Agriculture, Biodiversity and Markets

Agriculture, Biodiversity and Markets
Author: Stewart Lockie
Publisher: Earthscan
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849774374

Debate about how best to ensure the preservation of agricultural biodiversity is caught in a counter-productive polemic between proponents and critics of market-based instruments and agricultural modernization. However, it is argued in this book that neither position does justice to the range of strategies that farmers use to manage agrobiodiversity and other livelihood assets as they adapt to changing social, economic, and environmental circumstances.

Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems

Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems
Author: Devra Ivy Jarvis
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2007
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780231136488

Describes how farmers manage, maintain, and benefit from biodiversity in agricultural production systems. Includes the most recent research and developments in the maintenance of local diversity at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels.

The Economics of Managing Crop Diversity On-farm

The Economics of Managing Crop Diversity On-farm
Author: Edilegnaw Wale
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136537686

The purpose of this book is to assess a variety of economic issues as they relate to agro-biodiversity and show how addressing these issues can assist in agro-biodiversity policy-making. This is illustrated using empirical data from some of the countries (Ethiopia, Nepal and Zambia) which are part of the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative. The empirical chapters apply the relevant economic methods, including regression analysis, choice experiments, hedonic pricing, contingent valuation and farm business income analysis. The authors discuss the economics of managing crop diversity on-farm in the context of crop variety attribute preferences, farmers' perception of agro-biodiversity loss, and value addition and marketing of the products of traditional crop varieties. The case studies include detailed analysis of traditional varieties of groundnut, maize, rice, sorghum, and teff. The results are relevant not only to GRPI countries but also to other countries concerned with the sustainable utilization of these resources. Overall, the studies illustrate how genetic resources issues can be integrated into rural development interventions.

Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Economic Development

Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Economic Development
Author: Andreas Kontoleon
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 572
Release: 2008-10-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134039093

This book reflects current developments in the economics of agrobiodiversity and focuses its attention on the role agrobiodiversity can have for economic development. As a new and rapidly expanding subfield at the interface of environmental/ecological, agricultural and development economics, the editors and contributors to this volume provide a thorough, structured and authoritative coverage of this field. Topics covered include the economic modelling of agrobiodiversity, policy and governance solutions for the conservation of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, contracts, markets and valuation. The authors include well-known and respected academics and researchers who have a real policy perspective into the role of agrobiodiversity and economic development. The book provides coherent and up to date coverage of the economics of in-situ agrobiodiversity conservation which is to a large extent currently absent. Though the material in the volume is primarily written for economists, its content and style are highly relevant and accessible to ecologists and conservation biologists, and to academics from other broad disciplines that are located within the areas of economics and ecology.

Agrobiodiversity - a training manual for farmer groups in East Africa

Agrobiodiversity - a training manual for farmer groups in East Africa
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2018-06-26
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9251305293

Farmers play a crucial role in the preservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity. In fact, the diversity of species that support our current agricultural production systems has been carefully managed and shaped by farming communities, over the course of the history of humankind. Farmers act as custodian of the Earth’s agrobiodiversity resources, and play a big part in preserving traditional plant and animal varieties, and the knowledge associated with these. FAO has long been working on promoting approaches to agriculture that enable both the sustainable use of biodiversity resources for food and agriculture, and their conservation, and on supporting farmers to make informed decisions on their farm management and production practices. This training manual fits in this broader commitment, to support a shift towards a paradigm of agricultural production that can sustain food and nutrition security while at the same time cause the least harm to natural ecosystems. The manual is intended as an introduction to agricultural biodiversity, and to its relevance to different aspects of agricultural production and management for smallholder farmers in Kenya. It includes eight different training modules, each covering a specific aspect related to agrobiodiversity. The modules are standalone and can be used independently one from the other, depending on the user’s or project’s aim. The materials were originally prepared within the FAO- Netherlands Partnership Programme (FNPP) and have been updated, revised and published under the second phase of the European Union-funded project “Capacity-building related to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries”.

Nature and Farming

Nature and Farming
Author: David Andrew Norton
Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0643103252

Explains why it is important to sustain native plants & animals in agricultural landscapes, outlines issues in developing & implementing practical approaches to safeguard native biodiversity in rural areas. Considers ecological & agricultural issues that determine what native biodiversity occurs in farmland.--

Sustainable Intensification

Sustainable Intensification
Author: Jules N. Pretty
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136529276

Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.

Nature's Matrix

Nature's Matrix
Author: Ivette Perfecto
Publisher: Earthscan
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849770131

Landscapes are frequently seen as fragments of natural habitat surrounded by a 'sea' of agriculture. But recent ecological theory shows that the nature of these fragments is not nearly as important for conservation as is the nature of the matrix of agriculture that surrounds them. Local extinctions from conservation fragments are inevitable and must be balanced by migrations if massive extinction is to be avoided. High migration rates only occur in what the authors refer to as 'high quality' matrices, which are created by alternative agroecological techniques, as opposed to the industrial monocultural model of agriculture. The authors argue that the only way to promote such high quality matrices is to work with rural social movements. Their ideas are at odds with the major trends of some of the large conservation organizations that emphasize targeted land purchases of protected areas. They argue that recent advances in ecological research make such a general approach anachronistic and call, rather, for solidarity with the small farmers around the world who are currently struggling to attain food sovereignty.Nature's Matrix proposes a radically new approach to the conservation of biodiversity based on recent advances in the science of ecology plus political realities, particularly in the world's tropical regions.

Changing Fortunes

Changing Fortunes
Author: Karl S. Zimmerer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520917030

Two of the world's most pressing needs—biodiversity conservation and agricultural development in the Third World—are addressed in Karl S. Zimmerer's multidisciplinary investigation in geography. Zimmerer challenges current opinion by showing that the world-renowned diversity of crops grown in the Andes may not be as hopelessly endangered as is widely believed. He uses the lengthy history of small-scale farming by Indians in Peru, including contemporary practices and attitudes, to shed light on prospects for the future. During prolonged fieldwork among Peru's Quechua peasants and villagers in the mountains near Cuzco, Zimmerer found convincing evidence that much of the region's biodiversity is being skillfully conserved on a de facto basis, as has been true during centuries of tumultuous agrarian transitions. Diversity occurs unevenly, however, because of the inability of poorer Quechua farmers to plant the same variety as their well-off neighbors and because land use pressures differ in different locations. Social, political, and economic upheavals have accentuated the unevenness, and Zimmerer's geographical findings are all the more important as a result. Diversity is indeed at serious risk, but not necessarily for the same reasons that have been cited by others. The originality of this study is in its correlation of ecological conservation, ethnic expression, and economic development. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997. Two of the world's most pressing needs—biodiversity conservation and agricultural development in the Third World—are addressed in Karl S. Zimmerer's multidisciplinary investigation in geography. Zimmerer challenges current opinion by showing that the worl