Holarchic Analysis of Livestock Farming Systems in the US Midwest

The idea of agroecosystem analysis has at least some roots in the frustration of researchers who saw their technological innovations too often ignored by farmers (Conway 1985;1986;1987). This led to a “systems” approach manifested in a variety of ways, but generally with a strong measure of farmer participation. The “Conway school” and most other systematic approaches to analyzing agroecosystems ultimately seek normative assessments, for comparisons among extant systems and with imaginable alternatives. However, such normative assessments quickly come into conflict with the morass of judgments that challenge the broader task of defining sustainability, i.e., “for whom, for how long, and at what cost?” (Allen, et al. 2003). Clashes of values and temporal horizons arise in the full range of agricultural situations, from the towns of Wisconsin, U.S.A. to the highlands of Vietnam.