Agroecological Transition and Resilience 8 May – 11h30-12h30

Amphi Pasteur

Convenors: Michel Etienne and Danièle Magda We propose to discuss the interlinking of agroecological transitions at the farm to food system levels, with the transformations of socio-ecological systems at local to regional scales, from the perspective of resilience. The aim is to initiate discussions about the role of socio-ecological systems in transforming agriculture on sound agroecological principles agroecology and, conversely, the role of social and technical innovations in agriculture in promoting resilience of rural socio-ecological systems. Until now, we have primarily used socio-technical approaches to analyze transition processes underlying the transformation of agricultures. Agroecological transformation, viewed as a re-incorporation or improvement of the ecological functions in agriculture, reveals the necessity to explore the role of the ecological component within this socio-technical transition process. The diversity of agroecological objectives (conserving genetic diversity, promoting an ecological basis for production, accounting for environmental amenities, protecting food quality) reveals different types and levels of incorporation of ecological processes from production to food systems. This singles out a set of interactions between socio-technical and socio-ecological systems such as the impact of farmers' decisions and practices on landscape and biodiversity, the concerted management of ecosystem services such as pollination or biological control, or the reorganization of local supply chains. This could lead to the design of different patterns and pathways for agricultural transformations that are likely to develop differently depending on the characteristics and dynamics of the socio-ecological systems they are involved in. In addition, socio-ecological approaches to natural resource management integrate positive and negative effects of agriculture, generally through its land use and management at the landscape level. It more rarely considers agricultural systems through their productive processes at the farm level or food systems and their socio-technical organizations. Nevertheless, socio-technical reorganization, redesign and innovation play a key role in the transition from conventional agricultural systems to agroecological ones. Therefore, socio-technical approach of agricultural transition could be an important lever in natural resource management as well as for the resilience of rural socio-ecological systems. Combining socio-technical and socio-ecological approaches could provide not only a way to better adapt to changes but also to anticipate unforeseen events and foster changes while avoiding breaking points. Main questions will structure the debate: - How the transition theories and perspectives can higlight the agroecological issues ? To what extent socio-technical approach allows a better understanding of the evolution of agrofood systems in an agroecological perspective? - How the socio-ecological systems approach contributes to the agroecological transitions of productive systems? How it can facilitate agroecological transitions in a resilient pathway? - At whate scale it is relevant to understand the socio-technical and socio-ecological interactions in agroecological transitions ? To what extent do socio-technical approaches to

agroecological transitions make it possible to better understand the adaptation or the transformation of socio-ecological systems to a given change or regime shift?

Program Session 11h30- 11h35 Welcome and Introduction

11h35-11h45 Anne Mérot Exploring multi-scale flexibility to design resilient cropping systems

11h45- 11h55 Marcos Easdale

Sustainable livelihood approach from the lens of the state-and-transition

model: an integrated model for social-ecological research and management

11h55-12h05 Federica Ravera

Assessing vulnerability of agri-food systems to climate and policy changes:

proposal of an integrated framework

12h05-12h15 Ika Darnhofer Managing the trade-offs between factors that strengthen resilience

12h15-12h25 Hallie Eakin Capacities, institutions and development trajectories affecting the

transformation of irrigated agriculture in the urbanizing SW United states

12h25- 12h30 Conclusions

Conversion towards organic farming as a resilience strategy

A multi-scale analysis of sources of resilience - vineyard cropping systems

Merot A.1*

, Belhouchette H. 2,

Ripoche A. 1

, Souissi I. 2

, Wery J.3, Gary C.

