Canadian farmers and University of Guelph researchers will benefit from a cross-Canada partnership of government, industry and universities in green agriculture technologies announced on campus Thursday.

U of G scientists will receive nearly $4 million to study and develop tools to help farmers mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, said parliamentary secretary Pierre Lemieux. He made the announcement for federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz at the Guelph Turfgrass Institute.

"Canada's agriculture industry plays a vital role in keeping our economy strong," Lemieux said. "This research will lead to new tools and practices to help farmers protect the environment and grow their business."

The funding will support two projects based in the Ontario Agricultural College's School of Environmental Sciences.

Prof. Claudia Wagner-Riddle studies dairy livestock and crop production systems. By examining new and refined management practices and improved feeding strategies, she hopes to help farmers increase profits and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Those are also the goals of research by agroforestry professors Andy Gordon and Naresh Thevathasan, who study tree-based intercropping, or the use of trees on farms.

"These two projects will go a long way towards helping Canada develop important greenhouse gas mitigation strategies, benefiting farmers and reducing impacts on the environment," said Kevin Hall, vice-president (research).

"Partnerships such as the two we are celebrating today are central to our mission of creating new knowledge and value for society. The University of Guelph has a long history of working with government and industry to translate research knowledge into new technologies, products and services."

Funding will come through the Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program, a five-year, $27-million initiative to develop on-farm greenhouse gas mitigation technologies.

University of Guelph Press Release, October 14, 2011 

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One might assume southern Saskatchewan's native grasslands to have suffered stress under climate pressures over the past 30 years -- and one might be wrong, a new study suggests.

The province's south has experienced "much drier weather and some very significant droughts overall" in the past three decades, according to University of Regina geography professor Joe Piwowar.

However, he said in a release Wednesday, his research shows native prairie in the region has in fact been getting greener.

"This is totally unexpected," said Piwowar, the university's Canada research chair in geomatics and sustainability.

"My assumption going into this research is that the prairie grasses are responding to changes in climate. Second only to the Arctic, the Canadian prairie is one of the most sensitive areas to climate change."

Given the dry climate conditions, he said, "I would have expected the prairie grasslands to be showing more signs of stress. Instead, there's been more biomass, more vegetation growth."

For his research, Piwowar has been studying Grasslands National Park, south of Swift Current on the province's border with Montana.

The park is considered an environment "largely undisturbed by human activities," which he said allows him to analyze the impacts of climate change, through field research and satellite imagery.

Piwowar's next step, he said, is to figure out why the vegetation has been increasing and how this change could impact human activity, such as agriculture in the surrounding region, as well as how it will impact the region's biodiversity in the future.

Country Guide, October 14, 2011

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With $5 million in funding from the USDA, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Arkansas, Purdue University and Virginia Tech is developing an integrated management tool for swine production based on a comprehensive analysis of the swine production process - from crops used for feed to various methods of managing waste.

"A primary purpose of this work is to evaluate and mitigate the environmental footprint of swine-production facilities," said Greg Thoma, professor of chemical engineering, in a news release. "What action can we take to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from these facilities without making processes more expensive for the farmer? So we want to understand this impact and then come up with something that will enable farmers to make informed decisions about changes to production, such as breeding, feeding, waste-management and other practices. To do this, we must understand the entire system - or full life cycle - of swine production in this country."

The technologies will support the development of a life-cycle analysis that will serve as a model to demonstrate the environmental impact of various changes to production. For example, in a project spearheaded by Charles Maxwell, professor of animal science, the model will show how manipulating the diet of hogs will affect the amount and type of crops grown to feed the animals, as well as carbon emitted from the animals through burping and flatulence.

The model is flexible and allows for geographic customization. It will consider factors including weather patterns and annual rainfall, which affect decisions related to heating and cooling and the amount of manure that can be applied to land without affecting water quality.

Directed by Jennie Popp, professor of agricultural economics, the life-cycle cost analysis will measure the economic impact of process changes.

"The beauty of these models is that the algorithms behind them will show what will happen, both environmentally and economically, if a farmer decides to change the diet of his hogs - to substitute amino acids for vegetable proteins, for example," Thoma said. "What impact will this have on emissions? Will it increase production? The models will provide these answers."

