Agroecology and the Sustainable Production of Food and Fiber: Emergy Evaluation of Agriculture in the Montado
Citation:
Fonseca, A., Dan Campbell, AND T. Pinto-Correia. Agroecology and the Sustainable Production of Food and Fiber: Emergy Evaluation of Agriculture in the Montado. Ecosummit 2016, Montpellier, FRANCE, August 29 - September 01, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This study follows a study of a cattle farm in a montado ecosystem of southern Portugal and extensive work on the loss of areal extent of the montado ecosystems in southern Portugal over the past 35 years. We examine the role of agricultural subsidies in promoting cattle production and their effects of the long term viability of the montado ecosystem. The results of this study may help adjust the European Union's Central Agricultural Policy to move toward the development of more sustainable agroecological systems in southern Portugal.
Description:
The silvopastoral, agricultural system of the montado in Southern Portugal is an example of the self-organization of an agroecological system adapted to the climate and soil conditions of the Mediterranean basin. This system with its consistent production of food, fiber, and ecosystem services along with its concomitant rural social organization has been sustained in the region for over 1000 years. However, the system has been gradually decreasing in extent since the 19th century and its rate of decline has accelerated since the 1980s. The causes of this decline have been traced in descending order of importance to land managment choices, spatial factors and environmental factors. In addition, past studies have shown that there is an optimum livestock support capacity for maintaining the health of the montado agroecosystem. In this study, we used the results of an emergy evaluation of a cattle farm as part of a montado agroecosystem to examine the effects of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on the viability of both cattle rearing and the long term regional sustainability of montado agroecosystems. We found that the CAP and its two pillars for providing subsidies, (1) Common Market Organization (CMO) and (2) Rural Development Policy (RDP) are complex and take into account many aspects of prices and markets for particular products, e.g., beef and veal (CMO) and sustainable rural development, e.g., silvopastoral agroecosystems (RDP). However, in their application these two types of support can work at cross purposes, satisfying the immediate European demand for beef at the expense of the long term viability of the montado agroecosystem. The reasons for decline are complex, but a key negative feedback on the long term viability of the montado agroecosystem from cattle rearing is that cattle, which are much heavier than the traditional animal constituent of this system, the Portuguese black hog, damage the root system of the oak trees over long use or when stocked at too high a density. We calculate the emergy return on the emergy invested through the two kinds of subsidies to demonstrate the relative efficacy of each type of subsidy for meat production and for the production of all other products of the agroecosystem.