Participatory Agroecosystem Design: Working with Farms to Create Multifunctional Landscapes

7/30/2019 Participatory Agroecosystem Design: Working with Farms to Create Multifunctional Landscapes

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PARTICIPATORY AGROECOSYSTEM DESIGN:

WORKING WITH FARMS TO DEVELOP

MULTIFUNCTIONAL LANDSCAPES

A Thesis Presented

by

Rafter Sass Ferguson

to

The Faculty of the Graduate College

of

The University of Vermont

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Master of Science

Specializing in Plant and Soil Science

May, 2011


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Accepted by the Faculty of the Graduate College, The University of Vermont, in

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science,

specializing in Plant and Soil Science.

Thesis Examination Committee:

_____________________________________Advisor

Ernesto Mendez, Ph.D

____________________________________

Sarah Lovell, Ph.D.

____________________________________

Allen Matthews, M.S.

____________________________________Chairperson

John Todd, Ph. D.

____________________________________Dean, Graduate College

Domenico Grasso, Ph. D

Date: December 9, 2011


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ABSTRACT

The impact of agriculture on the function and structure of the planets ecosystemshas received increasing levels of scientific scrutiny over the past several decades, as the

dramatic and negative consequences of industrial agriculture are revealed in the declining

health of our ecosystems and its inhabitants (including humans). In contrast, theecological stewardship of agroecosystems has been shown to provide an array of benefitsto ecosystem function and human communities.

Farmers are the primary decision makers in agricultural landscapes. If sustainable

agriculture is to be supported, farmers are ultimately the agents through which it will beaccomplished. Factors affecting farmer involvement in research and development, and

barriers to adoption of new technologies, must be identified and accounted for. Keycultural and economic barriers to farmer involvement in the development of sustainable

agriculture include lack of working and accessible models, and financial trade-offsbetween production and ecological functions.

This paper proposes an iterative, participatory, agroecosystem design process,

which brings farmers into collaboration with designers, and equips designers tosubstantively reconcile production and conservation functions in agroecosystems. This

design framework accomplishes two goals: 1) foregrounding farmer interests andconstraints in a way that facilitates participation; and 2) equipping the designer to

creatively reconcile multiple goals and functions, embedded in complex spatialrelationships.

The methodology was tested in case studies with three working farms in Vermont.

Case study methodologies, while challenging to relate directly to broader applications,are an ideal scale to examine the detailed process of shifting agricultural practices. The

methodology described here is a contribution to the ongoing dialogue on thereconciliation of production and ecological functions in agricultural landscapes, putting

farmers and their priorities at the center of the process.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the generous participation ofnumerous individuals.

Many thanks to the hard-working, innovative farmers who participated in testing thedesign process: John Hayden of The Farm Between, Karl Hammer of Vermont Compost,and Sally Colman and Richard Wiswall of Cate Farm. Their time, insight, and experience

enriched this project immensely. It would not have been a worthwhile endeavor withouttheir input.

Thank you to my committee for their guidance, time, and critical support: Sarah Lovell,

Allen Matthews, Ernesto Mendez, and John Todd. Dr. Lovell must be singled out forspecial gratitude, as without her insightful criticism during the drafting of this project, it

would have been an altogether more lumbering beast. Much of what is of value in thisdocument is credit to their assistance, and none of that which is flawed.

This project would not have been possible without funding for a one-year graduate

research assistantship from Theme One of the Northeastern States Research Cooperative.

Finally, I cannot sufficiently thank my partner Brook. She has eased my crises, toleratedmy manias, cheered my victories, and generally made life a gentler and lighter place

and all of that twice over during the completion of this project.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... iACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. iiLIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... vLIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ viCHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE SUPPORTING ......................................... 1PARTICIPATORY AGROECOSYSTEM DESIGN ...................................................... 1

1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 11.2 Livelihoods Perspective .......................................................................................... 41.3 Agroecology ........................................................................................................... 51.4 Multifunctional Landscapes ................................................................................... 81.5 Permaculture ......................................................................................................... 101.6 Agroforestry .......................................................................................................... 161.7 Participatory Action Research .............................................................................. 191.8 Case Studies and On-Farm Research .................................................................... 221.10 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 25


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CHAPTER 2: PARTICIPATORY AGROECOSYSTEM DESIGN ............................. 282.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 282.2 Background ........................................................................................................... 322.2.1 Moving Toward Multifunctionality ................................................................. 322.2.2 Integration Across Scale .................................................................................. 342.2.3 The Case for Design ........................................................................................ 352.2.4 Productive Perennial Polycultures ................................................................... 41

2.3 Participatory Agroecosystem Design Process ...................................................... 442.3.1 Iteration 1: Characterization and Analysis ...................................................... 462.3.2 Iteration 2: Synthesis and Design .................................................................... 51

2.3.3 Iteration 3: Resolution, Evaluation, and Future Activities .............................. 56

2.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 582.5.1 Challenges and Future Research ...................................................................... 582.5.2 Implications for Extension ............................................................................... 61

2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 62BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 63


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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

Table 1: Foundational Texts in Permaculture ................................................................ 11Table 2: Case Study Farms ............................................................................................ 31


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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Desired components of a participatory agroecosystem design framework. ........ 2Figure 2: Permaculture ...................................................................................................... 37Figure 3: Design as a Frame for Farm Planning ............................................................... 41Figure 4: Sequence of the Design Process ........................................................................ 48Figure 5: Reiteration of Goals ........................................................................................... 55Figure 6: Development of Research Partnerships ............................................................. 57


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CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE SUPPORTING

PARTICIPATORY AGROECOSYSTEM DESIGN

1.1 Introduction

This chapter offers a review of the literature that is relevant to the development of a new

framework for planning and decision-making in agricultural landscapes. Participatory

Agroecosystem Design is a methodology for working with farmers to generate spatially

explicit plans for the integration of perennial features into agricultural landscapes, to

simultaneously perform production and conservation functions. The methodology seeks

to achieve two objectives: 1) foreground farmer interests and constraints in a way that

facilitates participation in the design process and subsequent interventions in the farm

landscape; and 2) give designers the necessary tools to creatively reconcile multiple goals

and functions, especially production and conservation, that are embedded in complex

spatial relationships.

These goals suggest a desiderata, a set of analytical and methodological components that

are necessary for a reasonably rigorous and complete approach to the participatory design

of agroecosystems. The task requires an analytical framework that integrates relevant

domains across disciplinary boundaries, and spans the scales of processes that are

pertinent to agroecosystem functions. More specifically, the framework must have the

capacity to account for the priorities, interests, and constraints of farmers and farm

livelihoods; the multiple interacting processes of the whole farm landscape; and the


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relationship between the agroecosystem and the regional landscape. The framework must

provide perspective on these domains in the dimensions of culture, ecology, and

production, from the scale of the field to the region. The desired components of this

framework are represented schematically in Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Desired components of a participatory agroecosystem design framework.

Methodologically, the framework requires a process of investigation that identifies the

most salient aspects of the context, across scales, with special attention to a participatory


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process that solicits and engages with the perspective of the land manager, the farmer.

Finally, the design process must integrate that information, and generate robust and

adaptive prescriptions for intervention into the farm landscape.

The participatory design of agroecosystems is a novel endeavor, especially in relation to

the scientific literature, so there is not a single field or body of literature that encompasses

all, or even most, of the desiderata listed above. Multiple fields of research and practice,

in and out of peer-reviewed literature, intersect with different dimensions of the proposed

framework. I will discuss several of them in turn, highlighting their relevance and utility

to the task of engaging with farmers to support the re-visioning of the farm landscape.


