ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract

Guatemala has seen two very different agricultural development approaches being promoted for smallholder farming communities: market-based agricultural intensification versus low-input subsistence-based approaches. Given very high levels of poverty and malnutrition in both case study regions, the assessment of the sustainability of the two systems is of paramount importance. However, very few integrated methods for assessing the sustainability of agricultural systems have been developed. Most assessment methods rely either on indicator-based metrics or else on pollution, economic, or yield-based assessments of the systems being compared, which, while informative, do not take complex system behaviour, stakeholder knowledge, or dynamic socioeconomic-environmental feedbacks into account.

In this research we present the use of a system dynamics modelling approach to comparing smallholder farming systems‘ sustainability. Originally developed for water resources management, this approach, in addition to addressing the limitations identified above, allows not only for the participatory and integrated assessment of agroecosystems‘ environmental and socioeconomic sustainability shortcomings but also for the participatory development and implementation of practices and policies to address these vulnerabilities. We use stakeholder interviews and group model-building sessions to develop joint socioeconomic-environmental models of both agricultural systems, the results of which are used to identify vulnerabilities of both systems to shocks and trends, as well as to identify appropriate policies for each. The results indicate that the low-input system was most resistant to environmental degradation and price shocks, but more sensitive to social factors, such as community disintegration (migration), than the market-based community.