2651643
doi
10.5281/zenodo.2651643
oai:zenodo.org:2651643
user-ixa
Mirsky, Steven
USDA Agricultural Research Service
Reberg-Horton, Chris
North Carolina State University
An Information Ecology for Sustainable Agriculture
Raturi, Ankita
USDA Agricultural Research Service
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
information ecology
sustainable agriculture
cover crops
informatics
<p>Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 will require transformative changes to our food production systems<sup>1, 2</sup>. Climate change<sup>3-6</sup>, water scarcity and urban demand<sup>7</sup>, herbicide-resistant weeds<sup>8</sup>, and declining soil<sup>9</sup> and water quality<sup>10,11</sup> are increasing crop production risks, lowering yields, and negatively impacting the environment. The increased use of sustainable agricultural practices such as reduced-tillage<sup>12</sup>, diversified crop rotations<sup>13</sup>, and integrated weed management especially through incorporation of cover crops<sup>14</sup>, are necessary to achieve this goal. However, farmers repeatedly cite management complexity and a need for site- and system-specific information to overcome the barriers to adoption<sup>15, 16</sup>. Sustainable agriculture thus demands precision tools to account for genetic and environmental nuances in complex, adaptive, agricultural systems, while simultaneously responding to the social, technological, and economic contexts of farming.</p>
<p><em>Precision Sustainable Agriculture</em><sup>17</sup> uses a data-driven and human-centered approach to the research and development of on-farm monitoring tools, cloud-based, information management tools for large-scale agricultural research projects, decision support tools for agriculture data stakeholders, and modeling and analysis tools for use in sustainable agriculture. We are laying the foundation of an information ecology<sup>18</sup> for sustainable agriculture: a system of tools, data, methods, and actors to maximize farm productivity, profitability, and sustainability.</p>
<p>References:</p>
<ol>
<li>Liu J, Folberth C, Yang H, Röckström J, Abbaspour K, Zehnder AJB. A Global and Spatially Explicit Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Crop Production and Consumptive Water Use. PLOS ONE. 2013 Feb 27;8(2):e57750.</li>
<li>Schmidhuber J, Tubiello FN. Global food security under climate change. PNAS. 2007 Dec 11;104(50):19703–8.</li>
<li>Allan RP, Soden BJ. Atmospheric Warming and the Amplification of Precipitation Extremes. Science. 2008 Sep 12;321(5895):1481–4.</li>
<li>Gornall J, Betts R, Burke E, Clark R, Camp J, Willett K, et al. Implications of climate change for agricultural productivity in the early twenty-first century. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2010 Sep 27;365(1554):2973–89.</li>
<li>Rosenzweig C, Elliott J, Deryng D, Ruane AC, Müller C, Arneth A, et al. Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014 Mar 4;111(9):3268–73.</li>
<li>Trenberth KE, Dai A, Schrier G van der, Jones PD, Barichivich J, Briffa KR, et al. Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change. 2014 Jan;4(1):17–22.</li>
<li>Flörke M, Kynast E, Bärlund I, Eisner S, Wimmer F, Alcamo J. Domestic and industrial water uses of the past 60 years as a mirror of socio-economic development: A global simulation study. Global Environmental Change. 2013 Feb 1;23(1):144–56.</li>
<li>Heap I. Global perspective of herbicide-resistant weeds. Pest Management Science. 2014 Sep 1;70(9):1306–15</li>
<li>Williams A, Hunter MC, Kammerer M, Kane DA, Jordan NR, Mortensen DA, et al. Soil Water Holding Capacity Mitigates Downside Risk and Volatility in US Rainfed Maize: Time to Invest in Soil Organic Matter? PLoS ONE. 2016;11(8):e0160974.</li>
<li>Goolsby DA, Battaglin WA, Lawrence GB, Artz RS, Aulenbach BT, Hooper RP, et al. Flux and sources of nutrients in the Mississippi-Atchafalya river Basin topic 3 report. :156.</li>
<li>Boyer EW, Goodale CL, Jaworski NA, Howarth RW. Anthropogenic nitrogen sources and relationships to riverine nitrogen export in the northeastern U.S.A. Biogeochemistry. 2002 Apr 1;57(1):137–69.</li>
<li>Zibilske LM, Bradford JM. Soil Aggregation, Aggregate Carbon and Nitrogen, and Moisture Retention Induced by Conservation Tillage. Soil Science Society of America Journal. 2007 May 1;71(3):793–802.</li>
<li>Cox HW, Kelly RM, Strong WM. Pulse crops in rotation with cereals can be a profitable alternative to nitrogen fertiliser in central Queensland. Crop Pasture Sci. 2010 Sep 30;61(9):752–62.</li>
<li>Mortensen DA, Egan JF, Maxwell BD, Ryan MR, Smith RG. Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management. BioScience. 2012 Jan 1;62(1):75–84.</li>
<li>Dunn M, Ulrich-Schad JD, Prokopy LS, Myers RL, Watts CR, Scanlon K. Perceptions and use of cover crops among early adopters: Findings from a national survey. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. 2016 Jan 1;71(1):29–40.</li>
<li>Myers R, Watts C. Progress and perspectives with cover crops: Interpreting three years of farmer surveys on cover crops. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. 2015 Nov 1;70(6):125A-129A.</li>
<li>Mirsky, S, Reberg-Horton, C, Raturi, A. Precision Sustainable Agriculture. Available: <a href="http://precisionsustainableag.org">http://precisionsustainableag.org</a></li>
<li>Nardi B, O’ Day V. Information ecologies: Using technology with heart. MIT Press; 1999.</li>
</ol>
This material is based upon work supported by an interagency agreement between Natural Resources Conservation Service and Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Zenodo
2017-06-08
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2651642
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