Combining knowledge, biology and technology at the farm system level: the emerging model for multifunctional agriculture in Canada

Dr. Rene Van Acker, Professor and Chair.
Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph.

Abstract
Over the past 40 years the industrialization of agricultural production systems allowed for dramatic increases in productivity and production efficiency via the rapid adoption and employment of an evolving stream of green revolution technologies. The industrial model of agricultural production successfully supports a productive agri-food industry which supplies safe nutritious and affordable food.

With success in industrial agricultural production there is a now a move to look to new and emerging goals for agriculture. Although the industrial model was effective in delivering productivity and safe, nutritious and affordable food, it cannot fully deliver on additional goals, particularly in the area of environmental stewardship.

The inability of the industrial model to deliver on broader goals is a function of trade-offs in the model where specialization facilitated by production technology (primarily pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer) is used to facilitate production scale increases. Specialization commonly results in farming systems that lack integrated biological diversity (e.g. diverse crop rotations) and key environmental stewardship goals can only be met by systems that are built on biological diversity.

The reliability and functionality of systems increases when they are more biologically diverse and even more so when the biological diversity is integrated within the systems. This diversity provides to these systems the advantage of biological risk management. Biologically diverse production systems deliver a more stable yield in unpredictable weather conditions, require less external energy inputs and fewer cash inputs, they offer a more consistent and predictable local income level, are more nutrient and water efficient and they support a more diverse range of macro and micro-organisms on the landscape.

There is great potential economic and environmental value in increasing the integrated biological diversity within production systems with the goal of building systems which more closely resemble robustly functional natural systems. In the context of unreliable weather and markets, these systems will be inherently better able to reliably deliver on societies increasingly multifunctional expectations including: high quality food, secure product and commodity supply, food safety, food sovereignty, bio-based clean energy, a diversity of novel agricultural products, a healthy environment, a beautiful countryside and clean water.

Full Presentation (PDF)


Source
Organic Agriculture Research Symposium, Natural Sciences held at the 26th Guelph Organic Conference, University of Guelph, January 2007


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Posted February 2007