Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) with Sustainability Specialty · USA / Canada / international · International Certified Crop Adviser program (American Society of Agronomy)
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersThe whole farm as a system: crop-livestock-fish-tree integration, rainfed and smallholder systems, sustainable intensification and how farm sustainability is measured. Builds on the agriculture library subject Farming Systems & Sustainable Agriculture and goes into assessment.
In the exams: ICAR AIEEA-PG Agronomy and Physical Science groups; ICAR AICE Agronomy (farming systems)
Certified Crop Adviser with Sustainability Specialty
Whole-farm assessment, nutrient and water efficiency indices, sustainability indicators and frameworks, and energy and economic input-output analysis.
How our questions for Certified Crop Adviser with Sustainability Specialty spread across the units of Sustainable & Integrated Farming Systems. Difficulty: 8 easy, 34 medium, 26 hard.
| Resource-use efficiency and input-output analysis | 10 | |
| Farm sustainability indicators and assessment frameworks | 9 | |
| Sustainable intensification: concept and critique | 8 | |
| Smallholder livelihoods and resilience | 8 | |
| Integrated crop-livestock-fish systems | 7 | |
| Energy budgeting of farming systems | 7 | |
| Systems thinking applied to farms | 6 | |
| Natural farming and low-input systems: evidence review | 6 | |
| Rainfed and dryland farming systems | 4 | |
| Cropping systems: rotations, intercropping, relay cropping | 3 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
A model that chooses the enterprise mix maximising farm income subject to land, labour, water and capital limits is:
D. Linear programming
Linear programming optimises an objective under resource constraints; the others are assessment or appraisal methods.
Rice yields 5 t/ha and wheat 4 t/ha in a rice-wheat system. Rice sells at 20 per kg and wheat at 22 per kg. The rice equivalent yield of the system is:
D. 9.4 t/ha
REY = 5 + 4 x 22/20 = 5 + 4.4 = 9.4 t/ha. 9.0 adds raw yields; 8.6 uses 20/22 instead of 22/20; 10.4 doubles the price adjustment.
The main principle of an integrated farming system is that:
C. By-products of one enterprise become inputs for another
Integration links enterprises through by-product flows such as manure, residues and pond silt.
A 2 ha catchment receives 600 mm of seasonal rain with a runoff coefficient of 0.25. Potential runoff available for harvesting is:
C. 3,000 m3
Runoff = area x rainfall x coefficient = 20,000 m2 x 0.6 m x 0.25 = 3,000 m3. 12,000 omits the coefficient; 300 and 30,000 are factor-of-ten slips.
With 120 kg N/ha, yield is 4,500 kg/ha; without N it is 2,700 kg/ha. Agronomic efficiency of N is:
A. 15 kg grain per kg N
AE = (4,500 - 2,700)/120 = 15. 37.5 is PFP; 22.5 divides the unfertilised yield by N; 1,800 is the yield gain itself.
Gross margin in an enterprise budget is calculated as:
D. Gross returns minus variable costs
Gross margin = returns - variable costs; subtracting fixed costs too gives net returns.
The same wheat hectare (12,618 MJ input) yields 4,500 kg grain. Energy productivity is about:
C. 0.36 kg per MJ
Energy productivity = 4,500/12,618 = 0.36 kg/MJ. 2.80 is specific energy (MJ/kg); 4.50 uses yield in t.
Two studies of the same crop report energy ratios of 11 and 5. Which explanation is most likely?
D. One counted straw as output and the other counted grain only
Boundary choices (straw, labour, machinery) change ratios greatly; the worked example gives about 11 with straw and 5 without.
In the sustainable livelihoods framework, droughts, price crashes and illness belong to the:
D. Vulnerability context
Shocks, trends and seasonality form the vulnerability context.
The System of Rice Intensification was developed in which country?
C. Madagascar
SRI was developed in Madagascar in the 1980s by Henri de Laulanié.
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