Terms: agriculture
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- Science > Ecology > Sustainable Agriculture
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- Plants (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Provides a comprehensive listing of plants, by characteristics, classification, cultural significance, invasive and noxious, threatened and endangered, alternative crops, and more. Also searches for plants by scientific name or common name. Includes a factsheet, distribution in the USA, classification, a picture, characteristics, and similar information on each plant. 3-01
- Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture (University of California)
Presents core issues related to sustainable agriculture, as well as strategies. "Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity." "Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 1-02
- Sustainable Business Practices - Agriculture (BSR.org)
Provides methods a model business uses for environmental sustainability. 5-02
- Sustainable Agriculture
- History of Agriculture and Farm Innovations (Inventors.About.com)
"The cotton gin is a machine that separates seeds, hulls and other unwanted materials from cotton after it has been picked. Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin on March 14, 1794." 01-06
- No-Till Farming (Conservation Agriculture Systems Alliance)
"Across North America voluntary producer organizations work hard to promote no-till systems and other practices that provide economic benefits as well as environmental benefits to their regions. These organizations share similar missions and goals, encounter similar challenges and struggle with all too common problems." 06-08
- California Agriculture Faces Trouble With Global Warming (The Modesto Bee)
"Rising temperatures could make pears, peaches, almonds and other crops that need a winter chill unsuitable for California farms, while others could suffer lower yields, a new report says."
"The current issue of California Agriculture, mailed to subscribers this week, is devoted to peer-reviewed articles by researchers at the University of California who paint a dire picture of the impact of climate change on food production and the environment." 06-09
- Vocational Education Lesson Plans (ERIC - AskERIC)
Provides over a dozen lessons in Agriculture, Technology and Business. Includes grade level. 1-04
- Growing More Food With Less Water (Postel)
Describes the most effective methods to reduce water use in agriculture. 1-01
- Farming and Pollution of Water (Natural Resources Defense Council))
Provides examples of farms where use of pesticides and fertilizers have been reduced. "Agriculture contributes more than half of the pollution entering the nation's rivers and lakes; recent studies have identified it as the greatest source of water pollution in the United States." 6-01
- Genetically Modified Potatos (VShiva.net)
Describes the issues related to genetically modified organisms (GMO's), with an emphasis on the potato. Visitors sometimes misspell as organizms. 1-02
- Shiva, Vandana (PDCForum)
Profiles a leader in the field of sustainable agriculture and ecology. She is the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. 1-02
- Shiva, Vandana (AsiaWeek.com - Reyes)
Profiles a leader in the field of sustainable agriculture and ecology. She is the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. 1-02
- Organic Foods Facts (Organic Trade Association)
Provides facts about organic foods and other environmental friendly issues. 5-02
- Fighting Hunger Globally - World Food Prize (WorldFoodPrize.org)
"By pioneering ways to restore fertility to the poorest and most degraded soils in Latin America and Africa, the 2002 World Food Prize Laureate, Dr. Pedro A. Sanchez, has made a major contribution to preserving our delicate ecosystem, while at the same time offering great hope to all those struggling to survive on marginal lands around the world." 8-02
- Saving Soil and Trees While Fighting Hunger (Washington Post)
"Dr. Pedro Sanchez loves dirt. The prize-winning soil scientist says that poor quality soil is the cause of many of the evils that plague poor countries, from hunger and poverty to environmental devastation caused by slash-and-burn farming."
"...Sanchez has helped teach 150,000 small-scale African farmers how to boost grain production by bettering their dirt — that is, by replenishing soil nutrients with nitrogen from native vegetation and phosphates from rocks."
"As a result, those farmers can feed their families without having to burn more forests to get fertile land." 8-02
- Fighting Hunger Globally - World Food Prize Laureates (WorldFoodPrize.org)
Laureates are "those who have made significant and measurable contributions to improving the world's food supply." "The World Food Prize is the foremost international award recognizing -- without regard to race, religion, nationality, or political beliefs -- the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world." 8-02
- Consume and Discard Lifestyles Not Sustainable (StephenWolfram.com)
" 'We continue to depend on a series of ancient, genetically and socially determined habits and attitudes, many of which seem to have been more suitable for our hunter-gatherer ancestors,' " he [Peter Raven] says. " 'We must adopt new ways of thinking that will serve our descendants well in a world that is crowded beyond imagining, a world in which we shall always be the major ecological force. Unless, of course, we destroy ourselves.' " 8-02
- Sustainable Development Conference in Johannesburg (MSNBC)
"Formally titled 'the World Summit for Sustainable Development,' the gathering is billed as the largest United Nations meeting in history — with more than 100 world leaders and 65,000 delegates expected to convene in venues throughout sprawling Johannesburg."
