Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments
Transformation of agriculture to realise sustainable site-specific management requires comprehensive scientific support based on field experiments to capture the complex agroecological process, incite new policies and integrate them into farmers’ decisions. However, current experimental approaches a...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Heliyon |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023084232 |
| _version_ | 1827616113118150656 |
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| author | Anna Pereponova Kathrin Grahmann Gunnar Lischeid Sonoko Dorothea Bellingrath-Kimura Frank A. Ewert |
| author_facet | Anna Pereponova Kathrin Grahmann Gunnar Lischeid Sonoko Dorothea Bellingrath-Kimura Frank A. Ewert |
| author_sort | Anna Pereponova |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Transformation of agriculture to realise sustainable site-specific management requires comprehensive scientific support based on field experiments to capture the complex agroecological process, incite new policies and integrate them into farmers’ decisions. However, current experimental approaches are limited in addressing the wide spectrum of sustainable agroecosystem and landscape characteristics and in supplying stakeholders with suitable solutions and measures. This review identifies major constraints in current field experimentation, such as a lack of consideration of multiple processes and scales and a limited ability to address interactions between them. It emphasizes the urgent need to establish a new category of landscape experimentation that empowers agricultural research on sustainable agricultural systems, aiming at elucidating interactions among various landscape structures and functions, encompassing both natural and anthropogenic features. It extensively discusses the key characteristics of landscape experiments and major opportunities to include them in the agricultural research agenda. In particular, simultaneously considering multiple factors, and thus processes at different scales and possible synergies or antagonisms among them would boost our understanding of heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We also highlight that though various studies identified promising approaches with respect to experimental design and data analysis, further developments are still required to build a fully functional and integrated framework for landscape experimentation in agricultural settings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T09:20:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ce446945ed92430c8e7696ac2d7ee496 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2405-8440 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T09:20:08Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Heliyon |
| spelling | doaj.art-ce446945ed92430c8e7696ac2d7ee4962023-12-02T07:01:30ZengElsevierHeliyon2405-84402023-11-01911e21215Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experimentsAnna Pereponova0Kathrin Grahmann1Gunnar Lischeid2Sonoko Dorothea Bellingrath-Kimura3Frank A. Ewert4Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374, Müncheberg, Germany; Corresponding author.Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374, Müncheberg, GermanyLeibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374, Müncheberg, Germany; University of Potsdam, Institute of Environmental Science and Geography. Campus Golm, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, 14476, Potsdam, GermanyLeibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374, Müncheberg, Germany; Humboldt University of Berlin, Department of Agronomy and Crop Science. Albrecht Daniel Thaer-Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Invalidenstraße 42, 10115, Berlin, GermanyLeibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Str. 84, 15374, Müncheberg, Germany; University of Bonn, Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES), Karlrobert-Kreiten-Strasse 13, 53115, Bonn, GermanyTransformation of agriculture to realise sustainable site-specific management requires comprehensive scientific support based on field experiments to capture the complex agroecological process, incite new policies and integrate them into farmers’ decisions. However, current experimental approaches are limited in addressing the wide spectrum of sustainable agroecosystem and landscape characteristics and in supplying stakeholders with suitable solutions and measures. This review identifies major constraints in current field experimentation, such as a lack of consideration of multiple processes and scales and a limited ability to address interactions between them. It emphasizes the urgent need to establish a new category of landscape experimentation that empowers agricultural research on sustainable agricultural systems, aiming at elucidating interactions among various landscape structures and functions, encompassing both natural and anthropogenic features. It extensively discusses the key characteristics of landscape experiments and major opportunities to include them in the agricultural research agenda. In particular, simultaneously considering multiple factors, and thus processes at different scales and possible synergies or antagonisms among them would boost our understanding of heterogeneous agricultural landscapes. We also highlight that though various studies identified promising approaches with respect to experimental design and data analysis, further developments are still required to build a fully functional and integrated framework for landscape experimentation in agricultural settings.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023084232Ecosystem servicesSustainable intensificationKnowledge generationAgricultural researchLandscape scale |
| spellingShingle | Anna Pereponova Kathrin Grahmann Gunnar Lischeid Sonoko Dorothea Bellingrath-Kimura Frank A. Ewert Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments Heliyon Ecosystem services Sustainable intensification Knowledge generation Agricultural research Landscape scale |
| title | Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| title_full | Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| title_fullStr | Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| title_full_unstemmed | Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| title_short | Sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| title_sort | sustainable transformation of agriculture requires landscape experiments |
| topic | Ecosystem services Sustainable intensification Knowledge generation Agricultural research Landscape scale |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844023084232 |
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