Agriculture's Challenge to Develop a Vision for the Future

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Peeples

Our challenge is to develop a collective “vision” of environmentally sound agricultural systems for the future to enable us to produce food at twice our current level to meet the demands of a projected eight billion people in the year 2020. We must prove that our efforts are compatible with environmental concerns and our natural resources. Public concerns and regulatory pressures on pesticides are likely to increase throughout this decade and next. Can we produce a safe, abundant, and affordable food supply on limited land for more people, while maintaining an acceptable balance with nature? Sound, science-based public polices are essential. Industry and regulators must work together more closely, striving to understand each other better, as well as the needs of our customers and those of society. The research community, using guidance from our regulators, has provided environmentally compatible crop protection chemicals, like sufonylurea herbicides, products which are often applied at a factor of 50 to 500x lower than the conventional herbicides they replace. We will continue to discover new “ideal” pest control solutions, incorporating the best technology available. This “vision” of agricultural production for the future must be accepted and embraced not only by our industry and our regulators, but also by environmentalists, other interests and society as a whole. We must reach common ground to maintain a productive, economically viable, socially acceptable, and environmentally sound agricultural system to meet our future challenges.

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 265-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Hendrickson ◽  
J.D. Hanson ◽  
Donald L. Tanaka ◽  
Gretchen Sassenrath

AbstractAgriculture has been very successful in addressing the food and fiber needs of today's world population. However, there are increasing concerns about the economic, environmental and social costs of this success. Integrated agricultural systems may provide a means to address these concerns while increasing sustainability. This paper reviews the potential for and challenges to integrated agricultural systems, evaluates different agricultural systems in a hierarchical systems framework, and provides definitions and examples for each of the systems. This paper also describes the concept of dynamic-integrated agricultural systems and calls for the development of principles to use in developing and researching integrated agricultural systems. The concepts in this paper have arisen from the first in a series of planned workshops to organize common principles, criteria and indicators across physiographic regions in integrated agricultural systems. Integrated agricultural systems have multiple enterprises that interact in space and time, resulting in a synergistic resource transfer among enterprises. Dynamic-integrated agricultural systems have multiple enterprises managed in a dynamic manner. The key difference between dynamic-integrated agricultural systems and integrated agricultural systems is in management philosophy. In an integrated agricultural system, management decisions, such as type and amount of commodities to produce, are predetermined. In a dynamic-integrated system, decisions are made at the most opportune time using the best available knowledge. We developed a hierarchical scheme for agricultural systems ranging from basic agricultural production systems, which are the simplest system with no resource flow between enterprises, to dynamic-integrated agricultural systems. As agricultural systems move up in the hierarchy, their complexity, amount of management needed, and sustainability also increases. A key aspect of sustainability is the ability to adapt to future challenges. We argue that sustainable systems need built-in flexibility to achieve this goal.


Molecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (14) ◽  
pp. 2558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yifen Shang ◽  
Md. Kamrul Hasan ◽  
Golam Jalal Ahammed ◽  
Mengqi Li ◽  
Hanqin Yin ◽  
...  

In the era of climate change, global agricultural systems are facing numerous, unprecedented challenges. In order to achieve food security, advanced nano-engineering is a handy tool for boosting crop production and assuring sustainability. Nanotechnology helps to improve agricultural production by increasing the efficiency of inputs and minimizing relevant losses. Nanomaterials offer a wider specific surface area to fertilizers and pesticides. In addition, nanomaterials as unique carriers of agrochemicals facilitate the site-targeted controlled delivery of nutrients with increased crop protection. Due to their direct and intended applications in the precise management and control of inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides), nanotools, such as nanobiosensors, support the development of high-tech agricultural farms. The integration of biology and nanotechnology into nonosensors has greatly increased their potential to sense and identify the environmental conditions or impairments. In this review, we summarize recent attempts at innovative uses of nanotechnologies in agriculture that may help to meet the rising demand for food and environmental sustainability.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 325-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.D. Hanson ◽  
John Hendrickson ◽  
Dave Archer

AbstractDuring the 20th century, US agriculture underwent vast transformations. The number of farmers has decreased, more farmers are relying on off-farm income, agriculture's proportion of the US GDP has declined, and a minority of non-metro counties in the US are farming dependent. Agriculture's evolution will continue and we have identified key trends and future challenges to effectively manage our changing agricultural system. Eight current trends in US agriculture were identified. These included: (1) increased land degradation; (2) competing land uses; (3) focus on single ecosystem service; (4) increase in farm size; (5) movement toward commercialization; (6) genetic engineering; (7) global markets; and (8) changing social structure. Future trends likely to affect agriculture include: (1) diminishing and increasingly volatile farm incomes; (2) reduced government involvement in food regulation; (3) continued transition from farming to agribusiness; (4) land-use will become a major issue; (5) increasing animal protein consumption in the US; (6) increased public input on livestock production practices; (7) increasing urbanization of historically rural US counties; (8) increased public concern over food safety; (9) increased medicinal production from agriculture; (10) new tastes, markets and opportunities will emerge. We further postulated that future challenges facing US agriculture might include: (1) competitive pressures; (2) sustainable development; (3) resource conservation; and (4) research and development. Integrated agricultural systems may be flexible enough to address these challenges. However, robust principles will be needed to design adaptable integrated agricultural systems. We present a nonexclusive list of preliminary principles under the four general categories of (1) economics and economic policies; (2) environmental; (3) social and political; and (4) technological.


