Enhancing Ecosystem Services through Conservation Agriculture, Agroforestry, and Traditional Farming Systems

Enhancing ecosystem services through conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and traditional farming systems is crucial to promoting sustainable and resilient agricultural practices worldwide. Growing recognition of the importance of preserving biodiversity, conserving soil health, and maintaining ecosystem functions has led these farming systems to emerge as effective strategies to balance agricultural productivity with environmental conservation.

Conservation agriculture encompasses practices that minimize soil disturbance, promote soil cover, and encourage crop diversity. Techniques like minimal tillage, cover cropping, and crop rotation enhance soil fertility, reduce erosion, and conserve water resources. These practices contribute to the long-term sustainability of rainfed agricultural systems, where water availability is often limited and rainfall patterns are unpredictable.

Agroforestry integrates trees and shrubs with crops or livestock in agricultural landscapes, offering numerous benefits. By combining woody vegetation with agricultural activities, agroforestry systems improve soil fertility, conserve water, sequester carbon, and enhance biodiversity. They also provide additional income opportunities for farmers through the production of timber, fruits, nuts, and other non-timber forest products. This integrated approach bridges the gap between agriculture and forestry, creating multifunctional landscapes that support agricultural productivity and ecological resilience.

Traditional farming systems rely on indigenous knowledge, local resources, and time-tested techniques passed down through generations. These systems typically minimize modern machinery, synthetic fertilizers, or chemical pesticides, focusing instead on natural processes, biodiversity, and sustainability. Emphasizing the balance between nature and agriculture, traditional farming systems foster biodiversity conservation, preserve soil organic carbon, and support vital ecosystem services, all while attuning to local conditions and resource availability.

This Research Topic explores the significance and potential of enhancing ecosystem services through conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and traditional farming systems. It aims to examine the positive impacts of these practices on biodiversity conservation, soil health, water resources, carbon sequestration, and the overall resilience of agricultural landscapes. By highlighting successful case studies and best practices, this collection seeks to inspire the adoption of these sustainable farming systems, promoting the coexistence of productive agriculture and thriving ecosystems.

This Topic aims to provide an overview of the ecosystem services in different land use systems and their impact on global food security, sustainability, and climate change mitigation with the following objectives:

1. Ecosystem services and conservation agriculture nexus
2. Quantification of agroforestry-based ecosystem services
3. Integrated farming system and quantification of ecosystem services
4. Effect of agrochemicals on ecosystem services
5. Degraded agroecosystems and ecosystem disservices and their rehabilitation
6. Natural farming and its impact on ecosystem services
7. Traditional farming practices, agroecology and ecosystem services
8. Soil health management and ecosystem services
9. Policies for enhancing ecosystem services

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: conservation agriculture, agroforestry, biodiversity, soil health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.