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Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and emblematic cases

March 2018
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 42(13):1-29

DOI:10.1080/21683565.2018.1443313

Authors:

Mateo Mier y Teran G.C.

El Colegio de la Frontera Sur - ECOSUR-CONACyT

Omar Felipe Giraldo

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Elda Miriam Aldasoro Maya

El Colegio de la Frontera Sur

Helda Morales

El Colegio de la Frontera Sur

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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.

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Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and

emblematic cases

Mateo Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho, Omar Felipe Giraldo, Miriam Aldasoro,

Helda Morales, Bruce G. Ferguson, Peter Rosset, Ashlesha Khadse & Carmen

Campos

To cite this article: Mateo Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho, Omar Felipe Giraldo, Miriam Aldasoro,

Helda Morales, Bruce G. Ferguson, Peter Rosset, Ashlesha Khadse & Carmen Campos (2018):

Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and emblematic cases, Agroecology and Sustainable

Food Systems, DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2018.1443313

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2018.1443313

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Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and emblematic

cases

Mateo Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho

, Omar Felipe Giraldo

Miriam Aldasoro

, Helda Morales

, Bruce G. Ferguson

, Peter Rosset

a,b

Ashlesha Khadse

, and Carmen Campos

Research Group on “Masificación de la Agroecología para los sistemas alimentarios sustentables,”El Colegio

de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico;

Geography Department, Universidade

Federal de Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil

ABSTRACT

Agroecology as a transformative movement has gained momen-

tum in many countries worldwide. In several cases, the implemen-

tation 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 emble-

matic 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 dimen-

sions interact with, reinforce, and generate positive feedback with

each other to make agroecology’s territorial expansion possible.

KEYWORDS

Agri-food system

transformation;

farmer-to-farmer;

massification of

agroecology; scaling out;

territorialization of

agroecology

Introduction

The science and practice of agroecology offer us the foundations for radically

transformed food systems (Gliessman 2015; Wezel et al. 2009). Increasingly,

agroecology is a key element of a growing, emancipatory movement to

increase the power and control of farmers over their own production; to

foster transformative social processes for the diffusion of agroecological

CONTACT Mateo Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho m.mieryteran@ids.ac.uk Research Group on “Masificación

de la Agroecología para los sistemas alimentarios sustentables,”El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), San

Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS

https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2018.1443313

practice; and to broaden access to food grown in healthy, environmentally

friendly ways (Altieri and Toledo 2011; Martínez-Torres and Rosset 2014;

Rosset and Altieri 2017; Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012). Despite the

recognition gained by agroecology in recent years (International

Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development

(IAASTD) 2008; IPES-Food 2016), few cases in which more than a few

hundred farmers in a given region have adopted agroecological practice

have been documented with depth and detail.

This paucity of documented cases is understandable in light of the massive

constellation of policies, institutions, and corporations dedicated to creating

and maintaining an ideal economic and policy environment for the industrial

agriculture model (McMichael 2013; Van Der Ploeg 2008). However, the

success of agroecology in the face of such opposition merits investigation.

Industrial agriculture has contaminated soils, water, and air; eroded soils and

biological diversity; caused pest outbreaks; led to the indebtedness of farmers;

and contributed greatly to the abandonment of the countryside (Carroll,

Vandermeer, and Rosset 1990; Lappé, Collins, and Rosset 1998).

Furthermore, industrial agriculture has failed in its promise to end hunger

(De Schutter 2010; Patel 2007). Under the neoliberal regime, industrial

agriculture is one of the many tools for –and causes of –resource grabbing

by economic elites (Borras et al. 2012). Understanding where and how

agroecology has overcome these barriers is essential for further development

of the movement.

Agroecological practice draws upon and emphasizes farmer and peasant

knowledge and is best understood not as a set of recipes, but rather as

principles applied in accordance with the unique reality of each farmer

(Altieri 1995; Gliessman 2015; Rosset and Altieri 2017). A fully agroecological

farm would be based on cultivated and not cultivated biodiversity, including

the integration of crops, trees, and livestock, at the plot, farm, and landscape

levels (Nicholls, Parrella, and Altieri 2001; Perfecto, Vandermeer, and Wright.

2009; Altieri and Rogé 2009; Gliessman 2015). On the other hand, input

substitution strategies (e.g. replacing chemical pesticides with microbial pes-

ticides or commercial compost in place of synthetic fertilizers) are sometimes

considered agroecological techniques. While such strategies may be more

ecologically and socially acceptable than those they replace, they can also

maintain the dependency of farmers upon purchased inputs and may have

unintended ecological consequences (Rosset and Altieri 1997; Gliessman 2015;

Vandermeer and Perfecto 2017). In the long run, agroecology aims to reduce

dependence upon external inputs, thereby contributing to the autonomy of

food-producing families and communities (Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012).

At its most ambitious, agroecology proposes the organization and connection

of consumers, producers, and others to form fair, environmentally responsible

2M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

food systems, as well as broader movements for social, political, and economic

justice (Gliessman 2011; Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012).

Thus, bringing agroecology to scale is situated within the pressing need to

transform agri-food systems (Altieri and Nicholls 2008,2012; Parmentier

2014; Rosset and Altieri 2017). We define the “massification,”scaling,

“amplification,”or “territorialization”of agroecology as a process that leads

ever-greater numbers of families to practice agroecology over ever-larger

territories and which engages more people in the processing, distribution,

and consumption of agroecologically produced food. For agroecology to be

scaled, it must expand and consolidate along several axes (International

Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) 2000; Gonsalves 2001, Ranaboldo

and Venegas 2007, Altieri and Nicholls 2012, Parmentier 2014, Brescia 2017).

Scaling combines vertical (scaling-up) and horizontal (scaling-out) processes

(International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) 2000; Rosset and

Altieri 2017). The former are mostly institutional in nature, while the latter

comprise geographical and social spread to more people and communities

and are often associated with grassroots movements (International Institute

of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) 2000; Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012).

Scaling means that a greater fraction of the population, both urban and

rural, can produce and access healthy, nutritious, diverse food that is envir-

onmentally compatible and culturally appropriate (Rosset 2015; Rosset and

Altieri 2017).

Here, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of agroecology’s

scaling processes by analyzing five cases of massification around the globe

and identifying key factors in each case that allowed agroecology to grow

beyond isolated, local experiences. We selected the five emblematic cases

based on their territorial reach, the thousands of families involved, the extent

and quality of their documentation, and our direct experience with each one.

Ours is not a comprehensive review of instances of agroecological scaling nor

do we explore each case exhaustively. Instead, we identify necessary and

contributing drivers of scaling and analyze across cases the relative signifi-

cance of these. We also make an initial attempt to elucidate the complex

relations among these drivers so that strategies for advancing agroecological

transformations might be formulated and evaluated. Works by Gonsalves

(2001) and Parmentier (2014) have already identified several key elements of

scaling. The former provides guidance to NGOs and development agencies

that promote agroecology, while the latter focuses upon policy prescription.

We argue that although allies in NGOs, governments, and other sectors can

contribute key resources and help create an environment conducive to

scaling, successful scaling processes are grounded in broad-based, inclusive

social movements (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017; McCune et al. 2016,

2017; Rosset 2015; Rosset and Altieri 2017; Rosset et al. 2011).

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 3

Case 1: the Campesino a Campesino movement in Mesoamerica

The Campesino a Campesino (CaC) movement was born in the early 1970s

in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, as an effort of Kaqchikel Maya farmers,

with some support from OXFAM and World Neighbors (Holt-Giménez

2006). The farmers drew upon traditions of labor sharing; horizontal

pedagogical practices congruent with the “action-reflection-action”praxis

of Paulo Freire (1970); Latin American popular education; Liberation

Theology; and the indigenous culture to which they pertained (op cit.).

Indigenous peasant farmers used cross visits, demonstration plots, and

small-scale experimentation to teach each other techniques for soil and

water conservation, such as green manure, living and non-living contour

barriers, crop diversification, and intensive bio-horticulture. These agro-

nomic improvements, along with the organization of the Kato-Ki coop-

erative, increased production and incomes. The campesinos began to

liberate themselves from plantation labor and even to purchase and

redistribute land from neighboring coffee farms. But during the brutal

repression of the 1980s, latifundistas called in the Guatemalan military to

crush Kato-Ki.

