This book deals with a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. It 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 classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classicalpainkiller 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 proposes 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.
Tabla de materias
01 Animal waste: opportunities and challenges.- 02 Soil microorganisms can reduce P loss from cropping systems.- 03 Greenhouse technology for agriculture under arid and semi-arid conditions.- 04 Biochar for Agriculture in Pakistan.- 05 Effect of UV-B radiation on leguminous plants.- 06 Control of fungal diseases in agricultural crops by chitinase and glucanase transgenes.- 07 Bioengineering hairy roots: phytoremediation, secondary metabolism, molecular pharming, plant-plant interactions and biofuels.- 08 Soil management to optimize water in rice-wheat.- 09 Microbial inoculants for soil quality and plant fitness.- 10 Conservation Agriculture in Tanzania.
Sobre el autor
Dr. ERIC LICHTFOUSE, born April 2, 1960, completed his Ph.D. in organic geochemistry in 1989 at Strasbourg University. After post-doctoral fellowships at Indiana University, USA and the KFA research center in Jülich, Germany, he became engaged as a soil scientist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in 1992. His study on soil organic matter and pollutants led in particular to the first determination of the dynamics of soil organic molecules in long-term maize field experiments using 13C labeling at natural abundance. In 2000 he founded the European Association of Environmental Chemistry (ACE) and in 2003 the Journal Environmental Chemistry Letters. He has co-edited the book Environmental Chemistry (Springer, 2005). He is currently working in Dijon for the INRA Department of Environment and Agronomy as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development. He is growing fruit trees and vegetables in his home backyard and travelling from home towork by bicycle. Eric Lichtfouse is also finisher of 10 ironman competitions, including the World Ironman Championships in Hawaii in 2006.