Living With The Trees Of Life Towards The Transformation Of Tropical Agriculture

This book analyses and presents case studies on how agroforestry offers innovative and compelling pathways towards food security, human well-being and environmental sustainability. The book underlines how modern science and improved varieties of trees allied to centuries-old knowledge can provide a new set of marketable products of special importance to poor and marginalized people in the tropics and sub-tropics, while simultaneously rehabilitating degraded land and restoring soil fertility.

With our world torn by climate change, deforestation, land degradation, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, loss of wildlife habitat, zoonotic pandemics, illegal migration and social injustice, this book seeks to find a practical and pragmatic way forwards. Based on the author's extensive experience of tropical agriculture and forestry around the world, as well as his combination of practical and academic agricultural qualifications, the second edition of Living with the Trees of Life presents a unique and positive perspective on resolving these big global issues. It aims to identify principles, strategies, techniques, and skills to find a path through the maze of options for sustainable living in the tropics and subtropics. The book specifically draws heavily on a single case study which involved working to resolve the failure of tropical and subtropical agriculture to feed, sustain and support the needs of rural communities. To address the 'big picture' facing society, the work identified the traditionally important indigenous trees of tropical ecosystems - the trees of life - as a missing component of farming systems. These trees are keystones of the natural environment. Their products and critical ecological and social services have been overlooked by modern agriculture and should be recognized as the natural capital of the environment providing the very many day-to-day needs of local people. Many of today's big problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the natural, social and human capital of farming systems. Hence, a focus on restoring the natural capital also has important benefits for the livelihoods of the rural population, as well as for the productivity of the agroecosystem. However, the real potential is to go much further and to build new natural capital in the form of new socially-modified tree crops producing a very wide range of food, medicinal and other non-food products for new local business enterprises. This then restores the degraded social and human capital and starts to create new physical and financial capitals much needed for employment and economic development. There is, however, a missing 6th capital - the political and social will to change the way we manage our world by re-booting tropical agriculture and putting the needs of local people at the forefront of farming systems. Drawing on the technologies from across the spectrum of current conventional approaches to agricultural production, Living with the Trees of Life seeks to promote the adoption of a new way ahead - described as Land Maxing - that also increases the returns on past investments in agriculture. The target readership of this book is a wide and diverse array of people engaged in advocating and/or adopting ways to address the issues affecting our divided and dysfunctional world, before it is too late. Written in an accessible and engaging style, this book tells the story of how a new area of crop science has emerged across the tropics to create highly nutritious crops which can enhance food security and start to address the big issues facing humanity. Thus, this book is a vital read for academics, policy makers, and the environmentally and socially aware public alike.

Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, Second Edition addresses important issues by examining topics of global agriculture and food systems that are key to understanding the challenges we face. Questions it addresses include: Will we be able to produce enough food to meet the increasing dietary needs and wants of the additional two billion people expected to inhabit our planet by 2050? Will we be able to meet the need for so much more food while simultaneously reducing adverse environmental effects of today’s agriculture practices? Will we be able to produce the additional food using less land and water than we use now? These are among the most important challenges that face our planet in the coming decades. The broad themes of food systems and people, agriculture and the environment, the science of agriculture, agricultural products, and agricultural production systems are covered in more than 200 separate chapters of this work. The book provides information that serves as the foundation for discussion of the food and environment challenges of the world. An international group of highly respected authors addresses these issues from a global perspective and provides the background, references, and linkages for further exploration of each of topics of this comprehensive work. Addresses important challenges of sustainability and efficiency from a global perspective. Takes a detailed look at the important issues affecting the agricultural and food industries today. Full colour throughout.

This study, prepared within the ambit of The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources, reviews what is known about the value of trees for tropical rural communities. It focuses on non-timber products harvested from trees in natural and managed forests and woodlands, the various products and services obtained from trees planted or retained in agroforestry systems, and the commercial products of tree commodity crops. The role of intra-specific genetic variation in determining the value of trees in supporting livelihoods is discussed in each of the three contexts. The study also identifies specific points that should be given particular attention in the future to better support tree-based livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics.

