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...

The rapidly growing beef cattle herd of the Peoples Republic of China is largely carried as small numbers of animals on smallholder farms. These enterprises have traditionally focussed on cereal and vegetable crops. Limited plantings of specialised forages combined with a poor knowledge of...

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...

There is a wide variety of approaches to whole farm models (WFMs) including purely biophysical models as well as models that combine biological and financial elements. Our study was motivated by the notion that researchers may benefit from guidelines on the choices they must make about modelling...

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...