BACKGROUND The pesticides monocrotophos, methamidophos, and endosulfan were a very common cause of severe poisoning in Sri Lanka during the 1980s and early 1990s, before they were banned in 1995 and 1998. Now, the most commonly used insecticides are the less toxic World Health Organization Class II organophosphorus pesticides and carbamates. These bans were followed by a large reduction in both...

Onfarm field trials carried out with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton in different states of India show that the technology substantially reduces pest damage and increases yields. The yield gains are much higher than what has been reported for other countries where genetically modified crops were used mostly to replace and enhance chemical pest control. In many developing countries, small-sca...

Small watershed sediment yield data were evaluated for eight small watersheds ranging from 35.2 to 159.5 ha within the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in southeastern Arizona, USA. Stock pond sediment accumulation measurements covering time periods from 30 to 47 years were combined with water level records and es...

There is a growing recognition that the interrelations between agriculture, food, bioenergy, and climate change have to be better understood in order to derive more realistic estimates of future bioenergy potentials. This article estimates global bioenergy potentials in the year 2050, following a "food first" approach. It presents integrated food, livestock, agriculture, and bioenergy scenarios...

A model of irrigation agriculture is applied to southern Mesopotamian for the areas around Nippur and Uruk. Field systems around late third millennium BC (Ur III period) cities are modeled in order to understand the effects of salinization and what strategies might limit progressive salinization that hinders agricultural yields. Scholars have long suspected that progressive salinization may con...

China and other rapidly developing economies face the dual challenge of substantially increasing yields of cereal grains while at the same time reducing the very substantial environmental impacts of intensive agriculture. We used a model-driven integrated soil-crop system management approach to develop a maize production system that achieved mean maize yields of 13.0 t ha(-1) on 66 on-farm expe...

BACKGROUND Lower Saxony (Germany) has the highest installed electric capacity from biogas in Germany. Most of this electricity is generated with maize. Reasons for this are the high yields and the economic incentive. In parts of Lower Saxony, an expansion of maize cultivation has led to ecological problems and a negative image of bioenergy as such. Winter triticale and cup plant have both shown...

Imagine a world where the demand for food and other agricultural products is constant or increases regularly as populations and incomes grow. Land can only be used for agriculture or forest. Then the only ways to keep more land in forest are to increase agricultural yields, reduce population growth or depress incomes. The amount of land devoted to agriculture equals the total demand for agricul...

Interactions between food demand, biomass energy and forest preservation are driving both food prices and land-use changes. This study presents a new model called Nexus Land-Use which describes these interactions through a representation of agricultural intensification. The model combine biophysics and economics to calculate crop yields, food prices, and resulting pasture and cropland areas wit...

Ionic liquids have been employed to deconstruct and fractionate lignocellulosic biomasses because of their capacity to dissolve cellulose. However, there is limited literature reporting the use of ionic liquids in biomass saccharification, which mostly involves the addition of acid or water that conceals the true action of ionic liquid in saccharification. This article assesses the performance ...