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Book review: Roger Leakey. Living with the trees of life: Towards the transformation of tropical agriculture
No full textRoger Leakey. Living with the trees of life: Towards the transformation of tropical agriculture. July 2012. CABI, 224 pp. ISBN: 978 1 78064 098 3Agroforestry as a modern science is barely fifty years old. Nevertheless, it has become an integral part of concepts, reports and assessments on the state-of-the-art of rural development.Against this background, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) plays a remarkable role. But when precise concepts, practices and technologies are tracked, one ends up recognizing specific research groups and even individuals as founders and promoters of most of them. This is the case, for instance, in alley cropping or push-pull technologies, developed ad hoc to satisfy specific demands and which have been strongly promoted by identifiable institutions and individuals. In his book ‘Living with trees: towards the transformation of the tropical agriculture’, Roger Leakey renders his personal testimony of agroforestry. He does this from the viewpoint of a student, scientist, scientific leader, and lately as an advocate of agroforestry as a land-use management alternative.In a narrative style, Leakey interlaces cornerstones of his scientific queries with his contributions on agroforestry as a driver and path for rural development. He describes, for instance, how a high diversity of tree seeds in a Cameroonian market indicates the potential of native trees to provide diverse benefits to small households. Later, as the director general of ICRAF, he introduced the idea of the ‘Cinderella’ tree, which led to a worldwide program on participative identification and domestication of indigenous tree species.Through anecdotal causalities, Leakey reveals the manifold character of agroforestry: “(…) is more than just an agronomic practice that restores soil fertility and produces tree products in farmers’ fields. It is also applied ecology or, more accurately, applied agroecology – the ecology of farming systems.” (Leakey 2012: 51). In the context of the current global challenges, he further develops this premise to the concept of multifunctionality, which he understands as the simultaneous provision of diverse goods, services and functions to strengthen the ecological and social sustainability of livelihoods. Furthermore, for the operationalization of farming multifunctionality Leakey proposes the use of systemic insights by acknowledging that the “(…) interconnectedness of agriculture’s different roles and functions in rural development, is a sine qua non” condition to generate and promote sustainable scientific and technological alternatives. This is possible since multifunctionality, by its intrinsic logic, avoids the hampering factors inherent to other approaches by being affordable, socially accepted, environmentally harmless and naturally capable of supporting rehabilitation of water and soils.Leakey supports his thesis with several case studies: Participatory domestication of the galip nut in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, re-introduction of overexploited wild sandalwood species in the Vanuatu archipelago in the South Pacific, and in Australia exploration of bush tucker species together with the aboriginal communities. His flagship experience is the Food for Progress project in Cameroon, which by 2009 included almost 500 villages in active production, use and commercialization of tree local species.However, as is the case with similar technological/paradigmatic proposals, this approach faces inherent constraints. One is the unpredictability resulting from dealing with social-ecological systems and diverse interests that may or may not match the interests and foreseen goals of the stakeholders. This generates diverging and unexpected outcomes. Associated herewith is the tradeoff through optimization of the components’ performance, i.e., which outcome should be privileged and which the guiding criteria? Again, the dilemma between producing more with less against more with more becomes apparent.Strictly speaking, Leakey’s book is not a scientific book. As a prolific scientific author with an extensive bibliography, Leakey does not need to provide methodological and technical arguments to make a point. His style, this time, is rather discursive. He says that scientific research can benefit from participation, scientific findings can achieve developmental goals, and multifunctionality as a production paradigm can facilitate this. But besides scientific training, a sensitive mindset is a fundamental condition to realize these aspects and put them into practice.In short, Leakey’s work is a book that a committed (young) scientist interested in development, but with both feet on the ground, could significantly benefit from
An approach to environmental services assessment: functional biodiversity in tropical agroforestry systems (The case of Tomé-Açú, Northern Brazil)
