Fertility building strategies during the conversion period – assessment of performance in a stockless field vegetable rotation

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference of the Colloquium of Organic Researchers (COR). Nutrient off-takes, residue returns and nutrient inputs were measured during and after conversion from a conventional arable system to organic vegetables with cereals. This data was used to construct nutrient budgets to assess the effectiveness of contrasting fertility building strategies and various cropping regimes. The effect of placing the cereal crops in different places in the crop sequence was also considered

Measuring the Economic Performance of Australian Fisheries Management

Australia recently introduced a revised 'economic' objective to its Fisheries Management Act that has given greater focus to the economic performance of Australian fisheries management. Specifically, the objective requires the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) to pursue maximising net economic returns to the Australian community from Commonwealth fishery resources when making fishery management decisions. The technical challenge is how to measure AFMA's performance in pursuing this objective. Separation of all other factors that influence fishing industry returns from decisions made by AFMA is the first step. Alternative economic analyses to achieving this are considered. The policy challenge is to gain industry acceptance that AFMA has a role in managing for both biological and economic sustainability that can benefit the industry and the Australian public. The role and views of AFMA, its Management Advisory Committees (MACs), Resource Assessment Groups (RAGs) and industry associations in this process are explored. Two fisheries are discussed as examples of applying fishery economic performance measures, the Northern Prawn Fishery and the Albacore Fishery adjacent to the east coast of Australia.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

10-year interdisciplinary monitoring of organic stocklass, vegetable rotations at Warwick-HRI, Kirton, South Lincolnshire, UK

Interdisciplinary monitoring of an organic stockless farming system has been carried out over ten years on a fertile silty clay loam in the main vegetable production area of the UK. The results draw together economic outcomes with agronomy, soil science and agro-ecology. Organic management has been used at the Kirton research site since conversion of a 3.2 ha unit in 1997. There is great variability in crop yields and marketing results but overall a successful ongoing vegetable production system has been established. Soil fertility, weeds, pests and diseases have been managed successfully without imports of animal manures or green waste compost. Production costs are well controlled and marketable yields are good. However, because the site is a research farm, the actual marketing of produce was sometimes weak and caused a low farm net margin. The site contributes valuable information to the European network of long-term fi eld experiments in organic farming for this particular farming system

A comparison of two models to predict nitrogen dynamics in organic agricultural systems

Two publicly available crop/soil models were compared. These were the EU-Rotate_N model (www.warwick.ac.uk/go/eurotaten) and the NDICEA model (www.ndicea.nl). Each simulation was also compared to measured data from an organically managed site in the English Midlands. Results showed that, overall, EU-Rotate_N gave a better estimation of soil mineral nitrogen, particularly after the incorporation of a long-term fertility-building crop. This model has a lot of flexibility but is aimed at researchers and requires more work before it is ready to be used by farmers or advisors. The NDICEA model is much simpler to use with a user-friendly interface

The use of computer modelling to evaluate the agronomic, economic and environmental impacts of N management in contrasting organic rotations

A new computer model (EU-ROTATE_N) has been developed with the aim of improving nitrogen management on all farms across Europe which include fi eld vegetables in their rotations. It brings together aspects of many existing models and contains a number of features to make it applicable to organic producers (e.g. taking account of nitrogen fixation by legume containing leys, nitrogen conservation by winter cover crops and nitrogen supply by manures and composts). A key feature is the model’s ability to simulate economic output and this enables it to be of value to policy makers when considering the impact of new measures to reduce environmental pollution. This paper describes the model and some initial work that has been conducted to evaluate it under UK organic field vegetable systems with contrasting fertility building strategies

The effect of organic management on soil quality indicators

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. A range of physical, biological and chemical parameters were measured in organic soil that had been managed in different ways and in a conventional control. Factors were identified that could be used to construct an index of soil quality

Sort Out Your Soil: A practical guide to green manures

The booklet is a compendium of green manures species used in UK. The introduction explains the reasons why to grow green manures and the benefits they bring into the system. What follows is a guide to the choice of the species to use as green manure, with details per species (leguminous species and other species) and some comparative assessments among the species. It is focused on UK climate and farming systems but its contents can easily be used also in other temperate environments. The booklet is clear and has several photos. This tool can be used to adapt strategies for green manure to specific case