The inevitability of arbuscular mycorrhiza for sustainability in organic agriculture—A critical review

The arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are significant fertility-promoting microbes in soils. They enable soil fertility, soil-health and boost crop productivity. There are generalist and specialist groups among AMF in natural soils. Optimized use of specific AMF concerning crops and soils can improve agricultural sustainability. Thus, AMF is becoming an inevitable biological tool for improving crop productivity and soil health. Especially in the context of chemicalized agriculture undermining the sustainability of food security, safety, and human and ecosystem health, alternative agricultural means have become inevitable. Therefore, AMF has become essential in nature-friendly, organic agriculture. Of such farm fields, natural biological activity is enhanced to sustain soil fertility. Crops show increased innate immunity against pests and diseases in many such systems. Moreover, ecosystems remain healthy, and the soil is teeming with life in such farms. The primary goal of the review was a thorough critical analysis of the literature on AMF in organic agriculture to assess its efficiency as an ecotechnological tool in sustainable agricultural productivity. The novelty is that this is the first comprehensive review of literature on AMF concerning all aspects of organic agriculture. A vital systematic approach to the exhaustive literature collected using regular databases on the theme is followed for synthesizing the review. The review revealed the essentiality of utilizing specific mycorrhizal species, individually or in consortia, in diverse environmental settings to ensure sustainable organic crop production. However, for the exact usage of specific AMF in sustainable organic agriculture, extensive exploration of them in traditional pockets of specific crop cultivations of both chemical and organic fields and wild environments is required. Moreover, intensive experimentations are also necessary to assess them individually, in combinations, and associated with diverse beneficial soil bacteria

Moistube Irrigation characterisation and yield response of canola (Brassica napus) under varied Moistube Irrigation.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Abstract available in PDF

A Line in the Sand: Archaeological Evidence for the Interactions of Settled Farmers and Mobile Pastoralists in the Late Bronze Age (1950 - 1500 BC) Murghab alluvial fan, Turkmenistan

This dissertation focuses on the interactions of mobile pastoralist groups with sedentary farming communities in the Late Bronze Age period (1950 - 1500 BCE) in the Murghab alluvial fan of present-day Turkmenistan. Traditional archaeological and historical studies in Central Asia, focused as they are on urban contexts or centers of dense population, have colored interpretations of mobile-sedentary interaction in prehistory and helped reinforce a view that mobile and settled groups were always at odds with one another. The Late Bronze Age Murghab marks the period and locale of the first sustained interaction between distinct cultural communities of mobile pastoralists and sedentary farmers in southern Central Asia. To evaluate long-held conceptions of mobile-sedentary relationships here, this study presents some of the first empirical archaeological data from mobile pastoralist occupation sites. Specifically, I present the results of excavations undertaken at the site of Ojakly (Site 1744), currently the earliest-dated (ca. 1600 BCE), largest, and most complex mobile pastoralist site known in the Murghab. Results from Ojakly, I suggest, reveal how communities are able to participate in and re-shape distinct social institutions without submitting to hegemonic directives or cultural assimilation. Ojakly provides key archaeological evidence for the daily activities, habitual practices, and materials utilized by peripheral groups occupying the northeastern Murghab in the Late Bronze Age, who were linked both to Eurasian mobile pastoralists broadly defined as Andronovo groups and local farming communities of the Namazga tradition. The excavated portion of the site contained two multiple-phase habitation areas, where people repeatedly re-occupied the same space in temporary structures, cooked meals, and dumped refuse. The faunal and archaeobotanical assemblages both support the view that the inhabitants of Ojakly were mobile pastoralists, indicating on the one hand that herd animals (especially sheep and goat) formed a basic subsistence unit, and on the other that farming and grain processing were not undertaken at Ojakly, and domestic cereal consumption was limited. Yet, while subsistence practices appear largely independent between Ojakly and coeval sedentary farmers, a third excavated area revealed certain overlaps in ceramic production activities. A subterranean ceramic kiln that collapsed on its first firing, sealing inside wheel-made ceramics similar to those known only from sedentary communities at this time, is strongly suggestive that the people living at Ojakly were incorporating new methods of production and forms into their ceramic repoirtoire. These shifts in behavior, however, did not supplant the handmade ceramics used on an everyday basis at the site, nor the household level of its production. I contextualize the results from Ojakly within the broader social and political shifts occurring in the Murghab at the end of the Bronze Age, when a regional polity known as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex was in decline. I argue that by virtue of their position at the intersection of the steppe and sown worlds, and at an important socio-political juncture in the trajectory of the region, the inhabitants of Ojakly were able to participate in a variety of non-contiguous social, technological, and probably ideological institutions. This challenges the traditional view of sedentary-mobile interaction, whereby pastoralists are dependent upon village-based communities or challengers to their authority, and frames encounters as negotiated participation in each other\u27s worlds