Many of CaC’s farmer-extensionists fled. With help from NGOs, they

found work with grassroots projects in Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua,

where they broadened their experience with sustainable agriculture as well as

their organizational skills (Holt-Giménez 2006). Because of this diaspora, the

CaC methodology spread to diverse organizations throughout the region.

Among the most successful were the Mexican peasant organizations Centro

de Desarrollo Integral Campesino de la Mixteca (CEDICAM)

in Oaxaca and

the Grupo Vicente Guerrero,

in Tlaxcala (Boege and Carranza 2009). These

groups adapted the Guatemalan methodology to their own social context and

developed a broader methodological and technical repertoire. Beginning in

1986, farmers from Vicente Guerrero, again with NGO backing as well as

tepid support from the Sandinista government, brought their methodology to

the Nicaraguan Union Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG). This

organization was a founding member of La Via Campesina (LVC), a trans-

national peasant movement.

In Nicaragua, CaC grew into a broad-based

movement for social change based upon sustainable peasant agriculture

(agroecology), reaching 30,000 peasant families distributed across much of

the country. This “resistance movement,”as it was defined by its actors,

bolstered the peasantry against the threats of industrial agriculture by pro-

moting socially, culturally, economically, and environmentally sustainable

farming (Holt-Giménez 2006).

http://www.cedicam-ac.org/inicio.

http://vicenteguerrero.blogsite.org/.

UNAG later with withdrew from LVC.

4M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

Case 2: ANAP and the agroecological revolution in Cuba

Cuba was the Latin American country that adopted the green revolution’s

technological package with greatest intensity (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013;

Rosset et al. 2011). However, agroecology was key in helping Cubans survive

the crisis caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989–1990 and the

subsequent tightening of the US trade embargo. Cuban peasants were

boosted food production without scarce, expensive inputs by first substitut-

ing ecological inputs for imports that were no longer available and then

through a transition to more diverse, agroecologically integrated farming

systems. Key practices have included soil conservation, crop rotation, green

manure and compost, polycultures and agroforestry, biological control of

pests, integration of livestock with crops, and diversification. Cuban agricul-

ture’s necessarily rapid transition was possible not so much because appro-

priate alternatives became available, but because of the CaC social-process

methodology that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) –a

member of LVC –learned from Mesoamerica, then adapted and used to

build a grassroots agroecology movement.

Between introduction of the methodology in 1997 and 2010, about one-

third of all peasant families in Cuba came to participate in the “Farmer to

Farmer Agroecology Movement”within ANAP (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,

2013; Rosset et al. 2011; Val 2012). This movement has since grown to

include some 200,000 peasant families, about one-half of the Cuban peasan-

try. During the same period, the Cuban peasants’contribution to national

food production has increased significantly, due at least in part to this

movement. This rapid spread of agroecology was attributable principally to

the social-process methodology and to the social movement dynamics the

movement created. Evolving agroecological practice contributed to the sig-

nificant increase in the peasant sector’s relative and absolute production and

resulted in additional benefits, including resilience in the face of climate

change (Rosset et al. 2011; Funes and Vázquez 2016).

Case 3: organic coffee boom in Chiapas, Mexico

The thousands of indigenous peasants in Chiapas, Mexico, who supply world

markets with organic coffee offer another instructive case of agroecological

scaling (Martínez-Torres 2006). The process has been influenced, driven, and

supported by Liberation Theology and the Indigenous Theology of the

Catholic Church, with their fundamental tenet of a preferential option for

the poor (Hernández-Castillo 2010). The recovery of ancestral and popular

knowledge associated with Maya cosmovision has been central elements of

the boom (Hernández-Castillo and Nigh 1998), along with crop diversifica-

tion; agroecological soil management; strengthening of indigenous identity;

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 5

organization of cooperatives; and fair trade links through Max Havelaar and

other labels (Martínez-Torres 2006; Renard 2003). A key turning point was

the 1989 closing of the Mexican Coffee Institute (IMECAFE), which had

controlled coffee exports. The dismantling of IMECAFE coincided with the

fall in international prices and with the loss of yields and profitability.

That combination of events constituted both a crisis for peasant coffee

producers and (ultimately) an opportunity (Martínez-Torres 2006). In

response to the crisis, an organized process began for the commercialization

of organic coffee under organic and fair-trade schemes. That process, which

ensured a better price for the producing families (Martínez-Torres 2006), was

made possible by a constellation of actors. Among them were cooperatives

backed by Liberation Theology; left-wing political groups present in the

region since the 1970s; cooperatives that IMECAFE itself had supported for

three decades; and other self-organized cooperatives (Martínez-Torres 2006;

Nigh 2002). Other important factors were the physical infrastructure created

during the IMECAFE period and links with the experience of Oaxaca’s

Union of Indigenous Communities of the Isthmus Region (UCIRI), which

had already established marketing schemes for organic coffee. The coops

drew from examples of successful agroecological and agroforestry practices

provided by the Finca Irlanda operation and by Guatemalan agroecology

promoters who had been displaced by that county’s civil war. In addition,

exchanges among the indigenous farmers themselves occurred more sponta-

neously (Martínez-Torres 2006). This strong movement, linked to export and

mediated by organic certification labels (Martínez-Torres 2006), now

includes 31,000 farm families, mostly indigenous, working in a region that

covers 72,000 hectares. These organic coffee farmers obtain roughly the same

yields as conventional farmers with higher profit margins (Martínez-Torres

2006).

Case 4: Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in India

Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), a set of methods that agronomist

Subhash Palekar put together based upon traditional practices and agroecol-

ogy, has become the foundation for a grassroots peasant movement that has

spread to various states in India (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017). It has

attained wide success, especially in the southern Indian state of Karnataka

where it first evolved. The movement found fertile ground in the organiza-

tional landscape of the Karnataka State Farmers Association (KRRS), a

member of LVC. Participation in Karnataka alone is estimated at roughly

100,000 farmer families; at the national level, it may run into the millions

according to ZBNF leaders. This level of participation has been achieved

without any formal organization, paid staff, or even a bank account. The

movement benefits from a spirit of volunteerism among its peasant farmer

6M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

protagonists. Part of the appeal to farmers comes from Palekar’s charisma

and powerful mix of Hindu cosmology and resistance to both transnational

corporations and the green revolution (Bhattacharya 2017; Khadse, Rosset,

and Ferguson 2017).

At the local level, the movement is run informally, with a self-organized

dynamic. Most farmers who practice ZBNF are connected to each other

informally and carry out both organized and spontaneous farmer-to-farmer

CaC-style exchange activities. Leaders tend to emerge naturally from the

grassroots. At the state level, the main organized activities are training

camps run by Palekar. The camps last up to five days, with about eight

hours of classes each day. Attendance ranges from 300 to 5000 farmers.

Farmer-to-farmer networks, cross visits, and farmer–mentor relationships

develop from the contacts made at the camps (Khadse, Rosset, and

Ferguson 2017).

Survey respondents reported that ZBNF is effective for farmers in agro-

nomic, social, and economic terms (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017).

Most reported that sustained use of ZBNF practices –such as biofertilizers,

biological pest control, contours, polycultures, and mulch –improved yields,

soil conservation, seed diversity, quality of produce, household food auton-

omy, income, and health. Motivations commonly cited by farmers for joining

the ZNBF movement include the health of their families, food self-suffi-

ciency, and reduced production costs. Most reduced their farm expenses

and thus their need for credit, one of the major problems plaguing Indian

farmers.

Case 5: Rede Ecovida in Southern Brazil

The Rede Ecovida (“EcoLife Network”) was created formally in 1998.

