Agroecology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Agroecology is the application of ecological principles to the production of food, fuel, fiber, and pharmaceuticals. The term encompasses a broad range of approaches, and is considered "a science, a movement, [and] a practice."

The prefix agro- refers to agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

.

Ecological strategy

Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystem

Agroecosystem

An agroecosystem is the basic unit of study for an agroecologist, and is somewhat arbitrarily defined as a spatially and functionally coherent unit of agricultural activity, and includes the living and nonliving components involved in that unit as well as their interactions.An agroecosystem can be...

s, and the field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of farming, whether it be organic

Organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

, conventional

Industrial agriculture

Industrial farming is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods of industrial agriculture are technoscientific, economic, and political...

, intensive

Intensive farming

Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is an agricultural production system characterized by the high inputs of capital, labour, or heavy usage of technologies such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers relative to land area....

or extensive

Extensive farming

Extensive farming or Extensive agriculture is an agricultural production system that uses small inputs of labour, fertilizers, and capital, relative to the land area being farmed....

. Furthermore, it is not defined by certain management practices, such as the use of natural enemies in place of insecticides, or polyculture

Polyculture

Polyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture...

in place of monoculture

Monoculture

Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area. It is also known as a way of farming practice of growing large stands of a single species. It is widely used in modern industrial agriculture and its implementation has allowed for large harvests from...

.

Additionally, agroecologists do not unanimously oppose technology or inputs in agriculture but instead assess how, when, and if technology can be used in conjunction with natural, social and human assets. Agroecology proposes a context- or site-specific manner of studying agroecosystems, and as such, it recognizes that there is no universal formula or recipe for the success and maximum well-being of an agroecosystem.

Instead, agroecologists may study questions related to the four system properties of agroecosystems: productivity, stability

Ecological stability

Ecological stability can refer to types of stability in a continuum ranging from resilience to constancy to persistence. The precise definition depends on the ecosystem in question, the variable or variables of interest, and the overall context...

, sustainability and equitability. As opposed to disciplines that are concerned with only one or some of these properties, agroecologists see all four properties as interconnected and integral to the success of an agroecosystem. Recognizing that these properties are found on varying spatial scales, agroecologists do not limit themselves to the study of agroecosystems at any one scale: farm, community, or global.

Agroecologists study these four properties through an interdisciplinary lens, using natural sciences to understand elements of agroecosystems such as soil properties and plant-insect interactions, as well as using social sciences to understand the effects of farming practices on rural communities, economic constraints to developing new production methods, or cultural factors determining farming practices.

Various approaches

Agroecologists do not always agree about what agroecology is or should be in the long-term. Different definitions of the term agroecology can be distinguished largely by the specificity with which one defines the term “ecology,” as well as the term’s potential political connotations. Definitions of agroecology, therefore, may be first grouped according to the specific contexts within which they situate agriculture.
Agroecology is defined by the OECD as “the study of the relation of agricultural crops and environment.” This definition refers to the "-ecology" part of "agroecology" narrowly as the natural environment. Following this definition, an agroecologist would study agriculture's various relationships with soil health, water quality, air quality, meso- and micro-fauna, surrounding flora, environmental toxins, and other envirnomental contexts.

A more common definition of the word can be taken from Dalgaard et al., who refer to agroecology as the study of the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment within agricultural systems. Consequently, agroecology is inherently multidisciplinary, including factors from agronomy, ecology, sociology and economics. In this case, the “-ecology” portion of "agroecology is defined broadly to include social, cultural, and economic contexts as well.

Agroecology is also defined differently according to geographic location. In the global south, the term often carries overtly political connotations. Such political definitions of the term usually ascribe to it the goals of social and economic justice; special attention, in this case, is often paid to the traditional farming knowledge of indigenous populations. North American and European uses of the term sometimes avoid the inclusion of such overtly political goals. In these cases, agroecology is seen more strictly as a scientific discipline with less specific social goals.

Fred Buttel

Fred Buttel

Frederick H. Buttel was William H. Sewell Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, his master's degree in forestry and environmental studies at Yale University and his Ph.D. in sociology at the...

makes a more academic distinction of the various approaches within the field, separating it into five broad categories:

Ecosystems agroecology

This approach is driven by the ecosystems biology of Eugene Odum

Eugene Odum

Eugene Pleasants Odum was an American scientist known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology. He wrote the first ecology textbook: Fundamentals of Ecology....