1,

1 INRA, UMR System, Montpellier, France 2 Montpellier SupAgro, UMR System, Montpellier, France

3 IAM Montpellier, UMR System, Montpellier, France

anne.merot@supagro.inra.fr

Farmers have to face long-term predictable trends: new market context and new public policies aiming at limiting the environmental impact of agriculture, like the reduction of pesticide use or water saving. They also have to face rapid unforeseen and unpredictable events such as extreme climatic events, inter-annual climatic variations. In face of changes, transitions toward adaptive resilient cropping systems are needed because current practices cannot ensure sustainability on the long term. Transition towards organic farming seems to be an opportunity to enhance resilience capacity. In this paper, we present a a multi-scale analysis of various sources of flexibility as a way to enhance resilience of cropping system during the conversion towards organic farming. In our work, we define a resilient cropping system as a cropping system that still maintains its performances while undergoing changes and remains in the domain of persistence. The definition of the domain of persistence is fundamental particularly it is necessary to choose a set of indicators from the various components of the system to assess resilience. Each indicator of the domain of persistence is associated at different scales, thresholds and limits. Four cases study were analyzed related to different ways of dealing with resilienceof vineyard cropping system. T. They covered biophysical, technical and economical resilience from field to farm scales. Throughout these applications, we showed that there was no appropriate scale to assess the resilience of a cropping system but a specific combination of scales depending on the driving processes and target services. Multiple sources of Flexibility explored were a way to develop intrinsect capacity to persist in time through changes without any loss of productivity and services provision and consequently enhance resilience. We showed also that diversity brings resilience. Despite of the difficulties in the quantification of the resilience (lack of available data…), conversion towards organic farming is an appropriate period to enhance resilience capacity. .

Vineyard system

Resilience of what?

Cropping system

Resilience to what?

Field

Farm

Vineyard

Landscape

SPATIAL

SCALES

RESILIENCE

OF WHAT ?Biophysical

sub-system

Technical

sub-system

Decisional

sub-systemSocio-economic

sub-system

RESILIENCE TO WHAT ?

• Heterogeneity of the biophysical

components

• Operational, tactical flexibility

• Diversity of fields

• Strategic, tactical and

operational flexibility

• Diversity of crops and fields,

heterogeneity of fields

• Strategic and tactical flexibility

Climate change

and variability

Socio-economic

changes

Institutional

changes

SOURCES OF RESILIENCE

Cro

p p

erfo

rman

ce

Org

aniz

ati

onal p

erfo

rman

ce

Eco

no

mic

per

form

ance

Ecosy

stem

ic s

ervic

es

CRITERIA FOR

RESILIENCE ASSESSMENT

Environmental

pressure

Field

Farm

Vineyard

Landscape

SPATIAL

SCALES

RESILIENCE

OF WHAT ?Biophysical

sub-system

Technical

sub-system

Decisional

sub-systemSocio-economic

sub-system

RESILIENCE TO WHAT ?

• Heterogeneity of the biophysical

components

• Operational, tactical flexibility

• Diversity of fields

• Strategic, tactical and

operational flexibility

• Diversity of crops and fields,

heterogeneity of fields

• Strategic and tactical flexibility

Climate change

and variability

Socio-economic

changes

Institutional

changes

SOURCES OF RESILIENCE

Cro

p p

erfo

rman

ce

Org

aniz

ati

onal p

erfo

rman

ce

Eco

no

mic

per

form

ance

Ecosy

stem

ic s

ervic

es

CRITERIA FOR

RESILIENCE ASSESSMENT

Environmental

pressure

Figure 1: Resilience Analysis according through different scales according to the framework proposed in this study. Each of the cases studies were positioned in this multi-scale analysis.

Organic farming in Austria:

An agro-ecological transition?

Ika Darnhofer

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria)

Austria: 19.7% UAA certified organic

Share of organic area in EU-27 in 2011

Source: EC (2013) Facts and figures on organic agriculture in the EU

FiBL and IFOAM (2014) The world of Organic Agriculture. Statistics and emerging trends

Austria

Australia: 2.9%

Canada: 1,2%

USA: 0.6%

A transition to organic farming?

Is it an ‘agro-

ecological

transition’?

Organic farms are

still a minority, but

a large minority!

Socio-technical transitions

Source: Geels (2005) Technological Forecasting & Social Change 72: 681-696

Transition = Radical shift: change in functioning,

in terms of structure, culture and practices

Transition to diversity

● Increase in diversity of practices, of products

Market segmentation = many different niches = lower price pressure

Supports small family farms against ‘get big or get out’ pressure

● Widens the realm of what is ‘thinkable’

Acceptance of a wider diversity of practices

Different ways to be a ‘good farmer’ (social recognition!)

