European Journal of Sustainable Agroecosystems

Background: Increasing variations in climate, extreme weather phenomena, and changes in agro-climatic zones have led to the weakening of productivity of conventional agricultural production systems, which typically employ high input levels and are often genetically and structurally homogeneous. There is an increasing agreement in the scientific community that such concepts as resilience—the property of the agricultural system to withstand shocks, reorganise after that, and produce food, income, and ecosystem functions—should be built into the agricultural system design rather than seen as a byproduct of yield maximisation approaches. 
Objective: This study provides a synthesis of peer-reviewed and non-reviewed research literature focusing on the issue of the redesign of agricultural systems to increase resilience to a range of failures, with particular attention paid to the interconnection between the three main components of this transformation: increased crop and system diversification, soil health management, and improved resource efficiency (nutrient and water use).
Methods: Our structured search using the databases Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, as well as the reports of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the World Bank, provided us with 2064 records in total, of which 107 met the criteria for thematic synthesis.
Key findings: All diversification methods – crop rotation, intercropping, agroforestry, and varietal mixtures – led to a reduction of the coefficient of variation of yields when compared to monoculture systems. Soil management practices include reduced tillage, cover cropping, and organic matter management that allow for increasing soil organic carbon storage and maintaining water and nutrient supply during stress conditions. Precision agricultural technologies provide both efficiency of nitrogen use and efficiency of water use, thus decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, but the average nitrogen use efficiency level in the world is below 60%. Studies that involve all three pillars give good integrated results, which are not so common.
Research gaps: Information regarding the subject matter appears to be disproportional, as studies regarding plots of land were performed mostly in a few ecological zones; there is a lack of ‘standard’ resilience indicators; and socio-economic, institutional and human factors related to the implementation of knowledge received from the research have been given less attention than the biophysical achievements. Conclusion: The approach towards adaptation and prevention of the consequences of climate change should be restructured to view their diversification, soil quality, and efficiency of the input as interdependent parts of a single agroecosystem solution instead of separate actions.