What can organic agriculture contribute to sustainable development? – Long-term comparisons of farming systems in the tropics

Despite the high demand for sound data on the agronomic, ecological and economic performance of organic agriculture in developing countries, systematic comparison of organic and conventional farming systems has not so far been carried out. The Research Institute of Organic Farming (FiBL), together with its partners, is presently establishing long-term comparisons of farming systems in various agro-ecological and agro-economic contexts to study the different parameters that are essential for sustainable development. To date, three study areas have been selected: (a) a sub-humid area in Kenya where farming is subsistence-oriented; (b) a semi-arid area in India where cotton is produced for the export market; and (c) a humid area in Bolivia where perennial fruits and cacao are produced for the domestic and export markets. The key elements in these comparisons are replicated long-term field trials. These are complemented by farm surveys and short-term trials under on-farm conditions. This network of comparison of farming systems in the tropics is expected to (1) put the discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of organic agriculture on a rational footing; (2) help to identify challenges for organic agriculture that can then be addressed systematically; (3) provide physical reference points for stakeholders in agricultural research and development and thus support agricultural policy dialogue at different levels

TILMAN-ORG

Reduced tillage and green manures for sustainable organic cropping system

Ecological study of aquatic midges and some related insects with special reference to feeding habits

Die Schweiz ist ein reiches Land. Sie verfügt über viele Millionäre. Der große Reichtum konzentriert sich auf wenige Familien und Personen. In der Schweiz leben aber auch eine halbe Million der Bevölkerung (7,5 Mio.) in Haushalten von Erwerbstätigen, die weniger als das Existenzminimum verdienen. Über 200‘000 Personen sind auf Sozialhilfe angewiesen. Bei den Vermögen und den verfügbaren Einkommen hat sich in den letzten Jahren die Kluft zwischen den obersten und untersten zehn Prozent verschärft. Die Zunahme der sozialen Ungleichheit erhöht die soziale Brisanz, was mehr zu ergründen ist. Die soziale Differenzierung dokumentiert Prozesse der Globalisierung. Sie reproduziert und spezifiziert alte soziale Ungleichheiten. Wichtig ist, dass die Soziale Arbeit das thematisiert und weiter theoretisiert

Sensory Difference of Bio-Dynamically, Organically and Conventionally Produced Wheat from the DOK Long-Term Field Trial

There is a need of scientific evidence on the differentiation of organic from conventional produce concerning health, nutrition and sensory related qualities (Leifert et al., 2007). Analysis of wheat from the DOK long-term system comparison trial near Basel, Switzerland (Mäder et al., 2002) showed that organic wheat differed in contents of 16 “diagnostic” proteins from conventional wheat (Zörb et al., 2009a), had higher concentrations of K+ and Mg2+ cations and lower concentrations of six amino acids, and a different seed ripening metabolism (Zörb et al., 2009b). In a previous sensory test with cooked porridge of wheat (cv. Tamaro) from the DOK trial (harvest 1999), the biodynamic samples had been preferred (Arncken et al., 2007). In the present work we aimed to corroborate these results with dry samples of three harvest years

Flowers, leaves or both? How to obtain suitable images for automated plant identification

Background: Deep learning algorithms for automated plant identification need large quantities of precisely labelled images in order to produce reliable classification results. Here, we explore what kind of perspectives and their combinations contain more characteristic information and therefore allow for higher identification accuracy. Results: We developed an image-capturing scheme to create observations of flowering plants. Each observation comprises five in-situ images of the same individual from predefined perspectives (entire plant, flower frontal- and lateral view, leaf top- and back side view). We collected a completely balanced dataset comprising 100 observations for each of 101 species with an emphasis on groups of conspecific and visually similar species including twelve Poaceae species. We used this dataset to train convolutional neural networks and determine the prediction accuracy for each single perspective and their combinations via score level fusion. Top-1 accuracies ranged between 77% (entire plant) and 97% (fusion of all perspectives) when averaged across species. Flower frontal view achieved the highest accuracy (88%). Fusing flower frontal, flower lateral and leaf top views yields the most reasonable compromise with respect to acquisition effort and accuracy (96%). The perspective achieving the highest accuracy was species dependent. Conclusions: We argue that image databases of herbaceous plants would benefit from multi organ observations, comprising at least the front and lateral perspective of flowers and the leaf top view

