Communication is defined as an interaction between at least two living agents which share a repertoire of signs. These are combined according to syntactic, semantic and context-dependent, pragmatic rules in order to coordinate behavior. This volume deals with the important roles of soil bacteria in parasitic and symbiotic interactions with viruses, plants, animals and fungi. Starting with a general overview of the key levels of communication between bacteria, further reviews examine the various aspects of intracellular as well as intercellular biocommunication between soil microorganisms. This includes the various levels of biocommunication between phages and bacteria, between soil algae and bacteria, and between bacteria, fungi and plants in the rhizosphere, the role of plasmids and transposons, horizontal gene transfer, quorum sensing and quorum quenching, bacterial-host cohabitation, phage-mediated genetic exchange and soil viral ecology.

Recent innovations in agriculture and food technologies have brought benefits to many countries, particularly in developing regions, but information about the extent of these has often been sparse. This research review examines the best papers on the subject to form a comprehensive, global perspective on the impacts of agricultural biotechnology around the world. With an emphasis on the economic, environmental, health and food security aspects of agbiotech, Biotechnology, Agriculture and Development will prove to be an invaluable resource for academics, students and researchers alike.

Chocolate is consumed by people of all ages in all segments of society throughout the world. However, recent changes in legislative frameworks, environmental concerns and increasing attention towards sustainability have stimulated the chocolate industry to reconsider their management policy. Current books in the market cover chocolate manufacture without taking into account sustainable practices of production, consumption and market aspects. Trends in Sustainable Chocolate Production fills this knowledge gap by covering all the important aspects of chocolate industry (manufacture, functionality, sustainability of the supply chain, commercialization aspects and market characteristics) in one reference. Starting with the health outcomes of chocolate and an overview of its manufacture, the book explores techniques to improve the functionality, flavor and microstructure of chocolate, as well as its environmental impact through sustainable practices and supply chains. By connecting research to industry and consumer interests, this text aims to support members of the scientific community, professionals and enterprises working to develop a sustainable chocolate sector.

This book covers information on the economics; botany, taxonomy, and origin; germplasm resources; cytogenetics and nuclear DNA; genetic improvement efforts of scion cultivars; genetic and genomic improvement efforts of rootstocks; genetic and physical mapping; genomic resources; genome and epigenome; regulatory sequences; utility of whole-genome sequencing and gene editing in trait dissection; flowering and juvenility; cold hardiness and dormancy; fruit color development; fruit acidity and sugar content; metabolomics; biology and genomics of the microbiome; apple domestication; as well as other 'omics' opportunities and challenges for genetic improvement of the apple. The cultivated apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) is one of the most important tree fruit crops of temperate regions of the world. It is widely cultivated and grown in North America, Europe, and Asia. The apple fruit is a highly desirable fruit due to its flavor, sugar and acid content, metabolites, aroma, as well as its overall texture and palatability. Furthermore, it is a rich source of important nutrients, including antioxidants, vitamins, and dietary fiber.

The goal of this Third Edition is to update long-term data presented in earlier editions and to generate new syntheses and conclusions about the biogeochemistry of the Hubbard Brook Valley based on these longer-term data. There have been many changes, revelations, and exciting new insights generated from the longer data records. For example, the impact of acid rain peaked during the period of the HBES and is now declining. The longer-term data also posed challenges in that very marked changes in fluxes occurred in some components, such as hydrogen ion and sulfate deposition, calcium and nitrate export in stream water and biomass accumulation, during the almost 50 years of record. Thus, presenting "mean" or "average" conditions for many components for such a long period, when change was so prominent, do not make sense. In some cases, pentads or decades of time are compared to show these changes in a more smoothed and rational way for this long period. In some cases, a single period, often during periods of rapid change, such as acidification, is used to illustrate the main point(s). And, for some elements a unique mass balance approach, allowing the calculation of the Net Ecosystem Flux (NEF), is shown on an annual basis throughout the study.

