Farm Auditing for Sustainability

Policy makers have now established sustainability as the new aim for UK farming. The development of the Farm Audit for Sustainability involved identifying the objectives of sustainable farming, based on the Principles of organic farming as set out by the International Federation of Organic Farming Movements (IFOAM) and establishment of indicators to assess the effectiveness of individual farms in meeting these objectives. On-farm use of the Farm Audit demonstrated that the tool was able to provide a comprehensive assessment of sustainability of the farming system and that it is an information and advisory tool which is potentially useful in benchmarking and development of the farming operation

Using minimum tillage to improve the efficiency of ecosystem service delivery on organic farms

Organic farming practices aim to maximise the delivery of ecosystem services in the agricultural landscape. However, in order to maintain optimal crop productivity the mouldboard plough is often used to control weeds and this can have negative effects on a range of soil parameters, thereby jeopardizing delivery of these services. Reduced tillage (RT) can be beneficial to soils and could improve both the efficiency of production and the delivery of ecosystem services on organic farms. However, abandoning the plough on organic farms is challenging due to impaired weed control. Here we report on a two year trial where an RT system with the Ecodyn, with duck feet shares operating at a depth of 7.6 cm in combination with seed drilling, was compared with mouldboard ploughing. Spring oat and spring barley establishment was improved under RT. Weed cover and biomass was greater under RT, but there was no difference in cereal grain yields in either year. The RT system used 71% less fuel and tillage operations took 72% less time that the plough system

Diverse fertility building leys in arable rotations (OK-Net Arable Practice Abstract)

The results of a three year study in the UK suggest that there are several advantages to more complex mixtures; • Greater resilience to variable conditions • Combine early and late weed suppression • Slower decomposition on incorporation • Extends forage availability for key insect pollinators • Generally achieve higher forage yields • Potential for higher subsequent crop yields. Practical recommendation • There are a number of plant characteristics that have an impact on nitrogen release and mobilisation, namely C:N ratio, lignin and polyphenol content which result in slower N release and lower N losses or better N utilisation. • Including grass species in the mix takes up the N fixed by the legumes and reduces the free N in the soil; the rhizobia bacteria respond to the low soil N, resulting in higher N fixation and greater biomass. Moreover the higher C:N ratio prolongs the release of N to subsequent crops. The balance of grass and legumes is important. • The annual N accumulation of ley mixtures decreases after two years, although there may be other advantages from longer leys such as weed control. • In terms of forage yield including a 3rd or 4th legume is generally advantageous. • The best multifunctional mixtures contain one or more species of Black Medic, Lucerne and Red Clover, plus other legumes according to the circumstances

Development of software to plan conversion to organic production (OrgPlan)

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. OrgPlan is a computer programme aimed at farmers and advisors assisting with the planning of an organic conversion. The programme is divided into technical modules, supported by a standard enterprise database, a report builder and an advisory section. Through the farm profile builder, rotation, cropping and livestock planner, conversion scenarios over several years can be developed and are evaluated for technical and financial feasibility by calculating farm gate budgets for key resources (forage energy and key nutrients) and financial reports (cash flow budget and profit and loss account). The poster illustrates the basic functioning of the software as well as the underlying rationale for the scenario evaluation

Max-stable random sup-measures with comonotonic tail dependence

Several objects in the Extremes literature are special instances of max-stable random sup-measures. This perspective opens connections to the theory of random sets and the theory of risk measures and makes it possible to extend corresponding notions and results from the literature with streamlined proofs. In particular, it clarifies the role of Choquet random sup-measures and their stochastic dominance property. Key tools are the LePage representation of a max-stable random sup-measure and the dual representation of its tail dependence functional. Properties such as complete randomness, continuity, separability, coupling, continuous choice, invariance and transformations are also analysed.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figur