Biodiversity, Biofuels, Agroforestry and Conservation Agriculture

399 Pages·2011·18.73 MB·English

by  Fabio Caporali (auth.)

Volume 5
Series Editor
Eric Lichtfouse
For other titles published in this series, go to
www.springer.com/series/8380
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews

Volume 5
Series Editor
Eric Lichtfouse
For other titles published in this series, go to
www.springer.com/series/8380
Other books by Dr. Eric Lichtfouse
Sustainable Agriculture
Volume 1, 2009
Organic Farming, Pest Control and Remediation of Soil Pollutants
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews. Volume 1, 2009
Climate Change, Intercropping, Pest Control, and Beneficial Microorganisms
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews. Volume 2, 2010
Sociology, Organic Farming, Climate Change and Soil Science
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews. Volume 3, 2010
Genetic Engineering, Biofertilisation, Soil Quality and Organic Farming
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews. Volume 4, 2010
Environmental Chemistry
Volume 1, 2005
Rédiger pour être publié! Conseils pratiques pour les scientifiques
2009
Forthcoming
Sustainable Agriculture
Volume 2
Environmental Chemistry
Volume 2
Eric Lichtfouse
Editor
Biodiversity, Biofuels,
Agroforestry and
Conservation Agriculture
Editor
Dr. Eric Lichtfouse
INRA-CMSE-PME
17 rue Sully
21000 Dijon
France
[email protected]
ISBN 978-90-481-9512-1 e-ISBN 978-90-481-9513-8
DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9513-8
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
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Contents
Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary Science
for a Sustainable Agriculture ......................................................................... 1
Fabio Caporali
Measuring Agricultural Sustainability ......................................................... 73
Dariush Hayati, Zahra Ranjbar, and Ezatollah Karami
Sustainable Bioenergy Production, Land and Nitrogen Use ....................... 101
Enrico Ceotto and Mario Di Candilo
Biofuels, the Role of Biotechnology to Improve
Their Sustainability and Profi tability ........................................................... 123
Meenu Saraf and Astley Hastings
Challenges and Opportunities of Soil Organic
Carbon Sequestration in Croplands .............................................................. 149
Ilan Stavi and Rattan Lal
Conservation Agriculture Under Mediterranean
Conditions in Spain ......................................................................................... 175
F. Moreno, J.L. Arrúe, C. Cantero-Martínez, M.V. López,
J.M. Murillo, A. Sombrero, R. López-Garrido, E. Madejón,
D. Moret, and J. Álvaro-Fuentes
Conservation Tillage and Sustainable Agriculture
in Semi-arid Dryland Farming ...................................................................... 195
Mohammad J. Zarea
Synergism Among Crops to Improve Dryland Crop Production ............... 239
Randy L. Anderson
v
vi Contents
Sustainable Irrigation to Balance Supply of Soil Water,
Oxygen, Nutrients and Agro-Chemicals ....................................................... 253
Surya P. Bhattarai, David J. Midmore, and Ninghu Su
Agricultural Practices in Northeast India and Options
for Sustainable Management ......................................................................... 287
Mritunjay Majumder, Awadhesh Kumar Shukla,
and Ayyanadar Arunachalam
Microbial Community Structure and Diversity
as Indicators for Evaluating Soil Quality ..................................................... 317
Sushil K. Sharma, Aketi Ramesh, Mahaveer P. Sharma,
Om Prakash Joshi, Bram Govaerts, Kerri L. Steenwerth,
and Douglas L. Karlen
Integrating Silvopastoralism and Biodiversity Conservation ..................... 359
A. Rigueiro-Rodríguez, M. Rois-Díaz, and M.R. Mosquera-Losada
Index ................................................................................................................. 375
Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary Science
for a Sustainable Agriculture
Fabio Caporali
Abstract Today’s agriculture has to face the new challenge that derives from a

