Agrodiversity

Based on the principle that diverse systems are more resilient and adaptable, agrodiversity contrasts with industrial agriculture. Although the green revolution increased food harvests in terms of quantity and efficiency, critics point to the simplification of ecological systems, loss of food security, and centralization of technological control as problems that can be attenuated through approaches incorporating agrodiversity. Rather than adopting universal approaches to agricultural production, agrodiversity incorporates multiple organisms, landscapes, technologies, and management strategies to ensure farm livelihood. Components of agrodiversity include agrobiodiversity, agroecosystem management, and farm organization.

Agrobiodiversity refers to the ongoing and simultaneous cultivation and harvest of multiple organisms. Agrobiodiversity is a scalable term applied to differences among and within species. An agrodiverse system may have many different organisms—various species of field crop interplanted with trees accompanied by livestock production—or may have broad genetic variation within a single species—for example, an orchard with many varieties of apple.

Agroecosystem management refers to various cultivation strategies tailored to distinct situations of soil fertility, moisture, temperature, and pests. Mountain agriculture provides many examples of microclimatic cropping; for example, big-seeded corn in valley bottoms and small-seeded, drought- and frost-tolerant corn on valley slopes. Intermingling different species and varieties of plants slows the spread of pests. There are innumerable ways to manage soil fertility and moisture using terraces, channels, mulches, and green manures.

Farm organization refers to the partitioning of property and labor resources. Land might be held communally, corporately, or privately and might be worked through a variety of labor arrangements such as sharecropping, reciprocal exchange, and wage or contract farming. Labor and land resources can be organized for multiple small harvests to satisfy household needs or for a single large harvest destined for market. Agricultural production may be the basis of farm livelihood or merely supplemental to wage income.