AgroEcology
HOC 1
• Agroecology as a science, a practice, and a social movement Critical and holistic
thinking
• Agroecological production can yield as well or better than industrial agriculture (but
we should not assume it always will)
• Although yield is a critical factor, so are social implications, economics, biodiversity,
ecosystem services and carbon sequestration ...
Examn: know some numbers => be smart enough, imagine you have to defend agro ecology
to people that don’t believe => this numbers, relevant in discussion for weaknesses and
strengths in numbers of agro ecology
know all the presentations (don’t read papers)
written exam: short question, open questions (defend certain aspect)
Agroecology
• application of ecological concepts and principals in farming
• promotes farming practices that mitigate climate change -> reducing emissions,
recycling resources, and prioritizing local supply chains.
• holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social
concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture
and food systems
• optimizes the interactions between plants, animals, humans, and the environment
while addressing the need for socially equitable food systems within which people
can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced.
• A counter-reaction to large-scale, conventional food production (monocultures, long
transports, extensive use of fertilizers and
pesticides).
Video à the 10 elements of agro-ecology
The United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) identified 10 elements that
define agroecology
it becomes agroecology when it has all elements at
the same time
1: A Brief History of Agriculture
it has never been so good, FOR US => other parts of world are much worse now
and depends on what you look at. Vb: pesticides kill people
The neolithic revolution
farming started 12,000 years ago (quite recent)
Hunter-gatherer lifestyles gradually replaced by permanent settlements and agriculture
not moving all the time anymore and make farm=> change in society => Neolithic Revolution
Why? Many factors, but seasonal conditions at the end of the last ice age (around 20 000
ya) favored annual plants (like wild cereals)
,After last ice age => weather better, around 12 000, the conditions made that you could stay
in one place. but we don’t really know why exactly.
The Fertile Crescent - Cradle Of Civilization
=origin of our farming
irak, land of milk and honey
life was good here, there was everything you
needed (water access, conditions for annual
cereals)
first with cereals, cereals don’t run away so it
was the easiest and then gradually they took
goats (easy to keep) and then cows
domestications. the more experience they
got the better.
it spread all over Europe
Belgium 5000 ya
, Neolithic farmsteads
farm: vegetables & animals for community, homestead: for
yourself
farmstead: for yourself in the first place an what you have
left you bring to projects and others => not a farm
open place in forest = optimal for this
Knap of Howar, island of Papa Westray (Orkney, Scotland)
Radiocarbon dating: occupied from 3700 BC to 2800 BC
dates to 3000 before present
what happened in between, we don’t know but went fast
Agricultural calendar,
c. 1470 (from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi)
a lot what they do here, we also do today (or 100 ya: vb druiven plat trappen)
many ways are still used in parts of Europe.
In few decades, we had all these new methods
Around 1800 (US)
• using animals, Sowing, harvesting with sickle, stooking, threshing with flail (dorsen
met vlegel )*
• 150 hours / hectare human power + 70 hours animal power
• Yield: Around 1 ton / hectare (10% must be kept for sowing next year)
• at some point things went VERY fast
Around 1900 (US)
• Sowing machines, harvesting machines, manual stooking, threshing with machines
• 22 hours / hectare human power - more animal power than human
• 37 hours animal (horse) power
• about 1/4 of farming ground is for growing food for animals
• Yield: 1.7 ton / hectare, (almost double after 100 ys)
100 y later we had already machines, animals are working more than humans and shift from
growing food for yourself to growing food for animals
Early warning ... The Dust Bowl
• Mechanized farming techniques, severe drought, a failure to apply dryland farming
methods to prevent wind erosion, ...
• very heavy, so dry that massive erosion occurred and massive storms
• severe dust storms (3 waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940) in America and Canada
• whole areas covered in dust, you can’t do agricultures anymore
• Forced tens of thousands of families, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, to
abandon their farms
at that point, there should be thought of that we were destroying the soil, and by this, also
chance of agriculture but we continued. There are going up again, more freq dust storms so
some scientists think there might be new dust bowls if we don’t do something
, Today (US)
• Machines: 400 horsepower (hp) (instead of 400 horses).
• Simultaneous harvesting and threshing shipped all over the world (fast)
• ca. 2 hours/hectare human power (nothing! little time)
• Yield: 5 ton/hectare (1 ton to 5 & we don’t have to work anymore: seems great, less
hard work, less hunger, less diseases.)
Wheat yields in Europe
3 times as many people and we went from 65% to under 1 percent => seems very good
It is good, but we went too far with the solution
HUMAN WORK For 1 kg of wheat: 2 whole wheat breads of 800g each
1800: 10 minutes
Today: 2 seconds
The green revolution
• 1950 -> late 1960s: new technologies
• high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereals.
• chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals
• controlled water supply (often irrigation)
• newer methods of cultivation, incl. mechanization
Norman Borlaug: “Father of the Green Revolution” Nobel Peace Prize in 1970
he found high-yielding varieties, chemical fertilizers….
he introduced all that and got results, did something for humanity
HOC 1
• Agroecology as a science, a practice, and a social movement Critical and holistic
thinking
• Agroecological production can yield as well or better than industrial agriculture (but
we should not assume it always will)
• Although yield is a critical factor, so are social implications, economics, biodiversity,
ecosystem services and carbon sequestration ...
