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The adoption of agroecological and related alternative farming practices is frequently cited as a viable strategy for fostering transformative change within agricultural and food systems. This study investigates the role of agroecology as a pathway of transformation of small-scale agriculture in the Colombian Andes. Drawing upon the "three spheres" model of transformation, which encompasses interactions between the personal, practical, and political spheres, the study explores motivations, actions, and political implications associated with the adoption of agroecology in three sites within the Bogotá region. The study employs a qualitative methodology, including in-depth farmer interviews and participant observation. Study findings highlight a range of economic, cultural, and ecological motivations within the personal sphere, all of which are driving farmers toward adoption of agroecology. These motivations, many of which are rooted in an ethics of care and connection, manifest in the practical sphere through actions including soil care, plant care, and care of seeds. Within the political sphere, these actions are contributing to micropolitical changes that are fostering broader shifts toward sustainable local food systems. Taken together, these findings suggest that agroecological practices can offer a viable pathway for addressing the current challenges in agriculture, promising a more sustainable and socially just future for small-scale farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of agroecological and related alternative farming practices is frequently cited as a viable strategy for fostering transformative change within agricultural and food systems. This study investigates the role of agroecology as a pathway of transformation of small-scale agriculture in the Colombian Andes. Drawing upon the "three spheres" model of transformation, which encompasses interactions between the personal, practical, and political spheres, the study explores motivations, actions, and political implications associated with the adoption of agroecology in three sites within the Bogotá region. The study employs a qualitative methodology, including in-depth farmer interviews and participant observation. Study findings highlight a range of economic, cultural, and ecological motivations within the personal sphere, all of which are driving farmers toward adoption of agroecology. These motivations, many of which are rooted in an ethics of care and connection, manifest in the practical sphere through actions including soil care, plant care, and care of seeds. Within the political sphere, these actions are contributing to micropolitical changes that are fostering broader shifts toward sustainable local food systems. Taken together, these findings suggest that agroecological practices can offer a viable pathway for addressing the current challenges in agriculture, promising a more sustainable and socially just future for small-scale farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines the nutritional differences between agroecological, conventional, and commercial products in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Using a participatory methodology with local farmers, eggs, chicken, and plantain were selected for analysis. Moisture, protein, fat, ash, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium contents were compared across the three production systems. Statistical analyses included ANOVA and MANOVA. Results indicate that agroecological products from the studied farms tended to have lower moisture content. Agroecological eggs showed higher fat content (11.09 g/100 g vs 9.32 g/100 g conventional and 8.45 g/100 g commercial). Agroecological chicken presented higher protein content (22.37 g/100 g vs 20.73 g/100 g conventional and 18.1 g/100 g commercial) and potassium (281 mg/100 g vs 298 mg/100 g conventional and 213 mg/100 g commercial). Agroecological plantain had higher ash content (0.85 g/100 g vs 0.77 g/100 g conventional and 0.79 g/100 g commercial) and calcium (8 mg/100 g vs 5 mg/100 g conventional and 6 mg/100 g commercial). These differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05). While these findings suggest potential nutritional benefits of agroecological production in this region, further studies with a larger number of replicates are needed to confirm these trends on a broader scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecology has become increasingly popular but locally optimized agroecological production methods and information and communication technology (ICT) support tools are limited. This study was conducted at three different geographic locations across Tanzania; we co-developed an integrated participatory field research methodology consisting of two components, each supported by a specifically developed, complementary ICT tool, with maize and cassava as the two focal crops, to examine soil fertility and conservation (compost and mulching), increased biodiversity through intercropping (legumes), and organic pest control measures. Two specifically developed ICT tools, the AgroEco Research application (AER) and AgroEco Analysis application (AEA) were used for data gathering & storage and visualization & statistical analysis, respectively. Further, farmer-managed satellite experiments were performed to further test the research premises and validate their outcomes in the "real world" of smallholder farmers, which was supported by a smartphone application called "Ugunduzi" – enabling farmers to collect, store, and evaluate data generated at different stages of their research. Farmers were free to choose any type, number, and combination of the agroecological practices tested in the field research. This study serves as a methodology reference for a number of companion publications reporting on the findings of this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike conventional production means, agroecology has been proving to be an open space for feminine prominence. The aim of this study is to show how a group of women from the countryside of RS has managed to take a significant share in family agroecological production, overcoming gender, family, and social conflicts. Analyses and discussions were guided by a qualitative approach, substantiated by both theoretical and empirical inputs, with semi-structured interviews and participatory observations reported in field journals, between 2016 and 2017. By the end, women involved in this process were observed to have had multiple personal achievements, such as: community interaction; dissemination of traditional knowledge; insertion in the professional market; and gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of transition