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Agriculture’s important role in human survival and its significant impact on the Earth’s ecosystem imply the need for sustainable practices. This study focuses on the critical components of irrigation management and soil remediation, essential for maintaining soil health and productivity. By integrating these components, the study assessed feasible soil remediation practices and explored various irrigation strategies in different contexts. It was observed that integrating soil remediation practices with suitable irrigation techniques and scheduling can improve crop yield, conserve water, and enhance the long-term health of marginal soils, addressing the challenges of climate change, hunger, and environmental sustainability. The study also advocates for incorporating indigenous knowledge with physical, chemical, and biological soil remediation techniques, integrated with irrigation practices. This review serves as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, offering insights and paving the way for future research and development in sustainable agriculture. By making the link between irrigation management and soil remediation explicit, this study illustrates practical cases that address the complex challenges faced by marginal lands, global food security, and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sufficient supply of ecosystem services (ESs) in agriculture provides the basis for human sustainable development. Intensified large-scale farming has changed wetland ecosystems extensively by reducing both the resilience and capacity to support production of many ESs. Small-scale farming may also affect the generation of ESs where the impact often reflects the differences in farming practices. This paper explores the supply and demand of the ESs between management practices, irrigated and rainfed, of smallholder farmers in Kilombero wetland, Tanzania. We conducted interviews involving 30 households and two focus groups with five discussants for each practice, rainfed and irrigation. Generally, we found that the need for ES, especially food, water and flood control, in both farming practices, were exceeding the capacity to supply. In general, irrigation farming compared to rainfed farming was associated with higher levels of food production, increasing flood regulation and erosion control. However, the ES delivery and need were not uniform depending on the river discharge. The differences in supply and demand of ESs between farming practices suggest that society would benefit from investing in irrigation and regulatory infrastructures to minimize flooding risk and to build up the ecosystem's natural capacity to produce services. Such practical policy-relevant measures could balance the gap between supply and demand of ESs in smallholder farming systems in Tanzanian wetland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work describes for the first time a strategy based on the house of quality analysis (HOQ) to select a farming practice adaptable to variable weather conditions (VWC). Five basic requirements: water, soil, fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides, together with six agricultural practices: organic farming (OF), agroecology (AE), conservation agriculture (CA), genetically-modified varieties (GMV), intensified agriculture (IA), and climate smart agriculture (CSA) were correlated, assessed, and prioritized. HOQ concluded that water and soil are essential for the development of a crop, whereas the need of agrochemicals was less noticeable because they could be substituted by the use of sustainable practices. OF and AE resulted more convenient because they use sustainable methods to manage a crop. The efficacy of CA and GMV to face VWC was limited by factors like the weather conditions of the site, the type of crop, and costs. IA and CSA were satisfactory when financing for the development is available. The synergy observed among OF, AE, and CA would ease transition and/or their simultaneous adoption; it would improve sustainability, productivity, and profitability for the farmer as long as the needs of the region, management of resources, and interested parties are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the nutrient regulation ecosystem service (ES) demand was quantified and mapped in an agriculturally-dominated landscape in the federal German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The demand was assessed in a case study area on an individual field scale. As an indicator for the nutrient regulation ecosystem service demand, nitrogen budgets were calculated. The assessment includes a comparison of an agriculturally calculated nitrogen budget to an ecologically calculated nitrogen budget. The agricultural calculation is based on legal regulations and considers volatile nitrogen losses from fertilizers, whereas the ecological calculation incorporates the total amount of nitrogen and includes also the atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Furthermore, the positive effects of additional agricultural practices on the nutrient regulation ES demand were identified. The spatial distribution of the nutrient regulation ES demand was compared to the distribution of the nitrate leaching and denitrification potential in order to analyse the relative vulnerability of individual fields to nutrient oversupply. The findings of this study, which highlight in particular the suitability of enlarged crop rotation systems, can be used to support sustainable agricultural practices and land management strategies on the local sale. EDITED BY Christine Fürst [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is the