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Cereal grains and tubers are among the highly consumed staple foods globally; however, due to unfavorable weather conditions and the competition for natural resources, the major staple cereal crops, such as rice, are under production threat. On the other hand, the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase crop yield is deteriorating the growing environment for plants and animals, including humans. As such, sustainable management practices are the key method that can be employed to increase crop production without harming the environment. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB), such as the purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB), have recently gained much attention in crop production due to their ability to accumulate higher-value compounds that are highly beneficial to crops. Some of the major benefits PNSB holds are that it can fix atmospheric nitrogen, solubilize phosphate, remediate heavy metals, suppress methane emissions from waterlogged paddy fields, and assist in carbon sequestration. These benefits allow PNSB to be an important bacterium for improving plant growth and yield much more sustainably while benefiting the environment. This review article discusses the beneficial effects of PNSB on rice crop plants through careful screening of previous work in this area. The review also identifies the research gaps and suggests future research pathways to make PNSB an important bacteria for sustainable rice crop production. The review paper aims for the United Nation's sustainable development goal number two, "Zero Hunger," target 2.4, indicator 2.4.1, "Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agrometeorological services, as part of weather and climate services, are expected to play a key role in supporting sub-Saharan agriculture facing climate change and variability. In the Sahel, smallholder farmers relying on rainfed crop production systems are particularly vulnerable to climate change and variability because of low resilience and coping capacity. The provision of agrometeorological services is growing across Africa, but they often remain inaccessible for the majority of smallholder farmers or are not very relevant to support on-the-ground decision-making. Our work aims to demonstrate the hypothesis that agrometeorological services can effectively improve agricultural productivity and sustainability provided that appropriate mechanisms are put in place to ensure access, uptake and action. The paper illustrates the case study of Burkina Faso, where the National Meteorological Service, with the support of the World Meteorological Organization, engaged in the provision of accessible, reliable and relevant agrometeorological services for farmers. The study demonstrates that farmers, even in remote rural areas, are willing to profit from weather and climate services for strategic and tactical decisions in agricultural management because of relevant economic benefit. These benefits can be summarized as a 40% reduction in production costs and a 41% increase in income. Results also highlight environmental positive impacts such as the reduction by 50% in the use of fertilizers. Nevertheless, the study concludes that in order to scale-up weather and climate services in West Africa, a new business model released from the development projects approach should be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the main and, in some cases, the only, source of income and employment in rural areas. The change in the conditions under which agriculture is practiced has various effects on the agricultural economy but also on the social structure of rural areas. Climate change has multiple effects on agricultural production, necessitating the reorganization of agricultural production in some cases. These effects of climate change will also impact the economic and social aspects of farms in rural areas. This paper attempts to identify these effects by measuring the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the region of Central Macedonia in Greece. For this reason, a multicriteria model was developed to simulate these impacts by estimating a set of seven social and economic indicators. The model was implemented to the average farm which was estimated from the main cultivations of the region. A scenario analysis was also used in combination with the multicriteria model. The multicriteria model suggests modifications are needed in the average farm crop plan of the region as a result of the climate change impact. The scenarios results show that climate change will negatively affect all the social and economic indicators and will continue to affect them over the years. These results can be used by policymakers to understand the economic and social impacts of climate change in the region to plan their future policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is affecting all sectors of human activities worldwide, including crop production. The aim of the paper was to evaluate the average daily air temperatures measured at one hundred meteorological stations across Slovakia in 1961–2010 and calculate the maximum length of the vegetation period for Solanum lycopersicum L., Brassica oleracea L. var. capitata and Daucus carota L. Future trends predictions of the temporal and spatial development across the duration of the vegetation period in Slovakia were elaborated for decades 2011–2020, 2041–2050, 2071–2080 and 2091–2100. Our results show that there was an earlier start to the vegetation period in spring and a later termination in autumn for past 30 years. There is a predicted trend of prolongation of the maximum duration of the vegetation period up to 20 days (Solanum lycopersicum L., Brassica oleracea L. var. capitata) and 15 days (Daucus carota L.) in comparison with the refence decade 2001–2010. The maximum vegetation period duration will extend from the south of Slovakia towards the north of the country. The predicted potential increase in crop vegetation periods will be limited by other constraints such as the availability of arable land and soil water availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]