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A profound transformation of agricultural production methods has become unavoidable due to the increase in the world’s population, and environmental and climatic challenges. Agroecology is now recognized as a challenging model for agricultural systems, promoting their diversification and adaptation to environmental and socio-economic contexts, with consequences for the entire agri-food system and the development of rural and urban areas. Through a prospective exercise performed at a large interdisciplinary institute, INRAE, a research agenda for agroecology was built that filled a gap through its ambition and interdisciplinarity. It concerned six topics. For genetics, there is a need to study genetic aspects of complex systems (e.g., mixtures of genotypes) and to develop breeding methods for them. For landscapes, challenges lie in effects of heterogeneity at multiple scales, in multifunctionality and in the design of agroecological landscapes. Agricultural equipment and digital technologies show high potential for monitoring dynamics of agroecosystems. For modeling, challenges include approaches to complexity, consideration of spatial and temporal dimensions and representation of the cascade from cropping practices to ecosystem services. The agroecological transition of farms calls for modeling and observational approaches as well as for creating new design methods. Integration of agroecology into food systems raises the issues of product specificity, consumer behavior and organization of markets, standards and public policies. In addition, transversal priorities were identified: (i) generating sets of biological data, through research and participatory mechanisms, that are appropriate for designing agroecological systems and (ii) collecting and using coherent sets of data to enable assessment of vulnerability, resilience and risk in order to evaluate the performance of agroecological systems and to contribute to scaling up. The main lessons learned from this collective exercise can be useful for the entire scientific community engaged in research into agroecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of the collective management of immaterial resources is a key variable in the valorisation of products in a post-industrial economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how, in post-industrial economies, it is possible to devise alternative forms of mediation between producers and consumers, such as organic farmers' markets, to curb the appropriation of rent by transnational and/or local business elites from the value created by immaterial resources. More specifically, we analyse those aspects of the collective management of ethical values that, in the case of organic farmers' markets, can be a strategic source of competitive advantage for local producers. In this paper, the Ecomercado de Granada is studied as an example of mediation between production and consumption in a post-industrial economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family farming is a lifestyle and agricultural base that has ensured food for the world's growing population in addition to the family's own subsistence. However, the intensification of production processes to primarily generate exportable surpluses is based on the constant input of industrial inputs of low local socioeconomic viability. This study aims to evaluate the sustainability of family farms and their impact on the adoption of homeopathy instead of traditional/conventional intensification techniques. The study was conducted at six family farms located in the Serrana Mesoregion, Santa Catarina, Brazil, and include farms were classified according to the management and representativeness of their agricultural activity, i.e., conventional grains-cattle, milk-grains, grains and diversified, and according to their ecological basis, i.e., agroecological and organic. To discuss the sustainability of the family farms that were evaluated, the of metrics emergy synthesis, ecotoxicity potential and socioeconomic indicators are used. The results indicate that conventional diversified property has the best overall performance with regard to sustainability, including emergy yield ratio (EYR 1.88), emergy investment ratio (EIR 1.13), return on assets (1.22), hourly income of work (36.6 BRL/h) and income sufficiency (3.3). Agroecological and organic properties have better performance in renewability (76% and 75%), environmental load (ELR = 0.32 and 0.34), sustainability (ESI = 4.78 and 3.5) and potential ecotoxicity (1.736 and 1.579 kg 1.4 DCB-eq/ha). The contribution of homeopathy in an alternative scenario results in a 19% reduction in nonrenewable flows in conventional management properties and a decrease of up to 91% in ecotoxicity in grain + cattle properties. Using homeopathy, the return on assets and profit margin can be increased by up to 43% and income per hour of work and income sufficiency can be increased by 20% and 16%, respectively. This study contributes to discussions about the importance of using homeopathic therapies as a viable strategy that can be used in strategic public policy plans to improve the sustainability of family farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many agronomic studies have shown the advantages of species mixtures (SM), but for food grain production, they represent only a small niche. Empirical studies that investigate reasons for SM adoption in food grain production are scarce. Here we present an in-depth study based on qualitative expert interviews with nine farmers. By means of interpretative analysis and reconstruction, socially shared models of SM adoption were built to identify the five main