This report analyses the adaptive capacity in agricultural water management, adaptation in agriculture to water variability and extreme events, (floods and droughts), mitigation, (water and energy) and uncertainty about further climate change.

This collection features four peer-reviewed literature reviews on soil health indicators. The first chapter describes indicators and frameworks for soil health currently in use. It evaluates the principles underpinning current approaches to monitoring soil quality/health and shows these principles have been applied in the development of a practical soil health toolkit for use by UK farmers. The second chapter reviews the range of physical, chemical and biological indicators of soil health and how they can be used in practice. It focusses on measuring soil health in organic vegetable cultivation and, in particular, ways of measuring the effects of adding organic amendments to improve soil health. The third chapter discusses key issues in soil organic carbon (SOM) modelling and the development of increasingly sophisticated, dynamic SOM models. It looks at the role of SOM models in improving soil health monitoring and developing decision support tools for farmers The final chapter reviews current challenges in collecting more systematic and reliable data on earthworm communities, including issues in identifying different earthworm groups. It includes a case study on developing a robust method for accurate measurement of earthworm communities in soil in assessing and improving soil health.

The increasing demand for food as well as changes in consumption habits have led to the greater availability and variety of food with a longer shelf life. However, these items, when not properly preserved, can lead to severe food-borne illnesses that can be fatal. Thus, countless studies are now geared towards the processing, distributing, and safe storage of foods. Novel Technologies and Systems for Food Preservation is an essential reference source that discusses novel and emerging cooling and heating technologies, processes, and systems for food preservation, as well as improvements for control and monitoring systems that aim to foster energy efficiency, equipment safety, and performance. Additionally, it looks at concepts that may be useful for the development of new policies and legislation concerning food preservation. Featuring research on topics such as energy efficiency, food quality, and legislation policies, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policymakers, food and service industry professionals, food safety inspectors, researchers, academicians, and students.

In recent years, there has been growing attention devoted to the implementation of information and communication technology in agriculture and rural development. While evidence has linked ICT to an increase in gross domestic product, it has prompted a global dedication to the research of the socio-economic benefits, trade-offs, and policy implications of ICT consumption in developing countries. E-Agriculture and Rural Development: Global Innovations and Future Prospects is a comprehensive collection of research on the emerging trends and advances in the global use of information and communication technology in agriculture and rural development. Consisting of case studies, implementation frameworks, and policies, this book provides a global perspective and understanding of the developments in e-agriculture and rural development.

This book provides a global review of the mechanisms, incidence and control measures related to the problems of soil compaction in agriculture, forestry and other cropping systems. Among the disciplines which relate to this subject are soil physics, soil mechanics, vehicle mechanics, agricultural engineering, plant physiology, agronomy, pedology, climatology and economics.

The volume will be of great value to soil scientists, agricultural engineers, and all those involved with irrigation, drainage and tillage. It will help to facilitate the exchange of information on current work throughout the world, as well as to promote scientific understanding and stimulate the development, evaluation and adoption of practical solutions to these widespread and urgent problems.

The rise in population and the concurrently growing consumption rate necessitates the evolution of agriculture to adopt current computational technologies to increase production at a faster and smoother scale. While existing technologies may help in crop processing, there is a need for studies that seek to understand how modern approaches like artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, and hybrid algorithms can aid the agricultural process while utilizing energy sources efficiently. The Handbook of Research on Smart Computing for Renewable Energy and Agro-Engineering is an essential publication that examines the benefits and barriers of implementing computational models to agricultural production and energy sources as well as how these models can produce more cost-effective and sustainable solutions. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics such as bacterial foraging, swarm intelligence, and combinatorial optimization, this book is ideally designed for agricultural engineers, farmers, municipal union leaders, computer scientists, information technologists, sustainable developers, managers, environmentalists, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, and students.

During the last few years, many journal articles have shown the usefulness of the Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) model for analyzing regional yield trials. AMMI helps agronomists and breeders in several ways: to understand or model complex data sets, especially the interactions; to estimate yields more accurately, even with less data; to make better selections; and to design more efficient yield-trial experiments.

This book is the first systematic treatment of these topics, collecting concepts from the scattered literature and also presenting many new results. Although agricultural applications are emphasized here, AMMI is applicable to two-way data tables containing one kind of data, either replicated or not, so AMMI appears in many areas of science and technology.

The volume's first seven chapters review the agricultural and statistical principles and the final chapter indicates the difference that AMMI can make for agricultural research and world food supplies. This book will be of great value to agricultural scientists throughout the world, enabling them to learn more from their data and thereby make greater progress.

This book examines the implications of the net zero transition for food and farming in the UK and how these can be managed to avoid catastrophic climate change in the crucial decades ahead. For the UK to meet its international obligations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nothing short of a revolution is required in our use of land, our farming practices and our diet. Taking a historical approach, the book examines the evolution of agriculture and the food system in the UK over the last century and discusses the implications of tackling climate change for food, farming and land use, setting the UK situation in an international context. The chapters analyse the key challenges for this transition, including dietary change and food waste, afforestation and energy crops, and low-emission farming practices. This historical perspective helps develop an understanding of how our food, farming and land use system has evolved to be the way that it is, and draws lessons for how the agri-food system could evolve further to support the transition to net zero and avoid catastrophic climate change. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will be essential reading to students and scholars of food, agriculture and the environment, as well as policymakers and professionals involved climate change policy and the agriculture and food industry.

A Tradition in Transition presents an in-depth assessment of the century-old Wadi Laba indigenous spate irrigation system in Eritrea. This system has relied on earthern and brushwood structures and customary water rules to support subsistence livelihoods of the Wadi Laba communities for many years. The book presents original research, which analyzes the effectiveness of contemporary water laws and a new headwork in improving production and standard of living. It also compares the lack of success of these new approaches with traditional methods of water management.