Encourages innovation

● Not a transition from ‘productivism’ to ‘post-productivism’

Not a transition from a homogeneous A to homogeneous B

Made diversity visible creation of multitude of networks =

first step towards polycentric governance (?)

Resilience: adaptation and transformation

● Distinct in social-ecological resilience

Transformability … when the current system is untenable

Undesirable resilience (traps)

● Marginal and radical change difficult to distinguish

Radical often builds on / synergy of marginal changes

But: ‘incrementalism trap’!

● Balance enables emergence at all scales:

At farm level: balance between exploitation and exploration,

between continuity and change

At regional level: foster diversity of networks to allow synergies,

out of which radically new configurations/practices can emerge

Agency, institutions and development trajectories: Transforming irrigated agriculture in the urbanizing SW United States.

Hallie Eakin, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

with Abigail York, Skaidra Smith-Heisters, Cathy Rubiños, Jessica Welch, Rimjhim Aggarwal, Marty Anderies and Summer Waters

Transformation in agro-ecological systems is inevitably multi-scalar. Transformation entails shifts in the cognitive, material and social attributes of adaptive capacity of farmers, as well as change in the institutional environment such that it is conducive to structural change in agro-ecological relations. These two layers of interactions are not always in sync: capacities may or may not exist for transformation at the level of individual farmers, and the physical and social infrastructure of agro-ecological interactions can create path dependencies that are difficult to uproot. This paper presents a case study of irrigated agriculture at the periphery of the large metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. The research focuses on the relationship between individual capacities and the implication of individual choices and transformation for sector-level and potentially systemic (regional social-ecological) resilience. We argue that transformation is not only about change in farm practices and the site-specific ecological feedbacks resulting from these practices. Agroecological transformations are political, historically situated, and embedded in ideas about progress and development. Fundamental transformations thus require changes in practices, social relations and institutional dynamics at multiple scales. Irrigated agriculture is at the heart of the history and identity of the American Southwest. In 1980, concerned about unregulated groundwater exploitation, Arizona passed the Ground Water Management Act. This legislation prohibited expansion of irrigated agriculture around Phoenix and encouraged farmers to replace groundwater use with surface water from the Colorado River. The legislation institutionalized the idea that agriculture would become obsolete, and that agricultural land use would give way to suburban residences. Today most urban planners, water managers and even many agricultural actors assume that agriculture will soon be obsolete, and this assumption is reinforced in public policy. Yet the possibility exists that agriculture could play a role in enhancing the flexibility of water management at the regional scale, under some scenarios. If agriculture were to play such a role, transformation would be required not only at the farm-level, but also in the institutional environment and the public discourse about agriculture in Arizona’s future. That future is now uncertain. Economic recession has made some planners question the inevitability and desirability of continual expansion of the metropolitan area. High commodity prices have brought fallow land back into production. Nevertheless, the prospect of “mega-droughts” and climate change will potentially increase inter-sector and inter-state competition over water. Agriculture still consumes a significant proportion of both ground and surface water in central Arizona, despite rapid urban expansion in the late 20th century. Water in agriculture, however, provides both the state of Arizona and the city of Phoenix with some flexibility in face of drought and fluctuation in water demand. Water can, theoretically, be withheld from farmers to supply urban residents whereas urban demand (while less in aggregate) is inflexible once created. Agricultural consumption is also not exclusive: water used on fields can infiltrate to the aquifer, and other

