NOVA University Programs in Agroecology - An Outsider's View

by Charles A. Francis, NOVA Visiting Professor
(also Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, U. Nebraska)

Nordic Universities have long been known for a high level of cooperation, perhaps an expression of the social democratic political environment in which they operate. Exchange of faculty, mobility of students, and joint research projects are commonplace among the agricultural, forestry, and veterinary universities in Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

In essence, this is a rational approach to economies of scale, since each university is relatively small and a pooled faculty resource can better cover all specialized areas more adequately. As student numbers decline in the classical fields in agriculture, it is even more important to offer quality teaching programs with the available resources. NOVA University provides a mechanism for this type of regional collaboration.

My experience over the past eight years has been with the regional Ecological Agriculture Working Group. Now under the umbrella of NOVA University, this group is proposing a more formal organization to be called the NOVA Network of Excellence in Agroecology/Ecological Agriculture (NEXA). Subject to approval of NOVA, this group will accelerate design and implementation of high quality educational programs at the BSc, MSc, and PhD levels. Cooperative education and research in Agroecology will become the norm across the region, and outreach will continue to expand with the Baltic Countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Why is Agroecology Important?
Agricultural research is becoming increasingly specialized, with focus on narrow disciplines and little attention to whole systems at the farm level. We are hiring fewer researchers with practical field experience, those who are able to successfully integrate the components into viable and efficient farming systems.

Agroecology is the study of structure and function in food production systems, and is guided by the principles of ecology learned from natural systems. In some ways, this is the new general agriculture. A definition for Agroecology used in the Nordic Region is "the ecology of food systems." This includes all the steps from use of natural resources through production, processing, marketing and consumption of food. This holistic view of agriculture is guiding the design of courses and curricula, as well as the organization of research in efficient resource use.

One unique approach in the NOVA University courses is a broad focus on the biological, physical, and social dimensions of farming and food systems. Rather than just evaluate success based on yield per hectare or money earned from crops and animals, our classes look at the productivity, economic return, environmental impact, and social viability of the farms, landscape, and community. This is the broad context in which agriculture and farming families operate, and to look only at single fields and enterprises is to ignore all that gives meaning to the system.

Using these multiple criteria, it is possible to compare local food systems and nutrient cycles with what happens in a global food chain. Through education about the multiple impacts of different systems, students can make rational choices in their own lives and careers in the future.

Who is Involved in Agroecology?
One reason the regional working group has been able to address such a wide range of issues is the composition of the team. This group of innovative educators includes a cereal chemist, a veterinarian, a horticulturist, an animal scientist, a physiologist, a plant breeder, a soil microbiologist, a plant protection specialist, and an agronomist.

What attracts them to agroecology is a certain curiosity about how to better understand whole systems and how to improve our educational programs to better educate students. They are convinced that education includes learning skills, advancing knowledge, and creating a capacity for visioning.

The faculty is committed to designing educational programs that help students discover these qualities within themselves, and to embrace learning in a way that will prepare them for a complex, uncertain, and challenging future.

What has the Program Accomplished?
Over the past eight years the group has established a firm collaboration among their universities, and worked closely with others in the Socrates group in Europe. They have close ties with Australia and the U.S. There are BSc and MSc courses offered at four universities. There have been thirteen PhD courses offered on topics ranging from research methods, to nutrient cycling, to ecological agriculture, to adaptive management.

Students and faculty from across the region have collaborated in offering these courses. Two courses on sustainable agriculture and animal welfare have been offered to MSc and PhD students at universities in Estonia and Lithuania. Professorship positions have been established in three universities. There is an intensive course in Agroecology of Farming and Food Systems, as well as an MSc curriculum in Agroecology at the Agricultural University of Norway. Academic programs have attracted respectable numbers of students.

These are major advances in a time when university budgets are limited and, in general, student numbers are going down. Ecological agriculture is used for case studies in several of the agroecology courses, and this sector of the food system is attracting more attention as we learn more about resource scarcity and the impacts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on the environment.

Where Will the NOVA Agroecology Programs Be in the Future?
Agroecology in NOVA University appears poised to continue to grow, as people in the Nordic Region consider the quality and safety of their food supply. Each country has a target of achieving a certain level of ecological/organic food over the next decade.

Graduates who have studied agroecology are uniquely qualified to look at whole food systems, and to work with the special challenges that face ecological farmers. They have training in problems solving and communication skills, and have experience in applying theory in practice. Having worked on problems in the field with farmers, and in the food system with processors and marketers, they understand the complexity of where and how food is produced as well as how it reaches the consumer.

It appears that agroecology will be one of the primary future fields of study and research, as society realizes the importance of a secure food system for the long term, one based on renewable resources and one that does not pollute the environment.