Diversified farming is one of several agroecological strategies for reducing smallholders’ risk and building resilience to climate change and other hazards. Accumulating evidence shows that farmers can use agroecology to improve household food security and influence food system transformations. However, additional research is needed to identify which agroecological strategies are used by whom and to what degree diversification, household characteristics, context, or other strategies contribute to farmer well-being and resilience. In 2022, we conducted a livelihood, agriculture, and food security survey with 429 randomly sampled smallholders, including 309 coffee farmers in northern Nicaragua’s Segovias region and 120 cacao farmers in north-central Nicaragua’s Waslala region. We examined the relationships linking diversified production—and other key agroecological principles—to food security, water security, and dietary diversity. We integrated statistical analysis into our participatory mixed methods approach using partner feedback to help design the survey and 13 farmer interviews to inform and interpret the statistical models. We found that cacao farmers in the wetter growing zone reported more crop diversity and organic production and less seasonal hunger than coffee growers. Food and input price inflation were more pressing concerns than the impact of hurricanes Eta and Iota for all producers. Our multivariate analysis found that significant correlates of food security included surplus subsistence (corn and bean) production, water security, farm size, and income. Product diversity and farmers’ formal education correlated significantly with household dietary diversity. This study finds evidence that agroecological diversified farming can enhance food security and dietary diversity among coffee and cacao smallholders. This is among the first studies comparing how cacao and coffee farmers’ diversified and agroecological production strategies relate to food security, water security, nutrition, and vulnerability, potentially holding implications for the 15 million plus smallholder coffee and cacao growers seeking more sustainable livelihoods and landscapes.
Tropical landscapes are largely shaped by the daily decisions of smallholder farmers. Public institutions and private companies increasingly aim to shape agricultural landscapes by influencing farmer decisions. Farmer land-use decision-making is complex and highly dynamic, especially in tropical smallholder systems. The use of serious games has been proposed as a promising research approach to understand these processes. However, it is often unclear how land-use decisions in such simulated settings relate to real life. In this paper, we explore how decisions in games made by farmers relate to their real-life decisions. We draw on a case study in Madre de Dios, Peru, where we interviewed farmers to design a game representing key components of the local farming system and external interventions. The game was played during 20 sessions involving 103 farmers. This dataset enabled the first systematic comparison in land-use serious gaming between decisions made in a game and the same farmers’ documented real-life decisions. We explored the game’s credibility, salience, and legitimacy by comparing farmer decisions in the game, including deforestation, crop choice, and participation in support programs, with those made in real life. Results show significant relations between farmers’ realities and their game decisions. The degree to which farmers receive support in real life predicts their preference for support in the game, and crop choices in real life resemble those made in the game. Cooperative membership in real life is associated with less clearing of primary forest in the game, and governmental support with larger loans. Overall, farmers found the game to be a good representation of their reality, which allowed them to discuss complex land-use decisions. We conclude that serious games can be credible, salient, and legitimate tools to explore farmer decision-making around land use, allowing exploration of the impact of present and future interventions.
Amidst escalating drought risks under climate change, enhancing resilience in grain production systems is critical. Yet few studies have investigated the characteristics and underlying mechanisms of resilience responses to drought in these systems at a macro scale. To narrow this gap, this study establishes a novel disturbance–response-based framework using resilience curves to overcome limitations in static indicator-based assessments. County-level drought resilience across China’s ecologically fragile Loess Plateau was assessed using spatial autocorrelation analysis and Bayesian hierarchical modeling with irrigation-stratified random slopes to identify spatial patterns and their drivers. Results show that: (1) County-level drought resilience predominantly clusters within the moderate-to-high range (mean DRGP = 233.5), where high-resilience systems show lower drought sensitivity, and resilience-level differentials in yield loss scale exponentially with drought intensification; (2) Spatially, drought resilience manifests a steep west-to-east gradient. Hotspots concentrate in northwestern irrigation districts and southwestern alpine foothills, whereas coldspots prevail in the northeastern agro-pastoral ecotone. Significant positive spatial autocorrelation substantiates this pronounced spatial differentiation (Moran’s I = 0.50, p < 0.01); (3) Irrigation infrastructure emerges as a core effect modifier, reversing the directional associations of nine out of eleven drivers. In irrigated districts, annual precipitation, mean temperature, soil organic carbon density, fertilizer application rate per unit area, cropland proportion, total power of agricultural machinery, and per capita disposable income of rural households are positively associated with drought resilience, whereas grassland proportion and cropland slope are negatively associated. These associations reverse in non-irrigated areas. These findings indicate that drought resilience follows irrigation-dependent pathways. Irrigation districts should pursue synergy-based intensification, whereas rainfed regions require damage-mitigation strategies and ecological buffers. These context-specific pathways provide theoretical and practical paradigms for climate-resilient agriculture in global drylands.
