The Need for Sustainable Food Production Systems - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 18

T HE R OLE OF A GROECOLOGY

this knowledge, and its application to the common goal
of sustainability.
Ecological methods and principles form the founda-
tion of agroecology. They are essential for determining
(1) if a particular agricultural practice, input, or manage-
ment decision is sustainable, and (2) the ecological basis
for the functioning of the chosen management strategy
over the long term. Once these are known, practices can
be developed that reduce purchased external inputs, lessen
the impacts of such inputs when they are used, and estab-
lish a basis for designing systems that help farmers sustain
their farms and their farming communities.
Even though an agroecological approach begins by
focusing on particular components of a cropping system
and the ecology of alternative management strategies, it
establishes in the process the basis for much more.
Applied more broadly, it can help us examine the historical
development of agricultural activities in a region and
determine the ecological basis for selecting more sus-
tainable practices adapted to that region. It can also trace
the causes of problems that have arisen as a result of
unsustainable practices. Even more broadly, an agroeco-
logical approach helps us explore the theoretical basis
for developing models that can facilitate the design,
testing, and evaluation of sustainable agroecosystems.
Ultimately, ecological knowledge of agroecosystem sus-
tainability must reshape humanity's approach to growing
and raising food in order for sustainable food systems
to be achieved worldwide.

The agriculture of the future must be both sustainable and
highly productive if it is to feed the growing human
population. This twin challenge means that we cannot
simply abandon conventional practices wholesale and
return to traditional or indigenous practices. Although
traditional agriculture can provide models and practices
valuable in developing sustainable agriculture, it cannot
produce the amount of food required to supply distant
urban centers and global markets because of its focus on
meeting local and small-scale needs.
What is called for, then, is a new approach to agri-
culture and agricultural development that builds on the
resource-conserving aspects of traditional, local, and
small-scale agriculture while at the same time drawing on
modern ecological knowledge and methods. This
approach is embodied in the science of agroecology ,
which is defined as “the application of ecological concepts
and principles to the design and management of sustain-
able food systems.”
Agroecology provides the knowledge and methodol-
ogy necessary for developing an agriculture that is on the
one hand environmentally sound and on the other hand
highly productive and economically viable. It opens the
door to the development of new paradigms for agriculture,
in part because it undercuts the distinction between the
production of knowledge and its application. It values
the local, empirical knowledge of farmers, the sharing of

THE HISTORY OF AGROECOLOGY

The two sciences from which agroecology is derived — ecology and agronomy — had an uneasy relationship
during the 20th century. Ecology had been concerned primarily with the study of natural systems, whereas
agronomy dealt with applying the methods of scientific investigation to the practice of agriculture. The boundary
between pure science and nature on the one hand, and applied science and human endeavor on the other, has
kept the two disciplines relatively separate, with agriculture ceded to the domain of agronomy. With a few
important exceptions, little attention was devoted to the ecological analysis of agriculture until the mid-1990s.
An early instance of cross-fertilization between ecology and agronomy occurred in the late 1920s with the
development of the field of crop ecology. Crop ecologists were concerned with where crops were grown and the
ecological conditions under which they grew best. In the 1930s, crop ecologists actually proposed the term agroecology
as the applied ecology of agriculture. However, since ecology was becoming more of an experimental science of
natural systems, ecologists left the applied ecology of agriculture to agronomists, and the term agroecology seems
to have been forgotten.
Following World War II, while ecology moved in the pure science direction, agronomy became increasingly
results-oriented, in part because of the growing mechanization of agriculture and the greater use of agricultural
chemicals. Researchers in each field became less likely to see any commonalties between the disciplines and the
gulf between them widened.
In the late 1950s, the maturing of the ecosystem concept prompted some renewed interest in crop ecology and
some work in what was termed agricultural ecology. The ecosystem concept provided, for the first time, an overall
framework for examining agriculture from an ecological perspective, although few researchers actually used it in
this way.