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巨大挑战，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相关者的参与。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、土地管理者和工程师，共同设计和实施一个框架，用于测试可持续农业生产的方法。研究小组将利用这一点来研究将技术创新（如美国制造的工业可再生能源干燥机和回收咖啡浆并减少水污染的清洁湿磨机）与环境友好型经济发展（通过碳抵消信用额度补偿农民在其土地上保护森林）相结合对咖啡生产模式系统的影响。以社区为主导的培训、推广和小额信贷项目旨在增加妇女的参与和生产。这样一个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。该项目的目标是开发一个融合研究框架，目标是利用社会生态系统的工具开发可持续粮食系统，扩展到多尺度生态系统框架。研究团队将构建粮食生产系统的多尺度实证社会生态模型，识别各相关尺度上的结构要素、各要素间和尺度内的相互作用，以及多尺度上的生态系统和社会服务。该模型将允许对不同情景下的可持续性指标进行量化。它将用于确定可持续性指标之间的权衡、协同作用和临界点，并对关键的外部驱动因素，包括市场波动和气候变化，对系统各要素的影响进行情景分析。该项目由增长趋同研究计划和促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.