of the concept of sustainable development (WCED, 1987; Buttel, 2005). As knowledge about agroecosystems has increased, past uses of environments and the potential for their sustainable management in the future has attracted particular integrative or interdisciplinary efforts (Pawson and Dovers, 2003). Interdisciplinarity is now increasingly claimed and practiced (Bruun et al., 2005).
Integration of perspectives representing different system levels, spatial and temporal scales, scientific disciplines and stakeholders in agricultural research and extension (and later also in education) has thus come into focus as a way to overcome the main barriers towards achieving sustainable development. Examples include hard and soft systems approaches (Box 4-3), participation (Table 4-2), interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity (Visser, 2001; Klein, 2004). In the mid-1960s, there was little interaction between traditional agricultural and social scientists. Although the Green Revolution (an approach relaying on natural sciences alone) was successful in reducing hunger for millions, the lack of success in using a similar approach with resource poor farmers led in the 1960s and early 1970s to the evolution of a number of new foci in international agricultural R&D (see 4.3.2) (Table 4-2).
For example, during the 1980s the CGIAR centers were encouraged to use multidisciplinary approaches, to increase inter-center cooperation and to collaborate with others (CGIAR, 2006), even if strong friction occurred due to the existing structures and management (Buhler et al., 2002).
For integration of different dimensions of farming and for participation of resource-poor farmers (and later other stakeholders) in R&D, several approaches with different coverage, emphasis and procedures were developed (see 4.3.2). Examples of farmer oriented approaches include "farmer-back-to-farmer" and "farmer-first," Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) (Chambers, 1983), Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) (Robb, 1998), Sustainable Rural Livelihoods approach (SRL) (Carney, 1998) and Farmer Field Schools (FFSs) (Way and van Emden, 2000). The concept of participation has more and more evolved towards governance (Table 4-2; Ashley and Maxwell, 2001). Participation is also a way to introduce experiential and local/indigenous knowledge (Sil-litoe et al., 2002) as well as knowledge about the locally adapted, traditional systems and practices to contribute to system development in interaction with science-based knowledge (Sumberg and Okali, 1997).
Food systems approaches (see 4.3.3) often comprehensively involve food system actors to contribute to AKST. The US academic literature on food systems echoes alternative social norms, where "local" becomes the context in which these norms can be realized, while in the European literature dealing with alternative food networks, localism is seen as a way to maintain rural livelihoods (DuPuis and Goodman, 2005). Irrespective of the scale, food system AKST is relevant to food policy. Food systems approaches make it possible to address and take into account societal preconditions when developing food systems and thus have great potential to contribute knowledge and tools to reduce hunger and poverty and increase sustainability.
The paradigmatic change towards sustainability, food |
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Box 4-3. An introduction to systems approaches.
Beginning with Einstein's theory of relativity (1905), a more systemic approach has evolved within science (Jantsch, 1975; Ackoff, 1983), and been formulated into a general theory of systems, for example by Bertalanffy (1973). According to the systems view, useful information about a phenomenon is not obtained by studying its components in isolation, because their interrelations determine the function of both the part and the whole (Bunge, 1985). A system is seen always to be embedded in a larger system, thus implying the aspect of hierarchy, and the interrelations among system levels are important to consider. The soft systems approach (e.g., Checkland, 1981) further assumes that every system can be described in several ways depending on the underlying worldview. This shift from a hard systems methodology (an ontological systems orientation) to a soft systems methodology (an epistemologi-cal systems orientation) implies that not only is the phenomenon studied interpreted as a system but also the inquiry into it (Checkland, 1988; Bawden, 1991). This approach, participatory in its very nature (Laszlo and Laszlo, 1997), introduces the researcher as a responsible actor in the human activity system (also Aløre and Kristensen, 1998). Attempts to construct research methodologies, especially for agriculture using hard or soft systems approach, were made starting with FSR in low-income countries and by Spedding (1979), Bawden et al. (1985), Odum (1983, 1988) and others. This approach is often seen as an articulation for a plea for holism in science. The danger is in interpreting a systems approach as a need to focus solely at a certain, often relatively high level, which can lead to "upward reductionism" (see Bunge, 1985).
Soft system research has been promoted for situations where there is uncertainty about what constitutes the problem and what represents an acceptable solution as they depend on the perspective of the individuals involved (Stephens and Hess, 1999). A key feature of the soft system approach is that it aims to avoid formulating problems from one perspective to the exclusion of others. Stephens and Hess (1999) suggested that "an idealised pathway may be to adopt soft systems approaches to problem identification, hard systems methods to researching acceptable and sustainable solutions, and then to develop bilateral projects . . . [to] facilitate the uptake of outputs" although they were concerned that that the current short term funding situation does not allow the necessary time or the freedom of thought.
chain approach and systems orientation created a demand for integrated, educational programs taking into account the multiple roles of agriculture and more problem- and improvement-oriented pedagogical solutions (Delgado and Ramos, 2006). Student-centered and experiential approaches started to emerge in higher education in food and agriculture-related subjects during the last decades. Such |