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PhD Doctorate The phenomenon of organic agriculture in the Mid North of South Australia is explored in seven case studies of local organic producers. The research issue asks how these organic producers organise to survive in a marketplace where they remain marginal players. The research is framed around Sonnino and Marsden's (2006) two-dimensional model of alternative agriculture, which structures the case study analysis at two levels: a horizontal dimension concerning farmer agency and grassroots innovations, and a vertical dimension focusing on farmer interaction with regulatory and governance frameworks in organic agriculture. To enrich understanding of farmer practices at the grassroots level, two additions are made to the horizontal dimension: the role that beliefs play in determining agency and innovation in motivating farmers to 'go organic' and 'stay organic' and how alternative beliefs, particularly about nature and localism, influence the construction by organic farmers of 'new platforms of action' (Sonnino and Marsden 2006), essential for survival in the marketplace.

O objetivo desse artigo é discutir o que leva o agricultor a aplicar ou não os agrotóxicos, bem como ressaltar quais são os elementos que estão por traz dessa decisão. O presente trabalho abordará o problema a partir de uma análise integrada entre agricultura, meio ambiente e saúde pública, estabelecendo elementos que dão legitimidade à agricultura sustentável como geradora de benefícios sociais, ambientais e econômicos vis-à-vis as técnicas da agricultura convencional com uso intensivo de agrotóxicos e geradoras de externalidades negativas. Para tal, lançamos mão de alguns dados e artigos da literatura específica que ilustram os aspectos teóricos aqui levantados. Com intuito de corroborar esses aspectos teóricos, processamos os microdados da Pesquisa de Previsão de Safra (PREVS) do IBGE, que trouxe no ano de 1999 um suplemento especial a respeito do uso de agrotóxicos no estado do Paraná. Por meio de uma simples análise através de tabelas de contingência traçaremos um perfil que revela as práticas de uso desses produtos e as associamos com a intoxicação de trabalhadores desses estabelecimentos rurais, o que muito contribui para recolocarmos os argumentos teóricos aqui discutidos à luz da realidade brasileira como elementos centrais de discussão da atual política de racionalização do uso dos agrotóxicos no país. -------------------------------------------------------This paper discusses why the farmer to apply to pesticides and what is the elements present in that decision from an integrated analysis between agriculture, the environment and public health. We recognize that sustainable agriculture produce social, environmental and economical benefits compared the techniques of conventional agriculture with the intensive use of pesticides and causing negative externalities. The database used was the PREVS / IBGE (Crops Prediction Sample) 1999, which brought information about the use of pesticides in the state of Parana. The contingency tables designed the profile of pesticides use and associate with the poisoning of rural workers. The results contributed to sustain the theoretical discourse based on the Brazilian reality collaborating to policy of pesticides use.

Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2006 describes trends in resources used in and affected by agricultural production (including natural, produced, and management resources), as well as the economic conditions and policies that influence agricultural resource use and its environmental impacts. Each chapter provides a concise overview of a specific topic with links to sources of additional information., This is a large file. We have had reports of problems opening the file in Mozilla Firefox. If you have problems, try using Windows Internet Explorer.

This paper goes through the chemical risks able to affect the organic and the conventional agro-food products. For each type of contaminant a tentative assessment has been made in considering not only the levels of exposure but also the toxicological data when available. When comparing both production systems with regards to food safety, it appears that, for the well-known toxicants (pesticides, nitrates), organic products present some clear advantages, but it is also recognized that natural toxicants need to be better identified within this mode of production. Environmental and food processing contaminants are present in both organic and conventional products. It is recommended to improve the monitoring programmes by paying more attention to the mode of production as well as to the whole array of relevant contaminants. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The analiysis is based on a pilot survey conducted among the family farms in the NE region of Croatia. The survey focused on the organic agriculture perception of the Croatian farmers, particularly their attitude towards the organic vegetable growing, and their willingness to start with this type of production in the future. The authors assumed that the farmers involved in vegetable growing (conventional for the time being) present a group more sensitive to (non) application of agrochemicals and other indirect pollutants than the farmers involved in other farming practices. The results indicate that the attitude of the vegetable growers towards the organic agriculture is affirmative, much more so than the attitude of "other" farmers. The vegetable producers have clearly shown higher interest in the organic agriculture and firmer conviction in the future prospective of the organic agriculture in Croatia.