environmental and social amenities can be associated with farm water consumption and land use. We use survey data, interviews and document analysis to explore the cross-level dimensions of transformative capacity in the rural-urban nexus. Adapting a survey instrument initially developed for Australia1 to assess the cognitive dimensions of adaptive capacity, we surveyed 52 farmers of cotton, alfalfa and other staple grains around the Phoenix metropolitan area. Our survey identified the farmers as highly educated and entrepreneurial producers, most who had been farming in the region for several decades. The respondents portrayed themselves as risk-takers, experimental and interested in learning about production innovations and about hydrological and climatic change. They also reported having strong ties to the community and to each other, indicating strong place and occupational attachment. Nevertheless, the survey presented very little evidence that these cognitive attributes of capacity had materialized into innovations in farm practices (such as irrigation technology, or water-conserving crop choices) or livelihood orientation (alternative commodity markets or production strategies). In addition to describing themselves as experimental and willing to learn, farmers also indicated constraints on their production choices associated with the irrigation infrastructure that served their fields, water quality, and soil salinity. They also believed that despite the multiple benefits they perceive are associated with agriculture in Arizona, politicians in the state were not supportive of the sector, and thus are pessimistic about the future viability of agriculture around the city. In a comparative study of rural Australia1, adaptive cognitive characteristics (risk perception, flexibility, entrepreneurship) are associated with farmers who have the capacity to uproot their livelihoods and alter locations to accommodate significant environmental change. In Phoenix, we find that remaining in agriculture locally, in the rapidly transforming urban and hydro-climatic context of central Arizona, is what is more likely to require transformative qualities at the farm-level. To date, farmers’ entrepreneurship has enabled them to persist under conditions of economic volatility, but this entrepreneurship has not yet been tapped as a resource for adaptation to climatic and hydrological change. Farmers will need additional assets -- social and political capital and leadership in particular -- to challenge the narrative of their inevitable obsolescence and actively engage politically to shape the institutions that govern their water access in the future. Such engagement will likely require new alliances not only with urban interests, but also with environmental interests in order to fully demonstrate their potential function in facilitating the resilience of the regional urban-ecological system. 1Marshall, N. A., S. E. Park, W. N. Adger, K. Brown and S. M. Howden (2012). Transformational capacity and the influence of place and identity. Environmental Research Letters 7(3): 034022. This summary is based on two manuscripts now in review:

York, A. M., et al. (in review). Public adaptation through the backdoor: Can we move to

anticipatory water governance? Environmental Policy and Governance.

Eakin, H., et al. (in review). Farmers’ capacities and water institutions in face of hydro-climatic change: Irrigated agriculture in the urbanizing SW United States. Regional Environmental Change.

Sustainable livelihood approach from the lens of the state-and-transition model: an

integrated model for social-ecological research and management

Easdale, M.H.1*, López, D.R.2

Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina. 1Dep. of Rural Development, 2Dep. of Natural Resources.

*Corresponding author: easdale.marcos@inta.gob.ar

Dealing with complex challenges worldwide regarding sustainable rural development

requires applied frameworks to understand and manage change in complex social-

ecological systems. The sustainable livelihood approach is a framework for thinking and

communicating about factors that impact on the livelihoods of rural families from a

multidimensional perspective, including wellbeing, health, income, social networks and the

local environment. It is designed to assist in identifying changes or transformations that

can be performed to institutions, assets or strategies of rural families in order to promote

adaptive capacities and resilience to local communities. However, operative tools in order

to implement these concepts in a systematic way are still challenging. In this regard, we

argue that the State-and-Transition Model provides a useful perspective, and a conceptual

basis for theory and disciplinary integration that could provide a dynamic perspective not

only for rangeland management but also to manage changes and transformations on rural

livelihoods. The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual model for social-ecological

research and sustainable management in agro-ecosystems. We suggest adapting the

state-and-transition model by including structural and functional features of social-

ecological systems, by taking into consideration the livelihood approach. The proposed

conceptual model explicitly recognizes that structure and functions are strongly interlinked

and must be assessed integrally. Both attributes are analyzed in five types of capital that

typically comprise social-ecological systems: natural, human, manufactured, social and

financial (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Schematic representation of a farming system at a household level. A pyramidal-

hierarchy and direct relationships among natural, human, manufacture, social and financial capitals

that constitute a social-ecological system. Arrows indicates main processes and/or flows regarding

matter, energy and/or information.