world's most pressing environmental issue, influencing almost all sectors of the economy. Agriculture is one of those sectors whose performance is primarily determined by an increasingly variable climate. Consequently, agriculture workers and particularly subsistence farmers are the proximate witnesses of the changing climate as their plight is one of having to struggle for their livelihood in the face of these emerging disruptions. Researchers in recent years have focused on ascertaining the perceived impacts of, and response to, climate change and agriculture. This study reviews the research specific to climate change-related experiences and observations of members of farming communities. Based on a systematic review of original research articles, published up until October 2016, the study reveals the status of in-field knowledge to inform future research. The review found that farmers worldwide have been experiencing changes in climate mainly regarding rising temperature, unpredictable and reduced rainfall. A majority have witnessed reduced agricultural production. Farmers hold differing explanations and respond accordingly to combat those changes. To orient adaptation measures towards those who are already experiencing and trying to respond to such changes, it is crucial to recognize and understand their views when formulating adaptation plans and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) practices are essential for soil and water conservation. In CA, farmers must adopt no-tillage (NT) with crop rotation to maintain a permanent soil cover. In Brazil, mainly in the South region, for CA to be more efficient, practices such as contour farming and agricultural terraces should also be adopted. Thus, the objective of this study is to determine the extent to which NT has been adopted with crop rotation and others soil and water conservation practices. Data from the Agricultural Census in Paraná State, southern Brazil, were used. For the data analysis, the relationship between the level of adoption of NT and the use of crop rotation, contour farming and agricultural terraces was analyzed. A factor and cluster analysis were performed to distinguish regions in terms of soil and water conservation practices. The results show good overall soil and water conservation practices, although heterogeneity has been observed in the adoption practices between regions. Adoption of NT is high in almost all the studied regions. The conservation practice most widely used with NT is contour farming, whereas the least used is agricultural terraces. Conservation practices for runoff control are being neglected by farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some features of the development paths taken by Brazil and China (two member countries of the BRICS grouping) in the current context of the crisis of neoliberal globalization and transformation of the political and economic world order. The authors use Polanyi’s ‘double movement’ thesis to argue that newly emerging rural development (RD) dynamics in China and Brazil are part of a protective ‘countermovement’, driven by actors and institutions responding to the contradictions of the concentration and internationalization of agrifood systems. However, thedirectionand scope of these countermovements are still open; their transformative potential should be viewed in Gramsci’s terms as a struggle for hegemony the outcome of which depends on the concrete ‘balance of social forces’. First, the paper characterizes the impacts of China’s rise on Brazil’s development, which subsequently found its economy under threat of reprimarization and deindustrialization. The paper then sketches some stylized facts of production and consumption within the Brazil–China soy–meat complex, a key element of the current global food regime, with a focus on corporate control of the soy–meat value chain, and its negative consequences. Finally, the paper identifies the key roles that actors and institutions linked to peasants and family farmers are playing in the RD dynamics of each country. Although China and Brazil represent two very different realities, the comparison shows that critical rural and agrifood issues are indeed moving onto the centre stage of the contemporary ‘double movement’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The mountain areas of Europe have been of vital importance in the system of summer farming whereby the movement of livestock between different altitudinal levels is a key element. However, summer farming has been downscaled considerably during the 20th century. The article describes two areas where summer farming is still practised: Forollhogna in Norway, and Asturias in Spain. The authors document the transhumance system in the two areas, and investigate how farmers view the summer farming system and landscape, how they relate to nature protection, and whether specific value orientations can be detected in their views. The findings show that the logic behind summer farming is the same in both areas: economic motivation and access to grazing grounds. With regard to nature and landscape protection, the opinion that wild nature is given priority and that ‘managed nature’ of transhumance is overlooked was found in both areas, although it was expressed more strongly in Asturias than in Forollhogna. Opinions and ideals related to ‘good farming’ were found in both contexts, and were reflected in well-kept fields and productive and healthy livestock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analysed 22 strawberry and soil samples after their collection over the course of 2 years to compare the residue profiles from organic farming with integrated pest management