Resource-conserving Agriculture Research Articles

(По)воєнні перспективи вирощування нішевих культур в аграрному секторі

The pre-war development of the agricultural sector of Ukraine has taken place according to the model of modernization, based on specialization, intensification and expansion of the scale of production. However, European experience shows that this model is viable only in conditions of stable markets. The economic crisis caused by the hostilities forces agricultural producers to change their specialization in favor of diversified production. One of the ways to raise the economic sustainability of farms is to expand their activities through the production of niche crops. The article reveals the relevance of the production of niche agricultural crops during the (post)war period. The authors outline the main advantages (higher sales price, better adaptability to weather and climate conditions, the possibility of balancing crop rotation, lower competition on the market, etc.) that shape the economic potential of the above mentioned crops, and highlight the risks (the need for special agricultural technologies, high production cost, high price volatility, etc.), which inhibit their cultivation. It is noted that the expansion of crop rotation due to the inclusion of leguminous niche crops should become part of a broader (post)war strategy for the sustainable development of Ukraine’s agricultural sector. Cultivation of niche vegetables is a component of resource-conserving agriculture, because crop rotation in vegetable production supports soil structure, controls soil erosion, and increases biodiversity. Obstacles to the spread of niche vegetable production are highlighted. The authors consider various new vegetables that are currently becoming part of the culture of consumption and have considerable prospects (sweet potato, Jerusalem artichoke, etc.), and point out the possibility of adapting the European experience of growing various vegetables in combination with the installation of solar panels (agrovoltaics). Under the conditions of (post)war recovery, the cultivation of niche energy crops would contribute to the diversification of agricultural production, strengthening the economic stability of agricultural producers, increasing the level of environmental friendliness of the energy sector, and shaping the energy independence of rural areas. The article highlights the European experience of mapping agro-ecological technologies, which will make it easier for agricultural producers to introduce new crops, in particular the niche ones, and technologies.

The Agricultural Sector of Ukraine in the Global Food Market: Pre-war State and Post-war Prospects

For a long time, Ukraine played an essential role as a producer of agricultural products in ensuring global and internal food security. The hostilities on the territory of Ukraine have caused significant risks to the activity of its agricultural sector and affected its current export potential. This study set out to assess the importance of Ukraine for world food security and its place in the global agricultural market, to outline current risks and to determine the prospects for the further development of agriculture in the conditions of post-war recovery. In particular, the integration of the agricultural sector into the global economic space was investigated, which showed the rapid expansion of the presence of agri-food products in certain commodity markets of some countries. An increase in the level of involvement of the agricultural sector in the global flows of goods related to food production has been established. This conclusion is based on calculations made using the data of input-output tables at basic prices. It is substantiated that the post-war recovery of Ukraine’s economy should ensure the reconstruction of the agricultural sector on the basis of sustainability. In this context, the authors presented the results of the assessment of possible changes in the production of the main types of agricultural products during the implementation of the concept of ecological resource-conserving agriculture. The impact of these changes on the country’s export potential and its food security was assessed by developing food balances for the main types of agricultural products. The conducted assessment that confirmed the necessity of such restructuring to ensure the preservation of the country’s agricultural potential in the long term.

ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ПРОДОВОЛЬЧОЇ БЕЗПЕКИ УКРАЇНИ: ПОВОЄННИЙ КОНТЕКСТ

Ensuring food security at the national and global levels on the basis of sustainability is one of the priorities of Ukraine's agrarian policy. In the pre-war period, the domestic agricultural sector guaranteed a high level of food security in our country and significantly influenced the saturation of the global food market. However, the ongoing war in Ukraine caused ruinations in the field of production and sale of agro-food products, negatively affecting the state of the food market. In the period of hostilities, the significance of the problem of ensuring national food security increases manifold, although Ukraine has sufficient food reserves. The war in Ukraine significantly reduced the scale of agricultural production and changed its structure, which in the near future will affect the dynamics of agricultural production and the state of national food security. In addition, hostilities negatively affects the incomes of the population, so the share of food expenditure in total expenditure, which is one of the key indicators of food security, will grow. This indicates the need to take measures to increase food affordability and domestic food demand. The restoration and further growth of the level of food security of Ukrainian population in the post-war period, as well as the development of agro-food exports, will require a transition to the implementation of long-term goals of ensuring national food security by increasing the volume and range of agro-food production as a result of its innovative modernization and structural transformation of agriculture. The strategic direction of the agricultural sector modernization should be based on the concept of environmentally friendly resource-conserving agriculture, which will ensure: preservation and restoration of agricultural land fertility as a decisive factor of food security in the long term; improving the quality of food for the population; expansion of the export potential of agro-food products due to high-quality goods with higher added value.

