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Save and Grow: A Policymaker's Guide to the Sustainable Intensification of Smallholder Crop Production. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2011), pp. 112, US$45.00. ISBN 978-92-5-106871-7. - Volume 48 Issue 1

African Indigenous Vegetables in Urban Agriculture. Edited by C. M. Shackleton, M. W. Pasquini and A. W. Drescher. London: Earthscan (2009), pp. 298, £24.95 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-84407-715-1. - Volume 46 Issue 2

Climate Change and Agriculture in Africa. Impact Assessment and Adaptation Strategies. Edited by A. Dinar, R. Hassan, R. Mendelson, J. Benhin and Others. London: Earthscan/Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA) (2008), pp. 189, £49.95. ISBN 13:-978-1-84407-547-8. - Volume 45 Issue 2

Agriculture in Urban Planning: Generating Livelihoods and Food Security. Edited by M. Redwood. London: Earthscan and the International Development Research Centre, UK and USA (2009), pp. 248, £65.00. ISBN 978-1-84407-66. - Volume 45 Issue 4

Tropical Homegardens: A Time-Tested Example of Sustainable Forestry. Springer Series: Advances in Agroforestry. Vol. 3. Edited by B. M. Kumar and P. K. R. Nair. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer (2006), pp. 377, £107.50. ISBN-10: 1-4020-4947-1 - Volume 43 Issue 2

The path of research followed by a team of agro-ecologists who sought to address a complex environment issue by means of a social learning approach is described. Agro-ecological data from monitoring nitrates in surface and ground water and agricultural practices at micro-catchment scale provided the material for the process. The failure of scientists to deploy scientific data effectively in order to influence agro-environment policy implementation was attributed to an ineffective linear transfer of knowledge approach. Thereafter, on account of co-learning instances with new research team members with a background in participatory action research, new assumptions were made and the agro-ecologists began to view nitrates no longer as a technical problem but rather as an issue emerging from interactions between ecological and human factors. A new process was designed: ecological data were introduced as “socio-technical objects”, integrated into “dialogical tools” and used to de-construct the issue during participatory sessions and to identify strategies for concerted actions. These activities fostered stakeholder engagement and led to an array of interlinked emergent practices. The underlying model developed for placing scientific agro-ecology data into society can be effective in building relations with stakeholders for the purposes of knowledge management and for helping to elucidate competing claims around complex agro-environment issues.

This paper is about learning among researchers, advisers and farmers within research projects on organic farming systems in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Both projects involved partnerships between several institutions, natural and social scientists, advisers and many farmers. Scientific data, farmer written case studies, field notes, learning experiences and evaluations have been collected in both countries. The UK research project and the Swedish initiative arose out of a wish to bring organic farmers into a research process which, in the past, had been driven by researcher-defined problem areas and designs. Both developed research in which farmers had an equal role in the definition of the "problem" to be researched and the design, implementation and monitoring of the process over time. Mutual learning among participants has occurred through their engagement with other stakeholders and a willingness to change behaviour within different areas of activity. Participants agreed that the approach can make a very positive contribution to the evolution and credibility of organic farming.

