AUTHORS

Bianca Dendena

carried out her studies at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Milan, where she took a B.Sc. in Environmental and Land Agritechnology, a M.Sc. in Agro-Environmental Sciences and a PhD in Plant Biology and Crop Production. She completed her studies and obtained a MSc in Land Management at Cranfield University, UK. In 2012 she joined the Italian NGO COOPI - Cooperazione Internazionale, as a researcher on policy and guidelines development focusing on food security, gender and disaster risk reduction sectors. She also collaborated with THINK! The Innovation Knowledge Foundation on a study on the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in humanitarian programs. She currently collaborates with the Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods of the University of Milan and with the Centro Interuniversitario per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo Agro-alimentare e Ambientale (CICSAA) to the development of cooperation and research projects in emerging countries.

Silvia Grassi

carried out her studies at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Milan, where she obtained a B.Sc. in Science and Technology Catering (2008), a M.Sc. in Science in Food and Human Nutrition (2010) and a Ph.D. in Innovation for the Agri-Food and Environmental Sciences (2014) with a project entitled Food Fermentations: innovative approach through spectroscopic techniques. During the Ph.D. she spent almost one year as a host researcher at the Department of Food Science of the University of Copenhagen. At a later stage, she collaborated with the Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences of the University of Milan, investigating the environmental impact and animal welfare in pig production chain to improve profitability and ensure sustainability. These experiences contributed to the achievement of a comprehensive knowledge on production processes, food and consumer.

Eugenio Demartini

Eugenio was born in Milan in 1983. Since December 2013 he is Researcher at the Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA) of the University of Milan and teaches Microeconomics and Business Management. He graduated in Food Sciences and Technologies and earned in 2012 a PhD in Technological Innovation for Environmental and Agro-Food Sciences - Curriculum of Agricultural Economics and Policy - at the University of Milan. The main topics of his studies are the analysis of consumers’ preferences and environmental policy by means of data reduction techniques.

Chiara Mancini

Chiara Mancini is a PhD student in Agrobioscience, curriculum Genomics and Crop Science at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa. The topic of her studies focuses on the analysis local durum wheat diversity to support the adaptation of farmer systems to a changing climate in Ethiopia. She is researcher fellow at Bioversity International, a global research-for-development organization. In 2010 she graduated in Ecobiology at Sapienza University of Rome. Her work includes the investigation about environmental, social and plant sciences to study plant genetic resources and agricultural development.

Maria Valentina Lasorella

Maria Valentina graduated at the Faculty of Agriculture with a PhD in Agrobioscience with a focus on the assessment of energy crops in Mediterranean areas at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa. Currently she is Research Assistant of CRA-INEA and she is working in the area of agricultural and rural development. She contributed to research projects financed by EU and she is also working as Project manager, writing proposal for NGOs ONLUS working in developing countries.

Giuseppe Pignata

Giuseppe Pignata, graduated in Agri-Food Science and Technology in 2010, is conducting the PhD on innovative soilless cultivation systems in protected cultivations for baby leafy vegetables, medicinal and aromatic plants of premium quality, and on them postharvest management as fresh-cut product. He is Research Assistant in the Group of Vegetable Crops & Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Dept. of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (DiSAFA) of the University of Turin, Italy. He gained international exposure since the beginning of the doctoral program, participating to International Symposiums in Italy, France and Malaysia, working in Germany, and being invited speaker in China and in Poland.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This publication is to be intended as a talk on the concept of sustainability, first by exploring the meaning of the word as it was introduced and then by retracing some key facets that it has gradually assumed over last few years. Apart from reporting on the wide debate the term ‘sustainability’ has been central to, the present publication collects some interesting applications of the concept in the framework of agriculture and food production, particularly in light of the main challenges we will have to face in the near future: worldwide trends pushing towards an increased food production in against an alarming reduction of available environmental resources.

Food production:
have we come to a turning point?

Edited by

Bianca Dendena and Silvia Grassi

© 2015 Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

Via Romagnosi 3, 20121 Milano (MI)

www.fondazionefeltrinelli.it

ISBN 978-88-6835-319-3

Prima edizione digitale luglio 2015

Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Nessuna parte di questo volume può essere riprodotta, memorizzata o trasmessa in alcuna forma o con alcun mezzo elettronico, meccanico, in disco o in altro modo, compresi cinema, radio, televisione, senza autorizzazione scritta dalla Fondazione. Le riproduzioni effettuate per finalità di carattere professionale, economico o commerciale o comunque per uso diverso da quello personale possono essere effettuate a seguito di specifica autorizzazione rilasciata da Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

Testi di Eugenio Demartini, Maria Valentina Lasorella, Chiara Mancini, Giuseppe Pignata.

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UTOPIE

Food production:
have we come to a turning point?

Multidisciplinarity, the value of thinking big

The present publication is the result of some kind of experiment that was conducted by the Feltrinelli Foundation for the first time in April 2014 in the framework of Laboratorio EXPO project. On that occasion, twenty post-graduate and PhD students gathered in Milan, selected by screening more than 140 applications received. They attended a temporary residential college focused on the themes of agriculture and nutrition. At the end of five intense days of talks and debates on sustainable agriculture, biotechnology application, nutrition security, economics and energy use efficiency, our students were asked to deliver a comprehensive review on the topic central to their studies, by building on the experience they went through while attending the EXPOschool.

The choice of focusing on agriculture and nutrition is certainly due to the relevance these themes have in the framework of the EXPO 2015 currently running in Milan. What is more, they have been brought together under the lenses of the analytical approach framed during the EXPOschool as, though intimately connected to one another, agriculture and nutrition are commonly examined separately, each featuring its own issues and possible solutions.

However, the present conditions that point to a fast changing environment clearly show that this is not the case. Global trends in population growth, transportation, information technology, economic dependency, natural resource exploitation and food consumption patterns are creating a pressing need to take on large scale challenges where food production dynamics are overlapping and strictly connected with nutrition related issues. In this framework, we do need to think about what approaching and investigating agriculture and nutrition means and which disciplines are affected in the pursue of advancing our global knowledge and ability to live sustainably on a stressed planet.

In this sense, both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research look promising as they can be more effective by involving substantial interactions between the disciplinary and any interdisciplinary researchers involved. Such an interconnection of subjects can allow the members of the interdisciplinary team to understand the strengths and limitations of the disciplinary contributions from all their fellow team members. The real step forward is that the focus is on the problem and its solutions, instead of the individual disciplinary perspectives and solutions. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of his parts.

With no multidisciplinary conceptual framework and with no multidisciplinary researchers to work with disciplinary researchers to integrate the contributions from different disciplines with the aim of identifying tailored and feasible solutions, progress is likely to be slow.

The challenge that our students were, thus, asked to take on was to contribute to shape a new thinking, where their specific disciplinary competencies would intertwine with those of the other participants. The results of their effort, as well as the complementarity of their thorough analysis, emerge from the collection of their review papers, whose high value does endorse the relevance of multidisciplinarity in light of the future challenges we will have to face in the next future.

Summary

Multidisciplinarity, the value of thinking big

1. What do we talk about when we talk about sustainability?

1.1. Beyond agricultural sustainability: a discussion about opportunities and opportunisms

1.2. The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development in Emerging Markets

2. Under pressure food resources

2.1. Agriculture and climate change in developing countries: issues and challenges

2.2. Water and nutrient use efficiency in greenhouse systems and its application in horticulture in arid zones

References

1. What do we talk about when we talk about sustainability?

Food production systems aiming at making the best use out of environmental goods and services without damaging these assets adhere to the concept of sustainability, whose application in agriculture has been widely explored. Amongst the principles central to sustainability in this regard there are:

(i) integrate biological and ecological processes such as nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration, competition, predation and parasitism into food production processes;

(ii) minimize the use of non-renewable inputs causing harm to the environment or humans;

(iii) make productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers by improving their self-reliance and substituting human capital for costly external inputs;

(iv) make productive use of people’s collective capacities to solve common problems derived from agricultural and natural resource management.

Interestingly, agricultural systems based on these principles tend to be multifunctional within landscapes and economies. Indeed, they jointly produce food and other goods while contributing to a range of valued public goods, wildlife and habitats conservation, carbon sequestration, groundwater recharge and landscape protection.

In order to make the best use of environmental resources for ensuring sustainability of production systems, technologies and practices these systems rely on must be locally adapted and properly fitted to place. Particularly relevant for the identification of new practices and technologies, as well as for their retrieval, export and up-scale, are the social and human assets constituting the fabric where such practices and technologies are to be implemented. Indeed, agricultural systems with high levels of social and human assets are more able to innovate and adapt in light of uncertainty, which is currently a key issue.

The close interrelationship between technical (i.e. practices and technologies) and social factors (i.e. social and human) points to the wide variability of pathways towards agricultural sustainability, and further implies that no single configuration of technologies, inputs and ecological management is more likely to be widely applicable than another. In this sense, a common, though erroneous, assumption extensively made in the past about agricultural sustainability is that it would necessarily imply a return to extensive systems characterized by a net reduction in input use. However, such an approach would in turn result in more land required per unit of production, which is contrast with the current global needs. An alternative concept that has emerged is the one that focuses on intensification of resources, meant as a better use of existing resources (e.g. land, water, biodiversity) and technologies. This model of intensification, based on the use of best available technologies, inputs and practices while minimizing the harm to the environment, could indeed be considered sustainable. However, such a model, while ideally providing a solution for feeding the world without compromising the possibility for the future generations to do so, rises the critical question on the ‘type of intensification’ to be applied, thus leaving open its effective applicability.

Several questions, therefore, need to be thoroughly considered as well as the several facets they come along with.

The first question that certainly arises is what is meant by referring to ‘sustainability’, whose popularity has grown since its introduction in the late 80s. Framing such a key term is central for identifying implications and outcomes of its implementation.

1.1. Beyond agricultural sustainability: a discussion about opportunities and opportunisms

Eugenio Demartini

Department of Health, Animal Science and Food Safety (VESPA) – Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract

The term “sustainability” raised more and more popularity since the definition given in 1987 by Brundtland Commission. Some reflections are presented about its success with particular reference to the agricultural systems starting from the consideration that despite sustainability being a well-working concept, its definition is so wide and its goals are so difficult to be reached contemporaneously, that scientists tend to interpret it in different ways in their studies, while policy-makers sometimes use it as a claim. The paper is aimed at reopening the discussion around its usefulness and the risk of the possible oversimplification of the concept. In this sense, the case of biodiesel and bioethanol’s subsidization plans and the reaction of Governments and researchers after the Food Crisis is presented.

Review of the literature offers some interesting results. First of all, plans for sustainable development seem to be ideal, by definition they should focus contemporaneously on economic, ecologic and social goals, act at local level, respecting global needs and have the ability to evolve following people’s needs. Furthermore, researchers apply different definitions and interpretations of sustainability, which makes credibility of its operational utilisation decrease. Nonetheless, policy makers still use the concept of sustainability, sometimes with dangerous outcomes; we cite the case of first generation biofuels showing that Government’s attitudes seem to change, while the economic determinant still drive final political choices. Finally, we propose to be “not-dogmatic” and re-integrate complexity into sustainability’s concept, excluding oversimplification and claims.

The reflections we present derive from an epistemological debate which arose together with the definition of sustainability and is very far to being closed. This is the reason why we encourage researchers and Institutions to contribute with new studies and new discussions, because so far it seems like we are fighting for sustainable development but we are not sure how to measure our performances.

Introduction

The term “sustainability” raised more and more popularity since the definition given in 1987 by Brutland Commission. When the famous document Our Common Future (Bruntland, 1987) was published on behalf of the United Nations, the whole world started to apply the definition of sustainable development as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In the following pages some reflections will be presented about its success with particular reference to the agricultural systems, presenting a relatively new perspective, let say “not-dogmatic” one. The starting point is the simple consideration that despite sustainability being a used concept, its definition is so wide and its goals are so difficult to be reached contemporaneously, that scientists tend to interpret it in different ways in their studies, while policy-makers sometimes use it as a claim. Thus, the declared goal of the present paper is to discuss if it is a significant concept and why and under which conditions it can be used to make choices for a better future, which is what all the people, from scientists to citizens, are (at least rationally) interested in.

Nonetheless, it is important to be aware that this is a very big issue, which has been debated from the beginning of the history of sustainability. About ten years after the Commission’s works, some researchers (Francis et al., 1989; Pretty, 1995; Hansen, 1996; Smith and McDonald, 1998) published works that were to open the discussion about how to pass from an “agricultural sustainability” concept to operational advice for stakeholders at different levels. Despite the arguments, that will be discussed briefly in the next paragraph, what simply emerged from their papers is that whilst a philosophical definition was working in driving people’s concerns to a new consciousness about economic, environmental and social limits of some development models, the first practical applications were heterogeneous, deriving from different interpretation of the basic concept. That was, and still is, the fundamental dilemma for those who deal with agricultural sustainability assessment: if there is more than one way to interpret its definition, does that definition stand? and, does it permit policy-makers to use it as a claim?

