Adaptive farming systems – A position paper
Year: 2008
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In the last decades, there have been profound changes in the understanding of farmingsystems, in particular regarding their need for on-going adaptation to an ever-changing environment.Indeed, the rapid pace of change and its often unforeseeable direction requires farmers to keep theirfarms flexible and adaptive. We thus need to understand the attitudes, structures and activities thatbuild and sustain the ability of farmers and of farming communities to cope with change and to use theopportunities offered by change. The approach we propose is based on an understanding of theworkings of complex systems and entails another viewpoint on system properties, boundaries anddynamics. It focuses on ensuring sufficient room to manoeuvre, identifying transition capabilities andextending the degrees of freedom. It emphasises the need to ensure that farmers are prepared forturbulences by increasing their adaptive capacity. The concepts of flexibility, resilience and adaptivemanagement may help in learning how to make constructive use of unforeseen change. Indeed,changes are the triggers for experimentation, for the reorganisation of resources, for the renewal ofsystems capable of learning and adapting. In particular, we will examine the factors that may supportthe capacity of farming systems to create, test and maintain an adaptive design.
Source: HAL
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1574358977