Exploring the ecosystem limits to poverty alleviation in African forest-agriculture landscapes

农业发展是非洲农村摆脱贫困的主要途径。种植经济作物和自给自足作物一起出售，有助于改善农村社区的生计和减轻贫困。这些耕作系统的生产力依赖于它们所在的农业生态系统提供的服务。这些服务包括肥沃的土壤、病虫害的防治以及野生动物为作物授粉。我们知道，从长远来看，一些农业系统可能会破坏这些服务--土壤肥力下降，病虫害暴发变得更加普遍，授粉水平降低。这意味着，尽管农业发展可能在短期内改善农村生计，但从中长期来看，生态系统退化和相关的生态系统服务损失可能威胁到这些成果。撒哈拉以南非洲的农业是否超出了生态系统的支持能力？如果是这样的话，这对农村社区的穷人有什么影响？农村社区是否有可能选择的路径，使他们能够从以农业为基础的生计中受益，而不冒着长期破坏生态系统的风险？回答这些问题目前非常困难，因为撒哈拉以南非洲典型的小农耕作系统在很大程度上缺乏对农业发展、财富分配与社会经济机会、治理系统和生态系统健康之间关系的全面了解。因此，我们提议的项目旨在解决这一领域的一个重大研究挑战。我们计划探索非洲森林-农业景观中扶贫的生态系统限制。具体来说，我们计划将工作重点放在加纳的可可种植景观和埃塞俄比亚的咖啡种植景观上。加纳和埃塞俄比亚提供了一个研究森林农业生态系统的机会，这些生态系统对比了最近的发展轨迹、农村贫困水平和生态系统健康。在加纳，农业发展极大地促进了农村生计的改善，但可能已将森林农业生态系统推向极限；而在埃塞俄比亚，农业发展是农村穷人摆脱贫困的重要潜在途径，但还不太可能将生态系统推向极限。通过研究这些不同的情况，我们希望提供科学证据，帮助农村社区避免生态系统退化的潜在有害影响，从而在较长期内拥有更可持续的生计。为此，我们计划探讨：(1)农业扩展和集约化对森林农业生态系统提供的服务的限制；(2)将森林农业生态系统维持在这些限制范围内或使其超出这些限制范围的关键社会进程；(3)贫穷在决定是否达到和超过生态系统限制的进程中所起的作用；生态系统限制是否反过来影响贫穷；(4)农村社区可能采取的摆脱贫困的潜在途径；生态系统限制对这些途径构成的潜在风险；以及社区如何采取行动减少或尽量减少这些风险。

Agricultural development is a major pathway out of poverty in rural Africa. The cultivation of cash crops for sale alongside subsistence crops helps improve livelihoods and alleviate poverty in rural communities. The productivity of these farming systems relies on services provided by the agro-ecosystem within which they occur. These services include fertile soils, the control of pests and diseases, and crop pollination by wild animals. We know that some agricultural systems can damage these services in the longer-term - soil fertility declines, pest and disease outbreaks become more common, pollination levels are reduced. This means that although rural livelihoods might be improved by agricultural development in the short-term, ecosystem degradation and the associated loss of ecosystem services might threaten these gains in the medium to long-term.Has agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa exceeded the capacity of ecosystems to support it? If so, what implications does this have for poor people in rural communities? Are there pathways rural communities might choose to take that enable them to benefit from agriculture-based livelihoods without risking longer-term ecosystem damage? Answering these questions is currently very difficult because a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between agricultural development, wealth distribution and socio-economic opportunity, governance systems, and ecosystem health is largely lacking for the smallholder farming systems typical of sub-Saharan Africa. There is, therefore, a major research challenge in this area that our proposed project aims to address.We plan to explore the ecosystem limits to poverty alleviation in African forest-agriculture landscapes. Specifically, we plan to focus our work on a cocoa farming landscape in Ghana, and a coffee farming landscape in Ethiopia. Ghana and Ethiopia provide an opportunity to study forest-agriculture ecosystems that have contrasting recent development trajectories, levels of rural poverty and ecosystem health. In Ghana, agricultural development has significantly contributed to improved rural livelihoods but may have pushed forest-agriculture ecosystems beyond their limits; whereas in Ethiopia agricultural development is an important potential pathway out of poverty for the rural poor but it is unlikely to have pushed ecosystems beyond their limits yet. By studying these contrasting situations, we hope to provide the scientific evidence that helps rural communities avoid the potentially detrimental effects of ecosystem degradation and hence have more sustainable livelihoods in the longer-term. To do this, we plan to explore (i) the limits to the services provided by forest-agriculture ecosystems resulting from agricultural expansion and intensification; (ii) the key social processes that maintain forest-agriculture ecosystems within these limits or move them beyond them; (iii) the role poverty plays in the processes that determine whether or not ecosystem limits are reached and exceeded; and whether ecosystem limits in turn affect poverty; and (iv) the potential pathways out of poverty rural communities might take; the potential risks ecosystem limits pose to these pathways; and how communities might act to reduce or minimize these risks.