Sustainable Agricultural Development

Sustainable agricultural systems are crucial for ensuring food security, conserving natural resources and mitigating climate change. Innovations in this field play a crucial role in improving agricultural practices to make them more environmentally friendly, economically viable and socially responsible. By implementing the innovative approaches and technologies, sustainable agricultural systems can help address the challenges facing agriculture in the 21st century and build a more resilient and sustainable food system for the future. This multidisciplinary book focuses on the best practices in a range of areas, such as: I. Intelligent agricultural techniques, tools and systems; II. Sustainability in veterinary practice; III. Economic, ecological and social systems for human development; IV. Sustainable development of agricultural production. This book is a truly interdisciplinary publication, useful to scholars, social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies and private companies.

This book provides an insight into the background, lessons learned, and the methodology of facilitating the application of best-bet/best-fit agricultural technologies to smallholder farms in East and Southern Africa (ESA). All technologies highlighted within this book, except those on livestock feeding, were trialed and demonstrated in farmers' fields over an eight-year period [2012 - 2020] as part of the Feed the Future/USAID funded research-for-development Africa RISING ESA Project and supported by the CGIAR. The livestock feed technologies were compiled from Eastern Africa literature and included to offer a full set of technologies relevant for farmers in mixed farming systems. Topics covered include the introduction of resilient and nutrient-dense crops, better arrangement of crops in the field to amplify intercrop benefits, and the management of soils to improve soil fertility and minimize physical soil and nutrient loss. The publication also features technologies for postharvest loss reduction, livestock feeding, food processing, and in the later chapters, important expositions on how multiple technologies can be creatively integrated in a farming system and how key products of research can be taken to scale. In the first chapter and throughout the handbook, the importance of taking gender dynamics into account to ensure technologies produce equitable outcomes is emphasized.