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Agroecological Principles from a Bibliographic Analysis of the Term Agroecology

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Sustainable Agriculture Reviews

Part of the book series: Sustainable Agriculture Reviews ((SARV,volume 19))

Abstract

Agricultural developments over the previous half-century have highly increased food, feed and fiber production. Yet, global food output and distribution still falls short of feeding the world with unintended harm to the environment and society. Agriculture requires new approaches that meet the challenges of sustainable and equitable food production. One prevailing alternative, agroecology, is an approach that promotes environmental conservation, ecosystem health and social equality in the global food system. However, the field of agroecology remains disjointed by a number of working definitions and conflicting agendas. Lack of a clear definition of the term can lead to misuse or overgeneralization that hinders effective dialog, collaboration, and development of the discipline.

We conducted a literature review to determine trends in current usage of the term ‘agroecology’ and to offer an approach to developing a unified agroecological framework. Our findings suggests that diverse agendas in agroecology can be unified through the fundamental principles of systems thinking, resilience, biodiversity, and production. We found that the agroecological literature continues to grow at a rapid rate. Agroecological practices are discussed more often than principles, though almost half of publications already use the term systems approach. Biodiversity and resilience are not as well represented in the literature, though resilience is increasingly used in recent papers. The diverse perspectives and agendas encompassed by agroecology are a strength of the discipline when communicated within a clear and open dialog. Improving cohesion among agroecologists through a focus on defining foundational principles will broaden the credibility of agroecology in science and public opinion.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the USU agroecology discussion group for stimulating discussion and the conception of ideas presented in this paper and to M. Brym, J. Vandermeer, and a number of anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments regarding earlier versions of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5305 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322, USA

    Zachary T. Brym

  2. Plants, Soils and Climate Department, Utah State University, 4820 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322, USA

    Jennifer R. Reeve

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  1. Zachary T. Brym
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Correspondence to Zachary T. Brym .

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  1. INRA, Dijon, France

    Eric Lichtfouse

Supplementary Tables

Supplementary Tables

Table S1 Top ten citations for the search term ‘agroecology’ OR ‘agroecological’
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Table S2 Top ten citations for the search term ‘principle’
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Table S3 Top ten citations for the search term ‘practice’
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Table S4 Top ten citations for the search term ‘research’
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Table S5 Top ten citations for the search term ‘d esign’
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Table S6 Top ten citations for the search term ‘movement’
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Table S7 Top ten citations for the search term ‘ systems’
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Table S8 Top ten citations for the search term ‘biodiversity’
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Table S9 Top ten citations for the search term ‘resilience’
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Brym, Z.T., Reeve, J.R. (2016). Agroecological Principles from a Bibliographic Analysis of the Term Agroecology. In: Lichtfouse, E. (eds) Sustainable Agriculture Reviews. Sustainable Agriculture Reviews, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26777-7_5

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