Expansion Of Monocultures Research Articles

Agrobiodiversity and food security: challenges and sustainable solutions

Objective: Agricultural biodiversity, also known as agrobiodiversity, encompasses the variety of plants, animals, and microorganisms that are directly or indirectly involved in agriculture. This diversity is the result of millennia of selection, management, and domestication of species, which has allowed societies to adapt to different environmental and cultural conditions. However, in recent decades, the loss of agrobiodiversity, accelerated by industrial agriculture, the expansion of monocultures, and the reduction of varieties, has put global food security at risk. This diversity is crucial to ensuring the resilience of agricultural systems in the face of challenges such as climate change, emerging pests, and the depletion of natural resources. This paper examines the importance of conserving agricultural biodiversity from the perspective of food security. It emphasizes how agrobiodiversity not only contributes to the stability of food production but also improves human diets by diversifying crops and providing essential micronutrients. Design/Methodology/Approach: A search was conducted on the following scientific information platforms: Web of Science database and Google Scholar. A systematic search for publications related to agrobiodiversity systems was carried out in the WoS database and Google Scholar over the last 49 years (1975–2024). Results: Genetic erosion is particularly concerning because genetic diversity is essential for crops to face environmental challenges such as climate change, pests, and diseases. The loss of traditional varieties, which are selected by local farmers to adapt to specific conditions, increases agriculture's vulnerability to external disruptions. These landraces, having been cultivated in genetically diverse mosaics, offer protection against catastrophic losses in the event of crop failures due to extreme conditions or diseases. Findings/Conclusions: Genetic diversity allows for the development of sustainable solutions to pests and diseases, reducing dependence on pesticides and promoting more environmentally friendly farming practices. However, challenges related to biodiversity conservation persist, making it essential to implement public policies that promote agrobiodiversity and address the socioeconomic issues that limit its adoption.

Food plants in Brazil: origin, economic value of pollination and pollinator shortage risk

Pollination is a key ecosystem service of critical importance for food production. However, globally, several regions are already experiencing pollinator shortage as pollinators are declining. Here, we investigate the origin, pollinator dependence and economic value of 199 food crops cultivated in Brazil to understand to which extent (1) Brazilian agriculture is vulnerable to pollinator shortage, and (2) Brazilian society has already achieved a comprehensive perspective about crop dependence. We used Brazil as a case study as it is a megadiverse tropical country and the 3rd largest world crop producer and exporter, with most of the crops depending on pollinators. Our findings revealed that over half (53.7%) of the food crops in Brazil are native, with the North region of Brazil housing the higher diversity of native crops, in contrast with the South and Southeast regions. Additionally, considering the reproductive systems, among native food crops, 65.6% exhibit self-incompatibility or dioecy (i.e., requiring obligatory cross-pollination), whereas 30.6% of exotic food crops display this trait. Overall, Brazilian municipalities produce more exotic crops than native ones, with almost 4/5 of the total agricultural area of the country dedicated to the cultivation of exotic crops, which are generally self-compatible commodities that rely low to modestly on pollinators. Regarding the biomes, we observe that this pattern is followed by most of them, but for the Caatinga dry forest, where native crops dependent on pollinators predominate. However, when soybean is removed from the analysis, the areas devoted to exotic crops always decreased, even being equal to native crops in the Atlantic forest. Our results also indicate that considering the pollinator shortage, some Brazilian biomes may be at risk of losing >20% of their yields, mainly in the Caatinga dry forest and the Atlantic forest. Therefore, in this paper, we are discussing that the expansion of monocultures in Brazil's agricultural lands may have several impacts on the provision of pollination services, food production and, then, on food security not only for the Brazilian population, as Brazil is the 3rd largest world agricultural producer and exporter.

