Sustainable Agriculture– Beyond Organic Farming

Huozhong Yang Institute for Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada. Hengyang Zhuang Institute for Mathematics and Statistics, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd E, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada.

About the Guest Editor

Preface to “Sustainable Agriculture–Beyond Organic Farming”

The chapters in this book represent perspectives on organic farming and food systems from widely different academic disciplines and different regions of the world. Two decades ago, few would have foreseen the expansion of organic farming and the dramatic growth in organic food sales that followed.

Performance of Organic Farming

Assessing the Sustainability Performance of Organic Farms in Denmark

Introduction

On the other hand, the limited use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers in organic agriculture can have a positive effect on biodiversity and improve ecosystem services [18,19]. Third, we reflect on approaches in RISE to assess sustainability performance and discuss the implications of our findings for organic farming in Denmark and, more generally, for farm-level sustainability assessment.

Materials and Methods 1. RISE 0

4 The results of steps 2 and 3 are added together and corrected for the share of the animal category in the total number of livestock on the farm: sum ((result of step 2i + q1i + q2i)× (LUi/LUt)). In addition to farm, regional and main data, 11 subtopics use regional benchmarks to compare farm performance to the regional average.

Table 1. Themes and subthemes in RISE 2.0.

Results 1. Soil Use

The energy intensity of agricultural production is a comparison of the farm's energy consumption with the regional average. Voluntary evaluation of the topic Quality of life is based on one or more farm workers.

Table 3. Sustainability performance on the theme soil use and related subthemes for the vegetables, dairy, pig and poultry sector (median, min–max).

Discussion

To summarize, the median scores at the theme level per sector presented in the RISE 2.0 polygon (Figure 2). By assigning points to possible answers, the tool facilitates the inclusion of qualitative data in the assessment.

Conclusions

However, additional efforts are needed to support farmers in translating the sustainability assessment results into sustainable development at the farm level [2,54]. Further research is needed to evaluate the implementation of the sustainability assessment results and to reflect on the contribution of RISE to the learning and monitoring of sustainability at the farm level.

Economic and Social Sustainability through Organic Agriculture: Study of the

Restructuring of the Citrus Sector in the

Bajo Andarax” District (Spain)

Materials and Methods

Increase in the number of hours of on-the-job training per employee and year Gender of the workforce. Data for the assessment of internal social sustainability were obtained from the historical record of the SAT Cítricos del Andarax.

Table 2. Sample distribution according to type of crops and variety.

Results

To this end, the growth of the population with primary or secondary education in the two considered municipalities was studied in the period 2001 to 2011. This result must in turn be considered in relation to the same benchmark in the territorial reference levels of the province of Almería and Andalusia.

Table 5. Cost structure of the orange crop in the Bajo Andarax (€/ha).

Conclusions

En Actas del VIII Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Agricultura Ecológica, Bullas, España, 16–20 de septiembre de 2008; pag. Domínguez, A. La Citricultura Ecológica; Servicio de Asesoramiento a Agricultores y Ganaderas, Dirección General de Agricultura Ecológica, Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca de la Junta de Andalucía: Sevilla, España, 2008.

Synergy and Transition of Recovery

Efficiency of Nitrogen Fertilizer in Various Rice Genotypes under Organic Farming

As OR treatments, three doses of organic fertilization (low, medium and high) were applied (indicated respectively as LO, MO and HO). Transformation Typical Varieties Type-A High REN under both OR and CF High REN Synergism Zhendao 15, Yangjing 4227 Type-B High REN under OR while. Grain Yield and Yield Components in the Different Rice Varieties under OF and CF In all the typical rice varieties, the number of panicles per unit area was significantly higher under CF than OF (Table 6).

SPAD and N values in flag leaves in the key growth periods during OF and CF 3.3.1. Effects of organic (OF) and conventional farming (CF) on GPT activity in the flag leaves of the four different types (A-D) during key growing periods. Effects of organic (OF) and conventional farming (CF) on GOT activity in the flag leaves of the four different types (A–D) during key growth periods.

Table 1. Rice varieties used in this experiment.

Conventional, Partially Converted and Environmentally Friendly Farming in

Method

The relative risk ratios for the multinomial logistic model were obtained by powering the coefficient. Also, the relative risk ratios of the variable subsidy for PCF and EFF were 2.73 and 5.20, respectively. The results of the financial analysis showed that EFF labor costs per ha were higher than CF and PCF.

In favor of EFF, higher revenue per ha may result from a higher crop price. The variable indicating whether or not farmers receive subsidies had a highly positive effect on the likelihood of farmers adopting PCF and EFF. The results of PCF characteristics showed that partially converted farmers had the largest farm and the largest number of crops.

Table 4. Coefficient estimates and standard errors in parentheses for multinomial logistic regression model.

Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Ultimately, to promote compliance with international standards for organic farming, improved measures to improve manure management should be implemented by the government. Considering different socio-economic characteristics and different factors affecting agricultural techniques in different regions, research projects on the promotion of organic farming would be beneficial to design a more targeted policy for sustainable agriculture. Author Contributions: All authors developed the research design and contributed to the writing of the paper.

An exploration of the socio-economic links of organic and non-organic farms in England. Land Use Policy. Offermann, F.; Nieberg, H. Economic Performance of Organic Farms in Europe; Organic Farming in Europe: Economics and Policy; University of Hohenheim: Stuttgart, Germany, 2000. Econometric analysis of the determinants of the adoption of alley farming by farmers in the forest zone of southwest Cameroon.Agric.

