Facing the gap: exploring research on local knowledge of insect-provided services in agroecosystems

Sustainable agroecosystems must be managed to support biodiversity conservation and food production, which occur at the interface of regional/national policy frameworks, and local knowledge and perspectives. This paper examines the current breadth of research examining farmer knowledge of beneficial insect activities that provide ecosystem services (or benefits) in agroecosystems. We identify patterns and gaps in the literature and opportunities for future research. We found 34 studies that explicitly focused on and documented local knowledge of how insect taxa provided ecosystem services in agroecosystems, the majority of which were immediately observable in farmers’ daily practice: pest control (n?=?26), pollination (n?=?4). We suggest that there is a need for greater investigation of local knowledge of the breadth of ecosystem services provided by insects and identify key research areas that are opportunities for investigation.     

Improving recommendations resulting from on-farm research: agroforestry,risk, profitability and vulnerability in southern Malawi

Leguminous agroforestry (AF) species have been investigated and promoted in Malawi as a means to improve soil quality and maize (Zea mays) yields. Our objective was to determine whether AF systems' recommendations that solely consider impacts on average maize yields differ from those that include an analysis of production risk, profitability among different wealth groups and socioeconomic vulnerability. Employing participatory quantitative and qualitative on-farm research techniques, we investigated three AF-based maize/legume relay-cropping practices in southern Malawi. The perennial legumes included Sesbania sesban, Tephrosia vogelii and Cajanus cajan (pigeonpea). We found that AF species recommendations did diverge from those based solely on maximizing maize yields when incorporating risk, profitability and socioeconomic vulnerability as additional variables. For instance, the highest yielding system (the S. sesban/maize relay crop) was never recommended for the most vulnerable farmers based on the vulnerability analysis, and the cropping systems were often more profitable for the least vulnerable farmers than they were for the most vulnerable farmers. Cropping system recommendations based solely on obtaining the highest average maize yields would also have generally overlooked the economic and nutritional importance of pigeonpea, and the difficulty for the most vulnerable farmers to profit from fertilizers, potentially placing these farmers at greater risk.     

A Participatory Simulation to Facilitate Farmers' Adoption of Livestock Feeding Systems Based on Conservation Agriculture in the Uplands of Northern Vietnam

In the mountain areas of northern Vietnam, extensive husbandry of large-ruminants is limited by the lack of natural forage. Since 2000, the Mountain Agrarian System Program has been concerned with this issue and has evaluated technical alternatives aimed at sustainable integration of crop-livestock systems. One alternative consists of feeding systems for largeruminants based on cropping systems with plant cover. Diffusion of information about the new system is supported by a set of interactive communication tools for use between farmers and researchers. A participatory simulation method was developed that combines a compartmental model of the village territory with five technical innovations. Farmers simulate the adoption of the innovations they choose among food-forage cropping systems in rotation or in association, and urea-treated straw. They evaluate the quantity of forage that can be grown for their herd using the chosen set of techniques.

Simulations revealed farmers' constraints and objectives in adopting sustainable cropping systems on the hillsides while maintaining a small animal husbandry system. The results obtained by each farmer provide a useful basis for discussion about the implementation of innovation. This participatory simulation method could be more widely used to facilitate the diffusion of innovations such as integrating livestock feeding systems with conservation cropping practices.     

Farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity: Lessons from a discourse-based deliberative valuation study

In agricultural landscapes farmers have a large impact on biodiversity through the management decisions they apply to their land. Farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity and its different values influence their willingness to apply biodiversity friendly farming practices. The results of a discourse-based, deliberative biodiversity valuation are presented in this paper. Organic and conventional farmers’ perceptions of the different values of biodiversity were analyzed across three European countries. Focus group methodology was used to explore how farmers perceive biodiversity and how they assess its values.Our results suggest that farmers’ perceptions of biodiversity are strongly embedded in their everyday lives and linked to farming practices. Besides recognizing the importance of species and habitat diversity, farmers also acknowledge wider landscape processes and attach value to the complexity of ecological systems. Organic farmers tended to have a more complex and philosophical approach to biodiversity and they were relatively homogeneous in this aspect, while conventional farmers showed larger heterogeneity. Ethical and social values were important for all farmers. Economic value was more dominant in the conventional focus groups.The discourse based deliberative valuation method is worth applying in relation to biodiversity for two reasons. First, this method is able to reflect the heterogeneity of non-scientist participants and the context in which they are embedded, which both have a great impact on the results of the valuation. Second, deliberation upon the importance of biodiversity makes possible to understand the competing perceptions of biodiversity and to include different value aspects in the valuation process. The policy oriented consequence of the research can be drawn from the observation that farmers have a strong acknowledgement of ethical and social biodiversity values. This suggests that soft policy tools could also foster biodiversity sensitive farming methods, complementary to mainstream monetary incentives.     

Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.     

Towards productive landscapes: Trade-offs in tree-cover and income across a matrix of smallholder agricultural land-use systems

One of the main causes of tropical forest loss is conversion to agriculture, which is constantly increasing as a dominant land cover in the tropics. The loss of forests greatly affects biodiversity and ecosystem services. This paper assesses the economic return from increasing tree cover in agricultural landscapes in two tropical locations, West Java, Indonesia and eastern Bangladesh. Agroforestry systems are compared with subsistence seasonal food-crop-based agricultural systems. Data were collected through rapid rural appraisal, field observation, focus groups and semi-structured interviews of farm households. The inclusion of agroforestry tree crops in seasonal agriculture improved the systems’ overall economic performance (net present value), even when it reduced understorey crop production. However, seasonal agriculture has higher income per unit of land area used for crop cultivation compared with the tree establishment and development phase of agroforestry farms. Thus, there is a trade-off between short-term loss of agricultural income and longer-term economic gain from planting trees in farmland. For resource-poor farmers to implement this change, institutional support is needed to improve their knowledge and skills with this unfamiliar form of land management, sufficient capital for the initial investment, and an increase in the security of land tenure.     

Farmer perceptions of legumes and their functions in smallholder farming systems in east Africa

Legumes play an important role in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) farming systems through the provision of food, feed, fuel, income and a range of biophysical benefits, such as soil fertility enhancement and erosion control. However, their full potential is not being realized. The purpose of this study was to assess farmers’ perceptions and knowledge towards legumes and the rationale of farmers for current legume production practices using a survey of 268 farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya. Most of the farmers had some knowledge of legumes and their characteristics. However, they had little knowledge of some key functions, including soil erosion control and soil fertility improvement. Most farmers relied on radio and other farmers for legume-related information. Farmers with relatively large livestock holdings ranked provision of livestock feed as an important legume function. We conclude that farmers put more value on short-term benefits of legumes including food and income than long-term benefits such as natural resource management and thus grain legumes are more readily identified by farmers than forage species. Also, we conclude that farmers require more than just information about legumes to increase uptake, they also require improved market access to procure inputs and sell products to realize other benefits that are associated with growing legumes.     

On-farm biological control of the pearl millet head miner: realization of 35 years of unsteady progress in Mali,Burkina Faso and Niger

The pearl millet head miner became a major pest in the West African Sahel during the droughts of 1972–1974, and has since remained a threat to food security. Pesticide control is unrealistic for subsistence farmers. Furthermore, there are no cultural control methods or genetic sources of resistance. Biological control was a possibility, but the required ecological knowledge did not exist in the 1970s. A biological control programme could have been rapidly developed through sustained and coordinated funding using existing knowledge. Instead, it took 25 years to lay the scientific groundwork through occasional bursts of uncoordinated short-term activity using international scientists funded by large donors. There was little funding and few prominent roles for national scientists until 2000, when they were empowered by a different approach taken by the McKnight Foundation. An operational system was quickly developed and deployed in which trained farmers rear and release the parasitoid Habrobracon hebetor to effectively eliminate the head miner. The national programme scientists demonstrated admirably that, when trusted and adequately supported and empowered, African researchers can deliver real and effective solutions that are scientifically sound, meet the needs of smallholder farmers, and contribute significantly to improved food security, community resilience and reduced poverty.     

