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Agroforestry systems (AFS) have the potential to provide socioeconomic
benefits and also environmental services such as biodiversity
conservation. In agricultural ecosystems like AFS, plant productivity is
largely dependent on the type and intensity of management. Management
practices like fertilization, pruning, thinning, mulching, and certain
ass...
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... treatments with confirmed the benefits of the use of this well-known shade tree species in Costa Rica (Beer et al. 1998). Although the treatments shaded with E. poeppigiana were productive, the herbaceous species richness under E. poeppigiana was low, probably because the abundant tree mulch suppressed the herbs in the understory. In combined plots with E. poeppigiana and C. eurycyclum the overall herb richness was much higher than in the treatments with E. poeppigiana shade alone (Figure 5). The treatments shaded with Terminalia amazonia (Figure 6) presented low herbaceous species richness and intermediate coffee yields. This species of relatively valuable timber could probably be managed for timber and shade in combination with other species. Overall, the combination of shade tree species probably provides farmers with more benefits: C. eurycyclum provides intermediate shade and organic matter to the soil, T. amazonia produces straight, high quality timber and E. poeppigiana produces mulch and can be pruned easily to adjust light conditions to the needs of the coffee shrubs (Figure ...
Citations
... In experimental coffee AFS at CATIE, 1 Costa Rica, intermediate management intensity produced competitive coffee yields, and organically managed plots had high herbaceous diversity and were as productive as chemically managed plots. This suggests that coffee AFS can balance agricultural productivity while maintaining a significant number of herbaceous species (Rossi et al. 2011). ...
... In combination with direct sale made possible by aggregating the harvest through producer cooperatives, certification holds the potential to help sustain the livelihoods of family farmers confronting an evolving market. Organic AFS are also more biodiversityfriendly since the lack of pesticide and herbicide use favors both plant and animal diversity Rossi et al. 2011). By compensating farmers for the extra labor required to produce certified organic, biodiversity-friendly products, certification can bridge the gap between financial and biodiversity benefits. ...
Agroforestry systems (AFS) are becoming increasingly relevant worldwide as society has come to recognize their multiple roles and services: biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, adaptation and mitigation of climate change, restoration of degraded ecosystems, and tools for rural development. This book summarizes advances in agroforestry research and practice and raises questions as to the effectiveness of AFS to solve the development and environmental challenges the world presents us today.
Currently AFS are considered to be a land use that can achieve a compromise among productive and environmental functions. Apparently, AFS can play a significant role in rural development even in the most challenging socioeconomic and ecological conditions, but still there is a lot of work to do to reach these goals. Considerable funding is spent in projects directed to enhancing productivity and sustainability of smallholders forestry and agroforestry practices. These projectsand programs face many questions and challenges related to the integration of traditional knowledge to promote the most suitable systems for each situation; access to markets for AFS products, and scaling up of successful AFS. These complex questions need innovative approaches from varying perspectives and knowledge bases.
This book gathers fresh and novel contributions from a set of Yale University researchers and associates who intend to provide alternative and sometimes departing insights into these pressing questions. The book focuses on the functions that AFS can provide when well designed and implemented: their role in rural development as they can improve food security and sovereignty and contribute to provision of energy needs to the smallholders; and their environmental functions: contribution to biodiversity conservation, to increased connectivity of fragmented landscapes, and adaptation and mitigation of climate change. The chapters present conceptual aspects and case studies ranging from traditional to more modern approaches, from tropical as well as from temperate regions of the world, with examples of the AFS functions mentioned above.
... AFS can restore habitat heterogeneity, compared with the homogeneity found on monocrop cultivated land. Common issues associated with monoculture systems relating to soil erosion, loss of organic matter, nutrient cycling and nitrogen leaching can often be solved when AFS are put into play (FAO, 2021;Palma et al., 2007;Rossi et al., 2011). ...
