Toward the Selection and Measurement of Indicators of local Food System Performance and/or Ecoagriculture Landscape Performance in the Finger Lakes Region
Produced with the EWG, guided by Louise Buck
Courtney Wallace, Chris Bentley, Sam Bosco, Kelley McCrudden and Natalie Thomson - May 2009
Through this exercise we hope to uncover synergistic relationships between the two frameworks—local food systems and ecoagriculture. In addition to heterogeneous indicators, we are interested in integrative indicators that may be developed and tracked to provide concrete evidence, cost-effectively, for how a local food system and an ecoagriculture landscape are co-performing. The ultimate goal is to bring additional understanding to the challenges of developing integrated approaches to securing food supplies in an ecologically sound and socially just way, and to use such insight to drive policy and motivate further research.
We framed our exploration of indicators around the Landscape Measures Framework for Understanding Ecoagriculture (Buck, et al., 2007) and the online Landscape Measures Resource Center (LMRC), http://landscapemeasures.org. Our search for viable indicators falls within five categories: 1) Land use-land cover change, 2) soil health, 3) conservation agriculture and water quality, 4) farming practices, and community supported agriculture. |
Building innovation systems for managing complex landscapes
Chapter 8 of K. Moore et al. (eds) 'Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management: The Science of Adaptive Management. Soil and Water Conservation Society' (in press)
Louise E. Buck and Sara J. Scherr - 2009
This chapter guides development practitioners in fostering communication and learning to shape innovation systems for managing agriculture and natural resources across landscape systems, to jointly achieve sustainable production, ecosystem/biodiversity and rural livelihood goals. It aims to help rural development professionals become more fully aware of competencies they will need, and tools that they might use to facilitate the social learning that is anticipated to lead to innovation in landscape management. |
Paying for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes
Chapter 14 of S. Lockie and D. Carpenter, eds. 'Agriculture, Biodiversity, and Markets: Livelihoods and Agroecology in Comparative Perspective'. Earthscan, London. (in press)
Sara J. Scherr, Jeffrey C. Milder, and S. Shames
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Landscape approaches to achieving food production, natural resource conservation, and the Millennium Development Goals
Chapter 2.1.4 of Fabrice DeClerck, Carter Ingram and Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio (eds) 'Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction: A Practical Guide'. New York, NY: Springer (in review)
Jeffrey C. Milder, Louise E. Buck, Fabrice DeClerck, and Sara J. Scherr
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the theory and practice of landscape approaches to sustainable rural development and to illustrate the ways in which this paradigm can be applied to address the MDGs. The chapter begins by introducing and reviewing existing landscape approaches. Next, we present the Landscape Measures framework, a landscape approach that we developed specifically for use in ‘ecoagriculture’ landscapes where food production is a key objective. We then introduce some tools for implementing the landscape approach. We illustrate the use of such tools by elaborating on the Copan case study as well as a recent project in Kenya. Finally, we conclude by identifying important actions for mainstreaming LM approaches to help achieve the MDGs. |
Ecoagriculture Partners' Landscape Measures Inititative - Toward a Proof of Concept
Louise Buck, Jeff Milder, Sara Scherr, Philip Thomas, Patricia Casal - Cornell University and Ecoagriculture Partners, Ecoagricutlure Partners, Generative Change Community - July 2009
 Report on the Landscape Measures Initiative (LMI) Proof of Concept Planning Workshop, 12 May 2009 in Washington, DC.
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Biofuels and ecoagriculture: can bioenergy production enhance landscape scale ecosystem conservation and rural livelihoods?
International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 6(2): 105-121
Jeffrey C. Milder, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Seth A. Shames, Sara J. Scherr - Cornell University and Ecoagriculture Partners -June 2009
 Global development of the biofuel sector is proceeding rapidly, driven by national policy mandates, government subsidies, and profit opportunities for farmers, agribusiness and energy companies. To date, most investment in – and dialogue on – biofuels has focused on large-scale production of liquid transport fuels. A smaller set of efforts has explored the potential of biofuels to promote rural development by reducing energy poverty among the world’s two billion poorest people. Here, we consider the potential of these diverse approaches to promote the goals of ecoagriculture.
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Building Local Food Systems in the Finger Lakes Region
Produced with the EWG, guided by Louise Buck
Hekia Bodwitch, Tun Lin Moe, Anna Read, Natalie Thomson, and Courtney Wallace -2008
 We investigate indicators that could identify the emergence of a local food system in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. A local food system is a system that is
economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. The Finger Lakes region of
New York is a leader in local food systems. For this region to be used as a model
elsewhere we find it necessary to first define and assess its components and their
relationship to local agricultural production. Our indicators look beyond traditional
consumer and producer food relationships, examining characteristics of agricultural
production, environmental conservation, livelihood security and economic vitality, and institutional support systems to determine their role within a local food system.
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Learning from landscapes
Arbor vitae Special
Jeff Sayer and Stewart Maginnis, from IUCN with Louise Buck, from the EWG and Sara Scherr, from EP - 2008.
 IUCN’s newsletter, Arborvitae has published a special issue entitled "Learning from Landscapes" that is based upon work conducted through the Landscape Measures Initiative in collaboration with IUCN’s Livelihoods and Landscapes Initiative under a grant from the Program on Forests (PROFOR). The special issue features a collection of articles that highlight approaches and tools that the two initiatives have created and/or applied in a variety of landscapes where goals for conservation, production and livelihood security are being pursued. The emphasis is on tools that support social learning by multiple stakeholders in negotiating how to manage landscapes to generate multiple desired outcomes.
