Agroecology literacy is 'the degree to which people have an objective and well-informed understanding of crop production with environmental issues.' The increased food grain production has also increased the unscientific and indiscriminate use of agrochemicals which has affected the soil health and degraded agroecosystem adversely and brought down the immunity of soil and the productivity of crops. In addition, it has resulted in the over-exploitation of soil, leading to nutrient imbalance. Moreover, the negative impact of chemical agriculture on the environment and human health has been reported and documented. Increased environmental awareness and health consciousness promoted scientists and planners to think about sustainable farming practices as an alternate way for healthy agriculture to protect the environment and human health. Eco-friendly methods or ecosystem services are one solution to manage this issue.

Agroenergy: Renewable and Sustainable Energy presents developments in agroenergy. With a particular focus on sustainability, each section of the book - crop productivity, biofuel production based on feedstock generation, and bioenergy production technologies - addresses different aspects of the agroenergetic production chain, identifying strategies for enhanced yields and reduced risks. Sample sections explain the theoretical and economic aspects related to crop productivity, along with issues related to circular economy, lifecycle assessments, and impacts of future climate scenarios. Other chapters discuss biofuel production based on feedstock generation, describe the valorization of biomass residues, address pretreatment issues, and more.

This edited volume covers the key role of bioeconomy for next-generation industrial production to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. It addresses the key environmental challenges due to biowaste generation and their application in boosting the economy through the conversion of biowaste into valuable products for sustainable growth and future needs. This book also describes the potential future research scope and possibilities in bioeconomy towards sustainable industrial ecology and circular economy.  In recent years, competition has increased for determinate resources. There is an urgent need to look for sustainable, non-polluting alternate sources to meet the demands of an ever-increasing population. Sustainable processes and production while using biological material can produce food, fodder, agricultural inputs, fuel etc. with lesser inputs and reduced emission of pollutants. Agricultural waste and food waste are another concern which demands immediate interventions. The Bioeconomy can be a possible way to address these challenges. It includes sustainable production of food, fodder, fiber, fuel, agricultural inputs, and other goods while using renewable resources or different types of waste. This is beneficial to resolve diverse environmental problems such as future bioenergy production technology, societal transformations, pollution management, industrial circular economy, agricultural practices and food securities, climate management etc. Bioeconomy helps to move from a linear economy to a circular economy.

Sustainable agricultural production is vital for food security and agricultural productivity. It is greatly influenced by weather and climate conditions. This book focuses on understanding weather and climate systems and crop yield productions, including integrated weather-crop prediction systems for climate risk management in agriculture. It examines the impact of climate change and its variability on different crops, and possible ways to minimize the loss for farmers. This book also describes different weather and climate hazards, including the fundamentals of weather/climate prediction systems and numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. It presents the need for seamless weather/climate predictions and their impact on agriculture. The status and availability of different monthly and seasonal scale forecasts worldwide is explored and how the forecasting models or products can be evaluated using statistical methods. The book concisely elucidates systematic model bias removal techniques and a reliable approach based on multi-statistics in producing a single forecast from the multi-model grand ensemble. Since crop models need daily weather sequence, several standard disaggregation methods for generating daily weather sequences from monthly/seasonal products are presented.

This book examines the role of genome editing in improving crop yields and contributing to global food security. It summarizes a range of genome editing techniques and discusses the roles they can play in producing a new generation of high-yielding, climate-ready crops. This includes site-specific nucleases, precision genome engineering, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, and bioinformatics. It showcases how these gene editing techniques can tailor plants to not only increase yield-related traits but to also make them better suited to their environment and to be resistant to pests and extreme climatic events, such as droughts. The book also examines genome editing regulations and policies, the commercialization of genome-edited crops, and biosafety and biosecurity concerns. Overall, this book reveals and showcases how genome editing can improve crop resilience and production to address current and future agricultural challenges and alleviation of global food security concerns.

