Environmental impacts of irrigated and rain-fed barley production in Iran using life cycle assessment (LCA)

Current intensive grain crops production is often associated with environmental burdens. However, very few studies deal with the environmental performance of both current and alternative systems of barley production. This study was undertaken to evaluate energy consumption and environmental impacts of irrigated and rain-fed barley production. Additionally, three alternative scenarios were examined for irrigated barley fields including conservation tillage and biomass utilization policies. The findings showed that around 25 GJ/ha energy is needed in order to produce 2300 kg/ha irrigated barley and 13 GJ/ha for 1100 kg/ha rain-fed barley. Life cycle assessment (LCA) results indicated that irrigated farms had more environmental impacts than rain-fed farms. Electricity generation and consumption had the highest effect on the abiotic depletion potential, human toxicity potential, freshwater and marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential. However, alternative scenarios revealed that using soil conservation tillage systems and biomass consumption vs. gas for electricity generation at power plants can significantly mitigate environmental impacts of irrigated barley production similar to the rain-fed conditions while higher yield is obtained

Chinese cropping systems are a net source of greenhouse gases despite soil carbon sequestration

This work was funded by National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB953800), Young Talents Projects of the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IUEMS201402), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41471190, 41301237, 71704171), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2014T70144) and Discovery Early Career Researcher Award of the Australian Research Council (DE170100423). The work contributes to the UK-China Virtual Joint Centres on Nitrogen “N-Circle” and “CINAg” funded by the Newton Fund via UK BBSRC/NERC (grants BB/N013484/1 and BB/N013468/1, respectively).Peer reviewedPostprintPostprin

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects

Evaluating the sustainability of urban agriculture projects. 5. International Symposium for Farming Systems Design (AGRO2015

The transition of food consumption towards sustainable patterns based on environmental, economic and nutritional aspects

É máis urxente que nunca acadar un sistema alimentario sostible que sexa respectuoso co medio ambiente, que ofreza seguridade e calidade alimentaria a toda a poboación mundial e, ao mesmo tempo, sexa social e economicamente aceptable. Para iso, os cambios nos patróns alimentarios actuais son unha das ferramentas máis poderosas e eficaces. A adhesión ás dietas tradicionais, baseadas principalmente no consumo de produtos de orixe vexetal e o consumo limitado de produtos de orixe animal e ultra-procesados, considérase como a pedra angular para acadar este obxectivo. Así, esta tese ten como principal finalidade analizar diferentes patróns de consumo de alimentos desde o punto de vista ambiental, nutricional e socioeconómico, e propoñer as medidas axeitadas para lograr patróns dietéticos más sostibles. Ademais, o proceso de produción de alimentos tamén se analiza en profundidade mediante a análise do ciclo de vida de produtos agro-alimentarios relevantes

Assessment of the impact of high fragmented land upon the productivity and profitability of the farms

Land is an essential natural resource, both for the survival and prosperity of humanity, and for the maintenance of all global ecosystems. Land fragmentation is the practice of farming a number of spatially separated plots of owned or rented land by the same farmer and can be seen as common phenomenon in the Macedonian agriculture as well as in many developing countries. Land fragmentation can be seen to have negative effect on agricultural productivity, but it may also provide benefits for farm households. This study was conducted to find out the influence of land fragmentation measured by the number of plots on the value of vegetable produced in the Skopje and Southeastern region in Republic of Macedonia. The analysis uses models such as Cobb-Douglas production function as well as General Linear Model. The findings of the regression estimations supported the negative and statistically significant impact of land fragmentation over productivity and profitability of growing vegetables in the research area. A reduction of the Simpson index increases income from vegetable production indicating better use of modern agricultural technologies and decreasing the costs of labour. However, labour showed a positive relationship with output implicating risk diversification and labour smoothing due to crop diversification. Therefore, appropriate policies such as creating functioning markets for land, improvements in credits, modern graphical techniques, etc. which will promote successful land consolidation in the regions where it is an issue, and where an increase in agricultural production capacity is needed

The Shifting Patterns of Agricultural Production and Productivity Worldwide

In this book we assemble a range of evidence from a range of sources with a view to developing an improved understanding of recent trends in agricultural productivity around the world. The fundamental purpose is to better understand the nature of the long-term growth in the supply of food and its principal determinants. We pursue this purpose from two perspectives. One is from a general interest in the world food situation in the long run. The other is from an interest in the implications of U.S. and global productivity patterns for U.S. agriculture.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/card_books/1001/thumbnail.jp

Analyzing efficiency of vegetable production in Benin

The objective of this research is to investigate the production technology and efficiency of vegetable production and marketing at the farm level in Benin. Using recent advances in cross sectional efficiency analysis, we analyze two samples of vegetable producers following different perspectives. First, the empirical results show that farms’ inefficiency in lowland farming systems is the most diverse. Second, the results suggest that vegetable producers are more inefficient with respect to marketing than production and that marketing inefficiency is affected by the type of marketing arrangements. Third, the analysis shows that vegetable producers have an incentive for specialization and that the degree of specialization has a positive effect on technical efficiency. Finally, the results on pesticide use provide evidence that pesticides are overused while there is no evidence of technical interdependence between pesticides and productive input