new evolutionary era of civilisation that has been called “Anthropocene”. Human
dominion on Earth with exploitation of natural resources and environmental pollution
is not socially acceptable anymore, since it leads to self-destruction in a confined
“ spaceship” like the planet Earth. A different cultural attitude to guide human
behaviour is required in order to set up the base of a sustainable development for
man and the whole biosphere. Agriculture scientists can play a role in providing a
step towards agriculture sustainability. However, agriculture scientists need to be
able to educate both themselves and the civic society with a new systems paradigm
that focuses more on relations than on single components of agriculture reality, as
a di sciplinary approach usually does. Transdisciplinarity in agriculture theory and
practice is required in order to face the new challenge of sustainability. Agroecology
is a transdisciplinary area of enquiry that has both a scientific and a philosophical
base for promoting sustainability in agriculture.
Here I review the most important areas of interface that qualify agroecology
methodology and contents. Agroecological achievements are presented according
to their chronology in order to account for the developmental process that agroecology
has undergone. Concerning methodological achievements, four pillars of agroeco-
logical epistemology have been identified: (1) the agroecosystem concept; (2) the
agroecosystem hierarchy; (3) the farm system as a decision making unity; and (4) the
representation of agriculture as a human activity system. These four episte mological
tools are models of agricultural organisation that allow us to understand, project and
manage it as a process. They constitute the theoretical base of agroecology derived
from the systems approach, which is at the core of ecology. With the aid of these
four tools of enquiry, an agroecosystem monitoring process worldwide started
since the early 1970s and it is still running. Information on the processes of energy
F. Caporali (*)
Department of Crop Production, University of Tuscia, Via S Camillo de Lellis,
01100 Viterbo, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
E. Lichtfouse (ed.), Biodiversity, Biofuels, Agroforestry and Conservation Agriculture, 1
Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 5, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9513-8_1,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
2 F. Caporali
transfer (energetics), productivity, nutrient cycling and biodiversity dynamics at
different levels of agroecosystem hierarchy is growing. This constitutes the first
knowledge body package of agroecology, a science that links structure and
fu nctioning of agroecosystems. This data collection has allowed scholars to raise
judgements about the resource use efficiency, the environmental impact and the sustain-
ability of agroecosystems at different hierarchical level of organisation. Since the
1990s, agroecology research and applications have focused more and more on the
issue of sustainability. Attention to the problem of agriculture sustainability has
promoted a spontaneous dialogue between scholars of ecology, agronomy, economics
and sociology. Matching ecology with agronomy has p roduced more awareness on
the benefits of increasing biodiversity at field, farm and landscape levels. Increasing
within-field biodiversity with policultural patterns, such as crop rotations, cover
cropping and intercropping, and increasing between-field biodiversity with field-margin
management, hedgerow maintenance or i ntroduction, and agroforestry applications,
are practical solutions to the problem of enhancing biophysical sustainability of
agroecosystems. Recent research on the role of field size for evaluating the trade-
off between machinery efficiency and loss of biodiversity-friendly habitats in arable
landscapes shows that there is no need for bigger field size beyond an evaluated
threshold of 1–2 ha above which machinery efficiency increases very little
(Rodriguez and Wiegand 2009). Matching ecology with economics and sociology
has instead revealed that contrasting paradigms are still at work. One of the most
outstanding example of paradoxical contrast between economic and ecological
outcomes is the CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) system for meat
production. The CAFO system is economically regarded as the most advanced
intensive feedlot system for livestock production, although it contributes large green-
house gas emissions. If the use of CAFOs is expanded, meat production in the future
will still be a large producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for up to 6.3% of
current greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 (Fiala 2008). An ecological conversion of
economics is demanded whether the end of sustainability has to be pursued.
Organic farming worldwide is the most imp ortant example of agriculture regulated
by law with the expressed end of integrating bio-physical and socio-economic
requirements of sustainability. The latest report by IFOAM (International Federation
of Organic Agriculture Movements) (2007) mentions increasing annual rates for
organic farming and shows that 32.2 millions of hectare were certified as “organi-
cally grown” in 2007 with more than 1.2 mi llions of farmers involved in the world.
The global debate about agriculture su stainability has enormously enlarged the
cultural landscape for mutual criticism between different disciplinary, traditionally
separate areas. The area of agroecology enquiry is now really operating as “glue”
at a transdisciplinary level, bridging the gap between different disciplines and between
theory and practice of agriculture. Measuring agriculture sustainability through indica-
tors of both biophysical and socio-economic performances is now a common praxis of
international, national and local institutions. New curricula in Agroecology at aca-
demic level are per formed in order to give an institutional base for education towards
agriculture su stainability. A final outlook section provides some examples of agroeco-
logical approaches and applications for making a crowed planet more sustainable.