity management strategies, their perception of climate change, and climate change coping strategies. Structured questionnaires were administered to 92 active farmers in Embu, Kitui, and Tharaka Nithi Counties of Eastern Kenya. On-farm diversity, socio-economic factors, and their impact on agrobiodiversity were determined. Possible correlations were established using Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient. Remarkably, 26 crop species were recorded where legumes and cereals were dominant. According to the Shannon–Wiener Diversity index (H′), Tharaka Nithi County recorded the highest legumes and cereals diversity indices of 3.436 and 3.449, respectively. Food shortage was reported by over 50% of the respondents in the study area. The existence of weaker adaptive measures in response to climate change was evident. Family farming systems that had higher crop diversification and integrated livestock rearing in their farms were more food secure. Improved mitigation to climate change and diversification of farming systems among the smallholder farms is essential not only in boosting the food security but also in establishment of sustainable farming systems resilient to climate change.

Nitrogen (N) is the most important yield-limiting factor in agricultural systems, however, N application can lead to emissions and environmental problems such as global warming (N2O) and groundwater contamination (NO3 −). This study analyses the N balance, nitrogen-use efficiency, and N loss potential of conventional farming systems (arable farming, improved arable farming, and agroforestry) and organic farming systems (mixed farming, arable farming, and agroforestry) based on long-term field experiments in southern Germany. The effects of the conversion of farm structure and N management are identified. The conventional farming systems in this study were high N-input and high N-output systems. The conventional arable farming system had the lowest nitrogen-use efficiency and the highest N surplus. An optimised N management and the use of high-yielding crop varieties improved its nitrogen-use efficiency. The establishment of conventional agroforestry resulted in the reduction of N input, N output and N surplus, while maintaining high yields. The organic mixed farming system is characterised by a relatively high N input and N output, the accumulation of soil organic nitrogen, the highest nitrogen-use efficiency, and the lowest N surplus of all analysed systems. These good results can be attributed to the intensive farm N cycle between soil–plant–animal. The shift from organic mixed farming to organic arable farming system extensified the N cycle, reduced N input, crop yield and N output. The change from organic arable farming to organic agroforestry reduced the N input, increased the biomass yield, and remained the N surplus within an optimal range.