IRFP: Agroecology in Practice: Agrarian Reform, Ecological Sustainability and Social Equality in Brazil

国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持Jennifer Gardner博士与巴西马托格罗索联邦大学Jose Scaramuzza博士合作的为期15个月的研究奖学金。人们越来越多地认识到农业对全球环境退化的贡献，但也更好地理解了农业生态管理提高粮食生产可持续性的潜力。这一混合方法研究项目利用农业生态学和政治生态学的学科来衡量巴西塞拉多地区小农土地改革定居点的环境、农业和社会成果。这种广泛的生物群是围绕截然不同的农业生产模式展开争论的一个动态场所。近几十年来，塞拉多已成为工业化农业的中心，特别是大豆生产，威胁到其本土草原和森林生态系统。然而，基层社会运动，如O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra(MST-农村无地工人运动)也成为该地区的重要参与者，向政府施压，要求更积极地分配土地所有权并建立土地改革定居点。这些定居点代表着一种日益增长的逆趋势，可能会推动生态可持续和社会公正的粮食系统的广泛发展。尽管MST的国家领导层以农业生态科学为基础促进生产，但在MST农场采用这些做法是复杂和可变的。该项目是对马托格罗索州几个土地改革定居点的比较分析，结合了农民调查、定性访谈、农场植物和土壤采样和二级数据分析的数据。主要目标是了解：在马托格罗索州的MST定居点内部和之间，谁在使用农业生态实践耕种，为什么？农业生态实践是如何在MST定居农场出现的，以及它们是如何持续的？那么，这些耕作制度对生态效益有什么影响呢？正在使用生态系统生态学的标准指标来评估效率，包括单位面积的生产力、能量投入和氮、磷、钾的营养物质平衡。这项研究将增加关于土地改革定居点的替代耕作制度在生态受到威胁的塞拉多可持续生产粮食的潜力的知识。这项工作正在推进土地利用和可持续性研究的跨学科方法，并解决了一个重要问题：在什么条件下可以复制或扩大这些替代系统？最后，通过这个项目，国际和平研究所正在马托格罗索联邦大学和康奈尔大学之间建立机构联系，为未来的研究合作奠定基础。

The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a fifteen-month research fellowship by Dr. Jennifer Gardner to work with Dr. Jose Scaramuzza at the Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil.There is growing recognition of agriculture's contribution to global environmental degradation, but also greater understanding of the potential for agroecological management to improve the sustainability of food production. This mixed-methods research project draws on the disciplines of agroecology and political ecology to measure the environmental, agricultural, and social outcomes of smallholder agrarian reform settlements in the Cerrado region of Brazil. This extensive biome is a dynamic site of contention over very different models of agricultural production. The Cerrado has become a center for industrial agriculture in recent decades, particularly soybean production, threatening its native grassland and forest ecosystems. Yet grassroots social movements, such as O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST -- the Rural Landless Workers' Movement), have also become important actors in the region, pressuring the government for more progressive distribution of land ownership and establishing land reform settlements. These settlements represent a growing countertrend that can potentially inform widespread development of food systems that are ecologically sustainable and socially just. Though the MST's national leadership promotes production based on the science of agroecology, adoption of these practices on MST farms is complex and variable. This project is a comparative analysis of several land reform settlements in Mato Grosso combining data from a farmer survey, qualitative interviews, on-farm sampling of plants and soils, and secondary data analysis. The primary objectives are to understand: Within and among MST settlements in Mato Grosso, who is farming using agroecological practices and why? How do agroecological practices emerge on MST settlement farms and how are they sustained? And, what effects do these farming systems have on ecological efficiency? Efficiency is being assessed using standard metrics from ecosystem ecology including productivity per unit area, energy inputs, and nutrient mass balances for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. This research will increase knowledge of the potential for the alternative farming systems of agrarian reform settlements to produce food sustainably in the ecologically-threatened Cerrado. This work is advancing interdisciplinary approaches to the study of land use and sustainability and addresses the important question: Under what conditions can these alternative systems be replicated or scaled-up? Finally, through this project, the PI is building institutional ties between the Federal University of Mato Grosso and Cornell University to establish a foundation for future research collaborations.