Hasil untuk "Agriculture"

E. Bennett, S. Carpenter, N. Caraco

R. Chambers, A. Pacey, L. Thrupp

Gershon Feder, D. Umali

R. Leonard, W. G. Knisel, Dean Still

Clevo Wilson, C. Tisdell

S. Savcı

L. Brussaard, P. C. Ruiter, G. Brown

H. Wilson, M. Xenopoulos

A. Demirbaş

G. Pe’er, L. Dicks, P. Visconti et al.

O. Babalola

J. Vliet, H. Groot, P. Rietveld et al.

C. Parisi, M. Vigani, E. Rodríguez-Cerezo

Abstract Nanotechnology is recognised by the European Commission as one of its six “Key Enabling Technologies” that contribute to sustainable competitiveness and growth in several industrial sectors. The current challenges of sustainability, food security and climate change are engaging researchers in exploring the field of nanotechnology as new source of key improvements for the agricultural sector. However, concrete contributions are still uncertain. Despite the numerous potential advantages of nanotechnology and the growing trends in publications and patents, agricultural applications have not yet made it to the market. Several factors could explain the scarcity of commercial applications. On the one hand, industry experts stress that agricultural nanotechnology does not demonstrate a sufficient economic return to counterbalance the high initial production investments. On the other hand, new nanotech regulation in the EU might create regulatory uncertainty for products already on the market and affect public perception. However, recent studies demonstrate that public opinion is not negative towards nanotechnology and that the introduction on the market of nanotech products with clear benefits will likely drive consumer acceptance of more sensitive applications. The rapid progress of nanotechnology in other key industries may over time be transferred to agricultural applications as well, and facilitate their development.

L. Luo, Yibing Ma, Shuzhen Zhang et al.

Z. Bharucha, J. Pretty

Almost every ecosystem has been amended so that plants and animals can be used as food, fibre, fodder, medicines, traps and weapons. Historically, wild plants and animals were sole dietary components for hunter–gatherer and forager cultures. Today, they remain key to many agricultural communities. The mean use of wild foods by agricultural and forager communities in 22 countries of Asia and Africa (36 studies) is 90–100 species per location. Aggregate country estimates can reach 300–800 species (e.g. India, Ethiopia, Kenya). The mean use of wild species is 120 per community for indigenous communities in both industrialized and developing countries. Many of these wild foods are actively managed, suggesting there is a false dichotomy around ideas of the agricultural and the wild: hunter–gatherers and foragers farm and manage their environments, and cultivators use many wild plants and animals. Yet, provision of and access to these sources of food may be declining as natural habitats come under increasing pressure from development, conservation-exclusions and agricultural expansion. Despite their value, wild foods are excluded from official statistics on economic values of natural resources. It is clear that wild plants and animals continue to form a significant proportion of the global food basket, and while a variety of social and ecological drivers are acting to reduce wild food use, their importance may be set to grow as pressures on agricultural productivity increase.

M. Aizen, S. Aguiar, J. Biesmeijer et al.

The global increase in the proportion of land cultivated with pollinator‐dependent crops implies increased reliance on pollination services. Yet agricultural practices themselves can profoundly affect pollinator supply and pollination. Extensive monocultures are associated with a limited pollinator supply and reduced pollination, whereas agricultural diversification can enhance both. Therefore, areas where agricultural diversity has increased, or at least been maintained, may better sustain high and more stable productivity of pollinator‐dependent crops. Given that >80% of all crops depend, to varying extents, on insect pollination, a global increase in agricultural pollinator dependence over recent decades might have led to a concomitant increase in agricultural diversification. We evaluated whether an increase in the area of pollinator‐dependent crops has indeed been associated with an increase in agricultural diversity, measured here as crop diversity, at the global, regional, and country scales for the period 1961–2016. Globally, results show a relatively weak and decelerating rise in agricultural diversity over time that was largely decoupled from the strong and continually increasing trend in agricultural dependency on pollinators. At regional and country levels, there was no consistent relationship between temporal changes in pollinator dependence and crop diversification. Instead, our results show heterogeneous responses in which increasing pollinator dependence for some countries and regions has been associated with either an increase or a decrease in agricultural diversity. Particularly worrisome is a rapid expansion of pollinator‐dependent oilseed crops in several countries of the Americas and Asia that has resulted in a decrease in agricultural diversity. In these regions, reliance on pollinators is increasing, yet agricultural practices that undermine pollination services are expanding. Our analysis has thereby identified world regions of particular concern where environmentally damaging practices associated with large‐scale, industrial agriculture threaten key ecosystem services that underlie productivity, in addition to other benefits provided by biodiversity.

