Agroecology for Food and Water Security in Times of Climate Consciousness: A Bibliometric Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Literature Published from 1990 to 2020

Abstract

The discrepancies in our food systems have become more pronounced in the last couple of years due to natural disasters of huge magnitude and the current pandemic, that have served to make them visible to a wider range of population. As a result, a shift to agroecological food and farming systems is currently being advocated at different levels. An agroecological approach to food systems involves consideration of all their interactions with the major challenges of our time—food security, water scarcity, climate change, socioeconomic disparity. This paper presents a bibliometric study of peer reviewed literature about the role of agroecology in relation to either or all of these challenges, published between 1990 and 2020. 1990 was the year in which IPCC published its first assessment report that set into motion many framework agreements and protocols regarding climate change. In 2019 and 2020, IPBES and iPES-Food released separate reports advocating an urgent agricultural transition based on agroecological methodologies. There has been an exponential increase in the published research in this field in this time period, whereas an overwhelming majority of the publications were filed under the subject areas of agricultural and biological sciences, environmental sciences, and social sciences. In addition to the increasing acceptance of the role of agroecology to address the challenges of our times, the results of this analysis point to the cross-cutting nature of issues agroecology caters to.

Bibliometric Analysis of the State of Research on Agroecology Adoption and Methods Used for Its Assessment

“…Our argument in Section 3.6 is part of this framework. Some of the conclusions of the present study were also obtained by Shah et al [84], i.e., the centrality of the issue of "agroecology adoption" among the various themes identified and the rank and major contribution of the European institutions to the growth of the subject. However, in contrast to this study, whose main objective was to show the relationship between agroecology, food and water security, and climate change, our study aimed to identify the extent to which researchers use some specific methodological approaches for modeling the agroecology adoption process.…”

Botanical diversity, structure and composition in cocoa agroforest systems in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

“…According to Sol-Sánchez et al (2018), in Latin America, cocoa cultivation has been established under the shade of tree species remaining from the natural forest, which, sometimes, does not represent an economic value for the producers, but it has high ecological value. Agroforestry (AF) is widely considered an alternative to conventional agriculture that provides greater productive and ecological benefits, such as: functional diversity improvement (Abada Mbolo et al, 2016;Ambele et al, 2023;Navarro et al, 2012); carbon sequestration (Ma et al, 2020;Manaye et al, 2021); food administration, wood and fuel (Pocomucha et al, 2016;Soler et al, 2012;Suárez-Venero et al, 2019) and their contribution to microclimate (Shah et al, 2021) among other things. The structure and composition of traditional AFS is determined by the cultural heritage of the growers and the application of management practices during the production cycle (Chablé-Pascual et al, 2015;Cotta, 2017).…”