Differential local genetic adaptation to pesticide use in organic and conventional agriculture in an aquatic non-target species

Pesticide application is an important stressor to non-target species and can profoundly affect ecosystem functioning. Debates continue on the choice of agricultural practices regarding their environmental impact, and organic farming is considered less detrimental compared to conventional practices. Nevertheless, comparative studies on the impacts of both agricultural approaches on the genetic adaptation of non-target species are lacking. We assessed to what extent organic and conventional agriculture elicit local genetic adaptation of populations of a non-target aquatic species, Daphnia magna . We tested for genetic differences in sensitivity of different D. magna populations ( n = 7), originating from ponds surrounded by conventional and organic agriculture as well as nature reserves, to pesticides used either in conventional (chlorpyrifos) or organic agriculture (deltamethrin and copper sulfate). The results indicate that D. magna populations differentially adapt to local pesticide use. Populations show increased resistance to chlorpyrifos as the percentage of conventional agriculture in the surrounding landscape increases, whereas populations from organic agriculture sites are more resistant to deltamethrin. While organic agriculture is considered less harmful for non-target species than conventional, both types of agriculture shape the evolution of pesticide resistance in non-target species in a specific manner, reflecting the differences in selection pressure.

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Organic Agriculture and Food Security: The Story of Africa

JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN AGRICULTURE ◽

10.24297/jaa.v5i1.4507 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 591-605

Author(s):

Isaac Kojo Arah ◽

Ernest Kodzo Kumah

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Organic Agriculture ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Agricultural Practices ◽

African Countries ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Global Food Security ◽

Organic Certification ◽

Security Problem ◽

Food Needs

Global food security problem has raise concerns on the best agricultural practices that will stand the test of time to replace the already failing conventional agriculture. Yields are reportedly decreasing despite the increasing use of imputes. In the quest of solving this problem, researches have revealed that organic agriculture can get the needed results in a more sustainable manner. Activists of organic agriculture are therefore of the view that it is the best option for food sustainability especially in developing worlds like Africa. Critics also think organic agriculture is a sort of luxurious lifestyle being champion by some few rich consumers at the expense of the vulnerable majority. It is therefore unclear whether organic agriculture is the answer to Africas food crisis. It was shown by literature that organic agriculture is the best model of agriculture for Africa in tackling the food needs of the continent. The superiority of organic agriculture over conventional agriculture was seen in its high yielding crops, high nutrient food produced, less energy consumption and less greenhouse gas produced during production, high drought and flood resistant crops with an overall positive impact on the ecosystem. However, challenges such as lack of national organic agriculture policies, low/no research in organic agriculture, high cost of organic certification and imputes, high illiteracy rate, and under developed markets in most African countries hampers widespread adoption of organic agriculture in Africa. Until these challenges are addressed by governments of African countries, organic agriculture cannot be the answer to Africas food crises.

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Identifying and characterizing pesticide use on 9,000 fields of organic agriculture

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-25502-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Ashley E. Larsen ◽

L. Claire Powers ◽

Sofie McComb

Keyword(s):

Organic Agriculture ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Pesticide Use ◽

Kern County ◽

Pesticide Application ◽

Yield Gap ◽

State Certification ◽

Percentage Points ◽

Application Rates ◽

The Us

AbstractNotwithstanding popular perception, the environmental impacts of organic agriculture, particularly with respect to pesticide use, are not well established. Fueling the impasse is the general lack of data on comparable organic and conventional agricultural fields. We identify the location of ~9,000 organic fields from 2013 to 2019 using field-level crop and pesticide use data, along with state certification data, for Kern County, CA, one of the US’ most valuable crop producing counties. We parse apart how being organic relative to conventional affects decisions to spray pesticides and, if spraying, how much to spray using both raw and yield gap-adjusted pesticide application rates, based on a global meta-analysis. We show the expected probability of spraying any pesticides is reduced by about 30 percentage points for organic relative to conventional fields, across different metrics of pesticide use including overall weight applied and coarse ecotoxicity metrics. We report little difference, on average, in pesticide use for organic and conventional fields that do spray, though observe substantial crop-specific heterogeneity.

