Conservation Agriculture: The role of Academia in its technology transfer

Today, almost all players in the different agricultural sectors know what Conservation Agriculture is about and the potential benefits CA is able to generate. Whereas in many parts of the world the adoption and regular practice of CA, whether continuous or rotational, has reached considerable levels both in terms of acreage and percentage of arable land (Derpsch and Friedrich, 2009) other regions lag far behind in the uptake of CA. This is certainly the case for Europe and Africa. Despite the scientific and empirical evidences generated in numerous studies and on-farm experiments showing that CA works over many agro-ecologies, it appears that something is missing to have this technology broadly accepted in these two continents. This contribution tries to identify the main reasons for the lack of adoption and to provide possible approaches to overcome the reluctance and even resistance to try or to continue the application of the principles of CA. It further attempts to give suggestions on the potential role of academia in the adoption of CA

Social Impact Bonds: Overview and Considerations

One of the hottest topics in human services is "pay-for-success" approaches to government contracting. In this era of tight budgets and increased skepticism about the effectiveness of government-funded programs, the idea that the government could pay only for proven results has a broad appeal. And those who have identified prevention-focused models that have the potential to improve long-term outcomes and save the government money are deeply frustrated that they have been unable to attract the funding needed to take these programs to scale. Some advocates for expanded prevention efforts are confident that these programs could thrive under pay for success and see such an approach as a way to break out of the harmful cycle where what limited funds are available must be used to provide services for those who are already in crisis, and there are rarely sufficient funds to pay for prevention

Mulching and soil tillage influence on the thermal behaviour of a Luvisol surface layer

Important energy exchanges at soil surface regulate the thermal environment within top soil layer and the boundary layer above it. By this reason, the application of mulches or the modelling of micro relief by soil tillage are common practises to modify the thermal regime of a soil. The aim of this study is to compare the effect on thermal behaviour of a Luvisol resulting of soil tillage and the application of stubble mulch and, different amounts of straw mulch. For this purpose, experiments were performed from January to May 2007 in a field sowed with winter wheat. Temperatures were measured with copper-constantan (Type T) thermocouples placed over straw and over stubble, at soil surface and at 2, 4 and 8 cm depth. Temperatures above canopy were also recorded. Daily mean temperatures and thermal amplitudes in the top soil layer covered by straw mulch were smaller than those verified either by stubble mulch or with soil tillage. Daily minimum temperatures in mobilized plots or covered by stubble mulch were smaller than those verified in plots covered by straw mulch, therefore being the former treatments more susceptible to frost than the later ones. Thermal differences between the four plots decreased significantly with wheat growth. Implications of these techniques of soil temperature control for crop growth are also discussed

Mulching and soil tillage influence on the thermal behaviour of a Luvisol surfacel layer

Important energy exchanges at soil surface regulate the thermal environment within top soil layer and the boundary layer above it. By this reason, the application of mulches or the modelling of micro relief by soil tillage are common practises to modify the thermal regime of a soil. The aim of this study is to compare the effect on thermal behaviour of a Luvisol resulting of soil tillage and the application of stubble mulch and, different amounts of straw mulch. For this purpose, experiments were performed from January to May 2007 in a field sowed with winter wheat. Temperatures were measured with copper-constantan (Type T) thermocouples placed over straw and over stubble, at soil surface and at 2, 4 and 8 cm depth. Temperatures above canopy were also recorded. Daily mean temperatures and temperature amplitudes in the top soil layer covered by straw mulch were smaller than those verified either by stubble mulch or with soil tillage. Daily minimum temperatures in mobilized plots or covered by stubble mulch were smaller than those verified in plots covered by straw mulch, therefore being the former treatments more susceptible to frost than the later ones. Thermal differences between the four plots decreased significantly with wheat growth. Implications of these techniques of soil temperature control for crop growth are also discussed

Impact of soil tillage and land use on soil organic carbon decline under Mediterranean conditions

Soils under Mediterranean climate conditions frequently have low to very low levels of soil organic matter (SOM), as a result of low biomass production under the predominantly rainfed conditions and the intensive tillage operations commonly practiced. In order to assess both short and long-term impacts of soil tillage and land use on soil organic carbon, two sets of experiments were performed. One consisted in the identification and soil analysis of 3 pairs of sites under different soil types and land use over 5 to 30 years; in the second experiment a long-term fallow area was repeatedly submitted to different types of soil tillage management (mouldboard plough + disc harrow; non-inversion tine cultivation; no-till) over 3 years. Soil texture, bulk density and SOM were analysed along the whole soil profile in the first experiment, whereas bulk density and SOM to a depth of 30 cm was measured before the first tillage operations and at the end of the observation period in the second experiment. The results clearly indicate that tillage based land use, irrespective of the type of land use, caused a considerable decline in SOM content in the tilled soil layer. Very small and inconsistent differences in SOM between paired soil profiles were observed in the lower part of the profiles. In the second experiment with three types of tillage systems, SOM content decreased with tillage intensity. Avoidance of soil disturbance is an important step towards halting SOM decline under Mediterranean climate conditions

Catch Efficiency in the Chilean Pelagic Fishery: Does size matter ?

