The Experts below are selected from a list of 324 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Silvia Silvestri - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Prioritizing climate-smart Livestock technologies in rural Tanzania: A minimum data approach
Agricultural Systems, 2017Co-Authors: Kelvin Mashisia Shikuku, Mario Herrero, Roberto O. Valdivia, Birthe K. Paul, Caroline Mwongera, Leigh A. Winowiecki, Peter Läderach, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Crop-Livestock production systems play an important role in the livelihoods of many rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) but are vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Understanding which farming options will give the highest return on investment in light of climate change is critical information for decision-making. While there is continued investment in testing adaptation options using on-farm experiments, simulation models remain important tools for ‘ex-ante’ assessments of the impacts of proposed climate-smart agricultural technologies (CSA). This study used the Ruminant model and the Trade-offs Analysis model for Multi-Dimensional Impact Assessment (TOA-MD) to assess how improved Livestock management options affect the three pillars of CSA: increased productivity, improved food security, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our sample was stratified into: 1) households with local cow breeds (n = 28); 2) households with improved dairy cow breeds (n = 70); and 3) households without dairy cows (n = 66). Results showed that the predicted adoption rates for improved Livestock Feeding among households with improved dairy cows (stratum 2) were likely to be higher compared to households with only local cows (stratum 1). Both households with local cows and those with improved cows had increased income and food security. However, overall poverty reduction was only modest for households with local cows. Expected methane emissions intensity declined with adoption of improved Livestock Feeding strategies both in stratum 1 and stratum 2, and greater impacts were observed when households in stratum 2 received an additional improved cow breed. Providing a cow to households that were not keeping cows showed substantial economic gains. Additional research is, however, needed to understand why those farms currently do not have cows, which may determine if the predicted adoption rates are feasible.
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Can agriculture support climate change adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation and rural livelihoods? insights from Kenya
Climatic Change, 2013Co-Authors: Elizabeth Bryan, Claudia Ringler, Barrack Okoba, Mario Herrero, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, meet growing food demands, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder producers in Kenya across several agroecological zones. Several practices emerge as triple wins, supporting climate adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and profitability goals. In particular, integrated soil fertility management and improved Livestock Feeding are shown to provide multiple benefits across all agroecological zones examined. Triple wins of other agricultural practices are limited to specific agroecological zones. Irrigation and soil and water conservation, for example, are essential for adaptation, mitigation, and profitability in arid areas. The results suggest that agricultural investments targeted toward these triple-win strategies will have the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of farm and pastoralist households and global climate change mitigation. To reap the benefits of triple-win strategies will require that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners move away from isolated approaches focused on either adaptation or mitigation or rural income generation toward a more holistic assessment of joint strategies as well as their tradeoffs and synergies.
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agricultural management for climate change adaptation greenhouse gas mitigation and agricultural productivity insights from kenya
2011Co-Authors: Elizabeth Bryan, Claudia Ringler, Barrack Okoba, Mario Herrero, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, ensure food security for the growing population, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder producers in Kenya. Several practices emerge as triple wins in terms of climate adaptation, GHG mitigation, and productivity and profitability. In particular, integrated soil fertility management and improved Livestock Feeding are shown to provide multiple benefits across the agroecological zones examined. In addition, irrigation and soil and water conservation are also shown to be essential in the arid zone. The results suggest that agricultural investments targeted towards triple-win strategies will have the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of farm and pastoralist households to climate change, rural development, and climate change mitigation for generations to come.
Pablo Tittonell - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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improved Feeding and forages at a crossroads farming systems approaches for sustainable Livestock development in east africa
Outlook on Agriculture, 2020Co-Authors: Mario Herrero, Pablo Tittonell, Birthe K. Paul, Jeroen C J Groot, Brigitte L Maass, An Maria Omer NotenbaertAbstract:Dairy development provides substantial potential economic opportunities for smallholder farmers in East Africa, but productivity is constrained by the scarcity of quantity and quality feed. Ruminant Livestock production is also associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution, high water consumption, land-use change, and loss of biodiversity. Improved Livestock Feeding and forages have been highlighted as key entry point to sustainable intensification, increasing food security, and decreasing environmental trade-offs including GHG emission intensities. In this perspective article, we argue that farming systems approaches are essential to understand the multiple roles and impacts of forages in smallholder livelihoods. First, we outline the unique position of forages in crop-Livestock systems and systemic obstacles to adoption that call for multidisciplinary thinking. Second, we discuss the importance of matching forage technologies with agroecological and socioeconomic contexts and niches, and systems agronomy that is required. Third, we demonstrate the usefulness of farming systems modeling to estimate multidimensional impacts of forages and for reducing agro-environmental trade-offs. We conclude that improved forages in East Africa are at a crossroads: if adopted by farmers at scale, they can be a cornerstone of pathways toward sustainable Livestock systems in East Africa.
