•A shift in our current agricultural model is required to meet global protein needs in 2050.•Livestock rearing in order to meet protein needs is where agroecological principles and the more industry ...accepted term of Sustainable Intensification (SI) overlap.•Animal products can contribute to a global diet within a limitation of 11 – 23 g/protein/day through agroecological approaches.•Animal protein can be included if livestock are fed only on pasture, waste or by-products.•Agroecology and SI diverge in their predictions of future consumption patterns and support for land sparing or land sharing strategies.
Given the demand of proteins predicted for 2050, a transition of our current agricultural model is required. An agroecological model proposes to meet these needs while producing with ecological foresight, but also considering social and economic issues. Livestock rearing in order to meet protein needs is where agroecological principles and the more industry accepted term of Sustainable Intensification (SI) overlap in certain areas. Multiple definitions of SI have been proposed, however many have a focus on an increase of productivity on already cultivated land while reducing environmental degradation and sparing habitats from agricultural expansion. Demonstrated within this review, animal products can contribute to a global diet within a limitation of 11 – 23 g/protein/day through agroecological practices. Animal protein can be included if livestock are fed only on pasture, waste or by-products; no scenario exists in which livestock could continue to be fed on human-edible crops. Agroecological practices are already being used by smallholders globally, however, barriers exist to scaling up and out these practices, which require a shift in the policy framework to value and transfer the knowledge of these agroecological implementors and increase their access to public goods. As currently both large-scale agri-industry and smallholders provide for the global population, a strategy that includes both could be favoured. Coupling the upscaling of agroecological practices used by smallholders and transitioning intensive agriculture towards an agroecological model using SI as a bridge to implement agroecological practices could help ensure global protein requirements at met in 2050.
The projected human population of nine billion by 2050 has led to ever growing discussion of the need for increasing agricultural output to meet estimated food demands, while mitigating environmental ...costs. Many stakeholders in agricultural circles are calling for the intensification of agriculture to meet these demands. However, it is neither clear nor readily agreed upon what is meant by intensification. Here, we compare the three major uses, ‘ecological intensification’, ‘sustainable intensification’ and ‘agroecological intensification’, by analysing their various definitions, principles and practices, and also their historical appearance and evolution. We used data from the scientific literature, the grey literature, the websites of international organizations and the Scopus and FAOLEX databases. Our major findings are: (1) sustainable intensification is the most frequently used term so far. (2) The three concepts ecological intensification, sustainable intensification and agroecological intensification overlap in terms of definitions, principles and practices, thus creating some confusion in their meanings, interpretations and implications. Nevertheless, some differences exist. (3) Sustainable intensification is more widely used and represents in many cases a rather generalised category, into which most current farming practices can be put so long as sustainability is in some way addressed. However, despite its wider use, it remains imprecisely defined. (4) Ecological and agroecological intensification do introduce some major nuances and, in general, more explicitly stated definitions. For instance, ecological intensification emphasizes the understanding and intensification of biological and ecological processes and functions in agroecosystem. (5) The notion of agroecological intensification accentuates the system approach and integrates more cultural and social perspectives in its concept. (6) Even if some boundaries can be seen, confusion is still predominant in the use of these terms. These blurred boundaries currently contribute to the use of these terms for justifying many different kinds of practices and interventions. We suggest that greater precision in defining the terms and the respective practices proposed would indicate more clearly what authors or institutions are aiming at with the proposed intensification. In this sense, we provide new definitions for all three intensification concepts based on the earlier ones.
