sustainability-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Sustainable Farm Systems: Transitions in Agrarian Metabolism in the Past and Learning for the Future

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2019) | Viewed by 22021

Special Issue Editor

Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Santiago de Compostela University, Avda. do Burgo das Nacións, s/n. Campus Norte, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: social metabolism; environmental history; rural history; agroecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue is to contribute to understanding the process of transition from organic agrarian systems to the industrial agriculture now prevalent in much of the world. This process took place during the past three centuries in most currently-affluent countries, and is much more recently or still taking place in some areas of the Global South. Explanations and comparative analysis of these processes from a socio-ecological standpoint may bring useful knowledge to carry out the conversion to more sustainable agricultural systems in the twenty-first century. This Special Issue will explore patterns of sustainability and unsustainability in farm systems change across the world. Sustainability of agricultural systems depends on creative and adaptive responses to continuing challenges, including ecological, social and economic problems. In order to understand these responses we need more research from rural and environmental history as well as from an agroecological standpoint. Especially relevant are analyses on drivers of these transitions, and their role in setting different geographical and chronological trajectories. Recent challenges on new transition processes to a more sustainable agriculture are also relevant, and should be integrated with the historical knowledge on sustainability changes in agriculture.

Therefore, this Special Issue seeks contributions on past and present Sustainable Farms Systems. In particular, we encourage submissions of research contributions, case studies, and review articles related but not limited to:

  • Long-term historical processes of socio-ecological change in agricultural systems
  • Analysis of the main driving forces at stake, relating the use of energy, nutrients, water and other biophysical materials with the prevailing land-use management
  • Assessment of the environmental impact of land-use and land cover changes, especially from the standpoint of agro-diversity, biodiversity and resilience of cultural landscapes
  • Fund-flow biophysical analysis applied to agricultural systems
  • Reconstructing past and present land-uses by GIS digital maps
  • Identifying biocultural heritages of past ingenious farm systems and landscapes
  • Links between biophysical sustainability and inequality in agricultural systems, (social, gender, racial and other types of inequality) including studies on demography, landownership and tenure, common lands, inequality in access of natural resources, economic activity, collective action or public policies

Dr. David Soto Fernandez
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • environmental history
  • agroecology
  • agrarian metabolism
  • socio-ecological transitions
  • land uses