Food quality is the foundation for the maintenance of human health, and one of the most important elements in health prevention systems. However, the production of healthy and safe food requires access to high-quality agricultural products, which are free from pollutants that can result from poor quality soil, water, unbalanced chemical fertilization or the use of crop protection products. In recent years, food produced according to organic farming standards, which is based on eliminating the use of fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified seeds, has become increasingly popular. This book presents the results of a comparison of the quality of raw materials, such as cereals, vegetables, fruits, honey and other bee products, produced in organic and conventional farming systems, and selected products made from them. This book covers environmental, social and economic aspects of organic food production from a sustainable development perspective, and provide answers to the following questions: Does organic farming ensure obtaining high-quality agricultural products that are safe for health? Can food produced from organic raw materials be considered more valuable in the human diet compared to conventional food? Is organic farming able to meet the food needs of the world population?

This volume celebrates the life and career of Gordon Rausser, pioneer and leader in natural resource economics, while critically overviewing the emerging literature in the field. As the chair of the Agriculture and Resource Economics department at UC Berkeley, Rausser led the transformation of the department from a traditional agricultural economics department to a diverse resource economics department addressing issues of agriculture, food, natural resources, environmental economics, energy, and development. This book builds on this theme, showcasing not only the scope of Rausser's work but also key developments in the field. The volume is organized into two parts. The first part speaks about the lessons of Gordon Rausser's career, in particular, his role as a leader in different spheres, his capacity to integrate teaching and entrepreneurship, and his impact on the world food system. The second part will address some of the significant developments in the field he contributed to and how it relates to his work. The chapters include contributions from modern leaders in the economics field and cover diverse topics from many subfields including public policy, public finance, law, econometrics, macroeconomics, and water resources. Providing an excellent reference, as well as a celebration of a pivotal figure in the field, this volume will be useful for practitioners and scholars in agricultural and resource economics, especially the many individuals familiar with Gordon Rausser and his career.

The research and its outcomes presented here focus on spatial sampling of agricultural resources. The authors introduce sampling designs and methods for producing accurate estimates of crop production for harvests across different regions and countries. With the help of real and simulated examples performed with the open-source software R, readers will learn about the different phases of spatial data collection. The agricultural data analyzed in this book help policymakers and market stakeholders to monitor the production of agricultural goods and its effects on environment and food safety.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the third edition of The Sociology of Food and Agriculture provides a cutting-edge, comprehensive introduction to the study of food and society. The book begins by examining the food economy, with chapters focusing on foodscapes, the financialization of food, and a new chapter dedicated to food and nutrition (in)security. In Part II, the book addresses community and culture. While some books only look at the interrelationships between food and culture, this section problematizes the food system from the standpoint of marginalized bodies. It contains chapters focusing on agricultural and food labor and the peasantries, topics which are often overlooked, and gender, ethnicity, and poverty. Part III examines food and the environment, with chapters addressing important topics such as agro-ecosystems, food justice, sustainable food, and agriculture and food sovereignty. The final part focuses on food futures and includes a brand-new chapter on sustainable diets and ethical consumption. The book concludes by showcasing how we can rethink food production and consumption in a way that can help heal social, political, and cultural divisions. All chapters draw on international case studies and include learning objectives, suggested discussion questions, and recommendations for further reading to aid student learning. The Sociology of Food and Agriculture is perfect for students of food studies, including food justice, food and nutrition security, sustainable diets, food sovereignty, environmental sociology, agriculture, and cultural studies.

This book examines how the developments in veterinary science, philosophy, economics and law converged during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to entrench farm animals along a commodification pathway. It covers two neglected areas of study; the importance of international veterinary conferences to domestic regimes and the influence of early global treaties that dealt with animal health on domestic quarantine measures. The author concludes by arguing that society needs to reconsider its understanding and the place of the welfare paradigm in animal production systems. As it presently stands, this paradigm can be used to justify almost any self-serving reason to abrogate ethical principles. The topic of this book will appeal to a wide readership; not only scholars, students and educators but also people involved in animal production, interested parties and experts in the animal welfare and animal rights sector, as well as policy-makers and regulators, who will find this work informative and thought-provoking.

