ECOAGRICULTURE: a Review and Assessment of Its Scientific Foundations
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ECOAGRICULTURE: A Review and Assessment of its Scientific Foundations Louise E. Buck Thomas A. Gavin David R. Lee Norman T. Uphoff with Diji Chandrasekharan Behr Laurie E. Drinkwater W. Dean Hively Fred R. Werner Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Cornell United States Agency Resource Management University for International Collaborative Research Support Development Program ECOAGRICULTUREGRICULTURE A Review and Assessment of its Scientifi c Foundations Principal Investigators Louise E. Buck Natural Resources Thomas A. Gavin Conservation Biology David R. Lee Agricultural Economics Norman T. Uphoff International Agriculture and Government with Diji Chandrasekharan Behr Natural Resources Laurie E. Drinkwater Horticulture W. Dean Hively Crop and Soil Science Fred R. Werner Natural Resources Cornell University Ithaca, New York August 2004 Cover photo © 2004, Erick Fernandes. This report is submitted by Cornell University to University of Georgia SANREM CRSP under contract # 45586. The SANREM CRSP is supported by the United States Agency for International Development Cooperative Agreement Number PCE-A-00-98-00019-00, and is managed through the Offi ce of International Agriculture, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Overview 1 Annex 1-A: Ecoagriculture Assessment Advisors and Recommendations Annex 1-B: Cornell Ecoagriculture Working Group Annex 1-C: External Organizations Consulted Annex 1-D: Experts Consulted Chapter 2: Opportunities, Concepts and Challenges in Ecoagriculture 8 Annex 2: Time Series Data on World Grain Production total and per capita, World Food Production per capita, Food Prices, Fertilizer Use, and Pesticide Exports, 1961-2003, with comparisons indexed to time series midpoint, 1979-81 average Chapter 3: Meeting Agricultural Productivity Objectives 26 Chapter 4: Meeting Biodiversity Conservation Objectives 42 Annex 4: Examples of Studies that Examine the Quantitative Relationship Between Various Agricultural Practices and Wild Biodiversity Chapter 5: Meeting Livelihood Objectives 54 Annex 5: Sample of Economic Models Incorporating Livelihood, Productivity and Ecosystem Elements Chapter 6: Contributions of Agricultural Biodiversity and Natural Ecosystem Processes to Sustainable Agricultural Systems 74 Chapter 7: Integrating Agricultural Productivity, Biodiversity Conservation, and Livelihood Objectives 119 Annex 7-A: A Summary of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Models for Integrating Multiple Objectives Annex 7-B: Examples of Partnerships and Network Organizations Supporting Ecoagriculture Chapter 8: Conclusions 135 Chapter 1 Overview 1.1. Introduction these means, largely coincide on a global level with the lands and resources needed to secure protected areas for To deal with global problems of hunger and malnutri- wildlife habitat and species preservation. This realiza- tion, natural resource degradation, loss of biodiversity, tion led them to look for and to formulate management and rural decline, alternative visions for land use and strategies that could accommodate both objectives. natural resource management are needed as present practices and systems are making slow or no progress in Their book Ecoagriculture: Strategies to Feed the World achieving these objectives. New combinations of poli- and Save Wild Biodiversity (2002)(2002) proposedproposed thatthat ecoag-ecoag- cies, institutions, technologies and values are required, riculture be accepted and expanded as a set of inclusive linking individual interests and efforts with those of the resource management strategies for landscapes that communities and societies they live in, better balanc- can both produce more food and preserve ecosystem ing the competing aspirations for raising agricultural services, with a special concern for wild biodiversity productivity, ensuring ecological sustainability, and pro- (p. 6). While the strategies identifi ed to date often have moting rural vitality. Growing awareness of the global- been appropriate for smaller-scale units of production, level impacts of current natural resource uses, enhanced relying more on local resources than external ones, through imaging and communication technologies and there is nothing in the concept of ecoagriculture that stimulated by recognition of the increasingly globalized limits it to such production systems. Indeed, a concern nature of socioeconomic systems, has motivated inno- for both food production and the environment means vative management strategies which reconcile increased that larger-scale units, presently highly dependent on agricultural productivity with environmental protection external inputs, should be well within the purview of and greater