scholarly journals Regional food and feed self-sufficiency related to climate change and animal density – a case study from the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (No. 5) ◽  
pp. 244-252
Author(s):  
Josef Pulkrábek ◽  
Lukáš Pacek ◽  
Jaroslav Čítek ◽  
Roman Stupka ◽  
Kateřina Pračke ◽  
...  

A new food and feed self-sufficiency model for the Czech Republic (RESTEP) was applied for the evaluation of possible adverse climate impacts uniformly reducing crop production by 5, 10, 20, and 30%. The situation was simulated for the whole country and four different agriculturally important regions. Biomass production modeling confirmed that for the whole country, the food self-sufficiency is secured up to 20% of yield decline for most crops, but even 5% yield decline of silage maize would lead to its shortage in animal feeding. On the other hand, regional results vary significantly. Regions Jižní Morava and Střední Čechy shown oversupply of feedstuff allowing them to cover the demands of cattle and pigs up to 20% or 30% decline of yield, respectively. The opposite model represents the Vysočina (VY) region which is not able to cover the demands from own sources even at the baseline scenario. The acreage extension of maize is not possible due to erosion risk restrictions at 25% of arable land at VY. The possible solution consists of extension acreage of alfalfa and clover or finding other plants sufficient for feeding as well for biogas facilities in regions rich in biomass energy consumers.

Author(s):  
Pavel Kotyza ◽  
Josef Slaboch

Being a member of the EU, today the Czech Republic is not entirely dependent on domestic production of food and farming commodities. Since borders inside the EU are open, particular commodities can flow without any tariff measures. But food self-sufficiency belongs to internal factors of national security and therefore it deserves sufficient attention. The aim of this article is to evaluate, based on an analysis, the self-sufficiency rate of the Czech Republic and Poland in selected commodities of crop production between marketing years 2000/2001–2009/2010, with special attention to the most important and cultivated commodities – basic cereals, oilseeds, corn and potatoes. Based on analyses of self-sufficiency rate it can be concluded, that both countries can be considered as stabilised with restpect to rate of self-sufficency of selected crops – none of the presented groups falls under 80%. For most described commodities the trend of self-sufficiency rate in the Czech Republic and Poland is stabilised or growing. Only production of potatoes is coming close to critical treshhold in CZ, therefore national strategies should be put in place to maintain the self-sufficiency rate above the critical limit. After an analysis of internation trade it can be concluded that the Czech Republic is specialised exporter of not-processed commodities but country significantly falls behind Poland in competitiveness of processing of commodities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milada Šťastná ◽  
Veronika Peřinková ◽  
Pavla Pokorná ◽  
Antonín Vaishar

The research was aimed at an overview and analysis of the demonstration activities in the Czech Republic dealing with the transfer of innovations for agricultural practice. Several methods were used to compile the national inventory, in particular the questionnaire survey method. The Czech part of the research was based on 30 questionnaires conducted among both farmers and agricultural organizations engaged in demonstration activities. The questions were focused on a specialization in agriculture, type of the management, connections with networks and their size, types of demonstration activities according to the types of farms and non-productive activities. The most common topics and purposes for demonstration in the Czech Republic are recorded for the category arable land with combined crops. Highly linked to sustainability are activities such as conservation agriculture on arable land with combined crops, root crops and fodders mainly due to a reduction of soil erosion within crop production and animal health management and welfare for dairy within livestock production. The Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a subsidy program to help farmers in the form of illustrative practical demonstrations of comprehensive sustainable farming practices. The main added values for the end-users, if the generated knowledge is implemented, are to strengthen the knowledge transfer system in agriculture, focusing on practical demonstrations and presentation of sustainable farming systems and soil protection in practice. However, the demonstration activities support mostly technological development and some individual ecological measures whereas the sustainability of agriculture as the complex process unifying the crop and animal production is not in the foreground.


Author(s):  
Sebastian Kubala ◽  
Marcin Stanuch

One of the key markets of the European Union is the poultry meat market. The situation on this market is of significant importance to both producers and consumers. The main aim of the article is to study the level of self-sufficiency of selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe in the production of poultry meat. Eleven countries were selected as the research area: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. In the conducted research, simplified indices of self-sufficiency were used: the balance of foreign trade in terms of volume and value, average annual consumption per capita and production volume in relation to consumption. The study was conducted for the years 2009-2018. The statistical sources used come from FAOSTAT and International Trade Centre databases. Research has shown that the analyzed countries are characterized by a significant diversification of the self-sufficiency level of poultry meat production. Only 6 analyzed countries can meet the domestic consumption demand from their own production, the remaining countries supplement the deficit from imported goods. The highest level of self-sufficiency of poultry meat production was observed in Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Hungary. On the other hand, the lowest level is found in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovakia and Latvia.


Author(s):  
Michaela Kolářová ◽  
Luděk Tyšer ◽  
Josef Soukup

The aim of this study was to explore the composition of weed vegetation on arable land in selected areas of the Czech Republic and to determine the level of γ-diversity. Our survey was conducted at 27 conventional and 35 organic farms from 2006–2008. In each sampled field, one phytocoenological relevé of a standard size of 100 m2 was recorded in the central part of the field. The species cover was estimated. The total γ-diversity was expressed as the total number of weed species recorded. γ-diversity of different farming systems, altitudes and crops was calculated. Subsequently, the species were divided on the basis of their perenniality. In total, 172 weed species were found – 123 and 162 in conventional and organic farming, respectively. The highest number of species was found in winter cereals and at medium altitudes. Chenopodium album was recorded as the species with the highest constancy in both types of farming. In total, 89 annuals, 17 biennials and 15 perennials were observed in conventional farming, and 109 annuals, 23 biennials, 28 perennials and 2 semiparasitic annuals were found in organic farming.


