Assessment of promising agricultural management practices

Lúcia Barão; Abdallah Alaoui; Carla Ferreira; Gottlieb Basch; Gudrun Schwilch; Violette Geissen; Wijnand Sukkel; Julie Lemesle; Fuensanta Garcia-Orenes; Alicia Morugán-Coronado; Jorge Mataix-Solera; Costas Kosmas; Matjaž Glavan; Marina Pintar; Brigitta Tóth; Tamás Hermann; Olga Petruta Vizitiu; Jerzy Lipiec; Endla Reintam; Minggang Xu; Jiaying Di; Hongzhu Fan; Fei Wang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.257

Assessment of promising agricultural management practices

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Feb 1:649:610-619. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.257. Epub 2018 Aug 23.

Authors

Lúcia Barão¹, Abdallah Alaoui², Carla Ferreira³, Gottlieb Basch⁴, Gudrun Schwilch², Violette Geissen⁵, Wijnand Sukkel⁶, Julie Lemesle⁷, Fuensanta Garcia-Orenes⁸, Alicia Morugán-Coronado⁸, Jorge Mataix-Solera⁸, Costas Kosmas⁹, Matjaž Glavan¹⁰, Marina Pintar¹⁰, Brigitta Tóth¹¹, Tamás Hermann¹², Olga Petruta Vizitiu¹³, Jerzy Lipiec¹⁴, Endla Reintam¹⁵, Minggang Xu¹⁶, Jiaying Di¹⁶, Hongzhu Fan¹⁷, Fei Wang¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Center for Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Changes (cE3c), University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal; Institute of Mediterranean Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (ICAAM), University of Évora, Núcleo da Mitra Apartado, 94 7006-554 Évora, Portugal. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.
³ Research Centre for Natural Resources, Environment and Society (CERNAS), College of Agriculture, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
⁴ Institute of Mediterranean Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (ICAAM), University of Évora, Núcleo da Mitra Apartado, 94 7006-554 Évora, Portugal.
⁵ Department of Environmental Sciences, Soil Physics and Land Management, University of Wageningen, the Netherlands.
⁶ Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen Plant Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, Netherlands.
⁷ Gaec de la Branchette (GB), France.
⁸ Department of Agrochemistry and Environment, Miguel Hernández University, Spain.
⁹ Agricultural University Athens (AUA), Greece.
¹⁰ University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, Jamnikarjeva 101, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
¹¹ Institute for Soil Sciences and Agricultural Chemistry, Centre for Agricultural Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Herman Ottó út. 15., H-1022 Budapest, Hungary; University of Pannonia, Georgikon Faculty, Deparrtment of Soil Science and Crop Production, Deák F. u. 16., H-8360 Keszthely, Hungary.
¹² University of Pannonia, Georgikon Faculty, Deparrtment of Soil Science and Crop Production, Deák F. u. 16., H-8360 Keszthely, Hungary.
¹³ National Research and Development Institute for Soil Science, Agrochemistry and Environmental Protection (ICPA), Romania.
¹⁴ Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4, 20-290 Lublin, Poland.
¹⁵ Estonian University of Life Sciences, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonia.
¹⁶ Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IARRP, CAAS), China.
¹⁷ Soil and Fertilizer Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (SFI), China.
¹⁸ Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources (ISWC), China.

PMID: 30176472
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.257

Abstract

iSQAPER project - Interactive Soil Quality Assessment in Europe and China for Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Resilience - aims to develop an app to advise farmers on selecting the best Agriculture Management Practice (AMPs) to improve soil quality. For this purpose, a soil quality index has to be developed to account for the changes in soil quality as impacted by the implementation of the AMPs. Some promising AMPs have been suggested over the time to prevent soil degradation. These practices have been randomly adopted by farmers but which practices are most used by farmers and where they are mostly adopted remains unclear. This study is part of the iSQAPER project with the specific aims: 1) map the current distribution of previously selected 18 promising AMPs in several pedo-climatic regions and farming systems located in ten and four study site areas (SSA) along Europe and China, respectively; and 2) identify the soil threats occurring in those areas. In each SSA, farmers using promising AMP's were identified and questionnaires were used to assess farmer's perception on soil threats significance in the area. 138 plots/farms using 18 promising AMPs, were identified in Europe (112) and China (26).Results show that promising AMPs used in Europe are Crop rotation (15%), Manuring & Composting (15%) and Min-till (14%), whereas in China are Manuring & Composting (18%), Residue maintenance (18%) and Integrated pest and disease management (12%). In Europe, soil erosion is the main threat in agricultural Mediterranean areas while soil-borne pests and diseases is more frequent in the SSAs from France and The Netherlands. In China, soil erosion, SOM decline, compaction and poor soil structure are among the most significant. This work provides important information for policy makers and the development of strategies to support and promote agricultural management practices with benefits for soil quality.

Keywords: Environment; Farming systems; Soil threats; Sustainability.