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。在种植自给作物的同时种植经济作物供销售，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、防治病虫害以及野生动物为作物授粉。我们知道，一些农业系统可能会在长期内破坏这些服务-土壤肥力下降，病虫害爆发变得更加普遍，授粉水平降低。这意味着，虽然农业发展可能在短期内改善农村生计，但生态系统退化和相关的生态系统服务丧失可能在中长期内威胁到这些成果。如果是，这对农村社区的穷人有什么影响？农村社区是否可以选择一些途径，使他们能够从以农业为基础的生计中受益，而不冒长期生态系统破坏的风险？这些问题目前很难回答，因为对撒哈拉以南非洲典型的小农耕作系统而言，基本上缺乏对农业发展、财富分配和社会经济机会、治理体系以及生态系统健康之间关系的全面理解。因此，在这一领域有一个重大的研究挑战，我们拟议的项目旨在解决，我们计划探讨生态系统的限制，以减轻非洲森林农业景观的贫困。具体而言，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，这些生态系统最近的发展轨迹、农村贫困程度和生态系统健康状况截然不同。在加纳，农业发展为改善农村生计作出了重大贡献，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，但不太可能将生态系统推向极限。通过研究这些截然不同的情况，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，从而获得更长期的可持续生计。为此，我们计划探讨㈠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; ㈡将森林-农业生态系统维持在这些限制内或使其超越这些限制的关键社会进程; ㈢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;以及生态系统的限制是否反过来影响贫困;以及（iv）农村社区可能采取的脱贫途径;生态系统的限制对这些途径造成的潜在风险;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.