The present paper does not contain the answers to these questions, nor probably will any other paper in the future, but there are some reasons why they are worth being discussed: (1) scientists should recognize that any study which does not cover the three pillars of sustainability should not be considered a “sustainability assessment” and this is very hard to do; but, (2) as a matter of fact, the term “agricultural sustainability” actually works somehow in driving people’s consciousness, so normally scientists bypass the philosophical issue and use it; nonetheless, (3) a serious epistemological discussion about its significance would help to identify the intersections between science’s means and policy-makers’ requests, i.e. reduce the gap between the two parts; and (4) reducing the gap would reasonably improve policy-makers responsibility in front of declared goals of their plans.

The remaining paper is structured in three sections. Section 2. presents a brief summary of the ways sustainable development and agricultural sustainability has been interpreted. Section 3 deals with the discussion around the sustainability of biodiesel and bioethanol production, the impact on the global agro-food system and the European energy policy. Finally, in Section 4 some recommendations are proposed within a discussion paragraph.

How many “sustainabilities” are there in science?

The dualism between the affirmation of sustainability’s concept and its difficult translation in operative policy planning has stimulated a fervent debate at scientific level during the last three decades. In some way, the dispute about the scope and methods of sustainability assessment has developed together with analysis that used it. Two basic concepts have been discussed during these years: (1) what exactly “sustainability” means; and (2) how to properly integrate sustainability in policy-making.

A good starting point to deal with this issue is the work by Berke and Conroy (2000). The researchers presented a critical review of the definitions of sustainable development offering a summary that draws the characteristics a policy should hold in order to guarantee sustainability for the community it is planned for (see Table 1). What emerges from this framework is a plan that contains operational tools, responds to economic, social and environmental goals, accounts for global impacts working at local level and can evolve as people’s needs change. Even if really appealing, such a plan appears quite difficult (perhaps impossible) to be realized. Berke and Conroy (2000), in fact, comparing thirty sustainable development plans, found out that there were no significant differences between projects explicitly grounded on sustainability’s concept and the others, and that the plans did not balance goals (i.e. did not allocate the same resources) between all the principles a sustainable policy should sustain. So they concluded that sustainable development was worth being touted as a wide umbrella under which all polices could be planned, but many efforts were needed before to calling them “sustainable development plans”, because they did not actually cover the original definition.

Sustainability suffers the same problem passing from general to particular application in agricultural systems. Trying to answer the need to integrate it in policy planning, Hansen (1996) published a relevant paper which describes the different interpretations of agricultural sustainability given by researchers and offers a guideline to define types of sustainability assessment. He reports two main interpretations, with two further sub-divisions within each (see Figure 1). Generally, sustainability can be integrated in goal-prescribing models or system-describing models: in the first case researchers use it to represent the ideal outcome of a plan, while in the second case they measure the “health” of a system measuring its level of sustainability.

Between goal-prescribing models, Hansen (1996) differentiated those studies aimed at present sustainable agriculture as an alternative (and better) ideology from those searching for optimal, or at least sub-optimal, strategies to improve the sustainability of the agricultural systems. The studies pertaining to the first class, sometimes tied to political and ideological point of views, were represented in the past (Francis and King, 1988; MacRae et al., 1990; Neher, 1992; cited in Hansen, 1996) and are now decreasing in the scientific literature. Many organizations still promote sustainable behaviours as a choice of life to “save” our future, so we can argue that even if these approaches have a great appeal on public opinion, they suffer in term of scientific constraints.

Analysis devoted to alternative agronomic strategies include construction of decision support systems (DSS) and studies of new technologies to moderate economics and environmental costs of agro-food supply chains. Recent and interesting models for sustainable policy planning are offered by Sacchelli et al. (2013) who created a DSS for forestry energy management, Rath (2013) who estimates the effects of different cropping sequences in India and offer “smart” options to policy-makers and Wenkel et al. (2013) who released on the web an interactive tools that can be used by stakeholders to visualize different scenarios due to climate change and would facilitate sustainable and optimal choice’s of farmers and policy-makers. Many more studies have been probably addressed to agricultural innovation. Bouman and Tuong (2001), for example, propose new strategies for sustainable rice cultivation in the Philippines and India. Bongiovanni and Lowenberg-Deboer (2004) reviewed the technologies for precision agriculture and sustainability. Deguin and Penvern (2014) looked at strategies for reducing pesticide use in organic farming. Furthermore, sustainable innovation can be directed to management innovation, as studied by Kroma (2006), who describes how relationships and participatory networks helped organic farmers to introduce new systems of cropping. Both categories have pros and cons: while they offer clear tools to multiple stakeholders, these tools can sometimes be hardly translated in practice because of the scale of research, the approaches are also heterogeneous and studies normally devoted to particular problems, and do not integrate the three pillars of whole sustainability.

Sustainability has also been interpreted as a characteristic of the agricultural systems. In this case, researchers developed system-prescribing models, which normally explain sustainability as an ability to satisfy different goals or as the ability of the system to continue. In studies pertaining to the first class, agricultural systems are represented including the three pillars, while in the second one, researchers apply the first sustainability’s definition and check for the health status of agricultural systems’ resources. These categories suffer the difficulty in offering operative indications; they work quite well in describing the context, but stakeholders only get a descriptive information of the system, which is not a complete answer. Gómez-Limón and Sanchez-Fernandez (2010) and Reig-Martínez et al. (2011) worked on multi-criteria frameworks for agricultural sustainability which categorize different areas on the basis of the values of indicators measuring for the three pillars. These studies are very interesting, but the data presented seem to be very expensive to be collected and readability of results is constrained to those who are skilled in advanced statistics. Different constructs are presented by Lien et al. (2007) and Farmar-Bowers et al. (2013); they interpret an agricultural system as being more sustainable the more it holds up over time. This approach seems to offer easy results for decision-makers, but fails to estimate the determinants of “high” or “low” sustainability of different territories.

The examples presented so far show that there is no common methods for sustainability interpretation and assessment. Despite the credibility of researchers and their studies, so many frameworks have been proposed and no one has been accepted as completely satisfactory. Agricultural sustainability remains a very good concept, but scientists seem to behave like they have to insert it in their analysis because of a mainstream attitude. This opinion may sounds exaggerated and surely a wider review should be done to measure the heterogeneity of the studies, but the next paragraph will show that under a wide or unclear definition many interpretations of sustainability can be used and that is very dangerous, because from scientific evidence we pass to possible discussions. This is still the case of biodiesel and bioethanol, two economically relevant products that are argued to be more or less sustainable from Governments depending on the historical moment causing chaos in public opinion and many more losses at global level.

Sustainability of biodiesel and bioethanol, i.e. when we reinvented the wheel

Applying the widest definition, biofuels are those materials that store potential energy created from recent fixation of carbon dioxide. This potential energy is released in the form of heat for direct use or to be transformed in other forms. Biofuels potentially possess three important characteristics for sustainable development: they stock energy to be used to satisfy human beings’ needs and they come from renewable resources and recent fixation. So they seem to respond to the needs of present and future generations and, as they are primarily produced by photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae and microorganisms, they could have low carbon dioxide emissions and be environmentally sustainable. Anyway, despite its purported unique features, “biofuels world” passed through a sharp re-definition, that grabbed public attention after the 2007/2008 Food Crisis, but had begun some years before within (a part of) scientific community with the discussion around Food vs. Fuel Dilemma.

It has been astounding to see how bioethanol and biodiesel were recognized as a contributory cause of the Food Crisis and potentially more polluting than fossil fuels within a few months, while they were touted by many Governments as being the solution for greenhouse gas emission decrease and farmers income warranty until 2007. That was actually the reinvention of the wheel; many researchers, in fact, had already raised some doubts about biofuels’ impacts on the agro-food sector before. Niven (2005) had presented an exhaustive review of scientific evidence about bioethanol utilization and nobody who cared for social and environmental sustainability would have supported its production reading his conclusion. The review showed that the pollution merits of bioethanol were debatable and global sustainability impacts largely unknown or predictably bad. Furthermore Pimentel and Patzek (2005) compared the energy balance of bioethanol and biodiesel production with the extraction of the same fuels from petrol and found that no crops could guarantee a positive result. A part of the conclusions of this research, perhaps the worst information of this paper is that studies promoted and publicized by the United States Department of Agriculture (Shapouri et al., 2002; Shapouri et al., 2004) were omitting some variables in models for the sustainability assessment of bioethanol production.

Political definition of sustainability of bioethanol and biodiesel has changed just in front of an international and dramatic crisis that caused social, economic and nutritional instability especially in underdeveloped countries, where previous scientific advice was poorly considered. Also researchers reacted to the event with an increased number of papers on this issue: Gaviglio et al. (2012) found that publication’s trend within agricultural economics journals presents this “fashion” (Figure 2). The figure clearly shows a tendency that could be interpreted as a reaction-based attitude of researchers and Institutions that fund them. That is, sustainability of agricultural production of biofuels emerged as an important issue in the field of agricultural economics after the global food tragedy. From these examples, some questions arise: (1) do politicians or agricultural researchers need to feel guilty for bioethanol or biodiesel production support before the Food Crisis? (2) how are politicians and researchers reacting to their (eventual) faults? (3) what is the actual trend in public awareness of biofuels production?

The following answers are biased by the complexity of the problem and the subjective ideas of the author, but, as stated at the beginning of the present paper, let us be not-dogmatic and try to evaluate the example of the European Union’s attitude towards biodiesel and bioethanol. If we have a look to the documents promoting biofuels released before and after the food crisis, we will note an interesting detail. While the first Directive 2003/30/CE on the promotion of the use of biofuels generally refers to the need to assess the sustainability of crops used for biodiesel and bioethanol, Directive 2009/28/CE on the promotion of energy from renewable sources asks for the enhancement of studies on second-generation biofuels (i.e. biofuels coming from biomass that do not grow in arable croplands) and stresses the concept of the potential social and environmental drawbacks of first generation biofuels consumption. Even if the EU’s policy for biofuels is the only one in the world that contains explicit reference to sustainability assessment (Ninni, 2010) it is clear that was a public scandal that drove Member States to revise their point of view. In fact, any of the scientists had already warned that using sugars and vegetable oil from crops would have negative impacts and many studies had been published (Giampietro et al., 1997; Ulgiati, 2001; Fortenbery, 2005; Giampietro, 2006) but their voices did not reach the public audience until the food crisis. A proof of this event is the shape of the Google Trends for the term “biofuels” in Figure 3. This service by Google tracks the topics from websites around the world and in this case shows a peak of interest during the Food Crisis at the beginning of 2007, then a steadily increasing interest until late 2008, when it was brought under control (and, this is a fancy coincidence, the world was facing Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy and the start of the Global Financial Crisis). From that moment until now the public interest is decreasing.

Now, a simple question: has the problem of sustainability of biodiesel and bioethanol been solved? A quite answer: No, it has not. At this moment, in the European Union, Germany, France and Spain still support programs for first generation biofuels production and the mandatory objective to blend petroleum fuel with a percentage of bioethanol or biodiesel (http://biofuel.org.uk/europe.html). Thus, it seems like it does not matter what the scientific community discovers, if some years ago Governments could try to discuss with those professors arguing for a dialogue around the real sustainability of biofuels, today they would at least be clear and disclose what they actually intend for sustainability in their production. Citizens should be aware that the EU’s energy policy, as all developed countries’ policies, is firstly aimed at achieving independency from foreign energy suppliers, which is a very important economic goal, but does not contain any environmental or social consideration by itself.

If they were really interested, governments could include and consider all sustainability’s dimensions in their policies and create plans based on multiple-criteria assessments. This is firstly a matter of choice, secondly of assessment ability. So there is actually no other interpretation about the relationship between sustainability and biofuels: the first one is always useful to justify the seconds’ production and subsidization, while producers of the second are moving slowly through a real socially and environmentally sustainable production. In this sense, science gave answers, but profits drove choices. This is quite normal, and surely the problem of arable land used to produce biomass instead of food accounts for a small part of the world’s inequalities, but maybe in this case the vagueness of the word “sustainability” contributed to making it less evident.

Conclusions and recommendations

The goal of the present paper is to discuss if sustainability is a significant concept and why and under which conditions it can be used to make choices for a better future. The question originates from the most interesting aspect of “sustainability”, that is, even if “insiders” recognized it as too vague and broad to be useful for intervention planning, Institutions broadly use it to shape their most important agendas (Bärlund, 2005). We passed through a revision of literature around this theme focusing on agricultural sustainability, then we briefly described the case of purported sustainability of bioethanol and biodiesel. Despite a more in-depth analysis being needed, some reflections stand and perhaps contribute to the reopening of the debate.

The literature reviewed shows that researchers still approach sustainability heterogeneously. The real problem is that there are no errors in the peer-reviewed analysis cited in the paper, nor contradiction with sustainability’s definition, so everyone is actually right while naming in the same way different research problems. Furthermore, a part of this evident epistemological issue, the most dangerous drawback of “sustainability” is the effect of the claim that some scientific results can have on society if presented within this simplifying concept. The environmental sustainability assessment of particular technologies, for example, is still a sustainability analysis by definition. It does not contain any indication about economic and social outputs, but nobody could say that there is anything wrong in that interpretation. A part of the cited case of USDA’s studies which can be interpreted as a defence of the plans of biofuels’ subsidisation in the United States, many other errors can be committed in this path and most of them have already been done (in the author’s opinion) due to “fashion and confusion” around sustainability. Biodiesel and bioethanol is a bad example of how sustainability possesses the dangerous feature of being possibly used (1) to support production before the food crisis; or, (2) as a concept to ground the assessment of their production on after deaths and famine, while producers maintain part of the most fertile lands in the world are covered by energy crops.