to agroecology of family farms is a topic of great importance in Cuba and the need to support family farming is gaining worldwide attention, while agroecology has been recognized as the most promising approach for the sustainable development of smallholder farmers. This work analyzes the process of agroecological conversion implemented by a family farm in western Cuba, highlighting the causes that enabled the process of transition and examining its effects on the family's food security and livelihoods. The study shows how all the four aspects of food security – availability, access, stability, and utilization – have improved after the transition to agroecology, while positive impacts are also registered in soil quality, environmental sustainability, and resilience. From the point of view of economic sustainability, the transition has had high costs at the beginning but, after three years, agroecological production is resulting in increased income and better living conditions. The work also suggests actions to be implemented in order to advance in the process of transition to agroecology and hence achieve full food sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between agroecological scaling and the agrarian question, based on Puerto Rico's contradictory agricultural and demographic tendencies in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. We find that labor-based intensification, literally rebuilding and recovering the diversity of farms devastated by the hurricanes, is a necessary step toward scaling out agroecology in Puerto Rico. The rebuilding of farms requires both ample manual labor and accumulated local knowledge, two elements which are difficult to bring together in Puerto Rico due to a complex interplay of historical and social factors. Decades of public policy based on the belief that the small farmer is not essential to Puerto Rico have produced a series of obstacles for farmers who wish to recover their farms. The peasant economy, a field of study that recognizes peasant farmers as capable subjects of their own historical resistance – within and against economies of empire – can be a powerful tool in the effort to recover local food systems and (re)create a vibrant small farmer sector. Here, we explore peasant balances, a capacity to aggregate daily farm management decisions into coherent, multifunctional economic strategies that allow for dynamic responses to changing environmental, social and market conditions, and how these balances relate to Puerto Rican coffee farmers' capacity to stay on the land and transition toward agroecological production. Fieldwork included qualitative interviews with leaders of small farmers' organizations, Puerto Rican government officials and farmers in the mountainous central region between August 2017 and March 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to debates about the potential of re-peasantization and its contribution to food sovereignty with a case study from the global North, where such questions are relatively under-studied. I examine how Euskal Herriko Nekazarien Elkartasuna (EHNE)-Bizkaia, a Vía Campesina member organization from the Basque Country (Spain), advances food sovereignty through re-peasantization. I also analyze the motivations of new peasants engaged in agroecology, their understandings of food sovereignty, and the challenges that they face. Using a Gramscian political ecology framework, I argue that whereas re-peasantization contributes to a shift from corporatist to counter-hegemonic struggles, the political-economic and biophysical contexts structure agroecological production in ways that limit the extent to which new peasantries can become ‘agents of their own history’. I conclude that closer attention to peasants’ messy practices of making a living is needed to address questions of political agency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Andhra Pradesh Zero Budget Natural Farming project was implemented by India's State of Andhra Pradesh in 2016 and renamed AP Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) in 2020. APCNF is recognised as a sucessful example of peasant-led agroecology by social movements, multilateral UN bodies, governments, and researchers. We offer more critical perspectives here, and argue that this agroecology model deepens inequality and dispossession. Despite claims to the contrary, APCNF is locked in an unchanged productivist paradigm controlled by capital in collaboration with the state. By co-opting agroecology, APCNF closes down options for a just transformation of the dominant agri-food regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the fall of the USSR, Cuba was plunged into an economic crisis with devastating effects on the agricultural system. With few options, the government restructured its agricultural system from an industrial model to a model based on smallholders and agroecology. After several decades, the results of this transition have been far reaching for both landscapes and livelihoods. This research uses mixed-methods, including remote sensing, interviews, and economic and agricultural statistics to present the case study of a smallholder community that has undergone a shift from industrial sugarcane to small-scale agroecology. This work reveals that while agricultural extent has plummeted, production of staple crops has increased dramatically. At the same time, on-farm incomes and food market availability have risen steadily. In the context of strong social, economic, and environmental protections, this represents a process of a sustainable rural transition with several concurrent benefits to people and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current industrial food system is failing in all aspects of sustainability. Alternative Food Initiatives (AFIs) and the industrial green food market (iGFM) both claim that they are building sustainable food models. This study looks into common strengths and challenges of AFIs in relation to iGFM. The research conducted a comparative case study of AFIs in the city of Sant Cugat del Vallès in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (Spain) through a combination of qualitative methods. The results show that strengths reside in their socially embedding characteristics with decommodification and commoning aspects, whereas the biggest challenge for AFIs is to manage being competitive while keeping their principles. The paper concludes that AFIs contribute more to building sustainable food models than the iGFM, as the latter only partially green the system for profit. For AFI models to prevail, public sector support to shift the power imbalance of the market is significant. Key Policy Highlights: Alternative food initiatives (AFIs) are socially embedding