Although on-farm research in severalparts of Africa suggests positive prospects for theadoption of hedgerow intercropping, this paper arguesthat the implications of intra-household processeshave not been considered in sufficient details. Suchinformation is necessary for targeting the technologyto specific socio-cultural localities and categoriesof producers and for anticipating adoption trends.Based on three case materials, two from southernNigeria and one from western Kenya, it examines howthe gender division of labor, decision-making, andareas of responsibility and inter-generational landallocation patterns determine that the interests andneeds (...) of certain household members are met, often atthe expense of others. The tendency of agriculturalresearchers to ignore the intra-household dimension isattributed to the frequent absence of sociologists andanthropologists as integral members of research teamsand the use of research methodologies that areinappropriate for uncovering the complexities ofintra-household issues. (shrink)

Industrialized agriculture currently substitutes many of the ecological functions of soil micro-organisms, macroinvertebrates, wild plants, and vertebrate animals with high cost inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. Enhanced biological diversity potentially offers agricultural producers a means of reducing the cost of their production. Conservation of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes may be greatly enhanced by the adoption of certain crop management practices, such as reduced pesticide usage or measures to prevent soil erosion. Still, the vast monocultures comprising the crop area in many (...) Canadian agricultural landscapes are often of limited conservation value, thus the inclusion of appropriate wildlife habitat in and around arable lands is a fundamental prerequisite for the integration of wild species within agricultural landscapes. This review of current literature considers the potential for non-crop areas within agricultural landscapes to be reservoirs of agronomically beneficial organisms including plants, invertebrates, and vertebrate species. Non-crop habitats adjacent to crop land have been identified as significant for the maintenance of plant species diversity, for the conservation of beneficial pollinating and predatory insects, and as essential habitat for birds. A key component for enhancement of biodiversity is the reintroduction of landscape heterogeneity by (1) protection and enhancement of key non-crop areas, (2) smaller fields and farms, and (3) a greater mixture of crops, through rotation, intercropping and regional diversification. The benefits of increased biodiversity within arable lands are reviewed for various species groups. In the Canadian context, any serious attempt to derive significant agronomic benefit from increased biodiversity will require considerable changes in the agricultural programs and policies which shape mainstream industrialized agriculture. The problems of crop depredation by vertebrate species, weed and insect competition, which still represent significant impediments to the creation and proper management of wildlife habitat, are also discussed. (shrink)

Traditional agricultural systems in Mediterranean Europe were characterised by diversity and multifunctionality, and polycultures played a fundamental role in them. Some of these farm systems and the traditional agricultural practices linked to them have now largely disappeared, but they are increasingly recognised as a valuable source of agroecological knowledge. In this study, we seek to recover the long-lost experience from a traditional Mediterranean intercropping system that combined the cultivation of vines and cereals. Using local historical resources available for a (...) Catalan village for the second half of the nineteenth century, we compare the characteristics and functioning of intercropping and monocultures of vines and cereals using socioeconomic and agrarian metabolism indicators, and discuss the advantages of the traditional intercropping system as an adaptation to the productive limitations of the agroecosystem (particularly in terms of soil quality and productivity, and availability of labour and draft force), but also as a peasant economy strategy that responded to a multifunctional balancing rationale. This way, this research contributes to recovering the knowledge and experience of a long-lasting traditional crop system that had been used until the second half of the twentieth century, and provides an understanding of the rationale and advantages of traditional Mediterranean crop systems beyond productivity and profit maximisation strategies. (shrink)