This book explores the role of multidisciplinary approaches to cope up with the challenges of major nutrient deficiency. Hidden hunger (aka micronutrient deficiencies), a prevalent global issue, refers to the chronic deficiency of essential micronutrients despite sufficient caloric intake. With over 2 billion affected individuals, particularly women and children in low-income countries, it impairs physical and cognitive development, increases disease susceptibility, and diminishes productivity. Despite economic progress, undernourishment remains prevalent in the developing countries including India. Among all nutrients, the deficiencies of iron, zinc, iodine, and vitamin A are highly prevalent. Crop biofortification seems a sustainable solution to reduce the global burden of hidden hunger. Previous reports examined the genetic diversity related to micronutrients in germplasm of staple crops and their wild relatives. A number of biofortified crops have been developed by utilizing genetic diversity and biotechnological approaches.

This book presents a practical guide to help businesses navigate the complex topics of sustainability in the food industry.

This multidisciplinary book focuses on the best practices in a range of areas, such as: I. Sustainable development of agricultural production; II. Intelligent agricultural techniques, tools, and systems; III. Sustainability in veterinary practice; and IV. Economic, ecological and social systems for human development. This book is a truly interdisciplinary publication, useful to scholars, social movements, practitioners, and members of governmental agencies and private companies. Sustainable agricultural systems are crucial for ensuring food security, conserving natural resources and mitigating climate change. Innovations in this field play a key role in improving agricultural practices to make them more environmentally friendly, economically viable and socially responsible. By implementing the innovative approaches and technologies, sustainable agricultural systems can help address the challenges facing agriculture in the twenty-first century and build a more resilient and sustainable food system for the future.

Sustainable agricultural systems are crucial for ensuring food security, conserving natural resources and mitigating climate change. Innovations in this field play a crucial role in improving agricultural practices to make them more environmentally friendly, economically viable and socially responsible. By implementing the innovative approaches and technologies, sustainable agricultural systems can help address the challenges facing agriculture in the 21st century and build a more resilient and sustainable food system for the future. This multidisciplinary book focuses on the best practices in a range of areas, such as: I. Intelligent agricultural techniques, tools and systems; II. Sustainability in veterinary practice; III. Economic, ecological and social systems for human development; IV. Sustainable development of agricultural production. This book is a truly interdisciplinary publication, useful to scholars, social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies and private companies.

This book analyses the role of renewables in driving the low carbon transition in agriculture, explores the circular bio-based economy, examines policies and strategies designed to facilitate low carbon transition in agriculture, and greenhouse gas emission trends in the European Union agriculture sector.

The merging of nanotechnology with microbiology is an essential aspect of this book. Various nanomaterials, their synthesis approaches as well as applications in agriculture have been studied extensively in past years. However, there is still a lack of information available on the synergism between nanomaterials and microbes towards increased plant growth as well as reducing stress. Microbiome Nano-Cross-Talk, provides detailed insights into these environmental and agricultural perspectives of plant-microbe-nano interaction. With a focus on focus the morphological, anatomical, biochemical, molecular and gene expression levels of plant growth promotion, the book is the first of its kind to enable scientists to unravel the different pathways and signaling cascades involved in response to this interaction and to understanding how nanomaterials regulate the plant-microbe associations. It critically examines the role of beneficial microbes in conjunction with nanoparticles in plants and the mechanisms adopted by the plants at the biochemical and molecular levels to enhance plant growth and mitigate various stresses.

This new volume explores the important and cutting-edge roles that nanotechnology can play in facilitating sustainable agriculture. It provides recent updates on nanobiotechnology in soil science, plant breeding, food science, agricultural tool design and utilization, as well as the impacts of such approaches on properties of soils and plants. The book looks at the use of nanotechnology for crop production and protection, in the creation and application of pesticides, to enhance soil fertility and soil health, as a mitigating factor of plant abiotic stress, and more. The volume explores emerging nanotechnological tools and techniques for crop improvement that include space-inspired speed breeding for crop improvement, nanoparticles as sensing materials, plant nanobionics, nanopore DNA sequencing, and more.

