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Introduction
Publications
Publications (364)
Given the unpredictability, increasing frequency and severity of climatic events, it is crucial to determine the adaptation limits of agroecological strategies adopted by farmers in a range of environments. In times of drought many smallholders' farmers cope with stress using a series of crop diversification and soil management strategies. Intercro...
Agroecosystem function is related to the positioning of the agroecosystem and its connectivity relationship with the surrounding landscape. Herein, three methodologies are presented, which allow assessment of the links between agroecosystems and the surrounding matrix, yielding information for promoting patterns and mechanisms that foster biodivers...
Agroecosystem function is related to the positioning of the agroecosystem and its connectivity relationship with the surrounding landscape. Herein three methodologies are presented, which allow assessment of the links between agroecosystems and the surrounding matrix, yielding information for promoting patterns and mechanisms which foster biodivers...
Given environmental, economic, and social costs of unilateral chemical and biotechnological interventions to control pests, there is an urgent need to transition towards a knowledge-intensive holistic approach emphasizing agroecosystem design and management. The focus will be on what makes agroecosystems susceptible and vulnerable to insect pests,...
Small-scale agroecological practices in the urban areas of Querétaro, México, as in other mid-sized cities, could maintain agrobiodiversity pools and sufficient productivity for a food sovereignty baseline. The application of agroecological principles fosters agrobiodiversity and socio-ecological resilience in urban food production. Emerging urban...
El objetivo de esta reflexión es destacar el papel estratégico de la agroecológica para guiar al mundo hacia una transición de agricultura resiliente, biodiversa y productiva, capaz de producir local y regionalmente suficiente cantidad de alimentos sanos y accesibles para toda la humanidad a pesar de las múltiples crisis que afectan al planeta. Inc...
In a planet under polycrisis (climate change, high input costs, ecological degradation, armed conflicts, etc.) the challenge is to transition agroecosystems based on external inputs to one dependent on ecological processes. This will require agroecologists to test new diversification designs that will potentiate beneficial above and below ground bi...
Sustainable agrifood systems are critical to averting climate-driven social and ecological disasters, overcoming the growth paradigm and redefining the interactions of humanity and nature in the twenty-first century. This Perspective describes an agenda and examples for comprehensive agrifood system redesign according to principles of sufficiency,...
We comment on one of the scientific paradoxes of our times in the field of global studies on food: the influential scenario studies that call for new paradigms for the global food system are themselves locked into a past solution space. We posit that the extrapolation of past solution spaces into the future runs the risk of restricting the modelled...
El libro presenta una serie de principios y prácticas en manejo con criterios agroecológicos que permiten al lector interiorizarse, reflexionar y adaptar a su realidad, con el objetivo de desarrollar e implementar sistemas productivos sostenibles, que incorporen cadenas agroalimentarias para generar productos de la mejor calidad, sin dañar los recu...
El objetivo de esta reflexión es mostrar cómo se puede utilizar la agroecología en el desarrollo de un nuevo sistema agrícola post-COVID-19 como alternativa de desarrollo sostenible, revitalizando la agricultura campesina creando sistemas alternativos de producción animal y potencializando la agricultura urbana. Un sistema agrícola basado en la agr...
Los sistemas agrícolas complejos, diversos y localmente adaptados desarrollados por milenios por agricultores a lo largo del mundo constituyen un patrimonio agrícola que abarca unos 5 millones de hectáreas, los cuales además de proveer de alimentos a la humanidad proveen una combinación vital de servicios sociales, culturales, ecológicos y económic...
La croissance économique, le développement technologique et la consommation sans limite ont perturbé les écosystèmes et remodelé la biosphère. La crise du covid a mis en évidence les impacts destructeurs de l’agriculture industrielle sur la nature et la santé humaine et révélé les opportunités offertes par l’agroécologie pour répondre aux défis fut...
Documentando la evidencia en Agroecología: Una perspectiva Latinoamericana CONTEXTO DE ESTE INFORME Los cambios profundos en la forma en que se cultivan procesan, distribuyen, consumen y desperdician los alimentos durante las últimas décadas generan amenazas cada vez mayores para el futuro de la alimentación a nivel local, nacional y global. Cuando...
Individual agroecological farms can act as lighthouses to amplify the uptake of agroecological principles and practices by other farmers. Amplification is critical for the upscaling of agroecological production and socio-political projects emphasizing farmer sovereignty and solidarity. However, territories are contested spaces with historical, soci...
A irrupção inesperada da crise de COVID-19 exige uma transição agroecológica mais efetiva no contexto das políticas em curso de desenvolvimento rural e urbano em todo o mundo. Para avançarmos, uma reorientação drástica dos sistemas de produção, distribuição e consumo de alimentos parece inevitável. À primeira vista, esse impulso exigirá a mobilizaç...
En un intento de la Global Alliance for the Future of Food (https://
futureoffood.org) de elevar los enfoques agroecológicos en la agenda
de los procesos globales de definición de políticas agrarias, se pidió a
varios grupos a través del mundo, entre ellos CELIA
(www.celia.agroeco.org), articular claramente el cuerpo de evidencia
que respalda la vi...
