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Specific; Seufert
Miscellaneous
Organic Agriculture
Concepts Behind Natural Resource Decision Making
Specifics; Tugel
100
Methods used to compare the yields of organic and conventional agriculture.
What is 1. Comprehensive literature search. 2. Minimized use of selection Criteria. 3. Examined influence in categorical analysis. 4. Spatial global data sets. 5. Meta-analysis.
100
To achieve sustainable food security we will probably need many different techniques to produce more food at affordable prices, ensure livelihoods for farmers, and reduce the environmental costs of agriculture. Those includes:
What is organic, conventional, and possibly hybrid systems.
100
This system is aimed at producing food with minimal harm to ecosystems, animals, or humans and is often a solution to the crisis we face in our global food system.
What is organic farming.
100
Today’s land managers and policymakers require information about how soils change to compare alternatives and make decisions that balance goals for the environment, AND these THREE other facets effected by soil change info.
economics, sustainability, and production
100
Please name the 6 steps or benchmarks Tugel et al. claim are necessary when completing a soil survey
1. Identify user needs 2. Conduct interdisciplinary research and long term studies 3. Develop an organizing framework that relates data, processes, and soil function 4. Select and prioritize soil change data and information requirements 5. Develop procedures for data collection and interpretation 6. Design an integrated soil–ecosystem–management
200
This is central to sustainable food security on a finite land basis.
What is high yields.
200
Agriculture must meet the twin challenge of feeding a growing population.
What is 1. Meat and high calorie diets. 2. Minimizing its environmental global impacts.
200
Organic rotations often use these kind of crops like leguminous forage crops in their rotations.
What is non-food crops.
200
Due to an increase in these two things we have seen rapid and immense pedogenesis as well as dramatically altering the type, intensity, and rate of change for many soils
human influence and historical land use
200
Explain why it is important to maintain a soil study benchmark
to baseline our changes off of and determine just how significant pedogenesis is and what is truly occurring
300
To address the criticisms from the first study that concluded organic agriculture matched, or even exceeded, conventional yields, Seufert used several selection criteria:
What is 1. Restricted our analysis to studies of truly organic systems. 2. Only included studies with comparable spatial and temporal scales for both organic and conventional systems. 3. Only include studies reporting sample size and error.
300
We applied several selection criteria to address the criticisms of the previous study and to ensure that minimum scientific standards were met. Studies were only included if they:
What is 1. Reported yield data on individual crop species in an organic treatment and a conventional treatment. 2. The organic treatment was truly organic. 3. Reported primary data. 4. The scale of the organic and conventional yield observations were comparable. 5. Data were not already included from another paper. 6. Reported the mean.
300
When organic systems receive higher quantities of N than conventional systems, organic performance _________, Whereas conventional systems ________________.
What is 1. Improves 2. Do not benefit from more N
300
Explain why it may take soil surveyors several generations to complete full soil surveys which give pertinent information for land managers and policymakers
studies have been done on pedogenic time rather than on the human time scale and thus takes hundreds if not thousands of years
300
For 300 points please explain why there are several different time scales soil change information can be applied to or looked at through as well as which time scale makes the most sense for scientists and average individuals
points based off deeper understanding of anthropogenic time line vs environmental time line
400
_____ studies met this criteria, representing _____ study sites, and ______ organic-to-conventional yield comparisons on ___ different crop species.
What is 1. 66 studies 2. 62 study sites 3. 316 organic-to-conventional yield 4. 34 crop species
400
**Bonus** Tugel- Table 3. Soil organic carbon change in the 0- to 20-cm zone of the Walla Walla soil under various cropping systems Which cropping system is in the most "danger" from organic carbon change in soil?
Grass Pasture
400
These types of yields depend more on knowledge and good management practices, excluding systems that are not N limited.
What is organic yields.
400
With knowledge of cause and effect relationships regarding detrimental soil change, land managers can choose practices and policymakers establish programs that promote positive changes in the soil resource and the environment. Through improved understanding of soil resistance and resilience, decision makers will also be able to do what? And why is this important?
develop management strategies to protect soil functions that may be important in the future. As we know it is important to understand how pedogenesis of soil affects many other areas of the environment effecting even the smallest players in the environment to the largest.
400
Please explain why Tugel et al. emphasize that the fact that the 6 steps to complete a soil survey are a blueprint for performing the study but NOT an implementation plan
Points determined based on deeper understanding of why this cannot be a set implementation plan.
500
It is important to consider the food output per unit area and time when comparing these two yields.
What is organic and conventional yields.
500
**Bonus** Seufert- "Organic agriculture also performs better under certain agroecological conditions" What are these conditions? (or give an example from the article)
"Organic legumes or perennials, on weak-acidic to weak-alkaline soils, in rain fed conditions, achieve yields that are only 5% lower than conventional yields."
500
To understand better the performance of organic agriculture, we should:
What is 1. Systematically analyze the long-term performance of organic agriculture under different management regimes. 2. Study organic systems under a wider range of biophysical conditions. 3. Examine the relative yield performance of smallholder agricultural systems. 4. Evaluate the performance of farming systems through holistic system metrics.
500
The importance of soil change is that it affects soil function. The ultimate consequences of change depend on its reversibility. ACTING AS POLICY MAKERS does your team believe that through soil studies and different management and policy decisions humans will be able to reverse the immense amount of pedogenesis already occurring? Why or why not? Use in class examples and educated decision making to help explain how the soil change information leads decision makers to understand the depth and interactions between different aspects of the environment, economy, food chain etc.
points based off use of useful decision making or explanation using information from Suefert and Tugel or other articles from class
500
Explain why providing information about the human impacts on soil is not enough to meet resource management needs.
Land managers and other decision makers also need information about naturally driven changes that occur on the human time scale due to unseen challenges and changes caused by humans and other unnatural factors.