Grasslands News
-
Will large amounts of soil carbon be released to the atmosphere if grasslands are converted to energy crops?
Grasslands in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the United States may be increasingly converted to growing bioenergy grain crops. Questions abound regarding the fate of carbon sequestered in the soil during the CRP program by perennial grasses if the land is converted to grain crop production and the potential effectiveness of no-till production systems to conserve the sequestered soil ...
-
Protecting farmland biodiversity
A new study describes the rate of loss in plant diversity in intensively farmed fields. The authors recommend that measures to protect biodiversity should focus on low-intensity farmland, due to difficulties associated with rebuilding lost biodiversity in intensively farmed land. Intensive agriculture is one of the main drivers of the decline in worldwide biodiversity. The rate of species ...
-
New rules for English farmers to prevent nitrate pollution
Many farmers and land managers in Lincolnshire are missing the chance to be better prepared for new Nitrate Pollution Prevention Regulations, with the 14 January free seminar at Market Rasen Racecourse barely half full. Many farmers and land managers in Lincolnshire are missing the chance to be better prepared for new Nitrate Pollution Prevention Regulations, with the 14 January free seminar at ...
-
Fertilizers – a growing threat to sea life
A rise in carbon emissions is not the only threat to the planet. Changes to the nitrogen cycle, caused in large part by the widespread use of fertilizers, are also damaging both water quality and aquatic life. These concerns are highlighted by Professor Grace Brush, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, in her historical review1 of landscape changes around Chesapeake Bay, a large ...
-
CAP post 2013 - last call for sustainability?
On September 23rd an informal Agriculture Council meeting will be held in Annecy, dedicated to the future of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013. BirdLife International, EEB and Pesticide Action Network warned Ministers that the issue of food and energy security - and prices - can only be addressed effectively through a new model of agriculture that emits less greenhouse gases, ...
-
The sustainability of livestock grazing land
European biodiversity significantly depends on the availability of habitat that is not intensely farmed. It is therefore important to identify grazing systems for livestock that require relatively little land management. Sheep grazing and reindeer herding are examples of such 'large-scale low-input grazing systems' (LSGS). However, they must be economically viable as well as environmentally ...
-
Abandoned farmlands are key to sustainable bioenergy
Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world's energy future, especially if bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and preserves ...
-
Soaring prices and climate change expose fertilisers as environmentally unsustainable
As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers - the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture’s claims to be ‘efficient’. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers ...
-
Controlled forest fires could kill invasive tree disease
In a new study, researchers examined the potential influence of human-driven changes in land-use on disease establishment in forests. The research suggests that changes in forest management, which encourage greater and more dense forest cover, are creating environmental conditions that promote disease. The invasive, fungal-like Phytophthora ramorum causes Sudden Oak Death (SOD), which is ...
-
Commercial forestry – benefits for biodiversity?
Commercial forestry, often slated as monoculture, may have an important role to play in maintaining biodiversity. This beneficial effect occurs in nearby fields grazed by livestock, rather than the forest itself. This surprising finding could be important for the conservation of grassland species, which have declined dramatically over the past 100 years as agriculture has intensified in Europe. ...
-
Paying farmers to protect the environment?
Carefully targeted payments to farmers could serve as an approach to protect the environment and to address growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss and water supply, FAO said today in its annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture. The report however cautions that payments for environmental services are not the best solution in all situations, and that significant ...
-
Slovenia: A green leader of the European Union
Slovenia has signed the Countdown 2010 Declaration to halt the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Ministers Janez Podobnik and Iztok Jarc plan to use sustainable forest management as the key to this commitment With nearly 60% forested area, Slovenia recognized the value of forests as a natural resource, not only in terms of wood production, but also for their ecological functions and their ...
-
Natural Competitive Advantage of Bioregions
PORTLAND, Oregon, October 1, 2007 (ENS) - In the decades ahead, in the face of global warming, increasing energy prices, and a growing global disparity between rich and poor, bioregions have a natural competitive advantage. Everything is changing in the face of global warming. The industrial economy is an artifact of cheap oil. There will be a transition from an industrial to an ecological ...
-
No Climate Benefit Gained by Planting Temperate Forests
SAN FRANCISCO, California, (ENS) - Planting forests in temperate regions such as the United States and Europe may not yield any benefit for the global climate, and may instead contribute to warming, according to a new study set for presentation Saturday at the American Geophysical Society annual meeting in San Francisco. By contrast, trees planted in tropical rainforests could indeed help to ...
-
Insights: The Earth Is Shrinking
WASHINGTON, DC, November 20, 2006 (ENS) - Our early 21st century civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas. Measured by the land area that can support human habitation, the earth is shrinking. Mounting population densities, once generated solely by the addition of over 70 million people per year, are now also fueled by the relentless advance of deserts and the rise ...
Need help finding the right suppliers? Try XPRT Sourcing. Let the XPRTs do the work for you