Beef Cattle Farms’ Conversion to the Organic System. Recommendations for

Materials and Methods 1. Study Area

Statistical Analysis of Results

It was calculated as the average of the individual conversion scores grouped within the action area. This integration is important because of the interactions between the livestock and plant-soil interface, and the low self-reliance of the farms (low purchasing power to purchase external feed). This has been identified as one of the main weaknesses to return to the organic system in the Mediterranean area [2,22].

This has been identified as one of the key factors determining the profitability of organic farms. On the contrary, the knowledge of veterinarians with regard to animal health management needs to be improved. A sustainability assessment of organic and conventional beef farming in agroforestry systems: the case of the Dehesa land areas.ITEA.

Figure 1. Dehesa location and different land cover characteristics. FFC (Forest Fractional Cover):

Farming to Food Systems

Can Organic Farming Reduce

Vulnerabilities and Enhance the Resilience of the European Food System? A Critical

Methodology: System Dynamics Structural Thinking Tools for Food System and Vulnerability Analysis

The initial articulation of the dynamic problem predetermines the system's boundary and the scope of the iterative modeling effort. In developing our dynamic hypothesis, we did not aim to explain all possible dimensions of the food system outcomes. Instead, we focused on the key dimensions, represented by the selected indicative outcomes of the European food system, to illustrate how system dynamics structural thinking tools can be used to study complex food system issues.

Finally, we examined the systemic impacts of internal processes and external contingencies on food system outcomes to qualitatively assess both (1) the vulnerabilities of European food systems and (2) the potential of organic agriculture to reduce vulnerabilities and increase system resilience. We assessed the direction of change in food system outcomes caused by internal processes and unexpected disturbances. Finally, we examined the systemic influences of internal processes and unforeseen external disturbances on food system outcomes.

Figure 1. Three iterative methodological steps inspired by system dynamics approach.

Problem Articulation: Boundary Selection

The goal of the two balancing feedback loops is to maintain the state of natural resources in a steady state. Furthermore, external inputs can mimic some functions of the food-producing natural resources (at least in the short term). This feature enables food producers to replace natural resources with external inputs in food production when the condition of the former deteriorates.

This feature allows food producers to replace natural resources with external inputs in food production when the condition of the former deteriorates [15,114]. The knowledge of food producers is a combination of tacit (or local) knowledge with standardized (or codified) knowledge [117]. The stock of food available for consumption shows the balance between food production (as a proxy for supply) and food consumption (as a proxy for demand).

Table 1. Summary of historically observed trends * in indicative outcomes of the European food system along with their desired/undesired trends in the face of disturbances.

Vulnerability Analysis: Interplay between Internal Causal Structure and External Disturbances

However, as the food system enters a crisis caused, for example, by visible environmental impacts of conventional food production or consumer concerns about food quality, the vulnerability of food producers becomes apparent. This in turn reinforces the reliance of food producers on the use of external inputs. For example, you could expect food producers to reduce or even stop production when food production increases and profits fall.

In addition, economies of scale promote consolidation and reduce the diversity of scale at which food producers operate. This narrows the sources of technical innovation as well as the choices available to food producers. Yield losses increase the pressure on food producers to produce more, ignoring the balancing nodes of natural resource degradation and regeneration (B1, B2 Figure 4), thus further reducing the state of the natural resource stock.

Policy Analysis: The Potential Role of Organic Farming

Thus, organic food producers have the potential to address the vulnerability associated with the deterioration of natural resource conditions. Organic food producers can be better prepared to deal with long-term concerns. In addition to better environmental outcomes, many studies have found that organic food producers also perform better socio-economically compared to their conventional counterparts [21,30].

As a result, the organic food system becomes increasingly consolidated and loses its diversity, which has the same consequences for resilience as for the conventional European food system. Third, organic food producers compete with each other solely on the basis of price, which does not internalize all externalities. It means that many of the socially and environmentally progressive qualities of organic products are neglected in the price of organic food.

Conclusions

Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/markets-and-prices/medium-term- outlook/2015/fullrep_en.pdf (accessed 1 February 2016). Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rural-area- Economics/briefs/pdf/003_en.pdf (accessed 10 March 2016). Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rural- area-economics/briefs/pdf/003_en.pdf (accessed 10 March 2016).

Available online: http://capreform.eu/fadn-data-highlights-dependence-of-eu-farms-on-subsidy-payments/ (accessed 10 March 2016). Available online: http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/agriculture/greening-agricultural-policy/food-security-and-environmental-impacts (accessed 20 March 2016). In Proceedings of the XIth Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists, 'The Future of Europe in the Global Agri-Food System', Copenhagen, Denmark, August 24–27, 2005.

The Significance of Consumer’s Awareness about Organic Food Products in the United

Organic Products Market in United Arab Emirates
Consumer’s Awareness about Organic Food
Data and Methods
Results and Discussion
Conclusions and Recommendations

Emphasizing the importance of consumer awareness of the benefits of organic food, the authors argue that when producers. This means that all the mentioned variables are positively related to consumers' awareness of organic food. Data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire that included questions on organic food awareness and socio-demographic data of the respondents.

One of the questions in the survey asked respondents: "How much have you heard or read about organic food?". To examine the relationship between consumers' awareness of organic food and their socio-economic characteristics. The results also showed that UAE citizenship increases organic food awareness.