There are many cases we can discuss. The cultured meat supported by Google and developed by professor Mark Post (Langelaan et al., 2010; Post, 2012; Post, 2013), for example, is a very interesting one. A part of sensory characteristics and cost of his hamburger, which is reasonably a matter of product development and dimension of production, what appears as a dangerous oversimplification is that the scientist supports his technology saying its process is more sustainable than livestock, because of the growing request for meat due to global population growth and the low carbon foot-print of artificial meat. The points raised by professor Post are undoubted: request for meat is growing and the carbon foot print of livestock production is high, but many other points should be discussed. For example, are we sure that the meat we are producing in this moment is well distributed around the world? Is there someone eating more than they need and someone less? If the answer to these questions is that there is inequality in high-quality protein access in the world, the first problem for food scientists would not be to fulfil the growing request for meat, but educate high-income people to eat less meat and make meat accessible for poor people. Furthermore, even if intensive farming has proven negative impacts on climate change, a win-win strategy would be to improve environmental performance of agricultural activities and protect the unpaid territory protection they provide to communities, while substituting meat with cultured meat could improve our greenhouse gas emissions, but would predictably have a negative impact on the agricultural sector’s income.

This case has been cited because it is quite famous, it could really represent a brilliant solution for food security and professor Post is an outstanding researcher, but even in this case the concept of sustainability did not serve to measure and prove, but to describe and claim. As scientists, it is worth discussing the way to deal with this problem. The analysis of the literature seems to offer two possible approach: the first one is pessimistic, it pertains to Andrews (1997), who suggests that sustainability is an opportunistic concept, which serves to validate any policy even if just “partially” sustainable. The optimistic one, on the other hand, observes that, even in front of the possible shortcomings, sustainability is a well-working concept in communicating to the people policy agendas and thus is worth being used. This paper propose a third perspective, the “not-dogmatic” one. From this point of view the concept of sustainability is a double-edged sword, so researchers and policy makers who use it because of its clearness, should always declare the limits of their studies. Perhaps someone could argue that this solution is another reinvention of the wheel, but evidence calls for scientific intervention in global challenges’ management and there is no other way to construct a credible path for sustainable development than tell to everybody there is no unique and easy strategy to deal with it.

1.2. The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development in Emerging Markets

Maria Valentina Lasorella

National Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics Analysis (CRA-INEA)

Abstract

The main challenge of agriculture due to current population growth and changing in food preferences is to guarantee food availability. The agricultural intensification in the last 20 years has led to soil degradation, water pollution and food insecurity. Worldwide, the unsustainable use of raw material and fossil energy has exploded during the past 50 years, with dreadful consequences for the global environment.

Nearly 60% of fresh water, soils, biodiversity and climate, representing the ecosystem services that support life on Earth, have being degraded or used in an unsustainable way. In the two past decades, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility has evolved and expanded to find solution for the unsustainable development. Enterprises have embraced a variety of environmental, social and economic initiatives at all levels of their operations. Most of enterprises that have moved their operations toward developing countries, embraced Corporate Social Responsibility as a key factor in business growth and environmental social and economic strategies. To date, the current global situation led to few questions such as: can we produce enough food to feed growing human numbers that is expected to be 9 billion projected for 2050? How can Corporate Social Responsibility refer to enterprises moving to developing countries, taking responsibility for their impact on society and environment and guarantee food production? What is the role of business in facing the critical issues of human development and environmental sustainability in developing countries? In this context, possible research priorities on CSR are to increase competitiveness of enterprises through sustainable agriculture intensification, quality of life, new improved technologies and innovation capacity with a different modus operandi in developing markets such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, without forgetting the fundamental role of the sustainable development that constitutes one of the biggest opportunities in the history of commerce.

Introduction

The instability of agricultural raw materials and food prices, population growth and modification of diets, environmental constraints to food production and the consequences of climate change are elements that depict a scenario of new scarcity. The food will cost more for everyone, with an impact that will be stronger for the poorest segments of the world population (De Castro, 2012). Ensuring food security means the access by all people at all times to the food as required for a healthy life without aggravating major stresses on land use, energy demand and freshwater resources that represented the biggest challenges facing modern agricultural system (FAO, 2013).

To date, we are facing a new development model in which enterprise competitiveness in the agricultural and food production is referring to ensuring workers’ rights, adequate levels of social activities and less environmental impacts in the local context in which it operates (Dueñas Ocampo et al., 2014). The agriculture success with respect to the new expectations of the enterprise lies in the ability of the agriculture to produce healthy foods and at the same time contribute to the protection of natural resources and the balanced development of the territory, creating jobs and paying more attention to worker’s needs (Briamonte and Hinna, 2008). Today, consumers pay more attention and are more oriented in purchasing products that includes the concept of food quality related to the environmental and social sustainability production (Briamonte and D’Oronzio, 2010; Mohr et al., 2001). In a macroeconomic perspective, with the markets globalization, greater attention has been paid by companies to human rights and healthy environmental protection. Moreover, in recent years several food scandals and public health emergencies have required “answers” to these problems.

From this statement agriculture and food industry therefore reserve attention to food safety by products traceability and voluntary and compulsory international Standard (ISO family). Traceability of food products and forms of communication give recognition and valued to the concept of supply chain and food product linked with the territory (INEA, 2007).

To date, a strategic vision of CSR in the food chain is to facilitate the adoption of business tools that promote the respect of human rights, workers safety and environmental protection. On this regards, CSR is one of the most important issues that business is facing today (Briamonte and Giuca, 2010).

In the last 20 years, there has been a considerable academic and specialist interest in CSR in emerging markets (Contreras, 2004; De Oliviera, 2006; Arora et al., 2004; Ahmad, 2006; Baskin, 2006; Malan, 2005; Matos and Silvestre, 2013). CSR in the world is struggling with a new role, defined “sustainable development”, which is to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the next generations to meet their own needs. Organizations are being called to take responsibility for the ways their operations impact on societies and on natural environment (Rana et al., 2008). Sustainability refers to an organization’s activities, considering the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and environment through transparent and ethical behaviour that takes into account the expectations of stakeholders (McWilliams, 2006; Hiller and Verdier, 2014).

Bowen et al. (1953) was one of the first researcher that introduced the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility in the book “Social responsibilities of the businessman”. Since then, the concept of CSR of enterprises has had a proliferation of definitions (Orlitzky et al., 2003; Simpson et al., 2002) theories and approaches (McWilliams et al., 2006), involving academic and institutional actors. Several terms have been using referring to the same phenomena such as: Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Ethics, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Sustainability, Responsible Business and so on, used in different ways into business environment of the enterprises (Pirnera et al., 2011). Although CSR can be defined in various ways, we consider the following synthetic definition by Holme and Watts (2011) in its publication “Making Business Sense” defined CSR as: “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large”. The World Bank (2006) defined CSR as the “commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development, working with employed, their families, local community and society at large to improve the quality of life in ways that are both good for business and good for development. In 2001, the EU’s Green Paper on CSR defined it as “concept whereby corporations integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”. After 2001, in response of the EU Commission Green Paper, the argument has become more sophisticated and complex in the literature, such that CSR “not only is doing well, the right thing to do, but it also leads to doing better”. Different aspects of CSR have been investigated in the last 20 years (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006; Arredondo et al., 2010) and it is widely argued that most of the organisations working in emerged markets are increasing the need to define their roles in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Wayne et al., 2010).

However, there are limitations for the development and application of CSR operation, in many organisations working in emerging markets, which struggle in this effort (Dueñas Ocampo et al., 2014). It is important to remember that CSR is, by nature, culturally, geographically, and sector specific. What may constitute CSR in a country or in an industrial sector may not resonate or be applicable in another. In emerging markets the situation is more complex. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and family-owned enterprises (FOEs) have started to include CSR aspect in their policy and business development (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004). The challenge for SMES and FOEs in emerging markets is framed by a vision that was distilled in 2000 into the Millennium Development Goals a world with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment (UN, 2006). Unfortunately, these global aspirations remain currently far from being met in many developing countries.

For the food industry, perhaps more than for other sectors, the focus on the environment, quality and safety of products has become a strategic factor that, if adopted by enterprises, it becomes an economic value to be spent directly on the markets.

In a comparative survey of CSR in 15 countries across Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, Welford et al. (2005) claim that the low response rates from countries analysed may be an indicator of CSR being less prevalent in developing countries. More specifically, Asia and Africa are generally the weakest in terms of CSR performance, being relatively poor on external aspects (such as child labour and ethics). On the other hand, the situation of Latin America is generally better on internal aspects (such as non-discrimination and equal opportunities), but the problems related to child labour and ethics are still presents. A notable exception is the study conducted by Baskin’s (2006) on CSR behaviour of 127 enterprises from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, which compares over 1,700 leading enterprises in high-income OECD countries. In this survey, it found high differences in CSR approaches on the basis of enterprise typology and country culture.

A study conducted by Longo et al. (2005) considered CSR in developing markets more involved in the ethical responsibility, looking at philanthropic responsibility as an optional, while other studies have made a distinction between CSR as simple legal compliance versus CSR as conducting business with a high regard for morality (Juholin, 2004). Others studies have considered various types of CSR, that can be divided in economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic (Uhlaner et al., 2004); others have utilized a stakeholder approach, examining the CSR obligations and contributions of enterprises with a group of stakeholders; while others have made distinctions between classical, socio-economic, philanthropic, and modern views of CSR (Carroll, 1979; Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004; Crowther and Capaldi, 2008; Lindgreen and Swaen, 2009).

Although the literature often frames the debate about CSR in a global context, there are still few empirical researches on the nature and extent of CSR in developing countries. Despite more than six decades of research and debate, there is still no agreement on what the concept of CSR really means and which types of models can be used in emerging markets, with gaps that still needs to be filled and new fields to be explored.

Corporate Social Responsibility’s Models

Enterprises have developed a series of approaches “models” to integrate CSR into their strategy and daily operations worldwide with the assessment of societal needs, environment impact, and corresponding business necessities.

The most common models describing CSR which has been developed to define the evolution and scope of social, environmental and economic orientation of corporations are: Carroll‘s model, Halal’s model and Ackerman’s model.

Carroll Model - Carroll (1991) represented the social responsibility categories (Carroll, 1979) in developed countries with a Pyramid (Figure 1). This Pyramid represents the most popular CSR model, including economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities based on research worldwide.

This Pyramid has been constructed in four parts. Starting from the bottom and up to the last CSR layers, Carroll’s Pyramid model involves all business responsibilities related to the economic responsibility, which includes maximizing profitability and maintaining a strong competitive position; the legal responsibilities with laws and regulations in doing business, ethical responsibilities replicate societal standards, expectations and norms that have not been specifically legislated, and finally, philanthropic responsibilities comprise actions that are in response to society’s expectation for be good corporate citizens.

Halal’s model - Halal’s return on resource model of corporate performance recognizes the fact that the corporate social responsiveness is a quite difficult task. An enterprise can only attempt to form a workable coalition among groups having diverse interests, engaged in creating value for distribution among members of coalition. The social issues may become conflicting beyond a certain level of economic activity. The coordination between economic and ethical decisions is necessary for the future of the enterprises and shareholders may be safeguarded.

Ackerman‘s model - This model defines CSR in three different phases: 1° phase - Top management recognizes social problem; 2° phase - The company appoints staff specialists to look into the issue and find measures to solve it; 3° phase - Strategies implementation derived by the specialists. (Kumar et al., 2012).

On the basis of the three model’s definitions, the most appropriate for our purposes is the Carroll Pyramid. This type of model that represents the core of CSR, can be defined and modified on the basis of the area analysed. In developing countries, Visser (2005) argues that, in terms of Carroll’s pyramid model of corporate social responsibility, the layers can be classified in a different way from the classical Pyramid delivering relative emphasis to various responsibilities. Specifically, economic responsibilities still get the most emphasis, but philanthropy is given second highest priority (as opposed to legal responsibilities in the classic Carroll’s Pyramid, followed by legal (as opposed to ethical) and then ethical (as opposed to philanthropic) responsibilities. Furthermore, he suggests that, given the ethical dilemmas faced by companies in Africa, a more dynamic and sophisticated model of corporate responsibility may be more appropriate, such as one drawing on complexity theory. Community investment can be one part of CSR. Like other aspects of business, companies should be able to track and measure their community investment and understand the value for both communities and for the business. Investing to build sustainable communities is a must for business (McIntosh, 2003). It is necessary to encourage companies to not forget about the community and to work to address poverty and underdevelopment.

Aspects related to economies, ethical, social responsibilities are key factors for business development, but companies need also to create new partnerships for business to have a positive and sustainable impact on communities. This revisited conceptualization implies that the four responsibilities are aggregated in the sense that enterprises that want to be ethical for example must be economically and legally responsible. From this standpoint, economic and legal responsibilities are socially required, ethical responsibility is socially expected, while philanthropy is socially desired and each of these responsibilities comprises a component of the total social responsibility of a corporation (Windsor, 2001).

