Substantial initiatives are occurring in developing countries to integrate forage crops into crop–livestock systems to improve farmer livelihoods and reduce soil erosion. In particular, government authorities in western China focus on improving farmer livestock profits through greater forage...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the endogenous relationship between production specialisation and market commercialisation with an empirical study of farmers in Northwest China. Design/methodology/approach The three-stage least squares were used to address simultaneity and...

Dry sowing is the practice of sowing a crop into a dry seed bed before the autumn rains. This is in contrast with the traditional practice of wet sowing where seed is placed into a moist seed bed following a rainfall event in autumn. We evaluated the putative benefits and risks of dry sowing for...

The concept of ecosystem services (ESS) is widely used to highlight the interdependencies between agricultural and environmental systems. However, few studies have attempted to quantify the potential of agriculture to produce multiple ESS, and to estimate the possibilities for joint production...

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soil has been identified as a potential strategy to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Within the public debate, it has been claimed that provision of positive incentives for farmers to change their land management will result in substantial carbon...

The practice of long fallowing, by omitting a year of cropping, is gaining renewed focus in the low rainfall zone of the northern agriculture region of Western Australia. The impetus behind this practice change has been a reduced use of pasture breaks in cereal crop rotations, and the belief...