Sociology, Organic Farming, Climate Change and Soil Science
Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Sustainable agriculture is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, and social sciences. Indeed, sustainable agriculture decipher mechanisms of processes that occur from the molecular level to the farming system to the global level at time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. For that, scientists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable agriculture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats problem sources. Because most actual society issues are now intertwined, global, and fast-developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. This book series gathers review articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge, then propose alternative solutions. It will therefore help all scientists, decision-makers, professors, farmers and politicians who wish to build a safe agriculture, energy and food system for future generations.
Contents
1. Society issues, painkiller solutions, dependence and sustainable agriculture; Eric Lichtfouse
2. Sociology of sustainable agriculture; Ezatollah Karami
3. Sustainable versus organic agriculture; Vito Sardo
4. Organic agriculture and food production: ecological, environmental, food safety and nutritional quality issues; Reza Ghorbani
5. Sustainability of energy crop cultivation in Central Europe; Volkhard Scholz
6. Phosphorus, plant biodiversity and climate change; Nicole Wrage
7. Co-evolution and migration of bean and rhizobia in Europe; Paula A. Rodiño
8. Non-isotopic and 13C isotopic approaches to calculate soil organic carbon maintenance requirement; David Clay
9. Soil solarization and sustainable agriculture; Trifone D’Addabbo
10. Soil functions and diversity in organic and conventional farming; Supradip Saha
11. Indigenous soil knowledge for sustainable agriculture; Iin P. Handayani
12. Composting to recycle biowaste; Gyorgy Füleky
13. Nematodes as biocontrol agents; Tarique Hassan Askary
14. Allelopathy and organic farming; Jana Kalinova
15. Occurrence and physiology of zearalenone as a new plant hormone; Jolanta Biesaga-Kocielniak
16. Homestead agroforestry, a potential resource in Bangladesh; Giashuddin Miah