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development

The origin of the term sustainability development (SD) lies in the 18th century, when, the World Commission on Environment and Development defined SD as an ethical concept defined as: “the ability to meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It contains within it two key concepts: the concepts of “needs”, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation of the environments ability to meet present and future needs.

Both CSR and SD are essentially contested concepts (Gallie, 1956) as their meaning is always part of debate about their application, above all in developing countries (Moon et al., 2004). In figure 2 is reported a graph scheme on the relationship between SD and CSR at macro and micro level, taking into account the main concept of both terms.

Social Responsibility assumes that economic, ecologic and social (legal duties) of companies (micro level analysis) should be extended by certain responsibilities to society (at macro level) (McGuire, 1963).

Carroll argues that Social Responsibility exists through several components when is considered at macro level: such as economic, legal, ethical, cultural, environmental, technological and discretionary expectations that society has of a company and that companies have to decide which layer they focus on (Carroll, 1979)(Fig.3). Hopkins, 2005 declares that “CSR is concerned with treating the stakeholders of the firm ethically or in a socially responsible manner. Moreover, the easy way to measure at micro and macro level the CSR is to incorporate the sustainability aspect into business management and be grounded in the ethical belief of give and take to maintain a successful company in the long-term.

From this statement the rules or principles of the application of CSR and sustainable development are relatively ‘open’. Governments, business associations, business consultants, NGOs, shareholders, employees and consumers have all shown a propensity to attempt to define both terms. However a comprehensive overviews of theories and research on CSR and SD is given in the Case Histories, related to food security and agriculture development in emerging countries.

Case Histories

The overall objective of case histories is to provide a comprehensive overviews of case studies, theories and research on CSR related to food and agriculture context in emerging markets. A survey of projects related to CSR and the role in several places around the world will be discussed and highlight some current developments on this topic and draw attention to similarities and differences from the environmental, societal, and economical point of view. According to Grant Tornton (2011) there are several CSR activities around the world. The map in figure 3 shows a survey of 7,700 businesses. A large amount of activities is present in China, South Africa and Argentina. The case histories will be focused only in emerging markets, because today developing countries represent the most rapidly expanding economies, and hence the most lucrative growth markets for business; moreover, developing countries are where the social and environmental crises are usually most acutely felt in the world (UNDP, 2006); and where globalization, economic growth, investment, and business activity are likely to have the most dramatic social and environmental impacts (both positive and negative) (World Bank, 2006).

Case studies in Asia - Asia is the region most covered in the literature on CSR case studies. Significant focus on Asia with more than 30.900 results on Google Scholar from 2005 to 2014 period, divided for China (e.g. Graafland and Zhang, 2014; Yu and Hu, 2014, Agarwal, 2014; Noronha et al., 2013; Xun, 2013; Heal, 2013; Cook et al., 2010), followed by India (e.g. Chawak and Dutta, 2014; Rishi and Moghe, 2013; Verma and Singh, 2013; Batra, 2013; Kumar, 2013), Indonesia (e.g. Natalia and Subekti, 2014; Waagstein, 2011; Oeyono et al., 2011; Blowfield, 2004), Malaysia (e.g. Chan et al., 2013; Saleh et al., 2010; Bakar et al., 2011; Zulkifli and Amran, 2006), Pakistan (e.g. Ali et al., 2010; Ehsan et al., 2012, Iqbal et al., 2012), and Thailand (e.g. Salam, 2013, Kaufman et al., 2004), Bangladesh (Belal and Cooper, 2011; Islam et al., 2012; Kha et al., 2012; Rahim et al., 2013; Momin et al., 2013; Zohora et al., 2014), Sri Lanka (Munasinghe et al., 2012; Munasinghe et al., 2013, Lund-Thomsen, and Lindgreen, 2013), and Vietnam (Tran, 2014; Russell et al., 2012; Pimpa, 2013; Nguyen, 2013). All this studies give a complete vision of the vast differences in CSR responsibility in different context in Asia. A survey published by Chapple and Moon (2005) through analysis of 50 companies in seven Asian countries: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand, addresses four hypotheses about CSR in Asia associated with stages of development globalization. The authors conclude that corporations are more likely to adopt CSR than those operating solely in their home country but in most cases the profile of their CSR tends to reflect the profile of the country where they operates. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Asia provides a good overview of the status of the debate with a number of quantitative studies confirm this picture of CSR variance. A study conducted by Agarwal (2014), investigated the evolution of CSR in Asia that tends to occur in three influences, community involvement (the most established form of CSR in Asia), following by successive socially responsible production processes and employee relations. From most of the survey analysed is possible to conclude that CSR does vary considerably among Asian countries, but this variation is not explained by development but by factors in the respective national business systems.

Case studies in Africa - The literature on CSR in Africa is heavily dominated by South Africa case studies on CSR (Visser, 2005). Significant focus on Asia with more than 33.100 results on Google Scholar, from 2005 to 2014 period, divided for Ethiopia (Robertson, 2009), Democratic Republic of Congo (Perks, 2012), Egypt (Saif, 2011), Ghana (Hinson, 2011); Kenya (Muthuri and Gilbert, 2011), South Africa (Igumbor et al., 2012), Marocco (Hamelin et al., 2013); Mozambique (Fairbairn, 2013), Madagascar (Smith et al., 2012). Moreover, other research have been implemented for Côte D’Ivoire (e.g. Thordardottir, 2011; Visser et al., 2010), Nigeria (e.g. Eneh, 2011; Amaeshi et al., 2006), Tanzania (e.g. Egels, 2005), Benin and Burkina Faso (e.g. Vitale et al., 2011; Glin et al., 2012; Hamann et al., 2005). On the papers analyzed, very few papers are focused on industrial sector, more on agriculture and food products (e.g. Blowfield, 2003), mining (e.g. Kapelus, 2002), and petrochemicals (e.g. Acutt et al., 2004).

A study conducted by Barkhuysen and Rossouw (2000) found 77 reviews namely in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. In most of the studies conducted on CSR, the themes were focus on stakeholder engagement, social responsibility, and health (including HIV/AIDS). However, most of the studies analysed the economic and philanthropic aspects of CSR (rather than the legal and ethical responsibilities) dominate CSR conceptualization and practice in Africa (Visser, 2007). A valuable source of literature on the region is Corporate Citizenship in Africa (Visser et al., 2006). The majority of articles on CSR were written by South African authors, followed by authors residing outside Africa, as well as some from Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. The content was heavily focused on descriptive and normative ethical issues.

From the reviews it is possible to resume that in the vast majority of African’s countries analysed, CSR is still in its infancy. We need to highline that Africa consists in two very distinct regions. The predominantly Muslim/Arabic region, located in the Northern Sahara, commonly referred to Middle East and North Africa (MENA Regions), and sub Saharan Africa. Between these two regions there are huge differences in terms of CSR performances for enterprises. From a socioeconomic point of view, the poverty is the highest among all the regions, with increasing number of people leaving with less than 1 euro/day. Only 60% of population completed the primary education and still 5% of the adult are infected by HIV. For this reason CSR activities and projects in Africa are mainly focused on creating a positive corporate image, as well as addressing weak public sector service delivery in the areas of healthcare, education or labour skills development and the prevention of child labour. From our reviews it is possible to assess the predominant CSR activities among oil, gas and tropical food companies, due to their social and environmental impacts.

Case studies in Latin America - Latin America is the smallest continent covered by CSR studies (Haslam, 2007) with around 18.800 results on Google Scholar from 2005 to 2014 period, mostly concentrated in Argentina (e.g. Newell and Muro, 2006), Nicaragua (Prieto-Carron, 2006), Chile (Bain, 2010) Venezuela (Peindado-Vara, 2006) and Mexico (e.g. Wilder and Romero Lankao, 2006; Weyzig, 2006), Colombia (Guáqueta, 2006), Costa Rica (Robinson, 2010). Cuba (Alvarez 2006), Haiti, Panama and Puerto Rico (Balboni, 2007), Bolivia (May et al., 2005) Paraguay (García-López and Arizpe, 2010), Dominican Republic (Raynolds, 2008) and Brazil (e.g. Griesse, 2007; Vivarta and Canela, 2006).

One helpful collection of papers is the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Latin America (issue 21, spring 2006). A study conducted by De Oliveira (2006) on CSR agenda in Latin America has evaluate the heavily shaped by socio-economic and political conditions, which have tended to aggravate many environmental and social problems such as deforestation, unemployment, inequality, and crime. In a study conducted by Correa et al. (2004) and also cited in Schmidheiny (2006) reported that in 2004 there were more 1,000 Latin American enterprises associated with EMPRESA (the hemisphere-wide CSR network). Most of this enterprises had obtained ISO 14001 certification, and the UN Global Compact, that represents important certification for sustainable environmental production.

Schmidheiny, (2006), claiming that CSR is seen by many Latin Americans as the hope for positive change in the face of persistent poverty, environmental degradation, corruption, and economic stagnation. The trend towards increasing CSR in the region has been generally upward.

From our review we can summarize that high differences in the application of CSR are related to the enterprise size. In a survey of over 1,300 SMEs in Latin America, Vives, (2006) found that SMEs in Chile and Argentina have the highest level of CSR activity, while those in Brazil and El Salvador have the lowest. Most CSR by SMEs is focused on internal activities (especially employee welfare), whereas external (philanthropic) and environmental activities are less common.

Conclusion and recommendations

Food insecurity remains one of the biggest development challenges today. The rise of global poverty and food insecurity has reinvigorated the idea that enterprises (SME, FOE, corporations) must embrace broader roles and responsibilities and respond to social, environmental activities and development challenges afflicting communities. The idea that CSR and SD can play a proactive role in solving food insecurity and environmental problems is widely accepted in most of emerging markets. However, it is important to remember that CSR and SD are, by nature, culturally, geographically, and sector specific. What may constitute CSR and SD in one country or in one industry sector may not resonate or be applicable in another one. Infect, both terms would have the same principle everywhere, but different application in different contexts. A common aspect, particularly interesting in developing countries is focus on the ways that enterprises provide CSR, which is pretty much driven by the needs of the community.

For this reason, most of enterprises undertaking collaborations with the government as well as with civil society organizations or NGOs, through a public-private partnership, which is a “winner model” applicable in developing country, needs to adapt both CSR and SD models in the country where they are operating. This type of approach is becoming important not only for economic, social and environmental development, but also for poverty reduction and subsequent food security.

From this statement, enterprises need to embrace the CSR and SD strategies and make a contribution to improve the governance, social, ethical, labour and environmental conditions of developing countries in which they operate, remaining sensitive to prevailing religious, historical and cultural contexts.

2. Under pressure food resources

The need of producing food for a growing population is not new. Since the beginning of the 1960s to date world population has grown from three billion to more than seven billion, thus imposing an increasing food demand to which agricultural production had to keep pace with.

The achievement of a level of production high enough to feed a growing population has been ensured with a substantial intensification of production processes on agricultural lands. This intensification has been largely driven by research, development and technology transfer initiatives that together accounted for the so-called Green Revolution in turn resulting in higher yields per unit of land.

The achievement of higher yields pursued during the Green Revolution have come along with significant impacts on the environment in terms of release of pollutants in water bodies, as well as in the air and in soil. Biodiversity has also been dramatically reduced by the selection of high-yielding varieties that have gradually replaced traditional ones characterized by lower productivity but higher adaptability to extreme and changing environmental conditions.

As things standing, one should wonder how it would be possible to continue producing in the future. One argument is to suggest that the present and foreseen conditions indicate a need for a substantially greater use of the inputs used so far. However, it would be both optimistic and simplistic to assume that the direct relationships between input use and food production will remain linear resulting in gains at the previous rates. With regard to this, recent studies have shown contrasting trends, instead: the top four crops, namely maize, rice, wheat, and soybean have been found to experience average yield improvements only between 0.9 to 1.6 percent per year between 1989 and 2008, which is far slower than observed in the previous decades. Such growth rates would not suffice to provide the doubling of crop production required by 2050 to feed the expected population. This failure, in turn, along with the significant environmental costs that are being acknowledged as associated with the continuous supply of both inputs and factors of production, highlights that the current approach to agricultural production has already reached critical limits.

What is more, there are important factors to take into account while considering the application of consolidated agricultural production models as they have been applied in the past half-century. New trends, as well as new driving pressures, have been recently emerging and are now posing new challenges to be faced.

Climate change

A major concern to take into account while planning agricultural production in the future is climate change, which has already significantly impacted agriculture and is expected to further impact food production, both directly and indirectly. Effects like the increase of mean temperature, changes in rain patterns, as well as in water availability and in both frequency and intensity of ‘extreme events’, sea level rise and salinization of water resources, all will have profound impacts on agriculture, including forestry and fisheries. The extent of these impacts will not only depend on the intensity and timing (periodicity) of the expected changes, but also on their combination, which is far more uncertain, thus difficult to predict and adapt to, especially on the local scale. Overall, with everything else being equal, climate change has been acknowledged to lead to an increase in both crop and livestock productivity in mid- to high latitudes, associated to a decrease in tropical and subtropical areas. This feature highlights that the most affected areas will likely be countries currently being food insecure; such an impairment in food production will also potentially compromise food exports, thus further hitting economically vulnerable countries. In turn, this will induce significant changes in trade and prices on a worldwide scale with important consequences on the situation of net food importing countries. As a consequence, climate change is expected to further deepen the gap between industrialized countries and emerging regions, given the vulnerability of the latter that will experience more severe impacts exacerbated by their relatively lower technical and economical capacity to respond to them.