There is consensus that the global food system is not delivering good nutrition for all and is causing environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity, such that a profound transformation is ...needed to meet the challenges of persistent malnutrition and rural poverty, aggravated by the growing consequences of climate change. Agroecological approaches have gained prominence in scientific, agricultural and political discourse in recent years, suggesting pathways to transform agricultural and food systems that address these issues. Here we present an extensive literature review of concepts, definitions and principles of agroecology, and their historical evolution, considering the three manifestations of agroecology as a science, a set of practices and a social movement; and relate them to the recent dialogue establishing a set of ten iconic elements of agroecology that have emerged from a global multi-stakeholder consultation and synthesis process. Based on this, a consolidated list of principles is developed and discussed in the context of presenting transition pathways to more sustainable food systems. The major outcomes of this paper are as follows. (1) Definition of 13 consolidated agroecological principles: recycling; input reduction; soil health; animal health; biodiversity; synergy; economic diversification; co-creation of knowledge; social values and diets; fairness; connectivity; land and natural resource governance; participation. (2) Confirmation that these principles are well aligned and complementary to the 10 elements of agroecology developed by FAO but articulate requirements of soil and animal health more explicitly and distinguish between biodiversity and economic diversification. (3) Clarification that application of these generic principles can generate diverse pathways for incremental and transformational change towards more sustainable farming and food systems. (4) Identification of four key entry points associated with the elements: diversity; circular and solidarity economy; co-creation and sharing of knowledge; and, responsible governance to enable plausible pathways of transformative change towards sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Agricultural intensification is known to be one of the main drivers of pollinator decline, in particular because flower resources are often scarce in intensively cultivated landscapes. Agroecological ...practices such as wildflower strips implementation are seen as effective to mitigate this food scarcity by increasing the abundance, diversity and temporal continuity of the flower resources. However, in intensive cropping systems, these practices are often poorly adopted by farmers because of technical and economic barriers. We designed a practice based on the conservation of winter cover crop strips in the middle of spring crops and assessed the value of such undestroyed cover crop strips for the enhancement of pollinator populations, and the conservation of wild bee species. Cover crop strips on farmers’ fields were surveyed and compared to existing herbaceous field margins. Our results showed that within-field cover crop strips are effective in increasing the availability and continuity of flower resources for pollinators. We recorded a higher abundance, richness, taxonomic and functional diversity of bees in the covered crop strips than in the field margins, but no significant effect on hoverflies. Wild bees were supported by the sown flowers of the strips during spring, before the main blooming period of the spontaneous flowers of the field margins, and the combination of sown species of three different botanical families in the strips supported wild bees with different ecological traits, including oligolectic bees. Our findings indicate that this practice can support complementary flower resources, but also highlight the importance of protecting and extending spontaneous plant patches such as field margins for the conservation of rare and specialist bees.
The forecasted 9.1 billion population in 2050 will require an increase in food production for an additional two billion people. There is thus an active debate on new farming practices that could ...produce more food in a sustainable way. Here, we list agroecological cropping practices in temperate areas. We classify practices according to efficiency, substitution, and redesign. We analyse their advantages and drawbacks with emphasis on diversification. We evaluate the potential use of the practices for future agriculture. Our major findings are: (1) we distinguish 15 categories of agroecological practices (7 practices involve increasing efficiency or substitution, and 8 practices need a redesign often based on diversification). (2) The following agroecological practices are so far poorly integrated in actual agriculture: biofertilisers; natural pesticides; crop choice and rotations; intercropping and relay intercropping; agroforestry with timber, fruit, or nut trees; allelopathic plants; direct seeding into living cover crops or mulch; and integration of semi-natural landscape elements at field and farm or their management at landscape scale. These agroecological practices have only a moderate potential to be broadly implemented in the next decade. (3) By contrast, the following practices are already well integrated: organic fertilisation, split fertilisation, reduced tillage, drip irrigation, biological pest control, and cultivar choice.
Agroecology involves various approaches to solve actual challenges of agricultural production. Though agroecology initially dealt primarily with crop production and protection aspects, in recent ...decades new dimensions such as environmental, social, economic, ethical and development issues are becoming relevant. Today, the term ‘agroecology’ means either a scientific discipline, agricultural practice, or political or social movement. Here we study the different meanings of agroecology. For that we analyse the historical development of agroecology. We present examples from USA, Brazil, Germany, and France. We study and discuss the evolution of different meanings agroecology. The use of the term agroecology can be traced back to the 1930s. Until the 1960s agroecology referred only as a purely scientific discipline. Then, different branches of agroecology developed. Following environmental movements in the 1960s that went against industrial agriculture, agroecology evolved and fostered agroecological movements in the 1990s. Agroecology as an agricultural practice emerged in the 1980s, and was often intertwined with movements. Further, the scales and dimensions of agroecological investigations changed over the past 80 years from the plot and field scales to the farm and agroecosystem scales. Actually three approaches persist: (1) investigations at plot and field scales, (2) investigations at the agroecosystem and farm scales, and (3) investigations covering the whole food system. These different approaches of agroecological science can be explained by the history of nations. In France, agroecology was mainly understood as a farming practice and to certain extent as a movement, whereas the corresponding scientific discipline was agronomy. In Germany, agroecology has a long tradition as a scientific discipline. In the USA and in Brazil all three interpretations of agroecology occur, albeit with a predominance of agroecology as a science in the USA and a stronger emphasis on movement and agricultural practice in Brazil. These varied meanings of the term agroecology cause confusion among scientists and the public, and we recommend that those who publish using this term be explicit in their interpretation.
