Agroecology

Agroecology: why Biodiversity Is the True Technology of the Future

From Simplification to Complexity
For over two centuries, mainstream scientific thought has sought to understand the world by breaking it down into its parts. This approach, defined as reductionist, has produced enormous technological advances, but has shown its limitations when applied to living systems (Capra and Luisi, 2014).
An agricultural field, in fact, is not a machine. It is a system composed of plants, animals, microorganisms, soil, water, climate, and people that continuously interact with each other. Analyzing each element separately is not enough to understand how the whole works.
Agroecology arises precisely from this awareness: to understand and design sustainable agricultural systems, it is necessary to adopt a systemic vision, capable of observing the relationships, connections, and interdependencies that generate life (Altieri, 2018; Gliessman, 2015).
Systems theory and complexity sciences have highlighted that many natural phenomena cannot be explained solely by studying individual components, but require analyzing the relationships that emerge between them (Capra and Luisi, 2014).

Nature as a Complex System
Ecosystems are paradigmatic examples of complex systems. Their properties do not simply derive from the sum of their parts, but emerge from the continuous interactions between living organisms and the environment.
A forest is not just a collection of trees, just as an agroecosystem is not a simple collection of crops. Both constitute dynamic networks in which energy, matter, and information are continuously exchanged and transformed (Odum and Barrett, 2006).
According to complexity sciences, natural systems possess an extraordinary capacity for self-organization. Through nonlinear interactions and processes of continuous adaptation, collective properties emerge that confer stability and functionality to the system as a whole (Prigogine and Stengers, 1981).
One of the most important of these properties is resilience, defined as the ability of a system to absorb perturbations and continue to maintain its essential structure and functions (Holling, 1973).

The Role of Energy: The Hidden Secret of Ecosystems
To understand how ecosystems function, it is necessary to follow the path of energy.
The entire biosphere depends on energy from the Sun. Through photosynthesis, plants convert a portion of light energy into chemical energy stored in organic matter, giving rise to so-called primary productivity (Odum and Barrett, 2006).
Primary productivity is the energy engine of every ecosystem. Food webs, biological fertility, and the system’s ability to sustain life depend on it.
However, no energy transformation process is perfect. Some energy is inevitably lost as heat. This phenomenon is described by the second law of thermodynamics through the concept of entropy.
Prigogine demonstrated that living systems are dissipative systems: open structures that maintain their internal order through continuous exchanges of energy, matter, and information with the surrounding environment (Prigogine and Stengers, 1981).
The great insight of modern ecology is the recognition that more complex ecosystems are able to use and recycle energy more efficiently, limiting the effects of dissipation and increasing the overall stability of the system (Odum and Barrett, 2006).

Biodiversity: Much More Than a List of Species
Biodiversity is defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as the variety of living organisms at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels (CBD, 1992).
Biodiversity is often considered exclusively as a natural heritage to be conserved. In reality, it represents the very basis of ecosystem functioning.
Each species performs an ecological function, each population conserves a unique genetic heritage, and each biological relationship contributes to the circulation of energy, matter, and information within the system (Odum and Barrett, 2006).
Biodiversity supports ecosystem services essential to human life, such as pollination, soil fertility, water purification, climate regulation, and biological pest control (FAO, 2019).
For this reason, biodiversity loss not only leads to a decline in the number of species, but also to a reduction in the complexity and adaptive capacity of ecosystems.
As Capra and Luisi (2014) observe, reducing the complexity of a living system means reducing its capacity to learn, adapt, and evolve.