livelihood opportunities. ecoagriculture. Ecoagriculture is an approach to land use that seeks “to 1.2. Varieties of Ecoagriculture and square the circle,” to achieve productive and sustainable Relation to Biodiversity reconciliations among objectives that are usually in competition. The concept grew out of a comparison and McNeely and Scherr regard ecoagriculture as a consid- convergence of conclusions drawn by Jeffrey McNeely, ered response to the worldwide challenge of meeting the a conservation scientist, and Sara Scherr, an agricultural well-recognized crisis of conserving global biodiversity economist, as they were reviewing spatial information while at the same time producing suffi cient food and developed through the Millennium Ecosystem Assess- livelihoods to support the increasing human population. ment.1 They saw that the lands and resources required It is not a single practice or particular kind of farming for an expanding agriculture to support still-growing system but rather an aggregation of approaches to the human populations, who need to earn their living by production of food, fi ber, and other benefi ts that all aim to integrate biodiversity conservation into agricultural 1 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) is an inter- development efforts. McNeely and Scherr identify national program designed to generate scientifi c information six main strategies for doing this. Three of the six are regarding the consequences of ecosystem change on human concerned with making space for wildlife preservation well-being and options for addressing these changes. It within agricultural landscapes; the other three focus on focuses broadly on global ecosystem health. The objective how to enhance the wildlife habitat value of productive of the MEA is to meet the needs of decision-makers and the public for such information. farm lands themselves. The strategies can be summa- rized as follows: 1) Creating biodiversity reserves that benefi t local of farms and the prospects for co-management of farming communities. This strategy involves choos- livestock and wildlife. ing areas for protection in places where there are 6) Modifying farm systems to mimic natural ecosys- clear immediate benefi ts, including environmental tems. This strategy focuses on increasing the use of services, livelihood support, farmland protection for perennials to create an agriculture that provides many unique agricultural habitats, and enhancing benefi ts of the environmental services of natural systems, obtainable from protected areas for local farmers including wildlife habitat. Agricultural landscape through market and compensation mechanisms. design is an emerging science for confi guring peren- 2) Developing habitat networks in non-farmed nials, spatially and temporally, to provide desired areas. Improving the biodiversity value of agri- services. New propagation and domestication tech- cultural landscapes will encompass areas in and niques can increase the economic value of perennial around waterways, abandoned fields and forest crops. sites. Other landscape niches for biodiversity may There are many ways in which agricultural practices, on include schoolyards, “sacred groves,” parks, areas a large scale or small scale, affect the fl ora and fauna, around roadways, industrial or hospital sites, and macro to micro, in and around the areas cultivated, agro-ecotourism locations. grazed or fi shed. In general, agricultural practices sim- 3) Reducing land conversion to agriculture by in- plify the landscape relative to the natural condition—a creasing farm productivity. Enhancing agricultural simplifi cation of plant diversity, of physical structure productivity growth and sustainability in high poten- and dimension, and of chemical mosaic. An illuminat- tial areas may encourage reduction or abandonment ing schematic is one developed by Gilbert (1980), of farming in environmentally-sensitive lands. In which shows the hierarchical and interacting nature more marginal lands, technology that enables farm- of organisms in a tropical landscape. The schema has ers to replace shifting cultivation with permanent, been simplifi ed enormously relative to the real world, higher yielding fi elds may allow former fallow land but the complexity remaining is still astounding. For to revert to natural forest, woodland and grassland, contrast, compare this image to a typical agricultural or will prevent further clearing. landscape. 4) Minimizing agricultural pollution. Reducing ag- 1.3. The Development of Ecoagriculture as rochemicals in high-input systems may be achieved an Approach through advances in organic farming, integrated pest management (IPM), and soil conservation. In Ecoagriculture McNeely and Scherr lay out consider- Use of pollutants can be reduced through improved able evidence