Agricultural Transition Research Articles

Addressing the diversity of visions of ecologization in research and in support to agroecological transitions

ABSTRACT Agroecology is increasingly recognized as a relevant framework for envisioning the transition of agriculture and food systems, but is often tackled in a dualistic perspective opposing strong or radical visions of agroecology to weak or incremental ones. This article is based on a collective, reflexive and comparative analysis of eight research projects dealing with agroecological transitions at the scale of farming systems and agrifood systems. Each project brought together a diversity of actors having different visions of ecologization. The aim of this article is to describe how and with what benefits this diversity of visions was addressed in the projects. We show that taking into account the diversity of visions is necessary for understanding agroecological transitions, and that beyond this, sharing this diversity among the concerned actors is necessary for accompanying them in an inclusive way and, under certain conditions, enrich transition pathways. We also show the need to adopt analytical approaches to characterize the visions along with participatory action-research approaches allowing to share them and support transitions. Finally, the collective and reflexive process we carried out for this article also enabled the researchers to situate their projects and themselves with regard to their role in the agro-ecological transitions.

Formation of legal support of climate-protective farming in Ukraine: problems under martial period

Formation of legal support of climate-protective farming in Ukraine: problems under martial period

The importance of considering agricultural dynamics when discussing agro-environmental sustainability in futures studies of biogas

Biogas from anaerobic digestion is the most developed renewable alternative to fossil gas. Futures studies on the future of biogas discuss different promises on energy decarbonization, agricultural transition and territorial development, but its role in supporting the transition to a sustainable agriculture is debated in several European countries. In political arenas especially, futures studies are considered as strategic instruments that, by proposing possible scenarios, help shape visions of future related technologies. Although in France the debate on biogas includes the possibility of several future paths, we hypothesize here that futures studies do not sufficiently consider the dynamics of agricultural systems when discussing biogas future sustainability. By gathering a corpus of 16 recent futures studies, we show that the vision of biogas sustainability is developed mainly through normative rhetoric on agriculture evolution. Most studies indicate that biogas development can lead to a greening of agricultural systems. Yet, those assertions rest on a limited analysis of the co-evolution of technical and social dynamics in agriculture. Specifically, norms that describe the agency of farmers overlook or underestimate some sustainability risks and opportunities. New futures studies based on biogas’ role in agricultural sociotechnical systems will help policymakers determine what policies are needed for sustainability.

Land potential of productive agricultural land in the Central Black Earth economic district. The organization improvement of agricultural land use

The opportunities for a noticeable expansion of sown areas of agricultural crops in the Central Black Earth economic district (Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk and Tambov regions) are exhausted. The increase in agricultural production is only possible through innovative development, and the transition to intensive agricultural technologies. The rise in prices for foodstuffs in comparison with the prices for the means of production, the high profitability of agricultural production and its growth create conditions for such transition in agriculture of Chernozem district. The article shows the importance of improvement and organization of agricultural land use not only in the regions of the Central Black Earth economic district, but in the whole country.

Sustainable Development of Agriculture of Ukraine in the Context of Climate Change

The purpose of the article is to actualize the challenges faced by Ukrainian agriculture in the context of climate change and the impact of the economic activity of enterprises on the state of natural resources, as well as to consider the ways and mechanisms of the post-war transition of Ukrainian agriculture to sustainable development. In the study, we used monographic, comparative analysis, empirical, abstract, and logical methods. The first consequences of climate change in agricultural sectors of the planet are characterized. Increasing temperatures to a maximum level, longer periods of extreme heat, more intense droughts, increased moisture deficit during the growing season, winter thaws, the spread of pests and diseases, and other manifestations of climate change have a negative impact on agricultural production. In the context of climate change, as highlighted in the paper, these negative processes will significantly intensify, requiring an immediate transition from ecologically and socially destructive monoculture to agroecological agriculture, which is recognized as one of the most affordable, low-cost, socially oriented, and environmentally relevant ways to transition to sustainable development of the industry. The principles and institutional support for such a transition are revealed, taking into account the expected climate change and post-war consequences for Ukrainian agriculture.