Agriculturally intensified landscapes are associated with reduced body condition of lady beetles

ContextAgricultural intensification is contributing to a global species decline. Underlying mechanisms include toxic effects of pesticides on non-target organisms and reductions in habitat and food availability. However, the effects of agricultural intensification on body condition, particularly of ecosystem service-providing arthropods, are poorly understood.ObjectivesHere, we investigated whether variations in the body condition of common lady beetle species (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) can be explained by the composition and configuration of the surrounding landscape. Assuming strong seasonal variation in food availability in intensively farmed regions, we included the entire period of lady beetle activity in our study.MethodsLady beetles were collected from April to September 2011 in 30 landscapes in southern Wisconsin, USA. We examined how body size, body density, and lipid content of the beetles responded to the percentage of intensive cropland, habitat diversity, and edge density in the surrounding landscape.ResultsThe strongest predictor of body condition was the percentage of intensive cropland. For every 10% increase in cropland, body density decreased by about 3.9% and lipid content by 6.4%. Landscape diversity and edge density correlated with body condition of individual species.ConclusionsIn agriculturally intensified landscapes, lady beetles with reduced body condition may produce fewer offspring, have lower survival rates, and exert less effective pest control. Thus, our results suggest a mechanistic link between landscape patterns and observed declines in lady beetle populations. Our results also show that the expansion of monocultures affects even common cropland-associated species such as Harmonia axyridis, suggesting a long-term decline in biocontrol services in simplified agricultural landscapes.

High-fidelity representation of climate variations by Amburana cearensis tree-ring chronologies across a tropical forest transition in South America

Numerous ring-width chronologies from different species have recently been developed in diverse tropical forests across South America. However, the temporal and spatial climate signals in these tropical chronologies is less well known. In this work, annual growth rings of Amburana cearensis, a widely distributed tropical tree species, were employed to estimate temporal and spatial patterns of climate variability in the transition from the dry Chiquitano (16–17°S) to the humid Guarayos-southern Amazon (14–15°S) forests. Four well-replicated chronologies (16–21 trees, 22–28 radii) of A. cearensis were compared with temperature and precipitation records available in the region. The interannual variations in all four A. cearensis tree-ring chronologies are positively correlated with precipitation and negatively with temperature during the late dry-early wet season, the classic moisture response seen widely in trees from dry tropical and temperate forests worldwide. However, the chronologies from the dry Chiquitano forests of southern Bolivia reflect the regional reduction in precipitation during recent decades, while the chronologies from the tropical lowland moist forests in the north capture the recent increase in precipitation in the southern Amazon basin. These results indicate that A. cearensis tree growth is not only sensitive to the moisture balance of the growing season, it can also record subtle differences in regional precipitation trends across the dry to humid forest transition. Comparisons with previously developed Centrolobium microchaete chronologies in the region reveal a substantial common signal between chronologies in similar environments, suggesting that regional differences in climate are a major drivers of tree growth along the precipitation gradient. The difficulty of finding A. cearensis trees over 150-years old is the main limitation involved in the paleoclimate application of this species. The expansion of monocultures and intensive cattle ranching in the South American tropics are contributing to the loss of these old growth A. cearensis trees and the valuable records of climate variability and climate change that they contain.

Frontiers of Existence

This article introduces a new concept, ‘frontiers of existence’, to highlight and demand more attention be placed on the lives of human and other-than-human beings whose possibilities to exist are extinguished or radically and negatively transformed at resource and commodity frontiers and demand more attention be placed on this. What happens to existences at these places has not been a central focus in prior studies utilizing political economy, political ecology, or other approaches for studying frontiers. This article is makes a theoretical contribution, by arguing that the research on resource frontiers should more fully recognize more fully the redistributions of existences caused by major landscape changes. The analysis is based on field research since 2004 on the expansion of monocultures and deforestation in Brazil and the effect of this on existences. Four key questions for the existential analysis of frontiers are suggested, and their application is briefly demonstrated through ethnographic material collected in November and December 2019, in the Amazon and Cerrado regions of Mato Grosso State in Brazil. Keywords: resource frontiers, ethnocide, deforestation, political ontology, global land grabbing, frontiers of existence, forests

Factors affecting the crop raiding behavior of wild rhesus macaques in Nepal: Implications for wildlife management