Salinity is one of the acute problems causing enormous yield loss in many regions of the world. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in arid and semiarid regions. Halophytes can remove salt from various types of problematic soils due to their unique morphological, physiological and anatomical adaptations to these environments. Halophytes are also used for the treatment of certain diseases but scientific documentation in terms of current phytotherapic applications is deficient in this unique group of plants. Different ethnic groups around the world use medicinal halophytes according to their own beliefs and ancestor’s experiences. However, their knowledge about the use of salt tolerant medicinal plants is usually confined to their own community. There is thus a knowledge gap on halophytes which should be bridged and preserved. This book provides a comprehensive account on the distribution of halophytes, their ethnobotanical and medicinal aspects, economic importance, and chemical constituents along with scientific description. The book therefore serves as a valuable resource for professionals and researchers working in the fields of plant stress biology and ethnobotanical aspects.

This newly revised fourth edition of Postharvest Handling brings new and updated chapters with new knowledge and applications from postharvest research. The revised edition brings back the aspects of preharvest conditions and their effects on postharvest quality and features new chapters on the increasingly important role of transportation and logistics. It emphasizes consumers and systems thinking for postharvest chains for fresh produce. This book also explores current challenges-including oversupply, waste, food safety, lack of resources, sustainability - and best practices for systems to thrive in spite of these challenges. This unique resource provides an overview of postharvest systems and their role in food value chains and offers essential tools to monitor and control the handling process. Written by a team of experts in Postharvest Systems and Handling, this book continues to be the most practical and up-to-date resource for postharvest physiologists and technologists across the disciplines of agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, food science, and horticulture along with businesses handling fresh or minimally processed products.

This book collects wide-ranging contributions such as case studies, reviews, reports on technological developments, outputs of research/studies, and examples of successful projects, presenting current knowledge and raising awareness to help the agriculture and forestry sectors find solutions for mitigating climate variability and adapting to change. It brings the topic of ecosystem services closer to education and learning, as targeted by the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. Climate change and its impacts on agriculture and agroforestry have been observed across the world during the last 50 years. Increasing temperatures, droughts, biotic stresses and the impacts of extreme events have continuously decreased agroforestry systems' resilience to the effects of climate change. As such, there is a need to adapt farming and agroforestry systems so as to make them better able to handle ever-changing climate conditions, and to preserve habitats and ecosystems services.

This book deals with a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. It is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, and social sciences. Indeed, sustainable agriculture decipher mechanisms of processes that occur from the molecular level to the farming system to the global level at time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. For that, scientists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats problem sources. Because most actual society issues are now intertwined, global, and fast developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. this book series gathers review articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge, then proposes alternative solutions. It will therefore help all scientists, decision makers, professors, farmers and politicians who wish to build a safe agriculture, energy and food system for future generations.

Presents a major case study of how agriculture and biodiversity conservation can work in harmony towards more sustainable outcomes for both the environment and local communities. Shows how Cuba has provided a unique testbed for such approaches through its specific political status and focus on traditional agricultural methods. Provides the essential background for understanding future options for agriculture and conservation in Cuba, as it emerges from economic and political isolation.

This book discusses soil and recycling management in the Anthropocene era. Nitrogen shortage is one of nature's most important productivity regulators, but since the advent of technical nitrogen fixation (TNF), biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) input has nearly doubled, particularly in grass and arable lands covering over 13 million km2 of the Earth's surface. This book explores how monoculture grass, arable lands and forests are often over fertilized with TNF, animal slurries, sewage sludge, or municipally produced composts, and as a result, flora and fauna that have adapted to a nitrogen shortage in the soil will have to adjust to a surplus; those that are unable to adapt will disappear.