Rain-fed to irrigation-fed transition of agriculture exacerbates meteorological drought in cropped regions but moderates elsewhere

In recent decades, irrigated agriculture has expanded dramatically over the Southeastern United States (SEUS). The trend is more likely to continue in future given the need to further improve crop productivity and its resilience against droughts, however, the impact of these SEUS land cover changes remains unknown. This study investigates how and to what extent rain-fed to irrigation-fed (RFtoIF) transition in the SEUS region modulates precipitation spatially and temporally under a severe drought meteorological condition. In this study, we perform three Weather Research Forecasting model simulations with varying degrees of irrigated crop areas with meteorological boundary conditions of a record-breaking 2007 drought in the SEUS region. Results show that the SEUS irrigation expansion reduces both the convective triggering potential and low-level humidity index through land-atmospheric interaction. This is accompanied by reduction in the height of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL)-lifting condensation level crossing and increase in the convective available potential energy. These modulations within the ABL provide a favorable condition for strong deep convection during the drought period. However, the impact on precipitation is heterogeneous, with crop areas undergoing RFtoIF transition experiencing an overall reduction in precipitation while other landcovers experiencing an increase. The reduction in precipitation over RFtoIF transitioned croplands is in part due to moisture redistribution aided by generation of an anomalous high-pressure system. The results highlight the complexity of response of precipitation to irrigation expansion in the SEUS, and underscore the need to perform spatially-explicit analysis for mitigating risks to water resources and food security.

Rethinking agrarian transition in Southeast Asia through rice farming in Thailand

This paper contributes to new understandings of agrarian transition for smallholder rice farming in Southeast Asia through quantitative data analysis from Thailand’s two main rice growing regions. Despite economic modernization models predicting a farm-size transition of smallholder agriculture to large-scale commercial farms with the onset of industrialization and urban employment opportunities, we find rice farmers continue to persist and defy anticipated trends, but not uniformly. We conducted a comprehensive survey in 2019 with rice farming households in twelve provinces in Thailand’s Central Plains and the Northeast on how a host of dynamic farming variables have changed from 2000 to 2019. Rather than the concentration of smallholder rice farms into large commercial farms, we find that the size of smallholder rice farms has remained remarkably consistent across study sites. Our comparative data analysis advances an interrelated set of key explanatory variables that go beyond land size to explicate the variegated nature of agrarian transition: access to resources, household farm labor, farm inputs, agrarian finance, and government support. Our study demonstrates the need for taking into consideration (sub-)regional specificity of material conditions and multi-scaled forces, as well as geographical proximity to advantageous factors, in shaping variegated trajectories of agrarian transition. Smallholder rice farmers and rice production is not about to significantly decline in either region of Thailand nor the rest of Southeast Asia, at least for the next several decades, but will increasingly be defined by changing demographics, growing environmental and climatic challenges, and consolidating global rice production supply chains.

Relationship of Cooperative Management and Green and Low-Carbon Transition of Agriculture and Its Impacts: A Case Study of the Western Tarim River Basin

Clarifying the relationship between cooperative management and cultivated land use eco-efficiency (LUEE) is of great significance to promoting the green and low-carbon transition of agriculture. To explore the role of cooperative management in the green and low-carbon transition of agriculture of smallholder farmers in the western Tarim River Basin, in this study, based on the field survey data of 444 farmers in 2021, the carbon emissions of cultivated land were used to measure the LUEE with the slack-based model (SBM) with undesirable outputs. Then, propensity score matching (PSM) was used to test the relationship between cooperative management and LUEE. Additionally, the mediating effect of farmers’ green development willingness (FGDW) and the moderating effect of farmers’ part-time off-farm employment (POE) on the relationship was explored. The present study hypothesized that joining cooperatives has an improving effect on the LUEE, which can be achieved by increasing FGDW, and this effect can be enhanced by farmers’ POE. The results show that: (1) The LUEE was generally low (average LUEE value: 0.2678), and there was a significant difference between farmer households (the difference between the maximum and minimum values was as high as 2.8716). (2) Cooperative management had a significant improving effect on the LUEE. The LUEE of cooperative farmers (ACF) increased by 8.6% compared with that of non-cooperative farmers (NACF). (3) Joining a cooperative could improve the LUEE by improving FGDW. (4) POE could enhance the improving effect of cooperative management on the LUEE. Overall, all three hypotheses were supported: cooperative management could achieve scale effects that small farmers cannot achieve, which had a positive effect on improving the LUEE. This study provides a new ecological perspective for the analysis of the relationship between agricultural cooperatives and LUEE and decision-making reference for the rational utilization of cultivated land in northwest China.