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1.2 Livelihoods Perspective

Supporting farmers in developing multifunctional agriculture requires a holistic

integration of multiple biophysical and cultural factors, such as that provided by rural

development perspective called sustainable livelihoods (McDonald & Brown, 2000). A

livelihood consists of all the material and social resources, capacities, and activities

involved in making a living (Eldis 2011). A livelihoods perspective, then, is the use of

peoples ways of making a living as an organizing venue for conversation and

collaboration between development-oriented disciplines (Scoones, 1998). Livelihoods

approaches provide a transdisciplinary perspective on the constraints and priorities that

constitute farmer livelihoods. This is a crucial perspective for agroecosystem designers,

as it is to these factors that designers must substantively respond, in order to prescribe

interventions that will be culturally acceptable and financially viable.

At the heart of the livelihoods perspective is the concept of the multiple capitals that

together constitute livelihood resources, or the types of resources that people use to make

a living: natural, physical, human, social, and financial (Elasha, et al., 2005). The

attention to multiple capitals shifts the perspective on development away from narrow

productivist models, and toward pathways to economic growth that incorporate types of

capital that are often neglected by conventional development, including human, social,

and natural capital (Carney, 1999). The site specificity of agroecosystem design makes

the Green Revolution style of development inappropriate: instead of top-down, one-size-


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fits-all models, the task requires bottom-up, multilinear, place-based developmental

processes (Zimmerer, 2007). And in fact, this holistic and flexible framework has been

shown to be better suited for fostering farmer adoption of soil and water conservation

techniques than a narrow focus on technology transfer (McDonald & Brown, 2000).

1.3 Agroecology

Agroecology, defined as the ecology of sustainable food systems (Gliessman, 2007),

maintains an emphasis on holistic and place-based developmental processes, but is

organized more closely around ecological and production functions at the scale of the

field and the farm. This field is rooted, historically and conceptually, in the application of

the tools of ecology to the subject matter of agronomy. With methodological roots among

scattered scientists since the 1930s, modern agroecology began to emerge in the 1970s,

fueled by the converging work of number of scientists with shared concerns about the

state, and future, of industrial agriculture (Wezel & Soldat, 2009).

Two fundamental insights have organized the development of the field. One is that

agroecosystems should be designed and managed to retain more of the structural and

functional components of wild ecosystems, a style of agriculture which will avoid the

intensive energy use and ecosystem degradation associated with industrial agriculture

(Ewel, 1999; Soule & Piper, 1992). The other is that many traditional, pre-industrial

agricultural systems are already being managed this fashion. These two areas of

investigation, the application of the dynamics of natural ecosystems to agriculture, and


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the practices of pre-industrial agricultural, form the basis for the prescriptive components

of the agroecological perspective. Themes in the field are summed in principles of

agroecosystem design that bear directly on multifunctional agriculture, prescribing a

variety of soil, water, and biodiversity conservation strategies, that minimize

agrichemical and mechanical inputs, and jointly produce ecological services and goods

for human use (Altieri, 2000; Altieri, 2002a; Thomas & Kevan, 1993).

Two major themes within these design principles are the beneficial role of

agrobiodiversity on the control of pest and pathogen populations (Altieri, 1999; Altieri,

2002a; Ewel, 1999; Nicholls & Altieri, 2001; Thies & Tscharntke, 1999), and the use of

perennial plants (integrated with annual production) to combine production functions

with soil and water conservation (Altieri, 2000; Altieri, Letourneau & Davis, 1983; Ewel,

1999; McNeely & Scherr, 2001; Soule & Piper, 1992; Thomas & Kevan, 1993). These

principles offer an orienting perspective for multifunctional farm design, suggesting

pathways by which to reconcile production and conservation in agroecosystems:

minimizing the need for chemical pest control by increasing agrobiodiversity, and

integrating perennial systems to steward the soil and water resources on which annual

production draws so heavily.

In relation to Fig. 1, agroecology as a field has primarily focused on production and

ecological functions at the field and farm scales (Altieri, 2000; Francis, Lieblein,

Gliessman, Breland, Creamer, Harwood, 2003; Gliessman, 1998; Gliessman, 2007). The


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relevance of agroecology, and the farm scale, to the larger landscape depends on the

question of whether and how sustainable agroecosystems impact the functionality of the

larger landscape. The preponderance of research shows that sustainable agroecosystems

do positively impact landscape function, through several channels. First and most

obviously, they do this by using alternative management strategies for pest control,

fertility, tillage, etc. that avoid negative impacts such as agrochemical pollution, soil

erosion and compaction, and high energy costs (Altieri, 1999; Ewel, 1999; Francis et al.,

2003; Gliessman, 1998). Secondarily, they do so by creating and maintaining perennial

landscape components that functionally integrate the farm with the surrounding landscape

matrix - and/or by improving the quality of the matrix itself, as it impinges on farm

property (Altieri, 2002b; Altieri et al., 1983; Jose, 2009; McNeely & Scherr, 2001;

Smeding & Joenje, 1999; Thies & Tscharntke, 1999).

While these principles dovetail well with prescriptions for landscape functionality at

larger scales, as will be shown in the following sections, agroecology itself has not

seriously attended to design and integration of landscapes at scales larger than the field

and the farm. This is a both a deficit in the field, and an opportunity for integration with

other disciplines. This deficit notwithstanding, agroecological principles and the

foundation of empirical science from which they are generated, provide a crucial the

field-level understanding of ecological and production functions, and the relationship

between them. It is this understanding that makes it possible to confidently integrate new


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components into the landscape that can simultaneously perform production and

ecological functions.

1.4 Multifunctional Landscapes

Where agroecology focuses on the field or the farm as a whole system, the landscape

multifunctionality perspective sees the farm as a sub-system within the larger landscape.

Multifunctionality shares with agroecology a fundamental concern with the reconciliation

of production and conservation functions in agricultural landscapes (Jordan & Warner,

2010; Lovell et al., 2010a). According to OFarrell and Anderson, sustainable

multifunctional landscapes are landscapes created and managed to integrate human

production and landscape use into the ecological fabric of a landscape, maintaining

critical ecosystem function, service flows and biodiversity retention (p. 59, 2010).

Multifunctionality offers a foundation to reconcile production and conservation at this

larger scale, through planning and policy perspectives on the incorporation of

conservation elements into contemporary agricultural landscapes. Literature in the field

has largely focused on recommendations for policy and landscape planning, based on

examination of the factors influencing the success or failure of decision-making,

implementation, and conservation of multifunctional landscapes (Jordan & Warner, 2010;

O'Farrell & Anderson, 2010; Waldhardt et al., 2010). In relation to Fig. 1, the field has

focused primarily at the scale of farms and landscapes, with particular attention to the


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relationship between them, and with some attention to participatory investigation and

prescription.

Multifunctionality provides for agroecosystem design a much-needed perspective on the

integration of the farm landscape with the regional landscape, especially through the

integration of larger stakeholder groups and regional conservation and development

priorities. Several groups of investigators examined the efficacy of using scenario-driven

participatory process to involve stakeholders in land use planning (Tress & Tress, 2003),

and/or to affect policy makers (Waldhardt et al., 2010). While framework proposed in

this study is not tested with larger stakeholder groups, participatory agroecosystem design

can empower farmers to respond effectively to public conservation priorities set by local,

state, or national constituencies, through the selection of new landscape components and

their conservation functions. This can assist in the integration of both agroecosystems and

farm livelihoods into larger ecological and cultural contexts.

