| Cover | 1
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| Dear Readers/Contents | 2-3
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| Monocultures towards sustainability - Editorial | 4-5
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| ILEIA editorial team |
| The prevailing global trends in agriuclture support the growth of monocultures, which are often seen as unsustainable. The productivity and sustianbility of annual food crops is of extreme importance ... |  |
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| Soybeans for dairy products - a good deal? | 6-7
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| Brazil is the second largest soybena grower in the world, producing around 30 million tons per year, a great part of which is exported to the EU for its extensive diary industry. Specialisation in soy... | |
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| Sustaining the Green Revolution by resource conserving technologies: The Rice Wheat Consortium's example | 8-10
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| Peter R. Hobbs, Raj Gupta, JK Ladha, Larry Harrington |
| The Rice Wheat Consortium in South East Asia has joined hands with farmers in developing resource conserving technologies to improve production and ecologise the rice-wheat system in the Indo Gangetic... | |
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| No-tillage rice wheat cultivation: the one straw revolution | 11
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| Chris Evans |
| The Jajarkot Permaculture Programme is a grassroots NGO working in four districts of Nepal. As its name suggests, it is based on permaculture, a technique of sustainable systems' design using the dire... | |
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| Update on the System of Rice Intensification | 12
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| The ecological System of Rice Intensification (SRI) developed in Madagascar gives remarkably good results. Hundreds of farmers have increased their irrigated rice yields to 6-10 and even 15 tonnnes. T... | |
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| How to grow winter wheat? The Fukuoka-Bonfils method | 13
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| Marc Bonfils |
| The author has experimented with alternative cultural measures for the production of winter wheat in the region of Beauce, France. Over the years, he has developed a system that embraces the general p... | |
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| In defense of monocultures | 14-15
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| David Wood |
| Crop monocultures are almost universally decried as unnatural, ecologically sysfunctional, and a threat to sustainable agriculture. This "defense of monocultures" questions the sole reliance... | |
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| Ecologising rice-based systems in Bangladesh | 16-17
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| Marco Barzman, Luther Das |
| Farming in Bangladesh is increasingly showing signs of unsustainability. The New Options for Pest Management (NOPEST) project implemented by CARE-Bangladesh is following a Farmer Field School approach... | |
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| Organic cotton: the experience of family farmers from Taudi, Brazil | 18-19
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| Pedro Jorge BF Lima, Teogenes Senna Oliveira |
| For more than two decades now, the so-called "cotton crisis" strikes in the semi ared Northeastern region of Brazil. In 1990, a local NHO, ESPLAR, began researching and developing an agroeco... | |
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| Crop associations: the Cuban response to scarcity of inputs | 20
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| Maria de los Angeles Pino, Humberto Rios Labrada |
| After the collapse of the socialist countries in 1989, the share of monoculture-based agriculture in Cuba diminished drastically. At the same time, farmers and scientists began to look for alternative... | |
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| Conversion to organic farming: a project approach from China | 21
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| Johanna Pennarz |
| The Organic Farming Development Project co-operates with advisory staff and experts from agricultural universities and local governments to support farmers in converting to organic farming. The projec... | |
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| From Sugarcane monoculture to agro-ecological village | 22-23
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| Lindsey Mulkins, Roger Samson, Amongo, Emmanual Yap, Teodoro Mendoza, Ben Ramos |
| The Flora community in Negros, the sugar basket of the Philippines, diversified the former sugarcane hacienda to become more food and energy self-reliant through its transition into an agro-ecological... | |
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| Farmer field schools for ecological potato production in the Andes | 24-25
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| Stephen Sherwood, Rebecca Nelson, Graham Thiele, Oscar Ortiz |
| Various partners are working with farmers to strengthen local innovative capacity as a means of enhancing production and integrated management of potato in the Andes. Groups in Ecuador, Peru and Boliv... | |
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| Mahaweli settlers in Sri Lanka diversify their farms using Farm Planning | 26-27
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| Alice de Jonge |
| In the huge irrigated agricultural settlements of the Mahaweli in Sri Lanka, farmers are up against the ever-decreasing profitability of rice monocropping. Farm Planning for Sustainable Farming, intro... | |
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| Evaluating the sustainability of integrated peasantry systems: The MESMIS Framework | 28-30
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| Santiago Lopez-Ridaura, Osmar Masera, Marta Astier |
| How can the sustainability of an agroecosystem be evaluated? How does a given strategy impact on the overall sustainability of the natural resource management system? What is the appropriate approach?... | |
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| The new ILEIA team | 28-30
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| If you want to know more | 31
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| Networking | 32
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| New in print | 33-35
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| Back page | 36
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