Ecological vision of agricultural ecosystems

The traditional systems of agricultural production have been applied indiscriminately without taking into account the particular social, economic and environmental conditions, regional or local, bringing with them innumerable negative consequences to the environment. Among them, according to Smith y Smith (2001), the Global Warming of the Planet, also called the Greenhouse Effect, which is intimately linked to the process of the industrial revolution and begins to affect the world climate.

That is why, only a radical change in energy consumption and the massive substitution of fossil fuel for renewable energy sources will be able to guarantee the sustainability of industrial society and of every living form. It should be noted that according to Preston (1992), of all the energy sources, the healthiest, most renewable and underutilized is solar, it is the great comparative advantage of the tropics, tropical ecosystems owe their diversity and great productivity precisely to the greater and more regular flow of solar energy throughout the year.

According to Trigo, Kaimowitz and Flores (1991), more than 5 million hectares/year of the richest forests in the world in biodiversity become pastures, which are rapidly degraded by erosion, leaching of nutrients and disruption of the vital cycles of the forest, adapted for millennia to fragile and poor soils. For his part, Andrasko (1990), pointed out that Latin America has the highest deforestation rate despite not having the high demographic pressure of other continents (Asia, Europe, Africa), the reason is that most of the forests are cut down to generate extensive livestock farming, the most widespread livestock system in the tropics.

The seriousness of the problem forced the United Nations to involve the issues of Global Climate Change and Biodiversity in the World Conference on Environment and Development, held in July 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since then, numerous works have been started in the peasant sectors to break the myths of the green revolution; in the search of a more rational, economic and healthy agriculture, through an agroecology agriculture, cultural and biological management of pests, diseases and arvenses, nutrient recycling, which guarantee a sustainable livestock production based on local resources.

An agro-ecosystem has characteristics, structures and functions similar to a natural ecosystem, it has a high animal-plant community that interacts with the physical environment, producing flows of materials and energy that enter and leave different subsystems of the agrosystem. By knowing enough about the structure and function of a type of farm in a region, a plot can be allocated, as an experimental field, where it can be divided among the subsystems found in the typical farm, and improve its conditions, in terms of management, diversification of production, relationship between biotic and abiotic components, recycling and rational use of resources, resulting in a sustainable and conservationist model applicable to reality.

The above corroborates that biodiversity and nutrient recycling are the basis for designing agricultural ecosystems, since, in this way, natural biological processes are imitated, by protecting water and soil resources, through vegetation cover, the soil is provided with organic matter and the flow of nutrients is maintained through the use of crop rotations, mixed crop/livestock systems, associated crops and integrated pest management. The southern area of Lake Maracaibo, has suitable soil and climatic conditions for the establishment of any agricultural system, considering that the lands are suitable and with few limitations, would benefit from the integration of agroforestry systems to livestock systems, in order to increase the productive levels of the farm, offering the herd a resting area, allowing them to reduce body heat and thus maintain the natural functioning of their activities without affecting the environment.

Dear readers, the establishment of multi-purpose agricultural ecosystems seeks to mitigate the causes of pollution and ecological degradation, by avoiding the breakdown and destabilization of the components of agrosystems, in order to reduce variations in microclimates and in the availability of usable resources in local soils; through the integration of all the elements with their environment and among them, seeking the balance of the environment, through the diversification, association, conservation and production of beneficial plant species both for livestock feeding, and for soil regeneration, in order to obtain efficiency in the different subsystems, using in a rational and conservative way all available resources, considering that all the elements are dependent, one on the other, since they benefit mutually.