scholarly journals Memoir and Farming Structures under Soil-Less Culture (Hydroponic Farming) and the Applicability for Africa: A Review

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret S. Gumisiriza ◽  
Patrick A. Ndakidemi ◽  
Ernest R. Mbega

Agriculture is the economic back-borne of majority of developing countries worldwide. The sector employs over 50% of the working population and contributes about 33% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in majority of African states. However, such contribution by the agricultural sector is likely to be affected by climate change, increasing human population and urbanization which impact on available agricultural land in various ways. There is thus an urgent need for developing countries to create or adopt technologies such as; soil-less farming that will not only address climate change challenges but also enhance crop production for improved food security. This paper reviews the science, origin, dynamics and farming systems under the soil-less agriculture precisely hydroponic farming to assist in widening the scope of knowledge of the hydroponic technologies and their implementation in Africa.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-40
Author(s):  
T Thangalakshmi ◽  
V Suthacini

Food security in India is unfavourably affected by several biotic and socio-political situations. The current position may get worse in the future if timely and suitable actions are not executed and planned. The discipline of human population and land for cultivation, climate change, government policies of public distribution and marketing of food grains and lack of a participatory approach all are committing to check down the availability of foods. Also, crop fecundity seems to be very much unsustainable. The situation has to be remedied by all possible means and citizens must be assured of food security. This review summarises several strategies for crop production and food distribution through the public distribution system. Finally, results indicate that India has achieved self-sufficiency in grains; it is still lagging at the back in the production of oilseeds and pulses. It is also commented that there has been a meaningful increase in the reproduction of rice, wheat, cereals, fruits, vegetables, and other products. Among the specific charges made to lift the agricultural sector from its present slowdown and stagnation, we comprise decorated increased public investment and a severe review of subsidies provided to farmers. To improve the infrastructure, credit facilities, inputs, land and water management, effective marketing and price policies, the diversification of agriculture, strengthening the improvement strategies for tackling climate change, and the strict regulation of land use and diversion of land for non-agricultural activities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Medani P. Bhandari

Climate change raises the risk on food security, alters the cropping pattern, and secondly, it also plays the triggering role to widen inequality. The South Asian region is home to nearly half of the poor and malnourished population of the world. In South Asia — Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan encounter similar climate induced changes though they differ in their socio-political, economic, and cultural conditions. The physiological population densities (farming population per unit of agricultural land) suggest that these countries belong to the threat zone in terms of climate change impact on agriculture. It has been obvious that any unfavorable climatic conditions mean poor agricultural growth which will have serious ramification on the countries’ economies. Poverty induces poverty; because of the rudimentary technologies used in agriculture, more manpower is needed for farming thus encouraging couples to increase family manpower to invest on farming, which might lead to overpopulation. This paper evaluates how climate change has direct impact on the agricultural development and broader economic growth in the global context and South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan). Paper unveils the climate change induced challenges in agriculture with the empirical evidence, elaborates the consequences to the farmers livelihood and food security. Based on secondary information, this paper provides climate change risk scenario and recommends few coping strategies to minimize the climate change impact in farming systems and pathway for the future research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Sathaporn Monprapussorna

Addressing climate change for food security poses a great challenge to social welfare in developing countries where agricultural sector plays a significant role in driving economic growth and sustaining livelihoods. Natural climate variability and anthropogenic emissions introduce the considerable effects on agriculture yields and productivity, including nexus of food-water-energy. This paper aims at exploring land suitability for rice farmland in Phra NaKhon Si Ayuttaya province. Projection of temperature and precipitation over a province in 2050 in according to representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios show a few increase in mean monthly temperature, monthly maximum temperature and minimum temperature about 0.5 to 1 degree celcius. Annual precipitation tends to be reduced for RCP 8.5 in comparison to RCP 4.5. Land suitability for growing rice is simulated by using EcoCrop model which requires input parameters from temperature and precipitation projection in 2050. Results reveal a decreasing in land suitability for rice both under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. Agricultural land use tends to be transformed into residential and industrial land by 2050, resulting in the reduction in agricultural land and rice production. Successful adaptation to climate change in the agricultural sector needs to be encouraged by government to build robust cooperative efforts from all stakeholders.Keywords: Climate change; rice; Phra Nakhon Si Ayuttaya, food security; adaptation


