Emergy accounting (EmA) was applied to a range of dairy systems, from low-input smallholder systems in South Mali (SM), to intermediate-input systems in two regions of France, Poitou-Charentes (PC) and Bretagne (BR), to high-input systems on Reunion Island (RI). These systems were studied at three different levels: whole-farm (dairy system and cropping system), dairy-system (dairy herd and forage land), and herd (animals only). Dairy farms in SM used the lowest total emergy at all levels and was the highest user of renewable resources.

A ‘broad brush’ picture of farming in the pastoral zone of NSW is presented in this report. The pastoral zone of NSW is characterised by wide variations in climatic conditions, soil type and vegetation species. Hence representative faming system analysis was conducted for three sub-regions - the Upper Darling, the Murray-Darling and Far West. The regions were defined and described in terms of their resources, climate and the nature of agriculture.

Water is essential not only to maintain the livelihoods of human beings but also to sustain ecosystems. Over the last few decades several global assessments have reviewed current and future uses of water, and have offered potential solutions to a possible water crisis. However, these have tended to focus on water supply rather than on the range of demands for all water services (including those of ecosystems). In this paper, a holistic global view of water resources and the services they provide is presented, using Sankey diagrams as a visualisation tool.

This study investigates how sustainability and its inherent values figure into farmers' discourse, i.e., how farmers and members of farming communities talk about sustainability. We conducted qualitative interviews of various individuals in a single Iowa community to determine whether the visions guiding their land management choices resembled at all the ideals of a sustainable agriculture. Using Kenneth Burke's concepts of identification and division, we rhetorically analyzed the interview transcripts.

SUMMARYThis paper analyses the differences between forestland tenure systems in Canada and the US. Evolution of the two systems is primarily explained by variation of scarcity and land productivity. In early colonial times, Canada's economy was tightly linked to the fur trade with Indian people, while New England's economy was based more on agriculture with more intensive land use.

Historical domestic livestock grazing in sensitive landscapes has commonly been regarded as a major cause of land degradation in Iceland. Shieling areas, where milking livestock were taken to pasture for the summer, represented one element of grazing management and in this paper we consider the extent to which historical shieling-based grazing pressure contributed to land degradation.

Understanding both the carbon dynamics within Australia’s northern savannas and the opportunities presented through diversification into carbon markets is of relevance to pastoral land managers both in Australia and globally. The Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC), through its role in assisting Indigenous people to acquire and manage land for cultural, social, environmental and economic benefits, has operated in the carbon market and is keen to continue working with its partners to explore the opportunities to develop and broaden this further.

The Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP) was initiated in China in 2000 to address environmental degradation. In northern China, the central goal of the program is to entice sustainable transitions in resource uses through subsidizing cropland afforestation and grassland exclosure. This study, based on a household survey in Shabianzi, an agropastoral community in the Mu Us Sandy Land, examines farmers' responses to and the environmental outcome of the GTGP.

Mountain regions meet an increasing demand for pleasant landscapes, offering many cultural ecosystem services to both their residents and tourists. As a result of global change, land managers and policy makers are faced with changes to this landscape and need efficient evaluation techniques to assess cultural ecosystem services. This study provides a spatially explicit modelling approach to estimating aesthetic landscape values by relating spatial landscape patterns to human perceptions via a photo-based survey.

Since the late 1980s, sustainable land management is one of the objectives of the European Commission in Less Favoured Areas. In this paper, we investigate the economic and environmental sustainability of farming systems in two less favoured areas in Centro and Alentejo areas of Portugal. The specific objectives were the following: (i) to characterise the farming systems; (ii) to analyse their development over a 20‐year period (1989–2009); and (iii) to investigate to what extent these farming systems contribute to sustainable land management.

This report exemplifies the short, well-focuses formal survey emphasized in CIMMYT's on-farm research procedures. The survey was done in northern Veracruz, Mexico, where CIMMYT Maize Production Training carries out on-farm experiments. The report summarizes farmers' circumstances, describes management practices in maize, and draws conclusions for research opportunities.