In many areas of South Asia and Southeast Asia, macaques inhabiting agricultural landscapes are considered serious crop pests by local farmers. In Nepal, for example, the expansion of monocultures, increased forest fragmentation, the degradation of natural habitats, and changing agricultural practices have led to a significant increase in the frequency of human-macaque conflict. In order to more fully understand the set of factors that contribute to macaque crop raiding, and the set of preventive measures that can be put in place to avoid human-macaque conflict, we examined patterns of crop raiding by a group of 52 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) in the Kavrepalanchok district, Nepal. We present data on macaque inflicted crop damage in 172 agricultural plots (each plot measuring 380 m2) from August to October 2019. Our results indicate that farmland invasions by macaques were principally affected by crop type (maize was preferred over rice), nearness of farmland to both the forest edge and the major travel route used by the macaques, and the mitigation efforts applied by farmers to discourage crop raiding. We found that as the proportion of maize farmland in the most direct path from the macaque's main travel route to nearby crop raiding sites increased, the amount of maize damage decreased. This is likely explained by the fact that macaques traveling across several adjacent maize fields encounter multiple farmers protecting their crops. We estimated that the financial cost to individual farmer households of macaque maize and rice raiding was on average US$ 14.9 or 4.2% of their annual income from cultivating those two crops. As human-macaque conflict is one of the most critical challenges faced by wildlife managers in South Asia and Southeast Asia, studies of macaque crop raiding behavior provide an important starting point for developing effective strategies to manage human-macaque conflict while promoting both primate conservation and the economic well-being of the local community.

Benefits of organic olive farming for the conservation of gleaning bats

Current intensification and expansion of agricultural lands are some of the main anthropogenic processes driving the global decline of biodiversity. Organic farming is generally regarded as a better compromise between production and ecosystems and biodiversity preservation. However, while this practice is gaining popularity worldwide, conventional agriculture is still the main approach, hindering the conservation of many taxa. Bats are poorly studied and generally negatively affected by conventional farming. Their high mobility and long lifespan make them excellent ecological indicators in agroecosystems. We assessed the effect of different crop treatments (conventional and organic olive groves, and sparse coniferous forest as a control) on bat activity, at both guild and species level. In addition, we evaluated whether bat activity was influenced by the abundance of the olive fruit fly Bactrocera oleae, the major insect pest of olive groves worldwide. Bats were surveyed acoustically during autumn 2014 in all treatments using passive ultrasound detectors. In parallel, pheromone traps for B. oleae were used to monitor pest insect abundance. Our results show that aerial hunting bats were significantly more active in sparse coniferous forests compared to the other treatment areas. On the contrary, gleaning bats (those generally more threatened and vulnerable to habitat degradation) showed higher activity rates in organic olive groves. Due to their higher manoeuvrability and slow flight, gleaning species are generally well-adapted to forage in structurally complex and cluttered habitats such as olive groves. A significant negative relation was found between the density of the olive fruit fly and the gleaning bats activity, which were expected to prey on the pest and hence show some positive relation with its density. The reasons are unclear and further research with molecular techniques would be needed to better understand the ecological interaction, if any, between bats and the pest. Organic olive groves, usually more stratified than the conventional ones, are characterized by the presence of spontaneous herbaceous cover and higher diversity of arthropods (either beneficial or deleterious), which favours bat activity. Organic practices should be further prioritised in the agri-environment schemes of the European Union and those of its individual members. If organic farming is not widely implemented, agriculture intensification and the expansion of monocultures may put bat populations at stake, as well as compromise ecosystem quality and the conservation of biodiversity.

Communitarian weavings: Agrarian commons of the Maya-Q’eqchi’ against the expansion of monocultures in the Polochic Valley, Guatemala

ABSTRACT The Maya-Q’eqchi’ are the people that occupy the most territory in Guatemala and that historically, like other indigenous peoples, have resisted multiple waves of dispossession through ‘communitarian weavings’ and by maintaining their sacred relationship with the land and maize. In this article, I analyze how and why temporary and long-lasting ‘agrarian commons’ are created and reproduced as part of the communitarian weavings of the Maya-Q’eqchi’ in the Polochic Valley, Guatemala. I show how the reproduction of the Maya-Q’eqchi’ agrarian commons has been, and still is today, the basis of resistance to the new wave of dispossession caused by the expansion of sugarcane and oil palm monocultures owned by oligarchic families of German descent. Despite the commons being the reproduction of a form of struggle characteristic of the Maya-Q’eqchi’, there are multiple differences of functioning and structure of the agrarian commons between territories inhabited by the Maya-Q’eqchi’, as well as within the same territory. These differences are conditioned by the different identities reconfigured by history and by socio-economic and environmental dynamics, as well as by the structure and operation of the commons itself.