Author(s):  
Marianna Fenzi ◽  
Paul Rogé ◽  
Angel Cruz-Estrada ◽  
John Tuxill ◽  
Devra Jarvis

AbstractLocal seed systems remain the fundamental source of seeds for many crops in developing countries. Climate resilience for small holder farmers continues to depend largely on locally available seeds of traditional crop varieties. High rainfall events can have as significant an impact on crop production as increased temperatures and drought. This article analyzes the dynamics of maize diversity over 3 years in a farming community of Yucatán state, Mexico, where elevated levels of precipitation forced farmers in 2012 to reduce maize diversity in their plots. We study how farmers maintained their agroecosystem resilience through seed networks, examining the drivers influencing maize diversity and seed provisioning in the year preceding and following the 2012 climatic disturbance (2011–2013). We found that, under these challenging circumstances, farmers focused their efforts on their most reliable landraces, disregarding hybrids. We show that farmers were able to recover and restore the diversity usually cultivated in the community in the year following the critical climate event. The maize dynamic assessed in this study demonstrates the importance of community level conservation of crop diversity. Understanding farmer management strategies of agrobiodiversity, especially during a challenging climatic period, is necessary to promote a more tailored response to climate change in traditional farming systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. eaat4343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Ortiz-Bobea ◽  
Erwin Knippenberg ◽  
Robert G. Chambers

A pressing question for climate change adaptation is whether ongoing transformations of the agricultural sector affect its ability to cope with climatic variations. We examine this question in the United States, where major increases in productivity have fueled most of agricultural production growth over the past half-century. To quantify the evolving climate sensitivity of the sector and identify its sources, we combine state-level measures of agricultural productivity with detailed climate data for 1960–2004. We find that agriculture is growing more sensitive to climate in Midwestern states for two distinct but compounding reasons: a rising climatic sensitivity of nonirrigated cereal and oilseed crops and a growing specialization in crop production. In contrast, other regions specialize in less climate-sensitive production such as irrigated specialty crops or livestock. Results suggest that reducing vulnerability to climate change should consider the role of policies in inducing regional specialization.


Author(s):  
Mohamed Nasser Baco

Previous studies suggested that maize is set to become a cash crop while ensuring food security better than any other crop. However, climate change has become one of the key production constraints that are now hampering and threatening the sustainability of maize production systems. We conducted a study to better understand changes here defined as adaptations made by smallholder farmers to ensure food security and improve income through maize production in a climate change context. Our results show that maize farmers in northern Benin mainly rely on traditional seeds. Drought as abiotic stress is perceived by farmers in many agro-ecological zones as a disruptive factor for crop production, including maize. When drought is associated with pest damages, both the quantity (i.e. yield) and the quality (i.e. attributes) of products/harvests are negatively affected. The adverse effects of drought continue to reduce production in different agro-ecological zones of the country, because of the lack of widespread adoption of tolerant varieties. The study suggests actions towards the production of drought-tolerant maize seeds, a promotion of seed companies, the organization of actors and value chains. Apart from climate change, the promotion of value chains is also emerging as one of the important aspects to take into account to sustain maize production in Benin.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 2342
Author(s):  
Wangang Liu ◽  
Yiping Chen ◽  
Xinhua He ◽  
Ping Mao ◽  
Hanwen Tian

Global food insecurity is becoming more severe under the threat of rising global carbon dioxide concentrations, increasing population, and shrinking farmlands and their degeneration. We acquired the ISI Web of Science platform for over 31 years (1988–2018) to review the research on how climate change impacts global food security, and then performed cluster analysis and research hotspot analysis with VosViewer software. We found there were two drawbacks that exist in the current research. Firstly, current field research data were defective because they were collected from various facilities and were hard to integrate. The other drawback is the representativeness of field research site selection as most studies were carried out in developed countries and very few in developing countries. Therefore, more attention should be paid to developing countries, especially some African and Asian countries. At the same time, new modified mathematical models should be utilized to process and integrate the data from various facilities and regions. Finally, we suggested that governments and organizations across the world should be united to wrestle with the impact of climate change on food security.


2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-162
Author(s):  
Zdenek Wegscheider ◽  
Mojmir Sabolovic

During the past two decades academia, industry and government have aimed more and more their attention to the phenomenon of a biobased economy providing society with non‐food biobased products. Now developing are biomass industries that make an array of commercial products, including fuels, electricity, chemicals, adhesives, lubricants and building materials, as well as new clothing fibers and plastics. Instead of fossil resources “green” biobased economy uses renewable grown or waste biomass. The lead supplying role to the biobased economy is held by a sector of agriculture, above all the crop production. In this manner an effective limitation of food surplus may occur in the EU market and enhance a value added to all vertical industry. Industrial‐scale production of biobased materials in time with consumers’ changing attitudes towards sustainable economic and social development may affect a wide array of consequences which nowadays can be tediously estimated. Food safety along with food security is one of the hottest issues especially in the United States, knowing that human population and biobased economy compete in using and processing a broad range of agricultural crops. An energy analysis aspect of this caloric relationship among agricultural sector on the supply side and human population and biobased economy on the other – demand side is assumed to represent the principal aim of this study. Consequently, there is the need to evaluate whether a quantity of Czech Crop Output Total is possible to nourish the Czech population and whether there is an available caloric surplus suitable as a biomass resource for biobased economy which is actually taking root.


Plants ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Raza ◽  
Ali Razzaq ◽  
Sundas Mehmood ◽  
Xiling Zou ◽  
Xuekun Zhang ◽  
...  

Agriculture and climate change are internally correlated with each other in various aspects, as climate change is the main cause of biotic and abiotic stresses, which have adverse effects on the agriculture of a region. The land and its agriculture are being affected by climate changes in different ways, e.g., variations in annual rainfall, average temperature, heat waves, modifications in weeds, pests or microbes, global change of atmospheric CO2 or ozone level, and fluctuations in sea level. The threat of varying global climate has greatly driven the attention of scientists, as these variations are imparting negative impact on global crop production and compromising food security worldwide. According to some predicted reports, agriculture is considered the most endangered activity adversely affected by climate changes. To date, food security and ecosystem resilience are the most concerning subjects worldwide. Climate-smart agriculture is the only way to lower the negative impact of climate variations on crop adaptation, before it might affect global crop production drastically. In this review paper, we summarize the causes of climate change, stresses produced due to climate change, impacts on crops, modern breeding technologies, and biotechnological strategies to cope with climate change, in order to develop climate resilient crops. Revolutions in genetic engineering techniques can also aid in overcoming food security issues against extreme environmental conditions, by producing transgenic plants.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Tomás Palmisano

An analysis of the semiotic and productive transformation of food crops under Argentina’s agribusiness model through a study of the diffusion of the term “commodity” in the discourse produced/reproduced by the rural sections of the hegemonic media, combined with statistical data that allow a dialogue between discourse and measurable quantities, concludes that defining the Argentine countryside as a place for commodity production is linked with increasing crop production for export that leads to the erosion of food sovereignty and food security. Un análisis de las transformaciones semióticas y productivas de los frutos de la tierra bajo el modelo argentino de los agronegocios que examina la extensión del término commodity en los discursos producidos/reproducidos por las secciones rurales de los medios gráficos de comunicación hegemónicos, entrecruzado con datos estadísticos para poner en diálogo el nivel del discurso con el de las cantidades medibles, concluye que la consigna que define al campo argentino como un lugar de producción de commodities se imbrica con una tendencia a la intensificación de los cultivos orientados exclusivamente a la exportación y la erosión de la soberanía y seguridad alimentaria.


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