Small-scale integrated farming systems can abate continental-scale nutrient leakage

Sustainability, Sustainable Livelihoods, Climate Risks, Small Scale -Farming

Farmers frequently cope with risks due to the uncertainty of climatic conditions. Population growth, changes in agricultural policies, environmental regulations and the degradation of natural resources such as soil and water also present farmers with numerous challenges. Although farmers have experience in coping with a certain degree of uncertainty, increased climate variability and changes ma...

Small-scale versus large-scale cocoa farming in Cameroon

Smallholding in the cocoa sector has been seen as a hindrance to production and productivity growth due to the ageing of the cocoa farmers, limited access to credit, low level of education and low adoptability of innovations. In order to curb this, policy makers have resorted to implementing policy instruments that encourage the extension of small rural farms into larger farms, thereby undermin...

Small-Scale Farming and Shifting Cultivation

Precision Farming also for Small Scale Farmers

The current and future food insecurity situation of many nations has been effected by factors like global warming, population growth, bio-energy, low technology acceptance, unfavourable policies, sustainability criteria, changing natural risk-management and subsidies. Food availability is a basic human need and, if left unattended undermines any other development effort. Sustainability-, agricu...

Continental-scale effects of nutrient pollution on stream ecosystem functioning.

Excessive nutrient loading is a major threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide that leads to profound changes in aquatic biodiversity and biogeochemical processes. Systematic quantitative assessment of functional ecosystem measures for river networks is, however, lacking, especially at continental scales. Here, we narrow this gap by means of a pan-European field experiment on a fundamental ecosys...