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Biodiversity, Biofuels, Agroforestry and Conservation Agriculture

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Today’s agriculture has to face the new challenge that derives from a
new evolutionary era of civilisation that has been called “Anthropocene”. Human
dominion on Earth with exploitation of natural resources and environmental pollution
is not socially acceptable anymore, since it leads to self-destruction in a confined
“spaceship” like the planet Earth. A different cultural attitude to guide human
behaviour is required in order to set up the base of a sustainable development for
man and the whole biosphere. Agriculture scientists can play a role in providing a
step towards agriculture sustainability. However, agriculture scientists need to be
able to educate both themselves and the civic society with a new systems paradigm
that focuses more on relations than on single components of agriculture reality, as
a disciplinary approach usually does. Transdisciplinarity in agriculture theory and
practice is required in order to face the new challenge of sustainability. Agroecology
is a transdisciplinary area of enquiry that has both a scientific and a philosophical
base for promoting sustainability in agriculture.

Here I review the most important areas of interface that qualify agroecology
methodology and contents. Agroecological achievements are presented according
to their chronology in order to account for the developmental process that agroecology
has undergone. Concerning methodological achievements, four pillars of agroecological
epistemology have been identified: (1) the agroecosystem concept; (2) the
agroecosystem hierarchy; (3) the farm system as a decision making unity; and (4) the
representation of agriculture as a human activity system. These four epistemological
tools are models of agricultural organisation that allow us to understand, project and
manage it as a process. They constitute the theoretical base of agroecology derived
from the systems approach, which is at the core of ecology. With the aid of these
four tools of enquiry, an agroecosystem monitoring process worldwide started
since the early 1970s and it is still running. Information on the processes of energy
transfer (energetics), productivity, nutrient cycling and biodiversity dynamics at
different levels of agroecosystem hierarchy is growing. This constitutes the first
knowledge body package of agroecology, a science that links structure and
functioning of agroecosystems. This data collection has allowed scholars to raise
judgements about the resource use efficiency, the environmental impact and the sustainability
of agroecosystems at different hierarchical level of organisation. Since the
1990s, agroecology research and applications have focused more and more on the
issue of sustainability. Attention to the problem of agriculture sustainability has
promoted a spontaneous dialogue between scholars of ecology, agronomy, economics
and sociology. Matching ecology with agronomy has produced more awareness on
the benefits of increasing biodiversity at field, farm and landscape levels. Increasing
within-field biodiversity with policultural patterns, such as crop rotations, cover
cropping and intercropping, and increasing between-field biodiversity with field-margin
management, hedgerow maintenance or introduction, and agroforestry applications,
are practical solutions to the problem of enhancing biophysical sustainability of
agroecosystems. Recent research on the role of field size for evaluating the tradeoff
between machinery efficiency and loss of biodiversity-friendly habitats in arable
landscapes shows that there is no need for bigger field size beyond an evaluated
threshold of 1–2 ha above which machinery efficiency increases very little
(Rodriguez and Wiegand 2009). Matching ecology with economics and sociology
has instead revealed that contrasting paradigms are still at work. One of the most
outstanding example of paradoxical contrast between economic and ecological
outcomes is the CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) system for meat
production. The CAFO system is economically regarded as the most advanced
intensive feedlot system for livestock production, although it contributes large greenhouse
gas emissions. If the use of CAFOs is expanded, meat production in the future
will still be a large producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for up to 6.3% of
current greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 (Fiala 2008). An ecological conversion of
economics is demanded whether the end of sustainability has to be pursued.

Organic farming worldwide is the most important example of agriculture regulated
by law with the expressed end of integrating bio-physical and socio-economic
requirements of sustainability. The latest report by IFOAM (International Federation
of Organic Agriculture Movements) (2007) mentions increasing annual rates for
organic farming and shows that 32.2 millions of hectare were certified as “organically
grown” in 2007 with more than 1.2 millions of farmers involved in the world.

The global debate about agriculture sustainability has enormously enlarged the
cultural landscape for mutual criticism between different disciplinary, traditionally
separate areas. The area of agroecology enquiry is now really operating as “glue”
at a transdisciplinary level, bridging the gap between different disciplines and between
theory and practice of agriculture. Measuring agriculture sustainability through indicators
of both biophysical and socio-economic performances is now a common praxis of
international, national and local institutions. New curricula in Agroecology at academic
level are performed in order to give an institutional base for education towards
agriculture sustainability. A final outlook section provides some examples of agroecological
approaches and applications for making a crowed planet more sustainable.

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Sustainable Agriculture Reviews

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

London : Springer Science+Business Media B.V.., 2010

Deskripsi Fisik

vi, 391 Hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

978-90-481-9513-8

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

Volume 5

Subjek

PERTANIAN.
KEHUTANAN

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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