Full text linkAgriculture is one of the main sources of income in developing countries and at the same time one of the major drivers causing environmental conflicts like loss of biodiversity. Agroforestry, which combines agricultural with forestry components at plot, community and landscape level, through a component-specific management can satisfy a series of multiple demands, among them, biodiversity conservation and in general the provision of environmental services. Since environmental services are proposed as alternative compensation schemes to prevent and remediate negative environmental impacts, incentives that support ecologically sound agricultural management practices are therefore needed. These incentives (e.g., compensation payments) have to be based on an adequate understanding and evaluation of the services provided by the agricultural systems. For this purpose, the concept of biodiversity in land-use systems has been revised. ‘Functional biodiversity’, in contrast to traditional approaches, emphasizes the system’s dynamics at various levels and the implications of these on its functioning as a whole. To operationalize such a concept, an assessment protocol based on multicriteria analysis has been developed. The approach combines productive, ecological and operational indicators to describe functional biodiversity, and aims at the identification of those management decisions and interventions that support this. The suitability of the evaluation protocol was tested with 70 farms in the Brazilian Amazon region divided in three groups, which had been defined based on the time of settlement, property size, technological know-how, organization and access to market, i.e., 'CAMTA partners' long-ago established farmers, 'immigrated' some time ago and recently immigrated farmers 'newcomers'. The analyses reveal that the most relevant factors supporting functional biodiversity in agroforestry systems are: (1) the farmers' technical qualification, (2) their preference for low impact techniques, (3) their capacity to adapt to environmental, social and political changes, (4) the diversification of species composition at plot level, (5) the increase in the use of perennial species; and (6) the financial profitability of the system. Concerning the differences among groups, the ‘CAMTA partners’ farmers are significantly superior to the two other groups only in agricultural practices related to production. As the functional biodiversity concept is based on an integrative approach, its outputs provide a supportive platform for the proposed assessment framework. In turn, the developed protocol can be used to optimize biodiversity roles on farms and support decisions regarding compensation payments. Nevertheless, its further validation, testing and adaptation as a monitoring tool are necessary.Die Bewertung von Umweltserviceleistungen: funktionale Biodiversität in tropischen Agroforstsystemen (Das Beispiel Tomé-Açú, Nordbrasilien) Landwirtschaft ist eine der Haupteinnahmequellen in den Entwicklungsländern und gleichzeitig einer der größten Verursacher von Umweltkonflikten wie z. B. Biodiversitätsverlust. Agroforstwirtschaft, die landwirtschaftliche und forstliche Komponenten auf Feld-, Gemeinde- und Landschaftsebene verbindet, kann durch flächenspezifisches Management vielfältige Anforderungen erfüllen, unter anderem den Erhalt von Biodiversität und ganz allgemein die Bereitstellung von Umweltdienstleistungen. Da Umweltdienstleistungen dazu beitragen können, Umweltprobleme zu verhindern oder zu lösen, sind Anreize notwendig, die ein ökologisch sinnvolles Landmanagement unterstützen. Diese Anreize (z.B. Ausgleichszahlungen) müssen sich auf eine fundierte Kenntnis und auf die Bewertung der Umweltleistungen von Landnutzungssystemen stützen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde ein Konzept erarbeitet, das auf der funktionellen Rolle der Biodiversität in Landnutzungssystemen basiert. ‘Funktionelle Biodiversität’, im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Ansätzen, betrachtet auf verschiedenen Ebenen die Dynamik des Systems sowie deren Auswirkungen auf das Funktionieren des Systems als Ganzes. Als wesentlicher Bestandteil des Konzeptes wurde auf der Grundlage einer 'Multicriteria Analysis' ein Bewertungsprotokoll entwickelt. Dieser Ansatz verbindet produktive, ökologische und operationale Indikatoren mit dem Ziel, funktionelle Biodiversität zu beschreiben und Managemententscheidungen und -eingriffe zu ermitteln, die diese unterstützen. Die Eignung des Bewertungsprotokolls wurde auf 70 Farmen in der brasilianischen Amazonasregion überprüft. Die Farmen wurden in folgende drei Gruppen eingeteilt: (1) Zeitpunkt der Niederlassung des Farmers, (2) Größe der Farm, und (3) technologisches Know-how, Organisation und Zugang zum Markt. Die untersuchten Farmen gehörten Farmern, die sich (1) vor Jahrzehnten ('CAMTA Partner'), (2) vor längerem ('immigrated'), und (3) vor kurzem niedergelassen hatten ('newcomers'). Die Analysen ergaben, dass (1) die technische Qualifikation der Farmer, (2) minimale Bodenbearbeitung, (3) die Fähigkeit der Farmer, sich an ökologische, gesellschaftliche und politische Veränderungen anzupassen, (4) die Artendiversifizierung auf der Fläche, (5) der verstärkte Einsatz von mehrjährigen Arten, und (6) die Wirtschaftlichkeit des Systems zur Aufrechterhaltung der funktionellen Biodiversität in agroforstlichen Systemen beitragen. Hinsichtlich-- der Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen, heben sich die lang etablierten Farmer ('CAMTA Partner') signifikant von den anderen beiden Gruppen nur in den produktionsspezifischen landwirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten ab. Da das Konzept der funktionellen Biodiversität auf einem integrativen Ansatz beruht, liefern die Ergebnisse eine Grundlage für den vorgeschlagenen Bewertungsrahmen. Das entwickelte Protokoll kann zur Optimierung der Rolle der Biodiversität auf der Farm und als Entscheidungshilfe hinsichtlich Ausgleichszahlungen eingesetzt werden. Weitere Validierungen und Anpassungen als Monitoringinstrument sind notwendig
