Species rich grasslands provide ecosystem services such as floral and faunal diversity, livestock forage, carbon sequestration and water regulation. However, the best combinations of sward diversity and management intensity to achieve the above-mentioned ecosystem services are not fully known. To address …

The majority of Dutch peatlands are drained and used intensively as grasslands for dairy farming. This delivers high productivity but causes severe damage to the provisioning of ecosystem services. Peatland rewetting is the best way to reverse the damage, but high water levels do not fit with intensive …

Climate change is undermining the importance and sustainability of cooperatives as important organizations in small holder agriculture in developing countries. To adapt, cooperatives could apply carbon farming practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance their business by increasing yields, …

Organic farming is increasingly promoted as a means to reduce the environmental impact of artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics in conventional dairy systems. These factors potentially affect the microbial communities of the production stages (soil, silage, dung, and milk) of …

Wine consumption is decreasing for many decades, but organic products demand is increasing. To counter the image of Spanish wines which is “poor quality and cheap wines” because of their big quantity production and their low prices, Spanish wine producers change their farming method. Spain ranks first …

Past decades traditional agricultural landscapes characterized by a wide variety of grasslands, field boundaries, watercourses, and trees started to disappear. Population growth required an ever-increasing demand for food and traditional agricultural systems were converted to monocultures. With this …

The dairy sector in the Netherlands aims for a 30% increase in efficiency and 30% carbon dioxide emission reduction compared to the reference year of 1990, and a 20% share of renewable energy, all by the year 2020. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can play a substantial role in achieving these aims. However, …

Anaerobic digestion (AD) can play an important role in achieving the renewable energy goals set within the European Union. Within this article the focus is placed on reaching the Dutch local renewable production goal set for the year 2020 with locally available biomass waste flows, avoiding intensive …

Stichting Probos ziet kansen voor wilgenenergieplantages in kippenuitlopen en heeft daarom een pilotproject opgezet. Gevraagd is onderzoek uit te voeren naar de totale potentie waarbij de kansen, kosten en baten zijn onderzocht. Tot nu toe zijn er geen ervaringen met wilgenplantages in de kippenuitloop …

In order to receive a licence to produce, poultry farmers have to take into account societal demands, among others: animal welfare, healthy working conditions for the workers and landscape quality. A way to reach a combination of these goals is to create a design for the poultry house and outdoor run. …