Continuous pesticide usage has negative impacts on people and ecosystems associated with coffee farms. Alternative plant protection strategies can be implemented, which are sustainable for both the environment and the coffee farmer. In this review, New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) such as RNAi (RNA interference, using Spray‐Induced Gene Silencing – SIGS) are presented as a possible novel strategy to manage Coffea arabica pests and diseases. Exploitation of the coffee agroforestry system (AFS) is presented as another strategy, offering both plant protection and ecosystem restoration functions. Interactions within a coffee‐AFS were found to both hinder and bolster the development of some coffee pests and diseases. Biological control represents a third strategy which has been examined to‐date to combat important coffee pests and diseases (i.e., American leaf spot, black coffee twig borer, coffee berry borer, coffee berry disease, coffee leaf miner, coffee leaf rust, coffee wilt disease and green coffee scale). The astute use of RNAi; AFS and/or biological control have the potential to provide alternatives to conventional pesticides for future sustainable coffee production. However, these approaches must be compatible with the coffee farmers’ local needs, accessibility and bolstered through nationwide support by advisory services and coffee authorities.
... These trait syndromes have an established role in litter decay rates and nutrient cycling (Bakker et al., 2011). During interviews, farmers identified these particular species as beneficial ground cover and sources of green manure, supporting previous work linking leaf traits and function in agroecosystems in Latin America (Rossi et al., 2011) and the Caribbean (Damour et al., 2014). In contrast, but as expected, grasses and sedges such as Brachiaria platyphylla ...
Smallholder farms that transition to organic and biodiverse production are increasingly recognized as strongholds of agrobiodiversity, with emerging work identifying important outcomes such as enhancing crop portfolios, mitigating extreme climate events and contributing to farmer well‐being. Yet the emergent herbaceous communities in these organic systems remain understudied, with the functional diversity and management of this stratum relatively unknown.
This study identifies the taxonomic and functional diversity of the herbaceous community in organic coffee agroforestry systems, and describes the extent of this diversity with farm, and farmer, attributes. We measured leaf‐level functional traits (e.g. specific leaf area) of the herbaceous community to derive functional diversity indices and collected localized environmental conditions on 15 organic coffee farms in Central Valley, Costa Rica. We also conducted semi‐structured interviews with nine farmers to construct mental models on herbaceous community management using a cognitive mapping approach.
In total, 38 species from 20 taxonomic families were present in these organic coffee systems. The herbaceous communities were functionally diverse; however, functional evenness increased with canopy openness, suggesting that farms adopting agroforestry tend to have a more functionally diverse herbaceous stratum.
Farmer perception of plant traits in the herbaceous community was differentiated into competitive (weeds) or neutral/positive effects. These perceptions aligned with well‐established functional trait trade‐offs. The mental models representing farmer decision‐making processes were highly variable, with a nearly 30% increase in cognitive map density from the simplest map to the most complex; this complexity in mental models was a key explanatory variable in the level of functional diversity of the herbaceous community.
Organic management practices that support agroforestry practices also, in turn, promote a functionally diverse herbaceous stratum. We show that functional trait syndromes in these herbaceous communities in agroforestry systems are linked with farmer perceptions of traits, and that highly interconnected farm decision‐making is related to greater functional diversity in the herbaceous community. Understanding pathways of farmer decision‐making on managing this herbaceous community can appropriately situate on‐farm practice and policy for the transition to organic production, and inform emerging agri‐environmental programs.
... En particular, se confirmó que parcelas orgánicas presentan una alta diversidad herbácea. Lo anterior demuestra que es posible reducir y/o eliminar el uso de herbicidas al mismo tiempo que se logra buena rentabilidad del cultivo (Rossi et al. 2011). ...
La caficultura sostenible requiere de diversos conocimientos asociados a la
producción de café. Uno de los temas más importantes en el ámbito de la
producción, y con impactos importantes en la calidad del medioambiente,
del producto y de la salud de las personas involucradas es el manejo
de las hierbas asociadas al cultivo. Pese a ello muchas veces en el marco
de la Buenas Prácticas Agrícolas en la producción de café hay vacíos importantes
de información al respecto. Un mal manejo de las hierbas que
compiten con las plantas tiene también una relación directa con la baja en
la producción de café. Se debe considerar que las estrategias de manejo
deben ser lo suficientemente eficientes ya que de lo contrario pueden representar
costos altos principalmente en prácticas mecánicas y químicas
y un impacto negativo al ambiente.
Rainforest Alliance en su tarea de promover la caficultura sostenible creó
este guía para que productores y técnicos puedan acceder a información
muy puntual y práctica logrando hacer un manejo integral de las hierbas
en sus cafetales, el cual sea amigable con el ambiente y sostenible en el
tiempo. La guía es una útil herramienta para tomar mejores decisiones sobre
el control integrado de la cobertura de los suelos en los cafetales.
Esta guía está dividida en tres capítulos que describen teóricamente la
presencia de las hierbas en los cafetales, los controles requeridos y el manejo
integral que debe dársele. Lo anterior ha sido extraído de una extensa
y profunda investigación documental realizada en una primera etapa por
el CATIE y ACERES, la cual fue coordinada por UTZ Certified. Para la segunda
edición, coordinada por Rainforest Alliance, se agregaron ajustes y actualizaciones
de conocimientos recientes.
Paralelo a este documento, se elaboró una Guía Ilustrativa, cuyo objetivo
es facilitar la identificación visual y caracterización de algunas de las principales
hierbas encontradas en cafetales, las cuales incluyen sus nombres
comunes y científicos, información relevante sobre lo que significa su presencia
en el suelo y el tipo de cobertura según el impacto en el cafetal.
... The conservation of herbaceous plant diversity can be complementary to the management of tree or animal populations in tropical forests as well. For example, sustainable agroforestry systems can provide habitat for epiphytes and understory herbs (e.g., Rossi et al. 2011), which in turn can support diverse faunal communities and provide ecosystem services (e.g., Cruz-Angón and Greenberg 2005). ...
Studies conducted in forests have resulted in much of the ecological theory we build upon today. However, our basic understanding of forest ecology comes almost exclusively from the study of trees, even though they represent only a small fraction of the plant diversity present in forests. In recent decades there has been an increasing number of studies of forest herbs, broadening our understanding of plant community ecology in forest ecosystems. Here we highlight ten recent studies examining patterns and drivers of, as well as threats to, herbaceous plant diversity in forests. We first examine local, regional, and global patterns of herbaceous diversity in forests and how such patterns differ for woody versus herbaceous species. We then focus on ecological mechanisms that contribute to forest herb diversity, including the role of abiotic and biotic interactions. We end by discussing some major anthropogenic impacts on forest herb diversity, identifying where herbs are particularly susceptible or particularly resilient to current and predicted changes in comparison to trees. The studies we feature demonstrate that patterns and drivers of diversity often differ between woody and herbaceous plant communities. To facilitate cross-site comparisons, there is great need for more standardized survey methods for herbaceous plants, for simultaneous measurements of multiple plant growth forms, and for incorporating herbs into long-term forest monitoring networks. In addition, the selected studies reveal how land-use history, overabundant herbivores, invasive species, and climate change are all impacting forest herb communities. Some common characteristics of herbaceous plants, such as limited dispersal and small stature, may make forest herb communities more susceptible to these anthropogenic impacts, while others (e.g., resprouting ability, clonal reproduction) may make them more resilient compared to forest trees. More research is needed from both plant ecologists and applied forest practitioners to predict how herbaceous forest diversity will change in the future.
... Cases from Pará, Brazil, Copán, Honduras, and the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley in central Mexico demonstrate the use of homegardens in these regions to serve as "banks" for ancient and potential future crop species. They also serve as (Griffith 2000) Successional AFS Improved soil fertility; bees attracted for pollination Preservation of indigenous system using distinct phases: Milpa (cultivated maize field), arbusto (shrub with planting), and acahual (fallow shrub), then return to Selva Alta (high forest); readily harvestable crops; honey bees Chiapas, Mexico (Diemont et al. 2006;Diemont et al. 2011) (continued) (Mas and Dietsch 2003;Teodoro et al. 2011;Rossi et al. 2011;Chait 2015). ...