The study reported in this paper measures differences in profitability between conservation farming (CF) practices and conventional agriculture by comparing the value of differential output with the differential input costs. The main objective is to address and fill several important knowledge gaps by investigating three key features of conservation farming in Zambia: 1) the process by which CF originated and spread; 2) the scale of CF adoption across household groups and regions; and 3) the impact of CF on crop output, input use, cost of production and farm income.

Sve intenzivnija degradacija i onečišćenje tala konvencionalnom poljoprivredom 70-ih godina 20. st. potakla je razvoj organske (ekološke) poljoprivrede, kao oblika proizvodnje "zdrave hrane". Organska poljoprivreda proširila je svoj utjecaj iz jednog od načina proizvodnje na način transformacije socio-ekonomske strukture ruralne sredine. Više od 3 milijuna ha ogradivog tla Europe tretira se organskom proizvodnjom. Zemlje Južne Europe, posebno Italija i Španjolska, organskom su poljoprivredom pridonijele transformaciji određenih ruralnih prostora potičući razvoj ruralnog turizma i zaustavljajući procese depopulacije sela., More and more intensive degradation and soil contamination by conventional agriculture in the 1970s, encouraged the development of organic, eco-agriculture as one of the methods of healthy food production.Organic agriculture widens its influence from the form of food production to one of the ways of socio-economic structure transformation of rural areas. More then 3 million hectares of cultivable soil in Europe is under organic production. South-European countries, esp. Italy and Spain, have the greatest portion of areas under organic cultivation.

Various organic technologies have been utilized for about 6000 years to make agriculture sustainable while conserving soil, water, energy, and biological resources. Among the benefits of organic technologies are higher soil organic matter and nitrogen, lower fossil energy inputs, yields similar to those of conventional systems, and conservation of soil moisture and water resources (especially advantageous under drought conditions). Conventional agriculture can be made more sustainable and ecologically sound by adopting some traditional organic farming technologies.

Conservation agriculture (CA) technologies involve minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover through crop residues or cover crops, and crop rotations for achieving higher productivity. In India, efforts to develop, refine and disseminate conservation-based agricultural technologies have been underway for nearly two decades and made significant progress since then even though there are several constraints that affect adoption of CA. Particularly, tremendous efforts have been made on no-till in wheat under a rice-wheat rotation in the Indo-Gangetic plains. There are more payoffs than tradeoffs for adoption of CA but the equilibrium among the two was understood by both adopters and promoters. The technologies of CA provide opportunities to reduce the cost of production, save water and nutrients, increase yields, increase crop diversification, improve efficient use of resources, and benefit the environment. However, there are still constraints for promotion of CA technologies, such as lack of appropriate seeders especially for small and medium scale farmers, competition of crop residues between CA use and livestock feeding, burning of crop residues, availability of skilled and scientific manpower and overcoming the bias or mindset about tillage. The need to develop the policy frame and strategies is urgent to promote CA in the region. This article reviews the emerging concerns due to continuous adoption of conventional agriculture systems, and analyses the constraints, prospects, policy issues and research needs for conservation agriculture in India.

