With the rapid growth of biofuel production and consumption and the proliferation of policy decisions supporting this expansion, concerns about the biofuel sector’s environmental and social impacts are increasing. Consequently, a range of actors – among them governments, multilateral institutions, nongovernmental organisations and multistakeholder industry groups – have created sustainability frameworks, some mandatory, others voluntary. This report examines how the most developed sustainability frameworks for feedstock production (including biofuels) address key environmental issues.

A major strategy towards addressing soil fertility depletion is the conservation and sustainable use of rhizobia that are able to fix nitrogen in the soil in association with legumes. The study assessed abundance and diversity of legume nodulating rhizobia (LNB) in soils collected from six different land use systems in Embu District, Kenya. The populations were estimated by the most-probable-number (MPN) plant infection technique using Macroptilium atropurpureum (DC.) Urban (Siratro) as the trap host species.

Reviews procedures for obtaining reliable information on animal populations, other ecological features and land use generally from low-flying aircraft by direct observation or conventional photography, with reference to types of sampling unit, and the relative merits of unstratified systematic and stratified random sampling.

The abundance and diversity of soil mites was monitored along a gradient of land use types (LUTs) during the wet seasons in soils of Taita Taveta, Kenya. Sampling of mites from soils was carried out in eight LUTs which included maize-based system (Zea mays), coffee (Coffea Arabica), horticulture, napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), fallow, pine (Pinus patula), cypress (Cypressus lusitanica), natural forest. LUT significantly influenced abundance, richness and diversity of the soil mites.

About 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from landuse, landuse change and forestry (LULUCF) and mostly are from deforestation in the tropics. In March 2001 the Centre for International Forestry Research facilitated an international workshop to identify a global agenda of high priority research questions key to research areas related to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and LULUCF.

AEPS, Agricultura Específica por sitio, es un conjunto de métodos y herramientas que permiten colectar información de experiencias productivas comerciales, analizar datos con métodos novedosos y generar información que le servirá a productores, asistentes técnicos y entidades del sector agrícola, para tomar mejores decisiones sobre donde sembrar, cuando sembrar, que sembrar y que prácticas de manejo aplicar, cuando se cuenta con ciertas condiciones específicas de clima y suelo.

The technological and institutional requirements needed for a broader distribution and adoption of new cropping technologies are indicated, using as example the case of changes in land use by soybean growers of the Brazilian Cerrados. In Brazil, soybean had contributed significantly to economic development, accounting for 8 percent of total exports. The current survey was conducted on a red-yellow Latosol in southeastern Minas Gerais. In 1986, 72 percent of this area was under annual crops and 11 percent under pastures.

Food shortage in sub-Saharan Africa is generally considered a function of limited access to food, with little thought to nutritional quality. Analyzing household production of nutrients across farming systems could be valuable in guiding the improvement of those systems. An optimization model was employed to analyze the scenario of human nutrition and cropland allocation in enset (Enset ventricosum)/root crop-based and cereal-based systems of the Ethiopian Highlands.