sustainable food models. AFIs need help to compete within the current industrial green food market. The city government can play a counterbalancing role in favour of AFIs. Examples of city government measures include the cession of public space or providing farmland to AFIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to typify the diversity of grassroots initiatives in Mexico, the circumstances (e.g. historical, social, ecological) in which they emerge, and the roles and power relationships they establish with different stakeholders to promote agroecology. It addresses the need to comprehend how grassroots initiatives contribute to social change and the massification of agroecology in Mexico. Analysis was done using PCA and social network analysis from 167 surveys. Results show that grassroots initiatives impact 18 indigenous groups in the center and south of Mexico, and focus on eco-friendly production, social justice, popular education, and food markets. Initiatives started because of three tipping points that responded to neoliberal policies, relocating local food and massifying agroecology. There are 13 types of stakeholders that promote agroecology and influence grassroots initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecological transitions in the Global North are inhibited by the cultural and legal norms of a 'ownership model' of property that underpins agrarian capitalism. The resulting property system limits asset transfers to agroecological regimes and co-produces technologically oriented reforms. Scotland's land reforms are emergent legal interventions to reshape land ownership within a Western legal context. By examining legal manoeuvres, mobilizing discourses, and governance considerations in Scotland, we sketch a roadmap for rethinking property in regions where the ownership model is entrenched. This case suggests that existing property law can be leveraged to achieve shifts in property norms towards promoting agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the determinants of resilience in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and strategies for CSA expansion, including the role of public policies, providing a genuine international comparison of inputs from CSA coordinators in Brazil and Spain. The results indicate that CSA projects with an engaged small consumer core group that supports the producer have additional tools to build resilience. Synergies with other like-minded social, educational, or environmental projects offer significant expansion opportunities. Distrust of CSA actors in public policies limits their ability to support the CSA movement, but indirect policy adjustments could have a favorable effects on CSA expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses whiteness in environmental imaginaries underpinning mainstream agroecology activism in Argentina. It examines the cultural politics of race and nature articulated by intellectual leaders during the period of nation-making, and by contemporary agroecology advocates who are preoccupied to define appropriate human-land relations. Empirically, it mostly focuses on an activist organization that has been reimagining alternatives to the dominant agro-export economy in an agricultural hub in central Argentina. Paradoxically, new territorial configurations to regulate pesticide drift from herbicide resistant (HR) soy fields leave fresh vegetable producers outside environmental protection zones. I argue that by neglecting the exposure to toxicity of farmworkers who fall outside dominant ethno-racial identifications, mainstream agroecology advocates endorse a double standard in food production. The article suggests that there is a need for deeper attention to the ways in which the practices of racialization work in and through ideas of 'proper environmental relations' in progressive agendas for socio-environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the potential for anti-capitalist politics to 'translate' among food sovereignty proponents in Canada. I argue that a crucial tool for advancing food sovereignty and agroecology in the country will be radical pedagogy—and specifically political education efforts that advance both critical analyses of capitalism and prefigurative (post-capitalist) socio-economic arrangements. I offer a vision of a 'praxis-pedagogy triad' that illustrates how instances of agroecological prefiguration may relate to critical theories of capitalist political economy and the agrarian question, as well as radical pedagogies that will help a counter-hegemonic food sovereignty translate in a capitalist context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the story of Genaro Rafael Gonzalez Baltrón, 'El Cojo' (The Gimp), an agroecological Cuban peasant whose life course reflects the changes that took place in rural areas as a result of the Revolution, the Special Period and the (re)emergence of the agroecological peasant model of production. This story condenses and intertwines many of the elements that shaped the Cuban 'Peasant-to-Peasant Agroecological Movement' (MACAC) one of the most important and successful agroecological movements in the world. This life story is accompanied by a series of video documentaries that portray how agroecology is practiced and lived in the Escambray hills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how the policies of governments and the projects of international agencies and many NGOs strip agroecology of its emancipatory potential. Adhering to the conventional logic of development, they reinforce or create dependencies, individualize communities, convert use values into exchange values, incorporate peoples into hierarchical structures of domination, promote the belief that peoples must be saved from poverty through the intervention of a benefactor, and teach to act based on capitalist economic rationality. Emancipatory agroecologies, on the other hand, are radically transformative processes which we summarize in seven principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil is one of the few countries that has implemented policies aimed at supporting agroecological transition processes on a national scale. While its experience has caught the attention of the international community interested in building sustainable and healthy food systems, recent literature points to the dismantling of these policies. This article identifies the variety of dismantling strategies to analyze how they are linked to the modification of the policy paradigm. Results suggest that the formation of a 'clientelist–corporocratic' paradigm legitimized active and visible dismantling strategies, such as the extinction of policy instruments and the delegitimization of agroecology through