A Landscape's Social and Ecological Services are Equally Valued by Andean Farmers When Deciding Where to Grow a Crop

Abstract

Understanding the complex socioecological relationships between farmers' practices and landscape changes is critical to developing more successful agroecological management strategies. A restructuring of agricultural landscapes to include a larger proportion of natural habitats is routinely promoted in sustainable agriculture. However, our knowledge of how different landscape features (eg natural versus social) and associated functions influence farmers' decisions about their daily practices remains limited. Here, we explored how smallholder farmers perceive agricultural landscapes and their related functions along a gradient of agricultural intensification (from 11 to 3% of natural habitats) in the Ecuadorian Andes. To this end, we used real-time high-precision aerial images acquired with an unmanned aerial vehicle. Our analysis of 199 free-listing surveys revealed that farmers equally valued natural (eg hedges, watercourses) and social features (eg roads, arable land availability) of the agricultural landscapes when deciding where to grow their crops. These features were related to a large array of functions, some of which were perceived as a service by one farmer and as a nuisance by another. Among ecological services, farmers identified a potential strategy to improve several agricultural regulation services based on vegetation and hedgerow management. This suggests that incentives to preserve natural vegetation in agricultural landscapes could be perceived favorably by farmers. Finally, we found that Indigenous farmers value agricultural landscapes differently from non-Indigenous farmers. This needs to be taken into account when promoting the adoption of landscape management strategies such as ecological intensification.

Keywords

• ecuador
• farmers
• landscape services
• lupine crop
• sustainable food systems