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"Organic Agriculture"
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Organic agriculture in the twenty-first century
Organic agriculture has a history of being contentious and is considered by some as an inefficient approach to food production. Yet organic foods and beverages are a rapidly growing market segment in the global food industry. Here, we examine the performance of organic farming in light of four key sustainability metrics: productivity, environmental impact, economic viability and social wellbeing. Organic farming systems produce lower yields compared with conventional agriculture. However, they are more profitable and environmentally friendly, and deliver equally or more nutritious foods that contain less (or no) pesticide residues, compared with conventional farming. Moreover, initial evidence indicates that organic agricultural systems deliver greater ecosystem services and social benefits. Although organic agriculture has an untapped role to play when it comes to the establishment of sustainable farming systems, no single approach will safely feed the planet. Rather, a blend of organic and other innovative farming systems is needed. Significant barriers exist to adopting these systems, however, and a diversity of policy instruments will be required to facilitate their development and implementation.
Journal Article
Enhancing of quality, yield and aromatic profile of sweet cherries: comparison between organic and conventional biostimulant systems
Background
Due to the increasing demand for organic food by consumers, agricultural systems had to change towards a more sustainable and environmental approach. One of the practices aligned with this purpose is the application of efficient biostimulants as a tool to improve food production with the smallest possible ecological footprint. For this reason, the aim of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness and comparison of an organic system composed of a Lombrico
®
SET biostimulant formulated from seaweed extracts, amino acids and carbohydrates from plant-based sources on two different varieties of cherries, Nimba and Red Pacific, against a conventional system composed by Maxi-Grow Excel
®
, Equilibrium
®
and Exelgrow
®
products according to the usual biostimulant treatments of the farmer for sweet cherry crop. Both options were applied at 12 times throughout the flowering and ripening stages under real field conditions in a 68-day study.
Results
Although the program effectiveness differed by variety, both biostimulants treatments improved bud breakage, enhanced flowering, and advanced ripening, while improving the fruit quality and the organoleptic properties. Remarkable findings included increased levels of major carbohydrates and increased oxalic acid. Additionally, significant changes in the phenolic and flavonoid profile were observed. The organic program led to higher levels of chlorogenic acid as well as increased naringin across both varieties. Conversely, cyanidin-3-
O
-rutinoside levels were increased in the organic program for Red Pacific but were higher in the conventional method for Nimba.
Conclusions
The increase in marketable first category fruit and the reduction in unmarketable fruit due to both programs contribute to improved farmer profitability and demonstrate the clear effectiveness of the application of biostimulant systems. In addition, the organic treatment produced an enhanced ripening, enabling an early harvest, with a positive impact on the quality and organoleptic parameters of the cherries. In particular, the organic treatment where a single product composed of seaweed extracts, amino acids and carbohydrates from plant-based origin is applied instead of the three products required in the conventional system is particularly valuable in organic farming where external inputs are limited.
Journal Article
The distributional impact of a green payment policy for organic fruit
Consumer spending on organic food products has grown rapidly. Some claim that organics have ecological, equity, and health advantages over conventional food and therefore should be subsidized. Here we explore the distributive impacts of an organic fruit subsidy that reduces the retail price of organic fruit in the US by 10 percent. We estimate the impact of the subsidy on organic fruit demand in a representative poor, middle income, and rich US household using three analytical methods; including two econometric and one machine learning. We do not find strong evidence of regressive redistribution due to our simulated organic fruit subsidy; the poor household's relative reaction to the subsidy is not much different than the reaction at the other two households. However, the infra-marginal savings from the subsidy tend to be larger in richer households.
Journal Article
Sustainability of organic food production: challenges and innovations
The greatest challenge for agriculture is to reduce the trade-offs between productivity and long-term sustainability. Therefore, it is interesting to analyse organic agriculture which is a given set of farm practices that emphasise ecological sustainability. Organic agriculture can be characterised as being less driven by off-farm inputs and being better embedded in ecosystem functions. The literature on public goods and non-commodity outputs of organic farms is overwhelming. Most publications address the positive effects of organic farming on soil fertility, biodiversity maintenance and protection of the natural resources of soil, water and air. As a consequence of focusing on public goods, organic agriculture is less productive. Meta-analyses show that organic agriculture yields range between 0·75 and 0·8 of conventional agriculture. Best practice examples from disadvantaged sites and climate conditions show equal or, in the case of subsistence farming in Sub-Saharan Africa, higher productivity of organic agriculture. Hence, organic agriculture is likely to be a good model for productive and sustainable food production. Underfunding in R&D addressing specific bottlenecks of organic agriculture are the main cause for both crop and livestock yield gaps. Therefore, the potential for improving the performance of organic agriculture through agricultural research is huge. Although organic farming is a niche in most countries, it is at the verge of becoming mainstream in leading European countries. Consumer demand has grown over the past two decades and does not seem to be a limiting factor for the future development of organic agriculture.
Journal Article
Cultivating an ecological conscience : essays from a farmer philosopher
Collects the essential writings of the theologian, philosopher, and third-generation farmer on the ethical and practical principles of sustainable agriculture and the challenges facing the modern world in achieving responsible stewardship of the land.
Book
Benzoxazinoids in Rye Allelopathy - From Discovery to Application in Sustainable Weed Control and Organic Farming
The allelopathic potency of rye (
Secale cereale
L.) is due mainly to the presence of phytotoxic benzoxazinones—compounds whose biosynthesis is developmentally regulated, with the highest accumulation in young tissue and a dependency on cultivar and environmental influences. Benzoxazinones can be released from residues of greenhouse-grown rye at levels between 12 and 20 kg/ha, with lower amounts exuded by living plants. In soil, benzoxazinones are subject to a cascade of transformation reactions, and levels in the range 0.5–5 kg/ha have been reported. Starting with the accumulation of less toxic benzoxazolinones, the transformation reactions in soil primarily lead to the production of phenoxazinones, acetamides, and malonamic acids. These reactions are associated with microbial activity in the soil. In addition to benzoxazinones, benzoxazolin-2(3
H
)-one (BOA) has been investigated for phytotoxic effects in weeds and crops. Exposure to BOA affects transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome patterns of the seedlings, inhibits germination and growth, and can induce death of sensitive species. Differences in the sensitivity of cultivars and ecotypes are due to different species-dependent strategies that have evolved to cope with BOA. These strategies include the rapid activation of detoxification reactions and extrusion of detoxified compounds. In contrast to sensitive ecotypes, tolerant ecotypes are less affected by exposure to BOA. Like the original compounds BOA and MBOA, all exuded detoxification products are converted to phenoxazinones, which can be degraded by several specialized fungi via the Fenton reaction. Because of their selectivity, specific activity, and presumably limited persistence in the soil, benzoxazinoids or rye residues are suitable means for weed control. In fact, rye is one of the best cool season cover crops and widely used because of its excellent weed suppressive potential. Breeding of benzoxazinoid resistant crops and of rye with high benzoxazinoid contents, as well as a better understanding of the soil persistence of phenoxazinones, of the weed resistance against benzoxazinoids, and of how allelopathic interactions are influenced by cultural practices, would provide the means to include allelopathic rye varieties in organic cropping systems for weed control.
Journal Article