discursive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable agriculture and agroecology are now essential to the discussion on agricultural models in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Considering this new dimension as different intensities of ecosystem services use within farming practices, we propose identifying how these forms of agriculture take shape in the region's rural areas. Family farms' socio-economic organizations can explain the adoption conditions of agroecology in these regions, and its success or failure. From data collected in the Niayes region in Senegal, we develop a typology of farms with different levels of agroecology, from none to advanced adoption, based on a Factor Analysis on Mixed Data (FAMD). It allows for characterizing how these levels relate to farm income, labor types, and off-farm activities, among others. Our results confirm the existence of an association between agroecology/family farming and conventional/employer forms of agriculture, as suggested by our hypothesis. However, they bring to light contrasted models that nuance the common archetypes linking family farming with agroecology. Thus, better-off households employing wage workers display certain levels of agroecology, while the most conventional farms present a higher deficit risk. These findings provide a better understanding of agroecology's development in dynamic rural contexts such as the Niayes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversification is key for agroecological transformations, but little is known about how it relates to farmers' dietary diversity and food sovereignty. Our team and coffee cooperative staff conducted a participatory action research mixed methods study, including 171 surveys and 50 interviews. Over 70% of the farmers reported self-initiated diversification activities. Statistical analysis showed a significant positive correlation between crop diversity and dietary diversity, while controlling for farm size and income. To assess gender relations females responded to 41% of the surveys, and we separated focus groups by sex. Average male-owned farms were 1.8 ha larger than women-owned farms, yet we found no significant differences in household food security or dietary diversity. Additional disparities included male vs. female perceptions about who does additional diversification work and who decides about strategies. Although the co-op has a strong gender equity and technical assistance program, our analysis of extension training documents identified useful content and a smaller percent of female participants in diversification vs. gender sessions. Suggested strategic actions for co-op planning include supporting: (1) female land ownership, (2) diversification focused farmer-led experimentation, and (3) more training for men on gender, women on diversification, and all participants in feminist agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pesticides are becoming a key topic in critical academic research; they entail substantial negative global impacts on human health and other-than-humans' existences. Even though decades of agroecological research and practice have demonstrated that no pesticides are needed to produce enough food, pesticides are still most typically taken for granted as an indispensable part of food production. In this article, we analyse events and policies through which Brazilian agriculture has become a global hotspot for pesticide consumption in the global agrarian capitalism. We provide an overview of the pesticide legalisation in Brazilian agriculture and discuss the ramifications of recent changes for pesticide-free agriculture. The post-2016 legalisation of pesticides has taken place concomitantly with a quick dismantling of the structures supporting agroecology and protecting the environment. The toxic turn of the Brazilian agriculture is seen in part as a reactionary response to the momentum of agroecology, which removes pesticides from agriculture, that had gained strength under the first Workers' Party regime between 2003 and 2016. A pivotal policy goal for the new Lula government should be an agroecological transformation, which can be justified by politicising pesticide use as a major, multidimensional problem of the 'agribusiness economy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global spread of Covid-19 led to travel and market restrictions that impacted Guatemala's rural food systems. This distinct economic shock directly affected campesinos, or small-scale farmers who depend on subsistence and commercial food production. Some Guatemalan farmer organizations have been promoting agroecology for decades in efforts to strengthen rural livelihoods and food sovereignty, defend Indigenous rights, and adapt to climate change, and agroecology is positioned as a tool for resilience to various shocks. We consider the neoliberal cooptation of the concept of resilience, and its usefulness in preserving alternative and previous (Indigenous) practices. Data from surveys and semi-structured interviews with farmers and leaders at eight organizations that promote agroecology suggests that prior engagement with a farmer organization, enacted through both agroecological practices and social networks, contributes to campesino resilience to the pandemic's economic shock at the farm level, with regards to production and consumption. This study illustrates the range and diversity of strategies taken up by campesinos during the pandemic, and considers the importance of social networks for collective actions that increase current and future economic solidarity in campesino communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate around Organic Agriculture, Agroecology, and Alternative Food Networks shows that sustainable food systems have to be socially sustainable, economically attractive for producers and valuable for consumers, as well as environmentally friendly. This paper presents an ongoing project regarding an organic district in the Province of Parma in Italy, modeled as an Agroecology and a Local Agri-food System (ALAS), which is based on the integration of organic agriculture techniques with agroecology principles. To this aim, the main issues faced by the paper are: i) how to valorize local organic and agroecological products, ii) how to increase the environmental sustainability and produce public goods for local citizens and consumers, iii) how to be inclusive, bringing together different types of organic farmers. The Parma organic district case study shows to be the evolution of the concept of organic district toward a comprehensive definition of sustainability, ranging from environmental concerns to socio and economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecology is an approach that seeks