During a 12-mo longitudinal study, bulk-tank milk was collected each month from organic (n = 17) and conventional (n = 19) dairy farms in the United Kingdom. All milk samples were analyzed for fatty acid (FA) content, with the farming system type, herd production level, and nutritional factors affecting the FA composition investigated by use of mixed model analyses. Models were constructed for ...

Prompted by current concerns about energy resources and greenhouse gas emissions, we sought to assess the impact of certain key factors on energy efficiency in sheep-for-meat production and to evaluate the main directions for improvement. We used a modelling approach to simulate the functioning and performances of sheep-for-meat production systems integrating an energy balance calculation modul...

Citizens' concerns about farm animal welfare are often dismissed on the assumption that they are not well informed about farming practices. We conducted exploratory surveys of interested citizens (n = 50) before and after a self-guided tour of a 500-head dairy farm. 'Before' survey questions explored perceptions, concerns, and values about dairy cattle farming and welfare, in addition to a shor...

BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were to investigate whether there were differences between Norwegian Red cows in conventional and organic farming with respect to reproductive performance, udder health, and antibiotic resistance in udder pathogens. METHODS Twenty-five conventional and 24 organic herds from south-east and middle Norway participated in the study. Herds were matched such ...

The characteristic features of Japanese agriculture are rice production and its highly mechanized small scale farming system due to the limited land space. Agricultural production system in mechanization has been currently changed from mass production system to flexible manufacturing system, which became already much popular in industrial production one. This can be explained that the target cr...

Sustainability is de®ned as the ability of a system to `continue'. In view of this de®nition, several aspects of the crop protection activity in organic farming are reviewed according to their ability to `continue'. As no absolute measure of sustainability is available, this analysis takes the form of a comparison between organic and conventional crop protection methods. Two elements of crop pr...

During the last century, the changing forms of agriculture drastically influenced many native plant and animal populations. In the efforts to reduce these negative impacts on biodiversity, a number of agricultural enterprises began farming in a more environmentally friendly ways; in addition to conventional farm management, new forms of integrated and organic farming appeared, the latter having...

In Eastern Tyrol (Austria), homegardens are an integral part of the farming system. The aim of this paper is to present evidence for the development of gardening in the study area and to identify differences/similarities between gardens at organic and non-organic farms. In 1997 and 1998, in homegardens on 91 organic and 105 non-organic farms from 12 communities, occurrence and abundance of cult...