This open access book is an important reframing of the role of innovation in agriculture. Dr. Campos and his distinguished coauthors address the need for agriculture to feed a growing global population with a reduced environmental footprint while adapting to and mitigating the effects of changing climate. The authors expand the customary discussion of innovation in terms of supply driven R&D to focus on the returns to investors and most importantly, the value to end-users. This is brought to life by exploring effective business models and many cases from agricultural systems across the globe. The focus on converting the results of innovation in R&D into adoption by farmers and other end-users is its greatest contribution. Many lessons from the book can be applied to private and public sectors across an array of agricultural systems. This book will be of enormous value to agri-business professionals, NGO leaders, agricultural and development researchers and those funding innovation and agriculture across the private and public sectors. Tony Cavalieri, Senior Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Hugo Campos, Ph.D., MBA, has 20+ years of international corporate and development experience. His distinguished coauthors represent a rich collection of successful innovation practice in industry, consultancy, international development and academy, in both developed and developing countries."

This book consists of 10 Chapters in 4 Parts. The first Part is an introduction and contains Chapter 1 to introduce the book chapters to the audiences. The second Part consists of two chapters under the name, Impact of Climate Change on Crop Production and the Physiological and Biochemical Basis for Crops Tolerance. The Chapter 2 focus on critical periods of crop plants to stress conditions and the expected impacts of climate changes mainly on the productivity and quality of field crops. While, Chapter 3 highlights the foundations of crop tolerance to environmental stress and plant traits relevant to stress tolerance. It is devoted to explain and discuss mechanisms of adaptation to environmental stress conditions and addresses various plant traits related to stress environmental tolerance i.e. phenological, morpho-physiological and biochemical traits which could be used as selection criteria for crops improvement. The third Part consists of 5 Chapters under the theme "Improve Crop Adaptability and Stability to Climate Change and Modern Technology". Chapter 4 highlights the most important strategic food grain crop (wheat), Chapter 5 focuses the important staple food crop (rice), while Chapter 6 deals with one of the most important food legume crops (faba bean). Chapter 7 and 8 discuss two important oil crops (sesame and sunflower). However, Chapter 9 focuses on cotton as one of the most important fiber crops. The author addresses these crops under the following headings: genotype x environment interaction and its relation to climatic change on yield production, performance of genotypes in response to environmental changes, adaptability and yield stability to environmental conditions, additive main effects and multiplicative interaction model, gene action, genetic behavior and heritability for traits related to environmental stress tolerance, role of recent approaches, biotechnology and nanotechnology. This is besides how can measure sensitivity of genotypes to environmental stress, and finally the appropriate agricultural practices to mitigate environmental stress on crops under attention. The book ends with Chapter No. 10 where the author presents an update of the book topics, present the most important conclusions and recommendations from all chapters. This book has been prepared and supported by recent references and statistics with coloured tables and illustrations for audiences interested in crop science,environment, plant breeding, genetics and biotechnology, as well as postgraduate students and researchers in universities and research centres.

This edited compilation explores role of climate change in plant stresses, their mitigators, their role, mode of action and, application. The book discusses molecular and physiological mechanisms involved in plant stress physiology and the working mechanism of stress mitigators. It collates information from latest research conducted on plant stress mitigators, and highlights new strategies related to beneficial microorganisms that support plants under various stresses. These mitigators have gained attention of both farmers and industry for their application in organic farming. Plant stress mitigators have a huge global market. They follow different action mechanism for enhancing plant growth and stress tolerance capacity including nutrient solubilizing and mobilizing, bicontrol activity against plant pathogens, phytohormone production, soil conditioning and many more unrevealed mechanisms. This book elaborates stress alleviation action of different plant stress mitigators on crops grown under optimal and sub-optimal growing conditions. It addresses mainly three subthemes -- (1) Climate change impacts on plant and soil health (2) Microbe mediated plant stress mitigation and (3) Advances in plant stress mitigation. The book is a relevant reading for Post graduate students, researchers in the field of plant stress physiology, Plant-microbe interaction, biochemistry and plant molecular biology and industries related to seed production, biofertilizer and biopesticides.