"At Rio, President George H.W. Bush ignited a diplomatic furor by rejecting accords to protect biodiversity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
"Little has changed since. The United States has angered both its European allies and developing nations by stifling many global environmental accords inspired by Rio, citing economic concerns."
"Since Rio, U.S. consumption of energy has jumped 21 percent and greenhouse gas emissions are up 13 percent, according to figures gathered by the United Nations and others." 8-02
- 09-10-02 Tropical Forests 100 Times More Economic Than Alternatives (Ananova.com)
"A study has found wild ecosystems are around 100 times more economic than ones converted to human use." "The study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science also found half of an ecosystem's economic value is lost when it is converted to human use."
"The case studies looked at included the logging of a Malaysian tropical forest and a tropical forest in Cameroon converted to agriculture and commercial plantations. They also looked at a mangrove system in Thailand converted for shrimp farming, a Canadian marsh drained for agriculture and a Philippine coral reef dynamited for fishing."
- 11-01-03 More Families Now Hungry (CBS News)
"About 12 million American families last year worried that they couldn't afford to buy food, and 32 percent of them actually experienced someone going hungry at one time or another, the Agriculture Department said Friday." 11-03
- Eat Less Beef (NewDream.org)
Advocates that each of us eat one less beef meal per week. "If only 1,000 of us take this action, we will save over 70,000 pounds of grain, 70,000 pounds of topsoil and 40 million gallons of water each year!" 11-03
- African News for Sustainable Health and Peace (AllAfrica.com)
Provides news related to water, health, agriculture, and biodiversity. 12-03
- Sustainable Development
- 12-30-03 USDA Bans "Downer" Cows for Meat (USAToday.com)
"Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman Tuesday announced a list of new restrictions to further enhance the safety of the American beef supply, including a meatpacking ban on the use of sick 'downer' cattle like the one discovered last week with mad cow disease."
"She also announced bans against the use of small intestines and head and spinal tissue from older cattle in the U.S. food chain, as well as changes in slaughterhouse techniques with the aim of preventing accidental contamination of meat with cow nerve tissue. Mad cow disease is spread through such brain and spinal cord tissue." 12-03
- -11-19-04 12 Million Went Hungry (CBS News)
"More than 12 million American families either didn't have enough food or worried about someone in the family going hungry last year, the Agriculture Department said Friday. Thirty-six million people experienced or worried about hunger." 11-04
- Orangutans (Bagheera.com)
Provides an article to describe orangutans and their habits.
"The only great ape that lives on the Asian continent, the orangutan is found on the Malaysian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Its name means "man of the forest," and it is one of thousands of species of wildlife that live in tropical Asian forests. The orangutan's story is similar to that of a large number of Asian animals: its forest habitat is being rapidly destroyed by conversion to agriculture, both by large commercial plantations and smaller subsistence farms. At the same time, humans are killing the orang's prey species (birds and small mammals) for food and capturing it for the pet trade." 12-04
- -02-03-05 NIH Workers Angered by Ethics Rules (MSNBC News)
"National Institutes of Health Director Elias A. Zerhouni stood before hundreds of NIH employees yesterday to explain why it had become necessary for him to impose, in his words, 'drastic' restrictions on stock ownership and other forms of outside income, which take effect today for all agency employees."
"The goal, as Zerhouni repeatedly explained, was to save the venerable agency's reputation, which had become badly sullied after 14 months of embarrassing revelations about conflicts of interest among NIH scientists."
"One after another, scientists, doctors and other agency staffers stepped up to the microphones and raged against the new rules, made public Tuesday. By the time it was over, 90 minutes later, nary a positive word had been uttered about the new policy and there was more vented spleen around than a busy medical center like the NIH might normally see in a year."
"Several attendees wanted to know why, if the goal is to restore public trust in the federal scientific enterprise, the rules are to be applied solely to NIH."
" 'Does this apply to the Department of Energy? To the Department of Agriculture? To the Defense Department?' asked Elaine Jaffe, a pathologist who is chief of blood diseases at the National Cancer Institute, to cheers and applause."
