“Ecoagriculture” article in the Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems hits the shelves!

Louise Buck, along with former CEWG members, Jeffrey Milder and Louise Willemen, co-authored an piece on ecoagriculture led by EcoAgriculture Partners president, Sara Scherr, for the Encyclopedia on Agriculture and Food Systems. The term ‘ecoagriculture’ was coined by Sara Scherr and biodiversity expert Jeff McNeely in their 2001 book Common Ground, Common Future: How Ecoagriculture Can Help Feed the World and Save Wild Biodiversity. The word is just one of many that we now use to describe integrated landscape management, where landscapes are collaboratively management to achieve goals for biodiversity conservation, agricultural production and human livelihoods and well-being.

The article, published in September 2014, defines ecoagriculture as “an approach to managing landscapes for the simultaneous and synergistic achievement of three sets of outcomes: (1) maintaining, increasing, or improving agricultural production; (2) conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services; and (3) enhancing human livelihoods and wellbeing. These outcomes are achieved by institutions that support multistakeholder collaboration.” The article goes on to discuss the evolution of landscape approaches, varied entry points to landscape management, examples of ecoagriculture initiatives, the five key elements of integrated landscape management, the current scope and scale of integrated landscape initiatives, and the current state of research on ecoagriculture.

Interested in reading more? Check out the encyclopedia article here.