•Climate smart agriculture engages soil and water conservation for climate adaptation.•We developed and calibrated an ABM to study the CSA adoption rate and its effects.•CSA adopters have higher food ...security than non-adopters under climate projections.•Food security outcomes are also affected by social networks and market integration.•CSA may not counteract severe climate change and further mitigation policy is needed.
The study proposes an agent-based model to investigate how adoption of climate smart agriculture (CSA) affects food security. The analysis investigates the role of social and ecological pressures (i.e. community network, climate change and environmental externalities) on the adoption of physical water and soil practices as well as crop rotation techniques in rural Ethiopia. The findings reveal that CSA can be an effective strategy to improve the rural populations' well-being for farm households with access to capital, strong social networks and access to integrated food markets. The climate scenario simulations indicate that farmers adopting CSA fare better than non-adopters, although CSA adoption does not fully counterbalance the severe climate pressures. In addition, farmers with poor connections to food markets benefit less from CSA due to stronger price oscillations. These results call for an active role for policy makers in encouraging adaptation through CSA adoption by increasing access to capital, improving food market integration and building information sharing among farmers.
IoT and agriculture data analysis for smart farm Muangprathub, Jirapond; Boonnam, Nathaphon; Kajornkasirat, Siriwan ...
Computers and electronics in agriculture,
January 2019, 2019-01-00, 20190101, Letnik:
156
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•This paper proposed the wireless sensor networks’ development for watering crops to optimize agriculture to design and develop the control system between node sensors in the field of crops and the ...data management via smartphone and web application.•There are three components consisting of (i) hardware as control box to connect and obtain data of crops, (ii) web application to manipulate the details of crop data and field information, and (iii) mobile application used to control the crop watering.•The data mining technique was applied to analyze the obtained data for predicting the suitable temperature, humidity, and soil moisture of crops in the future plan.•The result showed that this work was suitable for usefulness in agriculture.•The moisture content in the soil was suitable for the vegetables to be converted with good care reducing costs and increasing agricultural productivity. Moreover, this work will be useful to farmers or those interested in agriculture driving by innovation.
In this paper, we propose developing a system optimally watering agricultural crops based on a wireless sensor network. This work aimed to design and develop a control system using node sensors in the crop field with data management via smartphone and a web application. The three components are hardware, web application, and mobile application. The first component was designed and implemented in control box hardware connected to collect data on the crops. Soil moisture sensors are used to monitor the field, connecting to the control box. The second component is a web-based application that was designed and implemented to manipulate the details of crop data and field information. This component applied data mining to analyze the data for predicting suitable temperature, humidity, and soil moisture for optimal future management of crops growth. The final component is mainly used to control crop watering through a mobile application in a smartphone. This allows either automatic or manual control by the user. The automatic control uses data from soil moisture sensors for watering. However, the user can opt for manual control of watering the crops in the functional control mode. The system can send notifications through LINE API for the LINE application. The system was implemented and tested in Makhamtia District, Suratthani Province, Thailand. The results showed the implementation to be useful in agriculture. The moisture content of the soil was maintained appropriately for vegetable growth, reducing costs and increasing agricultural productivity. Moreover, this work represents driving agriculture through digital innovation.
From 2006 to 2010, deforestation in the Amazon frontier state of Mato Grosso decreased to 30% of its historical average (1996–2005) whereas agricultural production reached an all-time high. This ...study combines satellite data with government deforestation and production statistics to assess land-use transitions and potential market and policy drivers associated with these trends. In the forested region of the state, increased soy production from 2001 to 2005 was entirely due to cropland expansion into previously cleared pasture areas (74%) or forests (26%). From 2006 to 2010, 78% of production increases were due to expansion (22% to yield increases), with 91% on previously cleared land. Cropland expansion fell from 10 to 2% of deforestation between the two periods, with pasture expansion accounting for most remaining deforestation. Declining deforestation coincided with a collapse of commodity markets and implementation of policy measures to reduce deforestation. Soybean profitability has since increased to pre-2006 levels whereas deforestation continued to decline, suggesting that antideforestation measures may have influenced the agricultural sector. We found little evidence of direct leakage of soy expansion into cerrado in Mato Grosso during the late 2000s, although indirect land-use changes and leakage to more distant regions are possible. This study provides evidence that reduced deforestation and increased agricultural production can occur simultaneously in tropical forest frontiers, provided that land is available and policies promote the efficient use of already-cleared lands (intensification) while restricting deforestation. It remains uncertain whether government- and industry-led policies can contain deforestation if future market conditions favor another boom in agricultural expansion.