factors for SM adoption: (1) perceived relative mixture performance compared to sole crops, (2) suitability within the farm context (3), challenges and opportunities in mixture management due to increased complexity, (4) knowledge and technology as resources to handle mixture management and (5) quality standards in the food value chain. Relative performance was perceived as higher for SM than for sole crops for crop protection, nutrient efficiency, farm diversification, total yield stability and grain quality. The yield stability of individual crop species in SM was perceived as lower and grain impurities higher, requiring increased separation efforts. The economic potential of SM was perceived as highly variable, depending on crop value and post-harvest efforts to attain food quality. Reconstructing the mixture management process revealed that the interspecific plant interactions and emergent mixture attributes increased the cropping system complexity and affected the entire farming process. Adopting SM required knowledge about species interactions, mixture attributes and equipment settings. Large knowledge gaps for food SM were identified. The complexity of SM also provided opportunities for farmers to design mixtures that allow competition control (alternate rows) or avoid separation (relay mixtures). The main conclusions are: (1) increased complexity is a basic property of SM compared to sole crops, enabling advantages and increasing the option space to develop new sustainable cropping systems, (2) specific knowledge and technology are required for SM and are not accessible for most farmers, requiring new information channels and (3) new food SM should be developed more systematically, taking into account mixture properties and their effects on the farming process, as well as needs from the food value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine whether the Agroecological Educational Center Los Álamos (Centro Educativo Agroecológico Los Álamos, CEA), located in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, fulfills the elements of structure and function to be identified as an agroecological beacon. Design/Methodology/Approach: A mixed approach was used (quantitative and qualitative). A study case of the CEA was constructed to understand both the context and the structural and functional characteristics that currently configure it. First, an exhaustive review of secondary information related to the structure and functioning of agroecological beacons in other regions or countries was made. In a second stage, a comparative analysis of the structural and functional characteristics of agroecological beacons was conducted with the data generated in the study case. In the third stage, factors were analyzed that make possible or limit the CEA to develop as an agroecological beacon. Results: The CEA performs and fulfills with participant youth the function of agroecological beacon, since it is an efficient tool for education, training, knowledge exchange and promotion of agroecology. This favors its dissemination and scaling in the peasant communities where the young people who participate in the CEA are from. Study Limitations/Implications: The results are only applicable to the study case due to the limitations present in this methodology in terms of its results not allowing to elaborate general explanations. Findings/Conclusions: The CEA complies with sufficient elements to catalog it as a sectorial agroecological beacon, which is contributing a methodological and strategic light to respond to the challenge of intergenerational transmission of understanding, knowledge and agroecological projects in the peasant indigenous youth sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation drives climate change and reinforces food insecurity in forest‐dependent communities. What drives deforestation varies by location and is shaped by livelihood systems. But how locals perceive restoration is crucial for developing restoration policies. Evidence suggests that applying sustainable farming strategies can potentially restore forests and sustain livelihoods. Applying a broad‐based conceptualization of deforestation and restoration in policymaking, however, results in missed opportunities for addressing deforestation and restoration. Here, we explore the drivers of deforestation, the perceptions of restoration, and the challenges to restoration among smallholder farmers in northern Malawi and examine how agroecology can contribute to restoring degraded agroecosystems. Participants report agricultural land expansion, charcoal production, climate change, burnt brick production, and government subsidies as the major drivers of deforestation. We observed that although perceptions of forest restoration reflect farmers' traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to include reclamation of degraded farmlands, reconstruction of native tree species, and replacement of felled trees on farmlands, there are challenges including splitting families to gain access to more subsidized fertilizers and food aid, embedded cultural practices, growing demand for charcoal in cities, and weak ecosystem governance structures that hinder the effectiveness of restoration efforts. We, however, do find that agroecological intensification can increase yield from smaller farmlands and allow for larger and longer‐lasting fallows of spare lands which regenerate forests. Key overarching implications of these findings include the need to integrate livelihoods more explicitly into restoration plans, accounting for TEK in restoration policies in forest‐dependent communities and encouraging the adoption of agroecology. [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]