On the other hand, agriculture itself contributes to climate change and, as any other economic sector, it is called to contribute to mitigate it. In this sense, agriculture is a key sector that, if managed effectively can lead to biological carbon capture and storage in biomass and soil that would, thus, act as “sinks”. Agriculture itself is, therefore, a chance not to miss in that its proper management can play an essential role in counteracting the effects of climate change.

In order to get a comprehensive picture in this regard, it is important to note that agriculture’s role in climate change goes beyond the production phase and should, thus, be considered in a wider perspective of ‘food systems’, including the impact these systems have on forests, the energy sector and transport. Studies in this sense are still lacking on a global scale and it should be borne in mind that, when looking at challenges and opportunities to reduce GHG emissions by intervening on agriculture, it is paramount to look beyond the farm, vertically into the whole food chain and horizontally across impacted land-uses, such as forests.

The real challenge for the future is to understand how and to what extent agriculture can contribute to climate change mitigation without compromising food and nutrition security, while making food systems both more efficient and resilient.

2.1. Agriculture and climate change in developing countries: issues and challenges

Chiara Mancini

Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies – Pisa, Italy

Abstract

Over the next 50 years, the world’s population is projected to increase by some 3 billion, this growth will happen mostly in the developing countries. Already today around 800 million people go hungry daily, and more than a billion live on less than a dollar a day, then one-quarter of the world’s population is affected by food insecurity and poverty. Food security and poverty are directly linked with the issue of sustainable agriculture and rural development. Agriculture occupies 40% of the land surface and the majority of the farmers, especially in developing countries, are smallholder farmers. Agriculture is strongly conditioned by climatic factors, but subsistence agriculture is particularly vulnerable because smallholders do not have adequate financial resources to adapt to the climate change that is affecting the planet especially from the last century.

In this review it is discussed the issue of climate change and sustainable agriculture with a particular focus on the situation in developing counties. Some case histories are discussed to present possible specific problems the smallholder farmers in developing countries have to deal with and the relative coping strategies. There is not an unique solution for such issues, each situation has to be analyzed in its context, paying attention to the background and the social conditions, moreover the consequences of any action haves to be acknowledged.

Climate policy should become an amalgamation of policies directed at various sectors, such as energy, water, agriculture, forestry and nature conservation. Not only adaptation strategies have to be followed but also mitigation strategies should be effected in order to reduce such activities responsible of climate change.

Introduction

Over the past century earth’s average temperature has risen by 0.8 °C and is projected to rise another 1.1 to 6.4 °C over the next hundred years (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2011). Rising global temperatures have been accompanied by changes in weather and climate; small changes in the average temperature of the planet can translate to large and potentially dangerous shift in climate and weather. For instance different areas have seen changes in rainfall, resulting in more floods, droughts or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat waves. The rising temperatures has affected also the planet’s oceans and glaciers: oceans are warming and becoming more acidic, ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising. These observations are based on direct measurements and remote sensing begun in the middle of 19th century, whereas information about long term context derives from paleoclimate archives and extend the record back hundreds to millions of years. Thus a comprehensive view of the variability and long term changes are provided (Stocker, 2013).

Factors that can modify climate include processes such as variations in solar radiation, variation in Earth’s orbit, mountain-building, continental drift and changes in greenhouses gas concentrations. This last factor is the main responsible of climate changes of the last century and it is especially an anthropogenic factor because it is caused by human activities (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2011). Over the past century, human activities started with burning fossil fuel to produce energy, releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Also activities as deforestation, industrial processes and some agricultural practices emit gasses into the atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is natural and necessary to support life on Earth, it is a process by which part of the thermal radiation incident on the Earth‘s surface is radiate back to the space, much of this thermal radiation emitted by the land and ocean is absorbed by atmospheric gasses and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface and the lower atmosphere, it results in an elevation of the average surface temperature that makes life as we know it possible. However, human activities have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming (Solomon et at., 2007). The master time series documenting the changing composition of the atmosphere started in 1958 through a high-accuracy measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentration (Keeling, 1961, 1998). To compare the increase in CO2 abundance since 1958 whit natural cycles in the past and to quantify the magnitude of the anthropogenic actions, a longer-term record of CO2 is needed. There data came from analysis of the composition of air enclosed in bubbles in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. From 10.000 years before present up to 1750, CO2 abundances stayed within the range of 280 ± 20 ppm (Indermühle et al., 1999). During the industrial era, CO2 abundance roses exponentially to 367 ppm in 1999 and to 379 ppm in 2005 (Neftel et al., 2011; Etheridge et al., 1996; Griggs et al.,2002). Also the abundances of other greenhouse gasses related with human activities, as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), increased since 1970 (Steele et al., 1996), like the presence in the atmosphere of several synthetic halocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, halons and sulphur hexafluoride that are greenhouse gases with large global warming potentials produced by chemical industry since about 1930 (Langenfelds et al., 1994), most of them are phased out.

The scientific community, therefore, agree that climate is changing and that these changes are especially caused by human activities and they are largely irreversible.

Earthly environments, both natural and managed, are sensible to climate changes. For example, temperature influences the distribution and abundance of both plants and animals, due to physiological constraints of each species (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003; Thomas et al., 2004). Characteristics and distributions of physical and biological systems are largely influenced by climate, including temperature and precipitation and their variability. Observed changes are prevalent across diverse physical and biological systems (Parry, 2007), they include irreversible damage to land and water ecosystems like the agricultural systems, with consequences for food production.

Agriculture is deeply related with climate and it is influenced by its changes, therefore climate instability has consequences for global crop production (Dinar and Mendelsohn, 2011). The rise in temperature is too fast for natural adaptation of the natural species and the crops, it also increases the evaporation from the soil, accelerating decomposition of organic matter and aggravating the incidences of pest and diseases (Pimentel, 1993). Many economically important crops are very temperature sensible and, even with small temperature increase above physiological threshold, the yields have a significant decline (Backlund et al., 2008). Climate changes influence also the water supply, this concerns both irrigated and non-irrigated land, the first ones for the availability of the water and the second ones for the distribution of rainfalls. About 67% of the current global water withdrawal is for irrigation purposes and the irrigated agricultural land constitutes less than one-fifth of the total cropped area producing about forty per cent of the world’s food (Döll, 2002), therefore irrigated fields are the most productive ones and non-irrigated fields are the most abundant.

The acceleration of environmental degradation and climate changes caused by the human activities of the last century have direct effects on agricultural productivity and food security of over billion people living in poverty in developing countries. Although the agricultural systems in these countries evolved in very different times and spaces, they exhibit similar remarkable features (Altieri et al., 2004):

- High levels of biodiversity for regulating ecosystem functioning and providing ecosystem services;

- Local systems of landscape, land and water resource management and conservation;

- Diversified agricultural systems for contributing to food and livelihood security;

- Resiliency and robustness of agroecosystems to cope with disturbance and change;

- Traditional knowledge systems and farmers innovations and technologies;

- Strong cultural values and collective forms of social organization.

Although the effects of changes in climate on crops yields are likely to vary extremely from region to region, anticipated changes are expected to have large effects especially in tropical zones with precipitation regimes ranging from semiarid to humid, these zones are mostly constituted by developing countries (Cline, 2007). Because the economy of most developing countries is based on agriculture, the effects of climate change on productive croplands are likely to threaten both the welfare of the population and the economic development of such countries. Most of the agricultural economy of these countries is based on small-scale famers who have not enough capital to pursue the new strategies, used for instance for intensive agriculture in developed countries, required to adapt to climate changes. Moreover most of the developing countries are situated in areas characterized by elevated temperature, a further increase in temperatures in these zones will make many agricultural areas less productive and some completely unsuitable (Mendelsohn et al., 1999). Also changes in rainfall pattern and distribution, with increased drought, affect the agriculture practices and productions in developing countries, where irrigation is not practiced due to water scarcity then the water supply of the fields is assigned to rainfall availability.

How to cope with climate changes: case histories in developing countries

The continuous loss of agricultural genetic resources is a process in which climate change is involved (Suárez, 2002) but agrobiodiversity itself can be crucial to cope with climate change. One of the main features of traditional agroecosystems in developing counties is the high degree of plant diversity, including populations of variable and adapted landraces as well as wild and weedy relatives of crops. The method of minimizing risk by planting several species and varieties of crops is used for stabilizing yields over the long period, for promoting diet diversity and or for maximizing return even with low levels of technology and limited inputs (Altieri et al., 2012). Such genetic diversity provides security to farmers against diseases, pest, drought and other stresses and also enhances stability of the cropping systems and permits farmers to exploit different microclimates (Perfecto et al., 2009), it therefore enhances the resiliency of the agroecosystems to climate changes. Many studies emphasize the importance of enhancing plant diversity and complexity in farming systems to reduce vulnerability to extreme climatic events (Altieri et al., 2012). Recent studies shows that many smallholder farmers, aware about climate changes, cope with them through increased use of drought tolerant local varieties, water harvesting, mixed cropping, agroforestry and soil conservation practices (Altieri and Koohafkan, 2008). Case studies from some developing countries are presented to illustrate projects aimed at coping with climate changes.

Africa

Africa is thought to be the region most vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and change. It has approximately 33 million small farms, representing 80% of all farms in the region. The majority of African farmers are smallholders: two-thirds of all farms are below two hectares and 90% of all farms below 10 hectares. This “low resource” agriculture is based on the use of local resources and consider modest use of external inputs (Altieri and Koohafkan, 2008). In the last decades the food production has declined in Africa, it was self-sufficient in cereals while now has to import millions of tons to fill the gap. Despite this increase in imports, smallholder farmers still produce most of Africa’s food, then they are the main victims of climate changes, for this reason they are often involved in many breeding programs because they are the final users of the material, as the case of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) in Burkina Faso (vom Brocke et al., 2010). The objectives of such research was (i) to identify and examine farmers’ selection criteria for sorghum varieties in Centre-West of Burkina Faso, (ii) to compare these criteria with the breeder’s agronomic observations and standard practices and (iii) to show how the criteria of both farmers and breeders can be integrated into the early stages of a pedigree breeding program. The program was carried out over three years in two villages; groups of farmers (from 30 to 60 farmers) were involved to evaluate 53 segregating sorghum progenies in 2001, 49 selected lines in 2002 and, in 2003, 28 selected lines in one village and 32 in the second village. Methods and tools for collaboration between farmers and scientists were designed to encourage constant feedback. Before starting the evaluation, the farmers were gathered together in a group discussion for identifying farmers’ selection criteria that will see a new variety accepted. These criteria were then ranked by importance and formed the basis for the evaluation. The farmers rated the varieties giving a score from 0 to 3. These ratings were applied to the three most important selection criteria (earliness, high grain quality and high productivity) and a “general appreciation” rating of the entry was included in 2002 and 2003. As a third step, farmers selected their five most preferred entries. In each experiment, a technician annually monitored some agronomic data, these measurements were then correlated with the farmers’ scores for each entry. The results of the research show that farmers possess the necessary knowledge of their environment and their sorghum panicles to make predictions about adaptation and food quality of a plant, then it is important and valuable to involve farmers and their knowledge in projects for improving agricultural systems.

A similar approach is being followed in Ethiopia in a research project aimed to study the diversity of durum wheat to support the adaptation of farmer systems to climate change (Mancini et al., 2013). In Ethiopia durum wheat is a basic daily consumed food crop, it is cultivated on 70% of the total wheat area (2 million hectares) and it is one of the officially announced strategic crops for contribution to food security and livelihood improvement of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is, indeed, a net importer of wheat although several studies witness and report the uniqueness of the Ethiopian tetraploid wheat germplasm for different useful traits, but actually this material has not been utilized in breeding programmes (Tesemma and Belay, 1991). The aim of the research project is to contribute to contribute to the food security of smallholder farmers through the development of new genotypes in tetraploid durum wheat to be used both as genetic material for gene discovery and fine mapping and as advanced pre-breeding germplasm for improving grain yield and yield stability. The project is organized in three independent but highly complementary research lines: (i) characterization of Ethiopian tetraploid wheat accessions from the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation (IBC) in Addis Abeba; (ii) development of Nested Association mapping Population (NAM) of tetraploide wheat and (iii) participatory variety selection in Amhara and Tigray Regions. The first step was the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of a set of landraces from IBC collection: in December 2010, 373 accessions classified as durum wheat and 27 improved cultivars were grown in two differently characterized agroecological zones of northern Ethiopia: Hagereselam, in the western part of Tigray Region, and Geregera, in the eastern part of Amhara Region. Technicians collected some agronomic data and extracted DNA from all the varieties for genotyping with the Illumina 90K SNP Wheat chip. The second part of the project consist of generating a large NAM Population of durum wheat mostly from Ethiopian germplasm for producing a mapping population to identify Quantitative Traits Lucus (QTL) for important agronomic traits particularly relevant to Ethiopia and for producing a set of recombinant inbred lines used as pre-breeding material for the final development of new cultivars. Since the overall objective of the project is to contribute to the food security of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia by providing them with access to seeds of locally adapted varieties, all the 400 varieties were evaluated in the two locations by 60 local farmers (30 males and 30 females) before harvest. The work started with a focus group discussion with the farmers to identify and ranking the traits they use to evaluate wheat varieties and to investigate about their perception about climate change. Earliness, tillering capacity, ear morphology and overall plot characteristics were evaluated, giving a score from 1 to 5. Forty landraces were selected on the basis of metric measurements and farmers’ scoring and they will be amplified and distributed to the farmers for further analysis. The analysis of agronomic measurements and the farmers’ scores shows a large correlation among them, therefore also this study confirms that farmers possess the necessary knowledge of their crops for helping researchers in breeding projects. Moreover farmers’ perception of climate change reflects both the results of other studies and actual data obtained from National Meteorological Service Agency and IPCC, confirming their awareness about the issue of climate changes.