We propose to perform the analysis at a household level, by identifying structural and

functional features for each capital as separate sub-systems, to better evaluate the impact

and interaction with different disturbance factors, and the interrelations among them at a

system level. The framework provides an integral perspective to explore system

properties such as resilience and resistance, in relation to different kind of disturbance

factors and key thresholds, which are used as references to support differentiated

management and to orient interventions in rural contexts (Fig. 2). The proposed

conceptual model is encouraging as a step towards two main challenges: i) the provision

of applied frameworks for social-ecological management, and ii) an attempt to bring closer

science and decision making.

Figure 2. Conceptual framework of the Structural-Functional State and Transition Model for social-ecological analysis in agro-ecosystems. Two levels of analysis are represented: i) sub-systems level to assess structural-functional attributes in natural, human, social, manufactured and financial capitals when facing disturbances, and ii) integration of information at a social-ecological system level to assess sustainability pathways. The x axis represents social-ecological system structural loss (capital stock) and the y axis represents social-ecological system functions (processes and services). Different structural-functional configurations are associated with strong and weak sustainability, and undesirable states.

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Developing an integrated framework using food sovereignty paradigm for

assessing agri-food systems transition under different policy scenarios

Virginia Vallejo-Rojas1, Federica Ravera

2, Marta G. Rivera-Ferre

3

1 Center of Agri-food Economy and Development CREDA-UPC-IRTA, Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia, Esteve

Terrades 8, ESAB building, 08860–Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain. 2 Socio-ecological systems Laboratory, Social-Ecological Systems Laboratory, Department of Ecology, Autonomous

University of Madrid, 28049–Madrid, Spain. 3 Research Group Environment and Food (GRMAiA), University of Vic, Sagrada Família 7, 08500–Vic(Barcelona),

Spain. Corresponding author: <martaguadalupe.rivera@uvic.cat>

Agri-food systems assessments can be performed following different framings, as

official and alternative, each of them linked to different objects of study, methods and

characteristics (Rivera-Ferre 2012). Here we use an alternative frame to conceptualize

agri-food systems, defined as a set of activities ranging from production through to

consumption, as integration and interaction of humans and agro-environment, i.e. as

socio-ecological system (hereafter SES). This alternative frame allows analyze diverse

strategies according the social, cultural and environmental context for supporting the

design of people-centered polices linked to transformative pathways based on human

rights perspective as those derived from food sovereignty political paradigm.

Conceptualizing agri-food system as SES under food sovereignty paradigm implies to

study the interactions, across scales, within and between the components of agri-food

system, and visualize the system’s transformations produced by feedbacks and by

social, economic, political and environmental drivers that could impact the system.

Assessing those system’s transformative pathways, desirable or not (Ingram 2009),

require a new integrated approach. Thus we have two objectives: (1) to explore

theoretical and methodological implications of framing the SES within the food

sovereignty perspective; and (2) to introduce the agency/values of people within the

analysis as required by the food sovereignty proposal for a transformative adaptation

pathway. To do this, we link reflections and methodologies from resilience theories,

specifically Ostrom’s approach to study SES, and from vulnerability studies applied to

agri-food system as a unit of analysis.

We have linked these objectives with the two questions proposed within our discussion

group in Resilience congress. Therefore we structure our presentation in order to try

answering these questions.

The first question was: How agro-ecological transition means socio-ecological

linking and cross-scaling?

In our case, the agri-food system transition under food sovereignty paradigm implies

analyzing processes that occur within each agri-food activity linked with the food

sovereignty pillars: right to food, access to resources, agro-ecological production model,

local markets, agri-food policies and social organization. As each pillar has a relation

with one or more activities of agri-food system and as these processes occurs in

different scales and levels (figure 1) we need use a framework, as SES framework, to

make a linking and cross-scaling analysis. Conceptually, the SES framework (Ostrom

2007, 2009) provides a common language and a linguistic structure for classifying

those factors deemed to be important influences on the types of SESs from a system

oriented approach. Methodologically, the SES framework allows us identifying the

boundary and components of SES; and moving across scales and levels to analyze links