to improve the integration of food systems through environmentally sustainable production systems. This paper explores the key practices considered to define agroecological farming in Bikita District of Masvingo in Zimbabwe. It reviewed the literature on agroecology and presented a criterion that informed analysis to distinguish between agroecological and non-agroecological farmers. Agroecological farmers mainly comprised resource-constrained farmers who sought to tap on their natural environment, local knowledge, and social networks to move away from conventional agricultural practices to achieve similar food and nutrition security and livelihood objectives as their non-agroecological counterparts. They differed from their non-agroecological counterparts mainly with respect to the diversity of crops grown, agronomic techniques used, and primary sources of income. Major challenges for farming households practising agroecological approaches includes lack of capacity for sustained adherence to agroecological principles (e.g., in the context of otherwise conventional systems; for all intends and purposes, existing extension messages and support mechanisms do not favor agroecological farming). These farmers, therefore, practice agroecological farming against institutions and policies that do not recognize agroecological farming. There is therefore currently 'no level playing field' for farmers and promoters of agroecological practices in Bikita as in many areas in Zimbabwe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of Sub-Saharan Africa's demographic boom, the issue of youth employment has become a major concern. Many debates are ongoing regarding agriculture's role in the structural transformation process and providing jobs. In this regard, we explore the opportunity of an agroecological intensification of family farming. We analyze data from agricultural households in the Niayes area of Senegal collected in 2019 and use a clustering method to group farms and rank them according to agroecological practices. Diversity and livestock integration are the most differentiating factors across the identified farming systems. Considering labor allocation complexity within family farms, we compare employment indicators between farming systems to look for agroecology's effect on agricultural work. We observe diversity in the intensity of labor requirements across the different systems but no overall increase for the most agroecological. However, women working hours appear significantly increased for two groups suggesting a substitution with wage workers for the most agroecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Women's Working Group of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism (CSM) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has long advocated for policies reflective of gender equity in agriculture and food systems rooted in agroecology, human rights, and food sovereignty. In 2021, after years of activism, a series of drafts toward a set of Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment were produced by the CFS. With contributions from members of the CSM and La Via Campesina, we provide insights into the struggles, critiques, and paths forward for continued engagement with the CFS on this heavily politicized topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green governance of common goods balances the collective actions of economic production and the preservation of natural resources. This study improves the governance of sustainable initiatives with the concept of practice, answering the following question: how do collective practices support green governance? We performed an instrumental case study of the 'Rede Ecovida,' an agroecology network of 4,500 families. We adopted a qualitative approach based on experiential knowledge, collected through participant and non-participant observations, interviews, and documents and submitted to thematic analysis. We found that collective practices affect and are affected by the green governance constructs. Based on our findings, we evidence the dynamic interdependence between elements of practice and the constructs of green governance and we propose guidelines for the collective decision-making in sustainable initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the Green Revolution in Asia, the gap in agricultural yield with the developed world has been closed, while the gap in farm labour productivity has greatly widened. This reveals a deepening agrarian and environmental crisis in India. The industrial mode of production has led to the massive use of costly industrial inputs to increase yields and offset economies of scale that are almost impossible to achieve in this densely populated country. Such a development path is a trap for millions Indian micro-farmers and their natural capital. We then unveil the promises of a type of agroecology called 'natural farming' that has developed in Andhra Pradesh, a State in South India. Andhra's natural farming has pioneered the adoption of technical and organizational innovations that could lead to the first large-scale agroecological transition in the world. But in 2019, these local innovations were accused of following a regressive path and endangering the country's food security. This attack reveals the current omnipotence of the industrial sociotechnical regime over science, as well as a conception of science and progress antithetical to agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mexican government has decided to ban imports of genetically modified (GM) maize, to rely on agroecology for maize production to satisfy domestic yellow maize requirements. No economic impact assessment of this policy decision was made public, and the implications of this decision for users of yellow maize and consumers are significant. This article measures the economic surplus generated from Mexican GM yellow maize imports and domestic conventional yellow maize production over the last 20 years, and projects the economic surplus generated over five years from adopting agroecology for yellow maize production. We explore three likely scenarios and find that in all of them, yellow maize processors lose almost twice as much economic surplus as producers. In the most conservative loss estimate (Scenario 1), the surplus loss in five years is equivalent to 35% of the economic surplus generated over the last 21 years from GM maize imports and domestic Mexican conventional production. In all simulated Scenarios, between 2024 and 2025 the price of a metric ton of yellow maize will increase 81percent because of the change in production systems (from conventional to agroecology). These financial losses will ultimately factor into the prices consumers pay for poultry