The work includes an innovative project in which researchers remove nitrogen and phosphorus from pig manure and then use these nutrients to grow algae as feedstock that can be converted into biofuel.

Funded over five years from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the project includes researchers from the University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Purdue University, Virginia Tech and the private sector.

Michael Fielding, meatingplace.com. October 17, 2011

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On a continent battered by weather extremes, famine and record food prices, new research released October 14 from the World Agroforestry Centre documents an exciting new trend in which hundreds of thousands of poor farmers in Southern Africa are now significantly boosting yields and incomes simply by using fast growing trees and shrubs to naturally fertilize their fields.

The analysis of two decades of work to bring the soil-enriching benefits of so-called "fertilizer trees" to the nutrient-depleted farms of Africa was published in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.

"In only five African countries, there are now some 400,000 smallholder farmers using fertilizer trees to provide critically needed soil nutrients -- and many report major increases in maize yields -- which shows that it is possible to rapidly introduce innovations in Africa that can have an immediate impact on food security," said Oluyede Ajayi, Senior Scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre and the paper's lead author.

The study focuses on the rapid adoption of fertilizer trees by farmers targeted in research, training and extension programs in Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In eastern Zambia alone, the study reports the use of fertilizer trees grew from a pilot project in the early 1990s that involved only 12 farmers to adoption by 66,000 farmers as of 2006. In Malawi, there are now 145,000 farmers using fertilizer trees.

In addition, across the region, researchers have documented a doubling of maize yields on farms employing fertilizer trees compared to those that did not, which has dramatically increased both incomes and food security. In Zambia, for example, incomes for farmers using the fertilizer trees averaged from $233 to $327 per hectare, compared to only $130 for unfertilized fields. And the increased yields provided between 57 to 114 extra days of food.

"We also found that when farmers plant these trees, water efficiency improves," Ajayi said. "Farmers are getting higher yields from the same amount of rainwater. And the trees are helping reduce the run-off and soil erosion that is a key factor behind food production shortfalls in Africa."

Fertilizer trees enhance soil health by drawing nitrogen from the air and transferring it to the soil through their roots and leaf litter, replenishing exhausted soils with rich sources of organic nutrients. Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre have been working since the 1980s to identify indigenous tree species, such as a fast growing variety of acacia that can be planted alongside crops to improve soil fertility. Among the many burdens facing African farmers are soils that are among the most depleted in the world. Yet for two-thirds of farmers on the continent, mineral supplements are either too expensive or simply unavailable.

In recent years, the Centre's work has focused on partnerships, particularly with national agriculture extension programs, that can help more smallholder farmers integrate fertilizer trees into their crop production systems. Ajayi said the rapid adoption of the fertilizer tree approach is partly due to the fact that researchers have turned over much of the project design and testing to farmers.

"Initially, these fertilizer tree projects were controlled mostly by researchers," Ajayi said. "But in the final phases of development, all of the testing in the field was completely designed and fully managed by the farmers themselves."

Ajayi also credited initiatives that focused on integrating the fertilizer tree approach with national agriculture policies and priorities.

Researchers believe wider use of fertilizer trees in Africa will require a two-track strategy that involves simultaneously engaging policy makers and farmers.

Ajayi cautioned that, while they are a natural way of supplementing the soil, fertilizer trees should not become entangled in the divisive "organic versus inorganic" debate over how to boost to increase crop yields in Africa. It is important to increase the use of both types of nutrient sources in complementary ways. For example, research has shown that coupling fertilizer trees with small doses of mineral fertilizer often results in generating the highest productivity and financial returns.

"We need to provide farmers in Africa with a wide range of soil fertility options and not focus on one type or another as being somehow superior," he said.

Researchers also say future work should focus on the potential for fertilizer trees to improve yields of high value crops, such as coffee and cocoa.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Burness Communications, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Burness Communications (2011, October 14). New study finds 400,000 farmers in southern Africa using 'fertilizer trees' to improve food security. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 17, 2011, from sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/10/111014122317.htm

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