Organic Agriculture - Driving Innovations in Crop Research

Summary

At present, agriculture faces the unprecedented challenge of securing food supplies for a rapidly growing human population, while seeking to minimize adverse impacts on the environment and to reduce the use of non-renewable resources and energy. A shift towards sustainable agricultural production entails the adoption of more system-oriented strategies that include farmderived inputs and productivity based on ecological processes and functions (Garnett and Godfray, 2012). Sustainable agricultural systems involve the traditional knowledge and entrepreneurial skills of farmers (IAASTD, 2008).
System-oriented sustainable practices include organic farming and low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA). Elements of agroecology - such as integrated pest management, integrated production (IP), and conservation tillage - have been successfully adopted by conventional farms.