Potential for Sustainable Mountain Farming: Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Smallholder Farming in the Maloti–Drakensberg Mountains

Adelabu, Dolapo Bola; Clark, Vincent Ralph; Bredenhand, Emile

doi:10.1659/mrd-journal-d-19-00058.1

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Thus, optimal fertilization enhanced maximum pollination benefits while minimal usage of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers amidst abundance insect pollinators still gave substantial high seed yield. Sunflower crop thrives well under low input farming conditions (Adelabu et al, 2020). Bommarco et al (2013) explained that abundance of insect pollination contributed to 18% yield increase and heavier seed weight in oilseed rape, but the diversity of the insect pollination and its synergetic with soil fertilization on the yield were not considered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil fertilization synergistically enhances the impact of pollination services in increasing seed yield of sunflower under dryland conditions

et al. 2021

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To exploit the potential of ecological intensification during sunflower cropping, it is crucial to understand the potential synergies between crop management and ecosystem services. We therefore examined the effect of pollination intensification on sunflower yield and productivity under various levels of soil fertilization over two seasons in the eastern Free State, South Africa. We manipulated soil fertility with fertilizer applications and pollination with exclusion bags. We found a synergetic effect between pollination and soil fertilization whereby increasing pollination intensity led to a far higher impact on sunflower yield when the soil had been fertilized. Specifically, the intensification of insect pollination increased seed yield by approximately 0.4 ton/ha on nutrient poor soil and by approximately 1.7 ton/ha on moderately fertilized soil. Our findings suggest that sunflower crops on adequate balanced soil fertility will receive abundant insect pollination and may gain more from both synergies than crops grown in areas with degraded soil fertility.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil fertilization synergistically enhances the impact of pollination services in increasing seed yield of sunflower under dryland conditions

et al. 2021

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“…The rich biodiversity and ecosystem services of our mountains lend themselves to ecosystem-based adaptation [16] and nature-based solutions that encompass conservation, sustainable development, and restoration to reduce social and environmental vulnerabilities. Such approaches are critical as we foresee a greater demand for natural resources from our mountain regions [17], as well as greater competition for these resources amongst sectors of society [18]; such increasing pressures on mountain people and natural resources are typical of the developing world [19][20][21][22]. However, interventions aimed at balancing sustainable management of mountain-derived resources and human well-being should have a sound scientific basis in both the natural and social sciences [23,24].…”

Section: Aims Materials and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sustainable livelihoods in Southern Africa's mountains will depend heavily on well managed and conserved soil systems to support crop and livestock production. Unfortunately, populated areas in the Maloti-Drakensberg, for example, are degraded and not sustainably managed for food security [17,21]. Soil biodiversity is therefore under pressure from human activities [130].…”

Section: Soil Knowledge For the Management And Conservation Of Soil Resources To Sustain Livelihoods And Safeguard Biodiversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Mountain Watch: How LT(S)ER Is Safeguarding Southern Africa’s People and Biodiversity for a Sustainable Mountain Future

Carbutt

Thompson

2021

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Southern Africa is an exceptionally diverse region with an ancient geologic and climatic history. Its mountains are located in the southern hemisphere mid-latitudes at a tropical–temperate interface, offering a rare opportunity to contextualise and frame our research from an austral perspective so as to balance the global narrative around sustainable mountain futures for people and biodiversity. Limited Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) was initiated more than a century ago in South Africa to optimise catchment management through sound water policy. The South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) has resurrected many government LTER programmes and added observatories representative of the country’s heterogeneous zonobiomes, including its mountain regions. LTER in other southern African mountains is largely absent. The current rollout of the Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network (EFTEON) and the Southern African chapters of international programmes such as the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), RangeX, and the Global Soil Biodiversity Observation Network (Soil BON), as well as the expansion of the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN), is ushering in a renaissance period of global change research in the region, which takes greater cognisance of its social context. This diversity of initiatives will generate a more robust knowledge base from which to draw conclusions about how to better safeguard the well-being of people and biodiversity in the region and to balance livelihoods and environmental sustainability in our complex, third-world socio-ecological mountain systems.

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“…The DMC grasslands support a large agrarian community, with subsistence-based livestock herding the dominant land-use occupying 79% of the land (Adelabu et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, current land management practices are considered unsustainable and could lead to severe habitat degradation, which also compromises other ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, water production, etc.) and entrenches poverty cycles (Adelabu et al, 2020;Carbutt, 2020;Turpie et al, 2021). Added to this is the threat of global warming, with projected range contraction of montane vegetation to higher elevations and subsequent biodiversity loss (Bentley et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limits to resilience of Afroalpine vegetation to grazing and burning: a case study of grasses from the Drakensberg Mountain Centre, southern Africa

et al. 2021

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High-elevation Afroalpine ecosystems of the Drakensberg Mountain Centre (DMC) of Lesotho and South Africa, renowned for their high endemism and key ecosystem services, are socio-ecological systems that have seen human activity for millennia. However, their responses to land management practices are understudied. Controversy over their natural state has also led to conflicting policies and management emphases. Focusing on the crucial ecosystem-modulating component, grasses (Poaceae), we evaluate the response of DMC Afroalpine vegetation to human impact through grazing and burning. Grass species associations were recorded from grassland, shrubland and wetland-riparian-seep ecotypes across a range of grazing and fire regimes to document relationships between abiotic conditions, disturbance, and taxonomic diversity and composition. CCA of grass community composition retrieved a large cluster of plots of mixed grazing and burning regimes with no particular environmental vector correlated with them. Other smaller groups of plots separated from these were associated to heavy grazing, bioclimatic variables, slope gradient, and aspect. Indicator species analyses found DMC endemic grasses were associated to low grazing, while alien grasses were associated to heavy grazing. GLMs found little difference between ecotype-disturbance categories with regards plant species richness, mean alpha hull=2 range-size of native and sub-Saharan endemic grasses, and site-level Sorensen beta diversity (βsor). Some differences were noted, including the highest cover and proportion of DMC endemics being found in low-grazed grassland, and highest cover and proportion of alien grasses and highest plot-level βsor being found in heavily grazed ecotypes. Relative importance analyses found grazing regime to be the main influence on cover and proportion of DMC endemic and alien grasses. Partial Mantel tests found mean annual temperature and grazing regime to be the main influence on plot-level βsor. Synthesis: Taxonomic diversity and composition of DMC Afroalpine grasslands was relatively unaffected by moderate grazing and intense burning, although heavy grazing had a largely detrimental impact, with its ubiquity across the DMC a major cause for concern. High levels of endemism, coupled with the above data emphasizing the robustness of DMC grasslands to disturbance, also supports Afroalpine grasslands as a natural component of the DMC. This research reinforces the natural grass-dominated nature of the DMC as a social-ecological system where sustainable management is possible thanks to its resilience to grazing and burning, although current widespread overgrazing requires urgent attention.

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Potential for Sustainable Mountain Farming: Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Smallholder Farming in the Maloti–Drakensberg Mountains

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 13 publications

References 64 publications

Soil fertilization synergistically enhances the impact of pollination services in increasing seed yield of sunflower under dryland conditions

Soil fertilization synergistically enhances the impact of pollination services in increasing seed yield of sunflower under dryland conditions

Mountain Watch: How LT(S)ER Is Safeguarding Southern Africa’s People and Biodiversity for a Sustainable Mountain Future

Limits to resilience of Afroalpine vegetation to grazing and burning: a case study of grasses from the Drakensberg Mountain Centre, southern Africa

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