2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 551-562
Author(s):  
J. Lososová ◽  
R. Zdeněk

The aim of the paper is to assess the situation and development of Czech agriculture by the production and economic ratios of a sample of farms. The development is evaluated using a database of farms from the Czech Republic since 2000, divided by the share of land included in the LFA. The year 2011 revealed a significant improvement in economic indicators over the previous year. A positive profit appeared in 95% of enterprises and economic results approached the results of 2007. An important trend is the reduction in the number of workers, when in 2011 the number of workers was equal to 70% to that in 2000, while labour productivity is increasing annually by an average of 7%. In the structure of production, the average farm revealed a revenue growth of crop production, the revenue from livestock production was declining, although the opposite trend appeared in mountain areas. In all categories of farms, there is a growing dependence on subsidies. Although the year 2011 was the second most productive since 2000, the profit after deducting subsidies was reached by 13% of farms only.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 34-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Miháliková ◽  
S. Matula ◽  
F. Doležal

The database of soil hydrophysical properties in the Czech Republic called HYPRESCZ was created. It is based on the European database HYPRES, HYdraulic PRoperties of European Soils, and follows its structure with few modifications. It collects the available data from the Czech Republic from which pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for the estimation of soil hydrophysical properties from easily available soil properties can be derived and 2101&nbsp;database entries were collected. The entries have different quality of data, out of the total number of entries 707 entries were applicable to PTFs derivation for the estimation of soil water retention curves (SWRCs). After elimination of replicates, finally 159 unique soil horizons (arable land only) were used for PTFs derivation. The parametric continuous pedotransfer functions for estimation of SWRCs in the Czech Republic were derived within this study and are based on W&ouml;sten&rsquo;s model. The retention curves were estimated using both these newly derived PTFs and W&ouml;sten&rsquo;s original model, which was derived for European soils in general. The uncertainty of estimation was evaluated, employing the root mean squared error (RMSE) and the coefficient of determination (R<sup>2</sup>) comparing the PTF-estimated and the directly fitted retention curves. The reliability of the newly derived PTFs for Czech soils was higher (RMSE = 0.059 cm<sup>3</sup>/cm<sup>3</sup> and R<sup>2</sup> = 71%) compared to W&ouml;sten&rsquo;s general PTFs (RMSE = 0.11 cm<sup>3</sup>/cm<sup>3</sup> and R<sup>2</sup> = 36%).


Author(s):  
Josef Spěvák ◽  
Miroslav Havlíček

Biomass as one of the renewable resources of energy has bright future in utilization, especially in obtaining various forms of energy (heat, electrical energy, gas).According to the conception of energy policy of the Czech Republic and according to the fulfillment of the indicators of renewable resources using until the year 2010, the research of thermophysical characteristics of biofuels was realized.There were acquired considerable amount of results by combustion and gasification process on the basis of three-year project „Biomass energy parameters.” By means of combustion and gasification tests of various (biomass) fuels were acquired the results which were not published so far.Acquired results are published in the fuel sheets, which are divided into four parts. They consist of information on fuel composition, ash composition, testing conditions and measurand overview. Measurements were realized for the process of combustion, fluidized-bed gasification and fixed-bed gasification. Following fuels were tested: Acacia, Pine, Birch, Beech, Spruce, Poplar, Willow, Rape, Amaranth, Corn, Flax, Wheat, Safflower, Mallow, and Sorrel.


2008 ◽  
Vol 44 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 49-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Kocmánková ◽  
M. Trnka ◽  
Z. Žalud ◽  
D. Semerádová ◽  
M. Dubrovský ◽  
...  

The study compares two methods for modeling the potential distribution of pests when applied to the European corn borer (<I>Ostrinia nubilalis</I>Hubner). The development of the European corn borer (ECB) is known to be closely correlated with daily air temperature as well as other climate variables. The climatic parameters are, therefore, used to predict the potential geographical distribution using tested tools such as CLIMEX or ECAMON. These models consider the climatic suitability of a given site/region for the pest’s development and, thus, the possible establishment of a population at a given location. In this study, meteorological data from 1961 to 2000 and from 45 meteorological stations were used to characterise the current climate conditions in the Czech Republic. Validation was based on available field data of the occurrence of ECB in the same period. The climate parameters were later modified according to the estimates based on the combination of three SRES emission scenarios and three global circulation models. Under all climate change scenarios, we noted a marked shift of the pest’s potential niches to higher altitudes, which might lead to an increase in the infestation pressure during the first half of this century. The present area of the univoltine population will increase due to temperature increases even above 800 m a.s.l. In addition there is a risk of the establishment of a bivoltine population in the main agricultural areas and 38% of arable land in the Czech Republic before 2050.


2018 ◽  
Vol 228 ◽  
pp. 902-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Ramirez Camargo ◽  
Felix Nitsch ◽  
Katharina Gruber ◽  
Wolfgang Dorner

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