Inventing the Agroecology of the Future

Masatoshi Funabashi is a research director at Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL) and a specialist in complexity science. By applying the principles of complex systems to agriculture, he has developed an agroecological model based on increasing biodiversity. Unlike monoculture, which makes ecosystems vulnerable to climate fluctuations, synecoculture relies on the richness of interactions between species to enable ecosystems to adapt to these fluctuations. This approach paves the way for a future of agriculture capable of coping with increasing climate disruption.