Site-specific management and precision agriculture benefits from ICT (Dobermann and Cassman, 2002; Dobermann et al., 2002), such as global positioning systems. Remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems enable detailed monitoring, evaluation, and prediction of land use changes (see 3.2.2.1.1).

3.2.2 Impacts of AKST on sustainability, through integrated technologies and the delivery of ecosystem services and public goods The second pathway to agricultural development

from the grassroots of civil society and involved locallybased innovations that meet the needs of local people and communities. This pathway has its foundations in traditional farming systems and addresses the integration of social and environmental issues with agricultural production. With the realization that the globalized pathway was not leading to sustainable land use systems, numerous different types of organizations initiated efforts to bring about a change; however, the agriculture "Establishment" has in general marginalized these efforts, and they have not been mainstreamed in policy, or in agribusiness. Nevertheless, public-funded research has increasingly become involved, as illustrated by the creation of NRM programs in CGIAR Centers and and other research centers with natural resource management mandates. These and other initiatives have now given credibility to Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM), in various forms (e.g., agroforestry and ecoagriculture) and recognized the importance of, and need for, new scientific research agendas (INRM Committee of CGIAR).

3.2.2.1 Integrated natural resource management systems

Sustainable rural development research has taken different approaches to the integration of management technologies in the search for a more holistic agricultural system (e.g., Integrated Pest Management, Integrated Water Resources Management, Integrated Soil and Nutrient Management and Integrated Crop and Livestock Management). These concepts are not foreign to developing country farmers, who traditionally have implemented various mixed farming systems appropriate to the local ecology. Research has also examined many of the ways that farmers approached integrated farm management, through various forms of mixed cropping. Over the last 25 years, agroforestry research has recognized that for millennia trees have played a role in food production both as tree crops and as providers of ecological services. Organic farming has especially focused on organic approaches to pest control, soil health and fertility rather than the use of inorganic inputs. There is a growing recognition of the importance of maintaining a functional agroecosystem capable of providing ecological services, biodiversity conservation (Cassman et al., 2005; MA, 2005c), and public goods such as water resources, watershed management, carbon sequestration and the mitigation of climate change.

Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM) has provided opportunities for sustainable development and the achievement of development and sustainability goals.

There are good localized examples of INRM enhancing agricultural sustainability (e.g., Palm et al., 2005b). INRM, like Farming Systems Research (www.fao.org/farming systems/ ifsa_mandate), aims at simultaneously improving livelihoods, agroecosystem resilience, agricultural productivity and the provision of environmental services by augmenting social, physical, human, natural and financial capital (Thomas, 2003). It focuses on resolving complex problems affecting natural resources management in agroecosystems by improving the capacity of agroecological systems to continuously supply a flow of products and services on which poor people depend. It does this by improving the adaptive capacity of systems (Douthwaite et al., 2004). INRM innovations help to restore biological processes in farming systems, greatly enhancing soil fertility, water holding capacity, improving water quality and management, and increasing micronutrient availability to farming communities (Sayer and Campbell, 2004), through such processes as the diversification of farming systems and local economies; the inclusion of local culture, traditional knowledge and the use of local species; use of participatory approaches with poor farmers to simultaneously address the issues of poverty, hunger, health/malnutrition, inequity and the degradation of both the environment and natural resources (Campbell and Sayer, 2003). INRM reduces vulnerability to risk and shocks (Izac and Sanchez, 2001) by combining concepts of natural capital and ecosystem hierarchy.

Resource-conserving technologies have been demonstrated to benefit poor farmers.

A study of projects involving IPM, integrated nutrient management (INM), conservation tillage, agroforestry with multifunctional trees in farming systems, aquaculture within farming systems, water harvesting and integrated livestock systems (Pretty et al., 2006) has examined to what extent farmers can increase food production using low-cost and available technologies and inputs, and their impacts on environmental goods and services. The multilocational study, covering 3% of cultivated land in 57 developing countries, identified very considerable benefits in productivity, which were often associated with reduced pesticide use, enhanced carbon sequestration and increased water use efficiency (WUE) in rainfed agriculture (Pretty et al., 2006). The study concluded that the critical challenge is to find policy and institutional reforms in support of environmental goods and services from resource conserving technologies that also benefit food security and income growth at national and household levels.

3.2.2.1.1 Techniques and concepts

A number of new research and monitoring techniques and tools have been developed for this relatively new area of INRM research and land management (see also 3.2.3.3).