Search results for "Sustainable Agriculture"
showing 10 items of 86 documents
Addressing sustainable food management in hotels: proposing a framework and examining hotel groups
2021
Purpose Sustainable food practices have been recognised as a key issue in efforts to improve and report sustainable tourism practices, given the importance of the social, environmental and economic impacts of the food industry throughout its entire chain of production – from farm to fork. From this standpoint, the aim of the present paper is to propose a comprehensive framework for reporting or making decisions concerning sustainable food management in hotels, taking into account the various facets of the food supply chain.Design/methodology/approach Several dimensions are proposed for dealing with sustainable food management, involving all aspects of food supply chains that may be relevant…
Special issue on Trends and challenges of sustainable irrigated agriculture
2014
In the twenty-first century, the shortage of freshwater is one of the most important environmental concerns facing several regions of the world because of the growing demand of increasing population, agricultural intensification, and economic growth. Global climate change will contribute to exacerbate the problem, generating new drought-prone areas and increasing those already characterized by severe aridity. Worldwide it is estimated that, on average, agriculture accounts for 70% of the total water consumption, compared with 10% for domestic consume and the remaining used by industry. Moreover, according to FAO estimates, by 2050 agricultural production has to increase by 60% to satisfy th…
Environmental Sustainability Approaches and Positive Energy Districts: A Literature Review
2021
During the last decade, increasing attention has been paid to the emerging concept of Positive Energy Districts (PED) with the aim of pushing the transition to clean energy, but further research efforts are needed to identify design approaches optimized from the point of view of sustainable development. In this context, this literature review is placed, with a specific focus on environmental sustainability within innovative and eco-sustainable districts. The findings show that some sustainability aspects such as sustainable food, urban heat islands mitigation and co-impacts, e.g., green gentrification, are not adequately assessed, while fragmented thinking limits the potential of circularit…
Innovative and Sustainable Food Business Models
2019
Companies are called upon to solve the great challenges of the new millennium. The food sector, from this point of view, plays a strategic role. Poverty, malnutrition, hunger, climate change, and social inequalities are just some of the trends which the agri-food sector has to cope with. The digital transformation that companies will need to embrace to survive requires new ways of creating, thinking, and working with technology-driven tools to provide value for their businesses and customers. Digitization, whether it pertains to new technologies, the analysis of big data or the development of on-line and spatial applications, can contribute to achieving systemic food production transformati…
Sustainable technologies for greenhouse systems
2020
The greenhouse cultivation system in European countries represents one of the most energy-intensive sectors in the agriculture and agro-industry sector. In this regard, renewable energies represent an innovative solution to reduce energy costs and environmental impacts. Both, the energy demands and the economic aspects are analyzed with regard to the main energy users, i.e.: heating and cooling systems, lighting and pumping for irrigation. This work considers the use of solar photovoltaic and thermal energy. The use of semi-closed greenhouses is also considered.
Constructed Wetlands as Sustainable Technology for the Treatment and Reuse of the First-Flush Stormwater in Agriculture—A Case Study in Sicily (Italy)
2020
This paper describes a case study that was carried out on a Sicilian company (Italy) dealing with separate waste collection and recycling of glass. The aims of this study were to evaluate the overall efficiency of a vertical subsurface flow system (VSSFs) constructed wetland (CW) operating for the treatment of first-flush stormwater and the effects of treated wastewater on the morphological and aesthetic characteristics of ornamental pepper and rosemary plants. The system had a total surface area of 46.80 m2 and was planted with common reed and giant reed. Wastewater samples were taken from October 2018 to July 2019 at the CW inlet and outlet for chemical-physical and microbiological charac…
Sustainability and multifunctionality in Mediterranean cropping systems: the role of medicinal and aromatic plants
2010
Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, shortly termed MAPs, are a huge category of plant species, which have in common their aptitude to supply substances, respectively medicines and flavours, that are or may be used by people for a large number of uses, having a various level of complexity: from plants which are used by man “as they are” or after a minimum transformation, addressed to human food (the spices), or herbal self-therapy (the traditional medicinal plants), it is possible to drop to species employed by highly sophisticated industrial sectors such as perfume or cosmetic industries, passing through almost all intermediate ways and complexities. Many of these plants find the best growing co…
2019
With growing populations and climate change, assuring food and nutrition security is an increasingly challenging task. Climate-smart and sustainable agriculture, that is, conceiving agriculture to be resistant and resilient to a changing climate while keeping it viable in the long term, is probably the best solution. The role of soil biota and particularly arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in this new agriculture is believed to be of paramount importance. However, the large nutrient pools and the microbiota of subsoils are rarely considered in the equation. Here we explore the potential contributions of subsoil AM fungi to a reduced and more efficient fertilization, carbon sequestration, an…
Biocontrol of the Major Plant Pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum in Irrigation Water and Host Plants by Novel Waterborne Lytic Bacteriophages
2019
Three new lytic bacteriophages were found to effectively control the pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, a quarantine bacterium in many countries, and causative agent of bacterial wilt, one of the most important vascular plant diseases. Bacterial wilt management has been carried out with fluctuating effects, suggesting the need to find alternative treatments. In this work, three lytic phages were isolated from environmental water from geographically distant regions in Spain. They proved to specifically infect a collection of R. solanacearum strains, and some of the closely related pathogenic species Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum, without affecting non-target environmental bacteria, and were abl…
Designing disease-resistant crops : from basic knowledge to biotechnology
2020
Ancient records describe how plant diseases were attributed to many causes which included divine power, religious belief, and superstition. Far from these days, we now have detailed knowledge about how plant immunity is executed. Plants employ two types of sensors to perceive and defeat the litany of pathogenic organisms that attack them, whilst microbes deploy a myriad of specialized weapons to suppress immunity and promote infection. This opens a path to exploiting these insights to increase crop resistance. Here we describe novel biotechnological approaches for designing superior disease-resistant crops to fight agricultural losses in the field while reducing chemical inputs, towards a m…