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Reframing the Protected Areas-Livelihood Debate: Conserving Biodiversity in Populated Agricultural Landscapes
In Kent .H. Redford, and Eva Fearn (eds) 'Protected Areas and Human Livelihoods'. WCS Working Paper No. 32. New York: Wildlife Conservation Society
Louise E. Buck, Seth Shames, Sara J. Scherr - December 2007
 Many of the strict protection regimes in protected areas (PAs) in the world’s highest biodiversity areas are not working. Population growth in the last remaining wilderness areas is booming at twice the world’s average (Cincotta and Engleman 2000). Inhibiting local people’s access can be impractical, unaffordable, and ethically questionable. The international community is beginning to understand this: The recent Durban Accord from the World Parks Congress endorses an approach to conserving biodiversity that moves beyond PAs and seeks to address root causes of biodiversity loss and promote biodiversity at a landscape scale. The Accord also recognizes the sovereignty of local people over forest areas considered part of the public domain and their potential role in determining management regimes.
However, current proposals for expanding PAs often continue to be made without appreciation of impacts on local people or consideration of alternatives. PAs must provide livelihood opportunities for the people living in and around them. If designed and managed properly, these opportunities can be compatible with goals of environmental services protection and biodiversity conservation. |
Paying farmers for stewardship
Ch. 21 in: S.J. Scherr and J.A. McNeely, eds. Farming with Nature. Island Press, Washington, DC.
Sara J. Scherr, Jeffrey C. Milder, and M. Inbar - 2007
 Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs compensate land stewards for providing ecosystem services of value to external beneficiaries, thus helping to align the individual private interests of local, regional, and global communities that benefit from ecosystem services. PES transactions are distinguished by two key features:first, they are always voluntary, between a willing buyer and a willing seller; and, second, the payment to land stewards is conditional upon the porvision of the agreed-upon ecosystem services (or actions believed to provide the services).
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Farming with Nature
Sara J. Scherr, Jeffrey A. McNeely - September 2007
 A growing body of evidence shows that agricultural landscapes can be managed not only to produce crops but also to support biodiversity and promote ecosystem health. Innovative farmers and scientists, as well as indigenous land managers, are developing diverse types of “ecoagriculture” landscapes to generate co-benefits for production, biodiversity, and local people. Farming with Nature offers a synthesis of the state of knowledge of key topics in ecoagriculture. The book is a unique collaboration among renowned agricultural and ecological scientists, leading field conservationists, and farm and community leaders to synthesize knowledge and experience across sectors.
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Scientific assessment of ecoagriculture systems
Chapter 2 of Farming with Nature: The Science and Practice of Ecoagriculture
Louise E. Buck, Thomas A. Gavin, Norman T. Uphoff, and David R. Lee- September 2007
 This study was designed around the following objectives:
1. To evaluate claims that have been made abput the benefits of ecoagriculture on the basis of scientific evidence.
2. To characterize methodologies for evaluating, with scientific rigor, the tradeoffs and synergies among objectives
that are addressed within an ecoagriculture framework.
3. To identify significant gaps in knowledge and corresponding methodological and institutional limitations in the generation of such knowledge.
4. To identify promising opportunities and methods for improving knowledge and understanding about ecoagriculture.
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Understanding Ecoagriculture: A Framework for Measuring Landscape Performance
Ecoagriculture Discussion Paper #2
Louise E. Buck, Jeffrey C. Milder, Thomas A. Gavin, Ishani Mukherjee - March 2007
 Ecoagriculture is already being practiced in hundreds of locations worldwide, with promising results for regions where biodiversity conservation, food production, and poverty alleviation are all high priorities. In particular, given that protected areas alone are often inadequate to conserve unique species and ecosystems, ecoagriculture is a promising approach for accommodating significant biodiversity in the inhabited parts of biodiverse regions. Yet our understanding of ecoagricultural systems and our ability to improve them, replicate them, and scale them up is hindered by the lack of a comprehensive framework for measuring and monitoring the performance of ecoagriculture landscapes over time.
The goal of this paper, therefore, is to propose such a framework and discuss how it may be implemented in diverse landscapes worldwide. Over the past year and a half, many people have contributed to a dialogue about how best to measure the performance of ecoagriculture landscapes. The culmination of this dialogue, which has occurred through interviews, literature reviews, two workshops, and a graduate seminar at Cornell University, is the framework proposed in this discussion paper.
The framework provides an approach to measuring the performance of entire landscapes with respect to the goals of ecoagriculture. The purpose is not to determine whether a given landscape has attained some desirable end condition, but whether it is moving in the right direction—that is, whether the management practices and resulting mosaic of land uses across the landscape are yielding progress toward the goals, individually and collectively. Locally, stakeholders who have interests in the performance of a particular landscape can set targets for meeting specific goals.
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 The aim of this assessment is to review and summarize the scientific knowledge base for ecoagriculture in the following ways:
1. to determine to what extent the concept of ecoagriculture has sound scientific knowledge and understanding;
2. to evaluate claims that have been made about the benefi ts of ecoagriculture on the basis of scientific evidence;
3. to characterize capacities for evaluating, with scientific rigor, the tradeoffs and synergies among objectives addressed within an ecoagriculture framework;
4. to identify signifi cant gaps in knowledge and corresponding methodological and institutional limitations in knowledge generation; and
5. to identify promising institutional opportunities and methods for improving knowledge and understanding about ecoagriculture.
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 Although food-production systems for the world's rural poor typically have had devastating effects on the planet's wealth of genes, species, and ecosystems, that need not be the case in the future. In Ecoagriculture, two of the world's leading experts on conservation and development examine the idea that agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account while also protecting, or even enhancing, biodiversity. They present a thorough overview of the innovative concept of "ecoagriculture" – the management of landscapes for both the production of food and the conservation of wild biodiversity.
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