Suchergebnisse

Globally, rice cultivation is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions released by agricultural activities. To sustainably reduce the contribution of rice to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is important to pursue management and technological options that reduce emissions and improve farmer productivity, adaptation and resilience to climate change impacts. Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is a water-saving technique that helps farmers adapt to less water availability. It reduces the amount of in-field gas emissions associated with rice production, and it may increase and/or maintain rice productivity levels. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and partners are conducting several studies to evaluate the feasibility of implementing this technology in Colombia, a country that has committed to reducing economy-wide GHG emissions by 20% under the 2015 Paris Agreement and implementing adaptation plans by 2030. The sustainable implementation of AWD requires an understanding of the economic, climatic, political, agronomic and social considerations within which farmers operate. The literature shows how gender roles can influence the adoption of a technology or be affected by the introduction of a new technology. A baseline study was designed to answer the following questions: how might gender impact the adoption of AWD in Colombia? And how will the adoption of AWD affect the gender division of labor? A household survey with sex-disaggregated information in 609 households in five departments was conducted. The results suggest that women own rice assets and make decisions about production but are not recognized as rice producers. They do not receive agricultural information and do not have group membership in the same proportion as men do. Furthermore, households in which women participate as producers are more likely to have noneconomic incentives and water availability (i.e. no problems with water scarcity) to implement AWD. Women participate in manual weed control as hired labor and men participate more in irrigation, and both activities can be affected by the implementation of AWD. For AWD to be widely implemented in Colombia, it is important to target women as well as men and create awareness of the possible social effects of the technology in gendered labor activities, and therefore in the lives of both women and men.

There are few reports on dual-purpose cattle systems characterization in Latin America and Colombia based on large datasets. This limits our understanding of their dynamics, and the establishment of public policies and government programs to improve their productive performance, promotion and rural development. This study aimed to characterize very small, small, medium, and large dual-purpose farms in Colombia from technical and environmental perspectives. The data analysed were obtained from the Ganadería Colombiana Sostenible and the LivestockPlus projects, which gathered information from a total of 1313 dual-purpose farms in Colombia. Farms were classified as being either very small (1 to 30 bovines), small (31 to 50 bovines), medium (51 to 250 bovines), or large farms (more than 251 bovines). Numerical and categorical variables were distributed into five components: (1) General Farm Information, (2) Herd Composition and Management, (3) Pasture Management, (4) Production Information, and (5) Environmental Information. Each component was analysed using the factorial analysis of mixed data (FAMD) method. According to FAMD, for the components General Farm Information, Herd Composition and Management, Pasture Management, and Production Information, the distribution of variables led to a spatial separation of the centroid from each category of producers. For the component Environmental Information, there was no separation of the centroid. In general, medium-sized and large farms showed better infrastructure, better machinery and equipment, and better reproductive practices; however, this was not reflected in a significant improvement of productive parameters, except for a lower mortality rate. Larger livestock producers need to plan their livestock husbandry activities properly, based on their better available infrastructure and livestock management practices, with the purpose of increasing productivity. The main features identified for each livestock producer category can be the basis to guide and establish policies and programmes for their technological development. The development of better livestock management practices and the implementation of technology, as well as technical assistance, should focus on small- and medium-sized livestock producers, which could lead to reaching a better productive and reproductive performance of dual-purpose systems.

Acknowledgements This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is a strategic partnership of CGIAR and Future Earth. This research was carried out with funding by the European Union (EU) and with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The UN FAO Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) Programme funded data collection in Kenya and Tanzania. The views expressed in the document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of CGIAR, Future Earth, or donors. We thank Louis Bockel of the UN FAO Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA) for his comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Acknowledgements PS, JFS, CC, NB, MK, CA and JO acknowledge support from the CIRCASA project which received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement n° 774378. The input of PS also contributes to the projects: DEVIL (NE/M021327/1), Assess-BECCS (funded by UKERC) and Soils-R7-GRREAT (NE/P019455/1). AS-C acknowledges support from the AGRISOST-CM project (S2018/BAA-4330) and MACSUR-JPI initiative, as well as the inspiration and support from the Spanish research networks REMEDIA and NUEVA. JA-F acknowledges support from Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain (project number AGL2017-84529-C3-1- R). The participation of NC and EW was funded as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements (https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors). The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of the funding organizations. LS and SM acknowledge support from the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre and Global Research Alliance. This paper contributes to the work of the Soil Carbon Sequestration network of the Integrative Research Group of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (https://globalresearchalliance.org/). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

As global demand for livestock products (such as meat, milk, and eggs) is expected to double by 2050, necessary increases to future production must be reconciled with negative environmental impacts that livestock cause. This paper describes the LivestockPlus concept and demonstrates how the sowing of improved forages can lead to the sustainable intensification of mixed crop–forage–livestock–tree systems in the tropics by producing multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits. Sustainable intensification not only improves the productivity of tropical forage-based systems but also reduces the ecological footprint of livestock production and generates a diversity of ecosystem services (ES), such as improved soil quality and reduced erosion, sedimentation, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Integrating improved grass and legume forages into mixed production systems (crop–livestock, tree–livestock, crop–tree–livestock) can restore degraded lands and enhance system resilience to drought and waterlogging associated with climate change. When properly managed tropical forages accumulate large amounts of carbon in soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen (legumes), inhibit nitrification in soil and reduce nitrous oxide emissions (grasses), and reduce GHG emissions per unit livestock product. The LivestockPlus concept is defined as the sustainable intensification of forage-based systems, which is based on three interrelated intensification processes: genetic intensification – the development and use of superior grass and legume cultivars for increased livestock productivity; ecological intensification – the development and application of improved farm and natural resource management practices; and socio-economic intensification – the improvement of local and national institutions and policies, which enable refinements of technologies and support their enduring use. Increases in livestock productivity will require coordinated efforts to develop supportive government, non-government organization, and private sector policies ...