Improvement options for agricultural crop production for food, feed and bioenergy

Publication date: 26/08/2019
Extent: 26 pages

Contributions by: Benoît Gabrielle, AgroParisTech and Université Paris-Saclay, France; and Pietro Goglio, Wageningen University, The Netherlands and Cranfield University, UK

Chapter synopsis: Agriculture currently faces the dual challenges of both having to increase its overall biomass output while contributing to the mitigation of pressing global environmental changes. It is therefore urged to reconcile these challenges by drastically increasing its performance in the short term. This chapter reviews the agronomic options available at the crop production level to participate in this effort, from single practices to a more integrated systems approach. Strategies such as improved tillage, fertilizer management, the inclusion of legumes in crop rotations, irrigation management, intercropping, and disease and weed management are appraised using the life-cycle assessment framework, the use of which currently prevails to inform on sustainability. The chapter concludes with a summary of these options and suggests avenues for future research whether into a better estimation of performance or towards the implementation of low-impact crop production systems.

DOI: 10.19103/AS.2018.0044.11