SPECIAL ISSUE ON SCALING AGROECOLOGY

Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

Agroecology as a transformative movement has gained momentum in many countries worldwide. In several cases, the implementation of agroecological practices has grown beyond isolated, local experiences to be employed by ever-greater numbers of families and communities over ever-larger territories and to engage more people in the processing, distribution, and consumption of agroecologically produced food. To understand the nonlinear, multidimensional processes that have enabled and impelled the bringing to scale of agroecology, we review and analyze emblematic cases that include the farmer-to-farmer movement in Central America; the national peasant agroecology movement in Cuba; the organic coffee boom in Chiapas, Mexico; the spread of Zero Budget Natural Farming in Karnataka, India; and the agroecological farmer–consumer marketing network “Rede Ecovida,” in Brazil. On the basis of our analysis, we identify eight key drivers of the process of taking agroecology to scale: (1) recognition of a crisis that motivates the search for alternatives, (2) social organization, (3) constructivist learning processes, (4) effective agroecological practices, (5) mobilizing discourses, (6) external allies, (7) favorable markets, and (8) favorable policies. This initial analysis shows that organization and social fabric are the growth media on which agroecology advances, with the help of the other drivers. A more detailed understanding is needed on how these multiple dimensions interact with, reinforce, and generate positive feedback with each other to make agroecology’s territorial expansion possible.

Agroecology is in fashion, and now constitutes a territory in dispute between social movements and institutionality. This new conjuncture offers a constellation of opportunities that social movements can avail themselves of to promote changes in the food system. Yet there is an enormous risk that agroecology will be co-opted, institutionalized, colonized and stripped of its political content. In this paper, we analyze this quandary in terms of political ecology: will agroecology end up as merely offering a few more tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture, to fine tune an agribusiness system that is being restructured in the midst of a civilizational crisis or, alternatively, will it be strengthened as a politically mobilizing option for building alternatives to development? We interpret the contemporary dispute over agroecology through the lenses of contested material and immaterial territories, political ecology, and the first and second contradictions of capital. Popular pressure has caused many multilateral institutions, governments, universities and research centers, some NGOs [non-governmental organizations], corporations and others, to finally recognize 'agroecology'. However, they have tried to redefine it as a narrow set of technologies, to offer some tools that appear to ease the sustainability crisis of industrial food production, while the existing structures of power remain unchallenged. This co-optation of agroecology to fine-tune the industrial food system, while paying lip service to the environmental discourse, has various names, including 'climate smart agriculture', 'sustainable-' or 'ecological-intensification', industrial monoculture production of 'organic' food, etc. For us, these are not agroecology: we reject them, and we will fight to expose and block this insidious appropriation of agroecology. The real solutions to the crises of the climate, malnutrition, etc., will not come from conforming to the industrial model. We must transform it and build our own local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on truly agroecological food production by peasants, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, urban farmers, etc. We cannot allow agroecology to be a tool of the industrial food production model: we see it as the essential alternative to that model, and as the means of transforming how we produce and consume food into something better for humanity and our Mother Earth.

Agroecology is in fashion, and now constitutes a territory in dispute between social movements and institutionality. This new conjuncture offers a constellation of opportunities that social movements can avail themselves of to promote changes in the food system. Yet there is an enormous risk that agroecology will be co-opted, institutionalized, colonized and stripped of its political content. In this paper, we analyze this quandary in terms of political ecology: will agroecology end up as merely offering a few more tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture, to fine tune an agribusiness system that is being restructured in the midst of a civilizational crisis or, alternatively, will it be strengthened as a politically mobilizing option for building alternatives to development? We interpret the contemporary dispute over agroecology through the lenses of contested material and immaterial territories, political ecology, and the first and second contradictions of capital. Popular pressure has caused many multilateral institutions, governments, universities and research centers, some NGOs [non-governmental organizations], corporations and others, to finally recognize 'agroecology'. However, they have tried to redefine it as a narrow set of technologies, to offer some tools that appear to ease the sustainability crisis of industrial food production, while the existing structures of power remain unchallenged. This co-optation of agroecology to fine-tune the industrial food system, while paying lip service to the environmental discourse, has various names, including 'climate smart agriculture', 'sustainable-' or 'ecological-intensification', industrial monoculture production of 'organic' food, etc. For us, these are not agroecology: we reject them, and we will fight to expose and block this insidious appropriation of agroecology. The real solutions to the crises of the climate, malnutrition, etc., will not come from conforming to the industrial model. We must transform it and build our own local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on truly agroecological food production by peasants, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, urban farmers, etc. We cannot allow agroecology to be a tool of the industrial food production model: we see it as the essential alternative to that model, and as the means of transforming how we produce and consume food into something better for humanity and our Mother Earth.

