Assessing the capacity of three Bolivian food systems to provide farm-based agroecosystem services

ABSTRACT

Food system activities have modified 40% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface. These activities affect the sustainability of food systems – and their ability to provide agroecosystem services. Here, we compare three food systems in Bolivia. One is agro-industrial (soybean), one is indigenous to a Guarani community (maize and beans), and one is an agroecological, horticulture-based food system. We use the Agroecosystem Service Capacity (ASC) approach, which is based on a list of 23 agroecosystem services that allow the ASC index of farm-based agroecosystems to be estimated. Our findings show that agroecological (ASC = 2.57) and indigenous (ASC = 2.43) farm-based agroecosystems have a higher capacity to provide farm-based agroecosystem services than the agro-industrial (ASC = 0.82). This capacity differs because farmers in the agroecological and indigenous farm-based agroecosystems achieve a higher structural diversity and know how to use more agroecosystem services. These results could promote more sustainable food systems by fostering agricultural landscapes that provide a diversity of farm-based agroecosystem services.