Marginal land

About: Marginal land is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 951 publications have been published within this topic receiving 20897 citations.

The Potential of U.S. Cropland to Sequester Carbon and Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect

Abstract: Objectives Basic Processes The Greenhouse Process Global Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions The Role of Agriculture in U.S. Emissions of Three GHGs The SOC Pool in U.S. Soils and SOC Loss from Cultivation Processes in Governing Emissions from the Pedosphere Plant Action Soil Processes Soil Quality Strategies for Mitigating Emissions from Cropland U.S. Cropland Sustainable Management Studies Soil Erosion Management Land Conversion and Restoration Conversion of Marginal Land Restoration of Degraded Soils Biofuels for Offsetting Fossil Fuel Intensification of Prime Agricultural Land Conservation Tillage and Residue Management Irrigation Water Management Improved Cropping Systems The Carbon Sequestration Potential of Arable Land U.S. Cropland's Overall Potential to Mitigate the Greenhouse Effect Techniques for Sequestration Rates of SOC Sequestration Possible Implementation Obstacles Required Action Conclusions - The Win-Win Strategy Agricultural Profits from Environmental Improvements SOC's Monetary Value SOC's Environmental Value Global Potential Appendix 1: Definitions Appendix 2: Researchable Topics

Power, distortions, revolt, and reform in agricultural land relations

Abstract: Most work on the relationship between farm size and productivity strongly suggests that farms that rely mostly on family labor are more productive than large farms operated primarily by hired labor. This study began as an inquiry into how rental and sales markets for agricultural land in the developing world affect efficiency and equity. What emerged was the clear sense that great variations in land relations around the world and over time cannot be understood in the common paradigm of property rights and competitive markets. Under that paradigm, land scarcity leads to better definition of rights, which are then traded in sales and rental markets accessible equally to all players. The outcome should be the allocation of land to the most efficient uses and users, yet this rarely happens. Instead, land rights and ownership tend to grow out of power relationships. Landowning groups have used coercion and distortions in land, labor, credit, and commodity markets to extract economic rents from the land, from peasants and workers, and most recently from urban consumer groups or taxpayers. Such rent-seeking activities reduce the efficiency of resource use, retard growth, and increase the poverty of the rural population. The authors examine how these power relations emerged and what legal means enabled relatively few landowners to accumulate and hold on to large landholdings. The authors discuss the successes and failures of reform in market and socialist economies, and the perversions of reforms in both systems, manifested in large commercial farms and collectives. They survey the history of land relations and the legacies that history leaves. They discuss the three analytical controversies surrounding economies of scale, and the efficiency of the land sales and land rental market. They discuss the main policy issues and implications of various distortions and successful and unsuccessful reforms in the developing world, including land registration and titling, land taxation, regulations restricting land sales and rentals, fragmentation and consolidation of land, redistributive land reform, and decollectivization. In an epilogue on methodology, the authors examine how various strands of economic theory have contributed, or failed to contribute, to the explanation of variations in policies, distortions, and land relations over space and time.

A concept for simultaneous wasteland reclamation, fuel production, and socio-economic development in degraded areas in India: need, potential and perspectives of Jatropha plantations.

Abstract: The concept of substituting bio-diesel produced from plantations on eroded soils for conventional diesel fuel has gained wide-spread attention in India. In recent months, the Indian central Government as well as some state governments have expressed their support for bringing marginal lands, which cannot be used for food production, under cultivation for this purpose. Jatropha curcas is a well established plant in India. It produces oil-rich seeds, is known to thrive on eroded lands, and to require only limited amounts of water, nutrients and capital inputs. This plant offers the option both to cultivate wastelands and to produce vegetable oil suitable for conversion to bio-diesel. More versatile than hydrogen and new propulsion systems such as fuel cell technology, bio-diesel can be used in today's vehicle fleets worldwide and may also offer a viable path to sustainable transportation, i.e., lower greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced mobility, even in remote areas. Mitigation of global warming and the creation of new regional employment opportunities can be important cornerstones of any forward looking transportation system for emerging economies.

Degradation and conservation of the resources in the ethiopian highlands

Abstract: Soil degradation in the Ethiopian highlands and mountains was initiated with the introduction of agriculture several thousand years ago. Favourable conditions attracted early human settlers to this largest mountain complex in Africa and gradually all agriculturally suitable areas were occupied, including marginal land on slopes highly susceptible to soil erosion and degradation. The extent and distribution of soil degradation in the highlands as a whole is outlined and shows significantly greater damage in the northern and eastern regions which were settled first. There, the poor soil quality today results in reduced crop productivity and greater vulnerability to famine. Actual rates of soil loss are estimated according to the Universal Soil Loss Equation; the highest soil erosion rates occur in the western areas which clearly indicates that soils here are degrading more rapidly than soils in the north. The natural process of soil regeneration in the west is slow, with rates ten times lower than actual soil loss rates. However, measures introduced by the government in the last ten years are being applied by the Ethiopian associations of peasants. A more secure future requires that increases in production will exceed population increases and further, that soil depletion can be drastically reduced in order to sustain production in the long term.

Specific adaptation and breeding for marginal conditions

Abstract: Breeding has been very successful in generating cultivars that in favorable environments, and together with large use of fertilizer and chemical control of weeds, pest and diseases, have increased agricultural production several fold. Today the environmental impact of high input agriculture in more favorable environments causes growing concern. By contrast, the impact of breeding in marginal environments has been elusive. The paper discusses evidence showing that the use of breeding principles developed for, and successfully applied, in favorable environments may be the main reason for the lack of breeding progress in marginal environments. Very little breeding work has actually been done in marginal environments, although the theory of correlated responses to selection indicates that selection conducted in good environments or in well-managed experiment stations is not expected to be very efficient when genotype by environment interactions of a cross-over type exist. The assumptions that heritability is higher under good conditions and that there is a carry-over effect of high yield potential are not supported by experimental evidence. If the target environment is below the cross-over point, selection has to be conducted for specific adaptation to that environment. The concept of wide adaptation has more a geographical than an environmental meaning, and it reduces genetic diversity and increases genetic vulnerability. Eventually the issue of genetic heterogeneity versus genetic uniformity is discussed in relation to specific adaptation to marginal environments.