Agroecology Knowledge Hub

Synergies: building synergies enhances key functions across food systems, supporting production and multiple ecosystem services

Agroecology pays careful attention to the design of diversified systems that selectively combine annual and perennial crops, livestock and aquatic animals, trees, soils, water and other components on farms and agricultural landscapes to enhance synergies in the context of an increasingly changing climate.

Building synergies in food systems delivers multiple benefits. By optimizing biological synergies, agroecological practices enhance ecological functions, leading to greater resource-use efficiency and resilience. For example, globally, biological nitrogen fixation by pulses in intercropping systems or rotations generates close to USD 10 million savings in nitrogen fertilizers every year, while contributing to soil health, climate change mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, about 15 percent of the nitrogen applied to crops comes from livestock manure, highlighting synergies resulting from crop–livestock integration. In Asia, integrated rice systems combine rice cultivation with the generation of other products such as fish, ducks and trees. By maximising synergies, integrated rice systems significantly improve yield, dietary diversity, weed control, soil structure and fertility, as well as providing biodiversity habitat and pest control.

At the landscape level, synchronization of productive activities in time and space is necessary to enhance synergies. Soil erosion control using Calliandra hedgerows is common in integrated agroecological systems in the East African Highlands. In this example, the management practice of periodic pruning reduces tree competition with crops grown between hedgerows and at the same time provides feed for animals, creating synergies between the different components. Pastoralism and extensive livestock grazing systems manage complex interactions between people, multi-species herds and variable environmental conditions, building resilience and contributing to ecosystem services such as seed dispersal, habitat preservation and soil fertility.

While agroecological approaches strive to maximise synergies, trade-offs also occur in natural and human systems. For example, the allocation of resource use or access rights often involve trade-offs. To promote synergies within the wider food system, and best manage trade-offs, agroecology emphasizes the importance of partnerships, cooperation and responsible governance, involving different actors at multiple scales.

Database

The booklet, edited by the United Federation of Farmers and Livestock Associations (FUGEA), presents a series of practices and techniques to reinforce farmer's autonomy and the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the farms. The booklet covers eight main topics: food systems' autonomy, livestock, diversification, soil convervation, agroforestry, water protection, energy...
France
Fact sheet
2017
This guide has been prepared by Prosalus, as a result of a study carried out within the framework of a project promoted by the INTERCOONECTA Plan of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation – (INTERCOONECTA of AECID, for its acronym in Spanish), the FAO regional office for Latin America and...
Guidelines
2018
This paper, written by Schola Campesina, highlights the importance of understanding how the term ''innovation'' is passed off as good in itself. The meaning of innovation today incorporates a large part of the capitalist system that seeks to transform food production irreversibly from a communal, social, democratic act into a commercial...
Working paper
2018
This course is a joint effort of FAO and the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA) and aims to be a contribution to stimulate the exchange and dissemination of good practices of agroecology in the context of territorial development, sustainability, and resilience, governance, and empowerment of communities and people. The course...
Learning
2021
Created in 2007, the Agroecology MS Program at UW-Madison trains students to research and analyze agricultural systems within a broader environmental and socio-economic context. The Agroecology Program is supported by the interdisciplinary Agroecology cluster, which hired three faculty members in 2002: Michael Bell in community and environmental sociology, Claudio Gratton...
United States of America
Learning