Understanding Agroecology: Benefits, Principles, and Ecological Footprint

Posted on Mar 23, 2025 in Social sciences

Benefits and Impacts of Trees

Benefits of a tree:

  • Shade
  • Oxygen
  • Landscaping ornamentation
  • Erosion control
  • Power control
  • Reduced noise

Negative impacts of cutting down a tree:

  • Ants may invade houses
  • Loss of sanitary barriers
  • Increased noise
  • Increased temperature

Social Empowerment

Social empowerment is a process that provides or recognizes individuals with a set of skills, abilities, and knowledge that will enable their participation in social change.

To empower is to provide tools of all kinds, to make people more in control of their environment, designing their environment and their relationships with it. Empowerment means more freedom.

Guidelines to respect:

  1. Traditions
  2. Consensus
  3. Locality
  4. Participation of people
  5. Multidisciplinary teams
  6. Decision-making

Rural development: cultural, economic, social, and self-sufficiency.

Tradition: respect, identification, membership.

The proposed agro-ecology should take into account the location of the site for any changes. For example, conduct tests in a specific locality, not in a general location.

Ecological Footprint

The ecological footprint is an indicator of the impact exerted by humans on the planet. This indicator can be estimated at any level: individual, family, city, region, country, or humanity.

It measures how many hectares are occupied by each person to maintain their level of consumption. Globally, there are approximately 2.9 hectares of land per person.

The ecological footprint calculation is complex and sometimes impossible due to the difficulty (sometimes subjective) in calculating some of its components, which is its main limitation.

In calculating the ecological footprint, it is taken into account that producing any product requires materials and energy that are ultimately produced by ecological systems.

Specific Considerations in Calculating the Ecological Footprint:

  1. The amount of acres used for actual development, building infrastructure, and workplaces.
  2. The acres needed to provide food of plant origin.
  3. The area required to feed cattle pastures.
  4. The sea surface needed to produce fish.
  5. The hectares of forest needed to capture the CO2 that causes our energy consumption.

Agroecological Principles for a Sustainable Agroecosystem:

  1. Diversification of plant and animal species.
  2. Nutrient cycling and optimization.
  3. Optimal conditions for soil and crop growth.
  4. Minimization of soil and water losses.
  5. Loss minimization by insects, pathogens, and weeds.
  6. Exploitation of synergies that emerge from plant-plant, plant-animal, and animal-animal interactions.

The Three Concepts Underpinning Agroecology:

  • Economic equity: local resources, stable production.
  • Social: food self-sufficiency, local needs, integrated local development.
  • Environmental: biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, productive stability.

This indicator understates the following points:

  • It does not take into account the impacts of soil contamination, water pollution, and erosion.
  • It assumes that conventional agricultural practices, livestock, and forestry are sustainable.

Average per capita footprint in global hectares per biomass:

  • Forest: 38% (8.88)
  • Marine fish: 22% (5.22)
  • Pastureland: 27% (6.33)
  • Breeding ground: 13% (3.06)

Footprint average per use category:

  • Carbon footprint: 6.77
  • Power footprint: 7.13
  • Accommodation footprint
  • Footprint of goods and services

Ways of measuring the ecological footprint:

  1. Reduce waste
  2. Optimize transport
  3. Promote equity
  4. Use efficient energy in the house
  5. Use efficient heating equipment
  6. Reduce water use

Agroecology

Agroecology is the scientific discipline that focuses on the study of agriculture from an ecological perspective. It is defined as a theoretical framework designed to analyze agricultural processes more broadly. Its main properties are that it is social, economic, and environmental.

To Emphasize Environmental Sustainability:

  1. Reduce the use of energy and resources.
  2. Use production methods that restore homeostatic mechanisms that lead to community stability, which maximize the exchange rate and recycling of organic matter and nutrients, maximize the landscape’s ability for multiple uses, and ensure efficient energy flow.
  3. Stimulate local production of food items adapted to the natural and socio-economic scenario.
  4. Reduce costs and increase farm efficiency, promoting a diverse and potentially flexible system.