Crop residues, plant material remaining post-harvest, provide critical ecosystem services, including reducing erosion, conserving soil moisture, and building soil organic matter. Globally, a “residue revolution” is underway, with substantial increases in the quantity and persistence of residues driven by the expansion and intensification of annual crop production systems, widespread adoption of conservation agriculture principles, and growing recognition of the system benefits gained through residue retention. However, crop residues also act as reservoirs for damaging fungal crop pathogens, allowing them to persist between seasons and initiate residue-borne disease epidemics via inoculum carryover. Current management relies heavily on in-season management via genetic resistance and chemical controls, rather than preventative strategies that address off-season inoculum carryover. Consequently, broadacre production systems are increasingly vulnerable, as pathogens adapt to overcome genetic and chemical controls, partly due to the large populations persisting on residues. Despite this growing risk, previous review articles have overwhelmingly focused on individual pathogens or in-season management, with limited examination of the universalities of residue-borne diseases with respect to off-season survival and reproduction on residues. Here, we review an interdisciplinary body of research to address this gap. We (i) summarize key aspects of residue-borne pathogen biology, including reproduction, survival, and dispersal; (ii) outline global trends in agriculture collectively driving residue-borne disease risk; (iii) evaluate current and emerging management strategies that target residue-borne pathogen inoculum using an integrated disease management pyramid, with emphasis on breaking the “brown bridge” of off-season inoculum carryover; (iv) highlight key social and economic barriers to the adoption and integration of these management strategies; and (v) outline future research and investment priorities for the development of sustainable, systems-integrated solutions. This review provides growers, agronomists, and researchers with a framework for managing crop residues to reduce residue-borne disease risk while preserving the agronomic and ecological benefits of crop residue retention.
Agricultural expansion, intensification, and specialization improved human well-being over centuries, but they also contributed to current sustainability challenges. While historical transitions in agricultural production systems have significantly shaped present-day land-use patterns, their long-term legacy effects remain underexplored in sustainability research. Addressing this gap, our study provides a novel and comprehensive analysis of the spatial and temporal dynamics of agricultural land-use transitions in Denmark from 1861 to 1907, compared to recent times. We developed a method to trace and map the trends and patterns of transitions and investigate how historical changes in agricultural land management influence contemporary land-use patterns in Denmark, providing insights relevant to sustainability transitions more broadly. Using detailed parish-level agricultural statistics, we identified archetypes of historical agricultural systems based on dominant production types. We then assessed legacy effects by linking these past system archetypes to present-day land-use patterns using random forest regression and correlation analysis, while controlling for soil quality, population density, and market accessibility. We define land-use legacies as enduring impacts of historical agricultural system characteristics that continue to shape present-day land-use patterns. Our findings reveal positive correlations between historical and present indicators of feed crop yields and livestock densities (cattle and pigs), showing strong regional continuity, influencing modern agricultural patterns, and confirming the persistence of land-use legacies in Denmark. A major historical transition from mixed and plant-based systems to specialized livestock-intensive systems is confirmed by negative correlations and regional differences in crop production. These findings demonstrate that historical agricultural practices exert a long-lasting influence on current land use. Recognizing such legacy effects is critical for designing adaptive, regionally tailored policies and management strategies that support sustainable food system transitions. More broadly, our study contributes to international debates on path dependence, resilience, and transformation in agri-food systems, offering lessons that extend beyond the Danish case.