Robots are widely expected—and pushed—to transform open-field agriculture, but these visions remain wedded to optimizing monocultural farming systems. Meanwhile there is little pull for automation from ecology-based, diversified farming realms. Noting this gap, we here explore the potential for robots to foster an agroecological approach to crop production. The research was situated in The Netherlands within the case of _pixel cropping_, a nascent farming method in which multiple food and service crops are planted together in diverse assemblages employing agroecological practices (...) such as intercropping and biological pest control. Around this case we engaged with a variety of specialists in discussion groups, workshops, and design challenges to explore the potential of field robots to meet the multifaceted demands of highly diverse agroecological cropping systems. This generated a spectrum of imaginations for how automated tools might—or might not—be appropriately used, ranging from fully automated visions, to collaborative scenarios, to fully analogue prototypes. We found that automating agroecological cropping systems requires finding ways to imbue the ethos of agroecology into designed tools, thereby seeking to overcome tensions between production aims and other forms of social and ecological care. We conclude that a rethinking of automation is necessary for agroecological contexts: not as a blueprint for replacing humans, but making room for analogue and hybrid forms of agricultural work. These findings highlight a need for design processes which include a diversity of actors, involve iterative design cycles, and incorporate feedback between designers, practitioners, tools, and cropping systems. (shrink)

Providing equitable food security for a growing population while minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing resilience to climate shocks is an ongoing challenge. Here, we quantify the resource intensity, environmental impacts and nutritional output of a small (0.075 ha) low-input subsistence Mediterranean agroecological farm in a developed nation that is based on intercropping and annual crop rotation. The farm provides one individual, the proprietor, with nutritional self-sufficiency (adequate intake of an array of macro- and micro-nutrients) with limited labor, no synthetic (...) fertilizers or herbicides, and zero waste, effectively closing a full farm-table-farm cycle. We find that the agroecological farm outperforms conventional farming as practiced in the same country in terms of both lower environmental burdens, across all examined environmental metrics (63% lower on average) per kg produce, and higher nutritional score (66% higher on average). Per equal farmland, the environmental lopsidedness was even higher (79% lower than conventional farming on average), with nearly the same nutritional score (3% lower on average). Moreover, when considering total land area, which includes farmland and supporting non-agricultural lands, as well as postgate impacts and food losses, the advantage of the agroecological system over conventional farming is even more pronounced. Situated within a Mediterranean region that is undergoing rapid climate change, this food system is a unique case study of nutrition- and environment-oriented food production system. While its deployment potential is limited by lack of supportive policies, it nonetheless represents one of the most starkly bold alternatives to current food systems. (shrink)

Examining the status of cacao production, challenges, and prospects of cacao farmersin Zamboanga del Norte province were done in this study. The investigation revealed that cacaofarming was practiced by males (244 or 65.10%) and female cacao farmers (34%) who areprimarily married with secondary educational backgrounds. Most cacao farmers were theirproductive age ranging from 50-59 years old (42.93%), 40-49 years old (34.4%). However,fewer young people engaged in cacao farming aged below 40 years old (7.46%). The primaryoccupation of the respondents was farming (...) (86.13%), tilling their owned land (84.53%), andwith an average annual income below 60,000 pesos (50.40%). The average farm size was at 1-3hectares (80.00%), having a plain (40.27%) to rolling topography (47.47%) planted with UF 18(50.13%) and BR 25 (49.87%) varieties of cacao. Intercropping was observed (99.20%) withcoconut (79.20%) and banana (14.67%) planted along with cacao. Pest infestation of stem borer(59.73%) and bugs (22.67%) were observed at a low level (79.20%) and controlled usingLamdacyhalothrin (86.40%) as a chemical spray. Moreover, cacao diseases in farms were at alow incidence level (74.13%), with vascular streak dieback (53.06%) as the most commondisease among farms, and the method of controlling the spread was using chemicals (53.60%)and synthetic pesticides (100%) as a spray. Farms established 2 years from sowing (90.13%)observed farm management practices such as weeding twice a year (45.33%), fertilizerapplication 4 times a year (88.00%) using 1-3 bags per hectare (85.06%). Cacao trees produced0.50-1.50 (50.00%) of seeds per tree. Cacao products are sold in dried form (60.98%) withprices ranging from 81-100/kilogram through cooperative (100%). Farmers faced numerouschallenges, the most significant of which were the high cost of routine maintenance (such ascleaning/brushing) and shortage of laborers. The accessibility from the farm to the market roadwas also seen as a challenge among them. The province's cacao agricultural stakeholdersextended to support services to farmers such as free planting materials, credit assistance, cacaoproduction seminars, and post-harvest facilities, which were all considered valuable to farmersin addressing the challenges they faced on cacao farming and production. (shrink)