A farm-scale biodiversity and ecosystem services assessment tool: the healthy farm index

Farm management focused on maximizing biomass production results in biological simplification and ultimately a degraded production potential for the future. Despite the large and growing body of evidence pointing to the need to restore biodiversity to farm systems, incorporation of biodiversity and ecosystem services into local agricultural land-use decision-making remains limited. The lack of planned and associated biodiversity may reduce resiliency of local managed ecosystems and add management costs; however, the tradeoff for individual landowners of greater diversity is increased management complexity and uncertainty. To assist farmers in managing biodiversity and to encourage ecological thinking, we developed the Healthy Farm Index, a farm-scale tool that complements existing farm assessment tools by integrating multiple metrics and outputs suitable for applied decision-making and annual evaluation. In this article, we describe the impetus for the index development and the structure of the index and through a case study apply the index and discuss its varied outputs and applications.     

Forests to fields. Restoring tropical lands to agriculture

In discussing land use in tropical forest regions, there is an emphasis on the following topics: the need for the expansion of cropping areas, the precedent for use of the tropical forest for cropping based on past use patterns, the pressure from conservationists against cropping, debunking the mythology that forests are "natural" and refuting the claims that forest clearance is not reversible, the archeological evidence of past forest use for agricultural purposes, abandonment of tropical land to forest, and rotation of forest and field. The assumption is that the way to stop food importation is to increase crop production in the tropics. Crop production can be increased through 1) land intensification or clearing new land, 2) output per unit of land increases, or 3) reallocation to agriculture land previously cleared and overgrown with tropical forest. "Temporary" reuse of land, which reverted back to tropical forest, is recommended. This reuse would ease population pressure, and benefit bioconservation, while populations stabilize and further progress is made in international plant breeding. The land would eventually be returned to a forest state. Conservation of tropical forest areas should be accomplished, after an assessment has been made of its former uses. Primary forests need to identified and conversion to farming ceased. Research needs to be directed to understanding the process of past forest regeneration, and to devising cropping systems with longterm viability. The green revolution is unsuitable for traditional cropping systems, is contrary to demands of international funding agencies for sustainability, and is not affordable by most poor farmers. Only .48 million sq. km of closed forest loss was in tropical rainforests; 6.53 million sq. km was lost from temperate forests cleared for intensive small-scale peasant farming. The use of tropical forest land for farming has some benefits; crops in the wetter tropics are perennial, which would "reduce seasonal soil tillage, increase nutrient cycling, and remove a lower proportion of biomass." Water availability would not be a problem. Low soil nutrient levels could be increased with cutting and burning or fertilizer. The key is proper and careful management, particularly under intensive cropping systems such as rice production or extensive long fallow shifting cultivation.     

Contribution of associated trees to long-term species conservation,carbon storage and sustainability: a functional analysis of tree communities in cacao plantations of Central Cameroon

In Central Africa, most cacao is still cultivated in low-input agroforests where cacao associated trees are traditionally valued by farmers. These systems are sustainable on the long run, support biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. Yet, little knowledge exists on the contribution of tree community management to explain such results. In Central Cameroon, we investigated cacao agroforest associated tree community contributions to the long-term (i) maintenance of tree species encountering a conservation issue and (ii) carbon storage. We further simulated the simplification of these systems by checking for the effect of tree density decrease on community functional groups or traits. Finally, we linked farmers’ use of associated trees to their functional features and conservation status. Cacao agroforestry systems were able to combine high levels of species richness with long-term conservation abilities and carbon storage. Simplification emphasized consistent shifts of functional traits/groups that will change the way they function and alter the existing balances between different associated tree uses. Since traditional agroforests are now foreseen as providers of timber/non-timber forest products, our study argues that this paradigm change in such low-input systems - if carried improperly - is likely to impair the provision of the services they currently provide as well as their sustainability.     

Playing musical chairs with land use obligations: Market-based instruments and environmental public policies in Brazil

In Brazil, market-based instruments focusing on land use dimensions are increasingly promoted as a means to make public environmental policies effective. Landowners and farmers call for more flexible regulations and economic incentives to adopt ecologically sound practices, while public agencies and conservation NGOs seek new ways of financing and legitimising legal standards. Market-based instruments are considered by these actors as having the potential to both achieve their own goals and conciliate all interests. As a result, legal frameworks (including cap-and-trade systems, biodiversity offsetting and payments for ecosystem services) are being designed which allow to exchange land use rights and obligations. Under a sociolegal approach, this article provides an overview of such instruments. It shows to what extent they may entail a reconfiguration of the burden sharing and the priority setting of nature conservation. Depending on how actors use legal standards, their responsibilities may be eased and the level of conservation may be lowered, both facts that raise significant controversy.     

