Walter A H Rossing

Wageningen University & Research | WUR

The perennial grain intermediate wheatgrass ( Thinopyrum intermedium , commercial name Kernza TM ) has been proposed as a diversification crop for producing forage and grain and providing ecosystem services to farmers. Although a few studies have addressed farmers’ interests in the crop, information is lacking about the links between farmers’ goals...

Global biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, with agriculture as a major driver. There is mounting evidence that intercropping can increase insect biodiversity while maintaining or increasing yield. Yet, intercropping is often considered impractical for mechanized farming systems. Strip cropping is pioneered by Dutch farmers as it is...

Effects of climate change and especially the associated climate variability require farmers to adjust to increasing frequencies of extreme events. In the agriculturally highly productive Romanian Plain, the frequency, intensity, and duration of heatwaves and drought have increased over the past 20 years. Although recent surveys revealed farmers’ aw...

La pequeña agricultura del secano de Chile Central se enfrenta hoy a diversas limitaciones como son la escasez o variabilidad de regímenes de lluvias anuales, la influencia del cambio climático global y lejanía de los centros de desarrollo. La implementación de programas para el desarrollo agrícolarequiere de un adecuado diagnóstico y evaluación de...

ID : ISTRO45 Cover crop-reduced tillage systems without herbicides and chemical fertilizers in onion cultivation: promising but challenges remain Abstract Topic : Regenerative Agriculture Abstract Status : Accepted Submission Type : Oral presentation

In Mexico, the traditional MILPA polycropping system is giving way to maize monocultures, impacting the nutritional diversity of smallholder farmers and diminishing ecosystem services. This study explores landscape alternatives to enhance nutritional self-sufficiency and environmental performance in rural communities, comparing scenarios without (S...

Special Issue shows the broadening scope and methods of systems agronomists engaged in transitions-in-the-making. • Papers provide evidence of a change in scope from transformation knowledge towards transformative knowledge development. • The articulation of knowledge and change processes constitute an important extension of the systems agronomist'...

CONTEXT: The urgency of redesigning the way food is produced and consumed has implications for the systems perspective of agronomy. An increasingly important strain of research addresses the ‘how-to’ question associated with the transformation of ‘maldesigned’ agricultural systems and produces ‘transformative knowledge’ as part of transitions in-th...

Loss of arthropod biodiversity can impair the provision of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. Crop diversification strategies offer the possibility to support arthropod communities without putting aside agricultural land as conservation areas. Within-field crop diversification measures, such as strip cropping and crop mixtures, may prov...

Modern agriculture has been focused on optimizing production, neglecting supporting and regulating ecosystem services. Meta-analyses have demonstrated the potential of intercropping to deliver multiple ecosystem services. However, guidelines for the design and management of such systems remain unclear, especially for the under-studied vegetable-bas...

Vegetable production in open greenhouses is often associated with high inputs of synthetic pesticides. Introducing flowering plants into such greenhouses may promote the top-down pest suppression by natural enemies and reduce the reliance on pesticide use. However, it is not known how effective this practice is in organically and conventionally man...

Current global challenges for family farmers, such as the deterioration of arable land and low family income, cannot be addressed only by working on single farm components. Improving the sustainability of family farms requires a multi-objective systems approach and may be seen as an evolutionary process composed of iterative learning cycles. We dev...

CONTEXT Crop diversification has been proposed as a promising strategy for transitioning towards sustainable agricultural systems by leveraging biological processes and controls present in naturally biodiverse ecosystems. Strip cropping, a form of intercropping where two or more crops are grown adjacent to one another in long and narrow multi-row s...

There is promising evidence that public food procurement from family farming (PFPF) can serve as a powerful policy instrument in transitions towards more sustainable food systems. Despite the evidence around PFPF, there is lack of systemic and actor-oriented approaches analysing the relational and interactional dynamics among the multiple and diver...

Vegetables are commonly produced with high inputs of pesticides and fertilisers to boost production and meet cosmetic market standards. Yet, reports on the relationships between agrochemical inputs and crop productivity are scattered and an overview is missing. We assessed the relationship between pesticide and nutrient inputs and crop productivity...

