The Foundations of Agroecology

July 24, 2023 1:49 AM

"Agroecology often defines itself as bottom-up learning, and by looking at the bottom and going up through this graph, we can see that this system is an iterative process that begins with farmer experience stewarding land-based and water-based crops, as well as a managing a diversity of animal relationship types and collaborative efforts."

"Trying to narrow down terms for systems that are inherently unique to specific conditions can be a difficult task, but Rosset & Altieri identify six features that are exhibited in most traditional agroecosystems:

* high levels of biodiversity, which plays a key role (my emphasis) in regulating ecosystem functioning and also in providing ecosystem services of local and global significance;

* ingenious landscape, land, and water resource management and conservation systems that are used to improve the efficiency of agroecosystems;

* diversified agricultural systems that provide a broad variety of products to local and national food sovereignty and livelihood security;

* agroecosystems that exhibit resiliency and robustness to cope with disturbance and change (human & environmental) minimizing risk in the face of variability and stochasticity;

* agroecosystems nurtured by traditional knowledge systems featuring many farmer innovations and technologies; and

* strong cultural values and collective forms of social organization, including customary institutions for agroecological management, normative arrangements for resource access and benefit sharing, value systems, rituals, etc.

When we start to unpack these features, we are able to see how each fact is framed on localization—both in localized biodiversity and localized practices. In the process of forging these localizations, the farmer’s innovations and technologies are based on - rather than intended to disrupt - the ecology they’re based in. For example, improvement in water management in an agroecological context improves local biodiversity while not seeking to fundamentally transform the ecological system itself. The diverse species in agricultural systems fit into the ecological context, improving regional biodiversity. The goal is not to green the desert but to live in harmony with and nourish the delicate arid landscape."

posted by Rhedyn (5 comments total)

Rhedyn, thanks for posting this; it hits a number of my core interests.

You know what I see is missing in this, tho? Soil. The language and thought here is ground-up, while “soil stewardship” is such a key factor in sustaining and working with hyper-localized agriculture. The omission is an artifact of current agricultural bias, I bet, but boy - when I was farming in the US Southwest, they first thing we would do on a new field was walk it, foot by foot, picking up handfuls of soil, poking through it, smelling it, running it through our fingers, tasting it, to get a sense of the composition of the soil itself and the types of microbial life and bugs there (which can tell you a lot about the prevalence of certain types of microbes). SW soil can have vast differences in sand, clay, loam content within a distance of 2 feet. We decided where crops would go based on what the soil was already best suited to support, and amendments were geared toward what we saw in the soil well before we decisions based on plant health.

I’m still not sure how ‘agroecology’ deviates significantly from ‘permaculture’, but I’ll give it a second read.

This also makes me think of Robert MacFarlane’s wonderful book “Landmarks”, which lists out a fecundity of old words specific to intersections of time/place/weather/land used in a wide sampling of regional communities.
posted by Silvery Fish at 7:33 AM on July 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm glad it was a hit for you Silvery Fish. Re 'agroecology' vs 'permaculture' what I took from it was an argument about the meaning of those and other terms in contextual use, with the view that the context of 'permaculture' has become very Instagram and individual, and trying to stake a claim for 'agroecology' in the context of indigenous grassroots movements, traditional knowledge, and solidarity.

It is the case that where I am 'permaculture' is associated with incomer hippies who arrive thinking they know better than the multigenerational experienced farmers around them. There was a good essay a few years back titled something like "Why my farm is not a permaculture farm" by a relatively new small farmer here, discussing how she initially started off with all the permaculture manuals but within a few years of friendly conversations with her farmer neighbours realised they were all doing many of the same things, leading her to revise her view of what she was doing to just plain farming. But again all is local, and perhaps the context is very different in different places. This is not a place where the land supports scaled up industrialised farming.

My own criticism of the article would be that, in its emphasis on pushing back on excess individualism, it doesn't give enough value to individual intimacy with an area of land that is small enough to learn very well. There's a Welsh word 'cynefin' that has no direct English translation but means something like the deep understanding and connection to your home place. I've heard it described as the knowledge of the field that the ewe has when she beds her lamb down in the exact spot where the curve of the land gives the most shelter. I feel like the need for grassroots cooperative structure should also have room for that (and like it probably generally does, but the article doesn't assign it much value).
posted by Rhedyn at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Overall I think this is a positive article, and I hope it gets read. There are many good things in it, but it wasn't what I wanted.

This almost seemed to be a philological article, overly concerned with word definitions, and not an ecological article. And while I recognize there is a need for that, what I wanted was examples of agroecology, which except for a few brief mentions of historical thinkers, are non-existent here.

Then I realized that I already know of a number of people who are doing what the author calls agroecology. I'll list them and a brief description, and if it's useful for other people do to the same here, I'd sure like to hear about other groups doing agroecology. Not every person listed here completely follows every agroecological principle, but they are all making an effort in their local environment and according to their own understanding:

-- Joel Salatin, a Virginia USA farmer and writer who pioneered an integrated livestock system with cows, pigs, and chickens that mimics natural succession and builds soil.
-- Mark Shepard, Wisconsin USA farmer and writer particularly noted for alley cropping (mixing cereal crops and trees together in the same place), particularly recommend his Regenerative Agriculture book
-- Paul Wheaton, Montana USA Permaculturist. He sounds like a jerk when speaking, but listen to the words and not the affect, and he is really saying some important stuff.
-- Brad Lancaster, Arizona USA. Expert in water collection over terrain, a critically important fact of life in the arid western part of the country. Another one with an off-putting style of delivery, but absolutely essential information to impart.
-- Colin Seis, NSW Australia farmer/livestock expert. Really fantastic crop-succession schemes that mix multiple phased crops on pasture land with livestock. I think his system has the most potential to be revolutionary. I learned about him from Joel Salatin, above, who says Seis may be remembered as the most important voice in agriculture of the 21st century, and you know what, I'm not going to disagree with that. Paid $36 to have his book shipped from Australia and it was worth every penny.

There are plenty more, but that's a good start of people who are actually doing this kind of thing. I'm not criticizing the original article, it's good, and I want to reread it in more depth, but during the whole time I was like, "I don't care about your definitions of words, show me the case studies!"

And now that I type that, I realize I did really appreciate the original article's focus on indigenous land stewardship, and finding a modern path forward that feeds people, gives Land Back, honors those traditions, heals the land, and is also a thoroughly modern answer to a contemporary problem.
posted by seasparrow at 2:23 PM on July 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

I read a book about permaculture by Wes Jackson-- it was about farming with mixed perennial plants. The thing that was missing was an explanation of how harvesting would work in a situation which was much more challenging than harvesting a monoculture.

I don't know how permaculture is doing, but I twitch about a solution that left out something crucial.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:21 PM on July 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Maslin bread is the traditional solution — adapt recipes to the grain mix harvest by harvest.

Or! We have camera-laser-and-puffs-of-air systems that can sort quinoa as it falls through a hopper; we could sort bigger more different grains.
posted by clew at 2:37 PM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]