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Estimating Pesticide Inputs and Yield Outputs of Conventional and Organic Agricultural Systems in Europe under Climate Change

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11071300 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 1300

Author(s):

Livia Rasche

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Organic Agriculture ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

The European Union ◽

Pesticide Application ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Pests And Diseases ◽

Crop Pest ◽

Application Rates ◽

Integrated Assessments

Simulating organic agriculture is a considerable challenge. One reason is that few models are capable of simulating crop-pest interactions and the yield losses they cause. Here, a recently developed process-based crop-pest model (Pest-EPIC) was used to simulate conventional and organic agriculture in the European Union for the years 1995–2100. Yields and pesticide application rates were calibrated against FAOSTAT and Eurostat data. Results indicate that current pesticide application rates may be sufficient to control pests and diseases even at the end of the century. The range of simulated yield differences under organic and conventional agriculture under current conditions (e.g., wheat 21–55% (mean 34%) lower yields; potatoes 20–99% (mean 56%) lower yields) closely matched recorded values. Under climate change, the gap between yields under conventional and organic management will remain constant for some crops (e.g., at 3 t/ha for potatoes), but others—susceptible to a larger number of pests and diseases—may experience a widening of the yield gap (e.g., increase of yield difference from 0.8 to 1.6 t/ha for wheat). The presented results-dataset may in future be a valuable resource for integrated assessments of agricultural land use and policy planning, but the inherent uncertainty is still very high.

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Benefits of Organic Agriculture under the Perspective of the Bioeconomy: A Systematic Review

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13126852 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (12) ◽

pp. 6852

Author(s):

Camila Fritzen Cidón ◽

Paola Schmitt Figueiró ◽

Dusan Schreiber

Keyword(s):

Organic Agriculture ◽

Renewable Resources ◽

World Population ◽

Green Technologies ◽

Ecological Benefits ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Organic Farmers ◽

Potential Benefits ◽

Development Objectives ◽

Global Growth

The opportunities for the global growth of the bioeconomy (BE) are generated by the need to expand the food supply for an increasing world population without compromising the environment even further. Organic agriculture (OA) claims to be more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture and capable of addressing sustainable development objectives by using green technologies, resulting in economic, social, and ecological benefits. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between OA and BE through a systematic literature review. We addressed the benefits of OA under perspective of the main aspects of BE. As demonstrated by previous papers assessed on this review, OA can be a means to facilitate strategies for the use of renewable resources to mitigate the emergencies arising from global warming, as claimed by the BE concept. This article introduces a necessary discussion due the lack of previous studies reporting the capacity of OA to connect with the BE. As a final contribution, we present a conceptual framework characterizing potential benefits of OA under the perspective of BE, for organic farmers and researchers to advance in sustainability and green innovation.

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Customer Preferences for Organic Agriculture Produce in the Czech Republic: 2016 and 2019

Agriculture ◽

10.3390/agriculture11100968 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (10) ◽

pp. 968

Author(s):

Martina Zámková ◽

Stanislav Rojík ◽

Ladislav Pilař ◽

Martina Chalupová ◽

Martin Prokop ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Czech Republic ◽

Organic Agriculture ◽

Organic Food ◽

Marketing Research ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Promising Alternative ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

Customer Preferences ◽

Favourable Change ◽

Customer Attitude

The article analyses the customer attitude towards the qualities and benefits of organic agriculture production for farmers and customers in the Czech Republic, comparing the situation in 2016 and 2019. More than 2500 respondents were subject to the marketing research in the years 2016 and 2019. The data were processed using correspondence analysis and logistic regression. The research study shows that the number of respondents who consider organic food is growing; at the same time, there is a rather large share of consumers who believe organic food to be of better quality. The results show a favourable change in the popularity of organic food. While, in 2016, the main decisive factor in shopping for organic food was its price, in 2019, the main criterion, for the respondents, was quality, with the criterion of price being complemented by the perception of organic food as healthier than conventional food. At the same time, it was established that, the amount spent on organic food in 2019 was higher than that in 2016. This finding was in positive correlation with the increase in respondents’ income. For farmers, organic farming is a promising alternative to conventional agriculture due to a rising demand for organic produce.

