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Agricultural systems around the world face the major challenge of the transition toward greater resilience. Given this, there is a need for understanding the processes undermining the resilience of agricultural systems, i.e., driving their capacity to adapt or transform in the face of perturbations of different kind. Social networks involving a diversity of stakeholders were found to play a key role in the resilience of various social-ecological systems, but their role in the resilience of agricultural systems remains understudied. This special issue features diverse contributions to understanding the role of social networks in the resilience of agricultural systems, which covers their capacity to evolve, innovate, adapt, and transform. These studies cover different conceptual and methodological approaches for the study of resilience mechanisms and social networks. They include a wide range of agricultural systems in different geographic areas and span over different space and time scales. In this editorial, we summarize this diversity of approaches and discuss their contribution to understanding the role of social networks in the resilience of agricultural systems. Based on this synthesis, we draw research perspectives for this research field. • Social networks are instrumental for social-ecological systems' resilience in the face of perturbations. • Their role in the resilience of agricultural systems remains understudied. • This special issue highlights the contributions of social network research to understand agricultural systems' resilience. • This issue illustrates the diversity of social network analysis approaches that can be applied to this research question. • Research perspectives for this research field are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an agent-based spatial simulation of shifting cultivation applied to savannah landscape in North-Cameroon (Duupa ethnic community). The model is based on empirical rules and was developed by a team who seek to create interdisciplinary dynamics by combining domain specific approaches to the same subject. The manner in which the model is described in this paper reflects the interdisciplinary processes that guided its development. It is made up of four domain-specific modules - demography, agriculture, savannah regrowth and social rules - which converge to form a fifth one, i.e., the evolution of the mosaic of cultivated fields. The focus is on how the spatial organization of landscapes results of environmental and social interactions. Two scenarios are presented in this paper. The first simulates the transformation of savannah woodland into a shifting cultivation savannah landscape. The second simulates changes in the landscape and socio-demographic structure of a Duupa village over a 60-year period. The simulation results are used to identify some of the key aspects of the socio-environmental interactions and help to explain why at large spatial scales and over a long period of time, the composition and structure of a landscape appear rather stable. For instance, it is well known that demography plays a key role in both social and environmental dynamics of shifting cultivation systems. Yet, in the case of the Duupa system, we show that social resilience can be acquired through interactions between demographic cycles of rising and falling population levels and a socioeconomic redistribution system. Finally, we compare the model developed with other shifting cultivation models and provide some insights on future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small farms rely on a range of nature's contributions to people (NCPs) provided by crop diversity, covering both material and immaterial dimensions that are crucial for livelihoods and well-being. The maintenance of these NCPs over time, despite perturbations, is a key component of small farms' resilience. However, the processes involved in farmers accessing the different NCPs provided by crops are largely unknown. Such knowledge would be instrumental for evaluating the vulnerability or resilience of farmers to potential disruptions that affect these distribution channels. In this study, we analyzed how the seed provisioning networks used by farmers to access crops relate to the different NCPs they receive from these crops, through a case study in Sahelian Senegal. Field surveys were conducted with 85 farmers, half men and half women, from two villages. The surveys documented which varieties of three important staple crop species (pearl millet, cowpea, peanut) farmers grew. Farmers were asked to cite their motivations for cultivating each variety as a proxy for NCPs, and to explain from where they obtained the seeds of each variety of these three species. We mobilized recent developments in Social-Ecological Network research, representing the relationships between social entities (i.e., farmers and seed sources), ecological entities (i.e., crops), and NCPs (i.e., motivations) as networks. We applied a block model clustering approach to analyze these relationships by testing if particular seed sources were associated with particular motivations, and if differences existed between men and women. We also analyzed households' profiles according to the motivations they cited and the seed sources they were connected to. We found that some crops contributions were related to different seed sources, for instance crops associated to food provision were sourced through markets, peers, and legacy, while other contributions were related to one seed source type, for instance crops associated to attachment were sourced exclusively through legacy. Women relied on a more limited pool of seed sources than men, and they preferentially source seeds from peers. Last, two groups of households were differentiated based on the number of crops contributions and of seed sources they mentioned. Our study brings insights on how the observed social-ecological network patterns affect the access of men and women farmers to NCPs, and the consequences for the maintenance of NCP provision in the face of perturbations. It contributes to unraveling the processes involved in the resilience of small farms that rely on crop diversity for their livelihoods. [Display omitted] • Farmers mobilize a mix of seed sources for key livelihood and cultural benefits including food production and attachment. • Some contributions are exclusively associated with one seed source type, e.g. attachment relates only to legacy. • Women relied on a more limited pool of sources for seeds than men, and mentioned the market and legacy less frequently. • Two groups of households were identified based on differences in contributions and the number of seed sources mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, we develop new indicators and statistical tests to characterize patterns of crop diversity at local scales to better understand interactions between ecological and socio-cultural functions of agroecosystems. Farms, where a large number of crops (species or landraces) is grown, are known to contribute a large part of the locally available diversity of both rare and common crops but the role of farms with low diversity remains little understood: do they grow only common varieties--following a nestedness pattern typical of mutualistic networks in ecology--or do 'crop-poor' farmers also grow rare varieties? This question is pivotal in ongoing efforts to assess the local-scale contribution of small farms to global agrobiodiversity. We develop new network-based approaches to characterize the distribution of local crop diversity (species and infra-species) at the village level and to validate these approaches using meta-datasets from 10 countries. Our results highlight the sources of heterogeneity in crop diversity at the village level. We often identify two or more groups of farms based on their different levels of diversity. In some datasets, 'crop-poor' farms significantly contribute to the local crop diversity. Generally, we find that the distribution of crop diversity is more heterogeneous at the species than at the infra-species level. This analysis reveals the absence of a general pattern of crop diversity distribution, suggesting strong dependence on local agro-ecological and socio-cultural contexts. These different patterns of crop diversity distribution reflect an heterogeneity in farmers' self-organized action in cultivating and maintaining local crop diversity, which ensures the adaptability of agroecosystems to global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]