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Multi-scale trade-off analysis of cereal residue use for Livestock Feeding vs. soil mulching in the Mid-Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe
Agricultural Systems, 2015Co-Authors: Frédéric Baudron, Sylvestre Delmotte, Marc Corbeels, Juan M. Herrera, Pablo TittonellAbstract:Cereal residues represent a major resource for Livestock Feeding during the dry season in southern Africa. When kept on the soil surface instead of Feeding them to Livestock, crop residues can contribute to increasing soil fertility and maintaining crop productivity in the short- and the long-term. We explored these trade-offs for smallholder cotton–sorghum farming systems in the semi-arid Zambezi Valley, northern Zimbabwe. The analysis was done using simulation models at three scales, the plot, the farm and the territory, to simulate the effects of different sorghum residue allocations to Livestock Feeding vs. soil mulching, in combination with different application rates of mineral nitrogen fertilizer on crop productivity. The plot-scale simulations suggest that without N fertilization soil mulching has a positive effect on cotton yields only if small quantities of sorghum residues are used as mulch (average cotton yields of 2.24 ± 0.41 kg ha−1 with a mulch of 100 kg ha−1 vs. 1.91 ± 0.29 kg ha−1 without mulch). Greater quantities of mulch have a negative effect on cotton yield without N fertilization due to N immobilization in the soil microbial biomass. With applications of 100 kg N ha−1, quantities of mulch up to 3 t ha−1 have no negative effect on cotton yield. Results at farm-scale highlight the fundamental role of Livestock as a source of traction, and the need to feed a greater proportion of sorghum residues to Livestock as herd and farm sizes increase. Farmers with no Livestock attained maximum crop production when 100% of their sorghum residue remained in the field, as they do not have access to cattle manure. The optimum fraction of crop residue to be retained in the fields for maximum farm crop production varied for farmers with 2 or less heads of cattle (80% retention), with 2–3 heads (60–80%), with 4 or more heads (40–60%). At the scale of the entire territory, total cotton and sorghum production increased with the density of cattle, at the expense of soil mulching with crop residues. The results of our simulations suggest that (i) the optimum level of residue retention depends on the scale at which trade-offs are analyzed; (ii) the retention of all of the crop residue as mulch appears unrealistic and undesirable in farming systems that rely on Livestock for traction; and (iii) crop residue mulching could be made more attractive to farmers by paying due attention to balancing C to N ratios in the soil and by promoting small-scale mechanization to replace animal traction.
Mario Herrero - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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improved Feeding and forages at a crossroads farming systems approaches for sustainable Livestock development in east africa
Outlook on Agriculture, 2020Co-Authors: Mario Herrero, Pablo Tittonell, Birthe K. Paul, Jeroen C J Groot, Brigitte L Maass, An Maria Omer NotenbaertAbstract:Dairy development provides substantial potential economic opportunities for smallholder farmers in East Africa, but productivity is constrained by the scarcity of quantity and quality feed. Ruminant Livestock production is also associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution, high water consumption, land-use change, and loss of biodiversity. Improved Livestock Feeding and forages have been highlighted as key entry point to sustainable intensification, increasing food security, and decreasing environmental trade-offs including GHG emission intensities. In this perspective article, we argue that farming systems approaches are essential to understand the multiple roles and impacts of forages in smallholder livelihoods. First, we outline the unique position of forages in crop-Livestock systems and systemic obstacles to adoption that call for multidisciplinary thinking. Second, we discuss the importance of matching forage technologies with agroecological and socioeconomic contexts and niches, and systems agronomy that is required. Third, we demonstrate the usefulness of farming systems modeling to estimate multidimensional impacts of forages and for reducing agro-environmental trade-offs. We conclude that improved forages in East Africa are at a crossroads: if adopted by farmers at scale, they can be a cornerstone of pathways toward sustainable Livestock systems in East Africa.
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Prioritizing climate-smart Livestock technologies in rural Tanzania: A minimum data approach
Agricultural Systems, 2017Co-Authors: Kelvin Mashisia Shikuku, Mario Herrero, Roberto O. Valdivia, Birthe K. Paul, Caroline Mwongera, Leigh A. Winowiecki, Peter Läderach, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Crop-Livestock production systems play an important role in the livelihoods of many rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) but are vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Understanding which farming options will give the highest return on investment in light of climate change is critical information for decision-making. While there is continued investment in testing adaptation options using on-farm experiments, simulation models remain important tools for ‘ex-ante’ assessments of the impacts of proposed climate-smart agricultural technologies (CSA). This study used the Ruminant model and the Trade-offs Analysis model for Multi-Dimensional Impact Assessment (TOA-MD) to assess how improved Livestock management options affect the three pillars of CSA: increased productivity, improved food security, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our sample was stratified into: 1) households with local cow breeds (n = 28); 2) households with improved dairy cow breeds (n = 70); and 3) households without dairy cows (n = 66). Results showed that the predicted adoption rates for improved Livestock Feeding among households with improved dairy cows (stratum 2) were likely to be higher compared to households with only local cows (stratum 1). Both households with local cows and those with improved cows had increased income and food security. However, overall poverty reduction was only modest for households with local cows. Expected methane emissions intensity declined with adoption of improved Livestock Feeding strategies both in stratum 1 and stratum 2, and greater impacts were observed when households in stratum 2 received an additional improved cow breed. Providing a cow to households that were not keeping cows showed substantial economic gains. Additional research is, however, needed to understand why those farms currently do not have cows, which may determine if the predicted adoption rates are feasible.
