Agroecology (US: a-grō-ē-ˈkä-lə-jē) is an

academic discipline An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

that studies ecological processes applied to agricultural production systems. Bringing ecological principles to bear can suggest new management approaches in

agroecosystem Agroecosystems are the ecosystems supporting the food production systems in our farms and gardens. As the name implies, at the core of an agroecosystem lies the human activity of agriculture. As such they are the basic unit of study in Agroecology, ...

s. The term is often used imprecisely, as the term can be used as a science, a movement, or an agricultural practice.Wezel, A., Bellon, S., Doré, T., Francis, C., Vallod, D., David, C. (2009)
Agroecology as a science, a movement or a practice
. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystems. The field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

, whether it be

organic Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...

, regenerative, integrated, or industrial, intensive or extensive, although some use the name specifically for alternative agriculture.

Definition

Agroecology is defined by the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate ...

as "the study of the relation of agricultural crops and environment." Dalgaard ''et al''. refer to agroecology as the study of the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment within agricultural systems.Dalgaard, Tommy, and Nicholas Hutchings, John Porter.
Agroecology, Scaling and Interdisciplinarity
" Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment 100(2003): 39-51. Francis ''et al''. also use the definition in the same way, but thought it should be restricted to growing food. Agroecology is a holistic approach that seeks to reconcile agriculture and local communities with natural processes for the common benefit of nature and livelihoods. Agroecology is inherently multidisciplinary, including sciences such as agronomy,

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

, environmental science,

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and others. Agroecology uses different sciences to understand elements of ecosystems 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. The system properties of agroecosystems studied may include: productivity, stability,

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

and

equitability Equitability is a criterion for fair division. A division is called equitable if the subjective value of all partners is the same, i.e., each partner is equally happy with his/her share. Mathematically, that means that for all partners and : : V_i ...

. Agroecology is not limited to any one scale; it can range from an individual gene to an entire population, or from a single field in a given farm to global systems. Wojtkowski differentiates the ecology of natural ecosystems from agroecology inasmuch as in natural ecosystems there is no role for economics, whereas in agroecology, focusing as it does on organisms within planned and managed environments, it is human activities, and hence economics, that are the primary governing forces that ultimately control the field.Wojtkowski, Paul A. (2002) Agroecological Perspectives in Agronomy, Forestry and Agroforestry. Science Publishers Inc., Enfield, New Hampshire, 356p. Wojtkowski discusses the application of agroecology in

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

, forestry and agroforestry in his 2002 book.

Varieties

Buttel identifies four varieties of agroecology in a 2003 conference paper. The main varieties he calls ''ecosystem agroecology'' which he claims derives from the

ecosystem ecology Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of living ( biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components of ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework. This science examines how ecosystems work and relates this to their components ...

of Howard T. Odum and focuses less on the rural sociology, and ''agronomic agroecology'' which he identifies as being oriented towards developing knowledge and practices to agriculture more sustainable. The third long-standing variety Buttel calls ''ecological political economy'' which he defines as critiquing the politics and economy of agriculture and weighted to radical politics. The smallest and newest variety Buttel coins ''agro-population ecology'', which he says is very similar to the first, but is derived from the science of ecology primarily based on the more modern theories of population ecology such as population dynamics of constituent species, and their relationships to

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...

and

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 (including the biosphere, the cryosphere ...

, and the role of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar work ...

. Dalgaard ''et al''. identify different points of view: what they call early "integrative" agroecology, such as the investigations of Henry Gleason or

Frederic Clements Frederic Edward Clements (September 16, 1874 – July 26, 1945) was an American plant ecologist and pioneer in the study of plant ecology and vegetation succession. Biography Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, he studied botany at the University of Neb ...

. The second version they cite Hecht (1995) as coining "hard" agroecology which they identify as more reactive to environmental politics but rooted in measurable units and technology. They themselves name "soft" agroecology which they define as trying to measure agroecology in terms of "soft capital" such as culture or experience. The term agroecology may used by people for a science, movement or practice.Wezel, A., Soldat, V. (2009)
A quantitative and qualitative historical analysis of the scientific discipline agroecology
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 7 (1): 3-18. , doi=10.3763/ijas.2009.040 Using the name as a movement became more common in the 1990s, especially in the Americas. Miguel Altieri, whom Buttel groups with the "political" agroecologists, has published prolifically in this sense. He has applied agroecology to sustainable agriculture, alternative agriculture and

traditional knowledge Traditional knowledge (TK), indigenous knowledge (IK) and local knowledge generally refer to knowledge systems embedded in the cultural traditions of regional, indigenous, or local communities. According to the World Intellectual Property Or ...

History

Overview

The history of agroecology depends on whether you are referring to it as a body of thought or a method of practice, as many indigenous cultures around the world historically used and currently use practices we would now consider utilizing knowledge of agroecology. Examples include Maori, Nahuatl, and many other indigenous peoples. The Mexica people that inhabited Tenochtitlan pre-colonization of the Americas used a process called chinampas that in many ways mirrors the use of composting in sustainable agriculture today. The use of agroecological practices such as nutrient cycling and intercropping occurs across hundreds of years and many different cultures. Indigenous peoples also currently make up a large proportion of people using agroecological practices, and those involved in the movement to move more farming into an agroecological paradigm.

Pre-WWII academic thought

According to Gliessman and Francis ''et al''., agronomy and ecology were first linked with the study of crop ecology by Klages in 1928. This work is a study of where crops can best be grown.Gliessman, Stephen. R Agroecology: Ecological Processes in Sustainable Agriculture. Ann Arbor: Sleeping Bear Press, 1998. Wezel ''et al''. say the first mention of the term agroecology was in 1928, with the publication of the term by Basil Bensin. Dalgaard ''et al''. claim the German zoologist Friederichs was the first to use the name in 1930 in his book on the

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, an ...

of agriculture and forestry, followed by American crop physiologist Hansen in 1939, both using the word for the application of ecology within agriculture.

Post-WWII academic thought

Tischler's 1965 book ''Agrarökologie'' may be the first to be titled 'agroecology'. He analyzed the different components (plants, animals, soils and climate) and their interactions within an agroecosystem as well as the impact of human

agricultural management Agricultural science (or agriscience for short) is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Profession ...

on these components. Gliessman describes that post-WWII ecologists gave more focus to experiments in the natural environment, while agronomists dedicated their attention to the cultivated systems in agriculture, but in the 1970s agronomists saw the value of ecology, and ecologists began to use the agricultural systems as study plots, studies in agroecology grew more rapidly. More books and articles using the concept of agroecosystems and the word agroecology started to appear in 1970s. According to Dalgaard ''et al''., it probably was the concept of "process ecology" such as studied by

Arthur Tansley Sir Arthur George Tansley FLS, FRS (15 August 1871 – 25 November 1955) was an English botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phy ...

in the 1930s which inspired Harper's 1974 concept of

s, which they consider the foundation of modern agroecology. Dalgaard ''et al''. claim

's investigations on ecology using social sciences, community ecology and a "landscape perspective" is agroecology, as well as Henry Gleason's investigations of the population ecology of plants using different scientific disciplines. Ethnobotanist Efraim Hernandez X.'s work on

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

in the 1970s led to new education programs in agroecology. Works such as '' Silent Spring'' and '' The Limits to Growth'' caused the public to be aware of the environmental costs of agricultural production, which caused more research in sustainability starting in the 1980s. The view that the socio-economic context are fundamental was used in the 1982 article ''Agroecologia del Tropico Americano'' by Montaldo, who argues that this context cannot be separated from agriculture when designing agricultural practices. In 1985 Miguel Altieri studied how the consolidation of the farms and cropping systems impact pest populations, and Gliessman how socio-economic, technological, and ecological components gave rise to producer choices of food production systems. In 1995, Edens ''et al''. in ''Sustainable Agriculture and Integrated Farming Systems'' considered the economics of systems, ecological impacts, and ethics and values in agriculture.

Social movements

Several social movements have adopted agroecology as part of their larger organizing strategy. Groups like

La Via Campesina La Vía Campesina (from es, la vía campesina, ) is an international farmers organization founded in 1993 in Mons, Belgium, formed by 182 organisations in 81 countries, and describing itself as "an international movement which coordinates peasa ...

have used agroecology as a method for achieving food sovereignty. Agroecology has also been utilized by farmers to resist global agricultural development patterns associated with the green revolution.

By region

Latin America

Africa

Garí wrote two papers for the FAO in the early 2000s about using an agroecological approach which he called "agrobiodiversity" to empower farmers to cope with the impacts of the AIDS on rural areas in Africa. In 2011, the first encounter of agroecology trainers took place in Zimbabwe and issued the Shashe Declaration.

Europe

The

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

supports the use of sustainable practices, such as precision agriculture, organic farming, agroecology, agroforestry and stricter animal welfare standards through the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy.

Debate

Within those academic research areas that focus on topics related to agriculture or ecology such as agronomy, veterinarian science, environmental science, and others, there is much debate regarding what model of agriculture or agroecology should be supported through policy. Agricultural departments of different countries support agroecology to varying degrees with the UN being perhaps its biggest proponent.

References

External links

Topic

Agroecology

Agroecology by Project Regeneration

International Agroecology Action Network

SpainThe 10 elements of Agroecology

Organisations

Agroecology Europe - A European association for Agroecology

Agroecology Map

Courses

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Montpellier, France

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

European Master Agroecology

Norwegian University of Life Sciences

{{Authority control Sustainable agriculture Agronomy Agriculture Agricultural soil science Environmental social science Organic farming Habitat management equipment and methods Sustainable food system Environmental conservation