CONTEXT Family-run cow-calf farms based on native grasslands exhibit low economic and social sustainability, as reflected in low family incomes and high workloads. Experimental results have shown that pasture–herd interaction management could improve native grasslands and animal productivity. OBJECTIVE This paper analyzes the extent to which the s...

Legume crops hold promise to diversify the currently simplified rotations that dominate Europe and to increase the sustainability of European farming systems. Nevertheless, most legumes have been ignored by farmers, advisors, and value chain agents in the EU, where legumes are estimated to occupy only ~2% of arable land. Recent surveys find that fa...

In Uruguay sustainability of family farm systems is threatened by soil degradation, low yields and excessive workloads resulting in low labour productivity, low family income and high erosion rates. The productive and environmental performances of most Uruguayan family farms are well below levels achievable with current resource availability. This...

Around 30% of global food is produced by smallholder farmers, yet they constitute the most food-insecure group. In Mexico, food self-sufficiency is declining. Rural policies in the country have stimulated the production of cash crops to the detriment of the traditional intercropping system, the milpa. Such a decline may have negative consequences f...

Context Despite a wealth of analytical knowledge on factors and processes that operate to slow down or impede sustainability transitions in various sectors of society, design-oriented researchers face a lack of guidance on the ‘how to’ question for developing knowledge to support sustainability changes. From 2007, we crafted co-innovation as an app...

A single focus on yield in agroecosystems comes at the expense of other ecosystem services, for instance, biocontrol of pests. In this study, we investigated the potential of intercropping to improve the delivery of ecosystem services by cropping systems. Intercropping was expected to deliver a higher yield through facilitation and complementarity...

Land use change results from top-down drivers, such as policies, trade, and migration. Land use change may also result from community-based responses. In Mexico, rural communities govern most of the country's forests. This study aimed to assess how socio-economic and biophysical factors affected the landscape trajectories of rural communities in so...

In this article we explore the concept and implications of three-dimensional (spatial, temporal, and genetic) in-field crop diversification to inform systems redesign towards ecological intensification. We first present a conceptual framework for classifying diversity in arable contexts. We then apply the framework to analyse two long-term systems...

To operate within the safe and just operating space captured by the doughnut metaphor, sustainability transitions are needed in the food system. Niche food systems with highly distinct practices and organization constitute a treasure chest of alternatives from which society can build new futures. Policy has little awareness of niche food systems an...

La tecnología de laboreo reducido (LR) es estratégica en sistemas agroecológicos, pero ha sido desarrollada usando herbicidas y fertilizantes sintéticos. Este trabajo buscó generar un sistema de LR en el cultivo de cebolla orgánico, mediante un trabajo experimental y participativo. Se testeó el LR combinado con (i) cultivo de cobertura de gramíneas...

La vegetación espontánea alberga comunidades de artrópodos proveyéndoles diversos recursos. Sin embrago, la composición de estas comunidades y la funcionalidad de las especies vegetales en los sistemas de producción han sido poco estudiadas. Se analizaron las comunidades de artrópodos en las especies vegetales dominantes de un predio hortícola orgá...

In Mexico, a political shift to fit into neoliberal directives since the 80s has brought several consequences to rural households and their trajectories. This study focused on the relation between drivers of change and household trajectory. The study was carried out in Santa Catarina Tayata, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. 44 household heads were i...

Grazing plays a key role in reducing the external inputs required for ruminant production and in aleviating feed-food competition. Beyond the production of meat and milk, grassland-based systems provide a wide range of ecosystem services. Agroecology and organic farming aim to reconcile natural resource management and food production, in the long t...

Regional impact studies are needed to explore possible adaptation options to climate change. We estimated impacts and adaptation options for future scenarios that feature different assumptions regarding climate, cropping pattern and access to irrigation with two bio-economic farm models. Farm profit, soil organic matter balance and labor input are...

The allocation of feedstuff to intensively managed dairy cows to achieve different objectives is challenging due to the inherent complexity of the system and the combinatorial problem that has to be solved. Pareto-based multi-objective optimization approaches using evolutionary algorithms can help to address these challenges and show the trade-offs...

We would like to change the authors’ names and email addresses on page 195 of paper [...]