In a discussion of multifunctional landscape planning as an integrated decision making

framework, Selman (2002) notes the significance of whole farm planning. Whole farm

planning is identified as a remedy for the undesirable scenario in which the integration of

conservation features in one part of a farm landscape is concurrent with ecologically

deleterious intensification elsewhere in the landscape. Selman advocates for grant-based

financial support that hinges on the presence of integrated farm plans as a remedy for that

scenario. Participatory agroecosystem design is an alternative remedy: by designing


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systems that jointly produce good and ecological services (such as those discussed in the

section entitled Productive Perennial Polycultures, below), designers assist farmers in the

reconciliation of the production/conservation conflict.

Not all of biophysical prescriptions emerging from the multifunctionality framework are

relevant to perennial agroecosystem design consist some deal with landscape elements

with a primarily cultural functions. Those biophysical prescriptions that are relevant to

perennial agroecosystem design dovetail well with the other perspectives reviewed here,

generally consisting of the interweaving of conservation features, such as buffers and

hedgerows, into the borders and interstitial areas of agricultural landscapes (Frst et al.,

2010; Groot et al., 2009; Lombard et al., 2010; Lovell & Johnston, 2009).

1.5 Permaculture

Practitioners of permaculture has been advocating for multifunctionality in landscape

planning, from outside the academy, since the 1970s. Permacultures design approach

provides useful tools for integrating information from multiple domains and scales, and

for synthesizing adaptive prescriptions for landscape interventions. Mollison (1978)

offers the following definition of permaculture:

Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenanceof agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and

resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscapeand people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-

material needs in a sustainable way. (p. 1)


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The term permaculture, a portmanteau of permanent and agriculture, was coined in

1974 by Bill Mollison and his student, David Holmgren. Holmgrens PhD dissertation

would eventually be published in 1978 asPermaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture

for Human Settlement. Permacultures philosophical and methodological roots can be

traced through a variety of texts over the previous century. A partial list of these texts,

and their contributions to the permaculture perspective, can be found in Table 1.

Table 1: Foundational Texts in Permaculture

Title Author (Year) Contributed

Farmers of forty

centuries; or, permanentagriculture in China,

Korea and Japan.

King, F. H. (1911) a broad historical

perspective onsustainability, or

permanence, inagriculture systems in Asia.

Tree crops: A permanentagriculture.

Smith, J. R. (1950) an early and radicalproposal for perennial

agriculture in the temperateUS.

The challenge of

landscape: thedevelopment and practice

of keyline.

Yeomans, P. A.

(1958)

an integrated silvopastoral-

landform system for soiland water regeneration in

pasture and rangeland inAustralia.

Environment, power, and

society.

Odum, H. T. (1971) a thermodynamic

perspective on ecologicaland social systems, via

Odums pioneering work insystems ecology.


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Title Author (Year) Contributed

A pattern language. Alexander, C.,Ishikawa, S.,

Silverstein, M., IRami, J. R.,

Jacobson, M., &Fiksdahl-King, I.

(1977)

an approach to the design ofhuman settlement that draws

on a global repertoire ofeffective solutions to design

problems that are consistentacross cultural contexts.

The climate near the

ground.

Geiger, R. (1965) to the analysis and use of

landscape-drivenmicroclimatic effects to

create extremely site-specific designs.

The one-strawrevolution. (Shizen noho

wara ippon no kakumei).

Fukuoka, M. (1978)Translated by Chris

Pearce, TsuneKurosawa, and Larry

Korn.

an approach to foodproduction that emphasized

the passive use ofecosystem processes and

minimizing intervention,Fukuokass Do-Nothing

Farming.

Due in part to a paucity of peer-reviewed literature, discussion of the theory and practice

of permaculture must be based on a combination of popular sources (cited in text) and

personal experience. I have been a participant and observer of the permaculture

movement since 2003, and the observations that follow depend largely on this

biographical and auto-ethnographic material (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). This lack of hard

data is a weakness is discussion about permaculture, as it is in the practice of

permaculture. It is nevertheless necessary to address the field in any comprehensive

review of agroecosystem design. The case for this necessity is made in the discussion that

follows.


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Permacultures ecosystem-based, human-centered framework for multifunctional

landscape design has proven an empowering and effective framework for laypeople and

professionals to engage with the complex realities of human settlement. It is based on

roughly equal parts on principles derived from systems ecology, observation of

traditional agricultural and horticultural systems, and informal experimentation inspired

by the dialogue between the two. Practitioners are encouraged to view and understand

human settlement through the lens of energy and material flows, and re-imagine and

recreate it from first principles. Permaculture trainings often create an effective and even

revelatory intervention into the culture of food production and the built environment.

Perhaps the single most important feature of permaculture - from the perspective of its

global popular audience - is its transdisciplinary orientation toward ecological design.

While frequently conflated with the perennial and woody agriculture systems that are

often promoted as permaculture food production strategies, permaculture explicitly

concerns itself with all the human-landscape relationships involved in settlement - not

only food production. More than any particular one of those disciplines, permaculture is a

set of principles and design tools for creating functional relationships between them, and

an attendant loosely-defined body of specific techniques and practices of, for example,

food production, architecture, waste management, forestry stewardship, animal

husbandry, urban planning, et al., that lend themselves to the functional integration of

these various domains (Mollison & Slay, 1988).


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For scientists and academics - in contrast with the popular perspective - the most salient

feature of permaculture is often the near-total lack of empirical research carried out in its

name. Instead of well-documented empirical research, effort has largely been directed

into popular education and grassroots development. This strategic choice was driven at

least in part by hostile initial reactions from a disciplinarian academia, and at least in part

by an ethic of a bottom-up, decentralized approach to social transformation (Veteto &

Lockyer, 2008). It is also widely regarded as having been an effect of the famously

contrarian and cantankerous personality of the founder, Bill Mollison.

Permacultures three founding insights can be described as: 1) human settlements, as a

whole, must be managed to retain more of the dynamics of functional ecosystems, if

civilization is to survive: 2) traditional systems and modern trial-and-error demonstrate

that this is a viable strategy to meet human needs: and 3) each individual is charged to

take responsibility for a part of this process. As a result of this bottom-up strategy, there

is a relatively large international popular recognition of, and identification with,

permaculture, and relatively little institutional credibility in the US. There is a

correspondingly minimal institutionalization of the design system almost anywhere

outside of Australia. There are signs that this cultural constraint may be shifting, with

increasing numbers of permaculture courses taught in universities in the US.

The decentralized approach appears to have done an excellent job of helping the

permaculture movement grow quickly, but likewise appears to now have become a


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limiting factor. Permaculture practitioners now seek more influence and credibility within

academic and civic institutions. Some late-coming attempts to regulate and certify

permaculture instructors have emerged, but so far appear to be of limited effectiveness.

Speculatively, it seems as if the founding movement culture of anti-institutional, rugged

individualism, disposes permaculture adherents against playing along with attempts to

systematize the rhizomatic and informal spread of the movement.

The lack of empirically derived data, the attendant need for thorough documentation of

exemplary sites, and systematization and accreditation of professional teachers and

designers, together constitute the challenges facing the permaculture movement in the

West. These are considerable challenges, and beg the question: does permaculture have

any value in the conversation about transitioning to ecological agriculture? There are two

aspects of the milieu that warrant consideration in this light.