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Effects of Haze Pollution on Pesticide use by Rice Farmers: Fresh Evidence from Rural Area of China

10.21203/rs.3.rs-467702/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lili Guo ◽

Andi Cao ◽

Minjun Huang ◽

Houjian Li

Keyword(s):

Rural Area ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Pesticide Use ◽

Reverse Causality ◽

Pesticide Application ◽

Rice Farmers ◽

Haze Pollution ◽

Chemical Pesticide ◽

Chemical Pesticides

Abstract Recently, serious haze pollution has not only threatened the human health and food security, but also seems to have aggravated the unscientific use of pesticides by rice farmers in rural area of China. Using original data on haze pollution across China, combined with rural household survey data collected from 2014 to 2018, we conducted a detailed empirical study on the effects of haze pollution on pesticide use by rice farmers based on the theory of risk aversion. The empirical results revealed that haze pollution with higher levels of PM2.5 positively impacted the use of chemical pesticides in the rice cultivation. More precisely, with 1% increases in PM2.5 concentration, the amount of pesticide application per mu increased by 7.9%, and the average pesticide fee per mu increased by 2.3%, respectively. The results were robust to a series of tests that addressed potential endogeneity concerns, including omitted variable bias, measurement error and reverse causality. We then examined the heterogeneous effects of haze pollution increase on the use of chemical pesticides and found that the effects of haze pollution on the use of chemical pesticides to be weaker for rice farmer with more rice-planting experience, those with smaller cultivated area of rice, however, the effects on the amount of chemical pesticide application per mu to be weaker for those with rice insurance, but the effects on the average chemical pesticide fee per mu to be stronger for those with rice insurance. Our findings provide important policy implications for pesticide risk management in rural areas of developing countries.

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PENGEMBANGAN DESA SENTRA ORGANIC FARMING DI DESA RENDENG, GEBANG, PURWOREJO

SELAPARANG Jurnal Pengabdian Masyarakat Berkemajuan ◽

10.31764/jpmb.v4i1.2998 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 295

Author(s):

Budi Setiawan ◽

Zulfanita Zulfanita ◽

Didik Widiyantono ◽

Sugeng Eko Putro Widoyoko

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Organic Farming ◽

Community Service ◽

Organic Agriculture ◽

Education For Sustainable Development ◽

Community Empowerment ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Community Environment ◽

Institutional Strengthening ◽

The Impact

ABSTRAKKesadaran petani akan dampak dari penggunaan pupuk atau pestisida kimia dalam pertanian konvensional sangat rendah. Penurunan kualitas lingkungan seperti berkurangnya serangga, penurunan kesuburan tanah, penurunan kualitas air, udara dan polusi tanah disebabkan oleh penggunaan bahan kimia dalam pertanian konvensional. Salah satu yang dapat dijadikan solusi untuk mengatasi kondisi ini adalah pengembangan pertanian organik (organic farming). Program Pengabdian Masyarakat dilaksanakan di desa Rendeng, kecamatan Gebang, kabupaten Purworejo bertujuan untuk menjadikan desa Rendeng sebagai kawasan pertanian, peternakan dan perikanan berbasis organic farming. Mitra dalam pelaksanan pengabdian masyarakat ini adalah kelompok tani Ngudi Makmur dengan anggota 30 orang. Metode yang digunakan adalah Education for Sustainable Development (EfSD) merupakan salah satu metode pengabdian kepada masyarakat yang berorientasi pada penyelesaian masalah pada lingkungan masyarakat. Metode EfSD menekankan pada 3 pilar yaitu ekonomi, ekologi atau lingkungan dan sosial. Program kegiatan yang dilaksanakan secara garis besar meliputi, 1) pemberdayaan masyarakat melalui penguatan kelembagaan dan peningkatan kualitas sumber daya manusia,2) Penumbuhan dan pengembangan budidaya pertanian, dan perikanan berbasis organic farming, 3) peningkatan produksi, pengolahan dan pemasaran hasil pertanian dan perikanan. Hasil pengabdian masyarakat ini berupa penguatan kelembagaan Kelompok Tani Ngudi Makmur beraktifitas dengan aktif, adanya program kegiatan dan sosialisasi serta pelatihan serta pembinaan pengetahuan dan pengalaman kelompok tani dalam pengembangan pertanian dan perikanan organik. Kata kunci : organic farming; pertanian; perikanan; education for sustainable development. ABSTRACTFarmers' awareness of the impact of using chemical fertilizers or pesticides in conventional agriculture is very low. Environmental quality degradation such as reduced DR, decreased air quality, air pollution is caused by the use of chemicals in conventional agriculture. One of the solutions to overcome this condition is the development of organic agriculture (organic farming). The Community Service Program implemented in Rendeng village, Gebang District, Purworejo Regency aims to make Rendeng village an organic agriculture-based agricultural, livestock and fishery area. Partners in implementing this community service are the Ngudi Makmur farmer group with 30 members. The method used is Education for Sustainable Development (EfSD), which is a community service method that is oriented towards solving problems in the community environment. The EfSD method emphasizes 3 pillars, namely economic, ecological or environmental and social. The program of activities carried out in outline includes, 1) community empowerment through institutional strengthening and improvement of the quality of human resources, 2) cultivation and development of agricultural and fisheries based on organic agriculture, 3) increasing production, processing and marketing of agricultural and fishery products. The results of this community service are in the form of institutional strengthening of the Ngudi Makmur Farmer Group to be actively active, the existence of a program of activities and outreach as well as training as well as fostering knowledge and experience of farmer groups in developing organic agriculture and fisheries. Keywords : organic farming; agriculture; fishery; education for sustainable development.