This book explores optimization under uncertainty and related applications in agriculture, sustainable supply chains and the agrifood industry. Rapid changes in the primary sector are leading to more and more industrialized structures, which require optimization methods in order to cope with today's challenges. Addressing uncertainty in the agrifood industry may lead to more robust supply chain designs or to diversified risk. Sustainability requires interaction with the environmental or social sciences.  This book bridges the gap between optimization theory, uncertainty, sustainability and primary-sector applications (mainly in the agriculture and food industry, but also fisheries, forestry and natural resources in general). Although it has been a major challenge for the operations research community, this urgently needed interdisciplinary collaboration is not adequately covered in most current curricula in applied mathematics, economics or (agronomic/industrial/forest) engineering.

This book emphasizes recent developments in the use of mutation technologies for crop plant improvement and, ultimately, sustainable development. Plant breeders use genetic variation, which is created by plant-induced mutation, to create new and improved cultivars. The development of improved cultivars is a productive and optimistic agricultural strategy for economic and environmental sustainability since it ensures high yield stability, enhances soil health, and poses no environmental risks. Understanding mutation induction and exploring its uses have paved the road for improving genetic diversity for different plants and agronomic features and advanced gene discovery for diverse qualities that aid in sustainable development. Plant mutation breeding imitates spontaneous mutation, the primary force driving evolution, by using a plant's own genetic resources instead of genetic transformation. In order to develop beneficial agricultural features, this strategy focuses on the application of various chemical and physical mutagens in conjunction with biotechnologies. In order to survive in challenging environments, increase nutritional value, fight diseases and pests, grow in salty soils, and utilize water and nutrients more effectively, new varieties of plants are developed.

The volume discusses the use of smart sensors, actuators, and decision support systems for precision agriculture that provide intelligent data about crop health and for monitoring for yield prediction, soil quality, and nutrition requirement prediction, etc., using machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence through a globally connected system via the Internet of Things (IoT). The book begins with a section on AI in agriculture that looks at using satellite data for vegetation studies, AI-based solutions to increase farmer income, satellite images for yield prediction using machine learning algorithms, and more. The second section presents robotic-based innovations in agriculture, including agricultural field robots, along with cobots (computer-controlled robotic devices designed to people) used in and outside farms and greenhouses, methods for continual robotic monitoring of crops, robot-based weed identification and control systems, and more. The section on intelligent computing in agriculture looks at soft computing methodologies and frameworks for yield forecasting for crop production, machine learning techniques to classify and identify plant diseases, machine learning algorithms to analyze all factors affecting crop yield and the climatic effect on produce, deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) for recognizing nutrient deficiencies, etc. The last section explores IoT in agriculture and provides an overview of the research that has gone into making smart precision agriculture a reality, IoT applications for smart garden plantation condition monitoring, smart agriculture that makes use of cloud computing and IoT, and much more.

This book is a guide to achieving optimal crop yield while ensuring the sustainable and efficient use of water resources. It delves into critical topics such as irrigation water management, global and regional climate variability and change, food security, water pollution, soil erosion, and fertility loss. With the growing stress on water resources, the emphasis needs to be on environmentally friendly alternatives, including cutting-edge solutions like AI-based approaches, sensor-driven automation systems, and the integration of IoT in irrigation automation. This book collates information and analyzes current challenges in agriculture but also proposes innovative solutions, particularly in the context of the interconnected factors of water, crops, and climate change. By offering insights and strategies, it aims to guide the development of a water-wise, sustainable agriculture system that ensures the safety and well-being of future generations. This book is a valuable resource for anyone involved in agriculture and related fields, providing knowledge and tools to create a resilient and efficient food system.

