Water quality impairments are widespread throughout the upper Mississippi River basin due in large part to agricultural production practices. Many agencies have worked with landowners to implement various agricultural best management practices (BMPs) to reduce nutrient and sediment losses to streams and rivers. However, it has been difficult to document the effectiveness of these practices at f...

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was fundamentally reformed in 2003. From 2005, farmers will receive decoupled income support payments instead of production premiums if basic standards for environment, food safety, animal health and welfare are met. Farmers are likely to adjust production and management practices to the new policy framework. We describe how this reform fits into the EU stra...

Question: The biodiversity of mountain hay meadows has historically been maintained through traditional, low-intensity farming practices. In recent decades, however, agricultural intensification for hay production has led to dramatic declines in their biodiversity. This study asks: which management practices can contribute to maintaining the biodiversity value of mountain hay meadows without je...

There is limited literature on how to engage the rural women in agriculture and improve their contributions to household food security and income. This study aimed to contribute to literature on women engagement in agriculture through vegetable production using good agricultural practices. The empirical data used were drawn from technology demonstrations and experimentation, learning fields, an...

Results of modelling studies for the evaluation of water quality impacts of agricultural conservation practices depend heavily on the numerical procedure used to represent the practices. Herein, a method for the representation of several agricultural conservation practices with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is developed and evaluated. The representation procedure entails identifying...

From the first awareness of agricultural sources of water pollution in the US in the 1960s, we finally see in the 1990s a commitment at the national level for agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution control. This has been occasioned by a growing awareness that, with point sources of some pollutants largely controlled by waste-water treatment, greater attention must be paid to NPS pollutio...