Published Papers (5 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

23 pages, 1868 KiB  
Article
The Contribution of Traditional Meat Goat Farming Systems to Human Wellbeing and Its Importance for the Sustainability of This Livestock Subsector
by Eduardo Morales-Jerrett, Juan Manuel Mancilla-Leytón, Manuel Delgado-Pertíñez and Yolanda Mena
Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 1181; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031181 - 06 Feb 2020
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4206
Abstract
Traditional meat goat farming systems are characterized by rearing autochthonous breeds and using natural resources through grazing, often within protected natural areas. In a context of reduction of the number of farms, due to the low income derived from the sale of kids, [...] Read more.
Traditional meat goat farming systems are characterized by rearing autochthonous breeds and using natural resources through grazing, often within protected natural areas. In a context of reduction of the number of farms, due to the low income derived from the sale of kids, the role of those systems as suppliers of presently non-remunerated ecosystem services becomes more relevant. The objective of this article is to analyze the current situation of those systems, focusing on their connection with human wellbeing, and to formulate proposals that can contribute to guaranteeing their profitability and continuity. A technical-economic and environmental study of a sample of farms and an analysis of the limiting factors affecting the subsector were carried out. As a result, a set of multifactorial problems was identified, with the lack of acknowledgement and remuneration of some services—mainly environmental and cultural—provided by those systems and the low selling price of kids standing as the main threats. The consideration of meat goat farms as “producers of meat of high functional quality and providers of ecosystem services”, which should be properly quantified and remunerated, would contribute to their preservation and guarantee the provision of benefits associated with the activity. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 2124 KiB  
Article
Agricultural Transformations in the Southern Cone of Latin America: Agricultural Intensification and Decrease of the Aboveground Net Primary Production, Uruguay’s Case
by Inés Gazzano, Marcel Achkar and Ismael Díaz
Sustainability 2019, 11(24), 7011; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247011 - 08 Dec 2019
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4630
Abstract
The agri-exporting enclaves of the current corporate food regime intensively exploit natural assets in global strategies that govern the local processes. Their multidimensional impacts contribute to the environmental and civilizational crisis. Linked to the agrarian metabolism in its appropriation phase, land use has [...] Read more.
The agri-exporting enclaves of the current corporate food regime intensively exploit natural assets in global strategies that govern the local processes. Their multidimensional impacts contribute to the environmental and civilizational crisis. Linked to the agrarian metabolism in its appropriation phase, land use has impacts on local systems. To understand this process, it is necessary to identify the systemic and spatial expression of environmental transformation. The objective of this work was to analyze the dynamic adjustment of aboveground net primary production (ANPP) to agricultural intensification between the years 2000 and 2017, using a land use intensity index and the soils’ productive potential. Agricultural expansion and consolidation are observed, as well as the significant intensification throughout the period in 65% of the country’s area—with differences between regions—associated with soil types. ANPP is higher in areas of low land use intensity and lower in high intensity areas, varying from high to low in soils with low to high productive potential, respectively, and growing throughout the period—depending on the area, with less growth in areas of greater intensity. The appropriation of edaphic wealth puts the systemic functionality at risk and challenges these transforming dynamics, with a strong impact on southern systems. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 1974 KiB  
Article
Sustainability Assessment of a Qingyuan Mushroom Culture System Based on Emergy
by Xingguo Gu, Qixian Lai, Moucheng Liu, Ziqun He, Qingyang Zhang and Qingwen Min
Sustainability 2019, 11(18), 4863; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184863 - 05 Sep 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3488
Abstract
The Qingyuan mushroom culture system (QMCS) in Zhejiang Province has been recognized as the source of the world’s first artificial cultivation of mushrooms with a history of more than 800 years. The system embodies the farming wisdom of the local people who have [...] Read more.
The Qingyuan mushroom culture system (QMCS) in Zhejiang Province has been recognized as the source of the world’s first artificial cultivation of mushrooms with a history of more than 800 years. The system embodies the farming wisdom of the local people who have adapted themselves to and utilized nature and has integrated the traditional bark hacking method with multiple modern patterns for mushroom cultivation based on artificial microbial strains. We have investigated the input–output operation of farmers and assessed and analyzed emergy indicators in a bid to reflect and compare their economic and ecological benefits, as well as their sustainable development by analyzing the three typical mushroom cultivation patterns. The cost-benefit analysis of the three patterns shows that the sawdust medium-cultivated method (SMCM) is characterized by dominance in both net income without labor cost and labor productivity; while the evaluation based on emergy indicators has proven that each has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of ecological and economic benefits and sustainable development. Among them, the bark hacking method (BHM) features the highest utilization rates of local and renewable resources, the smallest damage to the environment, the lowest production efficiency, and the highest exchange efficiency, but the sawdust medium-cultivated method is just the opposite, and the log-cultivated method (LCM) is the most favorable one for sustainable development. As its agricultural heritage, the QMCS’ core of dynamic protection and adaptive management lies in enhancing the sustainable development of its agricultural production methods. It is recommended that the three patterns be improved by targeting their respective shortcomings and at the same time, integrate their advantages to explore a new sustainable development pattern for mushroom cultivation. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 2804 KiB  
Article
Biocultural Heritages in Mallorca: Explaining the Resilience of Peasant Landscapes within a Mediterranean Tourist Hotspot, 1870–2016
by Ivan Murray, Gabriel Jover-Avellà, Onofre Fullana and Enric Tello
Sustainability 2019, 11(7), 1926; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11071926 - 01 Apr 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5591
Abstract
Mallorca keeps an age-old biocultural heritage embodied in their appealing landscapes, largely exploited as an intangible tourist asset. Although hotel and real estate investors ignore or despise the peasant families who still persevere in farming amidst this worldwide-known tourist hotspot, the Balearic Autonomous [...] Read more.
Mallorca keeps an age-old biocultural heritage embodied in their appealing landscapes, largely exploited as an intangible tourist asset. Although hotel and real estate investors ignore or despise the peasant families who still persevere in farming amidst this worldwide-known tourist hotspot, the Balearic Autonomous Government has recently started a pay-for-ecosystem-services scheme based on the tourist eco-tax collection that offers grants to farmers that keep the Majorcan cultural landscapes alive, while a growing number of them have turned organic. How has this peasant heritage survived within such a global tourist capitalist economy? We answer this question by explaining the socio-ecological transition experienced from the failure of agrarian capitalism in the island, and the ensuing peasantization process during the first half of the 20th century through a local banking-driven and market-oriented land reform. Then, the early tourist specialization during the second half of the 20th century and the spatial concentration of the Green Revolution only in certain areas of the island meant a deep marginalization of peasant farming. Ironically, only a smallholder peasantry could keep cultivating these sustenance-oriented marginal areas where traditional farming was partially maintained and is currently being reinvigorated by turning organic. Now the preservation of these biocultural landscapes, and the keeping of the ecosystem services it provides to Majorcan society, requires keeping this peasantry alive. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 1301 KiB  
Article
Modern Wheat Varieties as a Driver of the Degradation of Spanish Rainfed Mediterranean Agroecosystems throughout the 20th Century
by Guiomar Carranza-Gallego, Gloria Isabel Guzmán, David Soto, Eduardo Aguilera, Inma Villa, Juan Infante-Amate, Antonio Herrera and Manuel González de Molina
Sustainability 2018, 10(10), 3724; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103724 - 16 Oct 2018
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3763
Abstract
The high grain yield of modern varieties (MV) respond to the increase in fossil-based inputs, and the widespread belief that they are more productive than old varieties (OV) is biased. This belief focuses only on marketable biomass, without considering the consequences on agroecosystem [...] Read more.
The high grain yield of modern varieties (MV) respond to the increase in fossil-based inputs, and the widespread belief that they are more productive than old varieties (OV) is biased. This belief focuses only on marketable biomass, without considering the consequences on agroecosystem sustainability of the reductions in other portions of NPP. Additionally, field comparisons of OV and MV were normally conducted under industrialized farming conditions, which is detrimental for OV performance. Both trials carried out in this study comparing wheat OV and MV show that, under Mediterranean rainfed conditions and traditional organic management, aerial and belowground biomass production of OV is higher than that of MV, without significantly decreasing yield and enabling a better competition against weeds. From the data of our trials, bibliographic review and information from historical sources, we have reconstructed the NPP and destinations of biomass of Spanish wheat fields (1900–2000). Varietal replacement entailed the reduction in residues and unharvested biomass (UhB), which involved soil degradation in rainfed cereal fields and undermining heterotrophic trophic webs. Our results suggest that OV can increase the sustainability of rainfed Mediterranean agroecosystems at present through the improvement of soil quality, the reduction of herbicides use, and the recovery of biodiversity. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop