Organic agriculture is a production management system, which promotes and enhances ecosystem health, including biological cycles and soil biological activity. It encompasses a range of land, crop and animal management procedures that use little or no external inputs. Organic agriculture promotes the use of local natural resources. Among the major characteristics of organic agriculture are the: * Enhancement of the biological diversity within the whole system; * Increase of soil biological activity; * Maintenance of long-term soil fertility; * Recycling of wastes of plant and animal origin...

The concept of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) has evolved in recent years in the context of a rapidly changing and globalizing food economy and as a result of the concerns and commitments of a wide range of stakeholders regarding food production and security, food safety and quality, and the environmental sustainability of agriculture. These stakeholders represent actors from the supply dimension (farmers, farmers' organizations, workers), the demand dimension (retailers, processors and consumers) and those institutions and services (education, research, extension, input supply) that...

Egypt has a total area of about one million km2, under arid and hyper arid climatic conditions, of which only a small portion (3% of total area) is agriculturally productive. The country is endowed with four main agro-ecological zones having specific attributes of resource base, climatic features, terrain and geomorphic characteristics, land use patterns and socio-economic implications. Therefore, it is found appropriate to formulate a programmes comprised of sub components geared to address the specific attributes in each of the agro ecological zones distinguished as follow: 1. The Nile...

Hydroponics is one of the many methods of soilless agriculture through which plants are grown using mineral nutrient solutions in water, without soil. Many commodity crops like tomatoes, Strawberry, Cucumber, onions, lettuce and cabbage have been successfully cultivated through hydroponics, and their produce well-accepted in many markets. The theory behind the method is that the soil is only a mineral nutrient reservoir and hence, it is not very essential to plant growth. The mineral nutrient can be introduced into a plant's water supply artificially which is then readily absorbed by the...