Asia

Asia accounts for almost half the world’s small farm thanks to the large amount of smallholders present in China, followed in Asia by India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam. In Asia there are more than 200 million rice farmers, most of whom grow their crop on small pieces of land of about 2 hectares. In China there are around 75 million rice farmers who still practice farming methods similar to those used more than 1,000 years ago and local cultivars make up the bulk of the rice produced by Asian small farmers (Uphoff, 2013). Even though the effects of climate change will be felt over all kinds of agricultural production systems, they will be more pronounced in dryland areas where agriculture is plagued with numerous problems like insufficient and erratic rainfall, land degradation and low soil fertility. The vulnerability of drylands to climate change has been exposed by devastating effects of recent flooding during the last decades. This highlights the need to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies for the dryland regions.

Studies conducted in India by ICRISAT (Jat et al., 2012) about climate change effects and mitigation strategies show the simulated yield reduction across a few selected locations, considering the impact of increase in temperature and CO2 concentration. The simulations show a reduction in yield for such crops as sorghum, pearl millet, groundnut, pigeon pea and chickpea. Since farmers from drylands are already vulnerable to current weather variability and associated shocks, it is essential to help them through coping better with current weather-induced risk as a prerequisite to adapting to future climate change. A first strategy for climate change adaptation is the use of cultivars that are adapted to heat stress and high soil temperature. ICRISAT has been continuously working to identify short duration, heat stress and drought-tolerant lines for using in crop improvement, as is has been done for the hybrid pigeon pea variety “ICPH 2671” and the pearl millet hybrid “HHB 67 Improved” which is India’s first public marker-assisted cultivar, important because is early maturing and disease-resistant.

Also agronomic practices have to be adapted to the climate scenario. ICRISAT recommends strategies to cope with the effects of climate change and variability on dryland agriculture. They are: growing early maturing, photo-insensitive, hightillering cultivars with optimal root traits and tolerant to abiotic and biotic stresses; mulching with crop residues; planting more seedling per hill for heat stress; better soil nutrient and water management, moisture conservation for late onset of monsoon and life-saving irrigation with stored rainwater for mid-season drought to harvest positive effects of the increased CO2 levels.

Since most of the rainfall now occur in the form of high-intensity short-duration rain events, it is crucial to harvest the run-off water to protect the crops against moisture stress as well as to avoid floods in downstream areas. Therefore integrated watershed management will play an important role in soil and water conservation, efficient use of rainwater, improved crop and livestock productivity and improved living standard of people especially in dry and marginally fertile land areas.

In Kothapally village, India, the combined effects of enhance crop tolerance to drought, integrated management of land and water resources and improved water productivity have reduced the vulnerability to climate shocks and improved productivity. Integrated watershed management has contributed to improving the resilience of agricultural incomes despite the high incidence of drought during 2002. While drought-induced shocks reduced the average share of agricultural income in a nearby non-project village from 44% to 12%, this share remained unchanged at about 36% in Kothapally village.

As the drylands will become increasingly important to ensure the food security of the nations in the future, there is need to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies along with restoring the natural resource base, which at present is critically degraded in the drylands.

Latin America

The peasant population in Latin America includes 75 million people, representing almost two-third of Latin America’s total rural population, occupying close to 60.5 million hectares. The average farm size is only about 1.8 hectares; however the contribution of peasant agriculture to the general food supply in the region is significant. For instance in Brazil about 85% of the total number of farmers are traditional family farmers that occupy 30% of the total agricultural land of the country. Such family farms produce 84% of the total cassava and 67% of all beans. In Ecuador, the peasant sector occupies more than 50%of the area devoted to food crops such as maize, beans, barley and okra. In Mexico, peasants occupy at least 70% of the area assigned to maize and 60% of the area under beans (Altieri and Koohafkan, 2008).

The local knowledge and capability within local communities to conserve climate-adapted landraces can be a copping strategy for the future challenges of climate change, as shown in a study conducted in two municipalities of Santa Catarina State, Brazil (Vasconcelos et al., 2013). In these areas the average farm size is 30 hectares, utilized mainly for subsistence crops including maize, soybean, wheat and cassava; the vulnerability of agriculture to extreme climatic events has been exacerbated by social and economic constraints facing these municipalities, including the small area of farms, a reliance on family labor, low levels of agricultural mechanization and limited financial resources. To gather information about: (i) features of current local climate, (ii) intensification of extreme climate events and (iii) strategies adopted by smallholders to adapt to climate adversities, semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted. In order to link and promote the advantages of landraces, smallholders, agricultural technicians, scientists, students and wider community worked together through a participatory process. Responses by the smallholders suggested that the maintenance of local varieties and knowledge of how to use them was influenced by the social cohesion and reciprocity within their communities. They expressed resistance in using transgenic crops adapted to drought and they were also concerned that the effects of such crops on the biodiversity are unknown. The smallholders producing their own seeds demonstrated a high degree of environmental awareness, they understand local trends in climate and that the ability to incorporate these into their decision making processes is essential for the success of farming. The agricultural technicians who followed the projects confirm that, while landraces varieties tend to have lower productivity in years with favorable seasonal conditions compared to commercial hybrids, landraces can be a safe strategy to keep producing even in the years with irregularities in precipitation frequency indeed the retention of drought resistant landraces within these local farming systems have evolved mainly as a strategy for adapting agricultural production to extreme climate events. A key finding of this research is the importance of social and institutional factors in fostering this kind of local strategy for adapting to climate change.

In another study conducted in Mexico (Mercer et al.,2012), various strategies for adaptation to climate change were proposed, in particular it was examined the appeal to use transgenic seeds through the lens of smallholder maize farming where landraces are the bedrock of production. The research aimed to clarify how Mexican farmers respond to climate change. The first option may be to introduce new cultivars that may be better adapted to the new conditions. Since the area devoted to cultivation of improved commercial seed is just 25%, it is expected that the majority of new cultivars would be other landraces. The second likely response for improving yields is that farmers may attempt to spur adaptation of existing local variety, selecting their seeds ears from their harvest pile. Thirdly, if landrace populations cannot evolve as fast as climate changes, or if farmers are unable to find more appropriate landraces, farmers may opt to grow less maize. In this case, they may either plant other crops or leave agriculture. The fourth option could be the transgenic adaptation strategy. Transgenic crops are not only being promoted as potentially beneficial for large-scale industrial production, they are also proclaimed a way for subsistence farmers to improve their yield and combat climate change. Adaptation strategies for smallholders in Mexico should not assume the use of transgenic crops for the following reasons. First, the diversity of environmental conditions found in many smallholder systems can make it risky to introduce transgenic varieties because they don’t produce as well as landraces in many parts of Mexico due to distinctive environmental conditions. Second, there has been a notable lack of social and cultural acceptance for transgenic maize in Mexico since its inception. Mexican farmers have a strong culture of mixing or hybridizing varieties then the introduction of transgenic maize could result in the spread of transgenes to other local landraces. Finally, landraces may possess the best capacity to survive climatic fluctuations in the long term, compared to transgenic seeds because they have high levels of genetic variation and the variation is related with the environmental variation present in a region. Transgenic adaptation strategy doesn’t seem to be one option for coping with climate change and for the evolution of Mexican agriculture.

Conclusions and recommendations

Debating about agriculture and climate change it is important to remind that agriculture is itself responsible for about a third of greenhouse-gas emissions, indeed activities such ploughing land and shifting cultivation for agricultural expansion release CO2 into the atmosphere. Moreover about 40% of human caused methane comes from the decomposition of organic matter in flooded rice paddies and 25% from livestock. In addition, agriculture is responsible for 80% of the human made nitrous-oxide emissions through breakdown of fertilizer and that of manure and urine from livestock. However, agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions can be largely cut and much can be done to reduce their effect on production and on the livelihoods of farmers, especially in developing countries (Glantz, 2009).

The data and literature about climate change and its consequences are not equally derived from all over the world, there is a notable lack of geographic balance with a scarcity from developing counties. Europe, Northern Asia, North America and the Antarctic Peninsula are regions with evident climate warming and information are supported by observed changes in physical and biological systems. Regions with warming where evidence of observed changes is sparse are Africa and Latin America, and evidence is lacking in South-east Asia, the Indian Ocean and regions in the Pacific. The reasons for this imbalance could be are lack of access by IPCC authors, lack of data, research and published studies, lack of knowledge of system sensitivity, differing system responses to climate variables, lag effects in responses, resilience in systems and the presence of adaptation. Therefore there is a need to improve the observation networks and to enhance research capability on changes in physical, biological and socio-economic systems, particularly in regions with sparse data. This will contribute to an improved functional understanding of the responses of natural and managed systems to climate change (Parry, 2007).

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) identifies two options to address climate change: mitigation of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing carbon sink, and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Mitigation comprises all human activities aimed at reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. Adaptation in the context of climate change refers to any adjustment that takes place in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected impacts of climate change, aimed at moderating harm or exploiting beneficial opportunities. The international climate policy community is now becoming aware that energy policy alone will not suffice in the quest to control climate change and limit its impacts. Climate policy is being expanded to consider a wide range of options aimed at sequestering carbon in vegetation, oceans and geological formations and at reducing the vulnerability of sectors and communities to climate change impacts (Klein et al., 2005). In particular the situation in developing countries require more immediate attention because of the involvement of other challenges as food and water security, sanitation, education, health care, environmental degradation and natural hazard.

Not far from food: water for life

In recent years a linkage amongst global crises affecting energy, food security, economy and finance has been reported, in that, apart from being related to one another, they all have impacts on water. Such a finding pointed to the role water plays in all sectors of global economy, as well as to its relevance in achieving sustainable development. Particularly, the dependence of food production on water - in turn heavily affecting food security - emerged in the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (2007). Interestingly, the assessment highlighted that the capacity for coping with the expected growing and significantly changing food demand would necessarily get through a substantial improvement in the water use in agriculture, thus pointing to the pivotal nexus between water and agriculture.

Agriculture currently uses 11% of the world’s land surface, with rain fed agriculture being the predominant agricultural production system around the world. On a world scale, in fact, the area equipped for irrigation is just the 20% over the cultivated land. Such a small share, however, accounts for the 70% of the total water withdrawal and produces about 40% of world food production. This share is expected to significantly increase in the near future. Most of this expansion will occur in densely populated, land-scarce areas, where irrigation is already playing a crucial role in agriculture, such as South and East Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. An important factor to be considered in light of the expected population growth is also the differentiation of water use, resulting in an increase in the demand for water for domestic and industrial purposes that will come along and be directly linked to economic development. This will pose considerable challenges for the development of the agricultural sector in that there will necessarily be contrasting issues to be solved. In this sense, the role of water in boosting conflicts in fragile areas is not new, as history is replete with examples of competition and disputes over shared fresh water resources. Further exacerbating the tensions deriving from water scarcity will likely be climate change, in that it is expected to reduce water availability by causing changes in the distribution and amount of rainfall, increasing temperature and evapotranspiration, and reducing water reservoirs. While currently 1.6 billion people live in countries and regions with absolute water scarcity, their number is expected to rise to 2.8 billion people by 2025 in light of climate change effects.

In this framework, agriculture is to be considered a driving pressure on water availability worldwide, given the withdrawal it accounts for that increases the severity of water scarcity in some areas and arises issues even in areas that are relatively well endowed with water resources. On the other hand, amongst all sectors of the economy, agriculture itself is the most sensitive to water scarcity as strictly dependent on this resource. These features pose agriculture in the difficult position of adapting to water resources contraction while being itself redesigned for minimizing its impacts on both water quantity and quality. With regard to this, evidences are being found on the availability and applicability of technologies for improving the water-use efficiency in agriculture, ranging from the selection and breeding of drought tolerant crops and varieties, to the adoption of water saving agronomic practices, the reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation purposes, and the use of new precision irrigation systems. Notwithstanding the value of these practices, for being effective they should be embedded in properly designed agricultural policies aiming to the development of the agricultural sector in light of the expected trends.

