Research

This page contains the abstracts and links to works completed and in progress by other organisations and eventually, the Australian Farmland Conservancy that show the pro's and con's of regeneration agriculture and all its permutations.

This page will be updated as more research comes to hand and can be used in conjunction with the Links page as a knowledge base.

Environmental Impact of Different Agricultural Management Practices: Conventional vs. Organic Agriculture -  T. GOMIERO ET AL

VII. CONCLUSIONS
In the last century, intensive farming has successfully achieved high crop yields. On the other hand this came with a cost on the environmental side because of the high intensity of energy use (agrochemical, machinery, water pumping etc)and GHGs emissions, water consumption and the large use of agrochemicals, which, other than being costly in energy terms, have also detrimental effects on the health of organisms, humans included. When comparing the performances of organic and convention agricultural practices it has been shown that organic generally performs better or much better than conventional for a wide range of key indicators

Full article
environmental_impact_of_different_agricu.pdf

Organic Nearly as Productive as Industrial Farming, New Study Says  - Civil Eats
Can organic crops compete with industrial agriculture? - Berkeley Food Institute

Industrial agriculture has huge, unsustainable impacts on our environment. And while organic and other ecologically based farming systems (agroecology) have huge benefits, some have suggested that it will never produce enough food. Production is only one of the challenges for food security. But, according to new research, even by this measure, critics seem to have substantially underestimated the productivity of organic farming 
Article here

Communities in Landscapes Project Benchmark Study of Innovators  
Final Report November 2011  
By Peter Ampt & Sarah Doornbos 

The “Communities in Landscapes” (CiL) project aims to improve management of the Box Gum grassy woodlands and derived grasslands through the provision of targeted and relevant information to land managers in the relevant areas of the Murrumbidgee, Lachlan and Central West catchments.  It is based on the logic that landscape-scale change can be achieved by working with farmers and their communities to identify and advise on management practices that will benefit ecosystem function in Box-Gum Woodlands, have positive outcomes for production and increase community capacity to carry on these practices beyond the life of the project. 
CiL identified rotational grazing management as a key innovation in the target area that integrates conservation and production objectives. Proponents were aiming to regenerate native perennial grasslands through rotational grazing management. Ten innovators were selected following selection criteria that included more than 5 years of implementation of rotational grazing and a suitable across fence line comparison paddock on a neighbour’s property under more conventional management.

Full text here;

GM Crops, Organic Agriculture and Breeding for Sustainability
Salvatore Ceccarelli

Abstract: The ongoing debate about the use of genetically-modified (GM) crops in agriculture has largely focused on food safety and genetic contamination issues. Given that the majority of GM crops have been produced to respond to the problem of crop yield reductions caused by diseases, insects and weeds, the paper argues that in those cases, the currently used GM crops are an unstable solution to the problem, because they represent such a strong selection pressure, that pests rapidly evolve resistance. Organic agriculture practices provide a more sustainable way of producing healthy food; however, the lower yields often associated with those practices, making the resultant healthy food more expensive, open the criticism that such practices will not be able to feed human populations. Evolutionary plant breeding offers the possibility of using the evolutionary potential of crops to our advantage by producing a continuous flow of varieties better adapted to organic systems, to climate change and to the ever changing spectrum of pests, without depending on chemical control.

Full text;
http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/7/4273/htm

Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture 1st edition
Miguel A. Altieri & Clara I. Nicholls

There is increasing evidence that warns that the growing push toward industrialization and globalization of the world’s agriculture and food supply imperils the future of humanity and the natural world. Industrial agriculture which is corporate controlled, and promotes agrochemically based, monocultural, export-oriented systems are negatively impacting public health, ecosystem integrity, food quality and nourishment, traditional rural livelihoods, and indigenous and local cultures, while accelerating indebtedness among millions of farmers, and their separation from lands that have historically fed communities and families

Full text;
http://www.agroeco.org/doc/agroecology-engl-PNUMA.pdf

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