Challenges for Improving Agricultural Resilience in the Context of Sustainability and Rural Development

Research on economic resilience in agriculture is quite complicated due to the interdisciplinary nature of the notion. In agricultural, climate change, sustainability and food security research it appears as an endogenous phenomenon rather as the main one. This study aims to contribute to conceptualization of economic resilience in agriculture, revealing current and identifying future research directions. Bibliometric analysis supplemented with a literature overview serve this purpose. Results confirm the ambiguity and immaturity of economic resilience concept and its secondary position within overall agricultural resilience research framework.

The impacts of tropical agriculture on biodiversity: a meta-analysis

Biodiversity underpins all food production and strengthens agricultural resilience to crop failure. However, agricultural expansion is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, particularly in the tropics where crop production is increasing and intensifying rapidly to meet a growing global food demand. It is therefore crucial to ask, how do different crops and crop production systems impact biodiversity? Here we show the increasing intensification of tropical agriculture since 1961, along with a sharp rise in harvested area. Using meta-analysis, we find that crop type, rotation time and agricultural intensity, are important determinants of biodiversity assemblages. Perennial tropical crops that are grown in shaded plantations or agroforests (e.g., banana and coffee) support higher alpha-diversity, while those cultivated in unshaded and often homogeneous plantations (e.g., maize, sugarcane, and oil palm) have impoverished biodiversity communities, particularly annual crops. These findings inform our understanding of changes in the ecological contribution of biodiversity to tropical agriculture.

Water storage and agricultural resilience to drought: Historical evidence of the capacity and institutional limits in the United States

Food systems are particularly sensitive to changing precipitation patterns. Resilience via irrigation will depend on baseline conditions, water source, and institutional constraints which have not been studied jointly. We draw on over 100 years of agricultural production and weather data across the United States to identify the extent to which access to stored water – distinguished by its source and location – affects drought resiliency. Arid regions with access to stored water avoided the 13 percent losses in crop value experienced in irrigated areas with more limited storage during droughts. Humid regions are also beginning to adopt irrigation, but with less aggregate impact during drought. The incomplete governance of groundwater withdrawals in many areas allow resiliency in the near-term, but potentially at the expense of future water availability. Conversely, surface water rights allow for the widespread application of irrigation water, but with less resiliency during significant periods of drought.

Assessing Climate Change Impact on Cropland Suitability in Kyrgyzstan: Where Are Potential High-Quality Cropland and the Way to the Future

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges in Kyrgyzstan. There have been negative spillover effects in agriculture. This study aims to assess the climate change impacts on cropland suitability in Kyrgyzstan. We used the random forest algorithm to develop a model that captures the effects of multiple climate and environment factors at a spatial resolution of 1 km2. The model was then applied in the scenario analysis for an understanding of how climate change affects cropland distribution. The potential high-quality cropland was found to be included in existing croplands, while the remaining were distributed around the Chu-Talas valley, the Issyk-kul area, and the Fergana valley. These potential high-quality croplands comprise grasslands (47.1%) and croplands (43.7%). In the future, the potential high-quality cropland exhibited inland trends at the periphery of original cropland category, with grassland and cropland as the primary land components. Due to climate change, potential high-quality cropland is expected to gradually reduce from the 2050s to the 2070s, exhibiting the largest reduction in potential high-quality areas for the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario. Therefore, the short- and long-term adaptation strategies are needed for prioritizing the croplands to ensure food security and agricultural resilience.