However, it can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s, when parallel social

movements were confronting both land concentration and the environmen-

tal and socioeconomic damages occasioned by modern, agrochemical-based

agriculture (Charão and Oliveira 2016). The combination of these menaces,

and of organizations formed to confront them, created conditions for various

alternative-agriculture initiatives, which later came to be called “agroecol-

ogy.”These initiatives were linked with the Rede Tecnologia Alternativa-Sul

(“Alternative Technology Network –South, Rede TA-Sul”), which was

linked, in turn, to the national Rede Projeto em Tecnologia Alternativa

(Rede PTA). Additional links were formed with processes promoted by the

Catholic Church’sPastoral de la Tierra (“Land Pastoral”), which was based

upon liberation theology, and with other local organizations searching for

alternatives (Charão and Oliveira 2016). Ecovida now comprises NGOs,

groups, consumer cooperatives, and cooperatives and organizations of pea-

sant farmers who practice agroecology. Ecovida has a decentralized structure

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 7

in 150 municipalities in the three southern states of Brazil: Rio Grande do

Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná. The movement has expanded to 29 farmers’

organizations, 2,700 family farmers, 10 consumers’cooperative, 25 associa-

tions, and 30 agro-industries located in 18 municipalities, with more than

180 farmers’markets (Ecovida 2017).

Although Ecovida focuses on nested markets (Hebinck, Schneider, and Van

Der Ploeg 2014), its members’activities are rooted in agroecological practices.

Members follow principles of horizontality, solidarity, justice, and care for

nature, all of which permeate the governing logicof their activities, and therefore

go beyond marketing and profit making. Ecovida’s participatory certification

program started in the late 1990s as a response to the government’s attempts to

regulate organic production (Perez-Cassarino 2012). The certification program

is an example of Ecovida’shorizontal pedagogical approach, whose goal is

transformative learning (Radomsky 2010). Ecovida members follow their sys-

temic understanding of agroecology and promote a solidary economy between

producers and consumers (Perez-Cassarino 2012). The structure of that econ-

omy allows for different configurations of markets, ranging from door-to-door

peddling, to farmers’markets, to sales to community canteens, consumer

groups, restaurants, and an intermarket commercialization circuit within three

states (Charão and Oliveira 2016; Perez-Cassarino 2012).

Key drivers in the massification of agroecology

Eight interrelated drivers emerged from our analysis of these five cases.

Those drivers can act alone or together to promote and sustain territorial

scaling of agroecology

: (1) crises that drive the search for alternatives; (2)

social organization; (3) constructivist teaching–learning processes; (4) effec-

tive agroecological practices; (5) mobilizing discourse; (6) external allies; (7)

favorable markets; and (8) political opportunities and favorable policies. At

the beginning of a particular process, one or a few of these drivers may drive

scaling. However, positive feedback and virtuous synergisms arise among

drivers as scaling advances, thereby activating other drivers and bringing

them to bear. We propose as a working hypothesis that broad, strongly

articulated, resilient scaling of agroecology results from integration of several

drivers. The eight drivers seem to have been key to the scaling-up of

agroecology in most or all of these five cases. Other drivers undoubtedly

contribute in some cases. Furthermore, access to land for farmer families is a

necessary precondition for agroecology and its growth. With these caveats,

we now describe how these drivers determine agroecological scaling.

Rosset (2015), Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson (2017), and Rosset and Altieri (2017) offer similar lists.

8M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

Driver 1: crises that encourage the search for alternatives

To varying degrees, each of the five cases arose in the context of crises in one

or more facets of the food system and, in some cases, the broader society.

These crises, diverse in origins and expressions, set the stage for transforma-

tion but were never the sole drivers of massification.

When the CaC movement began in Nicaragua in the mid-1980s, the country

was at war, economically embargoed by the United States, and suffering from

degraded soils, low yields, a deep food shortage, and unprecedented hyperinfla-

tion (Vásquez and Rivas 2006). In Cuba, the agroecological movement gained

prominence in the context of the fall of the Soviet bloc, the worsening of the US

economic blockade, a widespread food shortage, and the exhaustion of the agro-

industrial model (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013; Rosset et al. 2011). In Chiapas,

thecoffeesector’s crisis during the late 1990s was due to the confluence of high

input costs, declining yields, collapseofinternationalcoffeeprices,andthe

dismantling of IMECAFE (Hernández-Castillo and Nigh 1998;Martínez-

Torres 2006). In India, the crisis was marked by overwhelming peasant indebt-

edness that led to an unprecedented epidemic of suicides –an average of one

farmer suicide every 30 min –coupled with low incomes due to falling market

prices and rising costs of green revolution inputs (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson

2017;Misra2008;Mohanty2005; Vakulabharam 2013;Vyas2005).

These crises created political opportunities and propitious contexts for

alternatives to the agro-industrial model. Within such climates, the seeds of

agroecological massification could germinate and then be nurtured by the

suite of interacting drivers we describe below.

Driver 2: social organization and intentional social process

Social organization is the culture medium upon which agroecology grows.

Social-process methodologies accelerate this growth (Rosset 2015; Rosset and

Altieri 2017). Imagine a farm family that is not part of any organizational

fabric. The family may transform its farm agroecologically, but other farmers

may have no obvious way to learn from or emulate the family’s experience.

In contrast, if that family is part of an organization that carries out farmer-to-

farmer exchanges, those exchanges could easily have a multiplier effect.

The experience of rural social movements, and of farmer and peasant orga-

nizations, indicates that the degree of organization (called organicidad or “orga-

nicity”by social movements) is a key element in bringing agroecology to scale,

as is the extent to which horizontal social methodologies based upon peasant

and farmer protagonism are employed to construct social processes collectively.

Increasingly, peasant organizations themselves are sponsoring farmer-to-farmer

processes and agroecology schools (McCune et al. 2016,2017; Rosset 2015:

Rosset et al. 2011; Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012).

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 9

Social organization and process played a key role in each of the five cases

reviewed for this article. That role is most immediately apparent in the

Nicaraguan and Cuban cases where CaC social-process methodology led to

rapid scaling of agroecology (Holt-Giménez 2006; Rosset et al. 2011). We

have argued elsewhere that agroecology spread much more rapidly in Cuba

than in Central America because of ANAP’s greater degree of organicity and

the greater intentionality with which ANAP took on and promoted CaC

methodology (Rosset et al. 2011).

We have also argued that ZNBF took off in Karnataka state because it took

root in communities that already had a rich organizational fabric provided by

the KRRS farmer organization (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017). In

Chiapas, Martínez-Torres (2006) has shown that a previous cycle of social

capital formation by peasant coffee cooperatives laid the groundwork for the

rapid uptake of organic farming methods and for the cooperatives’appro-

priation of new markets that opened up for labeled coffee. In Brazil, the

Ecovida network is, in effect, an organizational structure based upon a social

process and a methodology for linking existing farmer and consumer coops

(Lamine, Darolt, and Brandenburg 2012). In all cases, social organization and

process was the driver that made scaling-up possible.

Driver 3: effective and simple agroecological farming practices

The reduction of synthetic inputs (e.g., via integrated management of soil

fertility and pests) and input substitution (purchased microbial pesticides and

biofertilizers) can be steps in a transition toward agroecological systems. This

is what Gliessman (2015) calls level 1 and 2 agroecology: the reduction of

industrial inputs and the substitution of conventional practices with agroe-

cological practices, respectively. However, an agroecological system occurs at

level 3, a focus upon integration among elements of the agroecosystem. Level

3 agroecology requires creation or strengthening of autonomous mechanisms

for maintenance of soil fertility and regulation of pests and weeds, as well as

synergies and complementarity in use of space, nutrients, water, and sunlight

(Gliessman 2015). Such agroecological practices are based upon the main-

tenance of the life in the soil, enhancement of agrobiodiversity (such as the

integration of crops, trees, and livestock), and farm and landscape redesign

(polycultures, soil conservation, conservation of forest, or wildlife patches)

(Gliessman 2015; Perfecto, Vandermeer, and Wright 2009).

In their respective initial phases, India’s ZBNF and Cuba’s agroecological

revolution (lead by ANAP) were based primarily upon input-substitution

practices, including biofertilizers, efficient microorganisms, botanical pesti-

cides, biological control agents, and (in Cuba) vermicomposting. More inte-

grative (level 3) agroecological practices promoted in our cases included

ZNBF’s use of mulch and native cow manure to enrich and protect soil

10 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

and to close nutrient cycles. Similarly, Ecovida promoted organic-matter

incorporation, erosion prevention, and use of green manures. Farmers in

Cuba, Chiapas, and Central America used green manure, incorporation of

organic matter, hedgerows, and contour barriers. Organic coffee farmers in

Chiapas also used compost, microbial soil regeneration, mulch, and weed

management for prevention of soil erosion.

