Sustainable Intensification of Agroecosystems
New agricultural models are needed to enable intensification of production without increasing the environmental footprint of agriculture or converting additional land to agriculture. Achieving more with the same—or better yet, more with less—will require enhancing the critical ecosystem functions that maintain agricultural productivity, especially in light of our changing climate. Sustainable intensification strategies aim to boost beneficial ecological interactions and better integrate nutrient and water cycling functions into management of agricultural systems to improve productivity, efficiency, and farmers’ livelihoods. The search for such solutions is particularly complex as, to gain widespread acceptance, they will need to preserve human well-being and social cohesion as perceived by their ultimate practitioners in farming communities.
We are pleased to invite colleagues to submit contributions that assess how feasible agroecological intensification strategies impact performance of high- and low-input farmed landscapes and how they link with provision of ecosystem services and environmental footprints. Studies and analyses of the impacts of agroecological intensification on stability of production system are particularly welcomed to promote adoption of management practices which build resilience and improve our understanding of system trajectories for the future.
Please email one or more of the issue’s editors (listed below) to enquire, or simply submit your manuscript at AoBP’s submission site.
Section Chief Editor for Agroecology & Environment:
Amélie Gaudin (University of California, Davis), agaudin@ucdavis.edu
Guest Editors for the Special Issue:
Meagan Schipanski (Colorado State University), Meagan.Schipanski@ColoState.edu
Sjoerd Duiker (Penn State University), sduiker@psu.edu
Peter Thorne (International Livestock Research Institute & Africa Rising), P.Thorne@cgiar.org