Livelihood resilience: The role of social‐ecological filters in a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System of southern Chile

Abstract The global agrifood system faces significant threats due to rapid and interconnected social‐ecological changes, including climate change, land‐use shifts, demographic changes and emerging diseases. Small‐scale farmers are among the most vulnerable groups to these changes due to their direct dependence on their environment. The resilience of small‐scale farming livelihoods may be influenced by several social‐ecological filters, which are the coupled human–nature factors that could either hinder or increase resilience, directly impacting local agrifood systems. Our study aims to assess how different social‐ecological filters (i.e. sociodemographic factors, diversity of agroecosystems and on‐farm landscape composition), operating at multiple levels, are associated with small‐scale farmers' livelihood resilience in the Chiloé Archipelago, a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System within a Global Biodiversity Hotspot in southern Chile. We conducted 100 household surveys with small‐scale farmers to calculate the diversity of agroecosystems within each farm and an Index of Livelihood Resilience (ILR) based on indicators of five capital assets (i.e. social, physical, natural, financial and human). We also took aerial photographs of their farms, from which we derived information on landscape composition. Using Generalized Linear Mixed Effects Models, we tested the association between eight different social‐ecological filters and the ILR. We found that the age of the household head and shrubland surface in the farm were negatively associated with livelihood resilience, while the diversity of agroecosystems within the farms was positively associated with the livelihood resilience of small‐scale farmers. Identifying factors that enhance the livelihood resilience of small‐scale farmers is essential for developing effective initiatives and policies aimed at ensuring global and local food security and sovereignty. Based on our results, we propose recommendations to strengthen small‐scale farmers' livelihood resilience to mitigate the global agrifood crisis. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.