First, as a language for design, permaculture acts as an integrative framework, providing

a venue and a vocabulary in which to understand the relationships between needs, goals,

the infrastructure that they require, and the biophysical constraints and opportunities of

the landscapes in which they are embedded. It creates a transdisciplinary and accessible

conversation into which relevant contemporary science, useful planning/design tools, and

proven or promising techniques can be integrated. It does this at a fairly high level of

generality, as pattern language (Alexander et al., 1977), which is useful for those at

widely varying levels of expertise.


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Second, as a curriculum: courses organized around the internationally recognized

curriculum of the Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC) are a potentially

transformative and paradigm-shifting experience for laypeople and experts alike. It is the

experience of this author, who has trained at the graduate level in ecological sanitation

and water system design, ecological landscape design, and agroecology, as well as filled

the role of student and teacher in numerous permaculture courses, that the PDC (if done

well), constitutes the fastest and most powerful route to ecological design literacy.

Together with working models, the permaculture curriculum constitutes the most

promising pedagogical tool for shifting from industrial commodity production, including

its manifestations in the food system, and toward sustainable and multifunctional

landscape management. The permaculture framework, particularly when connected with

a strong technical knowledge base, should be a key component in any effort to

disseminate, popularize, and support multifunctional farm design.

1.6 Agroforestry

Permaculture has been heavily influenced by, and sometimes confused with, the field of

agroforestry. Permacultures emphasis on perennial and woody agricultural systems

shares a similar conceptual basis with agroforestry, but unlike permaculture, agroforestry

has prioritized empirical research and rigorous documentation throughout the history of

the field. Agroforestrys approach to the integration of trees and shrubs with field crops

and pasture emerged in the 1970s, from progressive tendencies within the development


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sector. The field is predicated on the idea that:

Systems that are structurally and functionally more complex than either crop or tree

monocultures result in greater efficiency of resource capture and utilization (nutrients,

light, and water), and greater structural diversity that entails a tighter coupling of nutrient

cycles. (Nair, 2007)

Agroforestry constitutes a flexible and effective suite of technologies for the integration

of perennial systems into working farmland. There are five major forms recognized by

practitioners in the US: 1) alley cropping, the cultivation of woody crops in parallel strips

alternating with field crops; 2) silvopasture, the integration of woody crops in pastures

and rangeland; 3) buffers, the use of linear blocks of perennial plantings to protect

riparian areas, increase wildlife habitat, and filter surface runoff; 4) windbreaks, the use

of shrubs and trees to protect crops and livestock from wind; and 5) forest farming, the

cultivation of multiple crops in the understory of existing woodlots (Garrett, 2006).

Agroforestry systems perform multiple conservation functions. Agroforestry plantings

increase the health of resilience and both agroecosystems and the matrix in which they

are situated, by increasing wildlife habitat, stabilizing soil, filtering and infiltrating

nutrient- and pollutant-rich stormwater, and enhancing landscape heterogeneity,

connectivity, and complexity (Altieri, 1999; Benayas et al., 2008; Brandon et al., 2005;

Lovell, Mendez, Erickson, Nathan & DeSantis, 2010; Roy & de Blois, 2008). In certain

cases, such as in the forest farming of medicinal herbs, agroforestry practices also help to


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preserve and promulgate endangered species.

Agroforestry practices also positively impact farmer livelihood in a variety of ways,

directly and indirectly, including revenue from sale and direct consumption (fruit, nuts,

timber, medicinal herbs, mushrooms, decorative floral products), and replacement of

infrastructure, labor, and inputs (living fences, nitrogen fixation). Agroforestry systems

can also impact livelihood through the enhancement of visual quality, recreational

opportunity, and consequently, agrotourism opportunities (Angileri & Toccolini, 1993;

Benayas et al., 2008; Cook & Cable, 1995; Nybakk et al., 2009; Weyerhaeuser & Kahrl,

2006).

While much more mature, as a field, than the other perennial polyculture systems

discussed in Chapter 2, temperate agroforestry practitioners are still limited by a relative

paucity of research and working models in the US. The lack of research and

methodological models is especially pronounced in the northeastern region. Northeastern

agroforestry is an underexplored niche within the already under-represented domain of

temperate agroforestry. In the 2004 World Congress of Agroforestry, only 12% of the

747 presentations dealt with temperate agroforestry systems (Nair, 2007). In the US,

research is concentrated in Midwest, the location of the two most active research centers:

the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, and the USDA National Agroforestry

Center in Lincoln, NE. There is comparatively little research in the Northeast, though this

may be changing (Lovell et al., 2010b).


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The lack of centers of research and resources in the Northeast parallels the lack of

working models on the ground. In conversations with extension agents, farmers, and

researchers, the author found no one who was able to point toward working agroforestry

systems in the northeast that could serve as an example for education and outreach. The

lack of working models (especially on-farm models) is a critical challenge in the

development of agricultural multifunctionality in the Northeast.

1.7 Participatory Action Research

Of the fields discussed here, agroecology has had the richest historical relationship with

participatory research. It has had a strong overlap with multiple participatory

methodologies, and makes the most significant contributions to the Participatory

Investigation component of the framework described in Fig. 1. Discussion of

participation in this framework will therefore consist largely of discussion of

participation in agroecology.

Throughout its history, agroecology has been concerned not only with generating

knowledge, but also with sharing knowledge and fostering capacity, and thereby

improving the lives and livelihoods of small farmers, and increasingly of other food

system stakeholders (i.e. society at large) (Dalgaard et al., 2003). This concern has

motivated an evolution from an approach on par with the offering of extension-style

services to farmers and farm communities, to more participatory methods. This more


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inclusively participatory, as well as more broadly transdisciplinary, approach appears to

be the direction in which the field of agroecology is developing (Bacon et al., 2005).

The development of participatory process in agroecology is shaped by critique of the

traditional extension model, which consists of a largely one-way flow of information

from researchers, through extension agents, to farmers. This model is considered

inadequate to support farmers in shifting away from the highly mechanized and

simplified approach of the Green Revolution, toward the more complex, knowledge- and

management-intensive practices of sustainable and multifunctional agriculture (Haggar et

al., 2001; Jordan & Warner, 2010; Warner, 2008). Key areas of investigation have

included farmer involvement in research (Martin & Sherington, 1997), farmer adoption

of new techniques and technologies (Reed, 2007), and the acknowledgement and support

of farmer innovation (Martin & Sherington, 1997). Participatory Agroecosystem Design

is modeled after these methodological approaches that prioritize farmers as not only key

decision makers, but active agents in the development of sustainable and multifunctional

agriculture.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is one of the names given to a cluster of

methodologies that emphasize principles of transparency, negotiation, and equal

exchange between the researcher and the broader research community (Bacon, Mendez

& Brown, 2005). PAR focuses on the relationships across the traditional division

between researchers and research subjects. The alternative framing of research


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community includes both the researcher and research partners, and emphasizes the

values of transparency, negotiation, and equity in that partnership. PAR has similar

ethical concerns to livelihoods perspectives, particularly in terms of the focus on

grassroots empowerment. By emphasizing a process of negotiation and transparency,

PAR practice brings to light power differences between researcher and host communities.

Exposing these power gradients, and making researchers accountable, creates the

potential for equity and mutuality in the research community (Dlott et al., 1994). For

participatory agroecosystem design, PAR emphasizes the need for transparency and

clarity in the solicitation/recruitment phase, and for the articulation and re-iteration of

goals and objectives throughout the design process, in order to create a mutually

equitable relationship between designers and farmers.

