North Otago Sustainable Land Management Group: Assisting the North Otago community to move towards the goal of sustainable land use

Author(s):  
G. Ludemann ◽  
D.C. Hewson ◽  
R. Green

The North Otago area has a climate that often fluctuates from severe drought to flood in a short space of time. The climatic extremes, and some unsustainable land use practices can put the area's fragile loessial soils at risk of water and wind erosion. This paper outlines an approach used in North Otago which has enabled the community to identify its sustainability and environmental issues and begin to make changes to land use and farmer attitudes. A group of key farmers was brought together to oversee the preparation of Sustainable Land Management Guidelines for the downlands. (This group became the North Otago Sustainable Land Management Group - NOSLaM Group.) From this grew a wide-ranging community-driven project with a full-time co-ordinator, and a vision to have most land users adopting sustainable farming systems. This should ensure the area is ready to meet the world market demands for environmental quality in food and fibre production. The Group will promote individual environmental farm plans which will have a monitoring component. Some farmers will work towards some form of property accreditation such as ISO 14001. This pilot project will be highlighting the economic benefits of environmentally sound farming methods, through seminars, field-days, newsletters and a demonstration farm. The Group is working in partnership with farmers, the processing industry and marketing people to identify market opportunities for the area's food and fibre produced by environmentally friendly farming systems. Keywords: cultivation, environment, Environmental Farm Plans, erosion, guidelines, ISO 14001 accreditation, market opportunities, monitoring, sustainable land use, sustainability

1995 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Gameda ◽  
J. Dumanski

The Framework for Evaluation of Sustainable Land Management (FESLM) was used to assess the sustainablility of two land-use systems in the Canadian Prairies. The FESLM provided a means of identifying the factors impacting on sustainability, the processes by which these factors operate and interact, and the indicators and thresholds by which they could be measured to attain an assessment end point. On the basis of the framework, it was possible to expand sustainability assessment beyond traditional factors of productivity and economic viability to include ones pertaining to production risk, protection of the natural resource base, and social acceptability. In conducting the FESLM-based analysis, the decision-making characteristics of the producer were identified as important components of sustainability. Preliminary indications are that substantially greater amounts of farm-specific and regional data are required to make a conclusive FESLM-based sustainability assessment. Nevertheless, application of the framework suggests that, for the farming systems and the type of producer under consideration, the conservation-based land-use system is more sustainable than the conventional land-use system. Key words: Sustainable land management, Black Chernozemic soil zone, livestock farming


Author(s):  
I. O. Oyewo ◽  
J. O. Oladeebo ◽  
A. A. Adesope ◽  
M. O. Raufu

Farmland sustainability and increased agricultural production have been a major concern of average farmers in Nigeria especially in South Western part of the Country. The study examines the farm level indicators and their effects on agricultural production among rural farmers. Multi-stage methods of sampling technique were used to select fifty respondents for this study using a well-structured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed by the use of descriptive such as means, percentage, standard deviation and fuzzy logic analysis. The result shows that average age of farmer, farm size, household size and farming experience are 52.28 years, 2.072 hectare, 6.80 and 29.42 years of farming experience respectively. The fuzzy logic method was used to compute the composite indicator of sustainable land use (ISLU) which was 0.2843 indicating that farmers' land management practices in the study area are generally sustainable with the current application of the indicators. Land fallowing, trends of vegetative cover, irrigation, pesticide used among others contributed a higher percentage of land use sustainability with about 3.8% each, while minimum tillage, cover crops, crop rotation and cassava cutting use had no contribution to land use sustainability. The study recommends that rural water should be made available and that informal training through extension services should be conducted to educate farmers on sustainable land management (SLM) practices in order to have a better environment and improve production in the study area.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6365
Author(s):  
Alelgn Ewunetu ◽  
Belay Simane ◽  
Ermias Teferi ◽  
Benjamin F. F. Zaitchik

Sustainable land management (SLM) is a leading policy issue in Ethiopia. However, the adoption and continuous use of SLM technologies remain low. This study investigates the interrelationship of adopted SLM technologies and key factors of farmers’ decisions to use SLM technologies in the North Gojjam sub-basin of the Upper Blue Nile. The study was based on the investigation of cross-sectional data obtained from 414 randomly selected rural household heads, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. Descriptive statistics and Econometric models (i.e., Multivariate Probit and Poisson regression) were used to analyze quantitative data, while a content analysis method was used for qualitative data analysis. Results indicate that at least one type of SLM technology was implemented by 94% of farm households in the North Gojjam sub-basin. The most widely used technologies were chemical fertilizer, soil bund, and animal manure. Most of the adopted SLM technologies complement each other. Farm size, family size, male-headed household, local institutions, perception of soil erosion, livestock size, total income, and extension service increased the adoption probability of most SLM technologies. Plot fragmentation, household age, plot distance, off-farm income, market distance, and perception of good fertile soil discourage the adoption probability of most SLM technologies. To scale up SLM technologies against land degradation, it is important to consider households’ demographic characteristics, the capacity of farm households, and plot-level related factors relevant to the specific SLM technologies being promoted.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-7

