agribusiness

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In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in food production, including farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales. The term has two distinctly different connotations depending on context.

Within the agriculture industry, agribusiness is widely used simply as a convenient portmanteau of agriculture and business, referring to the range of activities and disciplines encompassed by modern food production. There are academic degrees in and departments of agribusiness, agribusiness trade associations, agribusiness publications, and so forth, worldwide. Here, the term is only descriptive, and is synonymous in the broadest sense with food industry.

Among critics of large-scale, industrialized, vertically integrated food production, the term agribusiness is used as a negative, synonymous with corporate farming. As such, it is often contrasted with family farm. Some negative connotation is also derived from the negative associations of "business" and "corporation" from critics of capitalism or corporate excess.

An example of an agribusiness is the Old North State Winegrowers Cooperative in North Carolina. Wine grape farmers come together to not only sell their grapes but to share a winery, winemaker and marketing brand together.

Individual industrial agriculture farm

Major challenges and issues faced by individual industrial agriculture farms include:

• integrated farming systems
• crop sequencing
• water use efficiency
• nutrient audits
• herbicide resistance
• financial instruments (such as futures and options)
• collect and understand own farm information;
• knowing your products
• knowing your markets
• knowing your customers
• satisfying customer needs
• securing an acceptable profit margin
• cost of servicing debt;
• ability to earn and access off-farm income;
• management of machinery and stewardship investments.^[1]

Integrated farming systems

See also: Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture and Zero waste agriculture

An integrated farming system is a progressive biologically integrated sustainable agriculture system such as Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture or Zero waste agriculture whose implementation requires exacting knowledge of the interactions of numerous species and whose benefits include sustainability and increased profitability.

Elements of this integration can include:

• intentionally introducing flowering plants into agricultural ecosystems to increase pollen-and nectar-resources required by natural enemies of insect pests^[2]
• using crop rotation and cover crops to suppress nematodes in potatoes^[3]

Crop sequencing

Main article: Crop rotation

Satellite image of circular crop fields in Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn would be growing into leafy stalks by then. Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and would be much smaller and therefore, (possibly) paler. Wheat is a brilliant gold as harvest occurs in June. Fields of brown have been recently harvested and plowed under or lie fallow for the year.

Crop rotation or crop sequencing is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same space in sequential seasons for various benefits such as to avoid the build up of pathogens and pests that often occurs when one species is continuously cropped. Crop rotation also seeks to balance the fertility demands of various crops to avoid excessive depletion of soil nutrients. A traditional component of crop rotation is the replenishment of nitrogen through the use of green manure in sequence with cereals and other crops. It is one component of polyculture. Crop rotation can also improve soil structure and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants.

Water use efficiency

Main article: Water conservation

Overhead irrigation, center pivot design

Crop irrigation accounts for 70% of the world's fresh water use.^[4] The agricultural sector of most countries is important both economically and politically, and water subsidies are common. Conservation advocates have urged removal of all subsidies to force farmers to grow more water-efficient crops and adopt less wasteful irrigation techniques.

For crop irrigation and plant irrigation, optimal water efficiency means minimizing losses due to evaporation or runoff. An Evaporation pan can be used to determine how much water is required to irrigate the land. Flood irrigation, the oldest and most common type, is often very uneven in distribution, as parts of a field may receive excess water in order to deliver sufficient quantities to other parts. Overhead irrigation, using center-pivot or lateral-moving sprinklers, gives a much more equal and controlled distribution pattern, but in extremely dry conditions much of the water may evaporate befare it reaches the ground. Drip irrigation is the most expensive and least-used type, but offers the best results in delivering water to plant roots with minimal losses.

As changing irrigation systems can be a costly undertaking, conservation efforts often concentrate on maximizing the efficiency of the existing system. This may include chiseling compacted soils, creating furrow dikes to prevent runoff, and using soil moisture and rainfall sensors to optimize irrigation schedules.^[5]

Water catchment management measures include recharge pits, which capture rainwater and runoff and use it to recharge ground water supplies. This helps in the formation of ground water wells etc. and eventually reduces soil erosion caused due to running water.

Nutrient audits

Better nutrient audits allow farmers to spend less money on nutrients and to create less pollution since less nutrient is added to the soil and thus there is less to run off and pollute. Methodologies for assessing soil nutrient balances have been studied and used for farms and entire countries for decades.^[6] But at present "there is no standard methodology for calculating nutrient budgets and there are no accepted 'benchmarks' figures against which to assess farm nutrient use efficiency. [A standard methodology] for calculating nutrient budgets on farms [is hoped to help reduce] diffuse water and air pollution from agriculture [through] best management practices in the use of fertilisers and organic manures, as part of the continued development of economically and environmentally sustainable farming systems."^[7]

Herbicide resistance

Main article: Weed control

In agriculture large scale and systematic weeding is usually required, often by machines, such as liquid herbicide sprayers. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often based on plant hormones. Weed control through herbicide is made more difficult when the weeds become resistant to the herbicide. Solutions include:

• using a different herbicide
• using a different crop (e.g. genetically altered to be herbicide resistant; which ironically can create herbicide resistant weeds through horizontal gene transfer)
• ploughing
• ground cover such as mulch or plastic
• manual removal

Sources and notes

1. ^ The Regional Institute article EVOLUTION OF THE FARM OFFICE
2. ^ Oregon State University - Integrated Farming Systems - Insectary Plantings - Enhancing Biological Control with Beneficial Insectary Plants
3. ^ Oregon State University - Integrated Farming Systems - Nematode Supression by Cover Crops
4. ^ Pimentel, Berger, et al., "Water resources: agricultural and environmental issues", BioScience 54.10 (Oct 2004), p909
5. ^ US EPA, "Clean Water Through Conservation", Practices for Agricultural Users
6. ^ FAO Methodologies for assessing soil nutrient balances
7. ^ DEFRA

See also

• Biofuel
• Energy crop
• Factory farming
• List of environment topics

External links

• Cornell Food and Brand Lab [1]

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