Nurturing Diversified Farming Systems in Industrialized Countries: How Public Policy Can Contribute

Iles, Alastair; Marsh, Robin

doi:10.5751/es-05041-170442

Cited by 57 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…However, broader changes to the market and political structures and economic policies of agriculture are needed to enable a socially sustainable expansion of DFS. Iles and Marsh (2012) consider several examples of obstacles to the adoption and spread of DFS in industrialized agricultural systems. These include the broader political economic context of industrialized agriculture, the erosion of farmer knowledge, and supply chain and marketing conditions that limit farmers' ability to adopt diversified practices.…”

Section: In This Special Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture

Kremen¹,

Iles²,

Bacon³

2012

E&S

Self Cite

514

302

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This Special Issue on Diversified Farming Systems is motivated by a desire to understand how agriculture designed according to whole systems, agroecological principles can contribute to creating a more sustainable, socially just, and secure global food system. We first define Diversified Farming Systems (DFS) as farming practices and landscapes that intentionally include functional biodiversity at multiple spatial and/or temporal scales in order to maintain ecosystem services that provide critical inputs to agriculture, such as soil fertility, pest and disease control, water use efficiency, and pollination. We explore to what extent DFS overlap or are differentiated from existing concepts such as sustainable, multifunctional, organic or ecoagriculture. DFS are components of social-ecological systems that depend on certain combinations of traditional and contemporary knowledge, cultures, practices, and governance structures. Further, as ecosystem services are generated and regenerated within a DFS, the resulting social benefits in turn support the maintenance of the DFS, enhancing its ability to provision these services sustainably. We explore how social institutions, particularly alternative agri-food networks and agrarian movements, may serve to promote DFS approaches, but note that such networks and movements have other primary goals and are not always explicitly connected to the environmental and agroecological concerns embodied within the DFS concept. We examine global trends in agriculture to investigate to what extent industrialized forms of agriculture are replacing former DFS, assess the current and potential contributions of DFS to food security, food sovereignty and the global food supply, and determine where and under what circumstances DFS are expanding rather than contracting

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Section: In This Special Featurementioning

confidence: 99%

Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture

Kremen¹,

Iles²,

Bacon³

2012

E&S

Self Cite

514

302

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The presence of alternative distribution systems and the diversity of social institutions and economic relations in agriculture, such as farmer's markets, community supported agriculture, cooperatives, and production for both subsistence and sale, offer several important incentives that can be coupled with an enabling policy environment (Iles and Marsh 2012).…”

Section: Agroecology: Forms and Transformative Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agroecological Research: Conforming—or Transforming the Dominant Agro-Food Regime?

Levidow

Pimbert

Vanloqueren

2014

Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

202

151

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SUMMARYAgroecology has three practical forms-a scientific discipline, an agricultural practice, and a social movement. Their integration has provided a collective-action mode for contesting the dominant agro-food regime and creating alternatives, especially through a linkage with food sovereignty. At the same time, agroecology has been recently adopted by some actors who also promote conventional agriculture. Agroecology can play different roles-either conforming to the dominant regime, or else helping to transform it-contingent on specific empowerment strategies. Tensions between "conform versus transform" roles can be identified in European agroecological research, especially in three areas: farm-level agroecosystems development; participatory plant breeding; and short food-supply chains remunerating agroecological methods. To play a transformative role, collaborative strategies need to go beyond the linear stereotype whereby scientists "transfer" technology or farmers "apply" scientific research results. To the extent that farmer-scientist alliances co-create and exchange knowledge, such gains can transform the research system.

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“…While effective in producing high yields, conventional chemical inputs that substitute for ecosystem services contribute to significant environmental and social harms, including soil degradation, eutrophication of surface and groundwater, loss of biodiversity, increased greenhouse gas emissions, marine dead zones, and occupational and dietary exposure to toxic agrochemicals (Tilman et al 2002, Diaz and Rosenberg 2008, Hayes et al 2010, Marks et al 2010, Gomiero et al 2011a). Industrialized agriculture is also partially responsible for creating a range of social and economic impacts, including loss of access to land, corporate control of agricultural inputs, and the inability of small-scale producers to compete on the global market, resulting in high rates of poverty and the loss of food security for small holders (Bacon et al 2012, Iles andMarsh 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem Services in Biologically Diversified versus Conventional Farming Systems: Benefits, Externalities, and Trade-Offs

Kremen¹,

Miles²

2012

E&S

840

630

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We hypothesize that biological diversification across ecological, spatial, and temporal scales maintains and regenerates the ecosystem services that provide critical inputs--such as maintenance of soil quality, nitrogen fixation, pollination, and pest control--to agriculture. Agrobiodiversity is sustained by diversified farming practices and it also supplies multiple ecosystem services to agriculture, thus reducing environmental externalities and the need for off-farm inputs. We reviewed the literature that compares biologically diversified farming systems with conventional farming systems, and we examined 12 ecosystem services: biodiversity; soil quality; nutrient management; water-holding capacity; control of weeds, diseases, and pests; pollination services; carbon sequestration; energy efficiency and reduction of warming potential; resistance and resilience to climate change; and crop productivity. We found that compared with conventional farming systems, diversified farming systems support substantially greater biodiversity, soil quality, carbon sequestration, and water-holding capacity in surface soils, energy-use efficiency, and resistance and resilience to climate change. Relative to conventional monocultures, diversified farming systems also enhance control of weeds, diseases, and arthropod pests and they increase pollination services; however, available evidence suggests that these practices may often be insufficient to control pests and diseases or provide sufficient pollination. Significantly less public funding has been applied to agroecological research and the improvement of diversified farming systems than to conventional systems. Despite this lack of support, diversified farming systems have only somewhat reduced mean crop productivity relative to conventional farming systems, but they produce far fewer environmental and social harms. We recommend that more research and crop breeding be conducted to improve diversified farming systems and reduce yield gaps when they occur. Because single diversified farming system practices, such as crop rotation, influence multiple ecosystem services, such research should be holistic and integrated across many components of the farming system. Detailed agroecological research especially is needed to develop crop- and region-specific approaches to control of weeds, diseases, and pests

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Nurturing Diversified Farming Systems in Industrialized Countries: How Public Policy Can Contribute

Cited by 57 publications

References 39 publications

Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture

Diversified Farming Systems: An Agroecological, Systems-based Alternative to Modern Industrial Agriculture

Agroecological Research: Conforming—or Transforming the Dominant Agro-Food Regime?

Ecosystem Services in Biologically Diversified versus Conventional Farming Systems: Benefits, Externalities, and Trade-Offs

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