Agronomy for Sustainable Development
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Published By Springer-Verlag

1773-0155, 1774-0746

2022 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Helfenstein ◽  
Vasco Diogo ◽  
Matthias Bürgi ◽  
Peter H. Verburg ◽  
Beatrice Schüpbach ◽  
...  

AbstractThere is broad agreement that agriculture has to become more sustainable in order to provide enough affordable, healthy food at minimal environmental and social costs. But what is “more sustainable”? More often than not, different stakeholders have opposing opinions on what a more sustainable future should look like. This normative dimension is rarely explicitly addressed in sustainability assessments. In this study, we present an approach to assess the sustainability of agricultural development that explicitly accounts for the normative dimension by comparing observed development with various societal visions. We illustrate the approach by analyzing farm- and landscape-scale development as well as sustainability outcomes in a Swiss case study landscape. Observed changes were juxtaposed with desired changes by Avenir Suisse, a liberal think tank representing free-market interests; the Swiss Farmers Association, representing a conservative force; and Landwirtschaft mit Zukunft, an exponent of the Swiss agroecological movement. Overall, the observed developments aligned most closely with desired developments of the liberal think-tank (72%). Farmer interviews revealed that in the case study area farms increased in size (+ 57%) and became more specialized and more productive (+ 223%) over the past 20 years. In addition, interpretation of aerial photographs indicated that farming became more rationalized at the landscape level, with increasing field sizes (+ 34%) and removal of solitary field trees (− 18%). The case study example highlights the varying degrees to which current developments in agriculture align with societal visions. By using societal visions as benchmarks to track the progress of agricultural development, while explicitly addressing their narratives and respective systems of values and norms, this approach offers opportunities to inform also the wider public on the extent to which current developments are consistent with different visions. This could help identify mismatches between desired and actual development and pave the way for designing new policies.


2022 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Tacconi ◽  
Katharina Waha ◽  
Jonathan Jesus Ojeda ◽  
Peat Leith
Keyword(s):  

2022 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphaël Belmin ◽  
Eric Malézieux ◽  
Claudine Basset-Mens ◽  
Thibaud Martin ◽  
Charles Mottes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Vuaille ◽  
Thorsten Klaus Otto Gravert ◽  
Jakob Magid ◽  
Martin Hansen ◽  
Nina Cedergreen

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niko Wojtynia ◽  
Jerry van Dijk ◽  
Marjolein Derks ◽  
Peter W. G. Groot Koerkamp ◽  
Marko P. Hekkert

AbstractAgri-food system transitions are a considerable challenge requiring stakeholder alignment on what changes need to be made and how. When stakeholders do not agree on the goals or methods of a transition, this can be a serious obstacle to success. This paper analyzes 42 vision documents for the future of Dutch agriculture from a broad range of stakeholders to determine stakeholder alignment using an inductive coding approach. We identified 23 issues as the main challenges for the transition in these documents. We are the first to categorize them according to a recently proposed problem-solution space for wicked problems. Stakeholders were fully aligned in recognizing the problem for the majority of issues, but showed agreement on solutions for less than a quarter. For the issues of international orientation, sector size, and farm business models, we found a lack of consensus on the problem, indicating fundamental disagreement about the type of agricultural sector desired by stakeholders. The apparent consensus on environmental and social issues provides clear societal expectations for agronomic development and innovation, while the divergence on economic issues highlights the rift between growth-oriented paradigms and more holistic paradigms like agroecology. The crucial empirical novelty of this paper is that progress on environmental and social matters is restricted by divergent views on the economic characteristics of a future agri-food system, adding further complexity to mission-oriented transition and innovation policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaixian Wu ◽  
Changbin Pan ◽  
Shiyong Zhou ◽  
Feng Zhou ◽  
Guangqiang Long ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Vargas-Carpintero ◽  
Thomas Hilger ◽  
Johannes Mössinger ◽  
Roney Fraga Souza ◽  
Juan Carlos Barroso Armas ◽  
...  

AbstractAcrocomia spp., a genus of wild-growing palms in the neotropics, is rapidly gaining interest as a promising multipurpose crop. Diverse products can be derived from various components of the palm, the oils being of highest interest. Acrocomia shows similar oil yield and fatty acid composition to the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). It is, however, able to cope with a wider range of environmental conditions, including temporary water scarcity and lower temperatures, thus potentially a more sustainable alternative to its tropical counterpart. Acrocomia’s research history is recent compared to other traditional crops and thus knowledge gaps, uncertainty, and challenges need to be addressed. This review attempts to assess the acrocomia’s preparedness for cultivation by highlighting the state-of-the-art in research and identifying research gaps. Based on a systematic literature search following a value web approach, it (a) provides a comprehensive overview of research topics, (b) shows the development of publication activities over time and the drivers of this development, and (c) compiles main findings to assess the acrocomia’s preparedness for commercial cultivation. Our results confirm its multipurpose characteristic as a potential feedstock for manifold sectors. Research has continued to increase over the last decade, especially on A. aculeata and is driven by the interest in bioenergy. Increasing knowledge on botany has contributed to understanding the genetic diversity and genus-specific biology. This has enabled applied research on seed germination and propagation toward domestication and initial plantation activities, mostly in Brazil. Main research gaps are associated with genotype–environment interaction, planting material, crop management, and sustainable cropping systems. Overall, we conclude that acrocomia is at an early phase of development as an alternative and multipurpose crop and its up-scaling requires the integration of sustainability strategies tailored to location-based social-ecological conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Piseddu ◽  
Gianni Bellocchi ◽  
Catherine Picon-Cochard

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bonnet ◽  
Noémie Gaudio ◽  
Lionel Alletto ◽  
Didier Rafaillac ◽  
Jacques-Eric Bergez ◽  
...  

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