BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were to investigate whether there were differences between Norwegian Red cows in conventional and organic farming with respect to reproductive performance, udder health, and antibiotic resistance in udder pathogens. METHODS Twenty-five conventional and 24 organic herds from south-east and middle Norway participated in the study. Herds were matched such ...

A great challenge to science is to elucidate how agriculture can feed the increasing world population without damaging the environment, while preserving other resources such as freshwater. In the Seine basin, characterised by intensive agriculture, most of surface and underground water is contaminated by nitrate. Conventional agriculture has regularly increased the use of industrial fertilisers...

BACKGROUND Quarter milk samples from cows with high risk of intramammary infection were examined to determine the prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and penicillin resistant SA (SAr) in conventional and organic dairy herds and herds converting to organic farming in a combined longitudinal and cross-sectional study. METHODS 20 conventional herds, 18 organic herds that converted before 19...

The research explored the effects a change from conventional to organic farming had on the livelihoods of a group of farmers in Karnataka, South India. It involved semistructured interviews with organic farmers, NGOs, consumers, marketing organisations, and the State Agricultural Department. The farmers in the case study perceived that they had improved their livelihoods over the long term by t...

Organic farming is characterized by several goals that are expressed in daily practices and in standards. Some of the important goals for organic production systems are naturalness, harmony on all levels of production, local recycling of resources, and the principle of precaution (Anonymous, 2002). For organic herds, good animal welfare is an explicit goal, and this includes that the overall go...

In order to assess the technical and economic efficiency of conventional farm businesses a variety of management techniques have been developed. These include gross and net margin analysis and full cost accounting. This paper reviews their effectiveness in organic farming systems and finds that all of the techniques can be useful in helping to assess the economic efficiency of individual enterp...

The quality of potatoes from organic and conventional farming was investigated in this study. Tubers of eight potato varieties, organically and conventionally produced at one or two geographical sites in controlled field trials, were collected in four consecutive harvests from 1996-1999. The parameters analysed included nitrate, trace elements (As, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, Zn), vitam...

The study examines the kind of actors and resources that empower small-scale farmers to promote sustainable agriculture. It also analyzes the reasons given by farmers who changed their farming methods. In 2004, the Department of Agriculture launched a project for the Promoting Organic Farming and Marketing in Lao PDR (PROFIL). PROFIL tried to develop market opportunities for Lao’s organic produ...

Crop management systems influence plant productivity and nutrient use efficiency, as well as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), which are known to influence the growth of plants via phytohormone production, phosphate solubilization, nitrogen (N) fixation and antimicrobial activity. The objective of this study was to compare the influence of two crop management system on microbial PGPR...

Soil organic carbon has been the most important soil quality measurement factors and has intense relation with soil physical, chemical and biological characteristics. Organic matter and its components are important factors of soil aggregates constitution and stability and play significant role in its structure.So, this research has been done for achieving this purpose. This area is arounding sa...