Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity

Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity PDF Author: Danny Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317753291
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 711

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Book Description
The world relies on very few crop and animal species for agriculture and to supply its food needs. In recent decades, there has been increased appreciation of the risk this implies for food security and quality, especially in times of environmental change. As a result, agricultural biodiversity has moved to the top of research and policy agendas. This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge of agricultural biodiversity in a series of specially commissioned chapters. It draws on multiple disciplines including plant and animal genetics, ecology, crop and animal science, food studies and nutrition, as well as social science subjects which explore the socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal and policy aspects of agricultural biodiversity. It focuses not only on the core requirements to deliver a sustainable agriculture and food supply, but also highlights the additional ecosystem services provided by a diverse and resilient agricultural landscape and farming practices. The book provides an indispensable reference textbook for a wide range of courses in agriculture, ecology, biodiversity conservation and environmental studies.

Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity

Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity PDF Author: Danny Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317753291
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 711

Get Book Here

Book Description
The world relies on very few crop and animal species for agriculture and to supply its food needs. In recent decades, there has been increased appreciation of the risk this implies for food security and quality, especially in times of environmental change. As a result, agricultural biodiversity has moved to the top of research and policy agendas. This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge of agricultural biodiversity in a series of specially commissioned chapters. It draws on multiple disciplines including plant and animal genetics, ecology, crop and animal science, food studies and nutrition, as well as social science subjects which explore the socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal and policy aspects of agricultural biodiversity. It focuses not only on the core requirements to deliver a sustainable agriculture and food supply, but also highlights the additional ecosystem services provided by a diverse and resilient agricultural landscape and farming practices. The book provides an indispensable reference textbook for a wide range of courses in agriculture, ecology, biodiversity conservation and environmental studies.

Agrobiodiversity

Agrobiodiversity PDF Author: Karl S. Zimmerer
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262549697
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.

Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons

Routledge Handbook of Food as a Commons PDF Author: Jose Luis Vivero-Pol
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351665510
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
From the scientific and industrial revolution to the present day, food – an essential element of life – has been progressively transformed into a private, transnational, mono-dimensional commodity of mass consumption for a global market. But over the last decade there has been an increased recognition that this can be challenged and reconceptualized if food is regarded and enacted as a commons. This Handbook provides the first comprehensive review and synthesis of knowledge and new thinking on how food and food systems can be thought, interpreted and practiced around the old/new paradigms of commons and commoning. The overall aim is to investigate the multiple constraints that occur within and sustain the dominant food and nutrition regime and to explore how it can change when different elements of the current food systems are explored and re-imagined from a commons perspective. Chapters do not define the notion of commons but engage with different schools of thought: the economic approach, based on rivalry and excludability; the political approach, recognizing the plurality of social constructions and incorporating epistemologies from the South; the legal approach that describes three types of proprietary regimes (private, public and collective) and different layers of entitlement (bundles of rights); and the radical-activist approach that considers the commons as the most subversive, coherent and history-rooted alternative to the dominant neoliberal narrative. These schools have different and rather diverging epistemologies, vocabularies, ideological stances and policy proposals to deal with the construction of food systems, their governance, the distributive implications and the socio-ecological impact on Nature and Society. The book sparks the debate on food as a commons between and within disciplines, with particular attention to spaces of resistance (food sovereignty, de-growth, open knowledge, transition town, occupations, bottom-up social innovations) and organizational scales (local food, national policies, South–South collaborations, international governance and multi-national agreements). Overall, it shows the consequences of a shift to the alternative paradigm of food as a commons in terms of food, the planet and living beings.

Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species

Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species PDF Author: Kezia Barker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351131575
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the assessment and management of potentially dangerous infectious diseases, quarantined pests, invasive (alien) species, living modified organisms and biological weapons, from a multitude of perspectives. Issues of biosecurity have gained increasing attention over recent years but have often only been addressed from narrow disciplines and with a lack of integration of theoretical and practical approaches. The Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species brings together both the natural sciences and the social sciences for a fully rounded perspective on biosecurity, shedding light on current national and international management frameworks with a mind to assessing possible future scenarios. With chapters focussing on a variety of ecosystems – including forests, islands, marine and coastal and agricultural land – as well as from the industrial scale to individual gardens, this handbook reviews the global state of invasions and vulnerabilities across a wide range of themes and critically analyses key threats and threatening activities, such as trade, travel, land development and climate change. Identifying invasive species and management techniques from a regional to international scale, this book will be a key reference text for a wide range of students and academics in ecology, agriculture, geography, human and animal health and interdisciplinary environmental and security studies.

Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition

Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition PDF Author: Danny Hunter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429638264
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book examines the challenges and impacts of poor diets and nutrition from current food systems and the potential contribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services in addressing these problems. There is a strong need for a multi-level, cross-sectoral approach that connects food biodiversity conservation and sustainable use to address critical problems in our current food systems, including malnutrition. Building on research from the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project (BFN), which aims to better link biodiversity, diets and nutrition, the book presents a multi-country, cross-sectoral analysis of initiatives that have promoted local food biodiversity in four countries: Brazil, Kenya, Turkey and Sri Lanka. This book offers a comprehensive summary of the BFN Project results in each of the four countries along with lessons learned and how this work could be upscaled or applied in other regions. It argues that the strategic promotion and use of food biodiversity is critical in uniting attempts to address conservation, nutrition and livelihood concerns. The book is structured around chapters and case studies encompassing the BFN Project with specific experiences related by partners who played key roles in the work being done in each country. By offering a comparative view capable of furthering dialogue between the respective countries, it is also meant to connect the individual cases for a “greater than the sum of its parts” effect. This means consideration of how localized activities can be adapted to more countries and regions. Therefore, the book addresses global issues with a foot planted firmly in the grounded case study locations. This book will be of great interest to policymakers, practitioners and NGOs working on food and nutrition, as well as students and scholars of agriculture, food systems and sustainable development.

Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services

Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services PDF Author: Marion Potschin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317687043
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 658

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Book Description
The idea that nature provides services to people is one of the most powerful concepts to have emerged over the last two decades. It is shaping our understanding of the role that biodiverse ecosystems play in the environment and their benefits for humankind. As a result, there is a growing interest in operational and methodological issues surrounding ecosystem services amongst environmental managers, and many institutions are now developing teaching programmes to equip the next generation with the skills needed to apply the concepts more effectively. This handbook provides a comprehensive reference text on ecosystem services, integrating natural and social science (including economics). Collectively the chapters, written by the world's leading authorities, demonstrate the importance of biodiversity for people, policy and practice. They also show how the value of ecosystems to society can be expressed in monetary and non-monetary terms, so that the environment can be better taken into account in decision making. The significance of the ecosystem service paradigm is that it helps us redefine and better communicate the relationships between people and nature. It is shown how these are essential to resolving challenges such as sustainable development and poverty reduction, and the creation of a green economy in developing and developed world contexts.

The Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Policy

The Routledge Handbook of International Environmental Policy PDF Author: Mahua Basu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000963675
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1025

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Book Description
This handbook is a one-stop, comprehensive guide to global initiatives for climate action. It examines policies to tackle climate change and the critical role various organizations play. The volume: Includes in-depth discussion of individual issues related to the environment Highlights global initiatives, negotiations, and international organizations responsible for climate action, protecting marine and freshwater environment, protecting atmosphere and climate, conserving biological diversity, chemicals and wastes management, environmental governance, safeguarding against warfare and disasters Debates on-ground implications of the international policies for the Global South Brings together case studies from across the world Presents a toolkit for environment practitioners to seek sustainable and practicable solutions to problems Includes suggested readings for researchers Brings together primary documents, supportive illustrations, graphs, and maps The handbook will be an essential reference for scholars and researchers of environmental studies, environmental policy and governance, sustainability and resilience. It will also be indispensable for policy makers, think tanks and NGOs.

Routledge Handbook of Food and Nutrition Security

Routledge Handbook of Food and Nutrition Security PDF Author: Bill Pritchard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317596242
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 748

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Book Description
The concept of food and nutrition security has evolved and risen to the top of the international policy agenda over the last decade. Yet it is a complex and multi-faceted issue, requiring a broad and inter-disciplinary perspective for full understanding. This Handbook represents the most comprehensive compilation of our current knowledge of food and nutrition security from a global perspective. It is organized to reflect the wide scope of the contents, its four sections corresponding to the accepted current definitional frameworks prevailing in the work of multilateral agencies and mainstream scholarship. The first section addresses the struggles and progression of ideas and debates about the subject in recent years. The other sections focus on three key themes: how food has been, is and should be made available, including by improvements in agricultural productivity; the ways in which politico-economic and social arenas have shaped access to food; and the effects of food and nutrition systems in addressing human health, known as food utilisation. Overall, the volume synthesizes a vast field of information drawn from agriculture, soil science, climatology, economics, sociology, human and physical geography, the nutrition and health sciences, environmental science and development studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics

The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics PDF Author: Mary Rawlinson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317595505
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
While the history of philosophy has traditionally given scant attention to food and the ethics of eating, in the last few decades the subject of food ethics has emerged as a major topic, encompassing a wide array of issues, including labor justice, public health, social inequity, animal rights and environmental ethics. This handbook provides a much needed philosophical analysis of the ethical implications of the need to eat and the role that food plays in social, cultural and political life. Unlike other books on the topic, this text integrates traditional approaches to the subject with cutting edge research in order to set a new agenda for philosophical discussions of food ethics. The Routledge Handbook of Food Ethics is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over 35 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into 7 parts: the phenomenology of food gender and food food and cultural diversity liberty, choice and food policy food and the environment farming and eating other animals food justice Essential reading for students and researchers in food ethics, it is also an invaluable resource for those in related disciplines such as environmental ethics and bioethics.

Multifunctional Agriculture

Multifunctional Agriculture PDF Author: Roger Leakey
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128093064
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
In a world increasingly challenged by the need to integrate and understand highly specialized knowledge in a multidisciplinary way, this book is innovative and perhaps unique in addressing this challenge. It focuses on ideas, strategies, techniques and practices spanning many disciplines at the interface of agriculture with: forestry, horticulture, plant physiology, genetics, ecology, soil science, food science, economics, and the social and environmental sciences as delivered by intensified and enriched agroforestry. Multifunctional Agriculture addresses this complexity, using case studies and insights from the needs of African farmers whose livelihoods are constrained by complex interactions between social, environmental and economic factors and problems underlying agricultural sustainability in Africa. This book, therefore, provides an important resource for those trying to understand the role of agriculture in the achievement of the new Sustainable Development Goals by providing easily implementable, practical and effective methodologies and practices. - Provides a single-source, comprehensive insight into agroforestry/ multifunctional agriculture, it's potential, challenges, and progress - Helps readers understand and assess potential opportunity through implementation - Includes case studies and real-world insights that address common situations and the practical application of best practices - Explores the role of multi-functional agriculture in mitigating climate change impacts, providing value-story beyond crop production