Recently, many countries have introduced policies that promote sustainable agricultural practices, such as reducing synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and promoting diversified crop rotation. While such management changes might represent an opportunity for the agricultural sector to mitigate the impacts of climate change through carbon (C) sequestration in soils, there are still uncertainties due to the scarcity of reliable long-term data to prove this assumption. In this study, we applied the DayCent model using empirical data from a farm-scale study and an experimental trial study at Nafferton farm in the UK, to assess the long-term effects of contrasting agricultural systems (conventional vs. organic), grazing regimes (non-grazed vs. grazed), arable systems with ley phases, mineral vs. compost fertility sources and conventional vs. organic crop rotation on soil C stocks (0–0.20 m depth). The simulations showed that grazing and higher ley time proportions can increase soil C stocks for a period of at least 30 years, regardless of the agricultural system used (average increase in rates of 0.25 ± 0.02 Mg ha−1 yr−1). Compost fertiliser promoted soil C accumulation for the same period (average increase in rates of 0.3 Mg ha−1 yr−1), but its magnitude was dependent on the choice of crops in the rotation. However, ley time proportions higher than 40% of the full crop rotation did not improve soil C accumulation further. We conclude that the DayCent model can be used to identify the quantity of and the effective period for which management practices can be used to target mitigation efforts, but the balance between sustainability and productivity aspects warrants further research.

Agricultural researchers widely recognise the importance of sustainable agricultural production systems and the need to develop appropriate methods to measure sustainability at the farm level. Policymakers need accounting and evaluation tools to be able to assess the potential of sustainable production practices and to provide appropriate agro-environmental policy measures. Farmers are in search of sustainable management tools to cope with regulations and enhance efficiency. This study proposes an indicator-based framework to evaluate sustainability of farming systems. Main features of the indicators’ framework are the relevance given to different spatial scales (farm, site and field), production and pedo-climatic factors, and a holistic view of the agro-ecosystem. The framework has been conceived to tackle different purposes ranging from detailed scientific analyses to farm-level management systems and cross-compliance. Agro-environmental indicators can be calculated, simulated with models or directly measured with different levels of detail proportionally to the aims of the evaluation exercise. The framework is organised in a number of environmental and production systems and sub-systems. For each system environmental critical points are identified with corresponding agro-environmental indicators and processing methods. A review of applications of the framework in Tuscany, Italy, since 1991 is presented. Applications range from prototyping farming systems, to integrated farm ecological-economic modelling, comparisons between organic, integrated and conventional farming systems, farm eco-management voluntary audit schemes and cross-compliance. Strengths and weaknesses of the framework are discussed against generic requirements of information systems and operational issues.

Organic agriculture in Uganda is developing at a fast pace and despite this trend Uganda is still unable to produce enough fresh and dry organic fruits mainly pineapple to meet the exporters demand. This current research investigated the strategies of farmers at production level by assessing the pros and cons of fruit growing, organic agriculture and fruit drying in order to understand the underlying causal factor for the low production of organic dry fruits in a major fruit producing district of Uganda.The study was carried out in two separate and distinctive areas; one which only produces and export fresh organic pineapple and the other which exports dried fruits (mainly pineapple and papaya). About 10% of the farmers in the two study areas were surveyed using questionnaires which were further followed by semi-structured interviews and participatory rural appraisals activities with various types of farmers in order to understand the different decisions and strategies of farmers.82% and 74% of farmers in the two study areas grew fruits as it gave better economic returns and for 77% and 90% respectively in the two study areas, the reasons for growing fruit was the ease of selling compared to other crops. All the farmers were relying on coffee husk for growing organic pineapples. However, 50% of the farmers want to grow pineapples (either organic or conventional) but couldn't afford to buy coffee husk. Fruit drying was mainly a strategy to utilize cheap fruits during harvesting seasons for value addition. 71% and 42% of farmers in the two study areas wanted to dry fruits but it was beyond their economic capacity to buy the driers.Decision of the farmers whether to grow fruits or cereals, organic or conventional agriculture and selling the fruits as fresh or dry were dependent mainly on the economic, knowledge and resource availability of each type of practices. It is concluded that the main barrier for an increase in the production of organic dried fruits is at the processing level, and the limited capacity for investments in drying facilities.