Professor Amir Kassam, University of Reading, UK and Moderator, Global Conservation Agriculture Community of Practice (CA-CoP), FAO, Italy, has edited a third volume in a series on the adoption of Conservation Agriculture (CA) principles in different regions around the world. The final volume reviews the effectiveness of CA in differing contexts and refers to the wealth of research and experiential evidence currently available.
With a growing urgency to make global crop production more sustainable in the light of climate change, researchers and those alike have been faced with the challenge of developing crops with an increased tolerance to instances of abiotic stress, including drought, heat, cold/frost and floods.
As well as proving to be beneficial to the environment and reducing the carbon footprint of the sector, a team of researchers have also determined that drought-tolerant crops offer greater nutritional benefits.
Based at the University of Delaware, USA, the researchers have dedicated a new study which solely explores the nutritional benefits of drought-tolerant cereal crops, including sorghum, maize and millet.
In regions such as the Middle East, Africa and South Asia where substantial amounts of cereals/cereal products are consumed each year, the primary crops consumed are rice and wheat. Despite this, these crops hold fewer nutritional benefits than drought-tolerant crops.
The researchers suggest that results from this study have the ability to shape the lives of millions currently facing food security challenges simply through dietary shifts.
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Review of new publication by David R. Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilisations and Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life:
“With comprehensive global coverage, this remarkable compilation will stand as a milestone on the road to transforming agriculture, illustrating how innovative farmers around the world are adapting their practices to ditch the plow, cover up, and grow diversity.”
The book may be purchased at Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing.
Also in this collection:
Advances in Conservation Agriculture Volume 1 – Systems and Science
Advances in Conservation Agriculture Volume 2 – Practice and Benefits
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