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Assignment for Wednesday, April 19: Introduction to Agroecosystems For today, not so many controversial articles on concepts and theories, but rather an introduction to agroecosystems for people whose lives have primarily been concerned with Fish. A good general introduction to the topic, which brings in human economic, social, and cultural aspects of the system, as well as the biophysical ones, is contained Miguel Altieri's chapter, The Agroecosystem, from his general textbook, Agroecology, 1987. A more technically ecologically based model, which brings up many issues of sustainability, is nicely presented by Vaclav Smil's "Nitrogen and Food Production: Proteins for Human Diets, in Ambio, 2002. I will make a presentation today, outlining what I think are the key issues in farms and sustainability, attempting to link them to the general issues we have been discussing.