What Conclusions Can You Draw From This List Of Crops?
10. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
There is concern that agricultural production in developing countries volition cause environmental threats in the futurity, as production volition have to increase to satisfy the growing demand for food. Intensification leads to loftier inputs of nutrients in the form of mineral fertilizers and animal feed. Important parts of these inputs leak from the organisation in the grade of food leaching to groundwater and gaseous losses to the atmosphere. Pressure level on the existing agricultural state may increase by growing demand for productive land and degradation of the existing agricultural state base. Expansion of agriculture generally leads to massive deforestation.
The study presented in this report full-bodied on the interactions between livestock product, crop production and land use. The link between livestock and crop product is through the need for animal feedstuffs. This report presents long-term scenarios describing these interactions and the possible consequences for ingather production and fauna waste production. Equally the globe population is expected to stabilize in the second half of the twenty-first century, the scenarios must cover a period of fifty-100 years to include the impacts of human population numbers.
Non all environmental consequences can exist quantitatively evaluated. World agriculture is currently responsible for more than than half of the atmospheric increase of nitrous oxide (N2O), 2 thirds of the global ammonia (NHthree) input into the temper, and 40% of global methane (CH4) emissions. These compounds play of import roles in atmospheric chemical science, ozone depletion, aerosol formation and greenhouse warming. Therefore, a number of examples were selected to exist worked out in detail, including the emission of ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (NiiO) from beast waste and mineral fertilizers, also equally projections of the emission of methane (CH4) from ruminating animals. A number of other ecology effects related to livestock and crop production are discussed in a qualitative fashion.
Starting from the AT2010 results, and using a population and per caput demand scenario, we have made a projection of regional domestic demand and self-sufficiency for groups of food products. Three scenarios of agronomical production have been compiled: one medium scenario based on the trends of AT2010, 1 more optimistic (loftier) scenario where all growth rates, yield and productivity ceilings were taken slightly higher, and a more pessimistic (depression) scenario. The low scenario results in a development where more state is required for crop product and more animals are needed to come across the growing demand. In the high scenario the reverse occurs, with a smaller cropland area and fewer animals needed to reach the same production level.
Combination of optimistic or pessimistic assumptions on crop and livestock production within a region, and combining regional optimistic or pessimistic scenarios may not exist realistic. However, juxtaposing the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios provides a range of unlike views, ane of the about of import requirements of scenarios formulated by Alcamo et al. (1995). The land employ scenarios have been tested against conditional and incomplete data on the irrigation potential and regional estimates of the potential for agronomical expansion. The scenarios should be tested in a geographically referenced model on the basis of the FAO-Agro Ecological Zones (AEZ) arroyo (east.chiliad. the IMAGE model) to analyse the feasibility of scenarios of the resulting land apply.
The scenario development described in this report clearly reveals the linkages betwixt the production of livestock and crops. Apart from the arable land used to back up livestock production through feed crops, at that place are other effects, such as on fertilizer apply. The principal conclusions from the study follow:
· If the assumptions on increasing state productivity and the population scenario for the period 1990-2025 are realistic, the arable land area in the developing countries may stabilize or even decrease to a level shut to the electric current 1. In the medium scenario, i.e. with crop and animal product increasing at current trends or trends that have been predicted past FAO, the area in use for crop production will decrease between 2025 and 2050. This is acquired by the simultaneous slowing down of the growth in demand for agronomical products - as determined by population and economic evolution - and connected possibilities for increasing the productivity of the state. This conclusion is in line with Alexandratos (1995). Information technology should be noted that potential furnishings of land degradation on the state'south productivity and deforestation are not considered.· The scenarios for irrigated land are based on the trend predicted for 1990-2010, with a slowly decreasing growth rate in the course of time. For the developing countries, including China, this resulted in a 50% increase for the medium scenario. For the Near Due east and North Africa regions the assumptions on total crop production had to be adjusted to avert projections that exceed the land and irrigation potential. For the other regions the future irrigated areas practice not exceed the estimates of the irrigation potential based on information bachelor in the belatedly 1970s, although the issue of the medium scenario that about one-half of the total increase in irrigated country will occur in Southward Asia may exist unrealistic.
