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Agroecology is the study of the ecology of terrestrial agricultural systems. It includes both the effects of agricultural practices such as pesticide use on non-domesticated species, and the effect of the ecological environment on crop and livestock yields.
Maize demand in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase. Here, the authors use data collected by One Acre Fund on 14,773 smallholder fields in the region and determine that maize production can be increased with minimal cropland expansion by improving management practices.
Crop production data from 131 nations covering six decades reveal that the stabilizing effects of crop diversity are stronger as national land area increases, with only limited stabilizing effects in the smallest nations.
We found trade-offs among the environmental and animal welfare impacts of pig farms — those that had low greenhouse gas emissions typically had low land use but poor animal welfare and high antimicrobial use. Some farms performed well in all four impacts, but these farms were not consistently associated with any particular farm or label type.
Hybrid intelligence — arising from the sensible, targeted fusion of human minds and cutting-edge computational systems — holds great potential for enhancing the sustainability of agriculture. Leveraging the combined strengths of both collective human and artificial intelligence helps identify and stress-test pathways towards the reconciliation of biodiversity and productivity.
The volatile compound methyl jasmonate is emitted from plant roots and has been shown to trigger the formation of biofilms of beneficial bacteria in the rhizosphere, which suggests an active role of plants in luring microorganisms to aid them.