. This approach is based in the hypotheses that the natural systems, with its stability and resilience, provide the best model to mimic if sustainability is the goal. Normally, ecosystems agroecology is not actively involved in social science; however, this school is essentially based on the belief that large-scale agriculture is inappropriate. The work of Steve Gliessman is prototypical of this approach.

Agronomic ecology

The basic approach in this branch is derived mostly from agronomy, including the traditional agricultural production sciences. This approach also does not actively involve social sciences in the agroecological analysis, but uses social sciences to understand the processes by which agriculture became unsustainable. Chuck Francis, Richard Hardwood, Ricardo Salvador, and Matt Liebman are exemplars of this approach.

Ecological political economy

The driving force behind this form of agroecology is a political-economical critique of modern agriculture. The school believes that only radical changes in political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

and the moral economy

Moral economy

Moral economy is a phrase used in a number of contexts to describe the interplay between moral or cultural beliefs and economic activities.-A just economy:...

of research will reduce the negative costs of modern agriculture. The works of Miguel Altieri

Miguel Altieri

Miguel Altieri is a Professor of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. He received a BS in Agronomy from the University of Chile and holds a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Florida.He teaches courses in...

(ecosystem biologist), John Vandermeer (population ecologist), Richard Lewontin

Richard Lewontin

Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to...

, and Richard Levins

Richard Levins

Richard "Dick" Levins is a mathematical ecologist, and political activist. He is best known for his work on evolution in changing environments....

provide examples of this politically charged and socially-oriented version of agroecology.

Agro-population ecology

This approach is derived from the science of ecology primarily based on population ecology

Population ecology

Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space....

, which over the past three decades has been displacing the ecosystems biology of Odum

Howard T. Odum

Howard Thomas Odum was an American ecologist...

. Buttel explains the main difference between the two categories, saying that “the application of population ecology to agroecology involves the primacy not only of analyzing agroecosystems from the perspective of the population dynamics

Population dynamics

Population dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...

of their constituent species, and their relationships to climate

Climate

Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

and biogeochemistry

Biogeochemistry

Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment...

, but also there is a major emphasis placed on the role of genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

.” David Andow and Alison Power are cited as examples of professionals espousing this view.

Integrated assessment of multifunctional agricultural systems

This approach focuses on the multifunctionality

Multifunctionality in agriculture

Multifunctionality in agriculture refers to the numerous benefits that agricultural policies may provide for a country or region. Generally speaking, multifunctionality refers to the non-trade benefits of agriculture, that is, benefits other than commerce and food production...

of the landscape, instead of focusing solely on the agricultural enterprise. Agriculture and the food system are considered parts of an institutional complex that relates to and integrates with other social institutions. Scholars adopting this highly integrated approach, mostly Europeans, do not consider any one discipline the leader of agroecology.

Holon agroecology

First introduced in 2007 by the soil scientist William L. Bland and the environmental sociologist Michael M. Bell

Michael Mayerfeld Bell (sociologist)

Michael Mayerfeld Bell is an American sociologist and social theorist. He is currently Professor of at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Co-Chair of the ....

of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, holon agroecology draws on Koestler's notion of a "holon

Holon (philosophy)

A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine . Koestler was compelled by two observations in proposing the notion of the holon...

" which is both part and whole and develops it with ideas of narrative, intentionality, and incompleteness or unfinalizability, within an ever-changing "ecology of contexts

Ecology of contexts

The ecology of contexts is a term used in many disciplines and refers to the dynamic interplay of contexts and demands that constrain and define an entity.-Environmental ecology:...

". In contrast to systems thinking, holon agroecology stresses seeing the agricultural endeavor as an unfinished accomplishment that is constantly adjusting itself to its many contexts and their conflicts and incommensurabilities. The farm holon represents a kind of "holding together" in order to persist through change, but a holding together that is never fully unified and worked out.

Pre-WWII

The notions and ideas relating to crop ecology have been around since at least 1911 when F.H. King

Franklin Hiram King

Franklin Hiram King was an American agricultural scientist who was born on a farm near Whitewater, Wisconsin, attended country schools, and received his professional training first at Whitewater State Normal School and then at Cornell University.King served as a professor of agricultural physics...

released Farmers of Forty Centuries. King was one of the pioneers as a proponent of more quantitative methods for characterization of water relations and physical properties of soils. In the late 1920s the attempt to merge agronomy and ecology was born with the development of the field of crop ecology. Crop ecology’s main concern was where crops would be best grown. Actually, it was only in 1928 that agronomy and ecology were formally linked by Klages.

