| Cover | 1
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| Contents | 2-3
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| Ecological processes at work - Editorial | 4-5
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| ILEIA editorial team |
| Agriculture is based on the same ecological processes, interactions and ecosystem services that occur in the natural environment – although this fact sometimes appears to have been forgotten in the dr... |  |
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| The System of Rice Intensification and its implications for agriculture | 6-8
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| Norman Uphoff |
| The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) reported on by several other contributors to this and previous issues of the LEISA Magazine is casting new light upon both “modern” agriculture and agroecologi... | |
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| Managing pests through plant diversification | 9-11
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| Miguel A. Altieri, Luigi Ponti, Clara I. Nicholls |
| Agroecology provides guidelines for developing diversified agroecosystems that take advantage of the integration of plant and animal biodiversity. Successful integration of plants and animals can stre... | |
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| Powdered rock to revitalise soils | 12-13
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| Edinei de Almeida, Fabio Junior Pereira da Silva, Ricardo Ralisch |
| Groups of farmer experimenters in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil have been experimenting with different techniques to manage the soil fertility in their fields. One method they have be... | |
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| The Mambwe mound cultivation system | 14-15
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| John Andrew Siame (Dr.) |
| In the Northern Province of Zambia, many small scale farmers practise shifting cultivation (known locally as chitemene) in the miombo woodlands. Though farmers are able to grow an average of three suc... | |
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| Managing organic resources for soil amendment | 16-17
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| Michael Misiko, Ken Giller, Pablo Tittonell |
| Soil fertility management is a key issue for sustaining agricultural production in the tropics. Organic resources are important for short-term nutrient availability, as well as for longer-term mainten... | |
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| Conservation Farming in rural Zimbabwe | 18-19
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| Carolyn W. Fanelli, Lovemore Dumba |
| Conservation Farming takes advantage of natural ecological processes to conserve moisture, enhance soil fertility, and improve soil structure, and to reduce soil erosion and the presence of diseases a... | |
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| Improving the jhum system in Bangladesh | 20-21
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| Stephan Mantel, Mohammed Mohiuddin, Jose Ramon Olarieta, Fida Malik A. Khan, M. Khairul Alam, Mozaharul Alam |
| The Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh differ in many respects to the rest of the country. A mountainous area, it is geographically part of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. Demographic and environmen... | |
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| Ecological processes and farmer livelihoods in shaded coffee production | 22-23
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| Christopher Bacon, V. Ernesto Méndez |
| Shade coffee agroecosystems have exceptional potential for the conservation of tropical plant and animal species, in addition to producing high quality coffee. This article shows how this potential is... | |
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| Farmers' understanding of soil processes | 24
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| Julie Grossman, Ph.D. |
| Coffee production in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, is a means of survival for many indigenous farmers. Since the early 1990s, when government loans for fertilizer dried up, most small-scale farmers in... | |
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| SRI takes root in Nepal | 25-27
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| Rajendra Uprety |
| Rice is the crop which contributes most to Nepal’s national economy and is the main staple food for its people. But despite a lot of investment and efforts, the productivity of rice in Nepal has remai... | |
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| Adapting SRI in Tamil Nadu, India | 28-29
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| T.M. Thiyagarajan |
| Tamil Nadu is India’s southernmost state. About two million hectares of rice is grown, mostly under irrigation, with an average yield of 5 t/ha. Average rice productivity is the highest in the country... | |
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| SRI in context: lessons from the field | 30-31
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| Willem A. Stoop |
| The development of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) over the past two decades has generated a variety of responses from farmers and scientists. These responses are illustrative of the gap that... | |
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| Beyond technical solutions | 31
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| Edwin van der Maden |
| SRI is a promising option for addressing the problem of limited water availability. However, any solution needs to consider more than just the technical aspects. | |
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| Sources | 32-33
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| Networking | 34
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| New Books | 35
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| Introducing a new partner | 36
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| Andreas Wilkes |
| CBIK is a Chinese NGO based in Yunnan province. Established in 1995, it currently has 22 staff, and more than 100 members. CBIK is dedicated to promoting the sustainable utilisation of biodiversity to... | |
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