Cover crops slow erosion, improve soil, smother weeds, enhance nutrient and moisture availability, help control many pests and bring a host of other benefits to your farm. At the same time, they can reduce costs, increase profits and even create new sources of income. You¿ll reap dividends on your cover crop investments for years, since their benefits accumulate over the long term. This book will help you find which ones are right for you. Captures farmer and other research results from the past ten years. The authors verified the info. from the 2nd ed., added new results and updated farmer profiles and research data, and added 2 chap. Includes maps and charts, detailed narratives about individual cover crop species, and chap. about aspects of cover cropping.

Scenes of starvation have drawn the world's attention to Africa's agricultural and environmental crisis. Some observers question whether this continent can ever hope to feed its growing population. Yet there is an overlooked food resource in sub-Saharan Africa that has vast potential: native food plants. When experts were asked to nominate African food plants for inclusion in a new book, a list of 30 species grew quickly to hundreds. All in all, Africa has more than 2,000 native grains and fruitsâ€""lost" species due for rediscovery and exploitation. This volume focuses on native cereals, including: African rice, reserved until recently as a luxury food for religious rituals. Finger millet, neglected internationally although it is a staple for millions. Fonio (acha), probably the oldest African cereal and sometimes called "hungry rice." Pearl millet, a widely used grain that still holds great untapped potential. Sorghum, with prospects for making the twenty-first century the "century of sorghum." Tef, in many ways ideal but only now enjoying budding commercial production. Other cultivated and wild grains. This readable and engaging book dispels myths, often based on Western bias, about the nutritional value, flavor, and yield of these African grains. Designed as a tool for economic development, the volume is organized with increasing levels of detail to meet the needs of both lay and professional readers. The authors present the available information on where and how each grain is grown, harvested, and processed, and they list its benefits and limitations as a food source. The authors describe "next steps" for increasing the use of each grain, outline research needs, and address issues in building commercial production. Sidebars cover such interesting points as the potential use of gene mapping and other "high-tech" agricultural techniques on these grains. This fact-filled volume will be of great interest to agricultural experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, and individuals concerned about restoring food production, environmental health, and economic opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection, Newbridge Garden Book Club

Sudan is a country located in northeastern Africa, bordered by Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Chad to the west, Central African Republic to the southwest, South Sudan to the south, Ethiopia to the southeast, and the Red Sea to the northeast. The country is home to over 40 million people and is one of the largest in Africa in terms of land area. It is also one of the most diverse countries in terms of languages, cultures, and religions, with Arabic and Islam being predominant in the northern regions, while different African languages and religions are more prevalent in the south. Since its independence from colonial rule, Sudan has experienced widespread violence and instability, including two civil wars that lasted for several decades and resulted in the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Even after the split, Sudan still faces numerous challenges, including economic crisis, political turmoil, ongoing conflicts in Darfur and other regions, and a large number of refugees and internally displaced people. However, the country also has significant resources and potential, including oil reserves, mineral deposits, and a strategic location at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East.

On the example of a mountain region in the northwest of Vietnam, the study investigates, how the strengths of GIS and remote sensing can be transferred to farming systems research. Such an integration of both disciplines allows the consideration of spatial information that goes beyond the usual use of transportation cost in economics. In this way, the holistic farming systems approach can be based on a broader database that includes space in a different way as in the past. The spatial analysis of the physical and socio-economic environment enables the comparison of characteristics for spatially closed areas. Data from geo-informatics assess the spatial reference system of farming systems by means of their physical site conditions. The socio-economic site conditions for these framing systems are assessed through the classical farming systems research methodology based on family level surveys. Thus the spatial integration of socio-economic development allows to unify the strengths of both research areas. In doing so, GIS and remote sensing contribute to farming systems research by assessing the site conditions of the farming systems on a spatially explicit and on a regional basis. This can be achieved by means of instruments like 1. the spatial representation of gradients, 2. the classification of zones according to socio-economic criteria, 3. the regional assessment and valuation of the endowment of agricultural land and 4. the modelling of socio economic parameters, like income, on the basis of spatial data on regional scale.

This paper evaluates spatial market and price transmission in cereal markets in Sudan, focusing on wheat and sorghum, two major cereal crops. We use comprehensive and long-ranging monthly cereal price data and a multivariate vector of error-correction cointegration models (VECM) to characterize both short-term and long-term price transmissions across local cereal markets. We find that among the 15 local wheat markets and 18 sorghum markets we can only detect significant spatial market integration among 7 wheat and 10 sorghum markets. Despite some strong spatial market integration among a few neighboring markets, there is no market integration between several regions. For example, cereal markets in Darfur are not integrated with cereal markets in the rest of the country. Among integrated markets, we observe significant variations in the strength of price transmission elasticities as well as speed of adjustment to longterm equilibrium, which implies that shocks (and price policies) in some markets can affect only some other markets. Most of the strong price transmission and spatial market dependence follow existing trade flows and road networks, insinuating that infrastructural barriers may be obstructing spatial market integration. We also find that markets in production surplus states are less responsive to price changes in neighboring markets than those located in cereal deficit states. Finally, we also observe relatively stronger spatial integration and short-term adjustment in sorghum markets than wheat markets. Shocks to sorghum prices in sorghum producing markets have permanent impact while shocks to wheat prices in wheat producing markets endure transitory effects. These findings have important policy implications for improving the efficiency of cereal markets in Sudan and other similar settings.