2015

This special issue is remarkably timely. In September 2014, the FAO hosted its first ever symposium on agroecology. Since then, diverse sectors have gathered at several regional meetings to assess opportunities and constraints for agroecological development. Agroecology is increasingly invoked in laws and programs from the local to the national level, particularly in Latin America and Europe. It is now discussed on the international stage as a solution to a suite of interrelated , thorny challenges that include hunger, the epidemic of diet-related disease, rural poverty, biodiversity loss, environmental contamination, and climate change. Agroecology is often described as practice, science, and movement. The foundation of agroecological practice is traditional agriculture and continuous innovation by farmers themselves. More recently, and particularly over the last half century, agroecological science has emerged as a response to the human and ecological toll of the hegemonic, industrial capitalist model of food production and distribution. Using agroecological approaches, scientists have made significant contributions to diverse fields within the natural sciences, including community and landscape ecology, epidemiology, microbiology, human nutrition, and climate science. But agroecological science also challenges disciplinary boundaries and conventions, engaging in action research using innovative methodologies. Horizontal dialog among farmers, scientists, and others committed to agroecological innovation and the defense of related cultural, spiritual, and ecological values has laid the groundwork for progress in Latin American agroecology. The most significant manifestation of agroecology as a movement is its adoption by the international peasant movement, particularly La Vía Campesina (LVC) and a range of allied social movements from around the world (http://www.foodsovereignty.org/forum-agroecology-nyeleni-2015/). For these movements, agroecology is essential to the realization of food sovereignty, a central objective of their struggle over the last decade (http://nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290).

Food First Backgrounder

Special multi-authored series on agroecology in the food system How can agroecology be advanced, amplified, scaled up and out? In each context, there are enabling and disabling conditions that shape the potential for agroecology to be scaled. This Food First Issue Brief identifies six 'domains of transformation' that are essential to consider in agroecology transformations. Social movements, food producers, progressive researchers and other actors in civil society have long advocated for agroecology. More recently, agroecology is increasingly recognized by policy makers as an alternative paradigm for food and farming that can address multiple crises in the food system and enable a just transition. The challenge ahead is to make agroecology grow from "islands of success" to "seas of change". How can agroecol-ogy be nurtured, grown, massified, scaled up and out and strengthened on-farm, across and between territories, and throughout the food system? We refer to these political, ecological, cultural and economic processes as 'agro-ecology transformations'. Agroecology transformations are often messy, chaotic and non-linear. Through an analysis of existing cases and the wider literature on agroecology, we have distilled the aspects, drivers, dimensions and qualities that are critical to have in place in a particular community, territory or country in order for the greater spread and institutional recognition and support for agroecology.

2018

ActionAid joins growing global calls to 'scale-up' and 'scale-out' agroecology. As governments and donors meet at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2 nd International Symposium on Agroecology we urge them to join forces to support agroecology on a large scale. At least 500 million family farms produce about 80 percent of the world's food. Comprised of smallholders, pastoralists, landless, fisher folk, forest dwellers and tribal and indigenous peoples, about half of them are women. Peasant agriculture plays a multifunctional role, providing food, fiber and other goods, as well as employment, culture, and a way of life. There is now extensive evidence that peasant-based agroecological systems are superior to high external input industrial agriculture and are highly productive, highly sustainable, empower women, create jobs, engage youth, provide greater autonomy, climate resilience, and multiple social, cultural and environmental benefits for women and men in rural and urban communities. Key benefits of agroecology include: » Year-round access to healthy, fresh, diverse and culturally-appropriate food for local populations; » Reduced poverty and a key contribution to the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition; » Increased climate resilience and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; » Empowerment of women and reduced workload burdens; » Diversified livelihoods and valued local, tribal and indigenous cultures; » Improved health through reduced exposure to harmful agrochemicals; » More resilient ecosystems, healthier soils and improved water management;

Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

2015

reality in a food system and rural world that has been devastated by industrial food production and its so-called Green and Blue Revolutions. We see Agroecology as a key form of resistance to an economic system that puts profit before life. [...] Our diverse forms of smallholder food production based on Agroecology generate local knowledge, promote social justice, nurture identity and culture, and strengthen the economic viability of rural areas. As smallholders, we defend our dignity when we choose to produce in an agroecological way.”

Rural social movements have in recent years adopted agroecology and diversified farming systems as part of their discourse and practice. Here, we situate this phenomenon in the evolving context of rural spaces that are increasingly disputed between agribusiness, together with other corporate land-grabbers, and peasants and their organizations and movements. We use the theoretical frameworks of disputed material and immaterial territories and of re-peasantization to explain the increased emphasis on agroecology by movements in this context. We provide examples from the farmer-to-farmer movement to show the advantages that social movements bring to the table in taking agroecology to scale and discuss the growing agroecology networking process in the transnational peasant and family farmer movement La Vía Campesina.

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… Part I. Understanding the agroecological paradigm……………………….... A. Traditional peasant agricultures………………………………………….. B. The logic of industrial agriculture ………………………………………… C. The need for a radical shift………………………………………………... D. Agroecology as an alternative path to industrial agriculture…………… E. Is 'sustainable intensification of agriculture' a better path? …………… F. Can agroecological principles be technically applied to large-scale..... industrial agriculture? Part II. How can the scaling-up of agroecological approaches help the… world feed itself sustainably, today and in the future? A. Contributing to food security and the realization of the Right to Food, and poverty eradication B. Contributing to water security and the realization of the Right to……... Water and Sanitation C. Preserving biodiversity and natural resources………………………….. D. Increasing resilience to climate change and addressing the mitigation challenge E. Increasing peasants' control over agriculture and food systems……… F. Empowering women ………………………………………………………. Part III. Challenges for scaling-up agroecological approaches…………… A. Unlocking ideological barriers to political recognition…………………. B. Supporting farmer-to-farmer networks………………………………….. C. Providing an enabling public policy environment………………………. D. Taking specific actions for empowering women……………………….. E. Improving agricultural and food governance………………………….... Conclusion and recommendations……………………………………………. Annexes……………………………………………………………………………..