Pesticides are still widely used by agriculture, leading to the exposure of surface water. This may be the case for fish ponds located in farmland landscapes. To address this issue, the present study ...investigated the contamination by pesticides of fish ponds located in the mixed agriculture-pond landscape of the Dombes area, France. Ten ponds were selected in water catchments with a gradient of 3–57 ha of cropland with maize and winter cereals as the dominant crops. A total of 197 water samples were collected in the ponds during the fish production season over 3 years. Recently used pesticides were the most frequent residues occurring. Occurrences greater than 0.1 µgL
−1
particularly concerned chlorotoluron and S-metolachlor. Maximum observed concentrations were slightly above 3 µgL
−1
for S-metolachlor, acetochlor, and dimethenamide, all herbicides allowed for maize cultivation. Isoproturon and chlorotoluron, herbicides allowed in cereal crops, reached up to 1.2 and 1.0 µgL
−1
, respectively. We found a significant positive effect of crop area in catchments on the pond contamination frequency by pesticides and more significantly on the contamination frequency by broad-spectrum herbicides (glyphosate and AMPA residues). The cumulative antecedent rainfall was best correlated to the frequency of highest contaminations (> 0.5 µgL
−1
). In such a hydrological context, the crop area within catchment was identified as a good indicator of fish pond exposure to pesticide residues. Finally, we proposed to adapt some mitigation measures to reduce fish pond contamination.
Intensification of agriculture, with landscape simplification and reduction of natural habitats, is known to contribute to the decline of arthropods. Implementation of agroecological practices and ...infrastructures in current cropping systems is expected to mitigate this biodiversity loss and provide pest regulation through natural enemies. The aim of this study was to assess the efficiency of an undestroyed strip of winter cover crop within maize fields to promote ground-dwelling arthropod spillover and their predation activity into fields. The field survey was carried out in 2019 and 2020 within 12 fields. Monitoring of ground-dwelling arthropod activity-density, richness, and predation rate, as well as slug activity-density, was conducted in the strip, in the cropped area and in a grassy field margin. The results show that activity-density of carabids, spiders, and slugs, and the predation rate were overall higher in the strip than in the cropped area or the field margin. No clear edge effect of the strip on arthropods in the cropped area was found, but predation rate was enhanced closer to the strip. We did not record a negative effect of the strip on the occurrence of slugs within the maize crop. The study shows that a mid-field strip of winter cover crops can be efficient for biodiversity conservation of ground-dwellings predators in agricultural landscapes and provide a potential pest control service in cropped fields.
•Preserved winter cover crop strips in cropped maize fields benefit natural enemies.•Strips do not lead to higher occurrence of slugs in cropped maize.•No clear spillover of ground-dwelling arthropods from strips toward crops was found.•Predation activity in crops increased with decreasing distance from the strips.
Agroecology is considered with different focus and weight in different parts of the world as a social and political movement, as science, and as practice. Despite its multitude of definitions, ...agroecology has begun in Europe to develop in different regional, national and continental networks of researchers, practitioners, advocates and movements. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive overview about these different developments and networks. Therefore, this paper attempts to document and provide a mapping of the development of European agroecology in its diverse forms. Through a literature review, interviews, active conference participation, and an extensive internet search we have collected information about the current state and development of agroecology in Europe. Agroecological research and higher education exist more in western and northern Europe, but farm schools and farmer-to-farmer training are also present in other regions. Today a large variety of topics are studied at research institutions. There is an increasing number of bottom-up agroecological initiatives and national or continental networks and movements. Important movements are around food sovereignty, access to land and seeds. Except for France, there are very few concrete policies for agroecology in Europe. Agroecology is increasingly linked to different fields of agri-food systems. This includes Community Supported Agriculture systems, but also agroecological territories, and some examples of labelling products. To amplify agroecology in Europe in the coming years, policy development will be crucial and proponents of agroecology must join forces and work hand-in-hand with the many stakeholders engaged in initiatives to develop more sustainable agriculture and food systems.
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