From Sustainable Agroecosystems to Sustainable Food Systems - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 347

agroecosystems are linked with the political and ethical
goals and struggles of rural peoples as they strive to main-
tain their land-based cultural identity (Figure 24.6)
(Woodgate et al., 2005).
As the differences among these models suggest, there
is no one right way to conceptualize the interactions
among the social and ecological factors of agroecosys-
tems, or of the food system as a whole. In an attempt to
integrate some of the ideas in the models above, and to
focus explicitly on sustainability and change, we present
the diagram in Figure 24.7. As shown in the diagram,
every agroecosystem develops in the context of, and draws
upon, a broad social and ecological foundation. This foun-
dation has a natural ecosystem context — what can be
called the ecological background — and a social context —
or social background. Any specific agroecosystem is
shaped by local, regional, and global factors from both the
social and ecological parts of the foundation. Humans can
manipulate and manage many features of the ecological
parts of the foundation, but the agroecosystem that is
developed has to operate within the context of the social
foundation upon which each culture is based. As change
occurs in either the social or ecological foundation, the
stage is set for changes in the agroecosystems that emerge
from that foundation.
A sustainable agroecosystem develops when com-
ponents from both the social and ecological foundation
(Table 24.1) are combined into a system with a structure
and function that reflects the interaction of human
knowledge and preferences with the ecological compo-
nents of the agroecosystem. The constant interaction
between the social and ecological components occurs

Primary process:
Structuration

Primary process:
Evolution
Nature

Co-evolution
Society

FIGURE 24.6 Graham Woodgate's model of agroecosystems
as part of the interface between society and nature. [Modified
from Gaulthier, R. and G. Woodgate. 2001. In S.R. Gliessman ed.,
Agroecosystem Sustainability: Developing Practical Strategies .
Advances in Agroecology. Lewis Publishers: Boca Raton, FL;
Woodgate, G., B. Ambrose-Oji, R. Fernandez Durán, G. Guzmán,
and E. Sevilla Guzmán. 2005. New Developments in Environmen-
tal Sociology . Edward Elgar Publishing: Chetanham, U.K.]

between society and nature — can be sustainable only
when their social “structuration” processes work in con-
cert with the evolutionary processes of nature. When
applied to specific localities, this model emphasizes
the importance of place-based coevolution, in which
the genetic diversity and ecological dynamics of local

Condition of sustainabilty

Indicators of sustainabilty

Social parameters of
agroecosystem function

Ecological parameters of
agroecosystem function

Agroecosystem structure and function

Social
components

Ecological
components

Agroecosystem context

Social system
foundation

Natural system
foundation

FIGURE 24.7 The interaction among the social and ecological components of sustainable agroecosystems. Applied to sets of
interconnected agroecosystems, this model may represent the integrated structure of a sustainable food system.