Towards Restoration of Ecosystem Function and Livelihoods on Grazingland Ecosystems.

While modern technology, knowledge and organization have greatly increased agricultural productivity, there has been insufficient regard for sustainability and overall efficiency. We need to make substantial changes to current agricultural systems to decrease the negative impacts on humans and our natural resources while addressing the substantial goal of meeting global food needs into the future. Improving sustainability will entail developing and using regenerative agricultural systems to include: 1) more efficient use of energy and other inputs; 2) calculation of the full costs to society of farm practices and inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides; 3) routine life-cycle-analysis and costing; 4) high levels of management expertise; and 5) high ecosystem biodiversity, function and resilience. Knowledge gained from most current research does not translate automatically into producing desirable and sustainable results from grazingland ecosystems, especially across managed landscapes or at watershed scales. Leading managers achieve superior results by the way they allocate resources, use different technologies and knowledge, and adaptively change these elements as circumstances warrant to achieve desired goals. To help managers achieve superior results we need to conduct integrative and multi-disciplinary research to understand how to achieve ecological, economic, and social goals on managed landscapes. This paper outlines a framework  to improve understanding of how to manage natural resources sustainably by bridging the gap between single-discipline, reductionist research and effective resource management. This framework entails combining small-scale reductionist research with complementary whole-systems research, and working in collaboration with farmers who excel in improving the environment and obtaining superior economic returns.