Compliance, monitoring, and surveillance are prioritized to minimize the environmentally degrading threats to the forests within the MGL, thus contributing to the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiatives of Belize. It is expected that the 31 farmers who gained rights to access to individual plots for cacao farming to be accomplished by the fifth year of planting. This has required an investment in materials, supplies, and capacity building for shade management and cacao pruning to enhance the health of trees to gain high-quality yields in a chemical-free environment, using natural agroecological measures. Cacao and other shade-loving fruit trees are planted in a setting mimicking that of a natural forest. This system addresses food security, as there is a high number of crops being cultivated within the land space where the concession has been granted. Biodiversity conservation is also enhanced since no hunting is allowed and the presence of fauna is being monitored to better understand how the integrity of the forest is maintained in a forest reserve with a management presence and intervention. The implementation of this agroforestry model aims at reducing the need to cut or clear more forested areas to plant crops, thus decreasing the expansion of the agriculture frontier.An effective internal governance structure is a key component of successful organized groups. This is perhaps one of the biggest hurdles to be overcome by TFCGA. Through the COL Program, Ya’axché has been able to provide ongoing sessions in decision-making, conflict management,10 plastic plant pots and strategic planning for the eventual autonomy of the forest community group. Great emphasis is being placed on developing the leadership and governance capacity by adapting best-practices measures. There is hope that in the near future TFCGA will become autonomous with a developed model that is easy to replicate in other forest reserves locally, regionally, and/or nationally.
Adapting alternative techniques can become challenging, as it requires breaking away from traditional practices—a behavioral change that must occur. In the 20 years of its existence, Ya’axché has built a strong relationship with eight communities in the MGL, based on respect, trust, and mutual understanding. The COL program at Ya’axché serves as the bridge between organized communities. This highlights the time extension officers invest in working closely with farmers to deliver technical support and materials in cacao-based agroforestry, beekeeping, and Inga alley cropping. Model farms using each of these climate-smart agricultural practices have been established and training sessions are delivered to other community members and groups, like TFCGA, using a farmer field school methodology approach. These model farms within the communities of the MGL are accessible for others to visit, increasing the probability of such models to be replicated. The strengthening of Indigenous communities equips them with the skills and tools to seek long-term investments. This facilitates opportunities in diversification to: access financial support to invest in climate-resilient practices; serve as model for the development of policies that will regulate cacao-based agroforestry; and gain recognition as a system that mitigates climate change impacts on communities and forests.Both protected areas and local communities are impacted by climate change and as such, there is always a need to be creative in overcoming this reality in communities where the impact is felt first-hand due to crop failure, flooding events, and drought. Creating alternative farming practices such as Inga alley cropping, a slash-and-mulch method implemented in the community agroforestry concessions, and apiculture will lead to climate-resilient communities that view protected areas as a source for livelihood improvements. A cacao-based agroforestry concession is now seen as a tool connecting forest communities to protected areas and including them in their sustainable use. Coordination and communication are the elements that have been prioritized at the grassroots level to influence a model of forest governance that is recognized by the regulating body, the Forest Department. TFCGA is governed by an executive committee composed of eight members with leadership roles and responsibilities. Having signed an articles and memorandum of association to be a legal community-based business group, capacity-building programs are elemental to strengthen TFGCA’s leadership and governance capacities to become a self-sustainable forest community group.
The group does not practice slashand-burn anymore and has embraced the guidance that Ya’axché continues to provide, in order to improve subsistence farming through guided measures that take into account the health of forested lands. Members of other communities pose a threat to the agroforestry concession since outside of the concession and forest reserve area there is no regulation of the use of pesticides. This can compromise crop production and its value-added status as being from a chemical-free area where agroecological practices are now prevailing. Inclusive dialogue has been strengthened as a response in conflict resolution to establish a buffer zone that will serve as a barrier between adjacent farmlands and the cacao-based agroforestry plots. The buffer zone is crucial to protect and conserve the integrity of the forest reserve as part of an integral block in the system of protected areas.Humanity has made giant strides toward eliminating hunger and malnutrition. Although continuous effort is needed to fight extreme poverty and hunger in some areas , today we produce more than enough food to feed the world adequately. In 2014, global cereal production reached a new record of 2.5 billion metric tons . Agricultural productivity growth has made substantial contributions to these successes. Since the start of the green revolution in the 1960s, agricultural productivity has experienced a consistent and rapid growth worldwide. For example, global land productivity, measured as an output of 185 crop and livestock commodities per harvested and pastured area, grew by a factor of 2.5 from 1961 to 2005, while labor productivity, the output per farmer, grew by a factor of 1.7 during the period . Global yield for maize, wheat, rice and soybean in 2007 was 2 to 3 times as large as it was in 1961 . These remarkable trends in productivity growth have taken place as a result of rapid adoption of, together with sustained improvements in, genetic technologies and agronomic management practices . Among them are plant breeding that results in improved hybrids and varieties, application of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and investments in irrigation infrastructure . Along with the successes of agriculture, however, came what Jonathan Foley terms the other inconvenient truth: “that we now face a global crisis in land use and agriculture that could undermine the health, security, and sustainability of our civilization” .
