Scientists can learn a great deal from innovative farmers who apply adaptive management principles based on experience gained over decades. This paper records 31 observations that a farmer, Jan Labuschagne, made on his farm to the south of Gobabis. The observations relate to aspects such as animal behaviour and performance, animal trampling, and applications of grazing and fire. They are tabula...

More than one hundred volatile organic substances were identified by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC/MS) in the indoor and outdoor air, stable and farm road dust and farm soil samples from two pig and cattle farms in the South Moravian Region. Volatile fatty acids (acetic, propanoic, butanoic and pentanoic acids) and their esters dominated along with aldehydes (butanal, pentanal an...

McWilliams explored the injustices of migratory farm labor in California. Yet his description of the rural California landscape at that time captures the essential characteristics of the predominant form of agricultural production in the United States today: Travelers along the highways pass through orchards that seem literally mea-sureless and gaze upon vast tracts of farm land stretching away...

Sweet potato (Solanum tuberosum), a staple tuber crop in parts of the Sudan and Guinea savanna zone of Nigeria is known for its resistance to drought, vigorous early growth and low input requirements. Increase in population which has resulted to land shortages has led to reduction in traditional methods of maintaining soil fertility. Technologies based on combinations of organic and inorganic s...

The recent intensification of the arable landscape by modern agriculture has had negative effects on biodiversity. Organic farming has been introduced to mitigate negative effects, but is organic farming beneficial to biodiversity? In this review, we summarize recent research on the effects of organic farming on arable biodiversity of plants, arthropods, soil biota, birds, and mammals. The ecos...

Replenishing nutrients through organic sources is essential to maintain the soil health and sustainability in Eastern Himalayan Region, India which is organic by default. Keeping this in mind an experiment was laid out on randomized block design with six treatments viz., T1: Vermicompost (VC; 2.5 Mg ha-1), T2: Poultry manure (PM; 1.25 Mg ha-1), T3: Swine manure (SM; 3.0 Mg ha-1), T4: Cow du...

The role of tomatoes as nutritive vegetable crop in the diet of most humans has been stressed or advanced by many scientists. This study therefore, assessed the profitability of tomato production using organic and inorganic fertilisers on a typical irrigated soil in Hong Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Nigeria, with the intent of ensuring a more acceptable measure of sustainability among ...

Organic milk production is one of the fastest growing segments of organic agriculture in the U.S., but little is known about the relative costs and returns of organic and conventional dairies. This study utilizes a nationwide survey of dairy operations for 2005 that includes a targeted sample of organic dairies. Treatment-effect sample-selection models were specified to isolate the impact of ch...

Introduction Over the past several years there has been significant interest in adopting on-farm manure anaerobic digesters in Ontario. The potential for sustainable energy production, while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mitigating pathogens and odours, and increasing ionized nutrients in the digestate, has made anaerobic digestion an attractive option for manure management. The biog...

The use of organic matter such as animal manures, human waste, food wastes, yard wastes, sewage sludges and composts has long been recognized in agriculture as beneficial for plant growth and yield and the maintenance of soil fertility. The new approaches to the use of organic amendments in farming have proven to be effective means of improving soil structure, enhancing soil fertility and incre...