Glyphosate: quantities a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in Brazil

Abstract Brazil is experiencing a situation never before seen in terms of environmental destruction. The expansion of monocultures has increasingly destroyed nature and this also has an impact on the increase in land concentration, rural exodus, poverty and hunger in the countryside. Transgenics allowed the expansion of areas to regions previously not suitable for monoculture production, requiring less labor and more pesticides. Just to produce 68.1 million tons of soybeans, exported last year, it required a quantity of water that could supply 2.03 billion people worldwide. This is the deficit of Brazilian agribusiness that cannot be calculated. If we calculate the expenditures of the public health system as a result of the use of pesticides, this will prove to be increasingly unsustainable. Recently, researchers found amounts of glyphosate a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in a stock of wheat stored in a silo in southern Brazil. The official speech of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) of Brazil is that the record release of pesticides is necessary due to the country's tropical climate. Universities and public research institutes have an important responsibility at this time: to investigate this type of problem and to allow its results to be available to an increasingly critical publicity. Brazil is experiencing a context of clear attacks on public institutions by the current federal government, either with cuts in the transfer of economic resources, or with the scrapping and attempts to destroy its image before public opinion. It is necessary to promote the training of citizen scientists in the field of Environmental Health, in order to be committed to the information to be produced and to the process of critical reflection on social development. Key messages To present an emerging issue in Brazil, related to Glyphosate, when researchers found amounts of glyphosate a hundred times above the safe limit for human consumption in southern Brazil. To present the concern in promoting the training of citizen scientists in the field of Environmental Health, as well as promoting the process of critical reflection and social development.

Comparative biology of Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Eucalyptus spp.

The Brazilian forestry sector has great importance in the economy and the sustainability of the country. With the great expansion of monoculture, and many times the proximity of agricultural and forestry plantations favors the migration or establishment of pests. The Helicoverpa armigera is a pest extremely polyphagous that occurs mainly in agricultural crops, and that casually was found feeding on eucalyptus plantations in the region of Chapadão do Sul, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. In this study the parameters of consumption, size, and longevity of caterpillars were measured. The experimental design was completely randomized with five treatments (clones I 144; 08; Urocam VM01; AEC 1528 and artificial diet, this being a witness) and six replicates of 10 caterpillar larvae. The clones were grown in greenhouse conditions to produce leaves free of chemical plant protection products and with good nutritional status from which they have removed the sheets and supplied to the caterpillars. There was no statistical difference between the clones tested in none of the evaluated parameters. Only the artificial diet showed statistical difference concerning the size. The caterpillars fed on leaves of the clones have not completed their development, suggesting that the effect of antibiosis interfering on the biology of H. armigera not reaching status of pest.

Subsistence in the Plantationocene: dooryard gardens, agrobiodiversity, and the subaltern economies of slavery

ABSTRACT The expansion of monocultures across New World tropical landscapes threatens an Afrodescendant smallholder farming system that has long prioritized agrobiodiversity and agroecological practices. These practices emerged during the plantation era, when slaves leveraged subsistence precarity for the right to food plots, independent production, and partial autonomy over their labor. Historical continuities connect this subaltern food system to the agricultural repertoires maintained by present-day Afrodescendant smallholders. The landscapes that collectively embody the plants, practical and cultural knowledge, and social memories held by these communities are recognizable as bio-cultural refugia, extending to the New World tropics a concept validating European heritage landscapes.