Book Review: An Introduction to Agroforestry: Four Decades of Scientific Developments.2022. P.K. Ramachandran Nair, B. Mohan Kumar and Vimala D. Nair. Springer International Publishing. 666 p. ISBN: 3030753573, 9783030753573
No full textApproaches to managing disturbance and change: Resilience, vulnerability and adaptability
Full text linkThe concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptability have been used for a long time by several disciplines in relation to the characteristics of a system regarding its ability to react to a changing surrounding. Studies on the ecological resilience of species and ecosystems or on the socio-economic vulnerability of populations are not infrequent, on the contrary, they are well-established in research and scientific communities. Nevertheless, since these concepts were first applied in interdisciplinary research a few years ago, they have gained great popularity, become widely utilized, and are often considered as surrogates of sustainable behaviour, based on the understanding that a highly resilient, little vulnerable and very adaptable system would then be likely able to last longer performing the expected roles. This rapid expansion created several other needs, such as methods for classification, evaluation and analysis, implementation guidelines, etc. In practice, this led to a large and diverse set of definitions and methodological tools with a large degree of overlapping, and often a limited capacity to address the questions inherent to these systems. The purpose of this working paper is therefore to compile and structure the concepts, operational tools and premises of implementation of the main concepts that address disturbance and change, i.e., resilience, vulnerability and adaptability, in the interdisciplinary scientific arena. Although focused on concepts, the basis of this working paper is operational. The 'know-how' is highlighted in order to extract from the review criteria to develop and promote sustainability in practice. Hence, the concepts described are illustrated utilizing relevant examples in general scientific case studies
A participatory framework to assess multifunctional land-use systems with multicriteria and multivariate analyses: A case study on agrobiodiversity of agroforestry systems in Tomé Açú, Brazil
No full textIn a participatory framework, the
multifunctionality of agroforestry systems was assessed
by applying multicriteria and multivariate analyses to
identify ecological, agronomic and administrative proxies
and integrate these into factors, and evaluate their effects
on system performance. The assessment framework was
tested in 70 farms in the municipality of Tomé-Açú in the
Brazilian Amazon, an area well known for its long-standing
practice of agroforestry. The overall goal was to identify
management decisions that ensure sustainable production
of goods together with the provision of ecosystem services,
with special emphasis on agrobiodiversity. Three groups
of farmers were considered based on their period of
settlement, property size, technological know-how,
organization and access to the market. The results show
that the determinant factors of multifunctional farming
are the farmers’ technical qualification, good adaptability,
environmental commitment and the search for financial
profitability. However, the optimization of these factors
leads to trade-offs such as a decrease in biomass and woody
species diversity and the decline of by-product production.
By considering stakeholders’ opinions and being adaptable
to various demands, the proposed framework enhances the
legitimacy of the results, and supports both the assessment
of complex issues and decision-making
Using the Concepts of Resilience, Vulnerability and Adaptability for the Assessment and Analysis of Agricultural Systems
No full textResilience, vulnerability and adaptability have emerged as dominant concepts in the study of disturbance and change of social-ecological systems. We analyze the conceptual, methodological and operational aspects in using these concepts for the assessment and analysis of agricultural systems and try to identify differences and possible overlaps between them. The analysis is performed considering a number of published studies on agricultural systems over a wide geographical range where these concepts have been applied. Our results show a clear conceptual overlap and often the exchangeable use of the concepts. Furthermore, the driving methodological and operational criteria for their application could not be separated unambiguously. It was, thus, difficult to identify guiding principles for the operational application of the individual concepts. We stress that the operationalization of these concepts requires consistency in the approaches and protocols to ensure their coherent use. We also argue that the conceptual and operational integration of resilience, vulnerability and adaptability would perhaps lead to a more complete portrayal of the behavior of agricultural systems in changing situations. But this requires more research including the development of operational protocols for which the premises of complexity, participation and functionality seem key
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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