If you mean the different organisms (predators/ pollinators/ pathogens/ competitors/ commensalists/ companion species) within the agroecosystem, the answer is not an easy one. The complexity of every agroecosystem is mind-boggling - unless "simplified" and truncated (species eliminated) by using toxic agrochemicals! I have studied in detail the functional roles of different components of rice food web for more than 5 years, and published in 2009. (you can download the paper free from my publications link.)

However, if you also mean different human actors (farmers, NGOs, agriculture extension workers, government, seed companies, agrochemical industry), the complexity is no less. Evaluating the roles of each will take many separate studies.

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol17/iss1/art18/

I think this paper is useful for you (you can download the paper is free). I hope you are successful in your research.

Best wishes

Thanks, Saeed. The paper is insightful, but I suspect its suggested 13 indicators are difficult to determine, less so quantify, in the field. Thanks for your kindness.

I like to know if you need some help abour agroecology dimensiosn (technical, economics, cultural and political). This question is an analysis of production, distribution and consum; or you need information about technical proudution only.

Indeed it is a vague question. Maybe you should start defining four things:

1. agroecological subsystem you target

2. dimensiosn (technical, economics, cultural and political)

3. the type of evaluation that suits your objective (cross sectional, longitudinal ..- experimental, quasi, non...)

4. what actor? yet, I think you might use the value chain to follow these actors.

In general, the role usually evaluated by comparing the expected role with the actual role played already by each actor. Hence, it started by identifying the expected role either from documents or opinions of related stakeholders.

Very interesting ....

Good luck

You can do an agroecosystem analysis (AESA). The goal of AESA is to develope skills in crop ecology observations and assessment which will assist farmers to identify the activities of various actors in the farm and then make intelligent and sound farm management decisions. you may now do an indepth study depending on what you expect of each actor

Agroecosystem is very wide and attracts a lot of actors - Technical, economics, Extension, Environment among others. Suggest u segregate the specific agro activity in the ecosystem and brainstormingly determine associated actors. If u do same for several technical activities and using regression statistics to identify and possibly quantify the contributions of each actor to each agro-ecosystem; you can then pool the results and regress against the actors still as independent variables. The final results obtained would be the contribution of the actors (x1, x2, x3,-----------xn). Thus it would involve many stages and there could be relationships among the actors that would need to be determined with correlation statistics or chi sq otherwise there could be elements of bias in the final result of the agroecosystem research. It is indeed complex but determinable.

My humble advice is to represent all agroecosystem technical research with equations. Systematically resolve each equation (thru a study) and document its result. Do so for all. You would be surprised to realize that an agroecosystem item like Extension could also be treated as an actor influencing some agroecosystem decisions. Good luck.

please specify actors separately will try to Answer as per my knowledge

Could u pl.specify?

in the context of human actors represent the complexity of agroecosystems make visible the characteristics of each actor, for example, the elderly, youth, children, adults (men and women) that transform and condition of agroecosystems. Like, intituciones and civil society organizations. I appreciate the comments

In the case of agricultural extension is important to determine the role that each actor is performed over

Which role? prescribed... or performed

It all depend upon the situation each time the problem will be different more over the role also vary

in brief ,the major actor in Kerala, India,agroecosystem is farmer himself; especially considering the marginal and submarginal nature of the area occupied by a single farmer.but we cannot downgrade the role of women who critically intervene in the agroecosystem by maintaining farm animals,growing vegetables,keeping the farm house,playing major role in harvesting and processing the farm produces. in short all the individual activities played by each player will have to be analysed to get a fine picture of how these roles shape the given agroecosystem which is a of course a complex task.

thanks Radhakrishnan pk for the clarification given. I am currently evaluating the role of family in agroecosystems and how institutions develop outreach activities that influence the ways of perceiving their environment. For my work is crucial to understand the generation nearest relay and the role cuplen extension schemes on the dynamics of rural life.

thank you all for your comments

Thanks Mohamed Kassem

In my opinion, systems as agricultural, that implyes so high degree of complexity need a qualitative aproach, after a initial scoping. Understand the role of every social actor (e.g. land owners). Our teams is experienced in 1) scoping (contextualization, knowing the "big numbers" of the context, from local studies, official data -if possible-, participating observation...), 2) qualitative approach: identifying stakeholders -interested in, influenced by or with influence over- the theme-problem-research question, 3) analyzing social discourses of stakeholders. Sometimes a social network analysis completes the methodological background, always depending on the objectives of research.

Well it can be well identified with the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) by doing the agro ecological PRA exercise with the community and you will get a picture of different roles played by individuals.

In agro ecosystem, roles are being played by mutistakeholders viz, policy makers, change agents, farmers, farm women and rural youth. Thus some scales such as attitude scale, adoption scale, knowledge scale, perceived effectiveness, need assessment scales are to be used. Other than that Participatory approaches - Participatory Rural Appraisal, Participatory Impact Monitoring and Assessment, Participatory Video Production for decision and empowerment are ought to be used to peruse over the real life situation.

As for food production it is the Consumer that play a major role in detrmining the demand for a particular food item other than the staple. Consumers behaviour is influenced by other reasons the players who influence these reasons have a major role to play.

Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystems, and the field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of farming, whether it be organic, integrated, or conventional; intensive or extensive. Furthermore, it is not defined by certain management practices, such as the use of natural enemies in place of insecticides, or polyculture in place of monoculture.

Additionally, agroecologists do not unanimously oppose technology or inputs in agriculture but instead assess how, when, and if technology can be used in conjunction with natural, social and human assets. Agroecology proposes a context- or site-specific manner of studying agroecosystems, and as such, it recognizes that there is no universal formula or recipe for the success and maximum well-being of an agroecosystem.