Examn: know some numbers => be smart enough, imagine you have to defend agro ecology
to people that don’t believe => this numbers, relevant in discussion for weaknesses and
strengths in numbers of agro ecology
know all the presentations (don’t read papers)
written exam: short question, open questions (defend certain aspect)
Agroecology
• application of ecological concepts and principals in farming
• promotes farming practices that mitigate climate change -> reducing emissions,
recycling resources, and prioritizing local supply chains.
• holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social
concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture
and food systems
• optimizes the interactions between plants, animals, humans, and the environment
while addressing the need for socially equitable food systems within which people
can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced.
• A counter-reaction to large-scale, conventional food production (monocultures, long
transports, extensive use of fertilizers and
pesticides).
Video à the 10 elements of agro-ecology
The United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) identified 10 elements that
define agroecology
it becomes agroecology when it has all elements at
the same time
1: A Brief History of Agriculture
it has never been so good, FOR US => other parts of world are much worse now
and depends on what you look at. Vb: pesticides kill people
The neolithic revolution
farming started 12,000 years ago (quite recent)
Hunter-gatherer lifestyles gradually replaced by permanent settlements and agriculture
not moving all the time anymore and make farm=> change in society => Neolithic Revolution
Why? Many factors, but seasonal conditions at the end of the last ice age (around 20 000
ya) favored annual plants (like wild cereals)
,After last ice age => weather better, around 12 000, the conditions made that you could stay
in one place. but we don’t really know why exactly.
The Fertile Crescent - Cradle Of Civilization
=origin of our farming
irak, land of milk and honey
life was good here, there was everything you
needed (water access, conditions for annual
cereals)
first with cereals, cereals don’t run away so it
was the easiest and then gradually they took
goats (easy to keep) and then cows
domestications. the more experience they
got the better.
it spread all over Europe
Belgium 5000 ya
, Neolithic farmsteads
farm: vegetables & animals for community, homestead: for
yourself
farmstead: for yourself in the first place an what you have
left you bring to projects and others => not a farm
open place in forest = optimal for this
Knap of Howar, island of Papa Westray (Orkney, Scotland)
Radiocarbon dating: occupied from 3700 BC to 2800 BC
dates to 3000 before present
what happened in between, we don’t know but went fast
Agricultural calendar,
c. 1470 (from a manuscript of Pietro de Crescenzi)
a lot what they do here, we also do today (or 100 ya: vb druiven plat trappen)
many ways are still used in parts of Europe.
In few decades, we had all these new methods
Around 1800 (US)
• using animals, Sowing, harvesting with sickle, stooking, threshing with flail (dorsen
met vlegel )*
• 150 hours / hectare human power + 70 hours animal power
• Yield: Around 1 ton / hectare (10% must be kept for sowing next year)
• at some point things went VERY fast
Around 1900 (US)
• Sowing machines, harvesting machines, manual stooking, threshing with machines
• 22 hours / hectare human power - more animal power than human
• 37 hours animal (horse) power
• about 1/4 of farming ground is for growing food for animals
• Yield: 1.7 ton / hectare, (almost double after 100 ys)
100 y later we had already machines, animals are working more than humans and shift from
growing food for yourself to growing food for animals
Early warning ... The Dust Bowl
• Mechanized farming techniques, severe drought, a failure to apply dryland farming
methods to prevent wind erosion, ...
• very heavy, so dry that massive erosion occurred and massive storms
• severe dust storms (3 waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940) in America and Canada
• whole areas covered in dust, you can’t do agricultures anymore
• Forced tens of thousands of families, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, to
abandon their farms
at that point, there should be thought of that we were destroying the soil, and by this, also
chance of agriculture but we continued. There are going up again, more freq dust storms so
some scientists think there might be new dust bowls if we don’t do something
, Today (US)
• Machines: 400 horsepower (hp) (instead of 400 horses).
• Simultaneous harvesting and threshing shipped all over the world (fast)
• ca. 2 hours/hectare human power (nothing! little time)
• Yield: 5 ton/hectare (1 ton to 5 & we don’t have to work anymore: seems great, less
hard work, less hunger, less diseases.)
Wheat yields in Europe
3 times as many people and we went from 65% to under 1 percent => seems very good
It is good, but we went too far with the solution
HUMAN WORK For 1 kg of wheat: 2 whole wheat breads of 800g each
1800: 10 minutes
Today: 2 seconds
The green revolution
• 1950 -> late 1960s: new technologies
• high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereals.
• chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals
• controlled water supply (often irrigation)
• newer methods of cultivation, incl. mechanization
Norman Borlaug: “Father of the Green Revolution” Nobel Peace Prize in 1970
he found high-yielding varieties, chemical fertilizers….
he introduced all that and got results, did something for humanity
