Agricultural innovations for sustainable crop production intensification

Abstract

Sustainable crop production intensification should be the primary strategic objective of innovative agronomic research for the coming decades. A range of often very location-specific options exists for farming practices, approaches and technologies that can strengthen sustainability and at the same time intensify crop production in terms of increased output and productivity (efficiency). The main challenge is to encourage farmers in the use of ecologically-appropriate technologies and practices and to ensure that knowledge about sustainable production practices is increasingly accepted, applied and innovated upon by farmers. There is a large but underutilized potential to integrate farmers’ local knowledge with science-based formal knowledge. This integration aims at innovating improved practices and technological options through favourable institutional arrangements to foster an innovation system. The same holds true for the design, implementation and monitoring of improved natural resource management that links community initiatives to new external expertise and knowledge.
A comprehensive effort should also be undertaken to measure different stages of the innovation system, including technological adoption, adaptation and diffusion at the farm level, and to investigate the impact of agricultural policies on technological change, technical efficiency and production intensificatiThis paper provides a review of agronomic management practices supporting sustainable crop production systems and intensification, and testifying to developments in the selection of crops and cultivars. The paper also describes crop farming systems taking a predominantly ecosystem approach and it discusses the scientific application of this approach for the management of pest and weed populations. In addition, it reviews the improvements in fertilizer and nutrient management which are at the basis of productivity growth and it describes the benefits and drawbacks of irrigation technologies. Finally, it suggests a way forward based on seven changes in agricultural development that heighten the need to examine how innovation occurs in the agricultural sector.