This Distributed Graduate Seminar (DGS) aims to synthesize current ecological information on the role that biodiversity in agricultural landscapes (agrobiodiversity) plays in providing ecosystem services. In recent years numerous studies aimed at examining the importance of agroecosystems to the conservation of biodiversity have been published. These studies focus on identifying the types of ag...

The objective of this study was to assess the influence of some socioeconomic characteristics on purposes for which mobile phone was used by small scale farmers in the Gezira State, Sudan. The total number of small- scale farmers in the State for 2013-2014 growing season was estimated to be 5000. Ten percent of the population was used using the simple random sampling technique. The collected da...

Due to the growing complexity of agricultural services the structured development and management of those services becomes more and more important. The following article shows how the concepts and methods of service engineering can be applied to the agricultural domain using nutrient mapping as an exemplary precision farming service.

> Agricultural biodiversity is used by rural communities worldwide in many time-tested practices that can confer increased resilience to farms, communities and landscapes. Using it more effectively and more sustainably can help to maintain and increase the flow of services and benefits agricultural biodiversity provides to communities. Using biodiversity to provide multiple services in sustaina...

2012 Storm water runoff Reef quality decline Wave height change Beach width change $ Value of impact Remedial or preventative Investment How does pollution affect the reef? How does reef structure affect the waves? How do waves affect the beach? How does beach width affect tourism revenues? How much to spend on fixing/preventing runoff? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funding was provided through the project ...

Land provides a host of ecosystem services, of which the provisioning services are often considered paramount. As the demand for agricultural products multiplies, other ecosystem services are being degraded or lost entirely. Finding a sustainable trade-off between food production and one or more of other ecosystem services, given the variety of stakeholders, is a matter of optimizing land use i...

This study contributes to pioneering literature on the impact of mobile phone-based money transfer, especially in agriculture. It provides information regarding financial intermediation to the excluded through the use of new generation Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools, especially the mobile phone. The study employs propensity score matching technique to examine the impact of MMT...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Crop pollination by bees and other animals is an essential ecosystem service. Ensuring the maintenance of the service requires a full understanding of the contributions of landscape elements to pollinator populations and crop pollination. Here, the first quantitative model that predicts pollinator abundance on a landscape is described and tested. METHODS Using information ...