Agroforestry and biochar to offset climate change

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Expansion of agricultural land use has increased emission of greenhouse gases, exacerbating climatic changes. Most agricultural soils have lost a large portion of their organic carbon, becoming a source of atmospheric CO2. In addition, agricultural soils can also be a major source of nitrous oxide and methane greenhouse gases. Stavi and Lal show that agroforestry and soil application of biochar can efficiently sequester large amounts of carbon over the long-run. In addition, these practices also increase agronomic productivity and support a range of ecosystem services. Payments to farmers and land managers for sequestrating carbon and improving ecosystem services is an important strategy for promoting the adoption of such practices.

 

 

Biofuels from plant biomass

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In New Zealand 70% of the country’s electricity generation is already renewable. Plant biomass can be used for multiple forms of bioenergy, and there is a very large potential supply, depending on which global assessment is most accurate in terms of land area that could be available for biomass production. The most suitable plant species must be identified before the potential biomass production in a particular region can be quantified. This in turn depends on the degree of climatic adaptation by those species. A review article by Kerckhoffs and Renquist identified the most suitable crop species and assessed their production potential for use within the climatic range present in New Zealand.

 

About

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Agronomy for Sustainable Development

images_french-flagFrench version / Version française

Agronomy for Sustainable Development is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on the interactions between cropping systems and other activities in the context of sustainable development. It is one of the seven official journals of the French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) and is published on their behalf by Springer Science+Business Media.

According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2012 impact factor of 3.57, ranking it 4th out of 78 journals in the category “Agronomy”.

A blog…what for ?

This blog highlights some articles published in the journal, and allows readers to discuss on these articles.

Comments can be inserted in the “Post your comments” section at the bottom of each page.