Against the odds: Network and institutional pathways enabling agricultural diversification
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- Against the odds
Final published version, 3.06 MB, PDF document
Farming systems that support locally diverse agricultural production and high levels of biodiversity are in rapid decline, despite evidence of their benefits for climate, environmental health, and food security. Yet, agricultural policies, financial incentives, and market concentration increasingly constrain the viability of diversified farming systems. Here, we present a conceptual framework to identify novel processes that promote the emergence and sustainability of diversified farming systems, using three real-world examples where farming communities have found pathways to diversification despite major structural constraints. By applying our framework to analyze these bright spots in the United States, Brazil, and Malawi, we identify two distinct pathways—network and institutional—to diversification. These pathways emerge through alignment of factors related to social and ecological structure (policies, institutions, and environmental conditions) and agency (values, collective action, and management decisions). We find that, when network and institutional pathways operate in tandem, the potential to scale up diversification across farms and landscapes increases substantially.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | One Earth |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Pages (from-to) | 479-491 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| ISSN | 2590-3330 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
We thank the Stakeholder Advisory Committee helping to guide the research project titled “Can enhancing diversity scale up agriculture’s benefits to people and the environment?”—Chuck Anderas, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, Sasha Gennet, Steve Gliessman, Tadesse Gole, Sarah Hargreaves, Ferd Hoefner, Amy Ickowitz, Sean Kearny, Sophia Murphy, Rebecca Nelson, Roseline Remans, Coral Sproule, Mardy Townsend, Jordan Treakle, and Julian Ramirez Villegas—especially for their input to co-design and develop the conceptual framework used in this paper. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145 awarded to Z.M. and C.K. L.V.R. was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement 853222 FORESTDIET ).
Funding Information:
We thank the Stakeholder Advisory Committee helping to guide the research project titled “Can enhancing diversity scale up agriculture's benefits to people and the environment?”—Chuck Anderas, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, Sasha Gennet, Steve Gliessman, Tadesse Gole, Sarah Hargreaves, Ferd Hoefner, Amy Ickowitz, Sean Kearny, Sophia Murphy, Rebecca Nelson, Roseline Remans, Coral Sproule, Mardy Townsend, Jordan Treakle, and Julian Ramirez Villegas—especially for their input to co-design and develop the conceptual framework used in this paper. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145 awarded to Z.M. and C.K. L.V.R. was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement 853222 FORESTDIET). Conceptualization, all authors; methodology, Z.M. and C.K.; visualization, S.M. O.M.S. and J.B. with input from all authors; writing – original draft, J.B. with contributions from H.W. D.J. A.E.S. R.B.K. S.M. S.S. Z.M. C.K. and R.G.; writing – review & editing, all authors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
- biodiversity, conceptual framework, diversified farming system, food security, policy, social-ecological systems, transitions
Research areas
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