More recently, the agroecological partnership has been proposed as a multi-level

framework for research that involves farmers, researchers, and planners in networks of

information exchange. Rather than a largely one-way flow of expertise from scientists, or

even a two-way exchange, agroecological partnerships are characterized by a high degree

of farmer-to-farmer learning (Warner, 2006). This emerging model, in which

responsibility for innovation, research, and education, is spread out among farmers,

farmer organizations, and researchers, marks a shift toward a holistic pedagogical and

research framework (Warner, 2007a; Warner, 2006). This emerging framework is better

suited than traditional extension models to support the development of agroecological

strategies that optimize ecological and productive functions in the farm landscape (Bacon


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et al., 2005; Dlott et al., 1994; Wezel & Soldat, 2009).

Yet the problem remains of actually recruiting farmers for involvement in research and

development of sustainable practices. The agroecological partnership framework assumes

a highly developed network of farmer organizations, researchers, and extension agents. It

seems that most participatory frameworks assume a similarly high level of social and

human capital (Haggar et al., 2001). Prior to the development of that capital, there is lack

of methods for inviting and involving farmers to plan for change in management of the

farm landscape, in a way that foregrounds the need, interests, and experience of the

farmer, while supporting shifts in land management that increase landscape functionality

(Lombard et al., 2010). This study is intended, in part, to fill that gap: to articulate a

methodology that can build a foundation for the development of research partnerships, by

involving farmers in financially and ecological sustainable innovation, in partnership

with extension agents, researchers, or other professionals filling the role of designer. By

putting the diverse interests and needs of the farmers first, and attending to the diverse

ways in which those needs can be met, participatory agroecosystem design can help

create the context in which longer-term research partnerships can emerge, and in which

the tools and perspectives of a multiplicity of disciplines can be brought to bear (Scoones,

2009).

1.8 Case Studies and On-Farm Research

Developing the paradigm of multifunctional farm design requires on-farm research that


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incorporates both quantitative and qualitative measures (Golafshani, 2003; Raintree,

1983; Scoones, 2009). The challenges inherent in integrating participatory, site-specific,

and qualitative research are well documented. There is a need to translate the

epistemological and methodological concepts from quantitative research, such as

reliability, validity, and triangulation, that serve to qualitative contexts, in a fashion that

adapts to very different research methodologies while carefully and critically maintaining

rigor (Golafshani, 2003).

In on-farm research, key questions include the transferability of site-specific research to

other sites and contexts, and the availability and use of techniques for data analysis, and

the uneven implementation of project evaluation and monitoring (Martin & Sherington,

1997). While challenging, on-farm case studies are the ideal scale to examine the detailed

process of shifting agricultural practices (House et al., 2008). The variability and site-

specificity of farm landscapes are precisely the constraints that must shape

agroecosystem research, since they are sites where farmers, as land managers in the

process of negotiating ecological, cultural, and production goals, can be integrated into

the research process (Haggar et al., 2001).

On-farm research appears to be necessary to overcome critical barriers to farmer adoption

of new technologies. The presence of champion farmers that model innovative

practices, and ambassador farm advisors that assist them, are key factors in determining

the regional distribution of these practices (Brodt et al., 2009). By partnering with


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regional farmers as design/research partners, and using the results of that iterative process

to influence the crafting of region- specific decision-support material, researchers and

planners can leverage the phenomena of champions and ambassadors to increase the

effectiveness of the decision-support material that targets availability and quality of cost-

benefit information.

Research has shown that a lack of adequate, culturally appropriate, cost-benefit

information is among the primary constraints to farmer adoption of agroforestry systems

such as hedgerows and riparian buffers (Stonehouse, 1996). When economic return is

clearly the first priority, a participatory approach informed by the fields discussed above

will push toward site-specific solutions, rather than Get Big or Get Out! style growth

(Altieri et al., 1983). Rather than suggesting that farmers go into debt in order to expand,

mechanize, and intensify their operations, participatory multifunctional agroecosystem

design suggests economic strategies of diversification in time, space, species, and

products, along with practices of value adding, direct sale, and other alternatives to

industrialized commodity production (Gale, 1997; Nair, 2008).

Throughout history, farms have been the site of experimentation, research, innovation; it

is only relatively recently that the available experimental models and statistical tools have

made it seem like they are un-suited for that purpose (Dlott et al., 1994). Progressive

farmers will continue innovating, whether or not researchers engage them in collaborative

opportunities. It is the duty of scientists and practitioners to find those innovators, work


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with them, and learn from them in a effort to effectively support the transition to a

sustainable and multifunctional agriculture (Reed, 2007).

1.10 Conclusion

Participatory Agroecosystem Design, as a scaling and transdisciplinary endeavor, does

not have a single existing body of literature to draw on. A review of the supporting

literature must therefore necessarily synthesize not only of material from across a variety

of disciplinary boundaries, but also of pertinent non-academic fields such as

permaculture. The components of the desiderata described in the Introduction, and

represented in Fig. 1, must be assembled from the complementary and overlapping

elements of the fields discussed above.

The site-specific and bottom-up development model of the livelihoods perspective helps

orient designers to the complex reality of farm livelihoods, and the multiple dimensions

along which sustainability must be assessed for a technology to be truly viable. The

empirically grounded principles of field-to-farm scale sustainability offered by

agroecology give the designer the tools to effectively combine production and ecological

functions, through interventions in the farm landscape. Landscape multifunctionality

provides a framework with which the designer can bridge the farm scale with the

landscape and regional scale, potentially integrating the farm design process with not

only larger-scale vegetation patterns, but also with the concerns of larger stakeholder


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groups, and regional conservation priorities and planning processes.

Permaculture provides a robust and accessible conceptual toolbox for integrating multiple

goals with the constraints and opportunities of the landscape, and synthesizing those

goals and constraints in strategically designed landscape interventions. Agroforestry

occupies a similar niche in the conceptual framework to agroecology, but brings a

concentrated focus to woody perennial systems specifically, which share with other

perennial systems a strong and clearly defined capacity to reconcile production and

ecological functions, and to help integrate the vegetation structure of the farm with

patterns in the larger landscape. The methodologies of participatory research, including

Participatory Action Research and Agroecological Partnerships, provide dynamic models

for integrating farmer priorities, expertise, and innovation into the research process, and

for creating an equitable and mutualistic relationship between researchers, designers, and

farmers.

Together this patchwork of conceptual and methodological approaches can be integrated

into the broad, flexible, and transdisciplinary perspective that is needed in order to

integrate the perspective of working farmers with empirical research on the production,

culture, and ecology of agroecosystems, landscapes, and regions, and to respond to that

integration with the prescription of adaptive interventions at the scale of the farm. In turn,

the literatures of case study-based qualitative research, and on-farm research, provide a

theoretical and methodological framework for testing the Participatory Agroecosystem


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Design process on working farms, as will be discussed in the following chapter.