Solar energy development on farmland: Three prevalent perspectives of conflict, synergy and compromise in the United States

As farmland has become a key place for grid-scale, ground-mounted solar energy development, there needs to be more analysis to explore what energy transitions mean for the future of agriculture. This article uses the food–energy–water (FEW) nexus framework to delineate three different perspectives of solar energy development on farmland. The first two perspectives fit into the FEW nexus language of “trade-offs” and “synergies” respectively, arguing that solar energy development either conflicts with agricultural land use and food security or, alternatively, that the two land uses can be co-located appropriately to create agrivoltaic systems. The third perspective is a compromise, arguing that solar energy - neither a complete trade-off to nor completely synergetic with continued agriculture - preserves farmland for future agricultural use. By analyzing these perspectives together, we further understand implications of solar energy development. While each of these perspectives is important, agrivoltaics has the greatest potential to play a positive role across both energy and agricultural transitions. Nonetheless, there are several key barriers to agrivoltaic development, including the need for sufficient access to water, local knowledge and appropriate agricultural resources, and sustained interest from solar energy developers. The development of agrivoltaics, and solar energy in general, should raise important political questions of land access and resource use.

A polycentric network strategy for regional diversification of agriculture: theory and implementation

Widespread and substantial diversification of current agroecosystems appears fundamental to meeting many grand challenges in agriculture. Despite urgent calls for diversification on regional scales, particularly in regions dominated by industrialized, low-diversity agriculture, strategies for diversification on such scales are in early stages of development, conceptually and practically. We outline such a strategy, and its implementation by the Forever Green Partnership, a public-private-NGO coalition in support of agricultural diversification in the U.S. Midwest region. Our strategy supports introduction and scaling of multiple novel crops in a region, which requires development of many interdependent supporting elements, including supportive markets, infrastructure, policy, finance, and R&D. The core of our strategy is development of sustainable supply chains (SSCs) for a set of novel crops. We define SSCs as rudimentary systems of these supporting elements for novel crops, linking on-farm crop production to end-use markets while advancing economic, environmental, and social sustainability criteria that are demanded by stakeholders. SSCs provide a scaffold upon which fully-developed support systems for multiple novel crops can be constructed, thus driving regional diversification. SSCs cannot be “built in a day”; rather they must evolve as production of novel crops expands over time and space, and as new challenges and opportunities emerge. Therefore, regional diversification requires a system to sustain this evolutionary process across time and multiple novel crops. We posit that an effective system can be built from two crucial elements: a process of conscious and concerted cultural evolution, and a polycentric network that organizes and supports that process. We outline this system and its conceptual basis, and its implementation by the Forever Green Partnership, and associated challenges and accomplishments. Three years after its inception, the Partnership has attracted substantial resources, developed a polycentric network, and some elements of the cultural-evolution process are in place. However, node development is uneven across the network, hindering its operation. In addition to advancing strategies for regional-scale diversification, the Partnership is seeking to advance conceptual and practical understanding of sustainability transitions in agriculture, and to explore the potential value of conscious cultural evolution in such transitions.

