Ecoagriculture for a Sustainable Food Future

Global food security is dependent on ecologically viable production systems, but current agricultural practices are often at odds with environmental sustainability. Resolving this disparity is a huge task, but there is much that can be learned from traditional food production systems that persisted for thousands of years.

Ecoagriculture for a Sustainable Food Future describes the ecological history of food production systems in Australia, showing how Aboriginal food systems collapsed when European farming methods were imposed on bushlands. The industrialized agricultural systems that are now prevalent across the world require constant input of finite resources, and continue to cause destructive environmental change.

This book explores the damage that has arisen from farming systems unsuited to their environment, and presents compelling evidence that producing food is an ecological process that needs to be rethought in order to ensure resilient food production into the future.

Features:

• Discusses the way current food production negatively impacts our environment, and the lessons that can be learnt from the past.
• Explores key concepts including Social Ecological Systems, agroecosystems, resilience, sustainability and traditional ecological knowledge.
• Provides examples of present and possible future adaptive pathways that would work within the constraints of nature in Australia, and worldwide.