Sustainability of Horticultural Systems in the 21st Century PDF Download

Author: Lukas Bertschinger
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Horticulture
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309148960
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.

Author: Dilip Nandwani
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319069047
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Sustainable horticulture is gaining increasing attention in the field of agriculture as demand for the food production rises to the world community. Sustainable horticultural systems are based on ecological principles to farm, optimizes pest and disease management approaches through environmentally friendly and renewable strategies in production agriculture. It is a discipline that addresses current issues such as food security, water pollution, soil health, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, entomology, ecology, chemistry and food sciences. Sustainable horticulture interprets methods and processes in the farming system to the global level. For that, horticulturists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable horticulture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable horticulture treats problem sources.

Author: Ika Darnhofer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400745036
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
Farming Systems Research has three core characteristics: it builds on systems thinking, it depends on the close collaboration between social and biophysical sciences, and it relies on participation to build co-learning processes. Farming Systems Research posits that to contribute towards sustainable rural development, both interdisciplinary collaborations and local actor engagement are needed. Together, they allow for changes in understanding and changes in practices. This book gives an overview of the insights generated in 20 years of Farming Systems Research. It retraces the emergence and development of Farming Systems Research in Europe, summarises the state-of-the-art for key areas, and provides an outlook on new explorations, especially those tackling the dynamic nature of farming systems and their interaction with the natural environment and the context of action.

Author: Chieri Kubota
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940159371X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
We are facing global issues concerning environmental pollution and shortages of food, feed, phytomass (plant biomass) and natural resources, which will become more serious in the forthcoming decades. To solve these issues, immeasurable numbers of various plants and huge amounts of phytomass are required every year for food, feed and for the improvement of amenities, the environment and our quality of life. Increased phytomass is also required as alternative raw material for producing bio-energy, biodegradable plastics and many other plant-originated industrial products. Only by using phytomass as a reproducible energy source and raw material, instead of fossil fuels and atomic power, we can save natural resources and minimize environmental pollution. To increase phytomass globally, we need billions of quality transplants (small plants) to be grown yearly, in the field or in the greenhouse, under various environmental conditions. However, these high quality transplants can be produced only under carefully controlled, rather than variable environment al conditions. Recent research has shown that the closed transplant production system requires considerably small amounts of electricity, water, fertilizer, CO) and pesticide to produce value-added transplants as scheduled with minimum release of environmental pollutants and minimum loss of transplants. The closed or closed-type transplant production system is defined as a transplant production system covered with opaque walls with minimized or controlled ventilation rates, using artificial lighting. With this system, photoperiod, light intensity and quality, air temperature, humidity, CO) concentration and air current speed can be controlled as desired.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309157498
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 599

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Book Description
In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.

Author: Raymond P. Poincelot
Publisher: Pearson
ISBN:
Category : Horticulture
Languages : en
Pages : 904

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Book Description
For one or two semester courses in Horticulture, Horticultural Science, or Plant Science. This comprehensive introduction to the emerging discipline of sustainable horticulture provides students with the foundations of horticultural science that underlie all forms of horticulture--from conventional through sustainable to organic. The practice of sustainable horticulture is designed to preserve agricultural resources and to prevent environmental damage to the farm and offsite land, water, and air. Production, profits, and incentives must remain at optimal levels, and the system must function in the context of socioeconomic realities. This text leads students through these practices and production, and provides the necessary information to support a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly horticulture.

Author: Nareppa Nagaraj
Publisher: I. K. International Pvt Ltd
ISBN: 818986629X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 758

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Book Description
Of late, farming community in India has been facing new challenges of food and nutrition security, human health and structural adjustment to comply with WTO stipulations on the one hand and sustainable environment on the other. The overuse of fertilizers and chemicals, and depleting water resources are essentially threatening the sustainability of Indian agriculture. The slow growth of agriculture sector mainly due to stagnation in productivity growth is a grave concern for policy-makers and development planners. The key challenge to India's agriculture in the 21st century in the wake of open global economy lies in designing, developing and managing agricultural systems that enable farmers to be efficient, equitable and sustainable in the bio-physical and socio-cultural environments. This book has deliberated on the key issues of sustainable agriculture in the context of emerging technologies, policies and institutions by promoting efficiency, equity and better management of natural resources. In the process, thoughts and experience of world-class leaders in agricultural education, research, extension, policy, agri-business and development in addressing the challenges confronting farmers have been documented

Author: Khawar Jabran
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030223019
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
This book provides the concepts, techniques, and recent developments with regard to use of mulches in agriculture, utility of mulches for non-chemical pest control, and sustainability of crop production systems. Non-conventional means of improving the sustainability of crop production and pest control are required in the wake of environmental concerns over the use of conventional pesticides as well as the intensive use of land resources. Mulches have been used in agriculture for various purposes; however, there has been an increase in their use more recently, and scientists around the world have conducted more research to explore the benefits of mulching in various agricultural systems. Mulches have been found advantageous in non-chemical pest control, soil and water conservation, improving fertility, and improving microbial activities in the soil. While this is a topic of current importance, the information use of mulches in agricultural fields is rarely compiled in one comprehensive location to provide a full account of various aspects of mulches and their utility. This book will be helpful for researchers, growers, and students.

Author: Stéphane Bellon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business
ISBN: 9400779275
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
Stakeholders show a growing interest for organic food and farming (OF&F), which becomes a societal component. Rather than questioning whether OF&F outperforms conventional agriculture or not, the main question addressed in this book is how, and in what conditions, OF&F may be considered as a prototype towards sustainable agricultures. The book gathers 25 papers introduced in a first chapter. The first section investigates OF&F production processes and its capacity to benefit from the systems functioning to achieve higher self-sufficiency. The second one proposes an overview of organic performances providing commodities and public goods. The third one focuses on organics development pathways within agri-food systems and territories. As well as a strong theoretical component, this book provides an overview of the new challenges for research and development. It questions the benefits as well as knowledge gaps with a particular emphasis on bottlenecks and lock-in effects at various levels.