AGROECOLOGIA

Este texto trata das principais dificuldades enfrentadas pela agricultura familiar para realizar a transição agroecológica, expandir e diversificar a produção no Extremo Sul da Bahia. Para entender as dinâmicas que orientam o cultivo, a comercialização e o consumo dos produtos agroecológicos na região, foi feita uma revisão bibliográfica e levantamento qualitativo de informações por meio de entrevistas com produtores, consumidores e profissionais da área. Pelo estudo, constataram-se vários impactos negativos provocados pela expansão das monoculturas e pelo uso intensivo de agrotóxicos em âmbito regional. Em contrapartida, reafirma-se a importância da agroecologia como uma alternativa em termos socioeconômicos, culturais, de sustentabilidade ambiental e de saúde integral à população que adere a essa prática. Decorre daí a necessidade e o desafio de fortalecer o modelo agroecológico por meio de capacitação técnica, da educação do campo, das políticas de incentivo à produção e escoamento, bem como de ações conscientizadoras acerca dos benefícios do consumo de tais produtos.

Landscape structure shapes the diversity of beneficial insects in coffee producing landscapes

The expansion of monocultures and the overuse of agrochemicals have resulted in the loss of beneficial insects and disruption of ecosystem services such as pollination and biological control in agricultural landscapes. Bees, wasps and flower flies were our model groups to investigate how landscape structure attributes affect alpha and beta diversity of different beneficial insect groups in Brazilian landscapes containing coffee crops. Species richness and abundance of wasps, and bee richness were positively correlated with forest cover at multiple spatial extents. Bee abundance, and species richness and abundance of flower flies did not respond to any landscape predictor. The community composition of wasps and bees in landscapes with low forest cover was composed of subsets of the communities located in forested landscapes, leading to species loss in structurally impoverished landscapes. High variations in landscape diversity and edge density between landscapes resulted in flower fly species replacement suggesting that pairs of landscapes with high and low diversity of habitat types and edge density harbor different species. Such results indicate that initiatives for the conservation of beneficial insects in the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot must focus on forest conservation and restoration, because high levels of forest loss can result in the loss of wasp and bee species with potential negative consequences for the provision of pollination and pest control services in agroecosystems. Our findings can aid conservationists and policy makers to define priority actions for biodiversity conservation as well as the selection of appropriate spatial scales in landscape planning and management.

Detecting Potential Biodiversity Hotspots for Development of REDD+ Safeguards Based on Analyses of Land-Cover Complexity in East Java, Indonesia

We examined a new method to detect the biodiversity hotspots in terms of complex patch mosaics at a regional scale in East Java, Indonesia, in order to develop the safeguard against further expansion of monocultures by REDD+. A land-cover map consisting of five major land-cover types (forest, agricultural land, bare land, water, and residential) was generated with a 30 m x 30 m resolution by the unsupervised classification of a Landsat8-OLI image. Shannon’s diversity index ( H’ ) was calculated for each of 10.98 ha (11 x 11 pixels) landscape throughout the study area based on the dominance of the land-cover types by five calculation methods with different combinations of land-cover types. Then, the landscapes of upper 5 % in H’ was selected as the potential hotspots in terms of highly complex patch mosaics. Among the five potential hotspots, the calculation of H’ with four land-cover types (forest, agriculture, water, and bare land) was thought to be most suitable to set conservation targets at a regional scale, because the potential hotspots by this method showed aggregated distribution patterns, and was less sensitive to the small residential patches. While, no clear distribution trend was observed along the environmental gradients.

Dichotomy between urban and rural areas: statistical data may not reveal the synergy between these two existing spaces