2.2. Water and nutrient use efficiency in greenhouse systems and its application in horticulture in arid zones

Giuseppe Pignata

Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, DISAFA

Vegetable Crops & Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, VEGMAP

Università di Torino

Abstract

Like any other industry, agriculture in general and horticulture in particular have to face economic, environmental and social challenges such as natural resources availability, human population increases and rising food prices. Traditional culture system (TCS) in open field is high demanding in water and other natural resources and thus has driven the introduction and the development of protected cultivation systems with innovative and high technological horticultural growing systems. Greenhouse systems and soilless culture system (SCS) can allow to obtain high yields, water and nutrient use efficiencies and growing seasons expansions thanks to the implementation of standard growing conditions and high input control, nutrients and resources usage optimization. Greenhouses and SCS have been recently introduced also in marginal and arid areas in which despite the favourable climate conditions, poor soils and/or water scarcity limit agriculture. An example of some innovative growing systems application is in Almería (Spain) area that has been characterized by a radical transformation in the last 40 years thanks to the horticultural development. The transformation of Almería from an underdeveloped and declining province that it was in the past to the European centre of intensive horticulture has been characterized by several steps and an adaptation to the changing global environment. Desert areas have tapped the opportunity arising from technical innovation to create new opportunity for horticulture development with important social impact. At present, the application of specialized growing techniques could be an efficient system to increase food security with horticulture sustainability in marginal and developing areas thanks to a synergistic interaction between growers, supply chain partners, research institutes and governmental agencies.

Introduction

Activities involved in agricultural practices have socio-economic impact (e.g. food products provision, rural areas development and sustainability) and environmental implications (e.g. use of natural resources, such as land and water) (Lundqvist et al., 2008; Nellemann et al., 2009; FAO, 2013; Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2013). Apart from assuring food security, the main challenges for the agricultural systems are competitiveness, efficiency and environmental protection through innovative practices and technologies that are environmentally respectful (Lundqvist et al., 2008; Nellemann et al., 2009; FAO, 2013).

The increase of input costs and the stabilisation of sale prices of produce have driven greater investments in technology, crop yield (which is increased more than two-fold from 1975) and resource efficiency, creating a dynamic system: the intensive horticulture (Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2013). Horticulture is related to climate (irradiation, temperature, water balance), edaphic (structure, chemical and biological soil properties, water) and management (cultivation system) factors (Gruda, 2009).

On average, 98% of the water taken up by an annual plant in open field is lost by transpiration and protected cultivation systems allow a reduction of the transpiration (FAO, 2004) (Fig. 1).

Water is fast becoming a scarce resource in many areas of the world (Rouphael et al., 2005) and its management is one of the most important political, social and economic issues of the twenty-first century (Abou Hadid, 2013). Agriculture is by far the most important water-use activity and probably also the sector least efficient in water use (Abou Hadid, 2013). Low irrigation efficiency can be primarily attributed to water mismanagement, distribution technical problems and poor maintenance of irrigation structures (Abou Hadid, 2013). The low water availability is forcing many growers to use water with relatively high salt concentration for crop irrigation (Savvas et al., 2007) or to improve methods, techniques and management practices in agricultural and horticultural production (Rouphael et al., 2005). It is estimated that 18% of cropland is irrigated accounting for ca 40% of productivity with an irrigation efficiency of 40-65% for furrow irrigation, 45-75% for basin irrigation, 60-70% for sprinkler irrigation, 80% for localized irrigation (Gleick, 2000; Abou Hadid, 2013). Furthermore, more strict environmental regulations related to water use are now prevailing in many countries (Rouphael et al., 2005). Thus, growers are looking for alternatives to traditional culture system (TCS) in open field for growing crops and they are turning to protected cultivation systems (Engindeniz, 2004; Gruda, 2005, 2009). Particularly, in recent years the horticultural production in greenhouse and with soilless culture system (SCS) has increased thanks to a series of advantages that TCS provide, such as plant protection prevention, product quality improvement, water saving, ensuring high yields (Ferrante et al., 2003; Engindeniz, 2004; Nicola & Fontana, 2007; Fontana & Nicola, 2009). Confined environments such as greenhouses allow to create specific microclimate conditions in which radiation and wind movement are lower but relative air humidity is higher than in the open field, thus favouring a reduction in evapotranspiration and improving water use efficiency (WUE) (Abou Hadid, 2013). Greenhouses are mostly covered with plastic film or rigid or semi rigid materials (e.g. polycarbonate), with an active or passive ventilation system with or without climate control (Castilla & Hernández, 2005). Greenhouses can be without the precise control of inputs and growing conditions or can be with elaborated tools which are capital-intensive both in construction and maintenance costs, largely used for productive advantages and the high added-value of the horticulture crops cultivated (Hitchon et al., 1991; Schnitzler et al., 2004; Grewal et al., 2011). However, the effective advantages of using greenhouses require knowledge and understanding on plant nutrient requirements, soil and fertilizer chemistry and water quality (Grewal et al., 2011).

Greenhouse development has usually been accompanied with that of SCS which represents an interesting approach to sustainable agriculture, although the commercial-scale application requires technical knowledge and high initial investment (Rouphael et al., 2005; Gruda, 2009). SCS is an innovative tool to produce raw vegetables that have been increasingly developed and used during recent decades, although it gained popularity worldwide in the 1930s in plant nutrition experiments by plant physiologists (Engindeniz, 2004). SCS uses water or a nutrient solution (NS) prepared eventually in combination with solid inert material (e.g. rockwool, turf stone, clay granules, sawdust, flexible polyurethane foaming blocks, composed hardwood bark, peat) to physically support the root systems (Boodley & Sheldrake, 1977; Engindeniz, 2004). Inert substrates are also suitable to significantly reduce the area of evapotranspiration compared with soil (Rouphael et al., 2005). SCS is the most intensive and effective production method in today’s agriculture industry even in areas with adverse growing conditions (Gruda, 2009). SCS is highly productive allowing controlling and managing efficiently the input usage precision, increasing the yield-related WUE, reducing waste (e.g. of N fertilization amount), it is suitable for producing vegetables with both a short culture cycle and a high planting density, increasing earliness and allowing the extension of the growing seasons (Carmassi et al., 2005; Savvas et al., 2007; Fontana & Nicola, 2008; Rodríguez-Hidalgo et al., 2010; Grewal et al., 2011; Scuderi et al., 2011). SCS is ideal for recycling water and nutrients because the drainage can be recovered; the reuse does not in general restrict crop yields while is reducing the water source pollution (Zekki et al., 1996; Grewal et al., 2011). In the past, SCS was basically used with open systems only, thus the surplus of supplied water and nutrients was lost reducing the efficiency, increasing waste and resulting in contamination of groundwater, particularly with nitrates and phosphates (Incrocci et al., 2006; Savvas et al., 2007). In Europe, new legislation drafted to reduce the environmental impact of horticulture stemming from fertigation runoff, is forcing greenhouse growers to invest in closed systems (Zekki et al., 1996; Savvas et al., 2007). In addition, SCS can improve raw material quality at harvest avoiding over-head irrigations and the contact between nutrient solution and edible parts reducing microbial contamination, eliminating soil and chemical residue spoilage and can solve problems caused by soil-borne diseases which occur during crop production using sterile media (Fontana & Nicola, 2009). FAO (2004) reported that 1 m3 of water consumption affect yield according to the cropping system used ranging from 3 kg of tomato production obtained in open field system, to 10-12 kg in protected cultivation system to 30 kg in SCS in protected cultivation system. The water consumption to produce 1 kg of commercial yield of vegetables varies considerably from TCS in open field to SCS in greenhouse (tomato 123 L vs 13 L; cucumber 205 L vs 10 L; lettuce 96 L vs 5 L, respectively) (FAO, 2004). Jovicich et al. (2007) reported that greenhouse cucumber crops in Florida (USA) required 33% less of the water amount, 28% less nitrogen and 23% less potassium per kg of fruit compared with a field grown cucumber crop.

Among the different SCS available, floating systems (FS) are relatively cheap and easy-to-use sub-irrigation systems which can be implemented either with a continuous flotation (FL) or with an ebb-and-flow flotation (EF) (Fontana & Nicola, 2009). FL consists of trays floating continuously on a water-bed or NS and requires relatively little maintenance or labour cost, resulting in a more efficient use of water and greenhouse space (Galloway et al., 2000; Fontana & Nicola, 2008). EF is scheduled with drying (ebb) periods with discontinuous flotation or aerating the NS to reduce plant hypoxia for those vegetables as rocket which may suffer stress due to the consumption of oxygen dissolved in the NS if grown in FL (Son et al., 2006; Nicola et al., 2007; Fontana & Nicola, 2009). The EF system may allow 85% reduction of water use, 50% of fertilizer use, 50 to 60% of pesticide use, elimination of groundwater contamination and rare occurrence of foliar and soil-borne diseases (Thomas, 1993; Son et al., 2006; Fontana & Nicola, 2009). In nutrient film technique (NFT) a continuous or intermittent flow of NS pumped from a tank flows over the plants roots in a tube or tray and then returns to the tank assuring adequate aeration of the plants roots (Cooper, 1979). Recycled NS must be monitored and checked regularly to adjust nutrient strength, conductivity, pH and control the supply because if the pump stops working, plant roots are prone to drying out (Cooper, 1979; Wolosin, 2008).

Cropland currently occupies about 1.53 billion hectares or 12% of the Earth’s ice free land and the most suitable area for cropping have already been converted to cropland (Ramankutty et al., 2002; Kummu et al., 2012). Expansion is therefore often into marginal areas where crops productions are particularly exposed to extreme conditions and stress reducing productivity and adaptation (Fonseca, 2009; West et al., 2010; Kummu et al., 2012). Thus, beside to be widely used in developed countries, greenhouses and SCS have been recently introduced in marginal areas or in arid lands where favourable climate conditions but problematic soil properties, water scarcity or erratic rainfall distribution exist (Gruda, 2009).

Case histories

The Almería phenomenon

The Almería province has been characterized by an unprecedented transformation in Spain’s recent economic history thanks to the agricultural development (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). The growth was characterized by an intensive farming due to social, institutional, economic and technological factors representing an example of how large-scale greenhouse agriculture can affect positively and negatively the landscape (Mota et al., 1996; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012).

Almería is located in the autonomous community of Andalucía in the South East of the Spain. The area is characterized by an extremely arid climate, with average temperature of 17-20 °C thanks to the mountains which provide a protective boundary against cold northerly winds and winter storms (Tout, 1990), little temperature variations between day and night, about 3000 hours of annual sunshine and about 200-250 mm of rain per year (Cantón et al., 2003; Downward & Taylor, 2007; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011). Because of the location, climate and lack of water, Almería has not being rapidly urbanized (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012) and until the end of the 1960s social and economic indicators characterized Almería as an underdeveloped and in a stage of decline province (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011).

Environmental factors have played an important role in the province turn around, particularly from the perspective of the efficient use of natural resources tending towards a production system that is becoming more environmentally respectful (Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2008, 2013). In the 1950s, agricultural production was based mainly on table grapes (produced on wire trellis systems covered with plastic to induce earliness) and citrus (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). With modern transportation and the accessibility to other varieties, the table grape industry suffered a decline becoming an unproductive source of cropping for farmers, encouraging them to search new sources of income (Wolosin, 2008). In that period the sand-plot (enarenado) technique, which consists of mechanically levelled land surfaced with a layer of compacted clay, well fermented manure and sand or coarse grit, was introduced (Tout, 1990). The National Institute for Colonization promoted the use of the technology necessary for extracting the abundant underground water resources compensating low and erratic rainfall, provided infrastructure for water and electricity use and encouraged people to settle in the area offering technical and financial advice (Giagnocavo et al., 2010; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012). Consequently, families from nearby rural areas were attracted by the proposition of easy access to land, the possibility of obtaining their own property and the great profitability (Baldock et al., 2010; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). Families have assumed the farming risks using several technological innovations developed and rapidly incorporated in the farms as windbreaks to protect the sand-plots system from high winds and sand loss (Tout, 1990; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). From the 1970s with the boom in intensive horticulture, the Almería’s economic growth was superior to the national average becoming the first province in Andalusía with the second-highest population growth in the previous three decades in Spain (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). During the 1970s and 1980s some farmers began growing vegetables instead of grape because of the greater profitability and the introduction of greenhouse and new farming technique (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). These innovations completely transformed unproductive lands into prosperous farms, providing effective protection against weather and environmental conditions contributing to increase yields and precocity, growing season extension, quality and water conservation (Tout, 1990; Ferraro García & Aznar-Sánchez, 2008; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011) (Fig. 2).

In 1975, approximately a quarter of the irrigated area of Almería was under greenhouse (Wolosin, 2008). The general horticultural market expansion particularly of off-season produce was the main reason for the continued investment and farm development, thanks also to mechanisms introduced for family-run firms and cooperative bank, private financing structures and credit facilities offered by marketing firms (Friedmann & McMichael, 1989; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012; Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2013). In the 1980s the attention to the efficient use of irrigation water is grown and in 1984 the Government of Andalucía froze the expansion of irrigated greenhouses with legal restrictions due to the over-exploitation of the aquifers and marine intrusion (Wolosin, 2008). In the subsequent years, the Government of Andalucía funded the construction of deeper wells, water supply lines and new irrigation pipes in response to water shortages and farmers’ demand (Wolosin, 2008). Drip irrigation was forced to be applied to reduce water use and evapotranspiration loss while increasing the efficiency of its distribution on the plants (Tout, 1990; Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). Consequently, because of the water issues and restrictions, Almería experienced little to no greenhouse construction from 1985 to 1989 (Wolosin, 2008). The Almería’s agriculture consolidation took place in the 1990s with constant improvement in production technique, technological innovation and marketing for the competitiveness maintenance (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). Nowadays, to overcome extremely poor indigenous soils of the province, approximately 90% of the greenhouse area in Almería produces vegetables on an artificial soil created with clay, sand, gravel, manure and either perlite or rockwool as soilless media, and the production has increased optimizing costs (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012; Giagnocavo, 2012).

