Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : CONTINUOUS CASH CROP ROTATION SYSTEMS UNDER FULL CA PRINCIPLES FOR THE RIVERSDALE WINTER CEREAL PRODUCTION AREA

Auteur : Kooper, Paulus

Université de soutenance : Stellenbosch University

Grade : MAgricAdmin (Agricultural-Economics) 2020

Résumé partiel
The challenge for South African and world agriculture in general, is to produce food for more people with less arable land. The negative impact of global warming is undeniable and competition for limited natural resources has increased dramatically. It is therefore necessary to replace conventional farming practises with sustainable agricultural practises. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a holistic approach to sustainable agriculture based on three related principles namely : minimum soil disturbance, maximum soil cover, and crop rotation. After the deregulation of the South African agricultural sector in the 1990s, South African farmers began practising crop rotation to counter the risk associated with the liberalised market. The benefits of CA are site-specific and vary from soil to soil. Thus trial data from the Riversdale experimental farm was used to evaluate the financial implication of different crop rotation systems under full CA practises over the long run. To ensure that both institutional and economic environments that drive whole farm profitability are accommodated, research into mixed crop-livestock systems are region and country-specific and no universal fact exists. One of the specific objectives of this study was to determine how the continuous cash crop systems under full CA principles compare financially with traditional crop-pasture systems for the Riversdale area on a whole farm level. The multi-faceted, complex, interconnected synergies of the farm system were incorporated in the present study through the systems approach, specifically a typical farm approach. Approximately nine stakeholders in the Riversdale production region were engaged through a multidisciplinary focus group discussion. Disciplines represented during the group discussion were agronomy, agricultural economics, soil sciences, and producers. Each stakeholder contributed to the group discussion with unique, intricate information about their specific fields. Typical whole farm budgets for alternative crop rotation systems for the Riversdale production area were constructed using Microsoft excel spreadsheet programmes.

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