Indeed, agriculture has been identified as one of the major drivers of global environmental change, and is pushing the earth system beyond its safe operating boundaries . Through the intensive use of synthetic fertilizers and planation of leguminous crops, agriculture has critically disturbed the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycle, resulting in a wide range of environmental issues including eutrophication of lakes and coastal areas . Agriculture constitutes the single largest use of land, about 60 times as large as the area of all cities and suburbs combined , and poses the greatest threat to ecosystems . Irrigation accounts for 70% of water withdraws,plastic pot large contributing to water shortage and scarcity in many areas of the world . Further, agriculture is also the largest emitter of greenhouse gases through intensification and land conversion such as deforestation . Last but not least, agriculture dominates pesticide use, which, among others, contaminates surface and ground water and leads to aquatic biodiversity loss . Despite the severity of existing environmental impacts of agriculture, more challenges lie ahead. Global food demand is likely to double in 2050 relative to the 2005 level , driven by population growth and the continuous spread of economic prosperity in developing countries. If the current trend of agricultural practices were to continue, by 2015 about 1 billion hectare of land would be cleared globally, 250 Mt y -1 of nitrogen fertilizers would be used, and 3 Gt y -1 of greenhouse gases would be released . And yet the entrance of agriculture into the energy industry across the world brings more pressure to bear on land, water, and energy that are essential for the production of food for human consumption . In the U.S., for example, corn was primarily used for food and feed before the expansion of the ethanol industry, which now consumes >40% of the total production . As a result, corn area harvested has also expanded substantially , resulting in massive displacement of grassland as well as cropland like cotton . Rapid bio-fuels expansion worldwide, but primarily in the U.S. and EU, has contributed substantially to global food price hikes in the past few years . The increases in food prices have generated dire economic and social consequences worldwide especially for the poor in developing countries. It is against this background that this dissertation investigates three topics related to U.S. agricultural systems. The first chapter explores the environmental implications of land use change from cotton to corn driven partly by ethanol expansion. Previous studies in this area have centered on corn ethanol’s life-cycle GHG emissions , particularly with respect to direct and indirect conversion of natural habitats such as grassland and forest . Insufficient attention has been paid to land use change between crops and associated impacts on the local environment. In the past “ethanol decade,” however, substantial increases in corn prices, due in part to ethanol expansion, not only resulted in considerable conversion of grassland to corn production, but also greatly escalated the dynamics of land use change between crops . There were, for example, land use shifts from soybean, hay, and cotton to corn and from cotton to soybean.
The reason to target cotton to corn, rather than other changes in land use, is as follows. Input requirements for both corn and cotton production are high, thus the environmental implications of land use shift from one to the other are much less clear than from high-input crops to low-input crops or vice versa. The second chapter of the dissertation re-evaluates the calculation of carbon payback time in the case of converting grassland for corn ethanol production. Previous research on the CPT of corn ethanol neglected two important elements that may substantially affect their results, namely, the actual corn yield of the newly converted land and technological advances of the corn ethanol system. The analysis also tests the effect of considering emission timing on the estimates of CPT using dynamic characterization factors as proposed recently in a growing body of literature . The third chapter explores potential changes in the environmental impacts of major crops in the past decade. LCA has been increasingly applied to agricultural systems, as reflected in the number of agricultural LCA databases built in the past few years . As with LCA studies in general, agricultural LCAs often rely on static and single-year inventory data with commonly 5 to 10 years of data age. Literature suggests, however, that agricultural systems may be highly dynamic due to the increasingly changing climate and technological advances such as improved energy efficiency and deployment of genetically modified crops . These factors may bring about substantial changes in the use of input materials and the yield of crops, hence changes in their environmental impacts. Concerns about the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuels, particularly those on climate change and energy security, have driven the recent interest in bio-fuels in the USA . Several federal policies have been put in place to foster bio-fuels development, among which is the ethanol production mandate in the renewable fuel standard . As a result of the favorable policies and gasoline prices, production of corn ethanol in the USA has expanded substantially since 2005, with an annual increase of over six billion liters . Previous research, however, has shown that bio-fuels policies may have caused unintended consequences that not only undermine the goal of the federal policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also degrade local environmental quality . Increasing ethanol demand has contributed to high corn prices, incentivizing farmers to convert grassland into corn growth in the Corn Belt . This direct land use change threatens wildlife habitats and creates a carbon debt that may take up to >100 years to be paid off by replacing gasoline with corn ethanol . Also, due to intensive use of agrochemicals and irrigation water, growing corn on grassland puts further pressure on local water quality and scarcity .