GCR: Collaborative Research: Designing a Sustainable Agricultural Production System through Convergence Research Using a Multi-Scale Ecosystems Approach

该项目解决了粮食系统可持续性的重大挑战，这是一个复杂的问题，需要科学和工程学科的深度整合以及所有利益攸关方的参与。该项目汇集了保护生物学家、生态学家、农学家、农民、土著人民、经济学家、社会科学家、土地管理人员和工程师，共同设计和实施可持续农业生产方法测试框架。研究小组将利用这一点在咖啡生产的模型系统中研究技术创新的影响，这些创新包括美国制造的工业可再生能源烘干机和清洁的湿磨坊，这些技术创新回收咖啡浆并减少水污染，与环境友好型经济发展相结合，通过碳抵消信贷补偿农民保护土地上的森林，以及社区主导的培训、推广和小额信贷计划，旨在增加妇女和生产的参与。这种系统有可能保护对减少碳排放至关重要的森林，支持包括候鸟在内的生物多样性，并增强经济和社会条件的稳定性。该项目的目标是利用社会生态系统的工具，制定一个旨在发展可持续粮食系统的汇聚研究框架，并将其扩展为多尺度生态系统框架。研究小组将构建粮食生产系统的多尺度经验社会生态模型，确定所有相关尺度上的结构要素、这些要素之间的尺度间和尺度内相互作用以及多尺度上的生态系统和社会服务。该模型将允许量化不同情景下的可持续性指标。它将用于确定可持续性指标之间的权衡、协同作用和关键点，并对包括市场波动和气候变化在内的关键外生驱动因素对系统各要素的影响进行情景分析。该项目由不断增长的融合研究计划和既定的激励竞争性研究计划(EPSCoR)共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project addresses the grand challenge of sustainability of food systems, a complex issue that requires deep integration of scientific and engineering disciplines as well as participation by all stakeholders. This project brings together conservation biologists, ecologists, agronomists, farmers, indigenous peoples, economists, social scientists, land managers, and engineers to co-design and implement a framework for testing approaches to sustainable agricultural production. The research team will use this to study the impact in a model system, coffee production, of integrating technological innovations, such as US-built, industrial renewable-energy dryers and clean wet mills that recycle coffee pulp and reduce water pollution, with environmentally-friendly economic development where farmers are compensated for preserving forest on their lands through carbon offset credits, and community-led training and outreach and microcredit programs intended to increase both the participation of women and production. Such a system has the potential to conserve forest critical to reducing carbon emissions, support biodiversity, including migratory birds, and enhance the stability of economic and social conditions. The goal of the project is to develop a framework for convergence research targeting the development of sustainable food systems using the tools of Socio-Ecological Systems, extended to a Multiscale Ecosystem Framework. The research team will construct a multi-scale empirical socio-ecological model of the food production system, identifying the structural elements at all relevant scales, the inter- and intra-scale interactions among those elements, and ecosystem and social services at multiple scales. This model will allow quantification of sustainability metrics under different scenarios. It will be used to identify tradeoffs, synergies and critical points among sustainability indicators and to perform scenario analyses of the impacts of critical exogeneous drivers, including market fluctuations and climate change, on the elements of the system. This project is jointly funded by the Growing Convergence Research Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.