practices in Portugal. For sample preparation, we used the citrate-buffered version of the quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) method. We applied three different methods for analysis: (1) 27 pesticides were targeted using LC-MS/MS; (2) 143 were targeted using low pressure GC-tandem mass spectrometry (LP-GC-MS/MS); and (3) more than 600 pesticides were screened in a targeted and untargeted approach using comprehensive, two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOF-MS). Comparison was made of the analyses using the different methods for the shared samples. The results were similar, thereby providing satisfactory confirmation of both similarly positive and negative findings. No pesticides were found in the organic-farmed samples. In samples from integrated pest management practices, nine pesticides were determined and confirmed to be present, ranging from 2 µg kg−1for fluazifop-p-butyl to 50 µg kg−1for fenpropathrin. Concentrations of residues in strawberries were less than European maximum residue limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the development of farming practices, which combine expressions of indigenous knowledge and Western knowledge. It explains how farmers in Zombwe Extension Planning Area, Malawi, rework their farming practices using indigenous and Western knowledge in a manner that meets their needs and aspirations while utilising available resources. Drawing on findings from field research, the paper explores how modernity, development and progress are contested terms, variously understood between farmers and agricultural experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade a growing body of work situated at the intersection of masculinity and agriculture has emerged in the literature of rural sociology and human geography. A number of these studies have examined masculinity through discursive analytical frameworks which focus on the symbolic, cultural and embodied representations of what it is to be masculine in agriculture. It is with the latter that this paper is concerned. Here gender is located in a social constructionist framework and understood as something that is produced as a set of cultural practices which constitute men's and women's bodies in different ways. Two focus group discussions were conducted with ten young male dairy farmers in northern Victoria. A comparative analysis of the data suggests that perceptions from the masculine perspective of the non-farm work of women could be changing away from a traditional emphasis of a supportive and administrative role toward one where women's roles are acknowledged more as managerial in terms of the financial management of dairy farms. What also emerges from the young farmers' discourses is a degree of doubt and uncertainty about themselves and their own identities as managers. It would appear that they are far more confident in their roles as hands on farmers doing the outdoor physical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the discussion regarding the effective conservation of the European natural heritage. First it is argued that there are intrinsic difficulties in defining the terms 'conservation', 'natural heritage' and 'cultural heritage', particularly in cultural landscapes. In the second part, keeping to the common, intuitive understanding, a simple schematic diagram is used to demonstrate that it is impossible to define the natural heritage in Europe decoupled from a simultaneous reference to the cultural heritage that co-created it. Next, the tools that the EU presently uses to conserve its natural heritage are discussed. It is emphasised that mere lists of species and habitats must not be misperceived as comprising the whole natural heritage of Europe, the conservation of which cannot be achieved solely within protected areas. A critical gap is pinpointed; despite its primary role, the intangible cultural heritage of the practices of farming and forestry that have forged the European natural heritage for centuries is not systematically recorded, recognised or conserved. The Mediterranean is simply treated as the most diverse area of Europe both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Finally, it is suggested that the effective way to support conservation of the European natural heritage is to channel through the agriculture sector, a large part of the subsidies to support such practices in farming and forestry, or their closest modern applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With respect to the idea of multifunctional agriculture, one way to raise farmers' environmental stewardship is to reward environmental practices through food quality labelling schemes. The objective of our study was to identify existing relationships between the production of quality food and the production of environmental goods at farm level. In this article, we report the results of analyses conducted to examine the effects of major `quality' and `eco-labelling' schemes in the Midi-Pyrenees region of the south of France. Factor analysis and analysis of variance were used with a data set of 107 farms - some participating in the labelling schemes and some not participating - for which environmental scores had been assigned. The statistical analyses were complemented by a qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews of 85 farmers and review of the labelling standard guidelines. This study shows that organic farms and farms enrolled in various quality and eco-labelling programmes in France do provide some environmental benefits. However, they do not necessarily perform better than other farms on all environmental measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]