Agroecosystem Health
dwaltner-to@ovcnet.uoguelph.ca
Tue, 31 Jan 95 13:55:59 EST
Re: John Ikerd's paper on Sustainable agriculture. One of the best reviews of
why has been meant in the literature by sustainable agriculture is by Smit &
Smithers, "Sustainable agriculture: interpretations, analyses and prospects"
in the Canadian Journal of Regional Science, Autumn, 1993. It clarifies a lot
of the different scales of interest (fields, farms, regions, etc) and how
they interact with outcomes of interest (food sufficiency, environmental
stewardsip etc) to produce different definitions. In a major research project
at the University of Guelph, we have taken a different tactic. We can speak
of the health of animals, and of farms... why not of agroecosystems,
including all their ecological and socio-economic interacting parts? We are
in the process of characterizing the hierarchical, complex nature of
agroecosystems and how one might characterize their health, including work by
economists, sociologists, ecologists, crop scientists, health scientists,
philosophers (since health includes value judgements) etc. Longevity, or
sustainability, is a secondary by-product. The fact that we are healthy means
that we have the capacity to live long, but does not guarantee it. In the
same way, at farm, community, bioregional, national and global levels we want
to retain the capacity to live as well as we can. We also want to sustain
that capacity. We also had an international workshop on the topic of
Agroecosystem Health in Ottawa last June; limited nos. of proceedings are
available. For more information, contact the Project Manager, Agroecosystem
Health Project, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Blackwood Hall, University
of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canad N1G 2W1.