Transdisciplinary agroecological research on biodiversity and ecosystem services for sustainable and climate resilient farming systems in Malawi

Abstract

How can agroecological research methods effectively engage smallholder farmers, who provide over half of the world's food supply, and whose farm management activities have significant impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services? This question is highly relevant in Malawi where the research took place, but in other low-income countries in Africa with mostly agrarian populations, in which multi-scalar processes drive high food insecurity, alongside declining biodiversity, worsening land degradation and climate change. We analyse an innovative transdisciplinary agroecological approach that attempts to bridge the science-practice-policy gap by examining the potential of agroecological measures to enhance functional biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study involves a longitudinal, case-control and participatory research design in a region where thousands of farmers have experimented with agroecological practices, e.g., legume intercropping, composting, and botanical sprays. Innovative transdisciplinary agroecological research activities involved farmer participatory research, ecological monitoring and field experiments, social science methods (both qualitative and quantitative), participatory methodologies (public participatory Geographic Information Systems - PPGIS and scenario planning and testing) and stakeholder engagement to foster science-policy linkages. We discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of this novel transdisciplinary and participatory approach about pluralism, decolonial and translational ecological research to foster sustainability and climate resilience of tropical farming systems.