Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:02:11.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The farmer as conservationist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

Catherine Badgley
Catherine Badgley
Affiliation:
Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. MI 48109–1079, USA ([email protected]).
Get access

Abstract

Agricultural landscapes are essential for preserving biodiversity, even though agricultural activities are the leading cause of habitat degradation worldwide. About half of the Earth's productive land area is farmed or grazed, whereas only about 6% of the total land area is protected for native species and ecosystems. The ecological services of healthy ecosystems are fundamental to agriculture, and these services depend upon a large number of species interacting with each other and with inorganic nutrient cycles. Likewise, the quality of ecosystems between reserves is critical to the persistence of species and ecological processes within reserves. Thus, conservation-oriented farming methods are critically important for both agriculture and biodiversity. Three examples illustrate agricultural practices that benefit the farmers, the local ecosystem and the landscape: (1) In Minnesota, rotational grazing, evaluated by the collaborative research of farmers and scientists, improved soil, pasture and stream quality, and boosted the confidence of the farmers in developing more sustainable grazing practices. (2) Predator-friendly ranching in Montana, in which nonlethal methods are used to protect livestock from depredation by native predators, benefited the ranchers with premium prices for wool and meat. The persistence of native predators, many of which have been on endangered species lists for years, benefited the regional ecosystem. (3) Shade-grown coffee in Latin America, in which coffee shrubs grow under an intact forest canopy, often looks and behaves ecologically like native forest and may house high levels of native biodiversity. This system benefited farmers, as long as they received a price premium for shade-grown coffee. The economic viability of these conservation-oriented practices depends upon farmers receiving price premiums for their products and by society rewarding fanners for their practices. A vision of ecological farming as the dominant form of agriculture is presented, with benefits at the scale of the farm, the landscape and society.

