Characterizing agroecological farming systems by combining the resilience and ESR framework

Industrialized agriculture depends on increasingly scarce external inputs like water, fuel and artificial fertilizers. Furthermore, literature describes negative externalities and a lack of food security and sovereignty associated with this type of agriculture. As a response to these urging issues, an expanding academic field suggests agroecology as a possible solution (Altieri, 1995 ; Holt-Giménez et al., 2013 ; Khumairoh et al., 2012). Altieri (1995) defines agroecology as the use of ecological concepts and principles for the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems where external inputs are replaced by natural processes. The concept covers three aspects; a scientific discipline, a set of principles and practices and a social movement (Silici, 2014). The scientific discipline involves the holistic study of agroecosystems. Agroecological principles and practices enhance resilience and ecological, socio-economic and cultural sustainability of farming systems. As a movement it seeks a new way of considering agriculture and its relationship with society.

In this paper, we focus on the way agroecology can be studied and represented. To do so, we use the case of Flanders, where agriculture is highly specialized and export-oriented. We want to analyze why and how farmers apply agroecological principles and which factors influence their decisions. As agroecology focusses on interaction and relationships within the agroecosystem, we need a systems approach to perform this analysis. However, a clear approach in literature is lacking. Therefore, we developed a conceptual framework to tackle the aforementioned questions.