In the final analysis, sustainable agriculture must derive from applied ecology, especially the principle of the regulation of the abundance and distribution of species (and, secondarily, their activities) in space and time. Interspecific competition in natural ecosystems has its counterparts in agriculture, designed to divert greater amounts of energy, nutrients, and water into crops. Whereas natural ecosystems select for a diversity of species in communities, recent agriculture has minimized diversity in favour of vulnerable monocultures. Such systems show intrinsically less stability (...) and resilience to perturbations. Some kinds of crop rotation resemble ecological succession in that one crop prepares the land for successive crop production. Such rotations enhance soil organic processes such as decomposition and material cycling, build a nutrient capital to sustain later crop growth, and reduce the intensity of pest buildup. Species in natural communities occur at discrete points along the r-K continuum of reproductive maturity. Clearing forested land for agriculture, rotational burning practices, and replacing perennial grassland communities by cereal monocultures moves the agricultural community towards the r extreme. Plant breeders select for varieties which yield at an earlier age and lower plant biomass, effectively moving a variety towards the r type. Features of more natural landscapes, such as hedgerows, may act as physical and biological adjuncts to agricultural production. They should exist as networks in agricultural lands to be most effective. Soil is of major importance in agroecosystems, and maintaining, deliberately, its vitality and resilience to agricultural perturbations is the very basis of sustainable land use. (shrink)

Adoption of integrated pest management(IPM) practices in the Guatemalan highlands has beenlimited by the failure of researchers andextensionists to promote genuine farmer participationin their efforts. Some attempts have been made toredress this failure in the diffusion-adoptionprocess, but farmers are still largely excluded fromthe research process. Understanding farmers'agricultural knowledge must be an early step toward amore participatory research process. With this inmind, we conducted a semi-structured survey of 75Cakchiquel Maya farmers in Patzún, Guatemala, tobegin documenting their pest control practices. Theirresponses revealed (...) that their understanding ofbiological and curative pest control is limited.However, their broad knowledge of cultural preventivepest control practices could explain why they hadfaced few pest problems in their traditionalmilpa (intercrop of corn, beans, and other edibleplants). The majority of these preventive practicesare probably efficient and environmentallyinnocuous. (shrink)

In a development of the ecosemiotic vivo-scape concept, a ‘safety eco-field’ is proposed as a model of a species response to the safety of its environment. The safety eco-field is based on the ecosemiotic approach which considers environmental safety as a resource sought and chosen by individuals to counter predatory pressure. To test the relative safety of different locations within a landscape, 66 bird feeders (BF) were deployed in a regular 15 × 15 m grid in a rural area, surrounded (...) by shrubs, small trees, hedgerows, and buildings. On each of 48 days in November 2021 and February and March 2022, dried mealworms were placed on each BF and counts of larvae at each BF were made at noon and dusk. The European robin (Erithacus rubecula) and the great tit (Parus major) were the most regular visitors to the BFs. Land cover at each BF was recorded. Bird behaviour at the BFs was noted from direct video recordings of the birds at nine selected BFs, totalling 32 daily sessions in March. The different behaviours of the European robin and the great tit were observable. The safety eco-field changed according to the month and the time of day. The distance of the BF from the woodland edges seemed to be important only in the morning. In the afternoon, BFs that were more distant from the woodland edges received the highest number of visits. Weather conditions were found to influence the number of mealworms removed, but this requires further investigation. A significant relationship between land cover and the number of mealworm larvae removed from the BFs was observed. Within the grid of BF, three regions were distinguishable which were related to land cover in the safety eco-field process. The experimental framework confirms the adequacy, at least for birds that have cryptic predators, to map the landscape as a proxy of safety resource. From the video recordings it was noted that the European robin visits were distributed throughout the day without apparent temporal preferences, while the great tit visits were concentrated in the central part of the day. This result has the limitation of the short period of observation (March) and should be extended to the entire period of the experiment to eventually capture seasonal variation. The experimental evidence obtained confirms that the ecosemiotic-based models of safety eco-field are an efficient approach to explain bird feeding preferences and behaviours. (shrink)