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CHAPTER 2: PARTICIPATORY AGROECOSYSTEM DESIGN

2.1 Introduction

The impact of agriculture on the function and structure of the planets ecosystems has

received increasing levels of scientific scrutiny over the past several decades, as the

consequences of human activities are revealed (Altieri, 1998; Horrigan et al., 2002;

Kimbrell, 2002; MacCannell, 1988). In contrast, the ecological stewardship of

agroecosystems has the potential to reduce these negative impacts, and even provide an

array of benefits to ecosystem function and human communities (Altieri, 2002a; Jordan et

al., 2007; Lovell et al., 2010a; McNeely & Scherr, 2001; Smeding & Joenje, 1999). There

exists, however, an apparent conflict between commodity production and ecological

functionality in agricultural landscapes - ecological management is widely perceived to

require a reduction in yields, reducing the financial viability of agricultural enterprise

(Bills & Gross, 2005; Groot et al., 2009; House et al., 2008). This conflict must be

reconciled for global civilization to continue to prosper in the coming century.

Many scientists are calling for agricultural practice and policy that supports the joint

production of commodities and ecological services (Bills & Gross, 2005; Boody et al.,

2005; Jordan & Warner, 2010; Jordan et al., 2007; McNeely & Scherr, 2001; O'Farrell &

Anderson, 2010). This approach to reconciling production and conservation functions in

agricultural landscapes is referred to as multifunctional agriculture (Brunstad, Gaasland

& Vardal, 2005; Lovell & Johnston, 2008; Naveh, 2001; O'Farrell & Anderson, 2010;


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Otte, Simmering & Wolters, 2007; Selman, 2009). Historically in the US, however,

policy support for on-farm conservation has often reflected and reinforced the dichotomy

between production and conservation. For example, the Conservation Reserve Program

(CRP), run by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) of the United States

Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the best-funded and oldest US program supporting

conservation activities in agricultural land. The CRP mandates that nothing may be

harvested from land enrolled in the program, enforcing the distinction between

production and conservation (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/crp/) even as it

supports on-farm conservation.

In contrast, the more recent USDA/NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) has

the potential to ameliorate this conflict, by recognizing and supporting a variety of

activities that can jointly perform production and conservation functions. CSP financially

supports the development of multifunctional agriculture in the US, by rewarding farmers

who have historically practiced good land stewardship on their farms, and encouraging

farmers to expand their on-farm conservation activities

(http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/new_csp/csp.html). The program does not, however,

provide support for farmers in the complex task of planning conservation activities and

their spatial integration with the farm landscape. Long-lived and potentially productive

perennial features including, but not limited to, buffers, hedgerows, and wetlands (all of

which are supported by the CSP), require a thoughtful and informed design process to

maximize multifunctionality. Little assistance is available to farmers to guide this


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process. The training of extension agents does not traditionally include whole farm

design, and traditional technology transfer-style extension programs are ill suited for

the development of multifunctional landscape plans (Jordan & Warner, 2010; Warner,

2008). In short, while there is an emerging theoretical and policy framework that calls on

farmers to practice multifunctional agriculture, there is also distinct lack of support for

the actual design and planning that multifunctionality requires of farmers.

This paper proposes an iterative, participatory, agroecosystem design process, to serve as

a guide for designers and planners in working with farmers to develop multifunctional

agriculture. Agroecosystem design is defined here as the spatially explicit integration of

perennial features into agricultural landscapes, to simultaneously perform production and

conservation functions. This design framework is structured to support two goals: 1)

foregrounding farmer interests and constraints to facilitate participation in conservation

activities; and 2) giving designers the necessary tools to creatively reconcile multiple

goals and functions, including production and conservation, that are embedded in

complex spatial relationships. The methodology was tested in case studies with three

working farms in Vermont. The participating farms, and key themes that emerged from

the case study process, are described in the table and figures that follow.


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Table 2: Case Study Farms

Cate Farm is a 22 acres organic farm in Plainfield, VT.

It is farmed by Sally Colman and Richard Wiswall. They

sell their farm products, including bedding plants,

vegetables, and specialty and medicinal herbs, at farmersmarkets, directly to consumers, to restaurants, stores, and

wholesalers, to other farmers, and through their website.

Richard Wiswall works as a consultant with other

farmers, on issues of business planning and profitability.

In 2009 he published a book through Chelsea Green

Publishing, entitled The Organic Farmer's Business

Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances,

Crops, and Staff-and Making a Profit. www.catefarm.com

Karl Hammer is the founder and owner ofVermontCompost Company,in Montpelier, VT. Vermont

Compost produces high-quality compost and growing

media, which are approved for use in organic crop

production. Local institutions pay tipping fees to dump

waste at dumped at the top of the 3.5 acre terraced slope

that is dedicated to intensive compost production. The

compost is mixed and recombined with other materials as

it is moved down the slope, aided by gravity. Other

income accrues from vegetable production. Hammer uses

Permaculture as a reference point to describe his

management practices. www.vermontcompost.com

John Hayden is the primary farmer ofThe Farm

Between, in Jeffersonville, Vermont, which produces

produce fruit, vegetables, herbs, non-certified organic

beef, pork, chicken, and rabbit, on 18 acres. The style of

farm management is a model of agroecological and

Permaculture principles: mixed annual and perennial

systems, animal power, no heavy machinery, composting

of agricultural wastes, all on-farm fertility management

(no mineral fertilization), complex crop rotations, fallow

& cover crops, minimal tillage and no-till trials, modest

riparian buffers, hedges and buffer strips, biological pest

control, and minimal- to-zero chemical pest control.Hayden uses Permaculture as a reference point to

describe his farming practices. ww.seedsofselfreliance.org


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2.2 Background

The following section includes a review of literature on selected fields and themes that

relate directly to participatory agroecosystem design. The fields of agroecology and

multifunctional landscapes are reviewed, as both address sustainability in agricultural

systems: the former from the scale of the farm, and the latter from the scale of the

landscape. The section also includes arguments for a design approach to agroecosystem

planning, and the use of productive perennial polycultures as a key technology in the

development of multifunctional agriculture.

2.2.1 Moving Toward Multifunctionality

Agroecology is defined as the application of ecological concepts and principles to the

design and management of sustainable agroecosystems (Gliessman, 1998). One of the

founding insights of agroecology is that agroecosystems should be designed and managed

to retain more of the structural and functional components of wild ecosystems, a style of

agriculture which will avoid the intensive energy use and ecosystem degradation

associated with industrial agriculture (Ewel, 1999; Soule & Piper, 1992). The other is

that many traditional, pre-industrial agricultural systems are already being managed this

fashion. These two areas of investigation, the application of the dynamics of natural

ecosystems to agriculture, and the practices of pre-industrial agricultural, form the basis

for the prescriptive components of the agroecological perspective. Themes in the field are

summed in principles of agroecosystem design that bear directly on multifunctional

agriculture, prescribing high levels of agrobiodiversity, reduction of off-farm inputs,


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integration of perennial with annual systems, and a variety of other soil, water, and

biodiversity conservation strategies (Altieri, 2000; Altieri, 2002b; Thomas & Kevan,

1993). Agroecological principles, and the foundation of empirical science from which

they are generated, provide the field-level understanding of ecological functions and

production functions, and the relationship between them, that makes it possible to

integrate new components into the landscape that can simultaneously produce yields and

perform ecological services.

Where agroecology focuses on the field or the farm as a whole system, the landscape

multifunctionality perspective sees the farm as a sub-system within the larger landscape.

Multifunctionality shares with agroecology a fundamental concern with the reconciliation

of production and conservation functions in agricultural landscapes (Jordan & Warner,

2010; Lovell et al., 2010a). According to OFarrell and Anderson, sustainable

multifunctional landscapes are landscapes created and managed to integrate human

production and landscape use into the ecological fabric of a landscape, maintaining

critical ecosystem function, service flows and biodiversity retention (p. 59, 2010).

