Download or read book Adoption of Sustainable Farm Management to Improve Tailwater Quality written by Rebecca Heath and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Water and Sustainable Agriculture written by Iván Francisco García-Tejero and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-03 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irrigated agriculture, a vital component of general agriculture, supplies fruits, vegetables, and cereals consumed by humans and grains fed to animals. Consequently, agriculture is the largest user of fresh water globally, and irrigation practices in many parts of the world are biologically, economically, and socially unsustainable. Water management should balance the need for agricultural water and the need for a sustainable environment. Water-use efficiency is the prime challenge in worldwide farming practices where problems of water shortages are widespread. Currently, agriculture is undergoing significant changes in innovative irrigation, fertilizer technology, and agronomic expertise. These elements constitute a vital platform for sustainable agricultural success and for preventing environmental damage. This review presents several processes linked to environmental irrigation, balancing environmental protection with improved agricultural production.
Download or read book Water Management Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in Developing Economies written by M. Dinesh Kumar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses strategies for food security and sustainable agriculture in developing economies. The book focuses primarily on India, a fast developing economy, whose natural resource base comprising land and water supporting agricultural production is not only under enormous stress, but also complex and not amenable to a uniform strategy. It critically reviews issues which continue to dominate the debate on water management for agricultural and food production. The book examines the validity of the claim that large water resources projects cause serious social and environmental damages using global and national datasets. The authors examine claims that the future of Indian agriculture is in rain-fed farming supported by small water harvesting. They question whether water-abundant eastern India could become the granary of India, through a groundwater revolution with the right policy inputs. In the process, they look at the less researched aspect of the food security challenge, which is land scarcity in eastern India. The book analyzes the physical, economic and social impacts of large-scale adoption of micro irrigation systems, using a farming system approach for north Gujarat. Through an economic valuation of the multiple use benefits from tank systems in western Orissa, it shows how value of water from large public irrigation systems could be enhanced. The book also looks at the reasons for the limited success in bringing about the much needed institutional reforms in canal irrigation for securing higher productivity and equity using case studies of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Finally it addresses how other countries in the developing world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa could learn from Indian experience.
Download or read book Intensifying agricultural sustainability an analysis of impacts and drivers in the development of bright spots written by and published by IWMI. This book was released on 2006 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Governing Water Quality Limits in Agricultural Watersheds written by Courtney Ryder Hammond Wagner and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diffuse runoff of agricultural nutrients, also called agricultural nonpoint source pollution (NPS), is a widespread threat to freshwater resources. Despite decades of research into the processes of eutrophication and agricultural nutrient management, social, economic, and political barriers have slowed progress towards improving water quality. A critical challenge to managing agricultural NPS pollution is motivating landowners to act against their individual farm production incentives in response to distant ecological impacts. The complexity of governing the social-ecological system requires improved understanding of how policy shapes farmer behavior to improve the state of water quality. This dissertation contributes both theoretically and empirically to NPS pollution governance by examining the impacts of water quality policy design on farmer nutrient management decision making and behavior. In the first study, I theoretically contextualize the issue of agricultural NPS pollution in the broader discussion of environmental public goods dilemmas to suggest that an increased focus on the link between policy and behavior can improve sustainable resource management. I propose two empirical approaches to study the policy-behavior link in environmental public goods dilemmas: 1) explicit incorporation of social psychological and behavioral variables and 2) utilization of actor mental models, or perceptions of the world that guide decision making, to identify behavioral drivers and outcomes. In the second and third studies, I then use these approaches to examine how water quality policies for agricultural NPS collectively change farmer behavior to reduce nutrient emissions. The second chapter uses a quantitative, survey-based approach to examine the relationship between mandatory policy design and behavior change in New Zealand. I find that a shift to mandatory policy is not immediately associated with increased adoption of nutrient management practices, but the mandatory policy design is important for potential future behavior change and long-term policy support. In the third study, I combine qualitative methodology with network analysis of qualitative data to examine a spectrum of agricultural NPS pollution policies in Vermont, USA and Taupo and Rotorua, New Zealand. I use farmer mental models to examine behavior change within each of the regions, the perceived drivers of behavior change and perceived outcomes of the policy. In this study, farmers across all three regions cite mandatory water policy as a key behavioral driver, but in each region, policy design interacts with the social-ecological context to produce distinct patterns of behaviors and perceived outcomes. Taken together, this dissertation demonstrates that agricultural NPS pollution policy design must consider the interactions between policy and other social-ecological behavioral drivers in order to achieve long term water quality improvements.
