In the past 50 years, the application of synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer to farmland resulted in a dramatic increase in crop yields but with considerable negative impacts on the environment. New solutions are therefore needed to simultaneously increase yields while maintaining, or preferably decreasing, applied N to maximize the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of crops. In this review, we outline the definition of NUE, the selection and development of NUE crops, and the factors that interact with NUE. In particular, we emphasize the challenges of developing crop plants with enhanced NUE, using more classical genetic approaches based on utilizing existing allelic variation for NUE traits. The challenges of phenotyping, mapping quantitative trait loci (QTLs), and selecting candidate genes for NUE improvement are described. In addition, we highlight the importance of different factors that lead to changes in the NUE components of nitrogen uptake efficiency (NUpE) and nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUtE).
This paper shows that the current generation of transgenic crop varieties has significant potential to improve economic welfare in low-income countries. These varieties might increase crop yields in low-income countries in cases when pesticides have not been used. They will...
La consommation de produits certifiés n’est plus l’apanage des pays développés. Au Kenya, les premiers marchés biologiques sont apparus à Nairobi en 2006. Ils sont approvisionnés par des maraîchers, confrontés à une diversité de défis : construire une certification biologique...
It is often assumed that voluntary sustainability standards – such as Fairtrade – could not only improve the socioeconomic wellbeing of smallholder farmers in developing countries but could also help to reduce negative health and environmental impacts of agricultural production....
Con el espíritu de contribuir a este enfoque se presenta esta guía metodológica sobre “Sistemas Territoriales de Abastecimiento Alimentario” orientada a técnicos, académicos y tomadores de decisiones tanto de gobiernos locales, regionales o nacionales como de la iniciativa privada. Su...
We analyse the impact of intensity of tillage on wheat productivity and risk exposure using panel household-plot level data from Ethiopia. In order to control for selection bias, we estimate a flexible moment-based production function using an endogenous switching regression...
