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SCENARIOS OF AGRICULTURAL ECOSYSTEM ADAPTATION TO CHANGING ENVIRONMENT CONDITIONS (ON EXAMPLE OF PERSONAL SUBSIDIARY FARMS IN SIBERIA)

Елена С. Волкова

Abstract

Personal subsidiary farms (PSF) refer to primary-level agricultural ecosystems engaged in non-commercial activities on production and processing of agricultural output. They satisfy a substantial proportion of food product needs and make a large contribution to the food security doctrine of the Russian Federation. PSFs solve a wide range of important socio-economic tasks, such as provision of food, litigation of unemployment, raising the income and life quality of the rural population; maintaining rural livelihoods, etc. Successful implementation of these tasks requires a scientifically-based, optimal management strategy for personal subsidiary farms, which must be adaptive to the changing environment. Organization of PSF in such circumstances should take into account the mechanisms of PSF operation and their adaptive capabilities. With these purpose, the authors propose a unified methodological approach based on the integral calculation of energy costs connected with external and internal flows participating in the agricultural produce: natural, natural-anthropogenic and techno-anthropogenic flows. The technique was tested on the example of two household farms located in the taiga zone of Western Siberia and characterized by different economic and environmental conditions. By calculating energy intensity for all incoming and outgoing flows involved in the farms operation, possible scenarios of the farms adaptation to changing environmental conditions were analyzed. The studies have shown that, in the conditions of economic instability, adaptation occurs by redistributing the energy costs volumes between the incoming flows. In such circumstances, the household farm activities are aimed at maximum usage of the natural flow. On the other hand, favorable economic conditions create prerequisites for increased volumes of techno-anthropogenic flow and reduced usage of natural resources.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2018/5.3/s28.092

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