Environmental Impact of Animal-Based Food Production and the Feasibility of a Shift Toward Sustainable Plant-Based Diets in the United States

Evidence consistently suggests that plant-based diets promote human and planetary health. Reducing large-scale animal-based food production generates environmental benefits, as the entire livestock agriculture chain plays an outsized role in greenhouse gas emissions, land change and degradation, and scarcity-weighted water use. However, substituting animal products with their plant-based counterparts must come with consideration of the nutritional quality and resource usage of plant-based food production and processing operations. Several policy reforms have been implemented at the national, state, and municipal levels in the United States to support a transition toward more plant-based diets. Federal programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans generally promote the consumption of unprocessed plant-based foods but include little to no information on sustainability and the harmful environmental impact of animal-based foods. National policies are complemented by state efforts aimed at incentivizing produce purchased from local suppliers and encouraging resource-conserving agriculture. At the local level, public schools are implementing programs to promote plant-based protein on their menus, and urban gardens are sprouting across the country to increase access to organic farming. This mini-review examines these policy reforms and behavioral intervention strategies, based on the social-ecological model, and discuss their capacity and limitations to promote a shift toward sustainably produced plant-based diets in the United States. We conclude that transforming the food systems toward plant-based diets in the animal-centered United States requires multi-sector collaboration and context-specific policy solutions to address diet-related climate concerns without neglecting health, social, and financial constraints.

The Role of Rural Infrastructure in Reducing Production Costs and Promoting Resource-Conserving Agriculture

The development of rural infrastructure plays an essential role in improving rural livelihoods and enhancing sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural production. However, little is known about whether rural infrastructure enables the promotion of resource-conserving agriculture and reduces production costs. Understanding the relationship between rural infrastructure and production costs can provide significant information for policy-makers in their efforts to promote resource-saving agriculture that is beneficial to environmental performance. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the heterogeneous effects of irrigation infrastructure and standard and substandard roads on agricultural production costs, using an unconditional quantile regression model and provincial data from China for the period 1995–2017. The empirical results show that the effects of rural infrastructure on production costs are mixed. In particular, irrigation infrastructure affects production costs positively in the lower quantiles, but it negatively affects production costs in the higher quantiles. In the higher 80th and 90th quantiles, standard and substandard roads affect production costs both negatively and significantly. Our findings suggest that improving rural infrastructure enables the promotion of resource-conserving agriculture and enhances environmental performance, especially for those paying high production costs.

Smallholder farmers’ social networks and resource-conserving agriculture in Ghana: a multicase comparison using exponential random graph models

Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H., P. Matouš, and M. E. Isaac, 2019. Smallholder farmers’ social networks and resource-conserving agriculture in Ghana: a multicase comparison using exponential random graph models. Ecology and Society 24(1):5. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10623-240105

Small Farmers and Resource-Conserving Agriculture: The Prospect of Attaining Environmental Sustainability through Zero Tillage Relay Cropping in Bangladesh

Small Farmers and Resource-Conserving Agriculture: The Prospect of Attaining Environmental Sustainability through Zero Tillage Relay Cropping in Bangladesh

Seven years resource-conserving agriculture effect on soil quality and crop productivity in the Ethiopian drylands