· There may be a growing demand for land either grazing areas or arable land producing brute feedstuffs required to support livestock production. Currently, about xvi% of the domestic demand for cereals, 20% starchy foods and three% oilseeds comes from livestock product in the developing countries. In addition, part of the production is exported and used every bit beast feed in developed countries. According to the medium scenario the feed employ of cereals may increment to thirty% of the total demand in 2050, and similar increases may occur for other crops.
Major increases in the demand for livestock products may occur in the Near E and N Africa. As in that location is not plenty productive land or h2o in this region to increment the feed and food product sufficiently to run across the projected growth in the demand, this may entail much larger feed imports (Appendix 22). This is on the assumption that livestock product volition increase on the footing of imported feedstuffs.
The extent of permanent grassland is not changing apace at nowadays: there has been even a decrease of about 9 one thousand thousand ha per twelvemonth in the developing countries over the past 3 decades. One may doubt the reliability of the estimates of grazing areas, but they are consistent with the tendency towards decreasing reliance on grazing and increasing importance of forage crops and feed concentrates noted by Alexandratos (1995). If this tendency continues in the futurity, the land need induced past livestock product will increasingly come up from feed and forage production.
· Intensive livestock production is more food- and energy-efficient than more extensive product. Co-ordinate to the medium scenario animal excretion of N, P, and Yard will double in the coming 5-6 decades. In the loftier scenario, with growth towards more intensive production, the waste product production is much lower and even tends to decrease in the menses after 2025. In the low scenario, with less growth in fauna productivity, the waste production grows much faster than in the other ii scenarios. However, it should exist stressed that more intensive systems with more confined animals tend to lead to concentration of product. Systems may be increasingly based on the product of feedstuffs elsewhere, creating problems of fauna waste matter disposal.
As a event of differential growth of the population of the unlike livestock species and the increasing efficiency of Northward usage by the animals, the increase in NHiii and Due northiiO emissions is less than would be expected on the basis of growth of total livestock production. However, in some regions, particularly in Asia, the projected growth of production and intensification is rapid and concentration of ammonia emissions may lead to adverse environmental furnishings such as soil acidification.
· Intensive crop product is more than nutrient-efficient than more extensive crop production. The scenarios of fertilizer use bear witness impressive increases, on the average to NPK levels now prevailing in Europe. At nowadays there are large losses of nitrogen from mineral fertilizers. NHthree volatilization to the atmosphere amounts to about 20% of the full mineral N fertilizer utilise in developing countries. Because the emissions are related mainly to the type of fertilizer, the large N losses can be avoided. If the loss rates are assumed to decrease to current levels in adult countries (5%), the NH3 emission in developing countries projected for 2025, based on the fertilizer scenario, may be lower than the current emission. According to the medium scenario, North2O emission from mineral fertilizers will increase by a factor of 3 in the coming 5-6 decades.
· Further ecology aspects of the growing fertilizer use take not been assessed. However, leaching and contamination of groundwater by fertilizers and agrochemicals may increase, in item, in intensive rice growing areas where percolation rates and associated nutrient losses are loftier. Groundwater contamination as observed at present in Europe (RIVM/RIZA, 1991) may likewise become a trouble in developing countries with intensification of agronomics.
· According to the medium scenario, the methane emissions from enteric fermentation will double in the period 1990-2050. Without major changes in the different waste direction systems, the CH4 from animal waste matter will remain an unimportant global source. Withal, with increasing intensity and concentration of product, there may be growing disposal issues with more than waste storage in lagoons, in liquid form or as slurry; the associated CH4 emission may so become a major global source.
· The CH4 emissions from rice fields may stabilize if emission rates per unit of measurement surface area do non change. Yet, if the emission rates are proportional to total biomass production, the global CHiv emission from rice paddies may increase further in the coming decades.