Biological soil quality as a factor of efficient resource utilization in organic farming systems

In 1978 the DOK long-term field experiment was installed at Therwil close to Basel comparing the farming systems „bio-Dynamic“, „bio-Organic“ and „(K)conventional“. In the first years of the trial, crop yield and feasibility of organic farming were investigated. Soils were analysed with respect to long-term effects on fertility and were evaluated in the view of farming effects on the environment. Today the interrelation of diversity and efficiency and the quality of organic products is the research focus. Long-term trials like the DOK-trial offer unique opportunities for this kind of research. The DOK-trial compares the three systems mentioned above on the basis of the same intensity of organic fertilization (i.e. the same number of animals per area), the same crop rotation and the same soil tillage. Fertilization and plant protection are different and done according to the farming system. A minerally fertilized conventional treatment is mimicking stockless farming and unfertilized plots serve as controls. Crop yields of the organic systems averaged over 21 experimental years at 80% of the conventional ones. The fertilizer input, however, was 34 – 51% lower, indicating an efficient production. The organic farming systems used 20 – 56% less energy to produce a crop unit and per land area this difference was 36 – 53%. Maintenance of soil fertility is important for a sustainable land use. In DOK field plots the organically treated soils were biologically more active than conventional, whereas chemical and physical soil parameters differed less significantly. Soil organic matter after 21 years shows substantially higher values in farming systems with manure fertilization and especially in biodynamic field plots fertilized with composted farmyard manure. Organic farming systems are suggested to utilize non-renewable resources more efficiently due to a higher inherent soil fertility

Gestalt, Geruch und Geschmack von Weizen im DOK-Anbauvergleichsversuch

This project was designed as an iterative process of describing quality profiles of “organic” and “high-quality” wheat and finding adequate, sensory-based methods to do so. Wheat growing in 1998-2000 at the DOK long-term field trial (FLIEßBACH et al. 2007, MÄDER et al. 2002) was repeatedly investigated. The ripening phase started earlier and lasted longer in treatment D2 (bio-dynamic) and was shortest in treatment K2 (conventional). Coded grain samples were examined in respect to treatment differ-ences in smell and taste. For D2 samples the author used the highest number of “sweetness” terms and the lowest number of other terms, whereas in M (conven-tional/mineral fertilizer only) grains, the highest numbers of “poorness” terms and the lowest of “sweetness” terms were used, thus showing correspondence to field obser-vations. In a sensory assay of wheat porridge with 19 persons, coded D2 samples were ranked best. If developed further, these methods could also be used as a useful and cheap additional tool in wheat selection

Genetic variation for nutrient use efficiency in maize under different tillage and fertilization regimes with special emphasis to plant microbe interaction

Conservation tillage (no-till and reduced tillage) brings many benefits with respect to soil fertility and energy use, but it also has drawbacks regarding the need for synthetic fertilizers and herbicides. To promote conversation tillage in organic farming systems, crop rotation, fertilization and weed control have to be optimized. In addition, crop varieties are needed with improved nutrient use efficiency (NUE) and high weed competitiveness or tolerance

Mycorrhizal fungi as natural bio-fertilizers: How to produce and use

This technical handbook provides an easy to follow guide describing the process on how to produce home-made mycorrhizal inoculants using different types of propagation units and how inoculants can be applied as bio-fertilizers in the nursery and during field transplantation for improving the growth and stress tolerance of crop plants

The performance of yields in organic and conventional cropping systems

Sufficient and stable crop yields are the basis for feeding a growing world population. Limited cropland, climate change, loss of soil quality and biodiversity coupled with excessive use of non-renewable resources require new solutions for future cropping systems beyond existing management practices. Here we compare the yield performance of organic and conventional cropping systems