Rosario, Argentina, a city of more than one million people strategically located on the Paraná River in the heart of a fertile agricultural region, is home to a significant industrial corridor where ongoing urbanization for industry, including that associated with the port complex and agroexport industries, vies for real estate space with peri-urban and urban farming production. The city is also the site of thriving municipal programs seeking to change food production and consumption outcomes through urban and peri-urban agriculture projects rooted in agroecology. This paper identifies the socio-natures critical for the formation and endurance of these agroecology assemblages. Based on interviews with 30 stakeholders in government, civil society, and agricultural production, we describe the integrated approach to environmental, social, and economic sustainability embedded in Rosario's institutional agroecology programs. In particular, we discuss the actors and strategies (which seek to preserve land for agricultural uses), discursive renderings of socio-natures (as valuable biodiverse territories and productive diverse bodies), and the marketing of agroecological materialities (through production for public markets) that form and are formed by these assemblages. We also discuss the power dynamics embedded in sustaining urban and peri-urban agroecological projects through institutional means. This research contributes to literature on agroecology, urban agriculture, and the urban metabolism through providing empirical examples of socio-natural entanglements in urban agroecological assemblages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil stands out at the global level for having implemented several policies intending to promote agroecology as a productive paradigm for small-holder farmers. However, the impacts of this process of institutionalization of agroecology still lack research and debates that evaluate the effectiveness of these policies. In this paper, we assess and discuss the impacts of a policy specifically focused on education in agroecology, the support to the establishment of Centers for the Study of Agroecology and Organic Production (NEAs) in more than 150 higher education institutions throughout Brazil. NEAs bring together teachers, researchers, and students who engage in teaching, research, and extension activities in partnerships with peasant farmers, their organizations, and rural extension workers. The hypothesis that guides our analysis is that this support to establish NEAs allowed redistribution of symbolic power in the universities where they were established, supporting agroecology to gain greater legitimacy inside and outside the university field. Based on an in-depth study of four NEAs, performed through participant observation and documentary analysis, the NEAs are evaluated from the perspective of social fields in dispute, first in a university sphere, but also from the perspective of training people in integrative and transdisciplinary thinking that will contest the industrial-corporate food regime. Our findings suggest that the State support to university groups dedicated to the promotion of agroecology has allowed the construction of what we have named agroecological spaces, which symbolically dispute the dominant paradigms in educational institutions, supporting the constitution of material and immaterial agroecological territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Since the Green Revolution, worldwide agriculture has been characterized by a typical top–down approach. The degree of autonomy, creativity, and responsibility of farmers has been limited by the continuous external inputs of chemicals, machinery, advice, subsidies and knowledge. The issue of sustainability has brought complexity and uncertainty to this mainly linear process of innovation, steering agriculture toward alternative models. Agroecology represents an innovative paradigm of agriculture in which external inputs are minimized, and the assets of the farm are greatly valued. Agroecological production relies on the farmers’ direct management of resources and on their active engagement in the agricultural knowledge and innovation system. This paper focuses on the experience of a group of farmers, scientists, public officials, and managers of private companies who are experimenting with agroecology in rice production in one of the most intensively farmed, profitable and environmentally sensitive areas of Italy. The partnership regularly comes together to discuss agricultural techniques and results, needs, and paths of innovation; in addition, it stimulates and takes part in research projects, following a participatory process based on co-learning and mutual responsibility. By using ethnographic methods such as direct observations and in-depth interviews, our work may contribute to understanding the role of participatory research in sustainable agriculture and what makes for good participation.

