Farm Diversification in Relation to Landscape Properties

Current European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been moving from production support subsidies to direct decoupled income support. The emergence in policy making of the concept of multifunctional agriculture leads to the recognition that a farmer produces more than food: he produces jointly both commodity and non-commodity goods. Environmental contracts were developed in order to encourage the provision of non-commodity goods such as landscape or biodiversity. Next to these contracts, other activities as for example recreation can be observed. They are the result of farm diversification. The role of location in farmers’ decision making to diversify is pointed out in literature but geographical information is generally reduced to the location within a political delimitation unit the empirical work. Objective of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, it addresses the role of location, in term of site specific natural conditions as well as neighbouring emerging dynamics in farmer’s decision making to diversify. Attention is paid to number of activities as well as the specific types of activities, notably green services, daily recreation and other farm-linked services. Secondly, this paper introduces income from agriculture explicitly allowing testing short term price sensitivity. It was found that attractive landscape is a driver for diversification as these landscape offer more opportunities. Furthermore, diversification is responsive to price. Thirdly, role of density of past multifunctional activities in the neighborhood influences farm diversification: multifunctional activities create an externality effects as new activities emerge next to already existing ones. This dynamic may lead to the emergence of ‘multifunctional hotspots’ in landscape.Farmer diversification, landscape services, location, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Effects of combinations of land use history and nitrogen application on nitrate concentration in the groundwater

Effects of differences in both land use history and levels of nitrogen (N) application on nitrate concentration in the groundwater were studied for permanent pastures located on a single soil series in the Frisian Woodlands in the north of the Netherlands. The study was carried out for three fields: A, B and C. Field A was an old pasture, field B was a reseeded pasture and field C had been previously used for growing silage maize. The models SWAP and ANIMO were used for long-term simulations of the soil organic matter and soil N dynamics. The soil data from fields A, B and C were combined with different N application levels derived from commercial dairy farms on the same soil series for 2000. Soil organic matter and soil organic N were lower in field C than in fields A and B. In field C also the probability of exceeding the environmental threshold for nitrate in groundwater of 50 mg l–1 was lowest, which was ascribed to net immobilization irrespective of the high levels of N applied. However, this probability increased rapidly when the soil properties were similar to those of the old pasture (field A). Simulated levels of N uptake were higher for field A than for fields B and C at all levels of N applied. On old pasture, reducing N application levels can lower the probability of exceeding the environmental threshold for nitrate by up to 20% whilst hardly affecting N uptake

African Land Ecology: Opportunities and Constraints for Agricultural Development

Current agriculture in Sub-Sahara Africa is undeveloped and the Green Revolution has left the continent largely untouched. Poor performance is often related to a number of socio-economic factors. In this paper we argue that there are also some specifities of natural resources, namely local homogeneity and spatial diversity of the pre-dominant Basement Complex soils, that imply that simple fertilizer strategies may not produce the yield increases obtained elsewhere. Keywords: Sub-Sahara Africa, Agro-Ecology, Land use, Land resources, Basement Complex, Green Revolution, Micronutrients, Fertilizer Policy

Environmental monitoring in heterogeneous soil-landscapes; A Dutch case study

The spatial heterogeneity of agricultural soil-landscapes is mostly not taken into account in environmental policies. Most environmental goals have been defined at national level or farm level but not at the landscape level. The potential for setting up a regional environmental monitoring network that supports self governance was explored. The research was performed in the Northern Friesian Woodland

Zout gietwater bij kasteelten in West - Nederland

De glastuinbouwbedrijven in West-Nederland hebben van een hoog zoutgehalte van de grond herhaaldelijk veel nadeel ondervonden. Een dertig jaar geleden had hier de verzouting van de kasgronden de volgende oorzaken: zout gietwater; opstijgend grondwater; onoordeelkundig bemesten. Het zoutgehalte van het gietwater vormt ook thans nog een probleem

De samenstelling van de zouten in het oppervlaktewater in het Zuidhollands glasdistrict

Aan de kwaliteit van het water dat in kassen voor de besproeiing van gewassen wordt gebruikt, dienen hoge eisen te worden gesteld. Zo is bij voorbeeld het gebruik van sproeiwater dat verontreinigd is met pathogène organismen, uit hygiënisch oogpunt niet toelaatbaar. Voorts kan verontreiniging met anorganische verbindingen nadelig zijn en wel vanwege een remmende invloed op de plantegroei of vanwege vervuiling van gewassen en kasopstanden. Bepaalde anorganische stoffen, zoals ijzer, kunnen reeds in lage concentratie - enkele milligrammen per liter - het water ongeschikt maken als sproeiwater