Long Term Agroecosystem Research Overview
Agriculture faces tremendous challenges in meeting multiple, diverse societal goals, including a safe and plentiful food supply, climate change adaptation/mitigation, supplying sources of bioenergy, improving water/air/soil quality, and maintaining biodiversity.
The LTAR network enables long-term, trans-disciplinary science across farm resource regions to address these challenges. The goal of this research network is to ensure sustained crop and livestock production and ecosystem services from agroecosystems, and to forecast and verify the effects of environmental trends, public policies, and emerging technologies.
Ultimately, LTAR is expected to provide a wide array of clients, partners, and stakeholders with four basic outcomes:
- Agroecosystem productivity is sustainably enhanced by the development and application of new technologies
- Mitigation and adaptation of agroecosystems to climate change is improved by more accurate predictions of resource responses to system drivers
- Stronger linkages to other long-term research networks improves conservation and environmental quality in agricultural landscapes
- The socio-economic viability of, and opportunities for, rural communities are enhanced through educational outreach by LTAR scientists and collaborators
LTAR Research Sites
Data from the following LTAR sites are presented. They are related to topics such as agricultural sustainability, climate change, ecosystem services, and natural resource conservation at the watershed or landscape scale.