Abstract
This chapter has the aim to analyze the implications of the transition of ecosystem services based on urban agro ecology. It advances on the debate over the negative effects of the traditional and industrial oriented agricultural production on the ecosystem services, food systems, climate change, etc., and analyses the principles, methods and some practices that supports the transition to urban agro ecology. The method employed is the analytical of the theoretical and empirical literature review. It concludes that a transition from traditional and industrial oriented agriculture towards more urban agro ecology is inevitable to improve the ecological and environmental services, the economic efficiency, the social equity and justice, and the environmental sustainability of cities.
TopAgroecology, Urban Agroecology Systems And Ecosystems Services
Many studies have shown the unwanted effects of the current corporate agro-food system, emphasizing the fact of being a reproducer of hunger, disease, depletion of water, soil and energy, extinction of biodiversity, among others (Altieri and Toledo, 2011; Cuéllar-Padilla and Calle-Collado, 2011; De Molina, 2012; De Schutter, 2010). Leaving in evidence the weaknesses of this System, partly caused, because it reproduces the productivity logics of economic growth and capital accumulation, and which operates within the current economic system. A system that established a model for food production, which is developed based on mechanization, the use of monoculture and chemical fertilization (Gliessman, 2007; Ferguson and Morales, 2010; Altieri and Toledo, 2011); ignoring the organic or biological factors that determine food systems themselves (Altieri and Toledo, 2011.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Environmental Development: An economic and social development that respects the environment. The objective of sustainable development is to define viable projects and reconcile the economic, social, and environmental aspects of human activities; It is about making progress in these areas without having to destroy the environment.
Agroecology: Is the discipline that is responsible for administering the ecological principles of the production of food, fuels, fibers, and pharmaceuticals. This encompasses a wide range of approaches and they consider it a science and a way of seeing life, whether organic, conventional, intensive, or extensive.
Ecosystem Services: They are resources or processes of natural ecosystems (goods and services) that benefit human beings. It includes products such as clean drinking water and processes such as waste decomposition.
Urban Agroecology: Is called agroecological practices that are developed in or near cities. ... Urban agroecology usually develops on the roofs of buildings, on the walls of houses and on the balconies and terraces of buildings.
Food System: Refers to food produced, processed, distributed, and consumed locally.
Transition: Step or change from one state, way of being, etc., to another. Intermediate state between an older one and another that is reached in a change.