2

and cross-scale interactions, e.g. from household/operative decisions to constitutional

rules within institutional scale of agri-food system governance (GS). In Figure 1 we

show the agri-food system conceptualized as SES. We show the scales that are related

with each subsystem of agri-food system, e.g. in agro-ecosystem boundaries (RS) the

process occurs from farm to landscapes levels within spatial scale. In Figure 1 we also

show how food sovereignty pillars, yellow boxes, are related with each subsystem of

agri-food system. Therefore the system-oriented framework analyzes the interactions

that occur between and across scales and levels at which are located the components of

the agri-food system when it is analyzed under food sovereignty paradigm.

Figure 1. Agri-food system as socio-ecological system (SES) using the Ostrom framework (the SES

graphic is adapted from McGinnis 2013)

The second question was: How a balance between development of new capacities

and transformation of current systems can be reached in a resilient way?

In our case, as currently conceptualized, SES framework doesn’t introduce questions

such as resilience of what and for whom, what’s the role of power, culture or

worldviews, and other factors that could affect and determine different transformation

of SES. Therefore, to address some of these gaps, we have proposed integrate the SES

with vulnerability framework (Figure 2).

Vulnerability framework takes into account context-specific characteristics of

sensitivity and capacity to adapt generated and influenced by multiple factors and

process of change. The framework includes the qualitative exploration of the perception

of actors about vulnerability to what, for whom and at which scale; and, the quantitative

assessment of outcomes of interactions of the future agri-food system under different

drivers and likely pathways. Specifically, in Figure 2, we show the system analysis

under two different policy drivers to explore the system transition and development of

adaptive capacities within agri-food system. This integration between the system-

oriented (left side of figure 2) and the actor-oriented frameworks (right side of figure 2)

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allows us analyzing the relations between vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience

as properties of the agri-food systems.

Figure 2. Integrated SES and vulnerability frameworks to assess agri-food systems under different policy

scenarios

In this sense the integrated framework is suitable to our empirical study case in

Ecuadorian Andes. Particularly, the incorporation of the agency and values of agri-food

system is relevant in agri-food research given that different social groups with divergent

interests can be found within our sector of research, e.g. indigenous and mestizos1

groups. At the same time these groups can be organized in comunas (groups of

indigenous people that operate under specifically collective rules) and/or associations of

peasants. Therefore, the incorporation of their perceptions allows addressing the

processes of negotiation, decision making, and action based on the societal goals most

relevant and prioritized by those actors. In our case the future agri-food system is

explored under two policy scenarios (and paradigms): food sovereignty and green

economy. Food sovereignty is a policy proposal legitimated by Ecuadorian Political

Constitution and National Plan for Good Living as a political strategy to achieve the

rural development. But green economy policies as implementation of REED2

mechanism from some state programs (e.g. Socio-bosque program) can also impact

some areas of Ecuadorian Andes. Thus, this case study is very interesting to apply the

integrated framework developed. This framework allows us: i) to change the perspective

of analysis of agri-food systems as SES, ii) make explicit the political paradigm of the

research process; iii) envision possible pathways for transformation and/or enhancing

adaptive capacity through dialogue among researchers and local actors; and, iv) engage

research and different actors to reflect on whose goals for whom?

LITERATURE CITED

McGinnis, M.D. 2013. Updated Guide to IAD and the Language of the Ostrom Workshop: A Simplified

Overview of a Complex Framework for the Analysis of Institutions and their Development.

1 Mestizos is a term used to identify the population formed from the mix of Spanish and indigenous descent. In Ecuador mestizos represent the major population within the country. 2 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.

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Ostrom, E. 2007. A diagnostic approach for going beyond panaceas. Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences. 104(39):15181–15187.

Ostrom, E. 2009. A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.

Science. 325(5939):419–422.

Rivera-Ferre, M. 2012. Framing of Agri‐ food Research Affects the Analysis of Food Security: The

Critical Role of the Social Sciences. International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food.

19(2):162–175.