Resource-conserving agriculture (RCA) aims at improving soil quality and crop yield whilst maintaining or improving soil health by minimizing soil disturbance, retaining crop residue, using crop rotations and adding in situ soil and water conservation tillage practices (terwah and derdero) in crop fields. In Ethiopia, intensive mining of soil resources using repeated tillage, complete crop residue removal at harvesting, overgrazing and biomass burning in croplands have aggravated soil degradation. We studied the impact of two RCA (derdero+ (DER+) and terwah+ (TER+) on long-term soil quality and crop productivity in permanently kept plots in northern Ethiopia 7 years after its inception. The two RCA practices: (i) DER+ is a bed and furrow planting system, where beds remain unploughed, furrows are tilled once at planting time and 30% of crop residue is retained. (ii) TER+ is ploughed once at planting, furrows are made at 1.5m intervals, creating fresh broad beds, and 30% crop residue is retained. These RCA practices were compared against conventional tillage (CT) characterized by a minimum of three tillage operations and complete removal of crop residues. Among the several assessed soil properties, soil organic C (SOC), total soil N, available P, soil microbial biomass C (SMBC), time of ponding, aggregate stability index (SI), consistency index (CI), cone index, air capacity and macroporosity were shown to increase significantly in soils subjected to DER+ planting system compared to CT. On average, crop yields under DER+ and TER+ increased by 30 % and 16 %, respectively, as compared to CT. Thus, from an agro-ecological point of view, adopting improved local practices such as DER+ and TER+ planting systems that employ conservation agriculture principles proved to be sustainable, resource conserving alternatives and incentives should be provided to facilitate larger adoption by farmers in Ethiopia.

RESTORING CROPLAND PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFITABILITY IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIAN DRYLANDS AFTER NINE YEARS OF RESOURCE-CONSERVING AGRICULTURE

SUMMARYLong-term in situ soil and water conservation experiments are rare in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Eastern Africa. A long-term experiment was conducted (2005–2013) on a Vertisol to quantify the impacts of resource-conserving agriculture (RCA) on runoff, soil loss, soil fertility and crop productivity and economic profitability in northern Ethiopia. Two RCA practices were developed from traditional furrow tillage practices: (i) derdero+ (DER+) and terwah+ (TER+). DER+ is a furrow and permanent raised bed planting system, tilled once at planting time by refreshing the furrow and 30% of crop residue is retained. TER+ is ploughed once at planting, furrows are made at 1.5 m intervals and 30% crop residue is retained. The third treatment was a conventional tillage (CT) with a minimum of three tillage operations and complete removal of crop residues. Wheat, teff, barley and grass pea crops were grown in rotation. Runoff, and soil and nutrient loss were measured in plastic sheet-lined collector trenches. Significantly different (P < 0.05) runoff coefficients (%) and soil losses (t ha−1) averaged over 9 yrs were 14 and 3, 22 and 11 and 30 and 17 for DER+, TER+ and CT, respectively. Significant improvements in crop yield and gross margin were observed after a period of three years of cropping This study demonstrated that RCA systems in semi-arid agro-ecosystems constitute a field rainwater conservation and soil fertility improvement strategy that enhances crop productivity and economic profitability. Adoption of RCA systems (DER+ and TER+) in the study area requires further work to improve smallholder farmers’ awareness on benefits, to guarantee high standards during implementation and to design appropriate weed management strategies.

Roles of extension and ethno-religious networks in acceptance of resource-conserving agriculture among Ethiopian farmers

This article analyses roles of social and extension networks in adoption of resource-conserving practices among Ethiopian farmers. We gathered data from 297 randomly sampled households on their agricultural practices, social networks, access to the extension, and geographical location. After examining general determinants of practising resource-conserving agriculture, we employ a two-stage regression with full-maximum likelihood correction for selection bias to establish the roles of general social networks and external professionals in acceptance of conservation techniques. In accordance with previous research, probit regression in the first stage shows that the access to extension increases with farmers’ wealth and the size of their personal networks, and decreases with the distance of their households from village centres. However, after accounting for this unequal access to extension, the second-stage linear regression shows that regardless of education, wealth or geographical location, those whose religion and ethnicity match with their agent, report learning more about conservation from extension sources. Furthermore, farmers who are socially well connected within the community tend to be less receptive to agents’ recommendations regarding resource conservation. Dissemination policy of conservation agriculture should consider the ethnic and religious affinity between farmers and their extension agents. It also needs to pay more attention to socially and geographically isolated individuals.