Download or read book Save and Grow written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-06-22 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book offers a rich toolkit of relevant, adoptable ecosystem-based practices that can help the world's 500 million smallholder farm families achieve higher productivity, profitability and resource-use efficiency while enhancing natural capital.
Download or read book Scales of Sustainable Agricultural Water Management written by Alyssa J. DeVincentis and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water resources are simultaneously intrinsic to global health and prosperity while being threatened by anthropogenic pressures associated with the population growth that they support. The increase in agricultural production necessitated by the growing population strains water resources that are already exploited and increasingly threatened by climate variability. In this context, there is a need to manage agroecosystems for robustness - the ability to maintain consistency during environmental stress - and resilience - the ability to recover in response to environmental stress. Robust and resilient agroecosystems require sustainable agricultural water management strategies and practices that conserve resources, focus on adaptations to use water more efficiently, and aim to maintain production while reducing adverse environmental impacts. This dissertation uses California as a case of study to explore sustainable agricultural water management from the demand-side. Each chapter uniquely contributes to the understanding of demand-side management strategies, each exploring a different scale with interdisciplinary techniques, to provide practical information for farmers and policy makers. Chapter 1 quantifies the agro-hydrologic impact of winter cover cropping on soil moisture and evapotranspiration on commercial production fields. Chapter 2 models the economic impacts of winter cover cropping in rotation with processing tomato and almond production. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between farmer characteristics and their participation in groundwater management. Results demonstrate how sustainable agriculture practices that improve soil health and sequester carbon can be adopted by specialty crop farmers and contribute to a more robust and resilient future for California agriculture. However, results also indicate that farmers may not have the flexibility to adopt such practices in light of the governance paradox emerging from new groundwater management legislation that does not adequately address the needs of groundwater-dependent farmers.Overall, this dissertation contributes to a coupled understanding of human and environmental systems to ensure the viability of farming, the ecosystems it depends on, and the economies and communities it supports.
Download or read book Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-07-25 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.
Download or read book Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture written by Theib Oweis and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 613 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book AIMING FOR THE RIGHT TARGET THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGRICULTURAL VOLUNTARY INITIATIVES AND WATER QUALITY IMPAIRMENT written by Kate Erin Rosenberg and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1970s, agriculture has been cited as one of the leading contributors to the nation's degraded water quality. Forty years after the Clean Water Act's passage, nonpoint source pollution from agricultural operations remains a persistent policy challenge that cannot viably be addressed through regulatory mechanisms. Accordingly, voluntary, incentive-based programs--whereby farmers receive funding to undertake sustainable agriculture practices that benefit soil, water quality, and wildlife habitat--have gained popularity as a mechanism for addressing the looming nonpoint source problem. Given that funding for federal voluntary initiatives is limited, targeting these funds toward the most pressing geographic areas of resource concern is critical to achieving environmental goals. My research examines the extent to which funding under one of the farm bill's voluntary initiatives, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, has been targeted at the most impaired watersheds at the national level. In other words, I examine the extent to which water quality predicts Environmental Quality Incentives Program funding. I find that water quality does not predict funding, indicating that this particular voluntary initiative has not been targeted toward the most impaired watersheds. Accordingly, I recommend that future award allocations be driven by resource impairment, that USDA adopt a "Precision Conservation" model, and that water quality monitoring across the nation be improved.
Download or read book OECD Studies on Water Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report calls on policy makers to recognise the issues at stake in water resource management in agriculture and gives them the tools to do so, offering a wealth of information on recent trends and the outlook for water resource use in agriculture.
Download or read book Building Soils for Better Crops written by Fred Magdoff and published by Sare. This book was released on 2009 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'Published by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, with funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture."
Download or read book Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Agricultural Water Management written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report contains a collection of papers from a workshopâ€"Strengthening Science-Based Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Scarce Water Resources for Agricultural Production, held in Tunisia. Participants, including scientists, decision makers, representatives of non-profit organizations, and a farmer, came from the United States and several countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The papers examined constraints to agricultural production as it relates to water scarcity; focusing on 1) the state of the science regarding water management for agricultural purposes in the Middle East and North Africa 2) how science can be applied to better manage existing water supplies to optimize the domestic production of food and fiber. The cross-cutting themes of the workshop were the elements or principles of science-based decision making, the role of the scientific community in ensuring that science is an integral part of the decision making process, and ways to improve communications between scientists and decision makers.
Download or read book The Use of Saline Waters for Crop Production written by J. D. Rhoades and published by Artabras. This book was released on 1992 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Building Soils for Better Crops written by Fred Magdoff and published by . This book was released on 2021-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beneath the Bottom Line written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