Landscape multifunctionality offers a foundation to reconcile production and

conservation at this larger scale, through planning and policy perspectives on the

incorporation of conservation elements into contemporary agricultural landscapes.

Literature in the field has largely focused on recommendations for policy and landscape

planning, based on examination of the factors influencing the success or failure of


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decision-making, implementation, and conservation of multifunctional landscapes.

Selman (2002) proposes Multi-Function Landscape Plans as a consolidated and

integrated decision-making framework. Mcalpine et al. (2010) outline a formal problem-

solving approach for integrating landscape ecology with long-term adaptive management

strategies. Multifunctionality provides, for agroecosystem design, a much-needed

perspective on the integration of the farm landscape with the regional landscape,

especially through the integration of larger stakeholder groups and regional conservation

and development priorities.

2.2.2 Integration Across Scale

The different scales that agroecology and multifunctionality focus should be viewed as

grounds for a complementary synthesis. A growing number of researchers focus their

attention specifically on relationships across the scale of the farm and the scale of the

landscape. Smeding and Joenje (1999) propose the Farm-Nature Plan as a methodology

for reconciling vegetation patterns at the landscape scale (10-1000 ha) and biodiversity-

enhancing components at the farm scale (10-100 ha). McNeely and Scherr (2003)

promote an approach they call ecoagriculture, investigating and supporting farming

strategies that incorporate an assortment of biodiversity conservation features, including

hedgerows and buffers.

Lovell et al. (2010a) directly address the integration of agroecology and

multifunctionality, by proposing a framework for agroecosystem analysis and design that


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synthesis the perspectives and tools of each. Lovell et al. assess the sum of the

distinctions between the two fields, including scale, and propose an analytical tool, built

on geospatial analysis and farmer survey, to assess the multifunctionality of

agroecosystems. The framework and tool discussed therein, discussed in more detail

later, constitute an important initial step in the theoretical and analytical integration of the

two fields. In that light, this paper is intended to build on the theoretical and analytical

integration of landscape-scale multifunctionality and field-to-farm scale agroecology, by

providing the beginnings of a functional integration in the form of a participatory design

process.

2.2.3 The Case for Design

A workable framework for decision-making and planning multifunctional agriculture

must be specifically oriented toward mediating between the often-conflicting goals of

production and conservation. The traditional extension model of technology transfer,

consisting of a largely one-way flow of information from researchers, through extension

agents, to farmers, is not adequate for the task. The re-visioning of the farm landscape

that is required by multifunctional agriculture requires rich and interactive participation

from farmers in order to succeed (Warner, 2006). Extension agents that are trained only

in technology transfer to support the highly mechanized and simplified approach of the

Green Revolution, will be ill prepared to support more complex, knowledge- and

management-intensive practices (Haggar, et al. 2001).


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Participatory design provides a suitable framework for the quality of interaction and

creative reasoning required for this task. Nassauer and Opdam (2008) define design as

any intentional change of landscape pattern for the purpose of sustainably providing

ecosystem services while recognizably meeting societal needs and respecting societal

values (p. 633). This definition hints at the unique transdisciplinary role of design in

landscape planning, by juxtaposing pattern, or spatial relationships, with multiple goals in

ecological and social domains. The significance of spatial configuration in landscapes,

and thus in landscape planning, is well established (Ahern, 1999; Forman, 1990). Design

involves critical and creative spatial reasoning, as well as a integrative analysis, that

distinguishes it from other scientific pursuits. While elements of transdisciplinarity and

creativity are present in other kinds of science, design specializes in and relies upon this

kind of thinking. It focuses on the creative resolution of complex spatial relationships,

while thinking simultaneously at different scales and in different domains (Cross, 2007).

The role of the farm designer is to reconcile multiple goals across different dimensions -

productive, ecological, and cultural - all of which are embedded in spatial relationships in

the physical landscape. Furthermore, each of the functions that meet these goals may

constrain or amplify one another, depending on a given configuration. This nesting of

functions and goals in interacting spatial relationships is best captured in the design

principles of permaculture, a systems approach to ecological design that is science-based,

popular, and non-academic (Holmgren, 2002). (See sidebar Permaculture.)


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Permaculture is an ecological design system, founded in the 1970s in Australia, by BillMollison and David Holmgren (Mollison & Holmgren, 1978). The system synthesizes

indigenous agricultural and architectural practices with systems ecology, offering

principles and techniques for the design of sustainable human settlement. While the

permaculture approach has received little recognition from research institutions in the

US, it represents a useful resource as a popular, accessible, and powerful vocabulary foragroecosystem design. For example, the permaculture principle of Relative Location

instructs designers to prescribe spatial relationships that maximize functionalinterconnection between landscape components, such as siting material sources (water,

fertility sources, etc.) upslope from material sinks (crop fields, buffers, etc.), wheneverpossible, in order to minimize the energy of transport and unplanned flows of materials

(Mollison & Holmgren, 1978). The principle of Zones of Use encourages the sitingof landscape components according to distance from the residence, or center of activity,

relative to the components frequency of use and maintenance (Mollison et al., 1991).An example scenario, in order of distance from the residence, might be: kitchen

gardens, livestock, field crops, orchards, managed timber, and unmanaged woodlots. Inthe design process, these two principles inevitably affect each other, through trade-offs

and synergies in spatial relationships, which are ultimately arbitrated by the goals of theland user and designer (Mollison & Slay, 1988).

In the domain of agriculture, the permaculture perspective has always emphasized

perennial and woody systems - making it a logical precedent of contemporary perennial

agroecological design (Mollison et al., 1991) Its utility has been limited, however, byits lack of standing within the scientific community. There is an almost complete lack

of empirical research associated with the term (Veteto & Lockyer, 2008). Anecdotal

evidence suggests that is has an extremely uneven reputation with those scientists andeducators that are aware of it - ranging from critical appreciation to overt hostility.

Regardless of its historic standing within institutional research, advocates for

agroecosystem design may benefit from familiarizing themselves with the framework.

Farmers from all three of the case studies showed positive recognition of the term. Twoof the farmers, John Hayden of the Farm Between and Karl Hammer of Vermont

Compost, explicitly identified with the permaculture perspective, and used the language

of the framework to explain their farm management strategies. The cultural capital that

permaculture has with innovative farmers attests to its value as an integrativeframework, providing an accessible vocabulary in which to understand the relationships

between human goals, the infrastructure that they require, and the biophysicalconstraints of the landscape.

Figure 2: Permaculture


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Design is also gaining acceptance - or at least awareness - as a methodology of scientific

investigation, as illustrated by Nassauer and Odpams call that landscape ecology

include design as a method and as a product to increase the saliency and legitimacy of

scientific knowledge (p. 641, 2008). Nassauer and Opdam have championed the

integration of design with landscape ecology. In the above work, they position the design

process and the effects of landscape interventions as a way of gaining empirical

knowledge about landscape function. This view of design as a research methodology is

very much aligned with the participatory tradition in agroecology. In both arenas it serves

as a method of technology transfer and a venue in which scientists can examine the

validity and relevance of ecological theory for the larger populace. A related

development is the approach of designed experiments (Felson & Pickett, 2005),

promoted specifically for the study of urban ecosystems. This approach involves

collaboration between urban design professional and researchers, embedding research

questions into designed urban landscapes. While framed by Felson and Pickett for use in

cities, the designed experiments approach is well suited for adaptation to other land uses,

especially those that have been strongly impacted by human activity, such as agricultural

landscapes.