Power through trees. State territorialization by means of privatization and ‘agrobizforestry’ in Côte d'Ivoire

International pressure related to deforestation in the context of climate change and national issues concerning the sustainability of cocoa production have become increasingly prominent on political and media agendas. In 2018, Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer that has experienced high deforestation rates, adopted a new forest policy willing to transform its more than 75% degraded gazetted forests into agroforests. According to state law, cash crops are prohibited in gazetted forests that are dedicated to logging but most have been ‘illegally’ occupied by people, encouraged by national economic development policies. The new legislation that created the agroforest concept, now authorizes agriculture but only in the form of agroforestry in gazetted forests as a way to regain forest cover. Agroforests must preferably be developed by private companies. This article is part of an analysis of environmental policies related to reforestation and agricultural transition, from a political science perspective. It suggests instrumentalization of socio-environmental issues and agroforestry for political and economic purposes. The article analyzes how and why agribusinesses are designated as being the best placed to implement a socio-ecological transition and the social and ecological consequences of the designation. This privatization is part of a context of disavowal by a state institution responsible for the management of gazetted forests in a neoliberal context, but in no way represents a withdrawal or loss of power by the state. The Ivorian state is using private intermediaries to regain control over these gazetted forests, contested territories over which it lost control.

Food security and overuse of agrochemicals: evidence from China's major grain-producing areas policy.

China's major grain-producing areas (MGPA) policy is the core policy to ensure national food security. While achieving long-term stable growth of grain production, assessing the impact of MGPA policy on agrochemical application has important practical significance in sustainable agricultural development and environmental protection. Based on panel data of 31 provinces in China from 1997 to 2020 and taking the MGPA policy introduced in 2004 as a quasi-natural experiment, we construct a difference-in-difference (DID) model to evaluate the overall impact and dynamic effect of MGPA policy. It is found that the MGPA policy do not exacerbate chemical overuse as a whole, but significantly reduce the fertilizer use by 11% and the pesticide use by 6%. Using the event study to decompose the policy effect year by year, we find that the MGPA policy significantly increased the fertilizer and pesticide use in a short period of time. Its influence on the application amount of two chemicals began to turn negative until the fourth and sixth years of the policy implementation and became more and more obvious. We conclude the intermediate paths of MGPA policy to change planting structure, deepen agricultural division of labor, and reduce the use of agrochemicals, which were verified by the intermediary effect model. From the perspective of provincial differences, MGPA policy reduced chemical use more in provinces with large output contribution and northern provinces. In addition, the MGPA policy has reduced the amount of fertilizer application in major rice-growing provinces, but not the amount of pesticide application. Our research can provide implications for other developing countries and emerging economies where agricultural production is highly dependent on chemicals and has green agricultural transition plans.

A Connectivity Approach to Agricultural Diffuse Pollution in Tropical Montane Catchments Dominated by Swidden Landscapes

Shifting cultivation is widely practiced in many tropical mountainous watersheds. Agricultural practices are changing with the intensification of activities and the development of industrial monocultures associated with increasing land use and the use of pesticides and fertilisers. These changes have consequences for the evolution of sediment transfers in watersheds, resulting in new vulnerabilities for the inhabitants. This article shows the evolution of structural connectivity over 5 years in the village of Houaylack-Vangven, located in northern Laos, and its potential links with agricultural diffuse pollution. To develop a structural source-to-sink model to understand sediment transfers, our method was based on open-access data and various geographical tools. Field surveys were conducted to identify areas vulnerable to erosion and sediment transfers. The sources and sinks were then located using remote sensing techniques and image interpretation to then characterise connectivity rates. Finally, the relationship between the sources and sinks was analysed by graph theory to explore the potentialities for assessing the connectivity and exposure of sediment sinks. The main results are twofold: sinks coincide with areas at risk of contamination by pesticides and fertilisers, and the structural connectivity increases with the increasing of the source surfaces (swidden plots) due to the ongoing agricultural transition.

An agroecological turn in intermediating sustainability transitions with continuous living cover

Continuous living cover's (CLC) perennial and winter annual crop varieties present a novel opportunity to increase the diversity and resiliency of agroecological systems in the Mid-Continent of North America. However, transforming the predominant agri-food regime remains a complex and daunting undertaking. In the face of such complexity, a recent body of literature highlights the particular importance of intermediaries in facilitating sustainability transition processes, which CLC agriculture's proponents can draw upon. Intermediaries can be defined as actors or organizations that positively influence sustainability transition processes by linking diverse entities, networks, institutions, activities and their related skills, knowledges, and resources. Simultaneously, agroecology, in the more political understanding of the term, can serve as an evaluative framework for agri-food transition processes to augment our understanding of intermediaries in sustainability transitions. This mini-review presents an overview of the emerging sustainability transition intermediary literature, an introduction to CLC agriculture's transition intermediaries, and the research gaps highlighted from an agroecological perspective. Integrating an agroecological lens attentive to the science, practice, and politics of intermediating agricultural transitions, this review proposes an adapted framework to understand and assess CLC agriculture's intermediaries. Thus, CLC agriculture presents a unique opportunity to iteratively draw upon and advance the sustainability transition intermediary literature.