The EU’s ecological focus areas – How experts explain farmers’ choices in Germany

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) have recently been introduced as key element in the greening of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. In 2015, farmers across the EU have implemented EFAs for the first time. Data for German federal states indicate a strong variance in EFA decisions with an overall dominance of catch crops, nitrogen fixing crops and fallow land – two of which bear limited benefits for biodiversity conservation. This article explores how experts explain EFA choices. We conducted 35 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Ministry for Agriculture, farm advisory services, and farmers’ associations in each federal state. Applying content analysis we clustered the factors mentioned as determinants for farmers’ EFA choices into the categories administrative considerations, economic considerations, local factors, ecosystem considerations and policy incentives. According to the interviewed experts, farmers have primarily registered measures that already existed on their farms. Administrative considerations dominate the identified determinants for farmers’ EFA decisions, and together with economic considerations appear to function as a negative incentive for EFA options that are beneficial for biodiversity, such as landscape elements and buffer strips. We conclude that conditions for EFA implementation were found to not effectively incentivise a higher share of biodiversity supporting characteristics in German agricultural landscapes. Based on a detailed discussion we extract recommendations on how to improve EFA implementation.     

Push—pull technology: a conservation agriculture approach for integrated management of insect pests,weeds and soil health in Africa

Push—pull technology (www.push-pull.net) is based on a novel cropping system developed by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Rothamsted Research (UK) and national partners for integrated pest, weed and soil management in cereal—livestock farming systems. Stemborers are attracted to Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), a trap plant (pull), and are repelled from the main cereal crop using a repellent legume intercrop (push), desmodium (Desmodium spp.). Desmodium root exudates effectively control the parasitic striga weed by causing abortive germination. Desmodium also improves soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, natural mulching, improved biomass and control of erosion. Both companion plants provide high value animal fodder, facilitating milk production and diversifying farmers' income sources. The technology is appropriate to smallholder mixed cropping systems in Africa. It effectively addresses major production constraints, increases maize yields from below 1 to 3.5t/ha, and is economical as it is based on locally available plants, not expensive external inputs. Adopted by over 30,000 farmers to date in East Africa, key factors in its further up-scaling include effective technology dissemination, adaptability of companion plants for climate resilience, capacity building and multi-stakeholder collaboration, integration with livestock husbandry, improvement in input accessibility and creation of a supportive policy framework.     

Managing increasing environmental risks through agrobiodiversity and agrienvironmental policies

Agrobiodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk‐averse farmers by reducing the variance of crop yield, and to society at large by reducing the uncertainty in the provision of public‐good ecosystem services, for example, CO₂ storage. We analyze the choice of agrobiodiversity by risk‐averse farmers who have access to financial insurance, and study the implications for agrienvironmental policy design when on‐farm agrobiodiversity generates a positive risk externality. While increasing environmental risk leads private farmers to increase their level of on‐farm agrobiodiversity, the level of agrobiodiversity in the laissez‐faire equilibrium remains inefficiently low. We show how either one of the two agrienvironmental policy instruments can cure this risk‐related market failure: an ex ante Pigouvian subsidy on on‐farm agrobiodiversity and an ex post payment‐by‐result for the actual provision of public environmental benefits. In the absence of regulation, welfare may increase rather than decrease with increasing environmental risk, if the agroecosystem is characterized by a high natural insurance function, low costs, and large external benefits of agrobiodiversity.     

Efficiency of alternative property right allocations when farmers produce multiple environmental goods under the condition of economies of scope

The efficiency implications of different property right allocations when two environmental goods can be produced under the condition of economies of scope are analysed. It is assumed that an environmental agency – acting on behalf of the community – employs an auction-based mechanism to buy biodiversity services from farmers. However, farmers' production of biodiversity produces a second good as a by-product (e.g., mitigation of a river pollutant) that is valued by point-source emitters who are engaged in a pollution trading market. The efficiency implications of allocating the property right of the good, mitigation, to either the agency or farmers are analysed. If the agency owns the mitigation then the agency can sell mitigation to point-source emitters, offsetting the cost of biodiversity. If farmers own mitigation, then they sell it directly to point-source emitters. Assuming similar transaction costs associated with each property-right allocation, allocating the property right to farmers improves efficiency, as farmers take account of their private information to make profit-maximising decisions about the supply of biodiversity and mitigation; the agency would have trouble accessing this private information.     