Eating beside Ourselves examines eating as a site of
transfer and transformation across bodies and selves. The
contributors show that by turning organic substance into food, acts
of eating create ...interconnected food webs organized by relative
conditions of edibility through which eaters may in turn become
eaten. In case studies ranging from nineteenth- and
twentieth-century industrial animal husbandry in the United States,
biodynamic winemaking in Aotearoa New Zealand, and reindeer herding
in Arctic Norway to the creation of taste sensation in pet food and
the entanglement of sugar and diabetes in the Caribbean, the
contributors explore how food and eating create thresholds for
human and nonhuman relations. These thresholds mediate different
conditions and states of being: between living and dying, between
the edible and the inedible, and the relationship between living
organisms and their surrounding environment. In this way, acts of
eating and the process of metabolism partake in the making and
unmaking of multispecies ontologies, taxonomies, and ecologies.
Contributors. Alex Blanchette, Deborah Heath, Hannah Landecker,
Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Amy Moran-Thomas, Heather Paxson, Harris
Solomon, Emily Yates-Doerr, Wim Van Daele
•We examine Climate-Smart Agriculture practices implemented by Climate-resiliency Field Schools in Mindanao, the Philippines.•We demonstrate that climate-smart interventions are location-specific, ...technically rigorous and knowledge-intensive.•The addition of adaptation and food production outcomes strengthened mitigation to climate change outcomes (and vice versa).•Climate-Smart Agriculture practices with a strong livelihood component are generally favored by smallholder farmers.•Climate-resiliency Field Schools is effective in advancing local-level trilateral climate-smart interventions.
This paper explores how Climate-resiliency Field Schools involving smallholder farmers in the Mindanao region of the Philippines advance climate-smart farming practices. Using data from field observations, 86 interviews, and 13 focus group discussions from five municipalities, the research finds that cross-scale activities, including local plans and multi-stakeholder forums, and municipal budgeting processes, influence adaptation and mitigation to climate change in smallholder farming systems. Furthermore, using matrix analysis and stakeholder responses, we identify interactions, synergies, conflicts, and potential co-benefits between mitigation and adaptation, and food production practices. The analysis of climate-resiliency field school practices shows that the addition of livelihood outcomes to smallholder farming landscapes strengthen adaptation, mitigation, and food production outcomes (and vice versa). Climate-resiliency Field Schools have promoted the practice of organic farming, various systems for rice intensification, and the establishment of community seed banks. Other practices, such as soil conservation, reforestation, and agroforestry, have been used in Mindanao to maintain carbon stocks while increasing crop production. Climate-resiliency Field Schools serve as a multilevel institutional platform where farmers can access climate information, which they can use to improve farm planning (i.e., choices of crops, timing of farm preparation, and harvest). The research findings suggest that climate-smart interventions are highly location-specific, technically rigorous, involve knowledge-intensive processes, and are influenced by the knowledge and capacities of local farming communities and implementing partners. We conclude with some suggestions for the design of programs, and the types of interventions that are required to sustain and ultimately scale up efforts to enhance climate-smart agriculture.
Agriculture is behind in the adoption of information technology. Precision agriculture provides means for obtaining desirable business goals like product quality, reduced labor cost, and balanced ...product mix. This study describes the use of a dairy management information system implemented by S.A.E. Afikim to illustrate the applicability of systems in precision agriculture. Findings suggest that the adoption of Six Sigma-based dairy management information system supports four of five propositions: reduced product defect, optimal product mix, quality, and efficiencies.
