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Contribution of systems thinking and complex adaptive system attributes to sustainable food production: Example from a climate-smart village

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Title Contribution of systems thinking and complex adaptive system attributes to sustainable food production: Example from a climate-smart village
 
Creator Jagustović, Renata
Zougmoré, Robert B.
Kessler, Aad
Ritsema, Coen J.
Keesstra, Saskia
Reynolds, Martin
 
Subject CLIMATE CHANGE
FOOD SECURITY
AGRICULTURE
 
Description Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) conceptually has the potential to contribute to the sustainable development
goals of achieving zero hunger, reducing land degradation, eliminating poverty, tackling climate change, and
promoting gender equality. The scaling-up needed to achieve goals of CSA represents a challenge, as it entails
understanding synergies between often opposing socioeconomic and environmental priorities and trade-offs over
temporal and spatial scales. In this paper, we tested new approaches to support scaling-up of sustainable food
production through investigating the contribution of systems thinking as a conceptual approach and complex
adaptive system (CAS) attributes as a framework for analysis of CSA. This was done through examining (i) to
what extent CSA represents a CAS and (ii) what contribution systems thinking and CAS attributes can make to
understanding and scaling-up sustainable food production systems through CSA. The CSA situation was conceptualized through systems thinking sessions with women farmers in the climate-smart village (CSV) of
Doggoh-Jirapa, northern Ghana, and was guided by the Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives
(DSRP) framework. Systems thinking, and CAS attributes provide system-wide understanding of elements, dynamics and trade-offs over temporal and spatial scale in selected agri-food systems. As such it could aid horizontal and vertical scaling-up by informing policy developoment and selection of a context-specific portfolio of
technologies and practices at landscape and farm levels to achieve synergies between goals. In this study, systems thinking enabled women farmers in the CSV to identify income-generating and tree planting activities, with
desirable simultaneous system-wide impact. The paper calls for further testing of tools, approaches, and methods
that enable dynamic systems thinking to inform scaling-up efforts, while embracing the transdisciplinary nature
and complexity of CSA as a constituent of the food production system.
 
Date 2019-01-31T13:29:04Z
2019-01-31T13:29:04Z
2019-05-01
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Jagustović R, Zougmoré RB, Kessler A, Ritsemaa CJ, Keesstra S, Reynolds. 2019. Contribution of systems thinking and complex adaptive system attributes to sustainable food production: Example from a climate-smart village. Agricultural Systems 171:65-75.
0308-521X
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/99251
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyrighted; all rights reserved
 
Format 11 p.
 
Source Agricultural Systems