Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary Science for a Sustainable Agriculture

Caporali, F.

doi:10.1007/978-90-481-9513-8_1

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 232 publications

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“…At the farm level, diversified cropping and farming systems that increase provision of ecosystem services must be strongly adapted to a wide diversity of production situations (soil-climate-biodiversity at field and landscape levels, constraints of natural resource management). In other words, they must be site-, space-and time-specific (Caporali 2011;Caron et al 2014;Duru et al 2015;Douthwaite et al 2002;Godfray et al 2010;Koohafkan et al 2011;Power 2010). Uncertainties about the nature and performances of agroecological practices in each farming system, even within each production situation of farming systems, may lead to strong risk aversion by farmers (Fig.…”

Section: Challenges Of the Transition To Biodiversity-based Agricultumentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

Duru

Thérond

Fares

2015

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

368

230

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Concerns about the negative impacts of productivist agriculture have led to the emergence of two forms of ecological modernisation of agriculture. The first, efficiency-substitution agriculture, aims to improve input use efficiency and to minimise environmental impacts of modern farming systems. It is currently the dominant modernisation pathway. The second, biodiversity-based agriculture, aims to develop ecosystem services provided by biological diversity. It currently exists only as a niche. Here we review challenges of implementing biodiversity-based agriculture: managing, at the local level, a consistent transition within and among farming systems, supply chains and natural resource management. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing conceptual frameworks developed to analyse farming, socialecological and socio-technical systems. Then we present an integrative framework tailored for structuring analysis of agriculture from the perspective of developing a territorial biodiversity-based agriculture. In addition, we propose a participatory methodology to design this agroecological transition at the local level. This design methodology was developed to support a multi-stakeholder arena in analysing the current situation, identifying future exogenous changes and designing (1) targeted territorial biodiversity-based agriculture, (2) the pathway of the transition and (3) the required adaptive governance structures and management strategies. We conclude by analysing key challenges of designing such a complex transition, developing multi-actor and multidomain approaches based on a combination of scientific and experiential knowledge and on building suitable boundary objects (computer-based and conceptual models, indicators, etc.) to assess innovative systems designed by stakeholders.

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Section: Challenges Of the Transition To Biodiversity-based Agricultumentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

Duru

Thérond

Fares

2015

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

368

230

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“…Starting a transition towards agroecological systems often requires deep knowledge on what practices should be adopted and when and how they should be applied to adapt farm management to specific biophysical conditions, such as the erosion potential and fertility of the farm soil, farm size, pedo-climatic conditions, pests and weeds, etc. [53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. Another possible explanation is that many other barriers inherent to the productive dimension have slowed down the spread of agroecological transitions, such as the need to include changes within the farming system to allow the application of some agroecological practices.…”

Section: Relationships Between Agroecological Practices and Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Connections between Agroecological Practices and Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Literature Review

2018

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Current patterns of global change are threatening the supply of agrarian ecosystem services on which human well-being depends. Within this context, agroecology has emerged within political and scientific arenas as a socially equitable and ecologically sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture. We performed a systematic literature review to explore how agroecology and the ecosystem services framework have been adopted together in the scientific literature, focusing on studies including empirical data on the effects of agroecological practices on the supply of ecosystem services. In our search, we combined terms related to agricultural practices and terms related to ecosystem services. A total of 179 scientific articles were analyzed. Most of the studies used a biophysical approach to evaluate ecosystem services, with regulating and provisioning services being more frequently analyzed than cultural services. More than half of the analyzed relationships between agroecological practices and ecosystem services were positive. Remarkably, our review showed that many of the ten elements of agroecology defined by the FAO have not been properly addressed in the literature. Finally, we identified research gaps and provided insights on where future research and policies should be focused in order to promote the transition towards sustainable agrarian social-ecological systems that increase the supply of ecosystem services while minimizing environmental impacts.

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“…Agricultural activities influence the environment and many agro-ecosystem services through their effect on water quality, nutrient cycling, microclimate control, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration, at local, regional, and global scales [30]. Pressing challenges of climate change, natural resource depletion, and environmental degradation triggered renewed interest in current and future status and value of ecosystem services by scientists, farmers, and policy makers at a global [31], regional [32], and local levels, including the CRW [6,19]. Agroecosystems in the CRW are more complex than other resource systems due to the large number of manipulated biophysical processes, inputs, outputs, and their interactions [6,19,31].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pressing challenges of climate change, natural resource depletion, and environmental degradation triggered renewed interest in current and future status and value of ecosystem services by scientists, farmers, and policy makers at a global [31], regional [32], and local levels, including the CRW [6,19]. Agroecosystems in the CRW are more complex than other resource systems due to the large number of manipulated biophysical processes, inputs, outputs, and their interactions [6,19,31]. Productivity of these agroecosystems is heavily constrained by physical ecosystem components, especially climate (e.g., rainfall and temperature) and soils; therefore, the main focus in this analysis was more on relationships among components and processes than on single-factor cause-effect relationships.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling Agroecosystem Services under Simulated Climate and Land-Use Changes

Jaradat¹,

Boody

2011

ISRN Ecology

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Ecological functioning of the intensive, homogeneous agroecosystems in the Chippewa River Watershed (CRW), MN, USA, can be improved by reducing soil erosion, runoff, and nutrient leaching. These ecosystem services can be achieved through increased perennials in crop rotations to diversify land use and sustain carbon sequestration. We calibrated, validated, and used APSIM software to simulate the effect of 100 yrs each of historical and future climate change scenario (IPCC-A2) on biophysical processes in representative soil types of the predominant farming systems in CRW. The interrelationships between crop rotations, soil types, climate variables, and ecosystem services indicated that not all objectives of sustainable agro-ecosystem are compatible, and tradeoffs among them are necessary. Site-specific and diversified crop rotations that comply with the environmental constraints of climate and soils could lead to more efficient implementation of strategies to improve ecosystem services in the watershed if current management practices of high external inputs and tillage persisted.

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Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary Science for a Sustainable Agriculture

Cited by 12 publications

References 232 publications

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

Designing agroecological transitions; A review

Exploring the Connections between Agroecological Practices and Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Literature Review

Modeling Agroecosystem Services under Simulated Climate and Land-Use Changes

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