Dr. Scherr is an agricultural and natural resources economist who specializes inland and forest management policy in tropical countries. From 2001 to 2005, Dr. Scherr served as Director of Ecosystem Services for Forest Trends. Dr. Scherr also served on the United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger. She is the author of twenty six articles and eleven books, including Farming With Nature: The Science and Practice of Ecoagriculture (with Jeffrey McNeely).
She is currently the President and Founder of EcoAgriculture Partners, an NGO that works with diverse stakeholders to try to find mutually beneficial solutions for agricultural and environmental problems. Defying the conventional wisdom that economic prosperity, agricultural production, and environmental protection are mutually exclusive goals, EcoAgriculture Partners applies the principles of ecoagriculture around the world.
The three pillars of ecoagriculture, formulated by Dr. Scherr, are: 1) enhancing rural livelihoods, 2) conserving or enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services, and 3) developing more sustainable and productive agricultural systems. An ecoagricultural landscape is one that is able to meet all three goals, such as a pasture for livestock that is planted with riparian buffer strips that protect waterways from runoff and also providehabitat for wildlife.
As global population increases, pressure will be placed on agricultural lands to increase production. In order to keep up with demand for food production while maintaining biological diversity, Dr. Scherr’s ideas about balanced landscapes will be increasingly important.
