Practices and Policies for More Resilient and Sustainable Agricultural and Agri-Food Systems

Dear Colleagues,

The coming decades will present a major challenge for humanity (FAO, 2018, 2021). Managing soil, water, energy and food procurement to feed the present and future population, while preserving agroecosystems and environment health, will call for our utmost ingenuity and wisdom. Such enterprise requires, on the one hand, adopting more sustainable farming practices (e.g., moving towards an extensive adoption of the agroecological approach) and, on the other hand, reframing the functioning of food systems and our food habits (e.g., reducing food waste, limiting the consumption of animal products, and rethinking agro-energy policies).

The process of industrialization and intensification of agriculture, while succeeding in boosting crop yield and livestock production, has traded success in terms of productivity by posing a heavy burden on the use of resources as well as agroecosystems and environmental sustainability. Such processes also created conflicts among agri-food system stakeholders (e.g., the unequal distribution of power among the stakeholders of the agri-food system).

In the long term, such “success” is threatening to the health of our support system—the soil (FAO, 2015; Gomiero, 2016)—while present farming practices may be unable to respond to and cope with the new challenges (e.g., climate change). Foley et al. (2005, pp. 570-571) argued that “In short, modern agricultural land use practices may be trading short-term increases in food production for long-term losses, in ecosystem services, including many that are important to agriculture”.

The rising use of agrochemicals and antibiotics is an emerging threat to human health (e.g., the pesticide treadmill and antibiotic resistance) (Tang et al., 2017; Kirchhelle, 2018; Möhring, et al., 2020; Rani et al., 2021; WHO, 2021). Paradoxically, it has been reported that increasing agrochemical applications may not lead to higher productivity, but rather to a greater cost for farmers and a higher environmental impact (Lechenet et al., 2017).

In order to sustain food production in the long term (also considering the effect of climate change), it is necessary to adopt more resilient agricultural practices that are able to preserve, maintain and build soil, crop health, biodiversity and environmental services (Altieri, 1987; Gliessman, 2007; Pretty, 2008; Foley et al., 2011; Peshin and Pimentel, 2014; FAO, 2018, 2021). In a recent lecture, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu (Qu, 2021) argued for the need for a holistic redesign of the world's agri-food systems, which, by adopting "system thinking", should improve production, nutrition, the environment and people’s lives.

Sustainable agricultural practices should aim to improve soil heath and agricultural system resilience, reducing yield loss, and, concurrently, the impact of farming practices on the environment (preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services), while also addressing human health issues (e.g., reducing the use of agrochemicals and antibiotics). A number of farming practices have already addressed such issues (e.g., minimum tillage, conservation agriculture, agroecology, integrated pest management, organic agriculture, perennial crops, agroforestry, and precision agriculture).

Research is needed to explore the potential and limitations of low-impact agroecological practices, in order to both further improve their performance and gain better insights concerning the potential limitations and drawbacks to the adoption and sustenance of societal metabolism (e.g., barriers for farmer adoption, impact on food supply and on the cost of produce, and novel critical issues).

Farming practices do not exist in a void, but are strongly determined by local and global environmental and socioeconomic contexts. How such a context may prevent (e.g., resources available, preservation of the status quo, risk perception, and inadequate policy) or spawn (e.g., social pressure, changes in food habits, and adequate policy) changes has a profound impact on the actual farming practices implemented by farmers. That is why a robust discourse concerning agricultural sustainability requires the functioning of the whole agri-food system to be addressed in biophysical, socio-economic and cultural terms (Smil, 2000, 2013; Conway, 2012; Giampietro, 2004; Pimentel and Pimentel, 2008; Lang et al., 2009; Robinson and Carson, 2015; Howard, 2016; FAO, 2018). For example, in the U.S.A., GM crops are widely cultivated; food waste is estimated at between 30 and 40 percent of the food supply the agri-food chain; and agriculture production is so high that the main problem for U.S. agriculture has always been that of the disposal of the surplus (e.g., 30–40% of soybean and maize is burned away via biofuels (Gomiero, 2015; USDA, 2022)). Nevertheless, 40 million people, including 12 million children, face chronic hunger (Feeding America, 2022).

We encourage the submission of papers that, by taking an integrated, multicriteria approach, address the following issues:

• Alternative production practices able to reduce the impact of the agri-food system on soil, water, natural resources, environment and human health, while guaranteeing food security for society. Issues concerning the replicability and scalability of those farming practices should also be addressed.

• Approaches and tools that may help to better frame and study the sustainability and resilience of alternative farming and agri-food systems.

• Analysis of alternative policies and institutional settings that may help to promote low-impact, resilient farming practices and threats, lock-ins, and bottlenecks that might impede or limit the transition toward more sustainable farming practices.

Dr. Tiziano Gomiero
Prof. Dr. Lisa Lobry de Bruyn
Prof. Dr. Ji Li
Topic Editors