... In Chiapas, Mexico, Costa Rica, and elsewhere in the Neotropics, several studies have found an inverse relationship between the diversity of certain species and the intensity of the management of the coffee AFS (Table 4.1). In experimental coffee AFS at CATIE, 1 Costa Rica, intermediate management intensity produced competitive coffee yields, and organically managed plots had high herbaceous diversity and were as productive as chemically managed plots, suggesting that AFS can balance agricultural productivity while maintaining a significant number of herbaceous species (Rossi et al. 2011). ...
... By compensating farmers for the extra labor required to produce certified organic, biodiversity friendly products, certification can bridge the gap between financial and biodiversity benefits. Organic AFS are also more biodiversity friendly since the lack of pesticide and herbicide use favors both plant and animal diversity Rossi et al. 2011). Several commodities grown as perennial crops in AFS such as coffee, cacao, yerba mate, guayusa, and açaí have been able to achieve price surpluses that can serve as an incentive for the farmer to turn to certified organic or biodiversity friendly products Rocha et al. 2017). ...
Given their ability to harmonize productivity with environmental functions, agroforestry systems (AFS) are an important strategy for conservation within human managed landscapes. AFS are heterogeneous in their design, management, and species composition, with consequences for their restoration, conservation, and productivity functions. AFS can function as biodiversity islands or can be incorporated into existing biodiversity islands as buffer zones because they can be integrated into already productive landscapes. This chapter provides an overview of the various ecological, social, and economic benefits of the main types of AFS systems and their applications as and within biodiversity islands. It also discusses the use of incentives to support and promote AFS in order to safeguard the contributions they provide to landscape biodiversity and rural communities.KeywordsBuffer zonesCertificationConnectivityMarketsOrganic farmingPayments for ecosystem services (PES)
... These differ according to the tree species intercropped with coffee, VOLUME 9, 2021 their number, and coffee management. The experiment was conducted at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) [24], [25], in the canton of Turrialba, province of Cartago, Costa Rica. The variety of coffee planted is Caturra of the species Coffea arabica. ...
Crop pests are among the greatest threats to food security, generating broad economic, social, and environmental impacts. These pests interact with their hosts and the environment through complex pathways and it is increasingly common to find professionals from different areas gathering into projects that attempt to deal with that complexity. We propose a framework called FramePests guiding steps and activities for crop pest modeling and forecasting. From theoretical references about carrying out mappings and systematic reviews of the literature, the framework proposes a series of steps leading to a state of science as knowledge base for modeling tasks. Then, two data-based modeling solutions are proposed with comparisons of model outputs and performances. The application of the proposed framework was demonstrated for Coffee Leaf Rust modeling, for which we obtained a data-based model built using a gradient boosting algorithm (XGBoost) with Mean Absolute Error of 7.19% and a knowledge-based model represented by a hierarchical multi-criteria decision structure with an accuracy of 56.03%. A complementary study for our case study allowed to explore how elements of a data-based model can improve a knowledge-based model, improving its accuracy by 7.07%. and showed that knowledge-based modeling can be an alternative to the data-based modeling when the available dataset has around 60 instances. Data-based models tend to have better performance, but their replicability is conditioned by the diversity in the dataset used. Knowledge-based models may be simpler but allow expert supervision and these models are not usually tied to specific sites.
... CLRI is one of the studied variables. This trial was carried out in the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) (Rossi et al., 2011) at coordinates 9°53′ 44″ North and 83°38′ 07″ West. Detailed information has been continuously collected, which makes it a unique experiment in the area. ...
The climate dataset was processed to generate four data subsets corresponding to four time windows: 3, 4, 7, and 14 consecutive days. We use the concept of time windows to generate consecutive subperiods of each climate variable within the main period of 14 days before the date of prediction. (DP). This process generates new attributes corresponding to each variable. The number of periods depends on the size of the window e.g., the window of 4 consecutive days generates 11 new sub-periods for each climatic variable. The index that characterizes it indicates the days covered by the window e.g., tMin11-8 corresponds to the minimum temperature between days 11 and 8 before DP. We called the generated subsets 3D, 4D, 7D, 14D. Each subset had 439 instances, and the dimension depended on window size: 14D had 13 variables (8 related to climate), 7D had 69 features (64 related to climate), 4D had 93 features (88 related to climate), and 3D had 101 features (96 related to climate). The target variable was predicted Coffee Leaf Rust Incidence (pCLRI), and the predictors were the rest of the experiment variables: current CLRI (cCLRI), shade, host growth (hGrowt), management (mgmt) and climatic variables: maximum (tMax) and minimum (tMin) air temperature, average (tAvg) air temperature calculated over the day, average (hAvg) and minimum (hMin) relative humidity, daily precipitation (pre). The data in the files did not contain null data. The thermal amplitude (tAmp), which represents the difference between the maximum and minimum temperatures, and the characterization of each day as a rainy day or not (precipitation greater or equal to 1 mm) (rDay)
... Moreover, net income from organic coffee production systems was similar to conventional production systems (when excluding the cost of certification), even when the former had a 22% lower yield than their counterparts, mainly due to the premium price paid to organic farmers which compensated the lower yields (Lyngbaek et al., 2001). Similarly, Rossi et al. (2011) evaluated the effect of management practices on coffee productivity in a long-term experiment in sub-optimal growing conditions and found that intermediate management intensity produces competitive coffee yields overtime. ...
The suitability and profitability of coffee cultivation in Central America are at risk due to pest and disease outbreaks, price fluctuations and climate change. Proper shading is claimed to be one of the most promising practices to seek sustainability and better adapt coffee cultivation to climate change in marginal areas. This study recorded and compared coffee cherry yields over a ten-year period from shaded coffee (N-fixing-trees and timber trees) agroforestry systems under different management regimes (conventional vs. organic) in a suboptimal site. Significant differences in production were detected between conventional inputs vs. combination of organic inputs and shade types in some years of the evaluation period. Full-sun cultivation under intensive management was the most productive system for coffee yields, followed by shaded systems under timber trees. Interestingly, and regardless of management systems (intensive conventional or intensive organic) the worst combinations in terms of coffee yield were shaded systems under leguminous species (Inga laurina (Sw.) Willd. + Simarouba glauca DC.). Across all experimental plots, the timber species Simarouba glauca and Tabebuia rosea (Bertol.) DC. grew well, reaching a mean annual increment in diameter of 2.5-3.3 cm/year (age 12 years). Average gross revenues were higher in full-sun and timber-shaded agroforestry systems. Overall, intensive management regimes were the most expensive cultivation system to run but also the best in terms of coffee yield performance.
... Most research monitoring the contribution of AFS to conservation of biodiversity compare indicators species' abundance and richness among AFS and other land uses prevalent in the region of study (Bhagwat et al. 2008;Redondo Brenes and Montagnini 2010;Teodoro et al. 2011). In addition, several studies focus on influence of agricultural practices on biodiversity, comparing plots with different management intensities of AFS (example, for coffee, Mas and Dietsch 2003;Rossi et al. 2011). ...
... Coffee AFS illustrate well how AFS can reach a compromise between productivity and the provision of environmental services such as biodiversity. Rossi et al. (2011) examined diversity of plants in the understory of coffee AFS and coffee monocultures in Costa Rica, where coffee was managed in a range of systems from medium-organic to high inputs of chemical fertilizers. ...
... However, intermediate management intensity produced competitive coffee yields, and organically managed plots had high herbaceous diversity and were as productive as chemically managed plots. The results suggested that it is feasible to manage these AFS for agricultural productivity while maintaining uniform soil cover and a significant number of herbaceous species (Rossi et al. 2011). ...
Biodiversity islands can contribute to protect biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes. Agroforestry systems (AFS), as they can harmonize productivity with environmental functions, can be part of biodiversity islands, especially in the buffer zones of protected areas. AFS are heterogeneous in their design and management, with consequences for their restoration and conservation functions. This chapter discusses the role of AFS on restoration and conservation of biodiversity at the ecosystem and landscape levels, with emphasis on tropical Latin America and examples from other regions.