To increase biodiversity and related agroecosystem functions at the farm

level, the movements we describe in India, Chiapas, and Cuba promote

polycultures and agroforestry systems (e.g., diversification of shade trees in

coffee plantations; integration of livestock with crops and trees; and integra-

tion of fruit trees with sugar-cane diversification). The Cuban and Brazilian

organizations foster local seed selection, production, and exchange. We

found no evidence that the movements we studied promote protection and

restoration of wild areas within or adjacent to agricultural landscapes, even

though that practice is important for maintaining agroecosystem function

(e.g. Perfecto, Vandermeer, and Wright 2009).

Despite the frequent lack of integrative practice at the farm and landscape

level, the massification efforts noted in our five cases have reduced external

inputs and production costs while increasing production. For example, ZBNF

farmers have achieved better yields using less water and fewer off-farm inputs

(Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017). In Nicaragua, members of the CaC

movement saw their costs decline while their yields increased by 300% (Holt-

Giménez 2006).

Our analysis of these cases suggests that simple, level-2 practices and

recipes may be important for early adoption. More complex practices that

depend upon a more sophisticated understanding of ecological relation-

ships at the farm and landscape levels advance at a slower pace. As the

rapid adoption of Green Revolution packages demonstrates, technologies

that give quick, visible results appeal to farmers. More complex agroeco-

logical management, practices that accrue benefits more slowly, and those

that require landscape-level coordination may be more difficult to pro-

mote, particularly because their benefits, while substantial, can be diffuse

and difficult to observe. This is why the CaC methodology is based on

starting slowly, with simple practices likely to give rapid results. Early

success motivates farmers to stick with the process, and more complicated

practices are introduced gradually (Holt-Giménez 2006; Machín Sosa et al.

2013).

Driver 4. Constructivist teaching–learning processes

Teaching–learning processes used by movements that have scaled out agroe-

cology promote the active inclusion of traditional/local/contemporary knowl-

edge, as well as development of autonomy. Pedagogy is predominantly

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 11

horizontal. For example, farmer-to-farmer methodology, congruent with

Paulo Freire’s constructivist

principles (Freire 1970; Holt-Giménez 2006),

was used in all five cases. These teaching methods guarantee collective,

horizontal learning, discussed variously as the co-creation of knowledge

(Coolsaet 2016), and “diálogo de saberes:”dialog among different “knowl-

edges”or ways of knowing (Martínez-Torres and Rosset 2014). The common

objective is recognition of peasant knowledge and cultivation of peasant

protagonism in place of conventional agricultural extension, in which pea-

sants play a more passive role (Altieri and Toledo 2011; Holt-Giménez 2006;

Rosset et al. 2011; Scoones and Thompson 1994). All five emblematic cases

built upon traditional and local practices, especially for the rescue of native

seed varieties and animal breeds.

The teaching–learning processes in the cases we studied integrate spiritual/

emotional/ideological components with technical training, enabling people to

experience meaningful learning (Ausubel 1983). For example, the farmer-to-

farmer method demands work with “head, heart, and hands,”that is, cogni-

tive, emotional, and practical elements (Holt-Giménez 2006). The spiritual

component is evident in Chiapas’s organic coffee boom and the CaC

Movement in Mesoamerica, both of which are influenced strongly by

Liberation Theology’s see-judge-act praxis and by indigenous cosmovision

(Boff 1994). Somewhat similarly, the ZBNF is embedded in spiritual values

that allow peasants to connect with agroecological practice. In all five cases,

teaching–learning processes are accompanied by a clear ideological posture.

The educational programs in each case include processes for systemic ana-

lysis of macro-level socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts. These

pedagogical practices resonate with Vigotsky’s sociocultural theory, which

states that social interaction, culture, and historical context play a funda-

mental role in the development of cognition (Carrera and Mazzarella 2001;

McCune et al. 2016).

Although Rede Ecovida and Mesoamerica’sCaC movement collaborated

with local schools, the emphasis in all five cases is on informal education.

Thus most training takes place outside of formal institutions, using meth-

odologies coherent with critical pedagogy, peasant protagonism, and auton-

omy. Significant elements include use of materials suitable for local

conditions, mutual visits among peasants, and practical activities in mean-

ingful places –such as their own fields –that make learning meaningful. The

methodologies are based upon teaching by example; what teachers often call

“modeling ethically and practically”(McLaren 2001:79). This “pedagogy of

Delval (2000, 78) considers constructivism to be “a psychological and epistemological position that tries to explain

how knowledge is formed [. . .] Constructivism proposes that subjects need to build their knowledge and that

knowledge cannot be given already built. This theory states that subjects form their knowledge based upon the

knowledge they already have, testing it and contrasting it with their physical and social reality”(translation by

authors).

12 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

the example”is understood in Latin American social movements as a con-

tinuation of the thinking of José Martí and Ernesto “Che”Guevara (Barbosa

and Rosset 2017; Turner 2007). For example, training groups visit farms that

employ efficient agroecological practices because seeing results first-hand

inspires peasants to emulate these practices. Furthermore,

Farmers learn from each other by sharing wisdom, creativity and knowledge, not

just information and techniques. Rather than simply transferring technologies,

farmers first and foremost “make culture”- sharing that leads to action builds a

culture of sustainable agriculture. Technology transfer is actually just one (and not

always the primary) component of this cultural matrix Holt-Giménez (2001, 27).

The teaching–learning processes used in the five cases are supported by

auxiliary materials that include books, booklets, radio, TV programs, and

even intense interchanges of ideas on social networks such as Facebook and

(in India) cell-phone-based communication (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson

2017). The pedagogical components of agroecological scaling stimulate peo-

ples’creativity as well as their active participation and full recognition of

themselves and others as subjects (Brescia 2017; McCune et al. 2016,2017).

In McCune et al. (2016), we further argue that peasant organizations are

implementing these critical pedagogies in ways that use territory itself as a

pedagogical mediator in bringing agroecology to scale.

Driver 5. Mobilizing discourse

The theory of collective action holds that discourse is a key element in social

mobilization processes when it allows the definition or framing of a common

problem, a shared adversary, a horizon of struggle, a common identity, and

common principles (Touraine 1994). The ability to establish a clear, easily

understandable discourse or frame that helps promote social action in a way

that is understood and reproduced by the collective is important for the

scaling of agroecology. Successful agroecology movements combine “agroe-

cology as farming”(farming practices that work) with “agroecology as fram-

ing,”a discourse that (among other things) motivates peasant and farmer

families to undertake sometimes-difficult agroecological transformations

(Martínez-Torres and Rosset 2014; Rosset and Martínez-Torres 2012).

In all cases analyzed, the discourse has been heavily politicized against the

agro-industrial system of the Green Revolution. Beyond that, for agroecolo-

gical discourse to be effective, it must be culturally relevant in each specific

context. For example, Palekar’s ZBNF discourse amalgamates a critique of

the exploitative, anti-peasant system, dominated by transnational corpora-

tions and Western culture, with metaphors from Hindu mythology and

Gandhian principles of personal change, austere life, non-violence, and

responsibility to Mother Earth (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017). In

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 13

Cuba, criticism of the agro-industrial model hybridizes with food sover-

eignty, the care of nature, the revolution’s socialist values, the pride of

being a farmer, and the words of José Marti (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013).

The mobilizing dialog in the -coffee movement in Chiapas and CaC

Movement in Mesoamerica, which are influenced by Liberation Theology,

strongly questions both the dominant development paradigm and the tech-

nological path of the Green Revolution, while espousing faith, autonomy,

love for Mother Earth, defense of the territory and culture, and the cosmovi-

sions and ancestral knowledge of Mesoamerican peoples (Hernández-Castillo

2010). In the south of Brazil, another region strongly influenced by liberation

theology, the discourse of Rede Ecovida against agrochemicals and the com-

mercialization of industrialized foods in large supermarkets and promoting

care of nature and health have helped create a common identity shared by

the consumer movement and agroecological farmers.