Can organic and resource-conserving agriculture improve livelihoods? A synthesis

Organic and resource-conserving agriculture (ORCA) initiatives have been common in the tropics for several decades, but surprisingly few data are available on their performance. This synthesis examined 31 documented cases of African and Latin American farmers converting from conventional or organic-by-default systems to ORCA that assessed their impact on livelihoods. Yield improved in 19 of the 25 cases that reported on it, food security improved in seven of eight cases, and net income improved in 19 of 23 cases. However, it is not possible to generalize from these results due to the small sample, selection bias and inconsistent methods and definitions across the cases. The systems from which farmers converted (conventional or organic-by-default) and the degree of market orientation strongly influenced the gain in incomes. Successful ORCA initiatives do not occur spontaneously, but rather require a variety of skills from smallholders and their allies. These skills include adaptive farm management, effective producer organizations, entrepreneurship, capacity to innovate, value addition and boundary spanning. The challenge of acquiring these enabling skills is simultaneously one of ORCA's strengths, as they help smallholders to navigate changing environmental and market conditions.

Food security in the context of energy and resource depletion: Sustainable agriculture in developing countries

AbstractFood insecurity remains high in most of sub-Saharan African. That insecurity is made even more acute by the increasing scarcity and degradation of natural resources. Low soil fertility is a consistent problem faced by agriculturalists and herders. The dominant international thrust to increase food production has been to stimulate trade, enhanced by technology and its transfer. While international bodies acknowledge the importance of small farmers, they operate as if improving the technologies, trade regimes and value chains that are characteristic of industrial agriculture will have the same results in local ecosystems in developing countries. Price volatility makes access to purchased inputs more risky for smallholders and the governments that subsidize those inputs. The diverse local contexts that serve as the base of African agriculture are thus assumed to be overridden by technology. In contrast, a systems approach that focuses on sustainability of the local ecosystem, social and cultural relationships and economic security can be as, or more productive than industrial agriculture and have a much better opportunity to increase food security in developing countries. Such a systems-based shift in practices, such as the application of conservation agriculture and integrated systemic approaches in Millennium Villages, have potential of addressing household livelihood strategies and production issues in a sustainable, farmer-based way. Resource-conserving agriculture has been shown to increase yields in developing countries. Priority should be given to developing technologies that follow the systems principles of sustainable agriculture, integrating biological and ecological processes (such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and biodiversity) into the production processes; minimizing use of non-renewable inputs that cause harm to the environment or to the health of farmers and consumers; and making productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers and their collective capacities to work together to solve common problems. A variety of models are on the ground in Africa, and there is political will in the African Union to increase investment in agriculture. What sort of investments, policy interventions and capacity building are more effective in increasing productivity and the well-being of agricultural producers? Are strategies aimed at reducing the number of people involved in farming and herding viable in the context of a stagnant world economy?

Comment on “Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries”

Comment on “Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries”

Response to Comment on “Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries”

Response to Comment on “Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries”

Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries

Despite great recent progress, hunger and poverty remain widespread and agriculturally driven environmental damage is widely prevalent. The idea of agricultural sustainability centers on the need to develop technologies and practices that do not have adverse effects on environmental goods and services, and that lead to improvements in food productivity. Here we show the extent to which 286 recent interventions in 57 poor countries covering 37 M ha (3% of the cultivated area in developing countries) have increased productivity on 12.6 M farms while improving the supply of critical environmental services. The average crop yield increase was 79% (geometric mean 64%). All crops showed water use efficiency gains, with the highest improvement in rainfed crops. Potential carbon sequestered amounted to an average of 0.35 t C ha(-1) y(-1). If a quarter of the total area under these farming systems adopted sustainability enhancing practices, we estimate global sequestration could be 0.1 Gt C y(-1). Of projects with pesticide data, 77% resulted in a decline in pesticide use by 71% while yields grew by 42%. Although it is uncertain whether these approaches can meet future food needs, there are grounds for cautious optimism, particularly as poor farm households benefit more from their adoption.

Developing policy for a resource-conserving agriculture: The Food Security Act of 1985 in perspective

The Food Security Act of 1985 in odible land. The sodbuster provision will protect reserve acreage from future exploitation. Bid procedures should provide the most cost effective way to move the largest acreage into the reserve. Buying land to place it into the reserve will not be possible if the restrictions in thelaw are properly enforced.