Preface; Eric Lichtfouse Agroecology theory, controversy and governance; Valérie Angeon, Harry Ozier-Lafontaine, Magalie Lesueur-Jannoyer and Arnaud Larade Food and energy production from biomass in an integrated farming system; Reg Preston and Lylian Rodríguez Ecological intensification for crop protection; Alain Ratnadass and Marco Barzman Livestock farming systems and agroecology in the tropics; Gisèle Alexandre, Audrey Fanchone, Harry Ozier-Lafontaine and Jean-Louis Diman Cropping systems for soil biodiversity and ecosystem services; Cathy Clermont-Dauphin, Eric Blanchart, Gladys Loranger-Merciris and Jean- Marc Meynard Agroecology and grassland intensification and in the Caribbean; Maryline Boval, Stéphane Bellon and Gisele Alexandre Ecosystem services of multispecific and multi stratified cropping systems; Serge Valet and Harry Ozier-Lafontaine Agro ecological engineering to biocontrol soil pests for crop health; Marie Chave, Marc Tchamitchian, Harry Ozier-Lafontaine Agroecological resources for sustainable livestock farming in the humid tropics; Harry Archimède, Gisèle Alexandre, Maurice Mahieu, Jérôme Fleury, Dalila Petro, Gary W. Garcia, Audrey Fanchone, Jean-Christophe Bambou, Carine Marie Magdeleine, Jean-Luc Gourdine, Eliel Gonzalez, Nathalie Mandonnet Agroecology for farmers: the linguistic issue; Diane Le Hénaff , Zeynel Cebeci Soil quality and plant nutrition; Hassan R. El-Ramady, Tarek A. Alshaal, Megahed Amer, Éva Domokos-Szabolcsy, Nevein Elhawat , Jozsef Prokisch, Miklos Fári Soil science, plant nutrition and micro-farms; Hassan R. El-Ramady, Tarek A. Alshaal, Said A. Shehata, Éva Domokos-Szabolcsy, Nevein Elhawat, Jozsef Prokisch, Miklos Fári and László Marton
Eric Lichtfouse: PhD in organic geochemistry, INRA researcher in Dijon, France since 1992, he teaches scientific writing. He is also editor in chief of the INRA journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development, and founder and editor of the Springer journal Environmental Chemistry Letters.
Sustainable agriculture is a rapidly growing field aiming at producing food and energy in a sustainable way for humans and their children. Sustainable agriculture is a discipline that addresses current issues such as climate change, increasing food and fuel prices, poor-nation starvation, rich-nation obesity, water pollution, soil erosion, fertility loss, pest control, and biodiversity depletion. Novel, environmentally-friendly solutions are proposed based on integrated knowledge from sciences as diverse as agronomy, soil science, molecular biology, chemistry, toxicology, ecology, economy, and social sciences. Indeed, sustainable agriculture decipher mechanisms of processes that occur from the molecular level to the farming system to the global level at time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. For that, scientists use the system approach that involves studying components and interactions of a whole system to address scientific, economic and social issues. In that respect, sustainable agriculture is not a classical, narrow science. Instead of solving problems using the classical painkiller approach that treats only negative impacts, sustainable agriculture treats problem sources. Because most actual society issues are now intertwined, global, and fast-developing, sustainable agriculture will bring solutions to build a safer world. 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.