Why Modern Agriculture Has Become Vulnerable
In recent decades, industrial agriculture has pursued maximum production specialization through monocultures, genetic uniformity, and increasing dependence on external inputs.
This model has enabled significant increases in agricultural yields in the short term, but has often reduced biodiversity and the resilience of agroecosystems (Altieri, 2018).
According to the FAO, although approximately 6,000 potentially cultivable plant species are known, only a few hundred are actually used for human consumption, and much of global production depends on an extremely limited number of crops (FAO, 2019).
At the same time, numerous studies document the decline of fauna associated with agricultural environments. In Europe, hundreds of millions of common birds have disappeared in recent decades due to agricultural intensification and habitat loss (BirdLife International, 2021).
Pollinating insects and many other species also exhibit negative trends, with potential consequences for the stability of food production and the functioning of ecosystems (Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, 2019).
The result is an apparently efficient agriculture that is increasingly vulnerable to climatic, biological, and economic shocks.

The Agroecological Solution
Agroecology proposes a paradigm shift.
Rather than correcting the undesirable effects of industrial agriculture through new technological inputs, it aims to redesign agroecosystems inspired by the principles of nature’s functioning (Gliessman, 2015).
The goal is to increase functional biodiversity, foster positive ecological interactions, improve soil biological fertility, and reduce dependence on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (Altieri, 2018).
Scientific evidence supports this approach. A large meta-analysis of thousands of studies has shown that agricultural diversification practices improve biodiversity and strengthen numerous ecosystem services without necessarily compromising productivity (Tamburini et al., 2020).
From this perspective, biodiversity is not a cost, but a true ecological infrastructure that produces fertility, stability, energy efficiency, and adaptability.

From the farm to societal change
The agroecological transition is not just about cultivation techniques.
According to the model proposed by Gliessman (2015), change unfolds through a gradual process that ranges from increased resource efficiency to the transformation of the entire agri-food system.
This involves strengthening short supply chains, reconnecting producers and consumers, engaging local communities, and redefining consumption patterns.
In Europe, these perspectives are reflected in the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy, and the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which recognize the central role of biodiversity in food security and the resilience of agricultural systems (European Commission, 2020a; 2020b).
In Sicily, Regional Law No. 21 of July 29, 2021, represents an important regulatory framework for supporting the agroecological transition through operational tools, recognition of agroecological farms, and valorization of agricultural biodiversity.

Conclusions
The most important lesson of agroecology is that nature does not function in isolation, but through connection.
Every increase in biodiversity increases the number of ecological relationships, the capacity to utilize available energy, and the overall resilience of the system. Conversely, every process of excessive simplification reduces the capacity of ecosystems to adapt to change.
The challenge for 21st-century agriculture is not simply to produce more, but to produce better, learning from the mechanisms that nature has perfected over billions of years of evolution.
From this perspective, biodiversity represents not only an ethical or environmental value, but the very foundation of food security, economic sustainability, and the quality of life of future generations.

Guido Bissanti

Bibliography
Altieri, M. A. (2018). Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429495465

BirdLife International. (2021). European Birds of Conservation Concern. BirdLife International.
Bissanti, G., Dara Guccione, G., Manachini, B., Quatrini, P., & Sturla, A. (2025). Principi e Fondamenti di Agroecologia. Medinova.

Capra, F., & Luisi, P. L. (2014). Vita e Natura. Una visione sistemica. Aboca Edizioni.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). (1992). Convention on Biological Diversity. United Nations.

European Commission. (2020a). A Farm to Fork Strategy for a Fair, Healthy and Environmentally-friendly Food System. Brussels.

European Commission. (2020b). EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Bringing Nature Back into Our Lives. Brussels.
FAO. (2019). The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Gliessman, S. R. (2015). Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems (3rd ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b17881

Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, 1–23.

Odum, E. P., & Barrett, G. W. (2006). Fondamenti di Ecologia. Piccin.

Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1981). La Nuova Alleanza. Metamorfosi della Scienza. Einaudi.

Sánchez-Bayo, F., & Wyckhuys, K. A. G. (2019). Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers.

Biological Conservation, 232, 8–27: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.01.020.

Tamburini, G., Bommarco, R., Wanger, T. C., et al. (2020). Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield. Science Advances, 6(45), eaba1715: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba1715.