The first mention of the term agroecology was in 1928, with the publication of the term by Bensin in 1928. The book of Tischler (1965), was probably the first to be actually titled ‘agroecology'. He analysed the different components (plants, animals, soils and climate) and their interactions within an agroecosystem as well as the impact of human agricultural management on these components. Other books dealing with agroecology, but without using the term explicitly were published by the German zoologist Friederichs (1930) with his book on agricultural zoology and related ecological/environmental factors for plant protection and by American crop physiologist Hansen in 1939 when both used the word as a synonym for the application of ecology within agriculture.

Post-WWII

Gliessman mentions that post-WWII, groups of scientists with ecologists gave more focus to experiments in the natural environment, while agronomist

Agronomist

An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...

s dedicated their attention to the cultivated systems in agriculture. According to Gliessman, the two groups kept their research and interest apart until books and articles using the concept of agroecosystems and the word agroecology started to appear in 1970.
Dalgaard explains the different points of view in ecology schools, and the fundamental differences, which set the basis for the development of agroecology. The early ecology school of Henry Gleason

Henry Gleason

Henry Allan Gleason was a noted American ecologist, botanist, and taxonomist, most recognized for his endorsement of the individualistic/open community concept of ecological succession.- Life and work :...

investigated plant populations focusing in the hierarchical levels of the organism under study.

Friederich Clement’s ecology school, however included the organism in question as well as the higher hierarchical levels in its investigations, a "landscape perspective". However, the ecological schools where the roots of agroecology lie are even broader in nature. The ecology school of Tansley

Arthur Tansley

Sir Arthur George Tansley FRS was an English botanist who was a pioneer in the science of ecology. He obtained his degree in Biological Science in 1896, with specialization in botany and zoology. From the start, he was much influenced by the Danish plant ecologist Eugenius Warming. He championed...

, whose view included both the biotic organism and their environment, is the one from which the concept of agroecosystems emerged in 1974 with Harper.

In the 1960s and 70’s the increasing awareness of how humans manage the landscape and its consequences set the stage for the necessary cross between agronomy and ecology. Even though, in many ways the environmental movement

Environmental movement

The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....

in the US was a product of the times, the Green Decade spread an environmental awareness of the unintended consequence

Unintended consequence

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...

s of changing ecological processes. Works such as Silent Spring
Silent Spring
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement....

, and The Limits to Growth, and changes in legislation such as the Clean Air Act

Clean Air Act

A Clean Air Act is one of a number of pieces of legislation relating to the reduction of airborne contaminants, smog and air pollution in general. The use by governments to enforce clean air standards has contributed to an improvement in human health and longer life spans...

, Clean Water Act

Clean Water Act

The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...

, and the National Environmental Policy Act

National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that established a U.S. national policy promoting the enhancement of the environment and also established the President's Council on Environmental Quality ....

caused the public to be aware of societal growth patterns, agricultural production, and the overall capacity of the system.

Fusion with ecology

After the 1970s, when agronomists saw the value of ecology and ecologists began to use the agricultural systems as study plots, studies in agroecology grew more rapidly. Gliessman describes that the innovative work of Prof. Efraim Hernandez X., who developed research based on indigenous systems of knowledge

Traditional knowledge

Traditional knowledge , indigenous knowledge , traditional environmental knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge also encompasses the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings...

in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, led to education programs in agroecology. In 1977 Prof. Efraim Hernandez X. explained that modern agricultural systems had lost their ecological foundation when socio-economic factors became the only driving force in the food system. The acknowledgement that the socio-economic interactions are indeed one of the fundamental components of any agroecosystems came to light in 1982, with the article Agroecologia del Tropico Americano by Montaldo. The author argues that the socio-economic context cannot be separated from the agricultural systems when designing agricultural practices.

In 1995 Edens et al. in Sustainable Agriculture and Integrated Farming Systems solidified this idea proving his point by devoting special sections to economics of the systems, ecological impacts, and ethics and values in agriculture. Actually, 1985 ended up being a fertile and creative year for the new discipline. For instance in the same year, Miguel Altieri integrated how consolidation of the farms, and cropping systems impact pest populations. In addition, Gliessman highlighted that socio-economic, technological, and ecological components give rise to producer choices of food production systems. These pioneering agroecologists have helped to frame the foundation of what we today consider the interdisciplinary field of agroecology.

