Beyond the agroecological and sustainable agricultural intensification debate: Is blended sustainability the way forward?

Mockshell, Jonathan; Kamanda, Josey

doi:10.1080/14735903.2018.1448047

Cited by 91 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Of all livestock farming systems in the world, mixed crop-livestock systems produce the majority of livestock output and constitute the majority of livestock-keeping households, often smallholders [3,4]. Therefore, prospects for these systems to become more market-oriented and sustainably intensify are matters of academic, political, and societal interest [3,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intensification and Upgrading Dynamics in Emerging Dairy Clusters in the East African Highlands

et al. 2018

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Based on farmer and value chain actor interviews, this comparative study of five emerging dairy clusters elaborates on the upgrading of farming systems, value chains, and context shapes transformations from semi-subsistent to market-oriented dairy farming. The main results show unequal cluster upgrading along two intensification dimensions: dairy feeding system and cash cropping. Intensive dairy is competing with other high-value cash crop options that resource-endowed farmers specialize in, given conducive support service arrangements and context conditions. A large number of drivers and co-dependencies between technical, value chain, and institutional upgrading build up to system jumps. Transformation may take decades when market and context conditions remain sub-optimal. Clusters can be expected to move further along initial intensification pathways, unless actors consciously redirect course. The main theoretical implications for debate about cluster upgrading are that co-dependencies between farming system, market, and context factors determine upgrading outcomes; the implications for the debate about intensification pathways are that they need to consider differences in farmer resource endowments, path dependency, concurrency, and upgrading investments. Sustainability issues for consideration include enabling a larger proportion of resource-poor farmers to participate in markets; enabling private input and service provision models; attention for food safety; and climate smartness.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intensification and Upgrading Dynamics in Emerging Dairy Clusters in the East African Highlands

et al. 2018

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“…A second line of argumentation within the scientific discourses, primarily supported by economists, views the goal of the sustainable agriculture concept as sustainably productive agriculture [8,76]. This includes both scholars working on sustainable agricultural intensification [20][21][22][23] and those utilizing a different terminology. The policy goal of sustainable intensification is connected to this meaning, or the "call to increase food production from existing farmland in ways that place far less pressure on the environment and that do not undermine our capacity to continue producing food in the future" [22] (p. 33).…”

Section: Sciences and Sustainable Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The discourse position of the agricultural intensification discourse is interesting in terms of the participation of politics and sciences. While neither sees the intensification concept as the centre of the sustainable agriculture concept, a broad body of research has developed around the concept of sustainable agricultural intensification [20][21][22]47,79] and what such intensification should mean. Various UN bodies have initiated programmes that can be associated with the discourse, such as programmes raising the productivity of small-scale farmers [50][51][52].…”

Section: Discourses and Discourse Positionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The incompatibility of these discourses can be partly traced back to the underlying ethical perspectives: While the UN stands for an anthropocentric worldview, environmental scientists assign a certain inherent value to the environment and "thus, competing social values and normative interests are at the heart of the issue" [47] (p. 86). The international political discourse aims to achieve development politics and therefore focuses on economic growth and human rights [20,67]. This leaves an open space for national politics to call agriculture 'sustainable' where human rights are not neglected.…”

Section: Problems and Solutions For Understanding Sustainable Agriculmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concepts related to sustainable agriculture, such as sustainable agricultural intensification, have been connected to international politics and implementation possibilities have been discussed [20][21][22][23][24]. Beyond agricultural intensification, however, we identified a research gap on the current views of international politics on sustainable agriculture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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What is Sustainable Agriculture? Critical Analysis of the International Political Discourse

2018

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The concepts, 'sustainable development' and 'sustainable agriculture', have been shaped by both political discourses of the United Nations and scientific discourses. Using critical discourse and content analysis, we trace the meaning of 'sustainable agriculture' in both international political and in scientific discourses to examine and identify key elements of the representation of sustainable agriculture. We found that the meanings of the concept of sustainable agriculture vary markedly: International political actors primarily produce discourses on sustainable development in agriculture and on sustainable agricultural intensification. Scientists tend to emphasise issues of environmental management. Based on our findings, we highlight the differences in the meaning of sustainable agriculture between the political and scientific discourses and attempt to explain them. In addition, discursive gaps are shown that have the potential to hinder the systematic operationalization of 'sustainable agriculture', such as the integration of a social dimension of sustainable agriculture.

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Renewable Energy from Wildflowers—Perennial Wild Plant Mixtures as a Social‐Ecologically Sustainable Biomass Supply System

Cossel

2020

Advanced Sustainable Systems

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A growing bioeconomy requires increasing amounts of biomass from residues, wastes, and industrial crops for bio‐based products and bioenergy. There is much discussion about how industrial crop cultivation could promote social–ecological outcomes such as environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, food security, greenhouse gas mitigation, and landscape appearance. In Germany, maize (Zea mays L.) is the main biogas substrate source, despite being associated with problems such as erosion, biodiversity losses, an increase in wild boar populations and lowered landscape diversity. The cultivation of perennial wild plant mixtures (WPM) addresses many of these problems. Despite being less developed than maize, WPM cultivation has received notable attention among scientists in Germany over the past decade. This is mainly because WPMs clearly outperform maize in social–ecological measures, despite their methane yield performance. This review summarizes and discusses the results of 12 years of research and practice with WPMs as a social‐ecologically more benign bioenergy cropping system.

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Beyond the agroecological and sustainable agricultural intensification debate: Is blended sustainability the way forward?

Cited by 91 publications

References 70 publications

Intensification and Upgrading Dynamics in Emerging Dairy Clusters in the East African Highlands

Intensification and Upgrading Dynamics in Emerging Dairy Clusters in the East African Highlands

What is Sustainable Agriculture? Critical Analysis of the International Political Discourse

Renewable Energy from Wildflowers—Perennial Wild Plant Mixtures as a Social‐Ecologically Sustainable Biomass Supply System

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