and red meat products, resulting in higher domestic retail food prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we analyze the production orientation (agroecological or conventional) of extension workers from nine countries in three continents, based on a questionnaire. We acknowledge the potential of extension workers as multipliers of an agroecological approach and as a way of scaling up agroecology. Results show that almost half of the participants support an agroecological approach, and with a higher frequency than the institutions they work for. Variables such as country (with their different historical contexts), objectives of extension practice, gender, age and years of experience influence the production approach of extension workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Input-driven agriculture has led to an epidemic of impoverishment, farmer suicides, and environmental degradation in India, but has also shown consistent staying power in Indian politics. We examine the case of organic farming policy adoption to explore this paradox. Specifically, our objective was to evaluate how the state-wide Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) program (now formally known as Community Managed Natural Farming) in Andhra Pradesh, India came to be. Evidence was drawn from government documents, field notes from a ZBNF workshop and farmer interactions, and in-depth interviews with stakeholders. Results suggest that advocacy of civil society networks, champions within the bureaucracy, emphasis on rural livelihoods, and the 20-year history of consensus building around agroecology all played a key role in the adoption of the ZBNF program in this state. Given the possibility of scaling up ZBNF at the national level, our analysis of the enabling environment is especially timely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues, firstly, that the notion that a resolution of the agrarian question requires the dissolution of small-scale farming is not what Marx thought. It argues, secondly, that extractivist capitalist agriculture is not developing the productive forces. It argues, thirdly, that contemporary agroecological farming is a knowledge-intensive form of production that can maximize the productivity of energy flows, which are central to the productive forces. Cumulatively, it is suggested, the terms and conditions by which the contemporary agrarian question can be resolved is through an agroecological agrarian transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global south, urban agriculture (UA) contributes to food security, incomes, and environmental benefits. Agroecology can enhance the impact of UA by reducing input costs and increasing yields. Yet discussions of agroecology rarely consider the challenge posed by contemporary urban diets. Drawing on research from two urban gardens in Johannesburg, South Africa, this paper argues that the dietary norms and practices of Johannesburg residents are poorly aligned to the production requirements and outputs of urban agroecology. Lessons from other countries suggest that the benefits of agroecology can be enhanced by targeting changes in food preparation and consumption practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food sovereignty has emerged as a leading sense-making framework for the nascent conceptualization of an agroecological urbanism – a radically new paradigm for urbanization, grounded in political agroecology. At present, discourses like food democracy are often isolated from food sovereignty and agroecology in the urban context, potentially resulting in missed opportunities for creating holistic, inclusive, and scalable transformation in the urban food system. This study used data from existing municipal food policy in Seattle, U.S.A. and interviews with Seattle community gardeners to probe resident practices and policy recommendations in relation to the conceptual frameworks of food sovereignty and food democracy. The findings identify two key dimensions of food democracy as notably absent from the food sovereignty framework within this contextualized landscape, including mechanisms that enable vertical deliberation between food system stakeholders and opportunities for strengthened self and community efficacy – thus, exposing a potential gap in the ongoing development of an actionable agroecological urbanism. Working in tandem within the frame of agroecological urbanism, the food sovereignty and food democracy frameworks may support transition from unsustainable growth patterns and enable agroecological massification in an urban Global North context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines agroecology within Europe, its dynamics, its position within a broader politico-economic framework and its political significance. It argues that agroecology is contesting and, at least in some places, effectively changing the main social relations of production in today's agriculture. In this respect, it has a strategically important potential for allowing farmers to regain control over the labour process. Empirically, the paper builds on the case of the Northern Frisian Woodlands, a large territorial cooperative that, has been developing a range of agroecological practices, and (often successfully) advocating for their more widespread adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America is known for social movement organization and innovation, and for dialog among different types of knowledge ('dialogo de saberes'). This has included dialog between academic knowledges framed by Western science, popular and ancestral 'peoples' knowledges and wisdoms,' and so-called critical thought from global and Latin American revolutionary traditions. We postulate that a specifically Latin American agroecology has emerged from these dynamics. While the global academy recognizes that agroecology is simultaneously a science (in the Western sense), a movement, and a practice, it is the emergent Latin American version that is the most politically charged and popularly organized. This contribution uses a survey of selected Latin American agroecologists to evaluate the extent to which such a critical Latin American agroecology actually exists, and if so, what its characteristics are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has exposed racialized vulnerabilities in the dominant agrifood system and granted opportunities to build anew. In this paper, I explore a series of breakdowns, from pandemic ecologies to uncontrolled infection among meatpacking workers. Agroecology has the potential to heal manifold metabolic rifts through which these problems arise. Ecologically, it offers biodiversity-based agriculture to maintain landscape complexity and buffer viral