Agricultural research to reverse highland degradation: thinking beyond boundaries

Agricultural research often aims to reduce productivity constraints by focusing on individual farm components (livestock, crops, soil or trees). There is a strong argument for emphasising how each discipline can contribute to reversing system-wide problems, such as declining soil nutrients or water supplies.

Researchers must movebeyond the traditional emphasis on increasing agricultural productivity withintheir respective fields to consider how maximising yields in their area ofinterest affects soil, water and the productivity of other enterprises. Theyalso must look at the entire farm and landscape to understand whether currentnegative trends may be reversed by simply changing current land use practice,or whether wider policy interventions are required.

The AgriculturalResearch and Extension Network, UK, outlines an integrated research approach. Focusingon a watershed in Ethiopia, researchers developed an approach to understand howresearch within a single discipline (agroforestry)can contribute to reversing nutrient degradation at farm and landscape level.  

Actionstaken within a single enterprise or component (trees) affect the rest of thesystem. Trees affect:

• soil fertility through the decomposition of leaflitter and the substitution of dung with wood for fuel
• crop productivity through soil fertility improvementsand the opportunity to leave crop residues in place, rather than use them asfuel
• livestock productivity, depending on whether theselected species produces leaves that are edible for livestock
• waterdischarge from springs, depending on which trees are planted and where. 

Reversing nutrientdepletion requires not only technological research (for example which trees canbe planted and where), but research on the ability of a system to absorb thedegree of change required to reverse nutrient loss. Understanding how manytrees are needed requires biophysical research; understanding the ability ofhouseholds to implement these changes requires social science research. 

Policymakers previouslyassumed that technology alone can reverse negative trends in farming systemsand natural resource degradation. This new approach illustrates how analysingsystems from social and biophysical viewpoints complements technologicalinnovation, local negotiations and policy support. Researchinstitutes must significantly alter their practices to meet this changingdemand for inter-disciplinary agricultural research and research-policylinkages:

• Agricultural research organisations need funding and policysupport to expand their mandates for interdisciplinary research and analysis ofwhole systems.
• They will also need training and expertise to incorporatenew disciplinary perspectives, such as social science and systems ecology, withwhich they may not be familiar.
• Research must change its focus from ‘desired change’to what can actually be achieved under existing conditions.
• Researchers must work with policymakers to develop alternativestrategies for developments that cannot be achieved through technology alone.
• Researchinstitutions must modify their planning and evaluation procedures, researchdesign (from component to system objectives) and structures (from disciplinaryto interdisciplinary programs) to support systems-oriented research at farm andlandscape levels.

Agricultural research has an important role to play inmoving beyond specialised disciplines to balance production with naturalresource management and to understand the limits to (of?) local-levelinnovation. This will strengthen the influence of research on policy byhighlighting what local-level actions can achieve and what requires largerscale (regional or national) policies to reverse poverty and natural resourcedegradation.