The gains in non-agricultural activities represents a new dynamic in rural Brazil and now has representation in Brazil from the 1990s. In this perspective, the Brazilian countryside is undergoing a reconfiguration, pointing to an intensification of the urbanization of rural areas, especially in peri-urban areas. The installation of industries in rural areas, the deployment of agribusinesses and food exporters and utilization of rural labor for those industries, are tying the stretches between urban and rural areas. Thus, rural households are increasing income through agricultural and non-agricultural activities. The rural environment is no longer exclusively agricultural. It went on to have a diversified productive base and integrated economy in the region. Since there is a growing rural human being mobility, as well as an improvement in communication and access to information and greater integration between markets reducing the dichotomy between urban and rural. On the other hand the expansion of the cultivation of sugar cane on a region can increase the (Gross National Product) GNP per capita of the region and enable an increase economical activity. Thus, the rural household pluri-activity can be an alternative to increase the income of these families as they, increasingly integrate with the local market. It is known that with rising incomes and improving the welfare of the rural population can reduce the rural exodus that became increasing in the country since the 1970s. However, in areas with predominantly or expansion of monoculture, as an example of cane sugar, may be an increased land concentration and a worsening of income distribution in a region, and to record an increasing in rural migration, Environmental degradation and reduced local production diversification. An analysis of several indicators, socio-economic and environmental, through the Dashboard of Sustainability is possible to tell which category has the highest rate of farmer sustainability, whether smallholders or monoculture. However, the secondary data available in Brazil today does not support a thorough analysis of the participation of each actor and to which the interconnection between the actors and their synergy in local economic activity. Since, given the narrowing between urban and rural, the statistical data available are not able to demonstrate the extent to which gives the rural-urban dichotomy. Thus, it is relevant to point out and discuss ways to provide consistent statistical data and be, in fact, able to demonstrate the local reality of a region within the welfare actors.

Uma Análise Agroalimentar: O caso dos agricultores quilombolas da Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Quilombos Barra do Turvo, SP

O Vale do Ribeira concentra a maior área de Mata Atlântica do Estado de São Paulo sob o regime de Unidades de Conservação e aproximadamente 21% do que existe no Brasil desse bioma. Além da rica diversidade ambiental, acrescenta-se a diversidade sociocultural, por abrigar comunidades tradicionais. Na região, há alterações quanto ao uso e ocupação da paisagem, com expansão do plantio de pupunha e pecuária. No território da Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Quilombos Barra do Turvo, criada em 2008, não há alterações na paisagem provocadas por expansão de monoculturas, ao contrário, nos últimos anos, a agricultura de base ecológica tem sido atividade notadamente revalorizada pelas famílias. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar as práticas econômicas associadas à reprodução do sistema de produção alimentar local. A coleta de dados baseou-se na aplicação de entrevistas semiestruturadas, com levantamento da frequência de consumo alimentar e recordatório 24 horas. A função básica da agricultura é a produção de bens alimentares voltados ao consumo familiar e à comercialização pelo Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos. Além contexto da manutenção da conservação dos recursos naturais e da segurança alimentar, as famílias mostram-se resistentes a adesão de hábitos de consumo alimentar contemporâneos.

O moderno arcaísmo nacional: investimento estrangeiro direto e expropriação territorial no agronegócio canavieiro

Este trabalho visa compreender as reconfigurações territoriais desencadeadas no meio rural brasileiro a partir do início dos anos 2000 em decorrência da expansão dos monocultivos de cana destinados à produção de agrocombustíveis, bem como analisa a origem e montante dos investimentos estrangeiros diretos aplicados na produção brasileira de etanol. Para tanto, utiliza uma abordagem teórica que considera a existência de conflitos ambientais e territoriais associados à lógica operatória de exploração capitalista da natureza, e busca elucidar a presença de discursos hegemônicos direcionados a invisibilizar modos distintos e não dominantes de uso e apropriação dos recursos naturais. Ademais, inspirada nas contribuições de intelectuais latino-americanos aglutinados no que se denominou chamar paradigma modernidade-colonialidade, irá propor que a apropriação assimétrica dos recursos naturais tem sido parte integrante de uma condição de colonialidade na apropriação da natureza. Para sustentar essas análises, o artigo se vale da realização de dois trabalhos de campo conduzidos em áreas de expansão da monocultura de cana nos estados de Minas Gerais, São Paulo e Mato Grosso do Sul e do uso de estatísticas oficiais cotejadas pelo IBGE e pelo Banco Central.

ENHANCING PLANT DIVERSITY FOR IMPROVED INSECT PEST MANAGEMENT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ORGANIC VINEYARDS

ENHANCING PLANT DIVERSITY FOR IMPROVED INSECT PEST MANAGEMENT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ORGANIC VINEYARDS