Publications

Year	Author(s)	Title
1928	Klages	Crop ecology and ecological crop geography in the agronomic curriculum
1939	Hanson	Ecology in agriculture
1956	Azzi	Agricultural ecology
1965	Tischler	Agrarökologie
1973	Janzen	Tropical agroecosystems
1974	Harper	The need for a focus on agro-ecosystems
1976	Loucks	Emergence of research on agroecosystems
1977	Hernanez Xolocotzi	Agroecosistemas de Mexico
1978	Gliessman	Agroecosistemas y tecnologia agricola tradicional
1979	Hart	Agroecosistemas: conceptos básicos
1979	Cox & Atkins	Agricultural ecology: an analysis of world food production systems
1980	Hart	Agroecosistemas
1981	Gliessman, Garcia & Amador	The ecological basis for the application of traditional agricultural technology in the management of tropical agroecosystems
1982	Montaldo	Agroecologia del trópico americano
1983	Altieri	Agroecology
1984	Lowrance, Stinner & House	Agricultural ecosystems: unifying concepts
1985	Conway	Agroecosystems analysis
1987	Altieri	Agroecology: the scientific basis of alternative agriculture
1990	Allen, Dusen, Lundy, & Gliessman	Integrating social, environmental, and economic issues in sustainable agriculture
1990	Gliessman	Agroecology: researching the ecological basis for sustainable agriculture
1990	Carroll, Vandermeer & Rosset	Agroecology
1990	Altieri & Hecht	Agroecology and small farm development
1991	Caporali	Ecologia per l’agricultura
1991	Bawden	Systems thinking in agriculture
1993	Coscia	Agricultura sostenible
1998	Gliessman	Agroecology: ecological processes in sustainable agriculture
2001	Flora	Interactions between agroecosystems and rural communities
2001	Gliessman	Agroecosystem sustainability
2002	Dalgaard, Porter & Hutchings	Agroecology, scaling, and interdisciplinarity
2003	Francis et al.	Agroecology: The Ecology of Food Systems
2004	Clements, Shrestra	New Dimension in Agroecology
2007	Bland and Bell	A Holon Approach to Agroecology
2007	Gliessman	Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems
2007	Warner	Agroecology in Action
2009	Wezel, Soldat	A quantitative and qualitative historical analysis of the scientific discipline agroecology
2009	Wezel et al.	Agroecology as a science, a movement or a practice. A review

Applications

To emit a point of view about a particular way of farming, an agroecologist would first seek to understand the contexts in which the farm(s) is(are) involved. Each farm may be inserted in a unique combination of factors or contexts. Each farmer may have their own premises about the meanings of an agricultural endeavor, and these meanings might be different than those of agroecologists. Generally, farmers seek a configuration that is viable in multiple contexts, such as family, financial, technical, political, logistical, market, environmental, spiritual. Agroecologists want to understand the behavior of those who seek livelihoods from plant and animal increase, acknowledging the organization and planning that is required to run a farm.

Views on organic and non-organic milk production

Because organic agriculture proclaims to sustain the health of soils, ecosystems, and people, it has much in common with Agroecology; this does not mean that Agroecology is synonymous with organic agriculture, nor that Agroecology views organic farming

Organic farming

as the 'right' way of farming. Also, it is important to point out that there are large differences in organic standards

Organic food

Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...

among countries and certifying agencies.

Three of the main areas that agroecologists would look at in farms, would be: the environmental impacts, animal welfare issues, and the social aspects.

Environmental impacts caused by organic and non-organic milk production can vary significantly. For both cases, there are positive and negative environmental consequences.

Compared to conventional milk production, organic milk production tends to have lower eutrophication

Eutrophication

Eutrophication or more precisely hypertrophication, is the movement of a body of water′s trophic status in the direction of increasing plant biomass, by the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrates and phosphates, through fertilizers or sewage, to an aquatic system...

potential per ton of milk or per hectare of farmland, because it potentially reduces leaching of nitrates (NO₃⁻) and phosphates (PO₄⁻) due to lower fertilizer application rates. Because organic milk production reduces pesticides utilization, it increases land use per ton of milk due to decreased crop yields per hectare. Mainly due to the lower level of concentrates given to cows in organic herds, organic dairy farms generally produce less milk per cow than conventional dairy farms. Because of the increased use of roughage and the, on-average, lower milk production level per cow, some research has connected organic milk production with increases in the emission of methane

Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...