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]

Copyright of Emancipação is the property of Revista Emancipacao - Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Crops that offer multiple types of value, for example, in terms of economy, culture, and health, frequently lack information on the basic ecological interactions that play a significant role in their persistence. Chayote (Sechium edule, Cucurbitaceae), a widespread squash valued for its nutritious fruit, is one example. We aimed at describing the assemblage of flower visitors to this crop at 2400 m where stingless bees, reported as the main pollinators, are naturally absent. We implemented flower exclusions, performed field observations, and inspection of pollen loads of captured visitors to be able to draw distinctions between primary and secondary pollinators. We recorded a total of 60 species or morphospecies of insects visiting the flowers. Bees, wasps, and flies, present in all sites and consistently carrying abundant pollen, are the main pollinators of S. edule at high altitudes. Our study adds to the building evidence of the fundamental role that native bees and wasps play as crop pollinators in subsistence farming. Basic ecological knowledge is essential to inform agricultural management policies and to foresee preventable food scarcity problems, especially in view of climate change scenarios that predict drastic alterations in plant geographical distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cities, agroecological food consumption is often identified as an exclusive, middle‐class practice. In this article, we examine changes in agroecological food circuits in urban Ecuador, amid COVID‐19 breakdowns in conventional food systems. Through interviews with farmers, government officials, and NGO workers in 2020 and 2021, our research identifies three sets of experiences with distinct implications for agroecological transitions. First, some agroecological circuits could no longer function due to regulations on food circulation that favored the corporate food sector. Second, some circuits temporarily expanded to reach more urban middle‐class consumers, using online platforms and government infrastructures. Third, urban collectives and neighborhood organizations re‐appropriated urban spaces – from cultural centers to city streets – to facilitate the circulation of agroecological foods in low‐income sectors. We highlight the spatial and social 're‐localization' practices of these urban groups that challenge the hegemony of conventional food circuits, as they drive agroecological food consumption beyond the middle‐class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical evidence increasingly suggests that while the uptake of agroecology brings significant benefits to ecosystems, health, and communities, yet achieving a transition towards agroecology can still be complicated. In this article we contribute to this literature by offering a power-sensitive analysis of the transition towards agroecology. We build on insights from critical institutionalism and introduce a complementary analytical view for examining the institutional arena in which actors' interactions influence individual decisions to adopt agroecological practices. We label this bundle of interactions as 'intertwined relations'. Our empirical data is drawn from a study of a program in rural villages in Peru, designed to encourage farmers to take up agroecology. Our case study demonstrates that the local dynamics influenced agricultural transition and that their evolution exposed more complex mechanisms of power-play in farmers' interactions. We identify two power-play mechanisms that influenced farmers' decisions to adopt agroecological practices: copying and learning - which entails learning from peer farmers with more resources before adopting an agroecological production model, and the manageability of the risks - which was adopted as a strategy for managing the multiple risks of adopting agroecology, and aligning their economic and social interests with those of the agroecology programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hedgerows can make an important contribution to agroecological transitions and to an overall contribution to multifunctional agro-ecosystems with multiple benefits for biodiversity, climate change mitigation, soil health, human health, well-being, and livelihoods. Where such agroecological transition assumes the form of political agroecology, this can underpin transformation of the farming system towards food sovereignty. Current mismanagement of hedgerows is constraining the optimum delivery of ecosystem services by these important features of the British landscape. This mismanagement is, moreover, an integral part of a (capitalist) productivist degradation of the countryside that is contributing to the delivery of ecosystem disservices and is, therefore, antithetical to the adoption of agroecological production practises. Being contrary to the requirements of political agroecology, it is similarly antithetical to the requirements of food sovereignty. In response, this paper outlines what appears to be required, in policy and political terms, for the adoption of an agroecological and food sovereignty framework enabling the sustainable management of hedgerows and maximising their potential for ecosystem services delivery.

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]

Copyright of Revista Verde de Agroecologia e Desenvolvimento Sustentável is the property of Revista Verde de Agroecologia e Desenvolvimento Sustentavel and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Individual agroecological farms can act as lighthouses to amplify the uptake of agroecological principles and practices by other farmers. Amplification is critical for the upscaling of agroecological production and socio-political projects emphasizing farmer sovereignty and solidarity. However, territories are contested spaces with historical, social, cultural, and economic contexts that can present challenges to the effectiveness of farmer lighthouses in catalyzing localized agrarian change. We explore these amplification dynamics through fieldwork in a particular region of Japan employing interviews and data derived from an assessment of nine farms using ten amplification indicators. The indicators include social organization, participation in networks, community leadership, and degrees of dependency on policies or markets among others, as well as degree of adoption of on-farm agroecological practices, all of which capture farmer lighthouses' potential to amplify territorial upscaling. At the same time, we trace the historical development of a previous generation of Japanese farmer lighthouses practicing organic agriculture in alignment with agroecological principles that experienced, to varying degrees, push-back, co-option, and successful territorialization in rural communities. We find that many of the same social and cultural territorial dynamics are still influential today and affecting the amplifying effect of agroecological farmer lighthouses, but also find examples of new clustering around lighthouses that take advantage of both the historical vestiges of the previous generation's efforts as well as contemporary shifts in practice and agrarian orientation. This research calls for a detailed dissection of the dynamic and contrasting processes of agroecological territorialization and the ways in which diverse contexts shape agroecological upscaling.

