Agroecology the Foundation for Sustainable Climate-Resilient Farming Systems

THIRD WORLD NETWORK INFORMATION SERVICE ON SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Agroecology the Foundation for Sustainable Climate-Resilient Farming Systems

Climate change is expected to result in diverse, severe and location-specific impacts on agricultural production. This will affect levels of and access to food supply, altering social and economic stability and regional competiveness. Adaptation is thus essential.

A new paper puts forward steps on how to build climate-resilient farming communities and systems. It describes how traditional farming systems are repositories of a wealth of principles and measures that can help modern agricultural systems become more resilient to climatic extremes through agroecological strategies such as crop diversification, maintaining local genetic diversity, animal integration, soil organic management and water conservation.

According to the authors, understanding the agroecological features that underlie the resilience of traditional agroecosystems is the first step in designing adaptive agricultural systems. The second step is to disseminate, with greater urgency, the resiliency principles and practices used by successful farmers as well as scientific evidence of the effectiveness of agroecological practices in enhancing agroecosystem resilience. The authors highly recommend a networking methodology used by farmers in Mesoamerica and Cuba which consists of a horizontal mechanism of transfer and exchange of information.

The ability of communities to adapt in the face of external social, political, or environmental stresses must go hand in hand with ecological resiliency. The third step is to thus reduce the social vulnerability of communities through the extension and consolidation of social networks, both locally and regionally.

Finally, the authors stress that, "The transformation and democratization of the world’s food system is the best way to adapt to climate change while simultaneously eradicating hunger and poverty as the root causes of inequality and environmental degradation are confronted head-on".

With best wishes,

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AGROECOLOGY AND THE DESIGN OF CLIMATE CHANGE-RESILIENT FARMING SYSTEMS

Miguel A. Altieri & Clara I. Nicholls & Alejandro Henao & Marcos A. Lana
Agronomy for Sustainable Development.
DOI 10.1007/s13593-015-0285-2
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13593-015-0285-2#page-1

Abstract

Diverse, severe, and location-specific impacts on agricultural production are anticipated with climate change. The last IPCC report indicates that the rise of CO2 and associated “greenhouse” gases could lead to a 1.4 to 5.8 °C increase in global surface temperatures, with subsequent consequences on precipitation frequency and amounts. Temperature and water availability remain key factors in determining crop growth and productivity; predicted changes in these factors will lead to reduced crop yields. Climate-induced changes in insect pest, pathogen and weed population dynamics and invasiveness could compound such effects. Undoubtedly, climate- and weather-induced instability will affect levels of and access to food supply, altering social and economic stability and regional competiveness. Adaptation is considered a key factor that will shape the future severity of climate change impacts on food production. Changes that will not radically modify the monoculture nature of dominant agroecosystems may moderate negative impacts temporarily. The biggest and most durable benefits will likely result from more radical agroecological measures that will strengthen the resilience of farmers and rural communities, such as diversification of agroecosytems in the form of polycultures, agroforestry systems, and crop-livestock mixed systems accompanied by organic soil management, water conservation and harvesting, and general enhancement of agrobiodiversity. Traditional farming systems are repositories of a wealth of principles and measures that can help modern agricultural systems become more resilient to climatic extremes. Many of these agroecological strategies that reduce vulnerabilities to climate variability include crop diversification, maintaining local genetic diversity, animal integration, soil organic management, water conservation and harvesting, etc. Understanding the agroecological features that underlie the resilience of traditional agroecosystems is an urgent matter, as they can serve as the foundation for the design of adapted agricultural systems. Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events (hurricanes and droughts) in the last two decades have revealed that resiliency to climate disasters is closely linked to farms with increased levels of biodiversity. Field surveys and results reported in the literature suggest that agroecosystems are more resilient when inserted in a complex landscape matrix, featuring adapted local germplasm deployed in diversified cropping systems managed with organic matter rich soils and water conservation-harvesting techniques. The identification of systems that have withstood climatic events recently or in the past and understanding the agroecological features of such systems that allowed them to resist and/or recover from extreme events is of increased urgency, as the derived resiliency principles and practices that underlie successful farms can be disseminated to thousands of farmers via Campesino a Campesino networks to scale up agroecological practices that enhance the resiliency of agroecosystems. The effective diffusion of agroecological technologies will largely determine how well and how fast farmers adapt to climate change.
 

 

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