U.S. Organic Agriculture

Organic agriculture cannot replace conventional agriculture

In this paper, we consider the effect of increasing the area of agricultural land under organic practises. We assumed that organic agriculture does not have effective means of pathogen control. We model pathogen dispersal with a diffusive logistic equation in which the growth/death rate is spatially heterogeneous. We find that if the ratio of the organic plots to conventional plots is below a c...

Trichoderma in Organic Agriculture

Biocontrol, or Biological Control, can be defined as the use of natural organisms, or genetically modified, genes or gene products, to reduce the effects of undesirable organisms to favour organisms useful to human, such as crops, trees, animals and beneficial microorganisms. This strategy of control is ecologicaly clean and compatible with different models of agriculture: organic, biological a...

Organic Urban Agriculture

Urban agriculture (UA) has a long tradition in many countries worldwide, is actively engaging about 800 million people, and is now increasingly considered by urban planning and land-use personnel. Urban cropland, in particular, covers more than 67 Mha or more than 5% of the total global cropland area. Urban agriculture practices have many benefits and, in particular, may contribute to food secu...

Enacting standards in organic agriculture

Crop protection in organic agriculture

Introduction Organic farming systems are challenged by many of the same crop protection issues as conventional farming systems. Approaches to crop protection in organic agriculture differ widely among growers globally and regionally. At one end of the spectrum, organic growers use substitution-based approaches in large-scale operations to capture premium prices in a niche market. At the other e...