spillovers. Socially, intentional work is needed to center racism in the original accumulations through which metabolic rifts emerge. Specifically, agroecologists can mobilize lessons from abolition, a strategy premised on dismantling exploitative systems through growing relationships and institutions that affirm life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work explores the actors and reasons behind Traditional Agroecological Knowledge (TAeK) conservation initiatives in industrialized contexts. Results come from interviews to key informants and social network analyses of TAeK conservation projects conducted in central Catalonia. Actors used contrasting discourses to refer to TAeK conservation, but with a strong potential to generate alliances between different types of projects. The existing parallelisms between resistances to TAeK erosion and resistances to industrialized agri-food systems could become the seed for common collective action to counterweight the loss of TAeK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2012 and 2016 a virulent strain of coffee rust reduced Mexican yields by more than 50%, and it is still devastating production. The government has responded by replacing traditional arabica plants vulnerable to the pathogen with resistant, high-yielding varieties to recover the sector and encourage long-term adaptation to a disease that cannot be eradicated. However, this contribution will attempt to show that the intractable nature of the epidemic and the biological characteristics of resistant varieties threaten the survival of independent coffee organisations and their agroecological shade coffee systems. With little or no possibility of recovering production without the use of resistant plants, the alternative production and marketing models that these organisations have constructed over the past three decades face unprecedented challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, Sikkim, an Indian Himalayan state announced that it had certified all agricultural production as organic. In this article, we explore how Sikkim's organic policies are affecting agroecology transitions. Drawing upon 47 interviews with Sikkimese farmers, consumers, and government officials, we explore how questions of scale are central to the Sikkimese state's organic vision. Our four-part analysis reveals how the state's move to scale up organics reflects: 1) the state's perception that areal scale and low yield are the major constraints to their organic vision. To address this perceived constraint, the state is attempting to: 2) re-scale farm production to increase yield in single commodity crops, and 3) re-scale social processes to collectivize production and marketing. 4) Education is a primary pathway through which the state seeks to reorient farmers to engage in scaled up production and a yield oriented vision of cooperation. Our results show how these different scalar processes intersect, shedding new light on debates about the role of the state in agroecology transitions. List of Acronyms: APEDA: Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority; ATMA: Agricultural Technical Management Authority; CEO: Chief Executive Officer; FPO: Farmer Producer Organization; MOVCD: Mission Organic Value Chain Development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecological models have the potential to contribute to both the fight against climate change and a shift away from the dominant food system. In this article, I discuss the challenges that ecological farmers in Canada are facing in terms of scaling out agricultural systems that will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. I draw on Gramscian theories to argue that alliance-building is required in order to advance a counter-hegemonic agroecology in Canada, with those alliances going beyond narrowly conceived class-based interests. I suggest that the challenges farmers are facing highlight the need for a just transition in agriculture, and that the social transformation that this would entail means that proponents of agroecology must consider the positionalities of environmentalists, scholars, farmers and farm workers, and Indigenous peoples across the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, urban contexts and urban-rural linkages have become central for scholars and activists engaged in agrarian questions, agroecological transitions and food system transformation. Grassroots experimentations in urban agroecology and farmers' engagement with urban policies have marked the rise of a new agenda aiming to bridge urban and agrarian movements. Departing from the work of Eric Holt-Gimenez and Annie Shattuck, this paper argues that the way urban-rural links have been conceptualized is occasionally progressive, and that an agroecology-informed food system transformation needs radical approaches. Acknowledging that processes of urbanization are dynamic, driven by specific lifestyles, consumption patterns, and value orientations – producing ongoing suburbanization, land enclosures, farmers displacement and food-knowledge loss – the paper argues that thinking transitions through new rural-urban links is unfit to tackle the evolving nature of these geographies, and reproduces the distinction between consumers and producers, living on either side of what Mindi Schneider and Philip McMichael have described as an epistemic and ecological rift. Building on insights from four case-studies across global north and south, the paper reframes agroecological transitions as a paradigmatic change in biopolitical spatial relations, economic values and planning agency – what we call an 'agroecological urbanism'. The paper articulates a transformation agenda addressing urban nutrients, peri-urban landuse, community food pedagogies and farmers' infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Peasant Reserve Zones or Zonas de Reserva Campesina (ZRC) are a legal tool for territorial ordering, created in 1994 in Colombia, to guarantee campesino access to land and to stop agribusiness land concentration. Agroecology for sustainable production is one of the key proposals from social movements in these zones, however, its transference into practice remains limited, due to the deep-rooted influence of the green revolution. This article analyses the relationship between productive practice and agroecology proposals in Cabrera's ZRC, which is located in the Andean region of Colombia. This zone is one of seven ZRCs created so far in the country. The study uses key documents, data from focus groups and in-depth questionnaires from 55 farms. The data reveals that due to a prevailing campesino productive rationale, the ZRC provides favorable conditions under which to develop agroecology as practice, as they both share