The Future Of Agricultural Landscapes

The Future of Agricultural Landscapes, Part III, Volume 65 in the Advances in Ecological Research serial, highlights new advances in the field, with this update including contributions from an international board of authors who cover Designing farmer-acceptable rotations that assure ecosystem service provision in the face of climate change, Building a shared vision of the future for multifunctional agricultural landscapes: Lessons from a Long Term Socio-Ecological Research site in south-western France, Vineyard landscapes and biocontrol, Pollinators, Next generation biomonitoring, Diversification of botanical resources in landscapes, Conflict resolution in agricultural landscapes, Addressing the Unanswered Questions in landscape-moderated biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and more. Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors Presents the latest release in the Advances in Ecological Research series Updated release includes the latest information on the Future of Agricultural Landscapes

Advances in Ecological Research, Part Two, Volume 64, the latest release in this ongoing series, includes specific chapters on Tropical Ecosystems in the 21st Century. Chapters in this volume cover topics such as landscape-scale expansion of agroecology to enhance natural pest control, a systematic review and ecosystem services, and the resilience of agricultural landscapes. Provides information that relates to a thorough understanding of the field of ecology Deals with topical and important reviews on the physiologies, populations and communities of plants and animals

Advances in Ecological Research, Volume 63, the latest release in this ongoing series includes specific chapters on Tropical Ecosystems in the 21st Century. Chapters in this volume cover topics such as Landscape-scale expansion of agroecology to enhance natural pest control: a systematic review and Ecosystem services and the resilience of agricultural landscapes Provides information that relates to a thorough understanding of the field of ecology Deals with topical and important reviews on the physiologies, populations and communities of plants and animals

Agricultural Landscapes: Seeing Rural Through Design follows on from the author’s previous books, Rural Design and Architecture and Agriculture, to encourage using design thinking to provide greater meaning and understanding of places where humans live and work with the rural landscape. Rural areas around the world are often viewed as special places with cultural, historical and natural significance for people. Dewey Thorbeck emphasizes the importance of these rural sites and their connections to urban areas through full-color case studies of these places with particular emphasis on Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), as identified by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, to document and explore personal experiences, lessons learned, and implications for the future. Rural landscapes are part of everyone’s heritage, and the book shows these connections and the unique GIAHS land use systems and landscapes as models for a more sustainable and prosperous rural and urban future. It includes practical examples of working places where growing food, raising animals, or harvesting from the sea has been the primary economy for centuries to exhibit a clear and sustainable local relationship between humans, animals, buildings, climate and place. Aimed at students, teachers and professionals, this book investigates how design thinking can be used to integrate rural and urban sites to shape land use for more sustainable futures.

Evidence has been mounting for some time that intensive row-crop agriculture as practiced in developed countries may not be environmentally sustainable, with concerns increasingly being raised about climate change, implications for water quantity and quality, and soil degradation. This volume synthesizes two decades of research on the sustainability of temperate, row-crop ecosystems of the Midwestern United States. The overarching hypothesis guiding this work has been that more biologically based management practices could greatly reduce negative impacts while maintaining sufficient productivity to meet demands for food, fiber and fuel, but that roadblocks to their adoption persist because we lack a comprehensive understanding of their benefits and drawbacks. The research behind this book, based at the Kellogg Biological Station (Michigan State University) and conducted under the aegis of the Long-term Ecological Research network, is structured on a foundation of large-scale field experiments that explore alternatives to conventional, chemical-intensive agriculture. Studies have explored the biophysical underpinnings of crop productivity, the interactions of crop ecosystems with the hydrology and biodiversity of the broader landscapes in which they lie, farmers' views about alternative practices, economic valuation of ecosystem services, and global impacts such as greenhouse gas exchanges with the atmosphere. In contrast to most research projects, the long-term design of this research enables identification of slow or delayed processes of change in response to management regimes, and allows examination of responses across a broader range of climatic variability. This volume synthesizes this comprehensive inquiry into the ecology of alternative cropping systems, identifying future steps needed on the path to sustainability.

