Agroecosystem Management for the Twenty-First Century: Sustaining Ecosystems, Economies, and Communities in a Time of Global Change

Agricultural production and related activities are the foundation of human communities (MacNeill 1992). Yet the current extractive operations and methods of industrial agriculture, dependent on currently inexpensive and readily available energy sources (primarily oil and methane gas), are increasingly vulnerable (Heinberg 2007). In recent years crop yields have flattened, reaching diminishing marginal returns for each added unit of input. Indeed, industrial agriculture appears to be approaching the peak or the downside of the classic, ecological subsidy-stress curve (Odum et al. 1979). Furthermore, on a global scale, industrial agricultural production methods continue to exacerbate soil erosion, water pollution (especially pernicious is hypoxia at river deltas), and negative climate change. As Kirschenmann states in Chapter 5: “the industrialization of agriculture which enabled us to dramatically increase production during the past half-century also is a principal cause of the ecological degradation that now threatens our ability to maintain productivity.”