Environmental and social crises in agriculture have led to growing recognition that more ecologically sustainable and socially just food and agricultural systems are needed. This thematic number of the International Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources gathers the papers submitted by authors who were due to be speakers at the workshop "Chal...
Although there are many methodologies available to assess agroecosystem performance (sustainability, resilience, soil quality and plant health, biodiversity levels, etc.), there is still a need to develop a methodology to be used at the field level by researchers and farmers to assess if surveyed farming systems are or not based on agroecological p...
The multiple crises facing humanity at the onset of the Anthropocene are creating a moment in which agroecology acquires greater relevance as an alternative approach for meeting sustainable development goals and providing guidelines for the reconstruction of a post-COVID-19 agricultural system that is capable of minimizing future widespread disrupt...
The COVID-19 crisis has created a moment where existing calls for agroecology acquire new relevance. Agroecology provides a path to reconstruct a post-COVID-19 agriculture, one that is able to avoid widespread disruptions of food supplies in the future by territorializing food production and consumption. There are five main areas in which agroecolo...
A key strategy in agroecology is to restore functional biodiversity in agroecosystems at field and landscape levels. Biodiversity performs essential ecological services, and, if correctly assembled in time and space, it can lead to agroecosystems capable of sponsoring their own crop protection. Diversity can be enhanced in crop fields by means of c...
Iniciativas para fomentar a transição agroecológica e orgânica tem despertado o interesse de gestores público ao redor do mundo, e políticas para promover sua adoção têm sido implementadas. Entretanto, pesquisas avaliando a efetividade destas políticas ainda são raras. Com o objetivo de compreender o papel que políticas baseadas em compras públicas...
Initiatives to foster a transition toward organic agriculture have drawn policy-makers' interest worldwide. However, research studies evaluating the effectiveness of policies intended to promote ‘scaling-out’ organic production systems to more farms and larger production areas are still rare. To better understand the role that public procurement an...
Designing biodiverse, productive and resilient urban farms
Although many indigenous and peasant populations are particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and are vulnerable, many communities are actively responding to the changing climate and have demonstrated innovation and resilience, using a variety of strategies to deal with droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc. In this article we argue that t...
Urban agriculture (UA) has been bolstered as a major sustainable alternative to enhance food security on an urbanized planet. Although it has been estimated that UA can provide 15–20% of global food, it is questionable weather UA can significantly contribute the level of food self-sufficiency of cities, due to low yields reached in most existing ur...
A transition to an agriculture based on agroecological principles would provide rural families with significant socioeconomic and environmental benefits. If agroecology has such great potential to feeding the world, why it is not adopted more widely by farmers? Most research analyzing factors needed for scaling up agroecology focuses on the social...
Nowadays, glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the southern cone. Its effects on human health, particularly the carcinogenic ones, are evaluated as far as from the 80s. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer belonging to the WHO classified it as “probably carcinogenic in humans”. A year later this organism and the FAO conclude...
This new edition builds on the explosion of research on sustainable agriculture since the late 1980s. By separating myth from reality, Miguel Altieri extracts the key principles of sustainable agriculture and expounds on management systems that “really work.” Providing case studies of sustainable rural development in developing countries, he goes b...
Agricultural expansion and intensification negatively affect pollinator populations and has led to reductions in pollination services across multiple cropping systems. As a result, growers and researchers have utilized the restoration of local and landscape habitat diversity to support pollinators, and wild bees in particular. Although a majority o...
This book contains 16 chapters focusing on the major arthropod, insect and nematode pests of tropical cereals, legumes, root and tuber crops, sugarcane, cotton, vegetables, bananas, citrus, oil palms, tea, cocoa and coffee and forest trees. The benefits of the integration of various control methods in the management of these arthropod, insect and n...
This is a timely and excellent book by two world leaders of agroecological thought and practice. In this highly readable book, Peter Rosset and Miguel Altieri offer a clear analysis of the principles of agroecology and its potential to address major social, economic and environmental challenges of food and farming in the 21st century. Most notably,...
This article explores whether a shift in development paradigm resulted in coexistence with semi-aridity for residents of the Semi-Arid region of Brazil (SAB). If so, which strategies contributed and which conditions facilitated it? We conducted a comparative analysis of the transformations that occurred in 10 territories of the SAB during two time...
Even though diversified agroforestry systems can provide sustainable livelihoods and a resilient production of different goods, adoption remains limited in Bolivia. We examine major obstacles to agroforestry adoption and possible incentives proposed by farmers and civil-society organizations, and relate them to governance and international mechanis...
This article briefly traces the origins of agroecology in Latin America, and its application by nongovernmental organizations in rural development, its evolution and contributions in academia, and its adoption and dissemination by social rural movements.
The influence of local and landscape habitat diversification on biological control of the Western grape leafhopper (Erythroneura elegantula Osborn) by its key parasitoids Anagrus erythroneurae S. Trjapitzin & Chiappini and Anagrus daanei Triapitsyn was studied in wine grape vineyards. At the landscape scale, Anagrus rely on alternative host species...