With carbon farming, agriculture ceases to be part of the climate problem and becomes a critical part of the solution Agriculture is rightly blamed as a major culprit of our climate crisis. But in this groundbreaking new book, Eric Toensmeier argues that agriculture—specifically, the subset of practices known as “carbon farming”—can, and should be, a linchpin of a global climate solutions platform. Carbon farming is a suite of agricultural practices and crops that sequester carbon in the soil and in aboveground biomass. Combined with a massive reduction in fossil fuel emissions—and in concert with adaptation strategies to our changing environment— carbon farming has the potential to bring us back from the brink of disaster and return our atmosphere to the “magic number” of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Toensmeier’s book is the first to bring together these powerful strategies in one place, including in-depth analysis of the available research and, where research is lacking, a discussion of what it will take to get us there. Carbon farming can take many forms. The simplest practices involve modifications to annual crop production. Although many of these modifications have relatively low sequestration potential, they are widely applicable and easily adopted, and thus have excellent potential to mitigate climate change if practiced on a global scale. Likewise, grazing systems such as silvopasture are easily replicable, don’t require significant changes to human diet, and—given the amount of agricultural land worldwide that is devoted to pasture—can be important strategies in the carbon farming arsenal. But by far, agroforestry practices and perennial crops present the best opportunities for sequestration. While many of these systems are challenging to establish and manage, and would require us to change our diets to new and largely unfamiliar perennial crops, they also offer huge potential that has been almost entirely ignored by climate crusaders. Many of these carbon farming practices are already implemented globally on a scale of millions of hectares. These are not minor or marginal efforts, but win-win solutions that provide food, fodder, and feedstocks while fostering community self-reliance, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and repairing degraded land—all while sequestering carbon, reducing emissions, and ultimately contributing to a climate that will remain amenable to human civilization. Just as importantly to a livable future, these crops and practices can contribute to broader social goals such as women’s empowerment, food sovereignty, and climate justice. The Carbon Farming Solution does not present a prescription for how cropland should be used and is not, first and foremost, a how-to manual, although following up on references in a given section will frequently provide such information. Instead, The Carbon Farming Solution is—at its root—a toolkit. It is the most complete collection of climate-friendly crops and practices currently available. With this toolkit, farmers, communities, and governments large and small, can successfully launch carbon farming projects with the most appropriate crops and practices to their climate, locale, and socioeconomic needs. Toensmeier’s ultimate goal is to place carbon farming firmly in the center of the climate solutions platform, alongside clean solar and wind energy. With The Carbon Farming Solution, Toensmeier wants to change the discussion, impact policy decisions, and steer mitigation funds to the research, projects, and people around the world who envision a future where agriculture becomes the protagonist in this fraught, urgent, and unprecedented drama of our time. Citizens, farmers, and funders will be inspired to use the tools presented in this important new book to transform degraded lands around the world into productive carbon-storing landscapes.

The Atlantic Forest is one of the 36 hotspots for biodiversity conservation worldwide. It is a unique, large biome (more than 3000 km in latitude; 2500 in longitude), marked by high biodiversity, high degree of endemic species and, at the same time, extremely threatened. Approximately 70% of the Brazilian population lives in the area of this biome, which makes the conflict between biodiversity conservation and the sustainability of the human population a relevant issue. This book aims to cover: 1) the historical characterization and geographic variation of the biome; 2) the distribution of the diversity of some relevant taxa; 3) the main threats to biodiversity, and 4) possible opportunities to ensure the biodiversity conservation, and the economic and social sustainability. Also, it is hoped that this book can be useful for those involved in the development of public policies aimed at the conservation of this important global biome.

In this issue: From the Editors - Scientific American Disinformation on GMOs New Paradigm Food & Agriculture Paradigm Shift Urgently Needed In Agriculture UN Agencies Call for an End to Industrial Agriculture & Food System Plants Warn One Another of Pest Attack through Mycorrhizal Fungal Network Post-2015 Development: Africans Show the Way Nitrogen-fixing for All Crops Not the Answer Physics of Organisms Galaxy Making Stars at the Edge of the Universe & Other “Surprises” Continuous Creation from Electric Plasma versus Big Bang Universe Biology of Organisms Non-Random Directed Mutations Confirmed The Principle of Minimal Stimulus in the Dynamics of the Living Organism Towards 100% Renewables Renewable Ousting Fossil Energy Radical Grid Transformation under Way Surviving Global Warming Localized Food & Energy Systems in Nature’s Circular Economy Sunny Prospects for Solar Photovoltaic Japanese Farmers Producing Crops and Solar Energy Simultaneously Funding for Small Scale Anaerobic Digesters in England Sustainable water Purple Root Water Hyacinth A Natural Remedy for Pollution Freeing the world from GMOs Scientists Declare No Consensus on GMO Safety Beware the Changing Face of Genetic Modification