This paper examines the determinants of technical efficiency for a sample of 204 industrial vessels operating in the Southern-Central pelagic fishery of Chile during the 1985-95 period. Data on vessel's annual landings and fishing effort, vessel's size, age, fishing experience and vessel's controlling firm are analysed considering a Translog stochastic frontier model à-la Battese-Coelli (1995), which includes a vessel-specific inefficiency model. Yearly averages for vessel efficiency vary from 50% to 86%. Close to 90% of the residuals' total variance is accounted by the inefficiency term, suggesting a significant disparity in vessels' catch performance. Vessel age and scale of operation are found to be significant in explaining efficiency. Larger vessels tend to be the most efficient and the ones showing least variance in their efficiency. Smaller vessels, which on average are also the oldest in the fleet, show greater dispersion and lower efficiency scores. We confirm prior results suggesting vessel-level economies of scale at this fishery, related to fishing effort intensity. Explanatory variables aggregated at the ship-owner level, which aim at controlling the firm's operating scale, are also significant as a whole when explaining vessel-level efficiency. We find positive search externalities associated to the number of vessels under control of a given firm, as well as external diseconomies related to each firm's fleet use. Overall, we report significant productive heterogeneity in the fleet under study where control variables associated to 'size effects' do indeed play a significant role.

Making Sustainable Agriculture Real in CAP 2020: The Role of Conservation Agriculture

Europe is about to redefine its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) for the near future. The question is whether this redefinition is more a fine-tuning of the existing CAP or whether thorough changes can be expected. Looking back to the last revision of CAP the most notable change is, undoubtedly, the concern about EU and global food security. The revival of the interest in agricultural production already became evident during the Health Check as a consequence of climbing commodity prices in 2007/08. It is therefore no surprise that “rising concerns regarding both EU and global food security” is the first topic to appear in the list of justifications for the need for a CAP reform. Other challenges mentioned in this list such as sustainable management of natural resources, climate change and its mitigation, improvement of competitiveness to withstand globalization and rising price volatility, etc., while not new are considered worthwhile enough to be maintained and reappraised

Downward Adjustments in a Cyclical Environment: The Case of Chilean Pelagic Fisheries

Often the scale of production of many industrial fisheries in the world shows rigidity vis à vis declines in fish abundance, which on occasions has generated fishing collapse. This paper studies the two fisheries with the greatest volume of landings in Chile, and which are also characterized by strong variability in their abundance. Production-side aspects that affect the incentives to adjust towards lower fishing efforts are analyzed. To do so, production functions for industrial fleets at each fishery are estimated by resorting to panel data. Two main results are obtained. First, we confirm the empirical relevance of Translog harvest technologies. This contradicts a frequent practice in bioeconomic models, which considers harvest-inputs elasticities as being constant and independent from the scale of production. Second, a set of production-side effects are identified that weaken the incentives to adjust towards lower fishing efforts: increasing returns in the use of variable inputs, which are also strengthened by external economies associated to the aggregate searching effort for fish, and catch yields sensitive to changes in abundance, but where the strength of this effect decreases as abundance declines.

Mitigation of Climate Change through Conservation Agriculture in Europe

Agriculture and climate change are closely related. In this communication, the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF) presents how the European agricultural sector can respond to climate change through Conservation Agriculture (CA). It is based on the outcomes and the realization of several European (LIFE) public-funded projects based on the assessment of CA performance in Europe, and on a literature review on the topic. In terms of contribution, approximately 10% of greenhouse gases (GHGs) globally emitted come from the European Union (EU). Within the GHGs emitted in Europe, around 10% derive from agriculture. In order to reduce these emissions the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) and the 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) was held at the end of 2015 in Paris. It concluded with the adoption of a historic agreement to combat climate change and promote measures and investments for a low-carbon, resilient and sustainable future, the so-called Paris Agreement. Scientific studies, carried out in different European biogeographic regions and countries, agree that the less soil is tilled, the more carbon is sequestered and stored in it. These studies show that, during several years of Conservation Agriculture, it is possible to sequester large amounts of CO2 per hectare and year in soils, when compared to systems based on soil tillage. In relation to conventional tillage systems the implementation of CA in EU-28 countries in both annual and perennial crops could result in an annual sequestration of almost 190 millions of tons CO2 as soil organic carbon. The amount of CO2 sequestered into the soil through the application of the CA would contribute significantly to reach the targets committed in Paris Agreement by 2030. Considering accepted European emission reduction targets, carbon sequestration that could take place on farmland under Conservation Agriculture would amount to 22% of reductions committed in all diff use emission sectors by 2030, which corresponds to 10% of total annual diff use emissions. This would allow for some flexibility in the reduction of emissions in other sectors such as housing or transport