This chapter focuses on the global trend of sweet cherry production. It covers the economics, crop yield, crop quality and organic production. As sweet cherry production continues to expand worldwide, each producer must decide whether to increase production (either through the renovation of old...

This chapter discusses the animal welfare requirements for organic farms; how to select genetic lines of animals that are suitable for organic farming; grazing more than one species on a pasture; understand the differences between EU, US and Canadian organic programmes and the importance of using...

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...

The Organic Academy of IFOAM-Organics International is 6 years old. It has trained over 600 stakeholders from more than 70 countries in the organic sector, and has conducted its training on four out of five continents. Its main approach is to base its curriculum on the key principles and values of...

The call to adopt a food systems approach has been made increasingly over the past two decades. A systems perspective contends that the only way to understand a problem fully is to understand the elements (parts) in relation to the system (whole). Systems science and research has been pursued in a...

The theory of participatory action research recommends finding tools for community participation in analysis of the situation and development of community programmes. Two case studies, from KwaZulu-Natal and from Philippi near Cape Town, are examined. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques...

A survey into the experiences of small-scale commercial farmers in South Africa as well as the development and effectiveness of Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) as a tool to connect small-scale organic farmers to the market, showed that the PGS in Gauteng worked well because the coordinator...

Rainwater harvesting, solar water heating and organic vegetable production were used to improve efficiency in a suburban home in George, in South Africa's Southern Cape. In a year, treated municipal water consumption decreased from 17 kL/month to 8 kL/month, and 60 kL of rainwater was used for...

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...