Under the Blade: The Conversion of Agricultural Landscapes examines the patterns, causes, and consequences of current land use decisions in the United States, particularly the conversion of farmland to housing, roads, and other development. Changes in land use are the result of complex interactions among law, economics, landscape characteristics, social and political forces, ethics, and aesthetics. By examining farmland loss from each of these perspectives, and then integrating the results into policy recommendations, Under the Blade makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on the optimal use of a finite resourceland. }In 1998, the last farm in Des Plaines, Illinois was subdivided. Seven acres along the Niobrara River in north-central Nebraska sold for USD5700 per acre, twenty times the price for agricultural use. Waukesha County, Wisconsin, although still largely in agriculture, has been almost entirely zoned for small lot subdivisions. Nationwide, the cumulative effect of thousands of individual land use decisions is an orgiastic devouring of the countryside that consumes at least 1.4 million acres of rural land each year, and fragments a much larger area. The effects on landscape functions include loss of agricultural production, water pollution, increases in local runoff and flooding, loss of habitat and biodiversity, and the loss of natural beauty. In exchange we get malls, retail strips, and an ugly sprawl that degrades people and community. How have we come to this, and more importantly, how might we find a better, sustainable approach to the use of land? Land use decisions are the result of complex interactions among law, economics, landscape characteristics, population growth, social and political forces, ethics, and aesthetics. Under the Blade: The Conversion of Agricultural Landscapes examines the loss of farmland and other rural lands from each of these perspectives, and shows how interactions among different factors greatly complicate sustainable land management. Included throughout the seven main chapters of the book are descriptions of some of the tools and strategies that can be used to preserve farmland and guide development. The application of these tools is illustrated by 22 case studies of towns and regions throughout the United States, each with a somewhat different challenge, response, and degree of success (or failure).Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Protestant theologian hanged by the Nazis in 1945, stated that the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. Our current choices in the use of the land are among the most important factors shaping that future world, and Under the Blade demonstrates that the quality of that future is far from certain.

Nutrients from farms in the Mississippi River Basin are the leading cause of the Gulf of Mexico‘s 'Dead Zone,' a 5,000 to 7,000 square mile region where declining oxygen levels are threatening the survival of marine life. From the Corn Belt to the Gulf explores how new agricultural policy can help alleviate this problem, and at the same time improve water quality overall, enhance biodiversity, improve the quality of life for the people who live and work in Corn Belt communities, and relieve downstream flooding. The themes of the book are the far-reaching environmental impacts of Corn Belt agriculture, including associated economic and social effects at multiple spatial scales - and the potential for future agricultural policy to address those impacts through changes in agricultural landscapes and practices. We know that the environmental 'footprint' of Corn Belt agriculture extends beyond farmland and adjacent lakes and streams to groundwater, rivers, cities downstream, into the Gulf of Mexico, and, ultimately, to global oceanic and atmospheric systems. And we acknowledge that agricultural policies, including commodity support payments, have economic impacts at the national and international levels. Pressing negotiations with America‘s trade partners, along with increasing societal attention to both the costs and environmental effects of current agricultural policy, are creating momentum for policy change. From the Corn Belt to the Gulf presents innovative, integrated assessments of the agriculture and ecological systems in the Mississippi River Basin along with studies of local Iowa agricultural watersheds. Contributors from multiple academic and professional disciplines discuss how agricultural policies have contributed to current environmental conditions, and, in what the authors term 'alternative futures' for agricultural landscapes, envision how new policy can help achieve more beneficial patterns.

By the late twentieth century, idyllic depictions of eighteenth-century manorial landscapes had become artistic expressions of dislocation. Western agricultural paradigms had shifted, as had the relationship between art and agriculture. The Cultivated Landscape uses over seventy illustrations to look at the development of Western agriculture from feudal times to the present. Craig Pearson and Judith Nasby discuss the evolution of how we think about agriculture, its use of the land and impact on landscape, and how landscape has been portrayed historically in art. They also offer a wider discussion on the role that science and economics have played in agricultural development and the parallels to changes in art form. The Cultivated Landscape ends with a discussion of the complex issues facing agriculture today, the need for greater connectivity between agriculture and our environment, and options for the future.