In summary, each of the five cases is marked by a framing discourse, based

upon culturally, spiritually, and contextually appropriate principles and

values that recognized the worth of farmers and indigenous peoples. Each

discourse has been effective because it motivates the movements’members to

stand against the agro-industrialized system and to take up agroecology as

the alternative to the harmful Green Revolution model.

Driver 6. External allies

External allies have played a vital role in each of our case studies. The

resources and support that allies bring to the scaling process take a variety

of forms: publicity; material (e.g. funds); moral (e.g. social legitimacy); and

organizational or human (e.g. knowledge, abilities, and volunteers). The

support of allies comes from various areas, including government, media,

academia, political parties, religious institutions, and NGOs. Allies include

institutions and, more commonly, individuals within institutions that do not

normally support agroecology. Those individuals include sympathetic gov-

ernment officials able to redirect public resources.

Key allies of the ZBNF movement are Hindu ashrams that provide free

accommodation and food for training camps, as well as social legitimacy. The

peasant movement has provided organizational support, spreading agroecol-

ogy through its grassroots structure. Tech-savvy individuals have given ZBNF

communication support with a wide Internet presence through various blogs,

forums, and other websites where online exchanges occur among both rural

and urban farmers. Some shops provide favorable market outlets. Influential

individuals, including a few entrepreneurs, politicians, actors, and govern-

ment officials, have given the movement visibility in mainstream media and

pushed for favorable public policies (Khadse, Rosset, and Ferguson 2017).

14 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

Essential allies of the CaC movement in Central America included NGOs

and peasant organizations that brought ideas, funding, and organizational

resources. The movement began with mostly financial, though also technical

support from World Neighbors and Bread for the World (Holt-Giménez

2006). In Nicaragua, support from German Protestant and Catholic churches

played an important role (Salazar 2014). Participants also credit NGO sup-

port as key to introducing a gender-equity perspective to the movement

(Holt-Giménez 2006).

In Cuba, various government agencies have been important allies of the

CaC movement. Supportive public policies like land reform were key pre-

conditions for the success of CaC. Allied peasant organizations in Central

America, supported by international NGOs, were fundamental in introdu-

cing CaC methodology to Cuba in the late 1990s. NGOs and universities

have provided research, technical, and other types of support. Groups includ-

ing the Cuban Association of Agriculture and Forest Technicians (ACTAF),

the Cuban Animal Production Association (ACPA), and the international–

national public sector Innovation Program on Local Agriculture played

similar roles. The dominant ideology of the Ministry of Agriculture remains

that of large-scale industrial agriculture. However, the movement has won

many favorable public policies, “at least until trade relations are normalized.”

In the meantime, Cuba boasts some of the world’s most supportive policies

for agroecology (listed in Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013). The Brazilian

agroecology movement grew as an alliance of alternative agriculture NGOs,

members of local, ecological agriculture initiatives, and farmers’organiza-

tions. The Federation of Family Farmers (FETRAF) joined early on.

Subsequently, the Landless Workers’Movement (MST) –an LVC member

supported –added its strength and numbers to the movement. The alliance

later helped create the Brazilian Agroecology Association (ABA) and the

National Agroecology Articulation (ANA), both of which are national group-

ings of agroecology NGOs, movements, and scientists. Regional networks like

Rede Ecovida in southern Brazil formed as partnerships among farmers,

scientists, consumers, and some parts of government to establish localized

agroecological food systems. These alliances have strengthened the move-

ment’s capacity to react to political opportunities and advocate for favorable

policies.

In Chiapas, Mexico, the influence of Presbyterian and Catholic clergy who

adhered to liberation and indigenous theologies promoted organic coffee as

part of a revival of the traditional Mayan culture. Also critical was the capture

of coffee processing infrastructure by peasant cooperatives –aided by sym-

pathetic government officials –when IMECAFE was privatized.

In summary, the five cases show that external allies play key roles in the

amplification of agroecology movements, providing support to farmers,

channeling resources, motivating articulations between social sectors, and

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 15

strengthening lobbying capacity. Nevertheless, there may be a fine line

between using support from allies for building the internal strength of

autonomous, bottom-up processes versus creating high levels of depen-

dence on external actors and/or policies and that put the medium- and

long-term sustainability of the process in jeopardy (Rosset and Altieri

2017).

Driver 7. Construction of markets favorable to agroecology

The development of alternative food networks (AFN) is not a necessary

condition for the widespread adoption and adaptation of agroecological

practices by farmers, as the lack of such in the cases of ZBNF in India and

CaC in Nicaragua show. Nevertheless, in many instances, markets are a

strategic sociopolitical arena for scaling agroecology (Hebinck, Schneider,

and Van Der Ploeg 2014; Pretty 2001). For Gliessman (2015), building

“food citizenship”through participation in AFNs is the fourth level of

agroecological conversion. Reciprocal arrangements such as solidarity net-

works have often been central to the advance of ecological farmers’markets

and the socioeconomic viability of agroecology (Gliessman 2015; Granovetter

2005; Henderson and Casey 2015; La Via Campesina 2015; Parmentier 2014;

Van Der Ploeg 2012).

These market arrangements can be driven by consumers of internationa-

lized goods, as in the case of certified fair-trade and organic coffee produced

in Chiapas (Martínez-Torres 2006). The arrangements can also be based

upon local and regional food markets, such as those organized by Rede

Ecovida in Brazil. Alternatively, they can be driven by public policies that

support small farmers and agroecological production, as in the cases of

Cuba’s strong support for cooperative formation and tight arrangements

for purchasing their production, and the Brazilian Federal Food

Acquisition from Family Farming (PAA) program (Wittman and Blesh

2017). The socioeconomic and ecological effects may vary according to the

type of market arrangements, but arrangements that prove helpful to massi-

fication of agroecology contribute to food-system transformation by differ-

entiating agroecological production from the general market.

The spread of organic and fair-trade coffee production in Chiapas has

clearly been market-driven, with the conformation of peasant marketing

cooperatives and the arrival in the 1990 of European buyers in search of

organic coffee production (Martínez-Torres 2006). Because coffee has proven

vulnerable to external factors such as market swings and crop diseases,

cooperatives have sought to diversify in recent years. This effort is reflected

in their search for other fair-trade products (e.g. honey) as well as food for

self-sufficiency and local markets.

16 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

The Cuban case exemplifies a strong involvement by the State in managing

the food market, from supporting the conformation of farmers’cooperatives

throughout the country and awarding them purchasing contracts to ensuring

crop prices that give market guaranties to farmers. These market arrange-

ments in Cuba contribute to the persistence and growth of scaling processes

that originate in the drivers described above.

The Rede Ecovida exemplifies an agroecology movement formed around

an AFN. Through actions including conforming nested market circuits that

connect producers and consumers, and a network of local seed production,

the Rede has become the principal social platform for a solidary-economy

movement spanning three states in southern Brazil (Perez-Cassarino 2012;

Rover 2011; Rover, Corrado De Gennaro, and Roselli 2016). Ecovida’s decen-

tralized, horizontal structure articulates diverse actors through market

arrangements for agroecological products that transform local and regional

food systems.

The multiple market mechanisms used to strengthen agroecological move-

ments correspond to the need for social innovation adapted to different

situations and challenges. Although we question whether AFNs are a necessary

condition, market conditions can determine the rhythm at which agroecology

goes to scale. The cases we studied lead us to suggest that transformative

potential is enhanced when movements use markets as spheres of sociopolitical

action. This process is not necessarily contingent upon state intervention,

although social movements created around these market strategies can influ-

ence state practices and public policy.

Driver 8. Favorable policies and political opportunities

Policies, including private- and public-sector initiatives, can complement and

enhance efforts for scaling agroecology (Parmentier 2014). The most-signifi-

cant examples involve reformulation and roll-back of policies supporting the

reproduction of the agro-industrial model, instead supporting pathways

based upon agroecological principles. Examples include programs for

small-scale farmers in Brazil and Cuba.

