Este libro tiene como propósito servir como texto guía para la formación en extensión agropecuaria de los profesionales de las Ciencias Agrarias de la Universidad de Antioquia y como material de referencia para todas las universidades del país que hacen parte de la Red Nacional de Extensión Rural (RENER), al igual que para los profesionales en servicio que quieren mejorar sus capacidades en extensión agropecuaria, en un nuevo escenario de construcción de paz que requiere ajustes en la preparación del talento humano para apoyar la implementación del recientemente creado servicio de
Agriculture faces an enormous global challenge of feeding nine billion people by 2050. This means a comprehensive intensification of agriculture is required. Ecological intensification is gaining momentum as a clearly defined vision for increasing agriculture productivity and sustainability. How ecological intensification could be tailored to benefit smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains the major question. In this study, we develop pathways relying on ecological intensification technologies and suiting different farm types of smallholder agriculture.
Precision farming enables agricultural management decisions to be tailored spatially and temporally. Site-specific sensing, sampling, and managing allow farmers to treat a field as a heterogeneous entity. Through targeted use of in- puts, precision farming reduces waste, thereby cutting both private variable costs and the environmental costs such as those of agrichemical residuals. At present, large farms in developed countries are the main adopters of pre- cision farming.
With 20% of the world's population but just 7% of the arable land, China has invested heavily in crop biotechnology to increase agricultural productivity. We examine research on insect-resistant genetically engineered (IRGE) crops in China, including strategies to promote their sustainable use. IRGE cotton, rice, and corn lines have been developed and proven efficacious for controlling lepidopteran crop pests. Ecological impact studies have demonstrated conservation of natural enemies of crop pests and halo suppression of crop-pest populations on a local scale.
International agricultural research is often motivated by the potential benefits it could bring to smallholder farmers in developing countries. A recent experimental literature has emerged on why innovations resulting from such research, which often focuses on yield enhancement, fail to be adopted due to either external or internal constraints. This article reviews this literature, focusing on the traits of the different technologies and their complexity and distinguishing between yield-enhancing, variance-reducing, and water- or labor-reducing technologies.
Dans un contexte de controverse sur la capacité des modèles agricoles à répondre conjointement aux enjeux alimentaires, environnementaux et de développement en Afrique, nous analysons les conditions de viabilité d’une agriculture à caractère biologique au Cameroun. La démarche mobilise une enquête par entretiens semi-directifs auprès des acteurs engagés dans les filières de production biologique et une mise en débat des connaissances générées lors d’ateliers participatifs multi-acteurs. Elle met en interaction les connaissances scientifiques, entrepreneuriales et techniques.
An extensive discussion in academic literature and policy currently celebrates Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs) as novel organizational forms that promote knowledge co-creation and innovation uptake among farmers and other stakeholders to address great challenges surrounding agri-food systems. While MSPs represent relatively novel organizations to address critical challenges such as rural poverty, food insecurity, and the negative effects of climate change, little is known on how they influence farmer innovation.
Sorghum crop is grown under tropical and temperate latitudes for several purposes including production of health promoting food from the kernel and forage and biofuels from aboveground biomass. One of the concerns of policy-makers and sorghum growers is to cost-effectively predict biomass yields early during the cropping season to improve biomass and biofuel management. The objective of this study was to investigate if Sentinel-2 satellite images could be used to predict within-season biomass sorghum yields in the Mediterranean region.
Establishing food security remains a global challenge; it is thus a specific objective of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Successfully delivering productive and sustainable agricultural systems worldwide will form the foundations for overcoming this challenge. Smart agriculture is often perceived as one key enabler when considering the twin objectives of eliminating world hunger and undernourishment. The practical realization, deployment, and adoption of smart agricultural systems remain distant due to a confluence of technological, social, and economic factors.
The slow adoption of new agricultural technologies is an important factor in explaining persistent productivity deficits among smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Farmers delay in particular the uptake of technology packages. Since knowledge constraints are an important barrier to adoption, effective extension approaches are key. In recent decades, extension systems in many SSA countries have moved towards decentralized “bottom-up” models involving farmers as active stakeholders.