This book is the second volume on this topic within the series. With unique properties, nanomaterials are rapidly finding novel applications in many fields such as food, medicine, agriculture and pollution. Such applications include to treat cancer, nanosensors to detect food contamination, nanomaterials for food packaging, nanoencapsulation to preserve nutraceuticals, and nanofertilisers for advanced agriculture. After an introductory chapter on property rights of nanomaterials, readers will discover the applications of nanotechnology in food, health, environment, ecotoxicology and agriculture.

The lentil is one of the first foods to have been cultivated and has maintained excellent socio-economic value for over 8,000 years. The ancient crop is now a crop for modern times in both developing and developed countries today.

The international market in recent years has increased significantly and this crop is gaining an important place in cropping systems under different ecologies. It is grown in over 35 countries, has a broad range of uses around the world, and the different seed and plant types adapted to an increasingly wide range of ecologies makes this comprehensive volume even more important today.

This book covers all aspects of diversity, breeding and production technologies, and the contents include;

• Origin, adaptation, ecology and diversity
• Utilization, nutrition and production technologies.
• Genetic enhancement, mutation and wild relatives
• Breeding methods and lensomics achievements
• Productivity, profitability and world trade.

This book presents the most comprehensive and up to date review of research on lentil production systems, biotic and abiotic stresses management, quality seed production, storage techniques and lentil growing around the world. This book will be of great value to legume breeders, scientists, nutritionists, academic researchers, graduate students, farmers, traders and consumers in the developed and the developing world.

This book reviews how the release of the citrus genome facilitates the investigation of ancestral species, the study of their complex biological features, and the genetic basis of agronomic traits of paramount importance for their sustainable cultivation. The first chapters discuss citrus origin and distribution, and the economic importance and varietal composition of the cultivated species, providing an overview of citrus and related genera genetic resources. The book then describes the role of traditional breeding techniques (for scion and rootstocks) as well as the potential of genomic breeding and innovative protocols for biotechnological approaches. The second part provides essential information on the genus Citrus, the attributes of pure citrus species, genetic admixtures, hybrids and citrus relatives, and on the horticultural classification of cultivated species, varieties and rootstocks. The third part then focuses on the different molecular mechanisms, covering various aspects of citrus biology, including the role of beneficial compounds of citrus fruits. In addition, it examines the molecular responses of citrus to abiotic stresses and to field and post-harvest diseases. Providing insights gained in recent years, it is a valuable guide for those who are interested in gene discovery, comparative genomics, molecular breeding and new breeding techniques. It is particularly useful for scientists, breeders and students at universities and public sector institutes involved in research for the citrus industry.

This book highlights the uses for underutilized crops, presenting the state-of-the-art in terms of genome sequencing for over 30 crops, previously understudied and under-researched. In a changing climate and with significant pressure on the land, it is the ideal time to be discussing novel crops, with significant biotic and abiotic tolerances and/or rich nutrient profiles for consumers. Previously, the only species with sequenced genomes were high-profile internationally recognized crops, but in the current era genomes are being sequenced for dozens of crops, including those previously classified as underutilized, now being investigated. This book covers food crops, from fruits to tubers, and from grasses to legumes, as well as crops with non-food applications. Some of these crops have draft genomes, and others have polished genomes with extensive resequencing panels. Each chapter tells the story of an individual crop or crop group, written by experts, focusing on the genome data available, revealing more about crop domestication and genetic variation, and the current and future prospects given that this data is now becoming available. It also highlights how even small sequencing projects can provide draft genome sequences suitable for gene discovery, comparative genomics, and identification of molecular markers for understanding these crops further.