Multi-functional farm design poses a unique and complex set of interrelated challenges,

spanning social, ecological, and production dimensions. The difficulty in soliciting

farmer participation in agroecosystem design is the first challenge. Farmer knowledge of,

and interest in, multifunctionality is highly variable and often limited (Brodt et al., 2009).


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Financial viability is a logical top priority, and farmers are justified in perceiving

economic trade-offs in managing their farm ecosystems to incorporate ecological and

cultural functions (Bills & Gross, 2005). This conflict between production and ecological

functions is one of the fundamental challenges facing multifunctional farm design. Stated

simply: if conservation were profitable, farmers would do it (Pannell, 1999). If farmers

are to remain the primary decision-makers in agricultural landscapes, then conservation

must become profitable. While multifunctionality could have positive implications for the

economic profile of the farm, particularly as it relates to resiliency, there is a general lack

of consideration of diversification as a key economic strategy (Bills & Gross, 2005).

Another challenge of multifunctional farm design is a complex cultural legacy of

productivism. The history of Green Revolution-era extension services that encouraged

many farmers toward debt-driven intensification and industrialization has left many

farmers justifiably wary of the institutions that were responsible for promoting those

methods for many years (Warner, 2008). A Vermont farmers quote from the mid-1900s

pithily captures the spirit of this legacy (quoted in Magdoff, 2000):

Used to be anybody could farm. All you needed was strong back... but nowadays

you need a good education to understand all the advice you get so you can pick

out whatll do the least harm.

Multifunctional farms are extremely site-specific, unlike industrialized agriculture.

Productive functions of a farm design must strategically respond to both the biophysical


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potential of the site and its economic and cultural context in order to make a positive

impact on farmer livelihood. There is no one package of solutions for every context

(Rocheleau, 1994). The biophysical constraints of the farm site, and its relation to the

greater landscape, can be counted on to present a unique set of opportunities and

constraints. This is likewise true of the characteristics of the farmers or farm family, and

the character of the surrounding community, markets, and available business models.

The design of ecological functions faces similar challenges. Like other land uses, in order

for agriculture to have a significant positive impact on landscape-scale function and

quality, there needs to be some higher-level spatial integration among farm planning

processes (Tscharntke et al., 2005). In the US, this is especially difficult, as the planning

decisions are made primarily at the landholder and town level (Bills & Gross, 2005).

Farmland Protection programs that might have an impact at broader scales are unevenly

supported and implemented, and those that exist are largely oriented toward restricting

the development of former agricultural land, rather than protecting working farms (House

et al., 2008). The need for spatial integration across the farm-landscape scale remains

largely unmet.


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In the US, the term "design" does not have a strong historical association with farm

planning. This may present a cultural barrier to farmer participation in an

agroecosystem design process. The farmer from one of the three case studies was

initially very skeptical about the use of design as an approach to decision making in thefarm landscape, and even of the legitimacy of design as a professional activity.

It behooves advocates of agroecosystem design, as a participatory methodology, to be

prepared to respond to the variety of potential reactions to design as a framework forfarm planning. The use of design as a frame for this methodology serves two functions.

First, to emphasize the spatially explicit component of the planning process, which is

frequently neglected in conventional farm planning. Second, to foster a consultativerelationship between the designer and the farmer, in which the farmer's interests,

priorities, and constraints are situated firmly in the foreground of the process (Biggs

1987).

In the case study referred to above, the farmer's interest in perennial polycultures

overcame his skepticism about the process. He reported finding the process useful, and

of all three case studies, has the most immediate and concrete plans for implementation

of the design outputs from the project.

Figure 3: Design as a Frame for Farm Planning

2.2.4 Productive Perennial Polycultures

A type of system that would be highly appropriate for multifunctional farm design is the

productive perennial polyculture. These systems are able to combine production and

ecological functions when strategically integrated with farm landscapes (Jordan &

Warner, 2010; McNeely & Scherr, 2001). Jordon and Warner suggest that there is

mounting evidence that such [perennial] agroecosystems, integrated in a well-designed

landscape, can produce agricultural commodities abundantly and profitably while

producing nonmarket public goods and services more effectively than annual systems


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(p. 61, 2010). Several specific systems offer examples of productive perennial

polycultures that might be designed into agroecosystems to support multifunctionality

agroforestry, perennial biofuel plantings, perennial grain crops, and managed wetland.

Agroforestry. Agroforestry is the integration of tree and shrub crops with field crops and

pasture. There are five major forms recognized by practitioners in the US: 1) alley

cropping, the cultivation of woody crops in parallel strips alternating with field crops; 2)

silvopasture, the integration of woody crops in pastures and rangeland; 3) buffers, the use

of linear blocks of perennial plantings to protect riparian areas, increase wildlife habitat,

and filter surface runoff; 4) windbreaks, the use of shrubs and trees to protect crops and

livestock from wind; and 5) forest farming, the cultivation of multiple crops in the

understory of existing woodlots (Garrett, 2006). Agroforestry plantings have been shown

to enhance wildlife habitat; stabilize soil; filter and infiltrate nutrient- and pollutant-rich

stormwater; and enhance landscape heterogeneity, connectivity, and complexity (Altieri,

1999; Benayas et al., 2008; Brandon et al., 2005; Lovell et al., 2010b; Roy & de Blois,

2008). They have direct financial impact through the potential production of fruit, nuts,

timber, medicinal herbs, mushrooms and decorative floral products. Agroforestry is most

fully realized, documented, and supported of the perennial systems described in this

section.

Perennial Biofuel Systems. Tilman et al., in their much-cited 2006 paper, demonstrated

that a diverse polyculture of native prairie species, grown on degraded land, with minimal

irrigation and fertilization, can produce a fuel yield competitive with the corn ethanol.

These systems also provide net sequestration of carbon and the probable performance of


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multiple conservation functions. Milder et al., 2008, found that biofuel production has the

greatest potential to enhance rural livelihoods and provide conservation functions at the

landscape scale, when produced in small-scale plots on degraded and/or interstitial

agricultural land. This finding dovetails well with spatial recommendations for buffers

and hedgerows that emerge from the field of multifunctional agriculture (Frst et al.,

2010; Groot et al., 2009; House et al., 2008).

Perennial Grain Crops. The Land Institute, in Salinas, Kansas, has been pioneering work

in the development of perennial grain crops. Substituting polycultures of domesticated

prairie species and perennial domestic grains for monoculture grain cultivation would

dramatically reduce soil erosion and agrochemical pollution, conserve biodiversity,

decrease energy inputs to cereal production, and sequester carbon (Cox et al., 2006). This

long-term project, integrating ecology and plant breeding (DeHaan et al., 2005)

represents an incredible potential for joint production of commodities and ecological

functions. This approach, called Natural Systems Agriculture by its founder, Wes Jackson

(2002), has the distinction of being both revolutionary in its perspective and implications,

and grounded in peer-review and sound empirical methodology (Glover et al., 2010).

Managed Wetlands. While the focus of this study is on land use strategies that directly

combine production and ecological functions, it is worthwhile to mention managed

wetlands. The primary product of managed wetlands is nutrient absorption from

agricultural runoff (Hey et al., 2005). Unlike the other productive perennial polycultures

discussed here, managed wetlands require entirely new markets for environmental service


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credits in order to be considered productive in a financially meaningful sense. This author

has found no published research on the seemingly promising combinat

Documents

Participatory Agroecosystem Design: Working with Farms to Create Multifunctional Landscapes