‘Decoupling’ land productivity and greenhouse gas footprints: A review

Abstract

A major challenge of our time is to produce sufficient nutrient‐rich food for the ever‐growing human population with limited land resources. There is a huge gap between current yields and genetic potential in many crops, which can be narrowed by enhancing land productivity. High‐input cropping increases crop yields, but heavy fertilizer and pesticide use can lead to land degradation, increase greenhouse gas footprint, and carry significant risks for eutrophication. What efforts can be taken to ‘decouple’ land productivity and the environmental footprint? Can land productivity increase while concurrently minimizing the environmental footprint? Here, we show that an integrated systems approach can minimize the tradeoff to achieve an effective ‘decoupling’ outcome. Some key components that can be integrated into a system include (i) intensifying crop rotations to enhance carbon conversion from atmospheric CO2 to plant biomass, (ii) diversifying cropping systems to enhance residual soil water and nutrient use and increase systems resilience, (iii) including N2‐fixing pulse crops in rotations to reduce synthetic fertilizer use, (iv) improving fertilizer‐N use efficiency to lower N2O emissions, and (v) sequestering more carbon to the soil to potentially offset CO2 equivalent emissions from cropping inputs. Integration of these proven cropping practices into a system creates a powerful synergy among individual components, thereby improving land productivity and systems resilience for long‐term sustainability. Relevant economic and agro‐environmental policies are needed to reinforce the adoption of a systems approach at the local farm level.

Respons Pertumbuhan dan Produksi Bawang Merah terhadap Kepadatan Populasi dan Jumlah Selang Fertigasi Menggunakan Irigasi Tetes

“…Fluktuasi produksi bawang merah nasional yang tinggi disebabkan salah satunya oleh faktor lingkungan akibat dampak perubahan iklim (degradasi kesuburan tanah dan terbatasnya ketersediaan air tanah). Keterbatasan ketersediaan air tanah, lahan subur dan degradasi kesuburan tanah (Wang et al, 2018;Mahala, 2018;Megerssa dan Bekere, 2019) adalah ancaman yang sedang terjadi di seluruh dunia, tidak terkecuali Indonesia. Salah satu strategi adaptasi dampak perubahan iklim adalah dengan menerapkan pertanian presisi (Precision Agriculture).…”

Evolution des fonctions de l’agriculture : quelles conséquences pour l’agronomie ?

“…Pour fournir une production agricole ayant un impact faible sur l'environnement, il est nécessaire de découpler la production de biomasse des impacts, tout en fournissant des services à la société (Wang et al, 2018). Trois grandes stratégies génériques sont généralement considérées (Hill et MacRae, 1996).…”

Crop rotational diversity can mitigate climate‐induced grain yield losses

“…Nevertheless, increasing crop diversity by including more crops and/or cover crops in the rotation could increase yields in several crops, particularly at low fertilization (MacLaren et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2023). In diverse rotations, soil fertility and water and nutrient use efficiency could be enhanced (Jian et al., 2020; Tanaka et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2018), which might help buffer against detrimental climatic conditions (Isbell et al., 2017). Indeed, higher crop rotation diversity (CRD) reduced maize yield losses in unfavourable years in several North American long‐term experiments (Bowles et al., 2020; Gaudin et al., 2015).…”