How does agroecology influence household food security? While previous studies have found that adopting agroecological practices can have a positive effect on smallholder household food security, there is limited understanding of how this transition occurs. This mixed-methods study draws on data from an ongoing agroecology project in Malawi to engage with debates about if and how an agricultural paradigm shift can contribute to smallholder food security. Researchers interviewed 60 farmer participants of an agroecology intervention to examine the mechanisms by which recent adoption of crop diversification and soil management practices had altered household access to a stable, adequate and diverse diet. Results from mixed-effects regression analysis of a case-controlled panel survey (n = 537) corroborated respondents' reports that participating in agroecological trainings and farmer discussion groups had increased food security. Interviews indicated that, consistent with food security pathways literature, farmers were using direct-consumption and agricultural income pathways to improve food security. Furthermore, respondents were following food security pathways based on altering their production relations so as to regain control over their farming inputs, namely seed, fertilizer, land, and labor. In addition, we found that the agroecological approaches reinforced and widened existing social support practices such as food and seed sharing, fundamental to long-term community food security. The results presented in this paper provide evidence of the effectiveness of multifaceted participatory agroecological interventions to support transitions to food security based on environmentally sustainable farming practices. [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]

Management of crop diversity for improved agroecosystem functioning can provide economic co-benefits to farmers. Yet, there remain critical gaps in understanding how farm management practices evolve through agroecological transitions and how agroecological practices affect socioeconomic outcomes such as income and working conditions. We conducted a case study of farms transitioning from conventional tobacco production to diversified agroecological management in a participatory certification network in southern Brazil. We purposively sampled farms along a transition gradient and conducted crop diversity and management surveys and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with household members. Using these data, we assessed indicators of ecological management, income, and working conditions across three transition stages—conventional, transitioning, and agroecological. We found that ecological management indicators increased in magnitude and evenness by transition stage, as transitioning farmers increasingly used practices to support ecological complexity. Agroecological farmers utilized system redesign, a transformative approach to agroecosystem management, rather than efficiency-based or substitution-oriented practices adopted by conventional and transitioning farmers. While farms in transition reported more difficult working conditions and lower incomes, agroecological farmers had similar per capita working hours and improved work quality and occupational safety relative to conventional farmers in the region. On a per capita basis, experienced agroecological farmers earned similar net agricultural incomes and higher net household incomes than conventional farmers, by reducing agricultural expenses and diversifying their markets and livelihoods. Our study is the first to our knowledge to use a transition gradient approach to examine how agroecological transition stage affects both ecological and socioeconomic indicators on farms, providing insights into the processes and pathways by which farmers overcome challenges during transitions. Results highlight the potential for stable profits and improved working conditions on farms following agroecological transitions, within a supportive policy and market context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sustainability in Debate / Sustentabilidade em Debate is the property of University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

This paper presents a case study of Cuba's Local Agricultural Innovation Project (PIAL for its initials in Spanish), with a focus on its gender-specific elements. The PIAL methodology was first introduced in Cuba in the early 2000's as a means of carrying out participatory plant-breeding to facilitate the development and use of locally-adapted seed varieties and help farmers diversify their production. A cornerstone of Cuba's transition toward more agroecological production, PIAL currently operates in 75 municipalities across 12 provinces and in the Isle of Youth special municipality, and the model has evolved from its initial focus on participatory plant-breeding to include more holistic programming aimed at increasing food system sustainability and community resilience. In this paper we highlight how the gender-specific aspects of the PIAL model facilitate female participation and leadership and how this contributes to positive economic, ecological and sociocultural changes in farming households and communities. Key impacts include: increased inclusion of women in developing and implementing farm innovations; increased self-confidence for female farmers and farm-family members; increased productive diversification on family farms; and, increased employment and household income through women-led micro-industry projects and facilitation of commercialization opportunities. As we elaborate on these impacts of the PIAL work, we also explore broader themes with respect to how the model has evolved over time, factors for success, and vision toward the future. We discuss the ways in which PIAL's gender work is contributing to a revival and revaluing of campesina culture, how it is challenging deeply entrenched norms of both femininities and masculinities, how it is engaging youth and fostering inter-generational knowledge-sharing, the ways in which it leverages the expertise and resources of formal research institutes to support locally-focused participatory initiatives and, finally, how it is building networks and partnerships that embed its work in institutional (e.g., government) settings at a variety of scales, thus helping to ensure use of local government funds for the work, and guaranteeing longevity independent of external funding.

