Introduction
Interdisciplinary and Sustainability Issues in Food and Agriculture is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias.
The Theme on Interdisciplinary and Sustainability Issues in Food and Agriculture provides the essential aspects and discusses a number of issues of importance in the development of specific agriculture and food supply systems that are closely related to general developmental trends of humankind. In this context technology and economic development as well as socio-cultural developments affect productivity and a secure supply with food. These three volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.
Editor(s) Biography
Olaf Christen, born in 1961, has studied agriculture science at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany and earned a PhD in Agronomy in 1990 with the focus on preceding crop effects on winter cereals. From 1991 to 1992 Olaf Christen has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Agronomy and Soil Science, at the University of New England, Armidale, Australia. Since 2000 he holds the chair of Agronomy and Organic Farming at the Martin-Luther-University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. His main research interest includes farming and cropping systems, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and oilseed rape agronomy.
Victor Squires is an Australian. He has undergraduate qualifications in agriculture, botany, and ecology, and a Ph.D. in range ecology from Utah State University, USA. He is a retired academic from the University of Adelaide, and currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona, USA. He is a consultant to FAO, UNDP, and UNEP, and has consulted for the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Dr Squires was a researcher with the Australian government research organization (CSIRO) for twenty-two years before taking up the post of Dean of the Faculty of Natural Resources at Roseworthy Agricultural College. Dr Squires was Head of the Division of Land Resource Management and, later, Director of the National Key Center for Dryland Agriculture and Land Use Systems at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of over 100 scientific papers and three books.
Rattan Lal is a Professor of Soil Science in the School of Natural Resources, Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, and Director of the South Asia Initiative at The Ohio State University, Columbus. The author, coauthor, or editor of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and books, including the Encyclopedia of Soil Science and Principles of Soil Physics (both titles, Marcel Dekker, Inc.), he received the B.Sc. degree (1963) in agriculture from the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, the M.Sc. degree (1965) in soil science from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, the Ph.D. degree (1968) in soil physics from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, and the Doctor of Science degree (2001) from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India. Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration program of FAES/OARDC Fellow, Soil Science Society of America Winner, International Soil Science Award, SSSA ,Ohio State University, Columbus,U.S.A.
Robert Hudson (PhD, University of British Columbia 1973) is Professor of Sustainability Science and Associate Dean (International) with the Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Alberta. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Open Journal of Conservation Biology, Associate Editor of the Journal of Wildlife Management and member of the Editorial Board of several international journals. His research is on bioenergetics, nutrition, behavior and management of bison, elk, deer, caribou and other hoofed mammals. He also studies community-based management and dynamics of wildlife and rangeland systems and has been involved in the development of codes of humane practice for bison and deer.
Dr Hudson has supported graduate student projects in the Canadian Arctic, Cameroon, Kenya and Malaysia and has collaborated on research in China and Korea. Working with others, he has several hundred publications including books on bioenergetics, wildlife production and sustainable use