.

Animal welfare

Animal welfare

Animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of animals.The term animal welfare can also mean human concern for animal welfare or a position in a debate on animal ethics and animal rights...

issues vary among dairy farms and are not necessarily related to the way of producing milk (organically or conventionally).

A key component of animal welfare is freedom to perform their innate (natural) behavior, and this is stated in one of the basic principles of organic agriculture. Also, there are other aspects of animal welfare to be considered - such as freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort, injury, fear, distress, disease and pain. Because organic standards require loose housing systems, adequate bedding, restrictions on the area of slatted floors, a minimum forage

Forage

Forage is plant material eaten by grazing livestock.Historically the term forage has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used more loosely to include similar plants cut for fodder and carried to the animals, especially...

proportion in the ruminant

Ruminant

A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again...

diets, and tend to limit stocking densities both on pasture

Pasture

Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs...

and in housing for dairy cows, they potentially promote good foot and hoof health. Some studies show lower incidence of placenta retention, milk fever, abomasums displacement and other diseases in organic than in conventional dairy herds. However, the level of infections by parasites in organically managed herds is generally higher than in conventional herds.

Social aspects of dairy enterprises include life quality of farmers, of farm labor, of rural and urban communities, and also includes public health.

Both organic and non-organic farms can have good and bad implications for the life quality of all the different people involved in that food chain

Food chain

A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...

. Issues like labor conditions, labor hours and labor rights, for instance, do not depend on the organic/non-organic characteristic of the farm; they can be more related to the socio-economical and cultural situations in which the farm is inserted, instead.

As for the public health or food safety

Food safety

Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards....

concern, organic foods are intended to be healthy, free of contaminations and free from agents that could cause human diseases. Organic milk is meant to have no chemical residues to consumers, and the restrictions on the use of antibiotics and chemicals in organic food production has the purpose to accomplish this goal. But dairy cows in organic farms, as in conventional farms, indeed do get exposed to virus, parasites and bacteria that can contaminate milk and hence humans, so the risks of transmitting diseases are not eliminated just because the production is organic.

In an organic dairy farm, an agroecologist could evaluate the following:

1. Can the farm minimize environmental impacts and increase its level of sustainability, for instance by efficiently increasing the productivity

Productivity

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...

of the animals to minimize waste

Waste

Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...

of feed and of land use?

2. Are there ways to improve the health status

Animal Health

Animal Health is the UK government's executive agency primarily responsible for ensuring that farmed animals in Great Britain are healthy, disease-free and well looked after....

of the herd (in the case of organics, by using biological controls

Biological pest control

Biological control of pests in agriculture is a method of controlling pests that relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms...

, for instance)?

3. Does this way of farming sustain good quality of life

Quality of life

The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...

for the farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, their families, rural labor

Farmworker

A farmworker is a person hired to work in the agricultural industry. This includes work on farms of all sizes, from small, family-run businesses to large industrial agriculture operations...

and communities involved?

Views on no-till farming

No-tillage

No-till farming

No-till farming is a way of growing crops from year to year without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till is an agricultural technique which increases the amount of water and organic matter in the soil and decreases erosion...

is one of the components of conservation agriculture

Conservation agriculture

Conservation agriculture [CA] can be defined by a statement given by the as “a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment” .Agriculture...

practices and is considered more environmental friendly than complete tillage

Tillage

Tillage is the agricultural preparation of the soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking...

. Due to this belief, it could be expected that agroecologists would not recommend the use of complete tillage and would rather recommend no-till farming, but this is not always the case. In fact, there is a general consensus that no-till can increase soils capacity of acting as a carbon sink, especially when combined with cover crops.

No-till can contribute to higher soil organic matter

Organic matter

Organic matter is matter that has come from a once-living organism; is capable of decay, or the product of decay; or is composed of organic compounds...

and organic carbon content in soils, though reports of no-effects of no-tillage in organic matter and organic carbon soil contents also exist, depending on environmental and crop conditions. In addition, no-till can indirectly reduce CO₂ emissions by decreasing the use of fossil fuels.