many similar principles such as those found in diversified agriculture. Furthermore, Cabrera's ZRC has a strong legal and organizational trajectory, capable of advancing agroecology as a social movement, which could in turn facilitate the defense of economic, social and cultural rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has historically been a vanguard of agroecology. In Nicaragua, an agroecological transition is occurring, with three decades of building a groundswell based on the farmer-to-farmer movement and the recent institutionalization of agroecology in national law. Yet, problems remain with agroecology's diffusion. We introduce the Technological Innovation Systems approach to examine systemic barriers to the agroecological transition and cycles of blockages caused by barriers' interactions. Based on qualitative data from north-central Nicaragua, we find the main barriers hindering the agroecological transition include weak guidance of the search for agroecology, insufficient capacities and quantities of resources, and lacking market development. Beyond the Nicaragua case, the analysis points at the importance of using socio-technical systems analysis to better understand and address the root causes behind issues blocking national agroecological transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Malawi study examines whether agroecology can be effectively used by smallholders to address food sovereignty. We build on the concept of the metabolic rift, arguing that repairing this rift includes social relations. Agroecological methods can be important strategies, but are labour and knowledge intensive, and require addressing power dynamics within and beyond households in order to address food sovereignty. The case study included participatory methods of dialogue, experimentation and horizontal learning to foster change. We argue that feminist concepts of intersectionality and participatory praxis are central to mobilizing agroecology to build food sovereignty and work to transform social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the process of transformation since 1999 known as the Bolivarian Revolution, harsh class and food system contradictions have unfolded in Venezuela, pitting against one another the forces of the pervasive consumer culture favoring imported foods, the input-intensive Green Revolution agricultural model that represents a state-led push toward food self-sufficiency, and an emerging agroecological paradigm pushed forward by grassroots movements who have seized political openings through the largely supportive policy environment. The Bolivarian University of Venezuela, itself a product of the revolutionary process, founded the Program Degree in Agroecology (PDA) in 2004 to expand agroecological practices and knowledge, based on alternative pedagogical approaches. Over the next decade, over a thousand PDA graduates have come to occupy institutional spaces and productive projects in urban and rural areas, contributing to vertical and horizontal agroecological scaling. PDA graduates and educators play a key role in the growing movement of urban agriculture that confronts the economic crisis. The PDA has created key mediators in the form of human talent for territorializing agroecology and institutionalizing pro-peasant policy in Venezuela. As a political outlier, Venezuela is an important case for studying the strategies for territorializing what we refer to as socially committed, situated agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaling up of peasant agroecology and building food sovereignty require major transformations that only a self-aware, critical, collective political subject can achieve. The global peasant movement, La Via Campesina (LVC) in its expression in Latin America, the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC), employs agroecology and political training or formation as a dispositive or device to facilitate the emergence of a sociohistorical and political subject, the "agroecological peasantry," designed to be capable of transforming food systems across the globe. In this essay, we examine the pedagogical philosophies and practices used in the peasant agroecology schools and training processes of LVC and CLOC, and how they come together in territorial mediation as a dispositive for pedagogical-educational, agroecological reterritorialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, we look at the symbolic and material territorialization of agroecology in La Via Campesina (LVC) through peasant-to-peasant processes (PtPPs) in the broad sense. The most significant examples of the scaling up of agroecology are clearly tied to organizational processes and in our perspective, PtPPs are the motor of these changes. We contend that agroecology, subjects, and territories are articulated in these processes, making up a powerful dispositive or device for agroecological transformation and scaling up. We also introduce a discussion on the emergence of a historical-political subject, the "agroecological peasantry," within the larger territorial dispute concerning the transformation of the agri-food system and living conditions in the countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine processes of scaling agroecological practices in the Maya-Achí territory of Guatemala. We compare the Achí case to other examples documented in the literature and the key factors, or "drivers," reported as important if not essential for scaling to occur. We find that the Achí scase is complex with regard to these drivers. Factors such as constructivist learning/teaching methods, favorable public policies, and strong social fabric appear to be weak, absent, or even negative. This is due in part to the violence and repression of the 1980s, which resulted in the assassination of 20 percent of the population by the military and paramilitaries, leaving the territory socially fragmented. Projects incorporating agroecology (revalorization of ancestral practices, seed saving, elimination of external inputs, strengthening soil health, increasing/guarding agrobiodiversity) are viewed as a potential strategy to aid in community recovery, and are promoted by local associations as well as by international institutions and NGOs. While social and cultural recuperation were initially hypothesized as primary causes for the adoption of practices, we encounter a range of additional and complex factors, such as the expectation of economic benefits and the presence of aid and development organizations. By analyzing these drivers and barriers we contribute to the ongoing debate over how agroecological practices may be scaled-out, particularly in regions exhibiting less than ideal conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]