To understand how various factors influence phenological patterns like fruit production and the extent of phenological variability as survival strategy in different environments, fruit production of shea trees was studied in different agroclimatic zones (North Sudanian, South Sudanian and North Guinean) in Mali. Three sites were selected for this study and in each site; two stands (field and fallow) were concerned. For each stand, three “land use history or land management" i.e. new fields/fallows (1-5 years), medium (6-10 years) and old (10 years) were considered and permanent plots of 0.25 ha were established. 60 adult shea trees (DBH) ≥ 10 cm) were selected by site and monitored for fruit production assessment. The nested analysis of variance on the yield showed a significant site effect and significant effect of land use history within stand. However, stand effect within site was not significant. Factors like site and land management (land use history) appear to be determinant for fruit production of V. paradoxa. The site of Mperesso in the South Sudanian zone showed the highest fruit mean yield (11 kg/tree), significantly higher than the fruit mean yield observed at Daelan (7 kg/tree) in the North Sudanian zone and that observed at Nafégué (6 kg/tree) in the North Guinean zone. For field stand, old fields showed highest mean yield in all sites. For fallow stand, old fallows showed the lowest mean yield in most of cases. Different pattern was observed between field and fallow stands regarding the effect of land management. More fields are aged, more they influence positively fruit production whereas more fallows are aged, and more they influence negatively fruit production. This study highlighted the importance of land management practices and therefore, any domestication program to be successful should consider the potential effect of management practices.


1995 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Zinck ◽  
A. Farshad

The concept of sustainability shows many facets. Ecologists, environmentalists, agronomists, sociologists, economists and politicians use it with different connotations. In addition, the sustainability of land management systems varies in space, according to climate, soil, technology and societal conditions. Sustainable farming systems vary also in time, as they evolve and may collapse, frequently together with the corresponding sociosystems. Because of its complexity, sustainability is difficult to measure directly and requires the use of appropriate indicators for assessment. A good indicator is free of bias, sensitive to temporal changes and spatial variability, predictive and referenced to threshold values. Relevant data are often incomplete or inadequate for indicator implementation. To embrace the whole width of sustainability, several methods and techniques should be used concurrently, including land evaluation and coevolutionary, retrospective and knowledge-based approaches. It is, however, at the application level that major constraints arise. A sustainable land management system must satisfy a large variety of requirements, including technological feasibility, economic viability, political desirability, administrative manageability, social acceptability, and environmental soundness. Real world conditions at farm and policy-making levels need to be substantially improved to achieve sustainable land management. Key words: Definition, assessment and implementation issues of sustainable land management


2019 ◽  
Vol 648 ◽  
pp. 1462-1475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kindiye Ebabu ◽  
Atsushi Tsunekawa ◽  
Nigussie Haregeweyn ◽  
Enyew Adgo ◽  
Derege Tsegaye Meshesha ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nádia Jones ◽  
Jan de Graaff ◽  
Filomena Duarte ◽  
Isabel Rodrigo ◽  
Ate Poortinga

Author(s):  
Bùi Dũng Thể ◽  
Hồng Bích Ngọc

<p><strong>Abstract: </strong>This study undertakes an economic analysis of selected sustainable land management (SLM) models in three selected provinces: Hoa Binh province in the Northwestern Mountainous region, Quang Tri province in the North Central Coast and Can Tho province in the Mekong Delta. The SLM models in Hoa Binh province are agroforestry models and those in the provinces of Quang Tri and Can Tho are annual crop rotations and intercropping with improved cultivation methods. The present study uses primary data from a multipurpose survey of 826 farm households. The results show that the agroforestry systems in Hoa Binh province are not financially attractive to farmers as their net returns are low, but their off-site benefit of soil erosion reduction in terms of safe removal and dumping cost of sediment is remarkable, about VND 300,000–320,000 per hectare per year. The SLM models in Hai Lang district (Quang Tri) are profitable with a much higher net return than that of prevailing non-SLM model with cassava mono-cropping. For Can Tho province, the SLM models with rice and upland crop rotations have significantly higher net returns than those of the triple-rice rotation model. However, the profitability of the studied SLM models is significantly affected by the risks associated with poor development or lack of outlet markets. Enhancing farmers’ agribusiness knowledge making them be able to deal with risks in the adoption of SLM models is of vital importance.</p><p>Keywords: sustainable land management economic analysis, Hoa Binh, Quang Tri, Can Tho</p><p> </p>


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