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A Comparative Analysis of the Organic Food Market in Turkey, EU, and US

Handbook of Research on Agricultural Policy, Rural Development, and Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Economies - Advances in Environmental Engineering and Green Technologies ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-9837-4.ch023 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 454-483

Author(s):

Bilge Ozturk Goktuna ◽

Nazife Merve Hamzaoğlu

Keyword(s):

Comparative Analysis ◽

Organic Agriculture ◽

Organic Food ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Organic Production ◽

Conventional Agriculture ◽

Food Market ◽

Eu And Us ◽

Negative Impacts ◽

Agriculture And Food

Conventional agriculture has long been criticized about its negative externalities on issues like public health, environment, biodiversity, and all ecological systems on the planet such as environmental pollution, soil erosion, reduction of animal welfare, and negative impacts of GMOs. As an alternative production system to address these problems, organic agriculture has been developed worldwide since the 1970s. In this chapter, an overview of organic agriculture and food market is given and a comparative analysis between organic agricultural markets in EU, US, and Turkey is made after an outlook on the world organic food market. It is seen that EU and US are forthcoming leaders in the organic food market, whilst Turkey remains behind many developed countries in terms of organic production, per capita consumption, and retail sales.

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Could We Stop Killing?—Exploring a Post-Lethal Vegan or Vegetarian Agriculture

World ◽

10.3390/world1020010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 124-134

Author(s):

Stefan Mann

Keyword(s):

Organic Agriculture ◽

Grassland Management ◽

Nutrient Supply ◽

Causal Chain ◽

Agricultural System ◽

Human Consumption ◽

Conventional Agriculture

This paper explores both the necessities and the options for an agricultural system in which no animals are killed by reviewing existing literature. It first identifies a causal chain which can be labelled as vegan wave and which might generate a consensus that animals should not be killed for human consumption. By raising issues of nutrient supply, grassland management and beekeeping, the paper shows that vegan-organic agriculture, vegan-conventional agriculture and post-lethal vegetarian agriculture are three options for such a pathway. Yet, many technical and socioeconomic questions still need to be resolved.

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Trade deals will boost EU organic agriculture

Emerald Expert Briefings ◽

10.1108/oxan-db221158 ◽

2017 ◽

Keyword(s):

Organic Agriculture ◽

Genetically Modified Organisms ◽

Pesticide Use ◽

Content Type ◽

Agriculture Sector ◽

The Past ◽

Organic Products ◽

Trade Deals ◽

Opening Up ◽

The Eu

Subject Outlook for the EU organic agriculture sector. Significance Over the past ten years, the EU’s organic sector has grown on average by 5-6% per year; 6% of farming land in the EU is used for the cultivation of organic foodstuffs. The drivers for continued growth include a consumer desire for ‘cleaner’ food, and concerns about genetically modified organisms and pesticide use in the supply chain. Impacts The EU is focusing on the development of its stringent organic regulations, which apply not only to EU but also to EEA member states. The EU-Chile agreement will likely provide a framework for future deals with other countries in the region such as Mexico. Demand for organic products in the EU is growing faster than production, opening up opportunities for other countries.

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