This chapter introduces food systems and organic farming, outlines the development of organic farming in Southern Africa, and grapples with the idea of sustainable development; drawing on earlier work of the author entitled Sustainable Development: Developing What to Sustain Whom? a conceptual...

This chapter gives an historical overview of the organic agriculture (OA) sector and the closely aligned production systems of agroecology, permaculture and regenerative agriculture. It explains how the modern organic movement emerged from concern over the loss of quality in crops with an increase...

This practitioner reflection reports on 30 years of training agroecological farmers in various African contexts. It argues that good theory should be drawn out of good practice, to help farmers to adapt to climate change while producing nourishing food sustainably. Currently, training is often...

This chapter reviews regulation of the intake behaviour according to several factors: age, type of feed and so on. The last part of the chapter is devoted to the feeding behaviour of wild and domestic rabbits in a situation of free choice.

The order Brassicales is characterized by a specific group of secondary plant metabolites, namely the glucosinolates, which are sulfur and nitrogen-containing compounds. For human nutrition, glucosinolates are of special interest due to their health-promoting properties in general and the cancer...

Livestock systems research (LSR) at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) sought to answer two questions: (1) What are the major livestock systems in the sub-Saharan Africa tropics and subtropics? (2) What technical and organizational changes can be introduced into these systems to...

This chapter describes the livestock production systems and resource use (land, water quantity and quality, air and ecosystem services), climate change impacts on ruminant livestock, adaptation of livestock systems to climate change, knowledge gaps on adaptation and mitigation of greenhouse gas...

Agroecology is a holistic approach to agriculture, which takes into account the ecological, social, political and economic dimensions of producing food in order to build sustainable and resilient food systems that ensure food security and nutrition. It is thus an approach that resonates closely...

In many countries specific agricultural systems and landscapes have been created, shaped and maintained by generations of farmers and herders based on diverse species and their interactions and using locally adapted, distinctive and often ingenious combinations of management practices and...

This book reports on long-term comparative organic farming systems' research trials carried out over the last 5 years in the Southern Cape of South Africa, as well as research into the successes and failures of the organic sector and the technical tools required for sustainable development in South ...