What is agroecology and how does it relate to food security and environmental health?

• A. Agroecology relies on monocultures to maximize yield.
• B. Agroecology integrates ecological principles into farming; supports sustainability, resilience, and local food systems.
• C. Agroecology excludes biodiversity considerations.
• D. Agroecology is urban planning for cities.

Answer: (B)

Agroecology is farming that applies ecological principles to agriculture, treating the farm as an ecosystem where soil, water, crops, animals, and people all interact. It emphasizes designing systems that work with natural processes—diverse crops, healthy soil, organic matter, beneficial organisms, and local knowledge—rather than relying mainly on external inputs like synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

This approach supports food security by building resilience to pests, climate variability, and market changes through diversity and local production, while strengthening environmental health by reducing chemical runoff, protecting biodiversity, and lowering the resource intensity of farming. The best description is the one that ties ecological thinking directly to farming and highlights sustainability, resilience, and local food systems.

Monocultures aim for high yield of a single crop and often rely on heavy inputs, which can undermine resilience. Excluding biodiversity contradicts agroecology’s core emphasis on ecological interactions, and urban planning for cities is not about farming systems.