State involvement has been present in all our cases of scaling or institu-

tionalization of agroecology, but to variable degrees. Policy assuring access to

land and different types of land reform establishes necessary conditions for

scaling. In Mexico’s organic coffee movement, the state had limited involve-

ment, and the dismantling of a state marketing program created a political

opportunity, allowing peasant organizations to influence market arrange-

ments and regulatory frameworks. Similarly, the ZBNF movement in India

emerged from a farmers’movement, and only after the movement gained

strength did the government respond by providing resources for a peasant

agroecology school. In the Cuban and Brazilian cases, the actions of social

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 17

movements, including peasant organizations and unions, won significant

state support, including public policies to reinforce movement strategies

contributing to agroecological scaling.

No single policy emerges as essential; rather, combinations of complemen-

tary policies are needed to tackle the various issues at stake in the transfor-

mation of agri-food systems. In Cuba, scientists and farmers demanded

public policies in the farming, education, and market sectors to strengthen

agroecology. Examples include programs to promote biological control,

urban agriculture, organic matter recycling, participatory plant breeding,

backyard livestock, changes in the school curricula, acquisition of agricultural

products by the government, and new stages of land reform policies that

provide peasant access to unproductive land (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013).

These agroecologically focused policies prospered within the context of

national policies that maintain high standards of education, health, and

technical capacity for farmers, as well as special-period policies to ensure

farmers’access to land, credit, and markets.

The Workers’Party governments in Brazil also adopted a long list of

policies to support agroecological practices (Caporal and Petersen 2011;

Petersen, Mussoi, and Soglio 2013), though these policies never threatened

the dominance of the industrial agri-food system and many of them are

being rolled back by the new government that entered via a parliamentary

coup d’etat (Oliveira and Baccarin 2016; Rosset and Altieri 2017). The latter

reinforces the concern that public policy support can create dependencies

that weaken social movements over time. In Brazil, the cutback of policies

that supported cooperatives and incipient agro-industrial projects for family

farmers means that these enterprises now have difficulty covering their costs

(Oliveira and Baccarin 2016).

Coherence among policies is fundamental (Parmentier 2014), and the

depth of policy changes required for systemic transformation has yet to

materialize. For example, in Brazil, a large country with a strong agricul-

tural-export economy, diverse socioeconomic groups have gained space for

their interests, including peasants and family farmers. However, the sum of

all the policies they have won from the state is tiny in comparison to ongoing

state support for agribusiness (Itaboraí 2013). Small-scale farmers compete

on unequal footing because policies that attempt to promote family farming

and agroecology are in tension with more-entrenched policies that support

large-scale monoculture production. A similar situation is seen in Cuba,

where many national policies now support agroecology, but policy lock-ins

(e.g. institutions) and path dependence (e.g. infrastructure) mean industrial

agriculture dominates the agenda of the Ministry of Agriculture, which hopes

for normalized trade relations.

18 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

Discussion

The five cases of agroecological massification that we analyzed have been

sparked by crises and fueled by strong organizational structures within social

movements capable of channeling the collective response to those crises. This

sort of process gathers strength as constructivist pedagogical methods are

employed, as farmers recognize the efficacy of agroecological practices, and

as alliances enhance momentum. In addition, favorable markets and policies

broaden opportunities for transformation of the agri-food system.

While the relative importance of the drivers for scaling agroecology varies

among the five cases (Table 1), we detect some patterns. Perhaps the most

important of these is that scaling is multidimensional, resulting from con-

vergence of several drivers. Crises were present in all the cases we studied

and in some instances seemed to set scaling processes in motion. However,

successful response to crises and opportunities seems to require a well-

developed, preexisting organizational fabric.

Stated differently, organization and social fabric constitute the culture

medium on which agroecology grows. They provide the structure through

which values, meanings, lessons learned, and horizons of political action

circulate. They also provide opportunities to design and implement processes

like CaC and to link with external allies.

“Organizational structure”should not be interpreted as referring to a static

arrangement. Rather, a movement’s organizational structure can grow as

agroecology is amplified to articulate smaller organizations and extend

their reach. Such was case of Ecovida, where a network was created as part

of the scaling process. Nor does the organizational structure have to be

formal. India’s ZBNF movement escalated through a partially spontaneous

network and through interactions that were not institutionalized. Moreover,

many farmers practice agroecology without formally joining any organiza-

tion. Still, the reach of the organizations may determine to a large extent the

scope for scaling agroecology (Rosset et al. 2011).

Table 1. Relative importance of drivers contributing to agroecological massification in the five

analyzed cases (rated from 1 to 5, consensus of the authors).

Drivers

Cases

Cuba

Central

America Chiapas India Brasil

Crisis 4 2 .5 3 .5 3 .5 1 .5

Social organization, process 4 3 .5 3 .5 3 .5 3 .5

Effective agroecological practice 3 .5 3 .5 3 .5 3 .5 3

Mobilizing discourse 3 2 2 3 .5 2

Constructivist pedagogy 3 .5 3 .5 2 2 2 .5

External allies 2 .5 3 .5 3 3 3

Favorable markets 2 1 .5 4 1 .5 3 .5

Favorable policies 3 1 .5 2 .5 1 3

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 19

Horizontal, constructivist pedagogies and methodologies, such as CaC,

seem to be crucial for bringing agroecology to a territorial scale. The dis-

semination of agroecology and the transformation of productive practices

have been achieved, thanks to such methods, based upon dialog of knowl-

edges. According to Rosset et al. (2011, 168–9):

Methods in which the extensionist or agronomist is the key actor and farmers are

passive are, in the best of cases, limited to the number of peasant families that can be

effectively attended to by each technician, because there is little or no self-catalyzed

dynamic among farmers themselves to carry innovations well beyond the last techni-

cian...A fundamental tenet of CaC is that farmers are more likely to believe and

emulate a fellow farmer who is successfully using a given alternative on their own farm

than they are to take the word of an agronomist of possibly urban extraction. . .

Whereas conventional extension can be demobilizing for farmers, CaC is mobilizing,

as they become the protagonists in the process of generating and sharing technologies.

Peasant promoters need thorough preparation in the methodological

approach, lest some of them follow the example of experts from extension

programs by imposing rather than facilitating, and by prescribing methods

rather than participating in processes (Machín Sosa et al. 2010,2013). When

peasant promoters do act like extensionists, the process typically remains

centralized in a few farmers and loses momentum. It is essential that agroe-

cological practice and critical pedagogies walk hand in hand and so that new

proposals can be tailored to new contexts.

In most of the five cases, input substitution strategies proved attractive to

farmers. However, we maintain that agroecology movements need to move

beyond input substitution to benefit from synergistic interactions in more

fully integrated agroecological systems (Vandermeer and Perfecto 1997;

Morales 2002; Gliessman 2015). However, this transition is well developed

only in the Cuban case (Rosset et al. 2011). These observations raise impor-

tant questions about processes of transition and transformation, such as,

would it be possible to start with greater complexity and an emphasis on

prevention? Or is it best to first capture the attention of farmers with the

quick results obtainable through input substitution? Might a focus upon

input substitution perpetuate linear, cause-and-effect, “recipe”thinking?

Can framing around traditional cosmovisions promote complex thinking

and practice, through ways of knowing that recognize the interconnectivity

among agroecosystem elements (Aldasoro 2012)?

The processes we studied were championed and led by peasants and

farmers. Indeed, peasant farming and protagonism are at the center of

farmers’movements and agroecology alike, leading to a natural affinity.

Van Der Ploeg (2013) suggests –and our cases corroborate –that agroecol-

ogy appeals to farmers in part because it diminishes their dependencies and

builds their autonomy. Thus, agroecological movements are strongest when

not overly dependent upon external structures originating from NGO

20 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

projects, research institutions, or public policies. On the contrary, agroeco-

logical movements foster constant conformation of farmer and peasant

leadership that gives them leverage and strength.

Even so, in the cases analyzed, the role of the external allies has been

important. One lesson is that while it is necessary that farmers’organizations

manage the process, external allies can play a fundamental role by contribut-

ing to specific aspects that the organizations cannot cover adequately on their

own. Moreover, on a more normative note, the deep transformation that

agroecological movements are advocating will require sharing of the struggle

and costs –be they material, political, or cultural –among different groups in

society. Loading all the required effort onto the farmers may impose a limit

on scaling. At a certain point, alliances (including dialogos de saberes) then

become critical for strengthening agroecological knowledge and rural–urban

linkages, as well as for influencing policy and market dynamics.