By looking into the interactions between the different product systems, the study has helped to lay bare a number of of import knowledge gaps and this has resulted in the following recommendations for future studies:
LAND DEGRADATION
There are few studies on the event of land degradation on productivity in developing countries. This information is crucial for studies such as this ane. If yields are negatively influenced by degradation, the crop product scenarios may not be realized, leading to effects on the arable state areas. Farther detailed analysis of the results of the Woods Resources Assessment Project may provide answers to questions virtually the importance of loss of productivity in shifting cultivation as a driving forcefulness of deforestation and other land use changes. In addition, in most developing countries in both dry and humid climates many changes in the state of wood resource are caused by pastoral uses of forests and woodlands with no or insufficient management.
LAND USE
Worldwide grazing areas are known from FAO country estimates of permanent pastures. To complement the agreement of land use dynamics worldwide, geographic information on the extent, productivity and the intensity of utilise of pastures and arable lands is urgently required. Information technology is interesting to study the possible evolution of forest conversion for livestock production. This seems to be a process occurring in many countries, particularly in the Amazon Basin. This information will also assist to quantify the contribution of grazing to animal diet.
IRRIGATION POTENTIAL
The nearly contempo data on the irrigation potential is the approximate for Africa and for other regions from FAO (1984). In the near futurity analysis of the most recent data on fresh-h2o resource will yield revised estimates for all developing countries.
Because additional uncertainties are associated with possible furnishings of climatic change, it is more difficult to forecast irrigation potentials. River discharges are extremely sensitive to small-scale changes in annual rainfall and seasonal distribution patterns. In improver, the seasonal water usage depends very much on the cropping patterns, which may change as a consequence of adaptation to climate change. A possible way to study future irrigation potentials may exist through scenario analysis of climate change and adaptation.
ANIMAL NUTRITION
Estimates of the proportions of the diverse crops used as animal feed are derived indirectly from the supply-utilization accounts. Directly estimates of feed use from the Livestock Environment Study may lead to different estimates of the feed intensity for the various regions. Combination of the straight and indirect approaches may atomic number 82 to more reliable estimates of feed intensities. Agricultural products that do not enter the market are neither recorded in the FAO statistics, nor in those of many individual countries. Therefore, no data are available on the product of fodder crops or on the extents of land needed to produce them. Information on the use of agricultural residues is very scarce as well. Crop residues may play an important role in brute nutrition, just they may also be burnt. During the burning many polluting compounds are released into the temper. More consummate knowledge on the direct use of crop products equally animal feed, and the function of fodder's and ingather residues would be a major contribution to understanding the interactions between livestock and crop product.
Found Diet
It will be useful to repeat the assessment of fertilizer intensity on the basis of country data. The greatest uncertainty of the model presented in this study is the arbitrarily called maximum fertilizer intensity. In addition, the functions used practise not depict the aggregating of soil stocks. For example, the required phosphorus inputs may subtract with continued fertilization (Van Duivenbooden, 1995). An alternative to developing scenarios or making projections on fertilizer utilize is based on yield response functions. Response functions cannot be developed on the basis of total country fertilizer use. Country and crop-specific data on the per centum of the area that is actually fertilized and the fertilizer awarding rates are needed. A first attempt has been fabricated by FAO/IFA/IFDC (1994), with reported data for 81 countries. Such information should be linked with data on nutrient inputs from animal wastes, crop residues and biological nitrogen fixation, which are important contributors to found nutrition. These need to be quantified to better sympathize the observed changes in the fertilizer intensity and to assess strategies to reduce avoidable losses and increase fertilizer recovery.
ABATEMENT OF POLLUTION
No abatement strategies have been taken into business relationship in this study, except for the assumption that higher animal productivity leads to lower CH4 production from enteric fermentation and less waste product production per unit product. Strategies to avoid environmental pollution effects from fertilizer use include the promotion of slow-release fertilizers that may increase the N-apply efficiency and decrease NH3 volatilization and N2 emission. Similarly, incorporation of creature manure prevents NH3 volatilization and improves the N recovery rate.
Source: https://www.fao.org/3/W5146E/w5146e0d.htm
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