Most crops can benefit from the practice of no-till, but not all crops are suitable for complete no-till agriculture. Crops that do not perform well when competing with other plants that grow in untilled soil in their early stages can be best grown by using other conservation tillage

Tillage

practices, like a combination of strip-till

Strip-till

Strip-till is a conservation system that uses a minimum tillage. It combines the soil drying and warming benefits of conventional tillage with the soil-protecting advantages of no-till by disturbing only the portion of the soil that is to contain the seed row...

with no-till areas. Also, crops which harvestable portion grows underground can have better results with strip-tillage, mainly in soils which are hard for plant roots to penetrate into deeper layers to access water and nutrients.

The benefits provided by no-tillage to predators may lead to larger predator populations, which is a good way to control pests (biological control), but also can facilitate predation of the crop itself. In corn crops, for instance, predation by caterpillars can be higher in no-till than in conventional tillage fields.

In places with rigorous winter, untilled soil can take longer to warm and dry in spring, which may delay planting to less ideal dates. Another factor to be considered is that organic residue from the prior year's crops laying on the surface of untilled fields can provide a favorable environment to pathogen

Pathogen

A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...

s, helping to increase the risk of transmitting diseases to the future crop. And because no-till farming provides good environment for pathogens, insects and weeds, it can lead farmers to a more intensive use of chemicals for pest control

Pest control

Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, usually because it is perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.-History:...

. Other disadvantages of no-till include underground rot, low soil temperatures and high moisture.

Based on the balance of these factors, and because each farm has different problems, agroecologists will not atest that only no-till or complete tillage is the right way of farming. Yet, these are not the only possible choices regarding soil preparation, since there are intermediate practices such as strip-till

Strip-till

, mulch-till

Mulch-till

In agriculture mulch tillage or mulch-till fall under the umbrella term of conservation tillage in the United States and refer to seeding methods where hundred percent of the soil surface is disturbed by tillage whereby crop residues are mixed with the soil and a certain amount of residues remain...

and ridge-till, all of them - just as no-till

No-till farming

- categorized as conservation tillage. Agroecologists, then, will evaluate the need of different practices for the contexts in which each farm is inserted.

In a no-till system, an agroecologist could ask the following:

1. Can the farm minimize environmental impacts and increase its level of sustainability; for instance by efficiently increasing the productivity of the crops to minimize land use?

2. Does this way of farming sustain good quality of life

Quality of life

for the farmers, their families, rural labor and rural communities involved?

By region

The principles of agroecology are expressed differently depending on local ecological and social contexts.

Latin America

Latin America's experiences with North American Green Revolution agricultural techniques have opened space for agroecologists. Traditional or indigenous knowledge represents a wealth of possibility for agroecologists, including "exchange of wisdoms." See Miguel Alteiri's Enhancing the Productivity of Latin American Traditional Peasant Farming Systems Through an Agroecological Approach for information on agroecology in Latin America.

Madagascar

Most of the historical farming in Madagascar has been conducted by indigenous peoples. The French colonial

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

period disturbed a very small percentage of land area, and even included some useful experiments in sustainable forestry

Forestry

Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

. Slash-and-burn techniques, a component of some shifting cultivation

Shifting cultivation

Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned. This system often involves clearing of a piece of land followed by several years of wood harvesting or farming, until the soil loses fertility...

systems have been practised by natives in Madagascar for centuries. As of 2006 some of the major agricultural products from slash-and-burn methods are wood, charcoal and grass for Zebu

Zebu

Zebu , sometimes known as humped cattle, indicus cattle, Cebu or Brahmin cattle are a type of domestic cattle originating in South Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent. They are characterised by a fatty hump on their shoulders, drooping ears and a large dewlap...

grazing. These practices have taken perhaps the greatest toll on land fertility since the end of French rule, mainly due to overpopulation

Overpopulation

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...

pressures.

External links

University of Wisconsin–Madison Agroecology Graduate Program
The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
Agroecology in action
agroecology
Agroecology/Sustainable Agriculture Program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
Agroecology at Iowa State University
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
Agroecology Program at Penn State
European Master Agroecology
Agroecology Program at The University of British Columbia
UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems
Facilitating Mechanism of the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
http://www.agroeco.org/index.html
Agroecology in Brazil
Agroecology in Spain

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