That Interim Period: England's Agricultural Transition

AbstractBrexit, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, has offered the UK government a unique opportunity to fundamentally reform agricultural policy. In England, the new policy—called Environmental Land Management—will reward farmers for activities that produce environmental public goods, such as clean air and water and a thriving wildlife, and prevent environmental hazards. It could lead to the biggest changes in land management since the end of World War II. This photo essay and the process of making it contributes to a better understanding of how farmers feel about the changes underway.

Understanding the role of value chain formation in the scaling of crop diversification

Significant detrimental effects of agricultural intensification and specialization are becoming increasingly evident. Reliance on monocultures, few varieties, and intensive use of agrochemicals is a major factor in climate change, biodiversity decline, soil health deterioration, and pollution, putting our food system at risk. This requires sustainable agricultural processes, such as crop diversification, to be more rapidly and effectively tested, adopted, and scaled. While these processes are typically introduced at niche level, they often struggle to scale and to induce broader sustainability transitions. In this study, we investigate how scaling may occur, focusing on institutional logics, their changes, and realignment over time. In particular, we applied an abductive research strategy to collect empirical evidence from two in-depth, longitudinal case studies of innovation niches related to crop diversification. Doing so, we show for the first time that, despite their many differences, scaling processes of crop diversification in both niches converge, presenting similar progressions in terms of institutional dimensions, and facing similar obstacles when it comes to value chain formation. While initial experimentation could still be implemented using organizational forms familiar to the lead actors, we discover that a systemic lack of adequate value chain arrangements obstructed the scaling process of crop diversification in both cases. These findings have been used to reflect on the role of value chain relations in scaling processes in sustainability transitions in agriculture.

Farming wellbeing through and beyond COVID‐19: Stressors, gender differences and landscapes of support

AbstractAlthough there has been a recent surge in research on drivers of poor farmer wellbeing and mental health, there is still a limited understanding of the state of wellbeing in farming communities around the world and how it can be best supported. This special issue seeks to extend our knowledge of how a combination of different stressors can challenge the wellbeing of farmers, farming families and farm workers, as well as how negative impacts can be unevenly distributed between different individuals. We advance the state of the art in research on farmer wellbeing, illustrating how social, economic and environmental policy drivers combine to create multiple points of stress, which are experienced differently by different individuals (e.g., age, gender). We move beyond an exploration of stressors towards a consideration of how landscapes of support for farmer wellbeing, and packages of support interventions, can improve the social resilience of farming communities. To be effective, these landscapes of support need to be accessible, well‐funded, joined‐up, and adaptable to evolving crises. This special issue explores farmer wellbeing in the context of global agricultural transitions, which are demanding new ways of farming (e.g., digitalisation, net zero, economic restructuring), and in light of shock events, such as the COVID‐19 pandemic, in four countries—Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US. In exploring the impacts of future shock events and agricultural transitions on wellbeing, the issue concludes with a call to move beyond broad compilations of stressors and interventions and towards nuanced investigations of why and how poor farmer wellbeing occurs and how it can be best supported in specific contexts. The research from these four countries has wide relevance across European countries (similarity in farming systems, noting some differences), but a key message from the issue is that stressors on farmer wellbeing can be highly context‐dependent according to place‐based social, environmental, economic and political issues.

