Agroecology: Sustainable Ecosystems

• Agro ecology aims to balance environments, sustain yields, and regulate pests using diversified agro ecosystems and low-input technologies
• Key to agro ecology is recognizing intercropping, agro forestry, and diversification which mimic natural ecological processes for sustainable agro ecosystems

Crop Rotations

• Temporal diversity in cropping systems provides crop nutrients and breaks pest, disease, and weed life cycles

Polycultures

• Complex systems planting two or more crop species in close proximity enhance yields via competition or complementation

Agroforestry Systems

• Agricultural systems where trees are grown with annual crops and/or animals enhance relations between components, increasing agro ecosystem use

Cover Crops

• Uses pure or mixed stands of legumes or other annual plants under fruit trees improve soil fertility, control pests, and modify microclimate

Animal Integration

• In agro ecosystems, it aids in high biomass output and optimal recycling

Diversified Forms of Agro Ecosystems

• Common features include maintaining vegetative cover for soil and water conservation, providing organic matter for soil biotic activity, and enhancing nutrient recycling

• Diverse cropping systems are vital in agriculture

• Diversity in agro ecosystems increases opportunities for coexistence and beneficial interactions, enhancing sustainability

• It allows for better resource-use efficiency, system-level adaptation, complementarities in crop species needs, diversification/overlap of niches, and partitioning of resources

• Ecosystems with intermingled plant species have associated resistance to herbivores due to natural enemies of pest insects

• Diverse crop assemblages create microclimates within the cropping system, which are occupied by beneficial organisms like predators, parasites, pollinators, soil fauna, and antagonists

• Agricultural landscape diversity contributes to biodiversity conservation in surrounding natural ecosystems

• Diversity in soil fulfills ecological services like nutrient recycling, detoxification, and plant growth regulation

• Diversity reduces risk for farmers in marginal areas; if one crop fails, others compensate

Industrial Agriculture Costs

• Industrial agriculture leads to loss of vegetal/animal genetic diversity due to deforestation, farming system standardization, and synthetic pesticide use eliminates beneficial organisms

• Soil degradation occurs due to overexploitation and synthetic inputs

• Water pollution from nitrate in inorganic fertilizers and groundwater depletion from inadequate irrigation occurs

• Vulnerability to pest and disease outbreaks increases

• Adverse impacts on farmers/consumers health occur due to pesticide toxicity, unsafe use conditions, and/or excessive residues in food products

• Increased indebtedness is caused by farmers' growing expenses related to pesticide use

• Climate change and vulnerability increase because of large amounts of chemical fertilizers, expansion of the industrial meat industry, and savannahs/forests plowing

• Industrial agriculture affects women, who are the main food producers/caregivers, the most

Agro Ecology

• It is an alternative to industrialized agriculture
• It is crucial for farmers and policymakers to recognize that agricultural ecosystem services can sustain themselves with proper design
• Ecosystem services reduce both off-site inputs and pollution
• Risk assessment and sustainable livelihoods are needed
• Policy makers should consider agro biodiversity which is fine-scaled
• Costs and benefits of agro biodiversity goods/services need to be identified and distributed fairly
• Popular awareness/education creation and adaptation capacity enhancement is necessary for change
• Agro ecology is a holistic approach for sustainable agro ecosystems that applies key agro ecological principles to meet local needs, mimicking natural processes and creating beneficial interactions

GMOs

• The development of GMOs is not a suitable approach as it increased peasants' dependence on the agro-industry
• It reduces resilience, causes environmental harm, increases vulnerability, reduces soil fertility, and increases economic costs

Agro Ecological Practices

• Seven agro ecological practices and resource-conserving technologies are as follows

• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) uses ecosystem resilience and diversity for pest, disease and weed control; pesticides only if other options are ineffective

• Integrated nutrient management balances nitrogen fixation within farm systems with importing nutrients and reducing nutrient losses

• Conservation tillage reduces tillage to conserve soil/moisture

• Agro forestry incorporates multifunctional trees into agricultural systems

• Aquaculture integrates aquatic resources into farm systems

• Water harvesting in dry land areas enables cultivation of abandoned/degraded lands

• Livestock integration into farming systems includes zero-grazing systems

• Green Revolution favored a top-down approach

• Agro ecological transition requires bottom-up processes in which farmers have a lead role

• Agro ecological farming is knowledge-intensive and based on farmer's knowledge, experimentation and innovation

Traditional Knowledge

• Traditional knowledge helps in adaptation in agriculture
• It helps identify resilient crop species/varieties
• Farmers conserve local landraces and select seeds for adaptive characteristics
• Local communities draw on wild areas for crop improvement and food
• Traditional farming practices conserve resources
• It can help forecast local weather, predict extreme events and provide accessible information to farmers at a local scale

GRAIN (2009)

• Agro-ecological practices could reduce GHG emissions and increasing carbon sequestration
• Rebuilding organic matter in soils lost from industrial agriculture can sequester 20-35% of current GHG emissions
• Stopping land clearing and deforestation for plantations can reduce total GHG emissions by 15-18%
• Distributing food mainly through local markets can reduce total GHG emissions by 10-12%
• Decentralizing livestock farming and integrating it with crop production can reduce total GHG emissions by 5-9%
• These measures can reduce and sequester one-half to three fourths of current global GHG emissions.

Sustainable Agro-Ecosystem

• It is about designing, planning, and managing the farm as an interconnected system of soil, water, plants, animals, climate, and people

• Farm systems mimic healthy, natural ecosystems

• Goals include a more profitable farm income, environmental stewardship, and stable/prosperous farm families/communities

• Sustainable agriculture reduces inputs and cycles nutrients back into the soil

• Organic and biodynamic farming, permaculture, agroecological systems and low-input agriculture are all types of sustainable farming

• Sustainability describes farming systems that maintain their productivity and usefulness to society indefinitely

• Sustainable agriculture can be viewed as management of a production system where there is a multitude of complex interactions occurring between soil, water, plants, animals, climate and people

• Energy flow is the pathway of sunlight through a biological system

• Enhancing energy capture is by maximizing the leaf area available for photosynthesis and by cycling the stored energy through the food chain

• Effective water cycles includes no soil erosion and fast water entry into the soil

• In nature, minerals needed for plant and animal growth are continuously being recycled

• Effective mineral cycling involves nutrient movement from the soil to crops/animals and back to the soil

• Healthy if a farm has a high diversity of plants and animals

• Soil fertility management sustains high crop productivity and crop quality

• Ways to improve soil fertility is by Striving to keep the soil covered throughout the year

• Using crop rotations to break weed/pest cycles and provide complementary fertilization, preventing pest buildup and increasing yields

• It is key to improving soil tilth, aeration, water infiltration, and fertility to optimize crop growth and minimize weed pressure

• Monitoring, record keeping, and life-cycle information about pests and their natural enemies are used to determine which control measures are necessary

• Environment manipulations include increasing plant spacing to reduce humidity, regulating irrigation, and choosing where crop is grown

• Livestock integration can Improve the match between cropping patterns and the productive potential and environmental constraints of climate and landscape

• Farmers should consider the local conditions