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 review examines three recent books that address the relationship between neoliberalism and agribusiness, on the one hand, and the demise of smallholder farming, traditional diets and the rise of diet‐related chronic illness, on the other. The first, by Timothy Wise, adopts what may be characterized as an 'agrarian populist' stance, constructing a universal binary between trans‐nationalizing agribusiness and a unified family farm sector. Protagonists from the latter are seen to embody the future, using agroecology to feed the world sustainably in a time of climate crisis. This is not a consistently propeasant stance, however; Wise seems rather to advocate a 'farmer road' to national capitalist development. The other two books, by Alyshia Galvez and Gerardo Otero, cover quite similar ground to one another, looking explicitly at the rise of neoliberalism, the decline of traditional farming and diets and the rise of processed food‐related diseases. Unlike 'agrarian populists', both authors privilege the state and 'class struggle' (sensu lato) in analysing the dynamics of neoliberalism, free trade agreements and food policies. Normatively, both see the state as pivotal in generating policies centred around smaller scale farming and the production of nutritious food for all. For Otero, like Wise, these policies seem to be tied to a form of national developmentalism as an escape route from neoliberalism. For Galvez, the future is less clear‐cut—although by inclination 'propeasant', she does not exclude elements of national developmentalism in envisioning a postneoliberal world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a bottom-up, grassroots paradigm for sustainable rural development, agroecology is particularly promising for smallholders in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, by adopting agroecology, smallholders will be challenged to take on new perspectives and compile and integrate different sourced information to innovate. Today's fast evolving information and communications technology in sub-Saharan Africa represents great opportunities for rural populations to enhance the adoption and success of agroecology and to address their daunting challenges simultaneously while conserving, protecting and enhancing natural resources. Agroecology combined with information and communications technology will probably be smallholders' "precision agriculture" in many developing countries to enhance their food security and livelihood. [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]

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During the center-left Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party—PT) governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2002–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016), the Brazilian Landless Movement took advantage of particular governmental changes—increased access to education, improved small-farmer support programs, and expanded agrarian reform development policies—to strengthen its leadership and organization. Instead of expanding, the movement turned inward to address internal weaknesses. It benefited from the PT's ambiguous position with respect to the politics of agrarian reform. Since each administration dedicated considerable resources to public policies that the movement favored, neither government engaged in significant land redistribution. Durante los gobiernos de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2002–2010) y Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016), ambos pertenecientes al centro-izquierdista Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), el Movimiento Brasileño Sin Tierra aprovechó cambios gubernamentales particulares, como mejores programas de apoyo a los pequeños agricultores, mejor acceso a la educación y políticas ampliadas para el desarrollo de reformas agrarias, para fortalecer su liderazgo y organización. En lugar de expandirse, el movimiento se tornó hacia sí mismo para abordar debilidades internas. Se benefició de la posición ambigua del PT con respecto a las políticas de reforma agraria. Y dado que ambas administraciones dedicaron considerables recursos a políticas públicas favorecidas por el movimiento, ninguno se abocó a supervisar una redistribución significativa de la tierra. [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]

Milk production in the northwestern region of Rio Grande do Sul has been particularly prominent among family farmers. Given the need to diversify production in their small farms, family farmers consider dairy farming a potential alternative to increase family income. However, the environmental dimension is often sidelined when implementing or maintaining this agricultural activity. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the environmental sustainability of milk-producing family farms in the microregion of Carazinho-RS in order to identify the environmental reality in these properties. A total of 167 properties were sampled from the ten municipalities that have the most significant dairy production in the microregion. The environmental sustainability index of the properties was identified by applying a questionnaire. Research results showed that the microregion studied has a regular environmental sustainability index. This indicates the need for some adjustments, mainly in the indicators 'land use' and 'legal reserve', which were the ones that most compromised their environmental sustainability index. [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]

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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]