Enabling efficiency-driven and low-impact water management from robust decision making: A risk- and robustness-based multi-objective decision support model

Increasing water-use efficiency across all sectors has been set as a key target for sustainable water management within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Agriculture stands out as a key sector where opportunities for sustainable transformation arise, due to its dominant position in water use. The aim of this study is to propose a risk- and robustness-based multi-objective decision support model (RARB-MODSM) tool to help explore water-efficient agricultural development schemes and to enable inclusion of their associated environmental impacts into a stringent assessment of the risks. This tool allows for integration of economic growth and water use objectives with stringent pollution control requirements to help gain insights into the trade-offs between resource efficiency and environmental impact. This paper provides a case study of the application of this decision support tool in a prefectural-level city in China as an example of demonstrating how the tool could help reduce the water usage from the agricultural sector while enabling a higher economic productivity. The results show that expanding agricultural production in two regions of the city may help promote efficiency-oriented water management and improve the entire agricultural system's economic productivity. The results also indicate that this agricultural system is more sensitive to the control over phosphorus discharge and imposing more stringent total phosphorus (TP) control requirements within local agricultural system may help achieve better results on the system-wide pollution control. Overall, this tool demonstrates the applicability of using the systems analysis approach to help navigate the agricultural transition toward a water-efficient and low-impact growth path.

Scurvy in the tropics: Evidence for increasing non‐adult micronutrient deficiency with the transition to agriculture in northern Vietnam

AbstractObjectiveScurvy in non‐adults was assessed at the Pre‐Neolithic site of Con Co Ngua and the Neolithic site of Man Bac in northern Vietnam to investigate nutritional stress during the agricultural transition in Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA).MaterialsOne hundred and four human skeletons under the age of 20 years old were assessed.MethodsLesions were recorded macroscopically and radiographically. Differential diagnosis using prior established paleopathological diagnostic criteria for scurvy was conducted.ResultsThere was no clear evidence for scurvy at Con Co Ngua and a high burden of scurvy was present at Man Bac (>79% diagnosed with probable scurvy). Scurvy levels were high across all non‐adult ages at Man Bac indicating significant burden throughout childhood and adolescence.ConclusionsNo scurvy at Con Co Ngua is consistent with widely available food sources at the peak of the Holocene thermal maximum. High levels of scurvy at Man Bac corresponds with decreased dietary diversity, high pathogen load, and increased population stress with the transition to agriculture around the time of the 4.2 ka desertification event.SignificanceThis is the first systematic population‐level non‐adult investigation of specific nutritional disease in MSEA and demonstrates an increase in nutritional stress during the Neolithic transition in northern Vietnam.LimitationsSubperiosteal new bone deposits can be due to normal growth in infants and young children, therefore, identification of scurvy in children under the age of 4 years needs to be considered critically.Suggestions for Further ResearchFurther work in diagnosing specific nutritional disease in other non‐adult cohorts throughout MSEA is required.

Exploring risk transfer of human brucellosis in the context of livestock agriculture transition: A case study in Shaanxi, China.

With the booming of worldwide agriculture intensification, brucellosis, one of the most neglected zoonotic diseases, has become an increasing challenge for global public health. Although the transmission patterns of human brucellosis (HB) have been studied in many regions, the dynamic transfer processes of risk and its driving factors remain poorly understood, especially in the context of agricultural intensification. This study attempted to explore the risk transfer of HB between the exact epidemic areas and the neighboring or distant low-risk areas to explain the impact of livestock agriculture intensification and foodborne infections on the transmission of HB in Shaanxi Province as a case study. We adopted multiple approaches, including test-based methods, model-based methods, and a geographical detector to detect the spatial-temporal dynamic changes of high-risk epidemic areas of HB at the county scale. We also quantitatively estimated how the related factors drove the risk transfer of the disease. Results confirmed the risk transfer pattern of HB with an expansion from north to south in Shaanxi Province and identified two primary transfer routes. In particular, in the traditional epidemic areas of the Shaanbei plateau, the farm agglomeration effect can significantly increase the risk of HB. Meanwhile, retail outlets for milk and dairy products were partially responsible for the foodborne infections of HB in the emerging epidemic areas of Xi'an. This study not only contributed helpful insights to support HB control and prevention in the rapid transition of livestock agriculture but also provided possible directions for further research on foodborne HB infections in urbanized areas.