F. Obi, B. Ugwuishiwu, J. Nwakaire

Agricultural wastes are non-product outputs of production and processing of agricultural products that may contain material that can benefit man but whose economic values are less than the cost of collection, transportation, and processing for beneficial use. Estimates of agricultural waste arising are rare, but they are generally thought of as contributing a significant proportion of the total waste matter in the developed world. Agricultural development is usually accompanied by wastes from the irrational application of intensive farming methods and the abuse of chemicals used in cultivation, remarkably affecting rural environments in particular and the global environment in general. Generally, agricultural wastes are generated from a number of sources notably from cultivation, livestock and aquaculture. These wastes are currently used for a number of applications through the ‘3R’ strategy of waste management. Agricultural waste management system (AWMS) was discussed and a typical waste management options for a poultry farm was also described using the six agricultural waste management functions. Agricultural waste has a toxicity potential to plant, animals and human through many direct and indirect channels. The effects of these toxic agricultural wastes on the environment were discussed as well as their management. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v35i4.34

Golnar Behzadi, M. O'Sullivan, T. Olsen et al.

Supply chain risk management is a large and growing field of research. However, within this field, mathematical models for agricultural products have received relatively little attention. This is somewhat surprising as risk management is even more important for agricultural supply chains due to challenges associated with seasonality, supply spikes, long supply lead-times, and perishability. This paper carries out a thorough review of the relatively limited literature on quantitative risk management models for agricultural supply chains. Specifically, we identify robustness and resilience as two key techniques for managing risk. Since these terms are not used consistently in the literature, we propose clear definitions and metrics for these terms; we then use these definitions to classify the agricultural supply chain risk management literature. Implications are given for both practice and future research on agricultural supply chain risk management.

S. Fielke, Bruce V. Taylor, E. Jakku

Abstract Digitalisation is widely regarded as having the potential to provide productivity and sustainability gains for the agricultural sector. However, there are likely to be broader implications arising from the digitalisation of agricultural innovation systems. Agricultural knowledge and advice networks are important components of agricultural innovation systems that have the potential to be digitally disrupted. In this paper, we review trends within agricultural knowledge and advice networks both internationally and in Australia, to anticipate and prepare for potential transformations in these networks. Through a combined structured and traditional review of relevant literature, we come to three key conclusions regarding the state-of-the-art. First, the connectivity of humans and technologies in agricultural knowledge and advice networks and value chains will likely continue to increase. Second, transparency of agricultural practices and informational interaction between farmers, advisors, agri-businesses, consumers and regulators will drive and be driven by growing connectivity. Finally, there are likely to be challenges balancing the priorities of various agricultural stakeholders as agricultural innovation systems digitalise. These findings have implications for the oversight of international agri-food sectors.

Yinfeng Xia, Ming Zhang, Daniel C W Tsang et al.

Eutrophication of natural water is a universal problem. Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from agricultural runoff are the main sources of nutrient input, provided that emissions from industrial point sources (IPS) are under control. Therefore, it is of great environmental importance to reduce pollution associated with agricultural runoff as a means of regulating eutrophication levels in natural water. Numerous methods proposed for treating agricultural runoff can be classified into three categories: source control, process control, and end treatment. In this review, major technologies for N and P control from agricultural runoff are summarized along with discussion of newly proposed technologies such as biochar biomimetics and microbial catalyst. Because agricultural runoff (from farmlands to receiving waters) is a complicated pollution process, it is difficult to regulate the nutrients discharged via such process. This review will thus offer a comprehensive understanding on the overall process of agricultural runoff and eutrophication to help establish control strategies against highly complicated agricultural non-point sources.