Reconciling Agriculture and Biodiversity: Policy and Research Challenges of ‘Ecoagriculture’

Overview

Ecoagriculture Partners foundational publication

A New Type of Agriculture: Ecoagriculture

An essential strategy for conserving wild biodiversity, especially that found in highly populated, poor rural areas around the world, is to convert agriculture that is destructive of biodiversity into a new type of agriculture: ‘ecoagriculture’. Ecoagriculture, which builds on the concept of ‘ecosystem management’, refers to land-use systems that are managed both to produce food and to protect wildlife and other critical ecosystem services.

Policy and research agenda necessary

An ambitious policy and research agenda is needed to develop and promote the adoption of farming systems that increase production, wildlife and also farm incomes in areas of high biodiversity value. Such research will require a full partnership of ecological/ wildlife sciences and the agricultural sciences, working in association with operational-scale conservation and agricultural development programs.

It is essential to increase resources for both agricultural and environmental research and development, to improve the integration between them, and to integrate agriculture fully into ecosystem management, to ensure both sustainability and wildlife conservation.