Agroecology Knowledge Hub

Synergies: building synergies enhances key functions across food systems, supporting production and multiple ecosystem services

Agroecology pays careful attention to the design of diversified systems that selectively combine annual and perennial crops, livestock and aquatic animals, trees, soils, water and other components on farms and agricultural landscapes to enhance synergies in the context of an increasingly changing climate.

Building synergies in food systems delivers multiple benefits. By optimizing biological synergies, agroecological practices enhance ecological functions, leading to greater resource-use efficiency and resilience. For example, globally, biological nitrogen fixation by pulses in intercropping systems or rotations generates close to USD 10 million savings in nitrogen fertilizers every year, while contributing to soil health, climate change mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, about 15 percent of the nitrogen applied to crops comes from livestock manure, highlighting synergies resulting from crop–livestock integration. In Asia, integrated rice systems combine rice cultivation with the generation of other products such as fish, ducks and trees. By maximising synergies, integrated rice systems significantly improve yield, dietary diversity, weed control, soil structure and fertility, as well as providing biodiversity habitat and pest control.

At the landscape level, synchronization of productive activities in time and space is necessary to enhance synergies. Soil erosion control using Calliandra hedgerows is common in integrated agroecological systems in the East African Highlands. In this example, the management practice of periodic pruning reduces tree competition with crops grown between hedgerows and at the same time provides feed for animals, creating synergies between the different components. Pastoralism and extensive livestock grazing systems manage complex interactions between people, multi-species herds and variable environmental conditions, building resilience and contributing to ecosystem services such as seed dispersal, habitat preservation and soil fertility.

While agroecological approaches strive to maximise synergies, trade-offs also occur in natural and human systems. For example, the allocation of resource use or access rights often involve trade-offs. To promote synergies within the wider food system, and best manage trade-offs, agroecology emphasizes the importance of partnerships, cooperation and responsible governance, involving different actors at multiple scales.

Database

Once the scene of devastating droughts in 1984, a few visionaries in Ethiopia have used Agroecological Natural Technology Solutions and Permaculture Design principles to begin bringing areas of arid land back to productivity and ecological balance.
Ethiopia
Video
2012
Biowatch advocates for agroecology as a proven, multi-faceted approach to creating a sustainable, diverse, just food system that applies ecological principles and methods to farming, while addressing wider environmental, economic, social, cultural, and political dimensions in order to transform the industrialised food system.
South Africa
Book
2016
Pollinators are essential for fruit, vegetable, oilseed, and forage production, as well as for the production of seed for many root and fibre crops. In addition to being essential to food security and quality, pollinators contribute to the production of medicines, biofuels (e.g. canola and palm oil), fibres (e.g. cotton...
Policy brief/paper
2022
This article reviews the main initiatives underlying ecologically intensive agroecosystems, analyses basic concepts, and proposes a framework for action. The rainforest model, the dry forest model, and the American Prairie are exemplified as three main natural systems at the basis of the mimicry concept. The link between biodiversity and the...
Journal article
2012
The Map of Agroecology Knowledge and Practice is a technological platform that allows the mapping and exchange of Agroecological experiences in order to bring people (in every nook and cranny, from the countryside to the city), to strengthen, and create new networks of collaboration that enhance the sharing of real...
Website
2019