Agroforestry often relies on local knowledge, which is gaining recognition in development projects. However, how local knowledge can articulate with external and scientific knowledge is little known. Our study explored the use and integration of local and external knowledge in agroforestry projects in Bolivia. In 42 field visits and 62 interviews w...
Most efforts to improve agricultural production remain focused on practices driven by an intensification agenda and not by an agroecological one. Agroecology transcends the reformist notion of organic agriculture and sustainable intensification proponents who contend that changes can be achieved within the dominant agroindustrial system with minor...
Contemporary agriculture is often criticized for its industrial scale, adverse effects on nutrition, rural employment and the environment, and its disconnectedness from nature and culture. Yet there are many examples of traditional smaller scale systems that have survived the test of time and provide more sustainable solutions while still maintaini...
The risk of family farmers in the Protected Area Esteros de Farrapos (APEF) increases with synergy between flooding and reduced grazing areas outside the estuary. This study analyzed the extent of the frequency of flooding by determining the height of the water surface of the río Uruguay in a period of eight years and the number of days when the wa...
El riesgo de los ganaderos familiares que pastorean en el Área Protegida Esteros de Farrapos aumenta en función de la sinergia entre las inundaciones y la disminución de las áreas de pastoreo fuera del estero. En este trabajo se consideró la frecuencia de inundaciones determinando la altura de lámina de agua del río Uruguay en un período de ocho añ...
Modern agroecosystems require systemic change, but new redesigned farming systems will not emerge from simply implementing a set of practices (rotations, composting, cover cropping, etc.) but rather from the application of already well defined agroecological principles. These principles can be applied using various practices and strategies, each ha...
Anagrus erythroneurae S. Trjapitzin & Chiappini and Anagrus daanei Triapitsyn are the key parasitoids of the western grape leafhopper (Erythroneura elegantula Osborn) in northern California vineyards. Erythroneura elegantula overwinters as an adult in reproductive diapause. To successfully overwinter, Anagrus spp. must locate an alternate leafhoppe...
The Mediterranean diet is described by the UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity website (http:// www. unesco. org/ culture/ ich/ en/ RL/ 00884) as encompassing more than just food of the various cultures. These diets are embedded in bio-cultural landscapes that are at risk from global markets, industrial agriculture, invasive species and climate ch...
In this study pollinators visiting highbush blueberry fields set in landscapes with differing land use pattern in south-central Chile were investigated. Effects of spatial buffers from 0.5 to 8 km around each blueberry field on the abundance of the main wild pollinator, Bombus terrestris queens, were tested. Wild B. terrestris abundances were posit...
The Green Revolution was a homogenous technological model for agricultural development that originated in the breadbasket of the United States following World War II. It turned " swords into plowshares " by " transforming the vast stocks of wartime nitrate and poisons into fertilizer and pesticides, and by refitting materiel factories to make newer...
Resumen Se prevé que el cambio climático global va a generar altos impactos en la precipitación pluvial en el Sur de México. Habrá cambios en la cantidad y en la distribución de las lluvias en el tiempo, lo cual puede tener un efecto en la viabilidad de los sistemas agrícolas de temporal, particular-mente en regiones marginales. Las comunidades cam...
This study evaluated how the proportional area of natural habitat surrounding a vineyard (i.e. landscape diversity) worked in conjunction with crop vigor, cultivar and rootstock selection to influence biological control of the western grape leafhopper (Erythroneura elegantula Osborn). The key natural enemies of E. elegantula are Anagrus erythroneur...
Este trabajo pretende fomentar el entendimiento de la interrelacion entre riesgos ambientales generados por el cambio climatico y la capacidad de utilizar unidades y sistemas agricolas (como sistemas socioecologicos) para resistir a estas perturbaciones y persistir en el tiempo. Fueron evaluadas 177 familias que practicaban agricultura campesina de...
È ormai chiaro che l'umanità ha bisogno di un paradigma alternativo di sviluppo agricolo che promuova un'agricoltura più solida in termini ecologici, bio-diversificata, resiliente, sostenibile e socialmente giusta. Base di questo nuovo paradigma è la moltitudine di sistemi agricoli dotati di razionalità ecologica messi a punto in centinaia di milio...
Lo scritto riporta una riflessione degli autori sulla necessità di diffondere, consolidare e valorizzare un modello alternativo rispetto a quello proposto nel corso del ventesimo secolo dalla Rivoluzione Verde, partendo da un’analisi dei limiti che questa ha mostrato a distanza di alcuni decenni dal suo avvio. L’allarmante riduzione di risorse chia...
Diverse, severe, and location-specific impacts on agricultural production are anticipated with climate change. The last IPCC report indicates that the rise of CO 2 and associated " greenhouse " gases could lead to a 1.4 to 5.8 °C increase in global surface temperatures, with subsequent consequences on precipitation frequency and amounts. Temperatur...
The Mediterranean Basin is a climate change and biological invasion hotspot where recent warming is facilitating the establishment and spread of invasive species, one of which is the highly destructive South American tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta). This pest recently invaded the Mediterranean Basin where it threatens Solanaceous crops. Holistic a...