The land area dedicated to horticultural greenhouse farming has increased dramatically from approximately 3,000 ha in 1975 to around 27,000 ha 30 years later (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011) (Fig. 3).

Nowadays, in Almería there are 36,000-40,000 ha of greenhouse crops representing more than half of the total area of greenhouses in Spain and the most concentrated greenhouse in Europe. Particularly, the major greenhouse area is concentrated in the south-west of the province, at Campo de Dalías, with a concentration of over 16,000 ha of greenhouses making it the most important centre of intensive farming (Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). In Almería, volume greenhouse production increased from 600,000 metric tons to 2.7 million metric tons in the last 30 years, representing about 25% of the national total production, making Almería the top vegetable growing province in Spain, which is the 5th producer in the world (Wolosin, 2008; Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). The general downward trend in the agricultural sector importance in the latest years has been much less marked in Almería than the regional and national average (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011).

Most of the producers are family greenhouse owner with low capital investments and average surface of 1-1.5 ha (Baldock et al., 2010; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012). This predominant agrarian structure has changed over time with an increase in the farm size and the creation of an “industrial agriculture system” thanks to the accumulation of private capital, research and development centres and farmers’ differentiation allowing the cultivation of more crops and land (Pallarés-Barberá, 2002; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011). From the 1990s, because in intensive horticulture the majority of the labour tasks cannot be mechanized, the use of temporary labour has grown, especially from various African countries, Central and South America and East Europe with social and cultural impact (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). Indeed, Almería is the second Spanish province for foreign-born residents (19.7% in 2008) (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). The heightened interest in Almería production from national and international produce companies has brought additional changes to the greenhouse system and the expansion of auxiliary industries related to construction, maintenance, as well as distribution, packaging, seeding, recycling of produce and experimental stations (Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012). Nowadays there are 14,000 enterprises with an income of 8.6 billion euros, 50,000 employees and the activities linked to agriculture accounts for around 30% of the province’s gross domestic product (GDP) (Ferraro García & Aznar-Sánchez, 2008; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012). Almería produces 30 different vegetable species, representing 90% of the total agricultural production, that are generally grown as winter crops (tomato, sweet pepper, cucumber, green beans, eggplant and certain squashes) and summer crops (various muskmelons, watermelons and zucchini) with production peaks in December-January and in May-June (Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012) (Fig. 4; 5).

Half of the sweet peppers and a quarter of cucumbers and tomatoes consumed in Europe come from Almería showing the importance of continued production (Wolosin, 2008). Almería area has developed its own marketing structure thanks to the considerable concentration of farming supply and the high quality production is sold through cooperatives or via auction (Martínez-Carrasco Pleite, 2004; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Giagnocavo, 2012). Sales to international markets did not begin until the late 1970s and in 1980 they only accounted for 9% of production (Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2013). Nowadays, approximately 60% of the total production is exported with a value of 1.7 billion euros to the EU, especially Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (Ferraro García & Aznar-Sánchez, 2008; Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011) representing over 50% of total Spanish exports (Pérez-Mesa & Galdeano-Gómez, 2010); a part of the production is directly distributed thanks to a continued improvement of local distribution channels (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011).

Despite the economic success the Almería production system has several structural weaknesses. The fast and intensive horticulture development occurred in the initial stage without any type of territorial planning and organization generated some negative externalities, also because for long time the main objective of the farmer was to increase productivity and short-term economic gains (Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). The hydrological factor has been considered as the most important due to overexploitation, shortage, price, quality and contamination of aquifers due to the abundant use of pesticide and fertilizer and the progressive salinization in the areas (Tout, 1990; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). The solution to these problems were the use of reservoirs and recycled water, progressive adaptation of SCS and the built at the end of 1990s of two desalination plants (the biggest in Europe) (Colino Sueiras & Martínez Paz, 2002; Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2008; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). The desalination plants supply water for domestic and irrigation use despite the high-energy use necessary which is only partially satisfied with renewable resources (Downward & Taylor, 2007). Almería is also characterized by uncontrolled dumping of waste (e.g. organic, plastic, packaging); clashes between growers and immigrant due to poor working and living conditions for the foreign labourer; extraction of sand and soils for agricultural use; occupation of areas of environmental interest and landscape degradation (Downward & Taylor, 2007; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011; Cantliffe & Vansickle, 2012).

In the current global food economy, the major challenges facing the Almería producers are traceability, food safety, quality control, pesticide residues and great supply concentration to satisfy the requirements of large-scale distribution (Aznar-Sánchez & Galdeano-Gómez, 2011; Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2011). Local and central Spanish governments support new technologies also related to plastic and organic waste recycling, controlled burning or used in biofumigation (Wolosin, 2008) along with incentives for adaptation of productive technologies and integrated pest management, increasing quality and yields using the same space (Fernández et al., 2007).

The development of Almería’s horticultural sector may be useful in helping other areas to adapt and improve their agricultural systems especially when small-scale farming predominates (Galdeano-Gómez et al., 2013).

The North African situation

Many North African countries are affected by the most severe water shortages and by the greatest challenges in terms of future water availability because of the semi-arid climate, limited and variable rainfall and strong water evaporation (Frija et al., 2009). From the 1980s these countries developed irrigation infrastructures planning the control of water resources in order to increase their supply stability given that agriculture accounts for around 80% of the total water consumption (Shiklomanov, 2000; Döll, 2009; Frija et al., 2009; Kummu et al., 2012).

Technical innovation in Tunisian horticultural greenhouses

Rainfall in Tunisia varies from less than 100 mm per year in the South to more than 1000 mm per year in the North, which is mountainous and with little cultivable land. Consequently, most agricultural activities are undertaken in areas with limited rainfall availability, making irrigation and water management necessary for production (Frija et al., 2009). In 2009 almost 385,000 ha (7% of useful agricultural land) were irrigated in Tunisia providing 35% of the agricultural production value, 95% of horticultural crops, counting for 22% of agricultural sector exports and 26% of the total agricultural employment (Frija et al., 2009). During recent decades, the growing demand for irrigation water addressed to modernize the management of collective irrigation systems promoting user participation, reformulate the water pricing system and incentived the adoption of water saving technologies at farm level (Al Atiri, 2004). However, irrigated greenhouse production in the Tunisian “Sahel” region has a low irrigation water use efficiency and does not reflect the water-saving oriented policies that have been applied (Frija et al., 2009). At the moment, farmer specializations and technical efficiency of the greenhouse crop production have a negative correlation with the irrigation water use efficiency, which could be improved enhancing farmer knowledge through better extension services to ameliorate water resource sustainability and productivity (Frija et al., 2009).

Protected cultivation system in Israel and the case of the Arava region

Israel’s agricultural sector is characterized by an intensive production because the need to overcome a scarcity of natural resources, particularly water (Regev, 2006). Over half of the country is indeed characterized by arid or semi-arid areas and only the coastal strip and several inland valleys provide the conditions to vegetables production (Regev, 2006). Israel’s annual rainfall ranges from 800 mm in the North of the country to 25 mm on the desert edge in the South, from October to April, and the average annual evaporation ranges from 1,400 mm to 2,800 mm (Azenkot, 2006). Although most of the water resources are located in the North and central part of the country, agriculture and settlements have also been expanded in the South (Azenkot, 2006). This has been possible thanks to the cooperation and interaction between researchers, extension services, farmers and agro-industries which transformed agriculture into a system that is globally renowned for its efficiency and productivity with extensive protected cultivation systems (Gross, 2006; Regev, 2006; Yurista, 2006).

The total area covered with intensive agriculture (greenhouses, shade-houses and walk-in tunnels) increased from 900 ha in the 1980s to about 13,000 ha in 2012, despite a slight decrease in the total cultivated area in Israel in the last year, with 8,000 ha for vegetables and 5,000 ha for floriculture, with an average farm size of 4-8 ha and 8 ha, respectively (Amir, 2006). In addition to vegetables and flowers that have been grown in greenhouses in the last few decades, fruits such as grapes, pomegranates and citrus are now grown in plastic or net houses (Amir, 2006). Thus, production under protected conditions has become the principal way for Israeli growers to ensure a standard, constant, year-round supply of high-quality products allowing exportation to Europe, taking advantage of local climatic and environmental conditions optimizing the use of land, water and chemicals (Amir, 2006). The advanced greenhouse currently used in Israel includes curtains, skylights and shade netting which move automatically in reaction to sunlight and are 5-m high at their lowest point to provide best light, working space and ventilation allowing the installation of thermal coverings (Amir, 2006). Many strategies have been implemented in recent years to cool the greenhouses during the day and heat at night with a minimal investment of energy (e.g. misting/fogging systems have been tested successfully for vegetables and are used for ornamental plants) (Amir, 2006).

Research on irrigation systems has been started since the early 1950s and it became clear that water use is much more efficient with pressurized irrigation system than surface irrigation (Azenkot, 2006). Water use efficiency is now increased implementing automatic valves and computerized controllers, using micro-irrigation systems or vegetal indicators such as leaf water potential and fruit growth rate to achieve further precision and regularity in water and nutrient application (Azenkot, 2006).

One of the most important weaknesses of the Israeli protected cultivated system is that potable water for agriculture was reduced of about 50% on behalf of an increase of the brackish and reclaimed water not only for irrigation of salinity-tolerant crops such as cotton but also for several crops such as tomatoes and melons (Azenkot, 2006). Approximately 25% of greenhouses with SCS have switched to recycled irrigation systems by reusing water drainage either back to the same or nearby field being the most efficient, environmental and economical solution with a save of 30%-40% of water and fertilizer inputs, but with subsequent microbiological hazards if not extensively treated (Azenkot, 2006).

Arava is a region in the Negev desert in the South of Israel characterized by extremely hot and arid climate, strong winds and water shortage (Gadiel, 2006). Local groundwater sources are at a depth of 1,000 m with high salinity level and a geothermal temperature ranging from 35 to 60 °C (Gadiel, 2006). Additional water is obtained from the seasonal flooding of streams and collected in reservoirs after rainfall (average 5-35 mm/year) (Gadiel, 2006). Desert silt soil is formed from settled alluvial materials completely deficient of organic matter, infertile and saline consequently the addition of soil from the Arava riverbed allow to obtain the conditions for growing vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes, melons and eggplants (Fig. 6) (Gadiel, 2006).

Switching from open fields to greenhouses and net-houses productions has made possible to produce different varieties of crops with high yields and quality able to successfully compete in the international market. Indeed 60% of Israel`s export of fresh vegetables comes from Arava region (Gadiel, 2006).

Australian low-cost hydroponic greenhouse for a cucumber crop

The Australian greenhouse industry is dominated (up to 80%) by low-cost simple structures using TCS, other media or SCS and the hydroponics system for supply water and nutrient to plants (Grewal et al., 2011). In Australia, low-cost greenhouse and hydroponic producers of cucumber and tomatoes have great potential to improve water and nutrient use efficiencies because the greenhouse production input recycle is very limited for the disease fear and the risk of reduced yields (Grewal et al., 2011).

Because drainage water contain nutrients contributing to the pollution of local waterways (Thompson et al., 2007), Grewal et al. (2011) reported a study on the opportunities in using the recycle in a commercial farm in Londonderry - New South Wales, Australia. Farm is organized with 18 tunnel greenhouses (12 used to produce cucumbers and 6 to tomatoes), each with an area of 450 m2 with a hydroponic system distributed through drippers to plants growing in black plastic bags containing potting mixture. In cucumber greenhouse growing system, 38% of the total irrigation water applied was used by the cucumber plants through evapotranspiration and the remaining 62% was discharged from the greenhouse as drainage water. The drainage water reuse resulted in 33% saving of the total potable water for cucumber production and reuse of 566 kg/ha N, 25 kg/ha P and 703 kg/ha K at the farm for cucumber and other crops preventing its discharge into the local environment (Grewal et al., 2011). This case study demonstrates that some relatively simple changes and not too expensive technology in irrigation practices within greenhouse systems can considerably improve sustainability of low-cost hydroponic greenhouses helping to minimise the environmental footprint (Grewal et al., 2011).

Conclusions and recommendations

Intensive and specialized farming such as greenhouses and SCS use offer the possibility to grow horticultural crops in marginal and arid lands that conversely cannot be used. Moreover, innovative growing systems allow to increase yield and extend the growing season thanks to standard growing conditions, high input control, nutrient and resources usage optimization, particularly of water.

In some arid and desert areas, protected cultivation systems and innovative and technological horticultural growing systems have been developed and implemented creating additional or new channels of crop production with good economic and social results. The future of horticulture in a changing world is an important issue for environmental sustainability, economic and social challenges and the development of many rural areas. Thus the application of specialized growing technique could be an efficient system to increase food security also in developing areas where both land, water and crops are scarce. In this context, awareness in growers, supply chain partners, research institutes and governments of both technical and socio-economic aspects of greenhouses and SCS can play a fundamental role for the future sustainability of horticulture.

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