18th Congress of the European Society for Agronomy

Contribution of diversification to resilience capacities of agricultural systems

Aug 27, 2024, 5:40 PM

15m

Salle 13 (1st floor) (The Couvent des Jacobins)

Oral Synergies between researchers, society and farmers Cropping systems changes to support agro-ecological transitions

Speaker

Marie Arndt (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF))

Description

1. Introduction:
   Agricultural systems are vulnerable to pressure from multiple drivers, i.e. today’s agricultural landscapes are neither sustainable in terms of long-lasting (Agovino et al. 2019), nor are farms resilient in terms of responsive to (external) pressures (Meuwissen et al. 2020) .
   Prevailing productivity-oriented management practices have led to structurally simplified landscapes, exacerbating the vulnerability to external pressure (Hermanns et al. 2017; Clough et al. 2020; García et al. 2020). To overcome the difficulties, which are linked to those simplified and intensified systems, there is a trend for diversification (Reckling et al. 2023; Beillouin et al. 2021) leading to changes and transformation of the agricultural system.
   We explored the potential of agricultural diversification at field, farm, and landscape levels for overcoming short-term shocks and long-term challenges. We addressed the three resilience capacities robustness, adaptation, and transformation. We investigated (i) whether diversification can contribute to sustainable landscapes and resilient farms, and (ii) whether a farm can achieve the three resilient capacities robustness, adaptation and transformation simultaneously or whether there are trade-offs among those.

2. Methods:
   Employing a slightly adapted resilience framework developed by Meuwissen et al. (2019), we took a participatory approach to analyse the contribution of diversification options on the three resilience capacities in three research areas in Brandenburg (Germany).

3. Results:
   Our results show that various agricultural diversification options exist, which mostly aim at one resilience capacity of the resilience framework. However, our analysis leads us to the conclusion that a system cannot simultaneously fulfil all three resilience capacities. It is imperative to consider the concept of the adaptive cycle, as described by Gunderson and Holling (2002), wherein a dynamic systems moves through the distinct phases of exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. This cyclical nature was particularly evident in our examination of transformation capacity. While a resilient system should always possess the ability to undergo transformation, the process of transformation needs up so many resources, that afterwards a period of pause is required. Unlike the gradual processes of robustness and adaptation, transformation represents a more abrupt and profound shift within a system.

4. Discussion:
   The findings underscore the interconnectedness of diversification initiatives and resilience dynamics within agricultural systems. While diversification in general enhances the resilience of agriculture, different forms of resilience aim at different resilient capacities. While robustness defines a stable system, adaptation describes incremental adjustments and responses to changing conditions over time. In contrast to that, transformation manifests as a sudden and significant restructuring or reorganization of the system after which a phase of stability needs to come, as the system needs to recalibrate. they alternate rather than taking place simultaneously. A system is only resilient if it can alternate between all three capacities over a long period of time.

5. References:
   Agovino, Massimiliano; Casaccia, Mariaconcetta; Ciommi, Mariateresa; Ferrara, Maria; Marchesano, Katia (2019): Agriculture, climate change and sustainability: The case of EU-28. In Ecological Indicators 105, pp. 525–543. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.04.064.
   Beillouin, D.; Ben-Ari, T.; Malézieux, E.; Seufert, V.; Makowski, D. (2021): Positive but variable effects of crop diversification on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In Global Change Biology 27 (19), pp. 4697–4710. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15747.
   Clough, Yann; Kirchweger, Stefan; Kantelhardt, Jochen (2020): Field sizes and the future of farmland biodiversity in European landscapes. In Conservation letters 13 (6), e12752. DOI: 10.1111/conl.12752.
   García, Virginia Rodríguez; Gaspart, Frédéric; Kastner, Thomas; Meyfroidt, Patrick (2020): Agricultural intensification and land use change: assessing country-level induced intensification, land sparing and rebound effect. In Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (8), p. 85007. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab8b14.
   Gunderson, L. H., & Holling, C. S. (2002). Panarchy: Understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island press.
   Hermanns, Till; Helming, Katharina; König, Hannes J.; Schmidt, Katharina; Li, Qirui; Faust, Heiko (2017): Sustainability impact assessment of peatland-use scenarios: Confronting land use supply with demand. In Ecosystem Services 26, pp. 365–376. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.02.002.
   Meuwissen, Miranda P.M.; Feindt, Peter H.; Midmore, Peter; Wauters, Erwin; Finger, Robert; Appel, Franziska et al. (2020): The Struggle of Farming Systems in Europe: Looking for Explanations through the Lens of Resilience. In EuroChoices 19 (2), pp. 4–11. DOI: 10.1111/1746-692X.12278.
   Reckling, Moritz; Watson, Christine A.; Whitbread, Anthony; Helming, Katharina (2023): Diversification for sustainable and resilient agricultural landscape systems. In Agron. Sustain. Dev. 43 (4), p. 4697. DOI: 10.1007/s13593-023-00898-5.

Presentation materials

138_Arndt.pptx