Farms contribute heavily to overall sustainability. To date, various frameworks, approaches, methods and indicators have been developed to appraise how much corporations (firms, farms) contribute to sustainability. Among these, the Sustainable Value (SV) method helps to determine by which...

Health recommendations clearly show that in Austria and other highly developed countries less animal and more plant based food should be consumed. A meat based diet is held responsible for a number of environmental problems. We explore the impacts on nutrient fluxes (nitrogen and phosphorus) and...

Agricultural water interventions (AWI), e.g. in-situ soil and water conservation strategies, irrigation, and damming of rivers to increase groundwater recharge, have been suggested as important strategies to improve yields in tropical agriculture. Although the biophysical implications of AWIs...

We analyze the economic effects of plant breeding research in Germany. In addition to market effects, for the first time also effects of reduced CO2 emissions due to productivity increases are being quantified. The analysis shows that investments in German plant breeding research in the period...

Traditionally, cereal crop harvest residues are communally grazed by the ruminant herds of villagers and transhumant pastoralists in the agro-pastoral systems which predominate in the savannah zone of West Africa. We analysed the impact of the private use of crop residues by individual farmers...

Farming systems and management regimes of vineyards may affect local biodiversity of plants and invertebrates. While most studies have focused on the overall biodiversity of vineyards, there has been little consideration of the response of different ecological guilds to vineyard management, or...

Dry sowing is the practice of sowing a crop into a dry seed bed before the autumn rains. This is in contrast with the traditional practice of wet sowing where seed is placed into a moist seed bed following a rainfall event in autumn. We evaluated the putative benefits and risks of dry sowing for...

In developing country agriculture property rights over crop residue left on privately farmed land are often poorly enforced, resulting in common grazing. The introduction of no-till agriculture, a technology that presents an alternative use for residue, may sufficiently increase its value so...

A study was conducted to determine whether sorghum silage can be a valid alternative to corn silage in lactating cow rations in terms of enteric CH4 production and global warming potential (GWP) per milk unit. Diets containing corn (CS), whole plant grain sorghum (WPGS) or forage sorghum (FS)...