Before Euro-American settlement, many Native American nations intercropped maize (_Zea mays_), beans (_Phaseolus vulgaris_), and squash (_Cucurbita pepo_) in what is colloquially called the “Three Sisters.” Here we review the historic importance and consequences of rejuvenation of Three Sisters intercropping (3SI), outline a framework to engage Native growers in community science with positive feedbacks to university research, and present preliminary findings from ethnography and a randomized, replicated 3SI experiment. We developed mutually beneficial collaborative research agendas with four Midwestern US (...) Native American nations. Ethnographic data highlighted a culturally based respect for 3SI as living beings, the importance it holds for all cultural facets of these Native nations, and the critical impact the practice has on environmental sustainability. One concern expressed by Native growers during ethnographic research was improving soil health—part of the rationale for establishing the 3SI agronomic experiment. To address this, we collaboratively designed a 3SI experiment. After 1 year, 3SI increased short-term soil respiration by 24%, decreased salt-extractable nitrate by 54%, had no effect on soil microbial biomass (but increased its carbon-to-nitrogen ratio by 32%) compared to the average of monoculture crops. The overarching purpose of this collaborative project is to develop a deeper understanding of 3SI, its cultural importance to Native communities, and how reinvigorating the practice—and intercropping in general—can make agroecosystems more sustainable for people and the environment. (shrink)

A decision-tree model of an indigenous forest management system centered around shamu (Cunninghamia lanceolata),an important timber species in China, was constructed from extensive interviews with peasants in two villages in Fujian Province, China. From this model additional interviews were conducted to elicit from these peasants their reasons for selecting among decision alternatives. Those reasons that were of an ecological nature were discussed in detail with the peasants to elicit indigenous interpretations of ecological processes in order to test an hypothesis that (...) a strong analogy exists between traditional indigenous and scientific knowledge of ecological processes.Three cases are presented that test this hypothesis. These three cases concern the effect of intercrops on the growth of shamu,the relative merits of seedlings and root collar sprout cuttings for forest regeneration, and the effects of repeated plantings of shamuon soil chemistry. All three cases provide strong support for the research hypothesis and suggest that, even in the absence of a formalized scientific method, humans exercise mental processes typical of scientific thinking. This phenomenon is called proto-science. (shrink)

Debates about the relationship between agricultural technology and the conservation of crop genetic diversity are often hampered by unclear vocabulary and imprecise data. Various interpretations of the terms “modern variety,” “local variety,” “hybrid,” and “green revolution” are first explored, and then evidence is examined regarding the effect of modern varieties on intra- and intercrop diversity, risk, input use, and farmer decision-making. The objective is to urge a more reasoned debate about the future of plant genetic resources.

Most aspects of agriculture in Cuba prior to 1989 were comparable to California: a high energy input, conventional agriculture (based on what the Cubans now call the “classical model”) in which little was done to protect the nation's soils from erosion, loss of fertility, salinization, and other forms of degradation. In stark contrast the new “Alternative Model,” which has been rapidly replacing the previous model since 1989, emphasizes soil conservation and rehabilitation and the general improvement of the nation's soils as (...) the key to sustaining low-input production and attainment of food security. One of the first steps in implementing the new model was the launching of an ambitious program to reclassify, evaluate, and map the nation's soils in great detail, and to interpret the maps for management of sustainable production. A main feature of this program is coordinated fertility trials to determine, for each combination of crop and soil, the minimum quantity of plant nutrients needed to produce the crop. The build up and maintenance of soil fertility and productivity is being accomplished with various organic and mineral amendments and biofertilizers, produced or mined within the country (locally, where possible) and through rational management utilizing cover crops, green manures, crop successions (intercropping and rotations), and other appropriate technologies. Rehabilitation of degraded soils, tillage reduction, reforestation, vermiculture, vermicomposting, and other forms of waste cycling are other features of the new model that are important to soil conservation and maintenance for sustainable production. (shrink)