" 'If we really want to reassure the public," Emanuel added, 'why don't we apply these to everyone who gets an NIH grant?' "
"Another attendee noted that NIH employees are subject to periodic outside evaluations and reviews by nongovernmental scientists who are not subject to the same ethics restrictions -- a bizarre situation, the employee said, in which people with real conflicts of interest will be sitting in judgment of those with none." 2-05
- End of Named Highways (Lincoln Highway)
"In March 1925, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) started planning a federal highway system. All named roads were ignored in their planning. That November, the secretary of agriculture approved AASHO's plan, which set up the now-familiar U.S. highway system." 7-05
- -11-04-05 Senate Votes to Cut $35 Billion in Budget (Washington Post)
"The Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation last night that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program."
"The measure would also open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a long-sought goal of the oil industry that took a major step forward after years of political struggle. A bipartisan effort to strip the drilling provision narrowly failed." 11-05
- Agricultural Machinery (Wikipedia.org)
"Agricultural machinery is one of the most revolutionary and impactful applications of modern technology. Given the truly elemental human need for food, agriculture has been an essential human activity almost from the beginning, and it has often driven the development of technology and machines. Over the last 250 years, advances in farm equipment have dramatically changed the way people are employed and produce their food worldwide." 01-06
- The Future of Sustainable Planet Development: Vandana Shiva (BBC News)
"Get rid of WTO free trade agreements on agriculture. I think food needs to be seen as an ecological, cultural, ethical and democratic issue – it cannot be defined by global corporations trading in commodities and working out their profits." 02-06
- -06-19-06 A Seed Bank to Save the World (Guardian Unlimited)
"The new Svalbard International Seed Vault will serve as a repository for crucial seeds in the event of a global catastrophe, said Norway's agriculture minister, Terje Riis-Johansen." 06-06
- Iroquois "Three Sisters" (Cornell.edu)
"Mt. Pleasant studies what traditionally are known as the "three sisters": beans, corn and squash. These staples of Iroquois cropping are traditionally grown together on a single plot, mimicking natural systems in what agronomists call a polyculture. Though the Iroquois technique was not developed scientifically, Mt. Pleasant notes that it is 'agronomically sound.' The three sisters cropping system embodies all the things needed to make crops grow in the Northeast, she says." 11-03
- -Vaccine to Reduce Methane Emissions (Environmental Science and Technology)
"The country's 140 million sheep and cattle produce one-seventh of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. Globally, agriculture is estimated to account for half of the methane liberated as a result of human activity. Domestic ruminants produce two-thirds of this gas." 03-07
- Sustainable Living
- Graphic Depiction of Effects of Global Warming (Time Magazine)
"The latest study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this month predicts that most regions of the world will witness a variety of negative effects of global warming including increased human mortality, shifts in crops and agriculture production, and further degradation of local ecosystems. Click below to see predicted climate change impacts on the environment and the people living there." 04-07
- Desalination by a Solar Sustainable Method (Seawater Greenouse)
"The Seawater Greenhouse is a unique concept which combines natural processes, simple construction techniques and mathematical computer modelling to provide a low-cost solution to one of the world's greatest needs – fresh water. The Seawater Greenhouse is a new development that offers sustainable solution to the problem of providing water for agriculture in arid, coastal regions."
"The process uses seawater to cool and humidify the air that ventilates the greenhouse and sunlight to distil fresh water from seawater. This enables the year round cultivation of high value crops that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to grow in hot, arid regions." 05-07
- -Freshwater (Wikipedia.org)
"Fresh water contains low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. It is an important renewable resource, necessary for the survival of most terrestrial organisms, and required by humans for drinking and agriculture, among many other uses."
"Fresh water can be defined as water with less than 0.5 parts per thousand dissolved salts." 06-07
- -09-12-07 Water Crisis Squeezes California's Economy (Christian Science Monitor)
"A recent federal ruling to reduce the amount of water that flows through the delta is likely to boost food prices and trim jobs in agriculture." 09-07
- -Editorial: Innovation and Education Needed to Head Off Water War (WorldPress.org)
"For 2ie's dean, Paul Ginies, Africa's water shortage needs money to be thrown at it. But Africa also needs trained people to manage that influx of cash, he says. 'The main problem here is the lack of capacity of governance and the under-capacity of companies to respond,' he said."