The value of green walls to urban biodiversity

Despite increased interest in the implementation of green walls in urban areas and the recognised benefits of monetary valuation of ecosystem services, no studies have been undertaken to estimate the economic value of biodiversity they provide. The valuation of natural resources allows policy makers to justify resource allocation. Using the Southampton, UK, as a case study, this paper estimates the public’s perceived value of green walls to urban biodiversity, in the form of their willingness to pay (WTP). Estimates were derived using a random parameter model that accounted for socio-economic and attitudinal determinants of choice, using choice experiment data. Three green infrastructure policies were tested; two green wall designs (‘living wall’ and ‘green façade’) and an ‘alternative green policy’; and compared against ‘no green policy’. Results indicated a WTP associated with green infrastructure that increases biodiversity. Attitudinal characteristics such as knowledge of biodiversity and aesthetic opinion were significant, providing an indication of identifiable preferences between green policies and green wall designs. A higher level of utility was associated with the living wall, followed by the green façade. In both cases, the value of the green wall policies exceeds the estimated investment cost; so our results suggest that implementation would provide net economic benefits.     

Integrating expert knowledge and quantitative information for mapping cropping systems

Scenarios are accepted as useful tools for assessing economic and environmental impacts of land use changes, for involving stakeholders in environmental issues and thus for decision-making. In most studies involving comparison and evaluation of scenarios, a reference situation from which different scenarios will be developed is defined. When dealing with rural areas, scenarios, and thus reference situation, should not only consider land use but also cropping systems. The usual lack of data concerning cropping system distribution in a given region can be overcome by the use of expert knowledge. In this paper, we present a procedure for the spatial allocation of cropping systems that integrates expert knowledge and quantitative data. The aim of this procedure is to develop a reference situation that makes explicit the link between cropping systems and the factors responsible for their geographical location (location factors).     

Revealing different understandings of soil held by scientists and farmers in the context of soil protection and management

This paper aims to analyse and draw together results from similar studies in England, Switzerland and France which investigated farmers’ understanding of soil and compared it with that of scientists, researchers and advisors (collectively called scientists in this analysis). A range of methods were used across the three studies and different theoretical approaches, looking at forms of knowledge, local practice of knowledge production and conceptions of reality, were employed to explain the results. Despite the different contexts, methodologies and theoretical approaches in the three studies, the results reveal similar patterns of difference in farmer and scientist understanding of soil. In the English study, farmers demonstrate a ‘know-how’ form or intuitive working knowledge of soil while advisors rely on scientifically established forms of ‘know-why’ and seek to understand and explain soil processes. Similarly in the Swiss study farmers’ and scientists’ differing perceptions are directed and shaped by their respective aims, methods and context of work. In the French study, farmers and researchers are shown to have different conceptions of soil, they attribute different meaning to the same activities, and use different words and language to describe the same features. In all three studies understanding is shown to be cultural and contextual, as such an integrative theoretical framework is proposed.     

INTER-REGIONAL FARM EFFICIENCY IN PAKISTAN'S PUNJAB: A FRONTIER PRODUCTION FUNCTION STUDY

Agricultural production efficiency in four irrigated cropping regions of the Punjab province of Pakistan was compared on the basis of a probabilistic frontier production function estimated from whole-farm survey data for the year 1984-85. It is found that the gross income of farmers can be increased by 13% at the current levels of resource use if the production gap between ‘best practice’ and ‘average’ farmers is suitably narrowed in all cropping regions. This will increase profits by up to 40%. No significant difference in technical efficiency was found across the regions. Economic efficiency was similar across all cropping regions except in the cotton region, which had significantly lower economic efficiency due to higher allocative inefficiency, which in turn was attributable to the more dynamic production technologies being adopted in that region.