This book makes the case for an urgent move away from industrial agriculture towards regenerative farming and the promotion of plant-based diets. How we produce, distribute and consume food are critical issues for the health and well-being of humans, animals and the environment. In order to develop a sustainable food system, this book argues for a radical change in farming and food consumption. Containing contributions from world renowned experts, this book promotes regenerative farming as the means to preserve planetary health, establish sustainable, healthy and secure diets and safeguard the welfare of animals. Chapters discuss broad ranging issues from climate change and biodiversity conservation to animal sentience and intensive farming, and the role of financial markets and food businesses. The book concludes with chapters discussing the routes in policy and practice to transforming the food system and achieving real-world change.

Ever-increasing population growth, combined with ongoing climate change signals that agriculture will face great challenges in ensuring global food security by 2050. Additionally, climate change-driven variations in mean sea level, wave conditions, storm surge, droughts, and river flows could have serious effects on agriculture and other sectors. Considering these factors and the extremely high value and necessity of agriculture worldwide, effective adaptation measures underpinned by reliable climate change impact assessments are essential to conserve soil and water resources and ensure food security. This book provides a thorough examination of these issues, and presents in-depth analysis, practical case studies, and numerous examples of adaptation options throughout for various regions of the world.

Sustainable Agricultural Practices, a volume in the Plant and Soil Microbiome series, presents foundational information into the successful utilization of different biocontrol agents (especially bacteria and fungi actinomycetes) under field conditions which can help relieve the pressure of overexploitation of synthetic pesticides in agriculture. As many of the microorganisms including nitrogen fixing bacteria and cyanobacteria can be used as bio inoculants, they offer opportunities to not only to enhance the crop productivity but also for maintaining the natural properties of agricultural soils. The volume explores the multifaceted benefits derived from varieties of microorganisms existing in different components of ecosystem, many of which could potentially be employed as probiotics for improved human and livestock health.

This book series gathers review articles that analyze current agricultural issues and knowledge, then propose 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.

This book elaborates on the modern experience and prospects and the development of recommendations for sustainable development of the agrarian economy based on digital technologies and smart innovations for the provision of food security. This book dwells on the global and regional challenges for food security and answers to them through the sustainable development of the agrarian economy. The book also studies the international experience of sustainable development of the agrarian economy on the basis of digital technologies and advantages for food security. Sustainable development of the agrarian economy with the use of digital technologies--as the foundation of food security of Central Asia--is considered. The prospects for provision of food security through the use of smart innovations for the sustainable development of the agrarian economy are outlined. A set of applied recommendations for raising the effectiveness of the use of smart innovations for the sustainable development of the agrarian economy is proposed.

A Sustainable Food System (SFS) is a comprehensive food system that targets the sustainable diets, traditional food culture with indigenous system and the overall food production on as well. All chapters in different sections will be written by key scientists with diverse backgrounds in either industry / R&D / academia, and will provide an update on emerging ideas and sustainable technologies as well as vision for the future. The 1st section: Sustainable Food System: concepts & framework primarily focusing on the Sustainable food systems, its conceptual introduction, framework and different concepts nationally & internationally. The 2nd section: Responsible consumption and sustainable diets deals with different aspects of nutrients sustaining health & sustainable diets. The 3rd section: Conservation and promotion of Traditional Food Culture, covers the conservation & promotion of traditional food cultures & their practices. The last & 4th section: Climate change and sustainable food production provide the current knowledge and innovative developments related to climate change, nutritional security & agronomic bio-fortification.

This volume presents up-to-date information on technological advancements in climate smart farming systems, covering crop modeling, irrigation practices, spatial modeling and agricultural policy in the context of climate change. The book presents the main applications in climate smart agriculture through technological approaches including the primary agricultural dynamics, mitigation strategies for sustainable soil and crop security, climate smart solutions to improve soil health, and crop and livestock productivity.

This edited volume covers all major topics related to agri-food transformation towards sustainability in this era of climate change. The topics cover field crops, horticultural crops, livestock sector, nutritional aspects, application of latest field-based technologies, and agriculture related policies and institutions. This book serves in exchanging and sharing the research findings, ideas and experiences on all aspects of agri-food systems to enable the formulation of the ways forward to transform our agri-food system to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations by 2030.