Keywords

ecological agriculturebiodiversityconservation
Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of Alternative Agriculture , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 206 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Badgley, C. 2002. Can agriculture and biodiversity coexist? In Kimbrell, A. (ed.). Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press, Washington, DC. p. 279–284.Google Scholar
Berry, W. 2002. Hope. In Kimbrell, A. (ed.). Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press, Washington, DC. p. 373–374.Google Scholar
Daily, G.C. (ed.) 1997. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Daily, G.C., Alexander, S., Ehrlich, P.R., Goulder, L., Lubchenco, J., Matson, P.A., Mooney, H.A., Postel, S., Schneider, S.H., Tilman, D., and Woodwell, G.M. 1997. Ecosystem services: benefits supplied to human societies by natural ecosystems. Issues in Ecology, No. 2, Ecological Society of America. Available at web site http://www.esa.org/ejissues/daily.pdf (verified June 2003).Google Scholar
DeVore, B. 2002. When farmers shut off the machinery. In Jackson, D.L. and Jackson, L.L. (eds). The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC. p. 83–95.Google Scholar
Flader, S.L., and Callicott, J.B. 1991. The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Gilpin, M.E. and Soulé, M.E. 1986. Minimum viable populations: processes of species extinction. In Soulé, M.E. (ed.). Conservation Biology. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. p. 19–34.Google Scholar
Gliessman, S.R. 1998. Agroecology: Ecological Processes in Sustainable Agriculture. Ann Arbor Press, Chelsea, MI.Google Scholar
Greenberg, R., Bichier, P., and Cruz, A.A. 2000. The impact of avian insectivory on arthropods and leaf damage in some Guatemalan coffee plantations. Ecology 81:1750–1755.Google Scholar
Hanski, I. and Simberloff, D. 1997. The metapopulation approach, its history, conceptual domain and application to conservation. In Hanski, I.A. and Gilpin, M.E. (eds). Metapopulation Biology. Academic Press, San Diego, p. 5–26.Google Scholar
Hawken, P., Lovins, A., and Lovins, L.H. 1999. Natural Capitalism. Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Imhoff, D. 2001. Eco-labeling and other initiatives to advance wild farming. Wild Earth, Summer:57–59.Google Scholar
Jackson, D.L. and Jackson, L.L. (eds) 2002. The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Jackson, W. 2002. Natural systems agriculture: A truly radical alternative. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 88:111–117.Google Scholar
Jacobs, L. 1992. Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching. Lynn Jacobs Publishing, Tucson, AZ.Google Scholar
Kimbrell, A. (ed.) 2002. Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Leopold, A. 1991. The farmer as a conservationist. In Flader, S.L. and Callicott, J.B. (eds). The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. p. 255–265.Google Scholar
MacKay, P. 2001. Farming with the wild: Reconnecting food systems with ecosystems. Wild Earth, Summer:52–56.Google Scholar
McKenney, J. 2002. Artificial fertility. In Kimbrell, A. (ed.). The Fatal Harvest Reader. Island Press, Washington, DC. p. 121–129.Google Scholar
Miller, K., Chang, E. and Johnson, N. 2001. Defining common ground for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Mollison, B. 1988. Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Tagari Publications, Tyalgum, New South Wales, Australia.Google Scholar
Nerbonne, J.F. and Lentz, R. 2003. Rooted in grass: Challenging patterns of knowledge exchange as a means of fostering social change in a southeast Minnesota farm community. Agriculture and Human Values 20:65–78.Google Scholar
Oxfam. 2001. Bitter coffee: How the poor are paying for the slump in coffee prices. Oxfam Background Briefing, 05 2001. Available at Web site www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/coffee/coffee.htm (verified June 2003).Google Scholar
Perfecto, I. and Ambrecht, I. 2002. The coffee agroecosystem in the Neotropics: combining ecological and economic goals. In Vandermeer, J.H. (ed.). Tropical Agroecosystems. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. p. 159–194.Google Scholar
Pimentel, D., Harvey, C., Resosudarmo, P., Sinclair, K., Kunz, D., McNair, M., Crist, S., Shpritz, L., Fitton, L., Saffouri, R., and Blair, R. 1995. Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits. Science 267:1117–1123.Google Scholar
Piper, J.K. 1998. Growth and seed yield of three perennial grains within monocultures and mixed stands. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 68:1–11.Google Scholar
Piper, J.K., Handley, M. and Kulakow, P. 1996. Incidence and severity of viral disease symptoms on eastern gamagrass within monoculture and polycultures. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 59:139–147.Google Scholar
Pretty, J. 2002. Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land, and Nature. Earthscan Publications, London, UK.Google Scholar
Savory, A. 1988. Holistic Resource Management. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Soule, J.D. and Piper, J.K. 1992. Farming in Nature's Image. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stein, B.A., Kutner, L.S. and Adams, J.S. (eds) 2000. Precious Heritage: The Status of Biodiversity in the United States. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
Terborgh, J., Estes, J., Paquet, P., Ralls, K., Boyd-Heger, D., Miller, B., and Noss, R. 1999. The role of top carnivores in regulating terrestrial ecosystems. Wild Earth, Summer:42–56.Google Scholar
Trewavas, A. 2002. Malthus foiled again and again. Nature 418:668–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, World Bank, World Resources Institute. 2000. World Resources 2000–2001. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. Available at Web site http://earthtrends.wri.org/datatables/ (verified June 2003).Google Scholar
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). 1999. America's Private Land, A Geography of Hope. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Vandermeer, J. and Caraval, R. 2001. Metapopulation dynamics and the quality of the matrix. American Naturalist 158:211–220.Google Scholar
Wackernagel, M. and Rees, W.E. 1996. Our Ecological Footprint. New Society Publishers, Gabriela Island, British Columbia.Google Scholar
Weed, B. 1999. Predator friendly ranching: Learning to co-exist with native species. The Home Range (Predator Conservation Alliance), Summer: 18–19.Google Scholar
Wuerthner, G. and Mattheson, M. (eds) 2002. Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar