Network for Integrated Agricultural Resilience Research

Societies face an array of challenges with the sustainable provision of food, feed, biofuel, and fiber while ensuring food security and societal stability. There is a need for both basic and applied research relating to how agricultural practices and policies, in combination with drivers such as land-use change, impact resilience and increase the risk of undesirable shifts in agricultural systems.

The Network for Integrated Agricultural Resilience Research (NIARR) was created to develop a long-term collaborative research community focused on sharing data and expertise; incorporating diverse perspectives and knowledge; creating and fostering new synergies; and transcending geopolitical, institutional, and disciplinary boundaries of complex socio-environmental agricultural systems.

NIARR brings together 4 research networks to apply resilience science to agricultural landscapes at multiple spatial and temporal scales across North America. These networks are the USDA-ARS Long-term Agroecosystem Research Network, the Canadian Agroecosystems Living Labs Initiative, the Canadian ResNet, and the international Resilience Alliance. Collectively, they aim to understand the resilience of agricultural landscapes to undesirable regime shifts.