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Can agriculture support climate change adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation and rural livelihoods? insights from Kenya
Climatic Change, 2013Co-Authors: Elizabeth Bryan, Claudia Ringler, Barrack Okoba, Mario Herrero, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, meet growing food demands, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder producers in Kenya across several agroecological zones. Several practices emerge as triple wins, supporting climate adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation, and profitability goals. In particular, integrated soil fertility management and improved Livestock Feeding are shown to provide multiple benefits across all agroecological zones examined. Triple wins of other agricultural practices are limited to specific agroecological zones. Irrigation and soil and water conservation, for example, are essential for adaptation, mitigation, and profitability in arid areas. The results suggest that agricultural investments targeted toward these triple-win strategies will have the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of farm and pastoralist households and global climate change mitigation. To reap the benefits of triple-win strategies will require that policymakers, researchers, and practitioners move away from isolated approaches focused on either adaptation or mitigation or rural income generation toward a more holistic assessment of joint strategies as well as their tradeoffs and synergies.
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agricultural management for climate change adaptation greenhouse gas mitigation and agricultural productivity insights from kenya
2011Co-Authors: Elizabeth Bryan, Claudia Ringler, Barrack Okoba, Mario Herrero, Silvia SilvestriAbstract:Changes in the agriculture sector are essential to mitigate and adapt to climate change, ensure food security for the growing population, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers. What agricultural strategies are needed to meet these challenges? To what extent are there synergies among these strategies? This paper examines these issues for smallholder producers in Kenya. Several practices emerge as triple wins in terms of climate adaptation, GHG mitigation, and productivity and profitability. In particular, integrated soil fertility management and improved Livestock Feeding are shown to provide multiple benefits across the agroecological zones examined. In addition, irrigation and soil and water conservation are also shown to be essential in the arid zone. The results suggest that agricultural investments targeted towards triple-win strategies will have the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of farm and pastoralist households to climate change, rural development, and climate change mitigation for generations to come.
Michael L Westendorf - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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food waste for Livestock Feeding feasibility safety and sustainability implications
Global Food Security, 2017Co-Authors: Zhengxia Dou, John D Toth, Michael L WestendorfAbstract:Abstract Food waste is a matter intrinsically linked with the growing challenges of food security, resource and environmental sustainability, and climate change. In developed economies, the largest food waste stream occurs in the consumption stage at the end of the food chain. Current approaches for dealing with the wasted food have serious limitations. Historically, Livestock animals had functioned as bio-processors, turning human-inedible or -undesirable food materials into meat, eggs, and milk. Contemporary treatment technologies can help convert the food waste into safe, nutritious, and value-added feed products. Recovering consumption-stage food waste for animal Feeding is a viable solution that simultaneously addresses the issues of waste management, food security, resource conservation, and pollution and climate-change mitigation.
Alain Dufresne - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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microfibrillated cellulose from agricultural residues part ii strategic evaluation and market analysis for mfce30
Industrial Crops and Products, 2016Co-Authors: Abeer M Adel, Essam O Ahmed, Maha M Ibrahim, Waleed K Elzawawy, Alain DufresneAbstract:Abstract With the uprising global challenges in power resources, scarcity of raw material and environmental hazards; agricultural wastes can be a corner stone in facing these challenges. Agricultural residues are used in different applications e.g. biomass energy, fertilizers, Livestock Feeding, furniture, pulp and paper industry and others. Rice straw, bagasse and cotton stalks residues are produced in Egypt annually in mass amounts. The annual production of agriculture wastes in Egypt is approximately 30–35 million tons. These huge amounts of residues have the potential to be an economic opportunity for the already troubled Egyptian economy. Microfibrillated cellulose Egypt 30 (MFCE30) is an agricultural residue, which is chemically and mechanically treated. MFCE30 has been produced and examined as a substitute for the imported wood pulp to be used as an additive in the Egyptian pulp and paper industry. The present study discusses the effectiveness, strategic evaluation and market analysis of MFCE30 in Egypt.