Panarchy rules: rethinking resilience of agroecosystems, evidence from Dutch dairy-farming

Resilience has been growing in importance as a perspective for governing social-ecological systems. The aim of this paper is first to analyze a well-studied human dominated agroecosystem using five existing key heuristics of the resilience perspective and second to discuss the consequences of using this resilience perspective for the future management of similar human dominated agroecosystems. The human dominated agroecosystem is located in the Dutch Northern Frisian Woodlands where cooperatives of dairy farmers have been attempting to organize a transition toward more viable and environmental friendly agrosystems. A mobilizing element in the cooperatives was the ability of some dairy farmers to obtain high herbage and milk yield production with limited nitrogen fertilizer input. A set of reinforcing measures was hypothesized to rebalance nitrogen flows and to set a new equilibrium. A dynamic farm model was used to evaluate the long-term effects of reinforcing measures on soil organic matter content, which was considered the key indicator of an alternative system state. Simulations show that no alternative stable state for soil organic matter exists within a plausible range of fertilizer applications. The observed differences in soil organic matter content and nutrient use efficiency probably represent a time lag of long-term nonequilibrium system development. The resilience perspective proved to be especially insightful in addressing interacting long-term developments expressed in the panarchy. Panarchy created a heterogeneity of resources in the landscape providing local landscape-embedded opportunities for high N-efficiencies. Stopping the practice of grassland renewal will allow this ecological landscape embedded system to mature. In contrast, modern conventional dairy farms shortcut the adaptive cycle by frequent grassland renewals, resulting in high resilience and adaptability. This comes at the cost of long-term accumulated ecological capital of soil organic matter and transformability, thus reinforcing the incremental adaptation trap. Analysis of such a human dominated agroecosystem reveals that rather than alternative states, an alternative set of relationships within a multiscale setting applies, indicating the importance for embedding panarchy in the analysis of sustainable development goals in agroecosystem

Panarchy rules? : rethinking resilience of agroecosystems

This thesis explores the applicability of the resilience perspective on agro-ecosystems dynamics. It start out by using the five heuristics of the resilience perspective on intensive agricultural systems. Simulations with a dynamic farm model suggest that conventional farming short cuts the adaptive cycle leading to an ‘incremental adaptation’ trap. Panarchy is therefore claimed as a leading heuristic to understand long-term dynamics and current management characteristics. This interaction of long-term dynamics with current management leads to an asymmetry in the landscape. This asymmetry leads to windows of opportunities for farmers. However, disregarding the cross-scale nature of the asymmetry might also lead to a cascade of events that undermine the resilience of the landscape as whole. The cross-scale interactions of landscape dynamics and farm management suggest a co-evolution of production intensity and landscape pattern. Moreover trajectories of intensification might even be linked to certain tipping points of combinations of landscape characteristics and management. Therefore the landscape asymmetry might yield insight in agro-ecosystem functioning. The landscape asymmetry potentially provides a level of self-organisation above the farm. However, identifying the asymmetry appeared to be problematic. Next to scale issues, the current pattern does not necessary result from current management, leading to a de-coupling of pattern and process. A re-coupling of management and landscape asymmetry can exploit positive feedbacks. I suggest the use of identity to locate asymmetries and to use space-time substitutions to experiment with the typical slow variables that shape the asymmetry. The theory developed in this thesis is grounded on empirical farm management data and dynamical model simulation of intensive dairy farming in the Netherlands and small-holder systems in Zimbabwe.</p

Final report TransForum WP-046 : images of sustainable development of Dutch agriculture and green space

In the project “Images of sustainable development of Dutch agriculture and green space” three PhD candidates studied the topic of images in sustainable development. Frans Hermans focused on the topic of societal images and their role and influence in innovation projects. The title of his subproject was “Social learning for sustainability in dynamic agricultural innovation networks.” Joost Vervoort explored the topic of “visualisation”, that is, using and producing images for specific purposes, in the context of innovation projects and programmes, in a subproject called “Step into the system: interactive media strategies for the exchange of insights on social-ecological change.” Finally, Dirk van Apeldoorn took a complex adaptive systems approach to images. He modelled various agro-ecosystems to compare images of those systems with the behaviour of those systems. His subproject was called “Modeling resilience of agro-ecosystems.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of soil phosphorus and crop uptake in global cropland during the 20th century

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