We and many other authors believe that the participation of women is

critical to scaling agroecology (Parmentier 2014; Siliprandi 2015; Siliprandi

and Zuluaga 2014). With the exception of the CaC movement (Holt-

Giménez 2006), we did not find evidence that women’s involvement was

explicitly fostered in the cases we studied. Yet women play diverse roles in

agriculture, and their traditional responsibility for nurturing families and

communities, mentally and physically, gives women a profound and complex

understanding of agri-food systems (Allen and Sachs 2012). In addition,

women have undertaken leadership in movements to advance and develop

agroecology and resist unjust agrarian models and territorial exploitation

(Martínez-Alier 2002; Siliprandi 2015; Tait 2015; Tapia 2016). Our field

experience and reading lead us to believe that in many –or perhaps most

–cases, it is women who encourage and implement agroecological change

within families, both directly and by influencing men (Siliprandi 2015). Holt-

Giménez (2006) notes that women are often the guardians of biodiversity in

fields and gardens and have a strong influence in decisions about which

crops and varieties to plant.

In the same way, it is important to understand the role of youth in

agroecological scaling. Although youth were not central to the cases we

analyzed, peasant movements are currently emphasizing youth leadership

and training (McCune, Reardon, and Rosset 2014; Barbosa and Rosset

2017; McCune et al. 2016,2017). Young people who stay in the countryside

or return to it usually have a more agroecological vision than the previous

generation. Youth seem to be advancing agroecology (McCune et al. 2016,

2017), and agroecological schools equip young peasants with both technical

and political skills.

Public policies were not among the most important early drivers of scaling

in the cases we analyzed. Typically, such policies had to be won through the

movements’advocacy or struggles and on the basis of successes already

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 21

achieved. For example, ANAP’s influence on Cuban policies was propor-

tional to that bottom-up movement’s ability to boost agroecological produc-

tion. Brazilian policies in favor of agroecology and family farming were won

by the struggle of peasant and family-farm social movements, with the help

of allies in NGOs and other sectors. Even where favorable policies were in

place when movements began, those policies tended to contribute only after

the scaling processes had already gained momentum.

Parmentier (2014, p.59) argues that “unlocking ideological barriers to

political recognition of the socioeconomic and environmental importance

of farmers and agroecology”is crucial in the policy-making process.

However, in the cases analyzed here, changes in policies have by and large

been marginal. Even the inclusion of food sovereignty in countries’constitu-

tions (e.g. Ecuador) has had little effect so far. The governments of Bolivia,

Uruguay, and Argentina have given lip service to agroecology, but their

overarching political economies remain hostile (Montagut, Gascón, and

Riera 2010; Vergara-Camus and Kay 2017).

A further complication is that policies promoting the institutionalization

of agroecology may cause farmers’organizations to lose control of the

massification process, thereby weakening movements (Levidow, Pimbert

and Valorqueren 2014; Giraldo and Rosset 2016,2017). Another risk, asso-

ciated with the current trend toward institutionalization of agroecology in

the FAO and other national and international venues (Giraldo and Rosset

2016,2017), is the cooptation and capture of “agroecology”policies by

agribusinesses eager to be “greenwashed.”

Thediscussionofpoliciesraisestheissueofmarketsaswell.Thecases

we explored lead us to suggest that while markets can attract people to

agroecology, scaling based principally upon market opportunities can be

vulnerable to external changes. Thus, market mechanisms should be

designed to strengthen social movements, not to be a central driving

force thereof. Markets have not been indispensable to the increase in

agroecological production, but failure to consider markets can be an

Achilles heel. Markets contribute most to agroecology movements in

cases like Rede Ecovida and Chiapas’s organic coffee production, where

they are nested within networks whose unifying elements are environmen-

tal and social values. Rede Ecovida assures compliance with those values

through a participatory guarantee system that builds internal capacity and

relationships rather than perpetuating reliance on external certification

(Radomsky and Leal 2016). Alliances created around market mechanisms

have the potential to extend the reach of agroecology’s transformative

power to realms other than production. We note, too, that large-scale

transformation of agri-food systems will be difficult until demand for

agroecological products increases and until stronger relationships between

producers and conscious consumers are developed.

22 M. MIER Y TERÁN ET AL.

Conclusions: a new field of research and construction of alternatives?

In this analysis, we have identified eight drivers that were important, to

varying degrees, in the scaling of agroecology in five cases that we consider

emblematic. The analysis is preliminary and does not fully address ele-

ments such as the roles of women and youth nor transformations at the

scale of alternative food regimes. Nevertheless, we believe that the patterns

revealed contribute to understanding of agroecological scaling in diverse

contexts.

We have barely addressed interactions among the various dimensions of

agroecological scaling and the importance of the “quality”of each in

particular cases. Much more detail is needed on how these dimensions

can interact to generate positive feedback. In particular, we believe it

important to advance research that systematically studies how public

policies can accompany existing efforts, helping them grow more autono-

mous and better organized rather than generating risky dependencies.

Research is also needed on the role of public policy in catalyzing the

emergence of new processes.

We have focused upon aspects that favor the scaling of agroecology, but

we should not ignore the importance of analyzing elements that limit the

expansion of agroecology. Those elements include paternalistic, clientelistic,

demobilizing relations; public policies that facilitate land concentration and

land grabbing; and actions of governments and international and market

institutions that foster the expansion of agribusiness and industrial mono-

cultures (Giraldo 2018; Rosset and Altieri 2017). Nor have we considered

other obstacles, such as the lack of organization and/or mobilizing leader-

ship, the hegemonic power of the dominant agricultural development para-

digm, and the insidious effects of the coloniality of knowledge. We need to

deepen an understanding of how to scale agroecology in the context of

neoliberal globalization, where these limiting aspects constitute the rule

rather than the exception.

Scaling of agroecology is both a relatively new research field and a real-world

phenomenon with great potential (Parmentier 2008; De Schutter 2010b). The

havoc being caused by the Green Revolution model makes scaling urgent:

agroecology must transcend individual plots and farms, to become the norm

on the scale of territories, rural–urban constellations, and nations (Gliessman

2015;Rosset2015; Rosset and Altieri 2017), extending to the global agri-food

system, level 5 in Gliessman’s(2015) scale of agroecological conversion. We

believe that this expansion requires greater capacity for articulating the ecolo-

gical and social-science aspects of agroecology and for transdisciplinary asso-

ciations with social movements that defy corporate agribusiness and the

industrial agri-food system while building alternatives (Méndez, Bacon, and

Cohen 2013; Ferguson 2015).

AGROECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 23

Funding

This research was partially funded by CONACYT (Proyect 2529). Peter Rosset was partially

supported in this research by the Processo CAPES PVE-Edital 65/2014, no. 23038.010102/

2013-34 Programa Professor Visitante do Exterior of the Government of Brazil, at the

Universidade Federal de Ceará (UFC).

ORCID

Mateo Mier y Terán Giménez Cacho http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6512-7238

Omar Felipe Giraldo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3485-5694

Miriam Aldasoro http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5411-7499

Bruce G. Ferguson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3963-2024

Peter Rosset http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1253-1066

Ashlesha Khadse http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3152-1776

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Territorialising Local Food Systems for an Agroecological Transition in Latin America

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Aug 2023

Les Levidow

An agroecological transition can enhance resilience by several means, e.g., managing ecological relationships through agroecosystems, enhancing farmers’ knowledge of natural resources, recycling those resources, maintaining biodiversity, and thus, flexibly adapting to environmental stresses. However, the hegemonic agri-food system has been continuing its capitalist transition, thereby undermining agroecological methods and deterritorialising social bonds. Facing this pervasive threat, an agroecological transition needs a greater convergence between agroecological production and a solidarity economy (economia solidaria or EcoSol in Latin America). Their convergence can be called EcoSol-agroecology, based on short food supply chains (called circuitos cortos there). These efforts develop territorial markets, generate more stable livelihoods, and thus keep producers on the land. In our study, each research team collaborated with an EcoSol-agroecology network to develop Participatory Action Research methods. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their circuitos cortos, stimulating creative adaptations or alternatives, alongside demands for policy support measures. These networks have regionally territorialised local initiatives, while also confronting obstacles from the hegemonic system. Although socioecological resilience often means a system’s capacity to bounce back, here it has meant bouncing forwards through new opportunities for solidaristic livelihoods and bonds. EcoSol-agroecology networks, agri-extensionists, and researchers have jointly developed such counter-hegemonic strategies, as illustrated by the case studies here.

