Social-ecological feedbacks drive tipping points in farming system diversification

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how social-ecological feedbacks can cause tipping points in farming system diversification, highlighting the importance of interaction rates between human decisions and ecological responses for sustainable agriculture.

Contribution

It introduces a modeling framework showing how feedbacks between human choices and ecological responses create stable management paradigms and tipping points in farming systems.

Findings

Two stable paradigms emerge from feedbacks: conventional and diversified practices.

Temporal feedbacks can induce nonlinear dynamics and tipping points.

Framework applicable to broader social-ecological systems and policy design.

Abstract

The emergence and impact of tipping points have garnered significant interest in both the social and natural sciences. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of feedbacks between human and natural systems, it is often assumed that the observed nonlinear dynamics in these coupled systems rests within either underlying human or natural processes, rather than the rates at which they interact. Using adoption of agricultural diversification practices as a case study, we show how two stable management paradigms (one dominated by conventional, homogeneous practices, the other by diversified practices) can emerge purely from temporal feedbacks between human decisions and ecological responses. We explore how this temporal mechanism of tipping points provides insight into designing more effective interventions that promote farmers transitions towards sustainable agriculture. Moreover, our flexible modeling framework could be applied to other cases to provide insight into numerous questions in social-ecological systems research and environmental policy.