 | Organic Farming for Sustainable Development This new volume addresses the growing use of organic farming in recent past decades fueled by the concern with the many deleterious effects of conventional agricultural practices, which employ chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides for large scale production of food. It focuses on sustainable development in farming, primarily detailing the application of different natural resources as manure for organic farming. The authors discuss efficient and cost-effective uses of natural and available resources to produce healthy food while at the same time helping to conserve the environment. Section I of Organic Farming for Sustainable Development discusses in detail the application of microorganisms such as Trichoderma sp., Azospirillum sp., endophytic microorganisms, arbuscular mycorrhiza, Chaetomium sp., and bioactive secondary metabolites in organic farming practices. Section II explores the potential applications of organic amendments and sustainable practices for plant growth and soil health using garlic products, organic substrates, biochar, organic mulching, and tillage and weed management. In addition, Section III summarizes the impacts and prospects of organic crop production technology on health, food safety, and quality. The authors bring together important information that will be helpful in designing organic farming methods for soil sustainability and crop productivity as well as for nutritious food produced efficiently and cost productively. The book provides valuable insight to efficiently and cost-effectively use natural and available resources to increase the nutrient content of our food as well as to manage the organic wastes coming from other sectors, such as from cattle farms without polluting the surroundings. Jeyabalan Sangeetha, PhD, is Assistant Professor at Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, India. She has authored a textbook, Molecular Mycology , and has edited books including Genomics and Proteomics, Industrial Biotechnology, Biotechnology of Microorganisms , and Sequencing Technologies in Microbial Food Safety and Quality. She has been trained in next-generation sequencing and data analysis at the Malaysia Genome Institute, Malaysia. She earned her BSc in Microbiology and PhD in Environmental Sciences from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. She holds an MSc in Environmental Sciences from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. She was a recipient of a Tamil Nadu Government Scholarship and the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship of the University Grants Commission, Government of India, for doctoral studies. She served as a Dr. D.S. Kothari Postdoctoral Fellow and UGC Postdoctoral Fellow at Karnatak University, Dharwad, South India. She has carried out her doctoral and postdoctoral research in the fields of microbiology and metagenomics respectively. Kasem Soytong, PhD , is Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Production Technology at the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, King Mongkut''s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand. He is the President of the Association of Agricultural Technology in Southeast Asia; Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Agricultural Technology ; Director of Research and Development for BioAgritech Co. Ltd, Vietnam; Executive Research Director at CAS Bio-Agricultural Bio-Engineering, China; Director of Research for Shew Khant Kyaw Co. Ltd. (Organic Biofertilizer), Myanmar; Organic Consultant, CGC Lao Coffee, Laos; Organic Consultant, Natural and Premium Food Co. Ltd, Thailand; and Director, AATSEA Organic Agriculture Model Farm, Thailand. His research interests include nanotechnology for agriculture, bioactive metabolites for disease control and immunity, Organic agriculture research and plant pathology. He holds patent rights and product registrations at Thailand, China, Laos, Vietnam, and IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements). He also has international research collaborations with scientists from Sweden, Russia, Finland, USA, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Egypt and Iran. The recipient of many awards and honors for his work, he is the author/coauthor of more than 150 scientific publications including research articles, reviews, book chapters and books. Dr. Soytong obtained his PhD in Plant Pathology (Mycology) from the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB), Philippines, under a SEMEO-SEARCA scholarship. Devarajan Thangadurai, PhD , is Associate Professor at Karnatak University, Dharwad in India and did his postdoctoral research at the University of Madeira, Portugal, University of Delhi, India, and the ICAR National Research Centre for Banana, India. He has authored and edited more than 25 books, including Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (3 vols.), Genes, Genomes and Genomics (2 vols.), Genomics and Proteomics, Biotechnology of Microorganisms, and Sequencing Technologies in Microbial Food Safety and Quality with international scientific publishers in USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, and India. He has travelled to many universities and institutes in Africa, Europe, and Asia for academic work, scientific meetings, and international collaborations. He is also reviewer for several journals, including Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, Food Science and Technology International, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Journal of Food Science, Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture , and International Journal of Plant Production . Dr. Thangadurai is the recipient of a Best Young Scientist Award with a gold medal from Acharya Nagarjuna University, India, and a VGST-SMYSR Young Scientist Award of the Government of Karnataka, India. He has keen interest and expertise in the fields of biodiversity and biotechnology, genetics and genomics of food crops and beneficial microbes for crop productivity, and food safety towards sustainable agricultural development. Abdel Rahman Mohammad Al-Tawaha, PhD , is Professor of Plant Science and former Head of the Department of Biological Sciences as well as former Director of the Planning, Information and Quality Unit at Al Hussein Bin Talal University, Jordan. He is author/coauthor of more than 200 publications in plant science in leading peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited volumes and books on a broad range of development issues. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Advances in Environmental Biology . He is also participated in many international conferences as chair or member of the scientific committees. Dr. Al-Tawaha obtained his PhD from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. |
