Conservation agriculture in Africa: climate smart agricultural development

This book is about Conservation Agriculture (the use of no tillage systems) to preserve soil structure and integrity. It has become an increasingly important step towards sustainable farming. This publication brings together conservation agriculture and climate smart decision making processes for the first time, focusing on Africa. This book brings to the fore scientific and empirical evidence about Conservation Agriculture in Africa, articulated by the Second Africa Congress on Conservation Agriculture (2ACCA) held in Johannesburg in 2018. It describes how farmers in Africa are successfully adopting Conservation Agriculture as an alternative to the unsustainable conventional farming practices and as a solution to loss of agricultural productivity, soil erosion and land degradation, climate change challenges and ever-increasing food insecurity. This work discusses how Conservation Agriculture can support the implementation of the African Union's Malabo Declaration and Agenda 2063 which calls for climate smart agricultural development. It provides development-oriented case studies and scientific evidence relevant to all stakeholders in the public, private and civil sectors who are engaged in building policy, institutional and human capacity to accelerate the mainstreaming of Conservation Agriculture across Africa.

Conventional agriculture and not drought alters relationships between soil biota and functions

Soil biodiversity constitutes the biological pillars of ecosystem services provided by soils worldwide. Soil life is threatened by intense agricultural management and shifts in climatic conditions as two important global change drivers which are not often jointly studied under field conditions. We addressed the effects of experimental short-term drought over the wheat growing season on soil organisms and ecosystem functions under organic and conventional farming in a Swiss long term trial. Our results suggest that activity and community metrics are suitable indicators for drought stress while microbial communities primarily responded to agricultural practices. Importantly, we found a significant loss of multiple pairwise positive and negative relationships between soil biota and process-related variables in response to conventional farming, but not in response to experimental drought. These results suggest a considerable weakening of the contribution of soil biota to ecosystem functions under long-term conventional agriculture. Independent of the farming system, experimental and seasonal (ambient) drought conditions directly affected soil biota and activity. A higher soil water content during early and intermediate stages of the growing season and a high number of significant relationships between soil biota to ecosystem functions suggest that organic farming provides a buffer against drought effects.

Seed Source Effects on Germination, Growth, and Yield of Carrots Under Natural Farming

Natural farming is a type of low-input sustainable agricultural system that is characterized by the avoidance of the use of any animal materials. Production of self-produced seeds by farmers is recommended under natural farming environments, with an expectation of improved crop growth and yield. However, there have been no scientific studies that investigated the performance of self-produced seeds under natural farming. This study investigated the germination rate, growth, and yield of carrots (Daucus carota L.) from different seed sources under natural farming. The main experimental factor was the cultivation method: CT – control; CF – conventional farming; NF1 – natural farming with tillage and compost input; and NF2 – natural farming without tillage and compost, and the subfactor was the seed source: OPN – open-pollinated seeds self-produced under natural farming; OPC – open-pollinated seeds produced under conventional farming; and HB – hybrid seeds. The germination rate of OPN seeds was higher than that of other seeds. In addition, root fresh weight and other root parameters of OPN were as high as for HB seeds. This suggests that using self-produced seeds by farmers improves crop performance in a natural farming system.

How Young Consumers Perceive Vertical Farming in the Nordics. Is the Market Ready for the Coming Boom?

Producing food via vertical farming (VF) is an efficient method since it requires less space with increased yield per unit area. Such a system can assist in solving major food-shortage problems since it presents a higher crop yield per unit area compared to conventional farming. Thus, VF can be seen as a production method that can cope with the challenge of the constantly growing population, making it also possible to cultivate crops in regions with adverse climate conditions. However, the public might be concerned about the sustainability of VF systems since plants are produced in an unconventional setting. Therefore, there is a need to consider and evaluate the consumers’ acceptance of VF. The particular study attempts to both analyse consumer acceptance of VF in the Nordic areas and offer insights into VF acceptance among young customers in a comparative analysis. The results indicated that VF is not widely accepted by young Nordic consumers. The concept of sustainability is one of the principles driving forces behind consumer acceptance of vertical farms. The more cases of vertical farms in European cities, the better seems to be the level of acceptance among young customers and their willingness to purchase their products.

Psychological and Physical Health of Organic and Conventional Farmers: A Review

Farmers’ health compared to the general population has been the object of some studies and reviews. Among all factors implied in psychological and physical health, the farming system (i.e., organic or conventional farming) was identified as one of the relevant factors to investigate. This article aims to review the literature established on the comparison between organic and conventional farmers’ health and its correlates. Twenty-nine quantitative or qualitative articles were identified for inclusion (n = 29). Results showed that organic farmers had globally better psychological and physical health than conventional farmers. Effect sizes were small to large; they differed according to the target outcome. In addition, factors correlated with farmers’ health were usually psychological, social, financial, and agricultural. This review of literature encourages further research in this area, particularly on developing agricultural models.

Status, benefits and future prospects of organic farming in India: A review

Agriculture is still a major livelihood option for majority of population especially in developing counties. While addressing the global food demand, it should also be sustainable in nature in the sense that it should not directly or indirectly cause to depletion of natural resources and the ecosystem in general. Conventional farming is often based on excessive and unscientific use of chemical fertilizer, pesticide and insecticides. It is argued that conventional farming contributes to climate change, depleting fresh water resources, degrading soil fertility and polluting the environment. From this angle, organic farming is suggested as an alternative to conventional farming since its principles and philosophy are entirely different and it has an edge over conventional farming on various grounds. Considering the fact that organic agriculture covers only a small percentage of the net sworn area especially in the case of developing countries like India, whether organic agriculture is a better option to follow, is a pertinent question. In this context, this paper attempts to examine some of the major relevant literature (from year 2000 to 2021) on various aspects of organic farming like definition, principles, and proposed benefits (environmental, economic and social), present status in India, and its prospects.

The feasibility of environmentally friendly and conventional shallot farming in Bantul Regency

This study analyses the differences in costs, profit, and feasibility of environmentally friendly and conventional shallot farming in Bantul Regency. Data were collected from 128 farmers taken by cluster sampling and analyzed quantitatively using profit analysis and R/C ratio. The results showed that the total production cost of environmentally friendly shallot farming was 12.29% higher than conventional shallot farming, but conventional shallot farming had a higher profit of 41.94%. Both environmentally friendly and conventional farming is feasible, but the R/C ratio of conventional shallot farming is higher by 0.7.