The management of soils is an important issue for policy makers in Ethiopia. However, most of the interventions designed to conserve the soil resources have fallen short of the expectations, performing impressively in the short run, but proving unsustainable on a long-term basis. There are no simple explanations for the failure of these interventions to reverse soil degradation, but it has been evident for some time that there is all uneasy connection between 'objective' assessments of the state of the land and the way this information is used ill the policy-making processes. It is now widely accepted that understanding the processes of the soil degradation is not simply a matter of analysing changes in the stock of physical and nutrient capital. While studies of nutrient balances are an important component of research in soil erosion and land degradation, their results need to be considered in the context of social, cultural and political factors.This paper presents the results of a study in Tigray, Ethiopia, exploring local people's perceptions on and understanding of their land resources, and the way their views influence natural resource management. Our findings indicate that land use is not only a function of the physical properties of fields, but is also shaped by historical processes and local cultural values, and that management strategies adopted by farmers are influenced by a broad range of factors. These include history of tenure and patterns of inheritance, investment in a plot.. and the sense of place, identity and attachment to a locality that develops over time as generations pass through the same family dwelling. Land users in Tigray do not judge arable land purely in terms of its agricultural value.The cultural and social values attributed to specific tracts of land also play an important role in shaping the physical condition of fields and the manner in which farmers interact with their surroundings may explain why certain plots are still 'good', despite having been continuously cultivated by successive generations. It also accounts for local resistance to some types of land redistribution and acceptance of others. Policy makers, therefore, need to pay more attention to the relations between people and land, and to the value that farmers attach to their land resources. Our findings have significant implications for policies on agricultural extension and land redistribution, and for on-farm research, as the type of plot used to test technologies will have a significant impact on the outcome of trials. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impacts associated with alternative methods of agricultural production, and the factors that drive their adoption, are critically dependent on the scale at which they are applied. Using organic farming as a case study, this project operating from 2006–2009 in the UK, will undertake an integrated assessment of scale effects by studying matched sets of farms situated in landscapes with high and low concentrations of organic farming. Clusters of organic and conventional farms to work with have been identified in the South West and Midlands region of England.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Systems thinking has developed in tune with the attempt to define and model complex behaviours in both physical and biological systems. Many tools have been developed that enable complex systems to be described. Such tools have enormous potential for use in understanding organic farming systems, which are complex social-economic-ecological systems. Agricultural research in general, including research on organic farming, has tended to oversimplify complex situations, and thus has generally delivered solutions that are often only partial, or sometimes positively damaging, to the systems into which they have been applied. The aims of the organic agricultural movement would seem to be more sympathetic to the application of an holistic overview of the research and development process, and to developing a 'systems or systemic approach' to problems at several levels of aggregation. However, a more systematic inclusion of systems thinking in current organic research and development programmes will have to be actively encouraged if this potential is to be fully realized.

The livestock feed balance of small farms in the Harar Highlands of eastern Ethiopia was studied during 1999-2000. The objective of the study was to examine the livestock feed resource and balance at the smallholder farm level, with the expectation that the outcome would also shed light on the possible use of livestock feed balance as a potential indicator to assess sustainability of Ethiopian small farms. Community level information on farm households was collected using semi-structured key informant interviews and field observations. Community level interviews revealed that farmers considered ability to meet livestock feed demand as one of the most important indicators of sustainability of their farms, and stressed that this ability varies with farms. A well-being instrument was developed on the basis of community level data to rank the households into poor (POR), medium (MDM), and well-to-do (WTD) categories. Detailed characterization of the households in the three categories was carried out by an in-depth case study of individual farms followed by a wider scale formal survey.The livestock feed balance was then estimated using dry matter requirement and availability as a proxy indicator. Case study revealed that MDM and WTD did not produce enough feed. Results of the formal survey were similar to the case study. Relative to the requirement, the mean feed balance values varied significantly with well-being categories (P < 0.001), and the mean value of POR (0.39 t DM/year) also differed significantly (P < 0.0 1) from the mean values of MDM (- 1.78 t DM/year) and WTD (- 4.09 t DM/year). POR, MDM and WTD produced on average 132.4%, 50.8% and 44. 1 % of the estimated dry matter feed requirement, respectively. Feed resources outside the farm appeared marginal to fill in the reported deficit in MDM and WTD. Yet livestock on those farms produce and reproduce with the existing feed supply levels, suggesting that the conventional estimation method used for the study could not reflect the reality, at least in MDM and WTD. Much remains to be known to better account the quantity and quality of feed resources both from and outside small farms, and to accurately determine the nutritional requirement of local breeds. As a result, estimating livestock feed balance of tropical small farms remains challenging and its potential use as a quick indicator of sustainability of smallholder tropical mixed farms appears limited. (C) 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.