Farming policies tend to be homogeneous for an entire sector and encourage the implementation of technological innovations without considering the particular characteristics of smallholder farm systems (SFS). The objective of this study was to characterize the SFSs in the Oaxacan Mixteca, Mexico, and the highlands of Guatemala based on typolog...

Invertebrates perform many vital functions in agricultural production, but many taxa are in decline, including pest natural enemies. Action is needed to increase their abundance if more sustainable agricultural systems are to be achieved. Conservation biological control (CBC) is a key component of integrated pest management yet has failed to be wid...

Ecological intensification has been proposed as a promising lever for a transition towards more sustainable food systems. Various food systems exist that are based on ecological intensification and may have potential for a sustainability transition. Little is known, however, about their diversity and about how they perform against dominant systems...

Breng de ambitieuze boer van een honderd jaar oude bd-boerderij en zo’n honderd masterstudenten met interesse in bio-landbouw bij elkaar en je krijgt een hoop bijzondere perspectieven en ideeën. Het ene nog wilder dan het andere, maar met zijn vrije geest en lak aan wat er van hem wordt gedacht, neemt boer Tim elk idee in overweging.

Academisch biologisch onderwijs en daarmee ook onderzoek begon in 1981 in Wageningen in de groep ‘Alternatieve methoden in de landbouw’. Wat eerst een randverschijnsel was dat op de vrijplaats van de universiteit werd getolereerd, is nu bijna 40 jaar verder onderdeel van mainstream. Wat gebeurde er tussen servet en tafellaken?<br/

To operate within the safe and just operating space captured by the doughnut metaphor, sustainability transitions are needed in the food system. Niche food systems with highly distinct practices and organization constitute a treasure chest of alternatives from which society can build new futures. Policy has little awareness of niche food systems an...

Droughts in southern South America affect grazing systems in many ways. They reduce biomass productivity; decrease livestock feed intake, weight and reproductive performance; increase farmers’ costs; and reduce farm income. It was hypothesized that simple grazing management variables affect the resilience of grazing systems to droughts at the paddo...

Crafting actionable knowledge on ecological intensification: lessons from co-innovation approaches

The social and environmental impacts of dominant food systems in Chile call for action to urgently rethink the way food is produced, commercialized and consumed. Ecological intensification (EI) has been proposed as a promising leverage point for a transition towards more sustainable food systems. To date, various food systems grounded on EI are bei...

Bridging yield gaps while decreasing pesticide and fertilizer use is an important challenge for agricultural systems sustainability. Although vegetable production in Uruguay is associated with high pesticide, fertilizer, and fossil energy use (Dogliotti et al., 2014), quantitative data on the relationship between agrochemical use and yields are sca...

Livestock systems are expected to produce high value, low cost protein while minimizing negative environmental impacts. In Uruguay, almost 75% of the farms specialized in beef and wool production are family farms based on natural grasslands. These farms exhibit low sustainability mainly due to low levels of productivity and income. The absence of s...

Livestock production in Uruguay involves the management of C4-species dominated natural grasslands, which cover almost 65% of the country's surface area. Almost 75% of the farms specialized in beef and wool production are family farms. The farm systems exhibit low sustainability due, together with other factors, to low family income and grassland o...

Sustainability of vegetable and mixed vegetable-beef family farm systems in south Uruguay is threaten by soil degradation, low yields and work overload resulting in low labour productivity, lack of leisure time, and health problems associated with work (Dogliotti et al., 2014). Since 2005, farmers, local farmers organizations, farmers’ technical ad...

Interactions between aboveground and belowground organisms are important drivers of plant growth and performance in natural ecosystems. Making practical use of such above-belowground biotic interactions offers important opportunities for enhancing the sustainability of agriculture, as it could favor crop growth, nutrient supply, and defense against...

Carabid beetles are common predators of pest insects and weed seeds in agricultural systems. Understanding their dispersal across farmland is important for designing farms and landscapes that support pest and weed biological control. Little is known, however, about the effect of farmland habitat discontinuities on dispersal behaviour and the result...

Dominant food systems are configured from the productivist paradigm, which focuses on producing large amounts of inexpensive and standardized foods. Although these food systems continue being supported worldwide, they are no longer considered fit-for-purpose as they have been proven unsustainable in environmental and social terms. A large body of s...