Penamas ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Tiwi - Etika

This article is the result of a research on the Kaharingan problematic issues of religious identity after being integrated into Hindu Dharma. During the ‘New Order’ (President Soeharto's government) Kaharingan religion was not included in one of the religions served by the state. The issue of state recognition and the ease of obtaining civil services for Kaharingan adherents are strong reasons for Kaharingan religious leaders to integrate Kaharingan as part of Hinduism. The research raises the issues: (1) how is the process of integrating Kaharingan religion into Hindu Dharma? (2) what are the implications of such integration? and, (3) how is the existence of Kaharingan religious identity as the original ‘Dayak tribe religion’ after integration into Hindu Dharma in the future? This study aims to portray the existence of Kaharingan religion during integration into Hindu Dharma. This type of research is qualitative-descriptive with the method of collecting data through observation and interviews with religious leaders and administrators of religious institutions namely the Hindu Kaharingan Grand Council (MB-AHK), as well as an analysis of documents related to the object of research. Theories used in this research are integration theory, identity theory and locality theory. The integration process has implications for various fields, ranging from education, social, religious, economic, political upto cultural identity. The future challenges of Kaharingan are: internal conflict, a dilemma of distortion from third parties and stigmatization as one of the Hindu Dharma sects.


Author(s):  
Patricia Leavy

The book editor offers some final comments about the state of the field and promise for the future. Leavy suggests researchers consider using the language of “shapes” to talk about the forms their research takes and to highlight the ongoing role of the research community in shaping knowledge-building practices. She reviews the challenges and rewards of taking your work public. Leavy concludes by noting that institutional structures need to evolve their rewards criteria in order to meet the demands of practicing contemporary research and suggests that professors update their teaching practices to bring the audiences of research into the forefront of discussions of methodology.


1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben Ausher

Protection of crop and ornamental plants from noxious organisms — insects, nematodes, mites, pathogens and weeds — is indispensable to modern agriculture. Despite intensive control efforts, about 50% of the world's crops are lost to these organisms, at an estimated annual cost of about 400 billion dollars. Ever since the advent of synthetic pesticides in the 1940s, modern crop protection has been largely based on chemical control. Pesticide expenditures are about 20% of total farming input costs, although this figure varies substantially according to crop and region. Mounting environmental concerns and pest control failures have made It increasingly clear that the use of toxic pesticides In agriculture should be drastically reduced all over the world.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ipsita Das ◽  
Girish Kumar ◽  
Narendra G. Shah

Insects and pests constitute a major threat to food supplies all over the world. Some estimates put the loss of food grains because of infestation to about 40% of the world production. Contemporary disinfestation methods are chemical fumigation, ionizing radiation, controlled atmosphere, conventional hot air treatment, and dielectric heating, that is, radio frequency and microwave energy, and so forth. Though chemical fumigation is being used extensively in stored food grains, regulatory issues, insect resistance, and environmental concerns demand technically effective and environmentally sound quarantine methods. Recent studies have indicated that microwave treatment is a potential means of replacing other techniques because of selective heating, pollution free environment, equivalent or better quality retention, energy minimization, and so forth. The current paper reviews the recent advances in Microwave (MW) disinfestation of stored food products and its principle and experimental results from previous studies in order to establish the usefulness of this technology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Fox ◽  
Katy E Pearce ◽  
Adrienne L Massanari ◽  
Julius Matthew Riles ◽  
Łukasz Szulc ◽  
...  

Abstract The open science (OS) movement has advocated for increased transparency in certain aspects of research. Communication is taking its first steps toward OS as some journals have adopted OS guidelines codified by another discipline. We find this pursuit troubling as OS prioritizes openness while insufficiently addressing essential ethical principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Some recommended open science practices increase the potential for harm for marginalized participants, communities, and researchers. We elaborate how OS can serve a marginalizing force within academia and the research community, as it overlooks the needs of marginalized scholars and excludes some forms of scholarship. We challenge the current instantiation of OS and propose a divergent agenda for the future of Communication research centered on ethical, inclusive research practices.


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