Perspectives for Agronomy: Adopting Ecological Principles and Managing Resource UseM.K. van Ittersum, S.C. van de Geijn Elsevier, 1997 M12 11 - 363 pages During the 4th ESA-Congress, held in the Netherlands, 7-11 July 1996, a new perspective for agronomy emerged. Various contributions demonstrate the need for a new role of agronomy and its tools. In recent decades, agriculture has evolved from an activity with mainly productivity aims, into an issue conciliating environmental, agricultural, and economic and social objectives. Placing agriculture in such a broadened perspective requires a different agronomy, with new tools and approaches at a range of aggregration levels. It calls for detailed knowledge concerning the functioning, productivity and ecological relationships of agricultural plants and crops. In addition, it calls for a constant update and synthesis of existing and newly generated knowledge, the design of new ideotypes and genotypes, new production technologies, cropping systems, farming systems and agro-ecological land use systems. This proceedings book presents a set of case studies illustrating the various agronomic tools that can be used for specific agronomic questions. The case studies are grouped in sections illustrating relevant subquestions in developing an agriculture with broadened objectives. The book starts with an introductory paper on the role of agronomy in research and education in Europe. The second section deals with agricultural land use, food security and environment. This is followed by a set of papers describing experimental research and modeling approaches used to design new ideotypes of crops, including physiological properties in relation to growth factors such as radiation, CO2, temperature and water. Sustained soil fertility directly links to nutrient cycling and soil organic matter. A selected set of papers addresses the improvements in resource use efficiency and as such their contribution towards economic, environmental and agricultural objectives. The final section addresses the design of integrated and ecological arable farming systems. It highlights the role of prototyping interaction with leading-edge farmers, as promising tools to design, implement and test new farming systems. It is hoped that the activities of the European Society for Agronomy and the Proceedings of its 4th Congress will stimulate to serve the new perspectives of agronomy, i.e. to adopt ecological principles, to optimally manage the use of resources and to meet social and economic objectives. |
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Adopting Ecological Principles and Managing Resource Use M.K. van Ittersum, S.C. van de Geijn. Table of contents Preface................................................................................................
... (Table 1), and the amount of produce provided by such a farmer was half of what it is today (Table 2). This has left an ever larger number of people free to be engaged in other activities, to leave the rural areas and settle in towns (Table ...
... (Table 2); • land per unit of labor is still limited in a number of countries (Table 1), and a high percentage of agricultural laborers remains (Table 2); • pro capite GPD (Gross Domestic Production) in member states is inversely ...
... Table 1 Areal extent of soil-related constraints in the tropics of Africa, Asia and Latin America (calculated from a data base by W. Couto, North Carolina State University, based on Sanchez et al., 1982) Soil-related constraints ...
... Table 1 Sustainable land use and management principles for future food production Economic viability Strong productivity Working with indigenous land users In harmony with the soil and prevailing climate According to ecological ...
Contents
17 | |
65 | |
Section 4 MANAGING RESOURCE USE | 169 |
Section 5 DESIGNING FARMING SYSTEMS | 291 |
Author Index | 361 |
Subject index | 363 |