Improvements in farm food production, income and labour productivity are needed to meet the growing food demand (SDG1), reduce farmer poverty (SDG2) and develop decent work (SDG8) in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also desirable to decrease farmers’ dependency on fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides in order to decrease fossil energy consumption (SDG1...

In this paper, we present the LandscapeIMAGES modeling framework for multi-scale spatially explicit analysis of tradeoffs and synergies among ecosystem services provisioning across agricultural landscapes. The framework generates large sets of spatially explicit land-use and management scenarios to inform discussions among sta-keholders involved in...

Worldwide, native grasslands are being converted to non-native pastures and cropland. This process threatens local grassland biomes as well as the livelihoods of farm families that utilize these grasslands. In the Río de la Plata grasslands region meat production and multispecies native grasslands have coexisted for more than 400 years. Low levels...

Improvements in agricultural land and labour productivity are needed to meet the growing food demand and reduce farmer poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of this study were to (i) quantify variation in labour inputs, yield and labour productivity among rice fields; (ii) elicit factors associated with this variation; and (iii) identify op...

Het telen van verschillende landbouwgewassen in naast elkaar gelegen stroken, van bijvoorbeeld 3 of 6 meter breed, kan zich verheugen in een toenemende belangstelling. Afgelopen jaar is verder geëxperimenteerd en is op praktijkschaal nagegaan wat de praktische inpasbaarheid met mechanisatie is.

Crop rotation is one of the oldest management strategies in agriculture with two main purposes: plant nutrition and pest management (weeds, pests and diseases, particularly soil borne diseases). Currently, conventional agriculture does not depend much on crop rotations because several of the biological processes promoted by this strategy have been...

Yield variability in space and time is a well-known phenomenon in the highland coffee production systems of Costa Rica. Our objective was to systematically unravel variations and gaps in yields due to the combined effects of farm resources and major production variables in a region of premium quality highland coffee. We surveyed 40 coffee producing...

Stakeholder involvement in research processes is widely seen as essential to enhance the applicability of research. A common conclusion in the extensive body of literature on participatory and transdisciplinary research is the importance of the institutional context for understanding the dynamics and effectiveness of participatory projects. The rol...

Na de eerste verkenningen met het telen in stroken zijn onderzoeken naar de effecten ervan verder uitgebreid. Inmiddels zijn er meerdere strokenproeven verdeeld over vier locaties – Droevendaal, ERF, De Graanrepubliek en NZ27 – en zijn de verwachte voordelen van dit teeltsysteem bevestigd. Afhankelijk van de inrichting van het bedrijf en aansluiten...

Vulnerability and resilience are two crucial attributes of social-ecological systems that are used for analyzing the response to disturbances. We assess these properties in relation to agroecosystem buffer capacity and adaptive capacity, which depend on the ‘window of opportunities’ of possible changes in terms of selected performance indicators, i...

Soil fertility depletion is one of the main concerns of the farmers in the Costa Chica, Mexico. The current crop management exacerbates nutrient cycling unbalances and threatens the sustainability of the common maize production systems. It is necessary to supply the soil with organic sources. Field experiments were established in farmers’ fields to...

New livestock production models need to simultaneously meet the increasing global demand for meat and preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. Since the 16th century beef cattle has been produced on the Pampas and Campos native grasslands in southern South America, with only small amounts of external inputs. We synthesised 242 references from...

The land use change process occurred in Uruguay between the years 2000 and 2013 has had a profound impact in the country. In this period, soybean and forest crops have increased by 100,000 and 40,000 ha per year, respectively. Changes in farming structure and access to resources between 2000 and 2010 endangered the livelihood of 57 % of family farm...

Reduced tillage and mulching may bring about new production systems that combine better soil structure with greater water use efficiency for vegetable crops grown in raised bed systems. These are especially relevant under conditions of high rainfall variability, limited access to irrigation and high soil erosion risk. Here we evaluate a novel combi...

Agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa is mostly upland-based. Indeed, wetland potential for rice and market gardening production is currently underexploited. Opportunities for greater provision of year-round food are expected from utilising these land and water resources. Wetland crops are, however, labour-demanding crops. Besides, in some...