A holistic approach to the development of sustainable agriculture: application of the ecosystem health model

Abstract

Serious resource depletion has made sustainable agriculture an important and pressing issue for scientists, policy makers, and stakeholders worldwide, particularly in developing countries. Researchers have focused on methods to assess agriculture correctly, and to introduce sound solutions for sustainability, but have reached no agreement. In this paper, we introduce the theoretical framework of the agro-ecosystem health model, a new holistic approach, and apply it at a regional scale using four aspects (4S): sound structure, stable function, safe service, and sustainable development. We examine how 12 indicators of an agro-ecosystem health assessment (AHA) were selected using three dimensions based on this theoretical framework. In an AHA, we used an amoeba approach to examine a high-yield agro-ecosystem in Huantai County, Shandong Province, China. The results indicate that this model of ecosystem health can reflect the complex ecological, economic, and human conditions of an agro-ecosystem and evaluate these conditions using perspectives pertinent to system structure, function, and responses (services).

Keywords:

• agro-ecosystem
• health assessment
• high-yield
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

This research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 30270220) and the National Key Technologies Research and Development Program for the 10th Five-Year Plan ‘Ecological Agriculture Technology System and Demonstration’. The authors thank Prof. Liu Guangdong for his valuable suggestions and comments.