Towards understanding the impact of climate change on livelihoods, local knowledge and agriculture-based climate change coping practices of small-scale farmers of the Ebenhaeser community

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)Climate Change (CC) is arguably the most pressing topic of our modern society. The acceleration in magnitude and frequency of climate variability associated with it, along with the overall change of climate patterns threatens to push their adaptive capacity to breaking point, hinting at the significant impact that CC will have on the livelihoods of small-scale farmers of the developing world, and on South Africa in particular. This research project aims to investigate how local knowledge and agriculture-based coping practices of small-scale farmers of the Ebenhaeser community are adapted to deal with and attempt to reduce the vulnerability of their livelihood strategies to CC. This illustrative study followed a qualitative methodology, using qualitative data collection (in-depth and semistructured interviews, as well as special focus group discussions) and analysis (thematic ordering) methods to fulfil its aim. This study revealed that local farmers were able to identify changes in climate which were hazardous to their livelihoods and that they have been developing coping practices in response the CC. Furthermore, this analysis showed that local small-scale farmers used their local body of knowledge as a basis for the development of these coping practices, and that this local knowledge base itself has been affected by CC. An important finding of this study was the extent to which local social, historic, economic, political and physical conditions influence the sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the smallscale farmers of the Ebenhaeser community. The findings of this study opened our eyes to the realities of CC and its impacts on and adaptation efforts of small-scale farmers of the Ebenhaeser community. The study show ed that unless these issues are addressed in a comprehensive and holistic manner, there is no real prospect of sustainable, long-term CC adaption solutions for the small-scale farmers of this area, and conceivably none for many more rural communities in South Africa

Sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology

Our planet is undergoing radical environmental and social changes. Sustainability has now been put into question by, for example, our consumption patterns, loss of biodiversity, depletion of resources, and exploitative power relations. With apparent ecological and social limits to globalization and development, current levels of consumption are unsustainable, inequitable, and inaccessible to the majority of humans. Understanding and attaining sustainability is a crucial matter at a time when our planet is in peril—environmentally, economically, socially, and politically. Since its official inception in the 1970s, environmental sociology has provided a powerful lens to understanding the challenges, possibilities and modes of sustainability. Most chapters in this book were published as peer-reviewed articles in Sustainability in its special issue “Sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology”, providing an environmental sociology approach to understanding and achieving the widely used notion of “sustainability.” This edited collection covers, among other topics, the inherent discursive formations of environmental sociology, conceptual tools and paradoxes, competing theories and practices, and their complex implications on our society at large. Chapters in this book specifically focus on how sustainable development has been understood through different theoretical lenses in environmental sociology, such as ecological modernization, policy/reformist sustainable development, and critical structural approaches (such as the treadmill of production, ecological Marxism, metabolic rift theory, etc.); and how sustainable development has been practiced in, or by, various stakeholders, such as states, corporations, and local communities, for various ends, through the use of specific case studies, showing, for example, the discursive shifts, dynamic formations, and diverse contours of sustainable development. The range of relevant topics includes: • Environmental sociology as a field of inquiry for sustainability • Historical context of sustainable development in environmental sociology • Nature-society relationship in environmental sociology • Theories/approaches to sustainability discourse in environmental sociology • Environmentalism/environmental movements for sustainability • Empirical cases (such as climate change, biodiversity, food, certification, etc.) through the lens of environmental sociolog