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Agriculture
Special Issues
Regenerative Agriculture: Farming with Benefit
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Regenerative Agriculture: Farming with Benefit

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Economics, Policies and Rural Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 February 2025) | Viewed by 3015

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Felice Adinolfi

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Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, Alma Mater University of Bologna, Via Tolara di Sopra 50, Ozzano dell’Emilia, 40064 Bologna, Italy
Interests: agrifood policy; agricultural economics; risk analysis in agriculture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Teresa Del Giudice

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Guest Editor
Department of Agriculture, University of Naples Federico II, Piazza Carlo di Borbone, 1, Portici, 80055 Napoli, Italy
Interests: consumer science; organic production; innovation adoption; rural development; agri-food policies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yari Vecchio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, Alma Mater University of Bologna, Via Tolara di Sopra 50, Ozzano dell’Emilia, 40064 Bologna, Italy
Interests: agricultural economics; agrifood policies; innovation adoption; consumer science; rural development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, soil, as a valuable and at the same time vulnerable resource, has been increasingly affected by degradation phenomena. Today, it is estimated that 52% of agricultural soils are degraded and that erosion alone affects more than 12 million hectares of agricultural land across Europe. Moreover, reflecting the decline in soil fertility, organic carbon has suffered an 8% loss globally over the last two centuries. The need to restore the soil ecosystem has become increasingly urgent in recent years. Based on this, regenerative agriculture (RA) offers a holistic approach to agriculture that aims to improve soil quality, restoring soil biodiversity and sequestering carbon to mitigate the effects of climate change.

There are still few definitions that can capture this complexity. While protecting the environment and restoring soil have become a priority in recent decades, it is no less important to ensure healthy, quality food for an ever-growing population. Different models of agriculture have appeared over the years to try to combine these objectives.

RA may provide a strategy to address the growing demand for new sustainable models of production in the agricultural sector if important knowledge gaps can be filled. Research on RA still needs to be deepened in all its dimensions, which can only be realized through multidisciplinary studies.

In this scenario, the Special Issue aims to open a debate on the following topics related to regenerative agriculture:

  • Its definition;
  • The agronomic and technical aspects;
  • Its economic assessment;
  • The social dimension;
  • Policy frameworks.

Prof. Dr. Felice Adinolfi
Dr. Teresa Del Giudice
Dr. Yari Vecchio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • regenative agriculture
  • agroforestry
  • agroecology
  • no-till
  • permaculture
  • precision farming

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 820 KiB  
Article
Comparative Techno-Economic and Carbon Footprint Analysis of Semi-Extensive and Intensive Beef Farming
by Angelo Frascarelli, Stefano Ciliberti, Sofia Maria Lilli, Paolo Pascolini, Jacopo Gabriele Orlando and Margherita Tiradritti
Agriculture 2025, 15(5), 472; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15050472 - 22 Feb 2025
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Abstract
The environmental impact of beef cattle production varies significantly across farming systems, influenced by factors like feed, management practices, and land use. By applying the LCA perspective with “from cradle to farm gate” boundaries and using the CAP’2ER® tool, this study evaluates [...] Read more.
The environmental impact of beef cattle production varies significantly across farming systems, influenced by factors like feed, management practices, and land use. By applying the LCA perspective with “from cradle to farm gate” boundaries and using the CAP’2ER® tool, this study evaluates the carbon footprint of two farming models in Italy: a semi-extensive cow-calf beef production and an intensive farm for calf fattening. The carbon footprint was calculated using two functional units: kilograms of live meat gross production (LMGP), and a monetary unit. The first model showed a lower carbon footprint, with 13.4 kg CO2eq/kg LMGP and 1.96 kg CO2eq/EUR, compared to the second one 19.2 kg CO2eq/kg LMGP and 5.20 kg CO2eq/EUR. The use of monetary value as a functional unit is rarely explored in the literature, since most studies have focused on weight-based metrics, favoring intensive systems with longer lifecycles compared to extensive farming. Furthermore, contrary to findings in the literature for semi-extensive systems like adaptive multi-paddock grazing, the tool used for the calculation did not detect any carbon sequestration. These findings highlight the need for further investigation into diverse functional units to assess the environmental and economic performance of farming systems. Expanding this approach could inform policies and consumer decisions, promoting sustainable beef production aligned with climate goals and the European Green Deal agenda. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Regenerative Agriculture: Farming with Benefit)
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24 pages, 5384 KiB  
Article
Small Farmers’ Agricultural Practices and Adaptation Strategies to Perceived Soil Changes in the Lagoon of Venice, Italy
by Tiziana Floridia, Julia Prakofjewa, Luigi Conte, Giulia Mattalia, Raivo Kalle and Renata Sõukand
Agriculture 2024, 14(11), 2068; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture14112068 - 16 Nov 2024
Viewed by 1475
Abstract
Farmers have a pivotal responsibility in soil conservation: they can either preserve or deplete it through their choices. The responsibility of agriculture increases when practised in delicate ecosystems, such as lagoonal ones. The Venetian Lagoon islands, which are increasingly subjected to natural and [...] Read more.
Farmers have a pivotal responsibility in soil conservation: they can either preserve or deplete it through their choices. The responsibility of agriculture increases when practised in delicate ecosystems, such as lagoonal ones. The Venetian Lagoon islands, which are increasingly subjected to natural and anthropic subsidence, occasional flooding events (acqua alta), and eustatic sea level rise, are constantly exposed to erosive processes that challenge farmers to play with their adaptive capability. This research was carried out on the islands of Sant’Erasmo and Vignole, the most representative of island agriculture in the Venetian Lagoon: they almost exclusively rely on agriculture, which is almost nil in the other islands. This empirical research aimed to explore farmers’ agricultural practices, perceptions of soil changes, and how they adapt to them. It was fundamental for this study that the field research involved direct human contact with farmers (through semi-structured interviews) for data collection and using qualitative methods for data analysis, integrating scientific and non-scientific forms of knowledge and actors. The final purpose was to demonstrate the sustainability (valued on the potential depletion or regeneration capability) of agricultural practices and adaptation strategies on a theoretical basis. Despite their polycultural landscape (maintained by low-input farming systems), escaped from the predominant landscape oversimplification, Sant’Erasmo and Vignole are also subjected to unsustainable agricultural practices, including heavy mechanisation and synthetic inputs. Coupled with natural soil salinity that is exacerbated by increasing drought periods, these practices can contribute to soil degradation and increased salinity. The reported adaptation strategies, such as zeroed, reduced, or more conscious use of machines, were guided by the need to reduce the negative impact of soil changes on productivity. Our research revealed some of them as sustainable and others as unsustainable (such as increasing irrigation to contrast soil salinity). Participatory action research is needed to support farmers in designing effective sustainable agricultural practices and adaptation strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Regenerative Agriculture: Farming with Benefit)
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