As an effective field management practice for better crop productivity, fertilization showed profound impacts on soil health by altering soil chemical, physical, and biological processes. But, how ...soil health and related ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) respond to long-term fertilization remains unclear. In this study, based on a 29-year field experiment, we evaluated soil health and EMF under chemical fertilization versus manure application. Long-term manure application maintained soil pH, significantly increased water-stable aggregate, total and available nutrients, microbial biomass and community (bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes, etc.), and enzyme activities compared with treatments under chemical fertilizers. Edaphic factors of soil organic carbon (SOC), available phosphorous (AP), fungi, cation exchange capacity, and clay content were identified as key indicators of soil health evaluation by network analysis. The soil health indices (SHIs) of chemical fertilizer treatments were 39–52% lower than that of natural vegetation recovery, with carbon and nutrient cycling, soil biodiversity maintenance, and productivity at low ecosystem function levels. Manure application enhanced soil health by 150–196% compared to unfertilized control by improving SOC, P availability, and sustaining ecosystem functions with carbon and nutrient cycling, soil biodiversity maintenance, buffering and filtering capacity, and productivity at relatively high ecosystem function levels. The individual functions of carbon and nutrient cycling, physical structure stability, and productivity illustrated sensitive responses to the increase in soil health, while inherent soil functions of buffering and filtering capacity and soil biodiversity maintenance were only correlated with high soil health. Manuring improved soil functions and soil health simultaneously, indicating a synergistic relationship. Our findings highlight the significance of manure application to improve soil health and sustain functions in intensive agricultural systems.
•SOC, AP, fungi, clay content, and CEC were identified as key indicators.•Natural vegetation recovery improved SHI compared with chemical fertilization.•Manuring improved soil health by sustaining soil multifunction at high levels.•Soil functions had diverse responses to soil health shifts.
Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) play an important role in crop production by improving plant growth through various mechanisms that potentially increase sustainable agriculture. ...Blackberry (Rubus spp.) cultivation has acquired importance for its worldwide merchandising, including its high economic profitability, and for the health benefits in human consumption of the fruit. The quality of blackberry production depends on a good vegetative plant development; therefore, this research objective was to select strains of PGPR that stimulate vegetative growth of blackberry plants grown under greenhouse. The experiment was carried out using seedlings of the 'Tupy' blackberry, under a completely randomized design, using six rhizobacterial strains as treatments (A46, AC-35, P61, R44, BSP1.1, JLB4) and a control (no inoculated) with six replicates each. The plants were in the greenhouse for 78 d. At destructive sampling eight agronomical variables were determined. The results showed that strains A46 and P61 inoculated on blackberry plants stimulated height (45%), stem diameter (17%), leaf area (110%), and shoot DM (150%). Inoculation of strain A46 on blackberry plants increased nutrient extraction of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, B, Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn. Pseudomonas tolaasii strains P61 and A46 stimulated growth and nutrient extraction in blackberry plants, and these will be selected to inoculate the blackberry crop for production under greenhouse conditions. Key words: Biomass, nutrient extraction, rhizobacteria, Rubus spp., vegetative development.
The intensification of agriculture to meet the ever-increasing demand for food has exerted a negative impact on the ecosystem. Conservation agriculture has been highlighted as a comprehensive ...approach to sustainability. The present study aimed to assess the performance of conservation agriculture (CA) on plant growth, and its impact on bacterial community composition, specifically guilds involved in nitrogen (N) cycling, in comparison to conventional (CT), and organic agriculture (OA). A field experiment was set up with Cajanus cajan (pigeonpea) under the three agricultural practices with a total of nine modules. The rhizospheric bacterial community composition was examined using Illumina sequencing with the 16S rRNA gene as a marker. The bacterial community involved in nitrogen cycling was examined by analysis of key genes involved in pathways, viz. nitrogen fixation (nifH), nitrification (amoA), and denitrification (narG and nirK) by qPCR. Plant growth parameters and grain yield of C.cajan were relatively higher in CA-based modules. Enhanced abundances of genes involved in the N cycle were observed under CA compared to CT and OA. CA had the highest alpha diversity at the phylum level, while CT had the lowest. Proteobacteria (28%), Planctomycetes (15–19%), Acidobacteria (10–12%), and Bacteroidetes (10–15%) were the dominant phyla across the three agricultural practices. A significant correlation could be drawn between the performance of agricultural management practice, and bacterial community structure and function. The research adds to our understanding of the various mechanisms involved in the promotion of plant growth and soil diversity under sustainable means of agriculture. Besides it emphasizes the significance of rhizospheric bacterial communities as ecological indicators for soil health in arable land.
•Field study comparing three agricultural practices with pigeonpea as model crop.•Structure of rhizospheric bacterial community assessed by next generation sequencing.•Emphasis on quantitative analysis of key markers of nitrogen cycle.•Conservation agriculture observed to be the best in terms of plant parameters.•Higher yield correlated with increased bacterial diversity and nitrogen cycle genes.