"Ginies estimated one trained engineer should be in place to manage every $1 million invested in a country's infrastructure. In Burkina Faso, because of austerity measures imposed on the civil service, if there is not a major new recruitment drive natural attrition will mean there are no trained engineers in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water within 10 years, according to 2ie's calculations." 09-07
- Our Global Water Shortage (TruthOut.org)
"Demand for water is doubling every 20 years, outpacing population growth twice as fast. Currently 1.3 billion people don't have access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack proper sewage and sanitation. In less than 20 years, it is estimated that demand for fresh water will exceed the world's supply by over 50 percent."
"The biggest drain on our water sources is agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the water used worldwide - much of which is subsidized in the industrial world, providing little incentive for agribusiness to use conservation measures or less water-intensive crops." 10-07
- Seed Project to Preserve Species (ARS.USDA.gov)
"The National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) conserves genetic resources of crops and animals important to US agriculture and landscapes. Preservation of genetic diversity in ex situ genebanks such as NCGRP is important for conservation of biological diversity and utilization of genetic resources for economic and environmental sustainability. Formerly called the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL), our facility changed its name in 2001 to reflect an expanded mission beyond seed storage. In addition to being a seed bank, NCGRP is a repository for animal genetic resources in the form of semen and plant genetic resources in the form of graftable buds or in vitro plantlets. Genetic resources are preserved using state-of-the-art technology that often involves cryogenics. A research team with cryobiology expertise works to develop cryopreservation technologies." 12-07
- -03-29-08 Million Dollar Babies (Time.com)
"On Tuesday, the annual Expenditures on Children by Families report, which tracks how much it costs to raise a child in America, was released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (yes, that's the government bureaucracy charged with this particular tally). According to its latest estimate, a child born in 2007 costs $204,060 to watch over, feed, cart around, educate and house from birth to the age of 18." 03-08
- Activities to Encourage Soil Carbon Opportunities (Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership)
"Activities in forestry and agriculture can reduce and divert the atmospheric buildup of the three most important GHGs directly emitted by human actions: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20). Adoption of recommended management practices can enhance soil carbon, and improve soil quality and productivity. The opportunities to enhance soil carbon include: increasing the soil organic carbon concentration, improving water and nutrient use efficiencies and improving biomass productivity. Terrestrial sequestration is considered a near term approach to reducing GHGs because it can be implemented today. Moreover, soils provide a significant reservoir for organic carbon, storing twice as much as the atmosphere and three times as much as plants." 06-08
- The Toxic Consequences of the Green Revolution (U.S. News)
"Four decades after the so-called Green Revolution enabled this vast nation to feed itself, some farmers are turning their backs on modern agricultural methods—the use of modified seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides—in favor of organic farming." 07-08
- Ecology, Water, and Peace (Time.com)
"For Bromberg, the future of water conservation in the Middle East lies in transforming rural economies. Right now the Israeli and Jordanian governments give precious water at subsidized prices to their agriculture industries – which consumes a majority of their water (about 50 percent in Israel and 70 percent in Jordan) but which contributes just a fraction of their GDP (two percent in Israel and three percent in Jordan.) Because they don’t pay the full price of their resources, farmers in the region grow water-hungry crops such as garden vegetables, fruits and flowers, most of which are shipped to Europe. 'We are exporting our water,' said Bromberg. 'Bananas are a tropical fruit. Why are we growing them in the desert?' While Israel needed its own farmers to feed the country in its early days, Israel can now import its food for less of an environmental and economic price than it is currently paying." 08-08
- Green Architecture Certification (New York Times)
"On a recent Friday, when the rest of the staff of the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle was out of the office enjoying a beautiful August day, about 25 people sat in a windowless room learning about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification process." 08-08
- Brazil Reacts to High Food Prices (New York Times)
"Luciano Alves planted beans, corn and grain on about 7,500 acres of his farm in southern Brazil last year. This year, he is planting 8,600 acres. And he credits Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the increase."
" 'The government is helping us finance the purchase of new machinery,' said Mr. Alves. 'They reduced the interest rates we pay and have given us more time to pay off the loans. It’s vital.' " 08-08
- A Vacuum Alternative to Pesticides (Science Daily)
"A physical chemist has developed a new technique for ridding harvested produce of insect pests and microorganisms without using pesticides such as methyl bromide. The technique, called Metabolic Stress Disinfection and Disinfestation, suffocates pests by exposing them to cycles of vacuum and pressurized carbon dioxide. Treatment chambers could be easy to develop on a large enough scale for farmers to use." 09-08
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