Agroecology as a means to improve energy metabolism and economic management in smallholder cocoa farmers in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

Comprender los caminos agroecológicos de la ganadería en el norte de Uruguay

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

La agroecología como modelo de producción alternativo, es incipiente en Uruguay. Comprender e interpretar la visión que los productores y técnicos tienen sobre la transición agroecológica en el país es un desafío para la investigación. La principal hipótesis en este trabajo es que las visiones de los productores y técnicos sobre la agroecología, orientan, enmarcan y estructuran los procesos de transición. Se presentan resultados sobre las visiones de la agroecología de dos grupos de discusión realizados en 2020 con profesionales de diferentes instituciones y ganaderos familiares. Estos muestran la gran diversidad de visiones y los diferentes caminos que transitan los ganaderos. A pesar de estas visiones diferentes, se encuentran algunas ideas-fuerza comunes que podrían contribuir a la definición de un modelo de ganadería agroecológico. Los caminos permiten sugerir y evaluar propuestas diferenciadas para el desarrollo de una ganadería familiar agroecológica.

The role of farmer networks in supporting adaptive capacity: Opening the door for innovation and transformation in the Northeastern United States

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

This article explores the role of farmer networks in building the adaptive capacity of small and diversified farmers in the Northeastern United States. Previous research suggests that farmers’ networks are the backbone of practical agricultural knowledge systems in the United States, serving as a critical venue where growers exchange and negotiate new ideas. Drawing upon empirical evidence from a regional survey on climate resilience and a series of focus groups conducted in collaboration with 9 farmer organizations from Pennsylvania to Eastern Canadian provinces, this article examines how the emergence of new ideas and agroecological innovations are influenced by geography, network affiliation, and perceived agency. First, we use regression analysis to identify factors that influence the use of no-till on diversified vegetable and berry farms, which is an emerging innovation in this community. Our analysis shows that geography may not be a significant driver of adoption among the population we sampled, which contrasts with previous research on explanatory factors, yet affiliation with certain farmer networks was significant in predicting the use or intended use of the practice. This quantitative analysis is complemented by qualitative data from a series of focus groups in which farmers identify the characteristics of certain networks which support them in addressing new challenges. Farmers identified that networks support them in learning about new ideas, accessing resources, and engaging in creative problem-solving, through facilitation of spaces for exchange with peers and experts and being responsive to their emerging needs.

Geo-Based Assessment of Vegetation Health Related to Agroecological Practices in the Southeast of Togo

Article

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Aug 2023

In the context of climate change, the need to contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 is no longer in doubt, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study of the landscape within 10 km of the Donomadé model farm, southeastern Togo, researchers sought to assess vegetation health in ecosystems and agrosystems, including their capacity to produce biomass for agroecological practices. Sentinel-2 sensor data from 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2022 were preprocessed and used to calculate the normalized vegetation fire ratio index (NBR), the vegetation fire severity index (dNBR), and CASA-SEBAL models. From these different analyses, it was found that vegetation stress increased across the landscape depending on the year of the time series. The research estimated that 9952.215 ha, 10,397.43 ha, and 9854.90 ha were highly stressed in 2015, 2017, and 2020, respectively. Analysis of the level of interannual severity revealed the existence of highly photosynthetic areas that had experienced stress. These areas, which were likely to have been subjected to agricultural practices, were estimated to be 8704.871 ha (dNBR2017-2015), 8253.17 ha (dNBR2020-2017), and 7513.93 ha (dNBR2022-2020). In 2022, the total available biomass estimated by remote sensing was 3,741,715 ± 119.26 kgC/ha/y. The annual average was 3401.55 ± 119.26 kgC/ha/y. In contrast, the total area of healthy vegetation was estimated to be 4594.43 ha, 4301.30 ha, and 4320.85 ha, in 2015, 2017, and 2022, respectively. The acceptance threshold of the net primary productivity (NPP) of the study area was 96%. The coefficient of skewness (0.81 ± 0.073) indicated a mosaic landscape. Productive and functional ecosystem components were present, but these were highly dispersed. These findings suggest a great opportunity to promote agroecological practices. Mulching may be an excellent technique for enhancing overall ecosystem services as targeted by the SDGs, by means of reconversion of plant biomass consumed by vegetation fires or slash-and-burn agricultural practices.

Agroecology and revolution: Agricultural policies on land, autonomy, and priority crops

Article

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Aug 2023

Galia Figueroa Alfonso

The literature on agroecology in Cuba agrees that Cuban agroecology is small-scale, non-state, and not prioritized by state agricultural input allocation policies. This article grapples with these 3 assumptions by analyzing the historical and recent agricultural policies of the Cuban revolution in relation to land, producer autonomy, and conventional input allocation and by analyzing the performance of state and non-state agriculture in the period of 2009–2015. Based on in-depth interviews, and analysis of relevant policy documents and secondary data, this article argues that the revolution’s historical policies and post-1990s anti-crisis policies regarding land distribution and limits to wealth accumulation, together with the country’s long-stay financial constraints to purchase conventional inputs facilitated a more or less stable space for small-scale, non-state, non-prioritized agriculture. Nevertheless, the productive performance by crops shows that state and non-state agriculture obtain similar results and face similar challenges.

Critical Sustainability Sciences - Intercultural and Emancipatory Perspectives

Book

Aug 2023

Contribuciones de la naturaleza para las personas, manejo y actores: herramientas para el análisis de sus interacciones

Chapter

Sep 2023

El análisis de las interacciones entre contribuciones de la naturaleza y las preferencias que diferentes actores tienen hacia ellas permite identifica disyuntivas y conflictos, así como oportunidades para la conciliar la conservación de la biodiversidad y su aprovechamiento. Las herramientas aquí presentadas permiten la identificación participativa de obstáculos y oportunidades para reducir disyuntivas, conciliar necesidades y visiones distintas entre los actores involucrados, y poder así facilitar un manejo sustentable de las contribuciones de la naturaleza.

Motivation of Agroecology for Biodiversity Conservation: A Juxtaposition of Traditional Knowledge and Modern Ecology in Tea Farmers' Practice

Preprint

Full-text available

Jan 2023

‘Feeding the world, byte by byte’: emergent imaginaries of data productivism

Article

Aug 2023

Desenvolvimento Territorial Sustentável: o desafio contemporâneo de romper o globalitarismo existente pela busca de novas alternativas de consumo local.

Article

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Jun 2016

O presente artigo revisita a política pública de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (SAN) no Brasil para discutir o desafio contemporâneo do consumo de alimentos saudáveis e de qualidade mediante a era da globalização e do uso de agrotóxicos. Problematizam-se o processo de globalização hegemônico, imposto pelo modelo de desenvolvimento capitalista, e os impactos desse mimetismo na saúde e qualidade de vida das pessoas de uma nação, apresentando dados alarmantes relacionados à obesidade no Brasil. Buscam-se autores no campo da economia para conceituar o que vem a ser o desenvolvimento de uma nação, rompendo com o pensamento economicista e avançando na busca de uma abordagem na qual pessoas e natureza possam de fato ser consideradas. Foram adotados os seguintes procedimentos metodológicos: pesquisa bibliográfica sobre temas como desenvolvimento, território, agroecologia, soberania alimentar e políticas públicas relacionadas, além de pesquisa em bases de dados secundárias como o Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA), Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (ANVISA), Organização Pan-americana de Saúde (OPAS), Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS) e Ministério da Saúde. Como resultado, percebe-se que é preciso repensar o território e o papel das políticas públicas [no âmbito do Desenvolvimento Territorial Sustentável] fomentando iniciativas locais, as quais possam gerar processos de libertação e que rompam as práticas globalitaristas impostas em nossa sociedade. Palavras-chave: Desenvolvimento Territorial Sustentável. Políticas Públicas. Soberania Alimentar.

Agroecology: Science and Politics

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2017

This is a timely and excellent book by two world leaders of agroecological thought and practice. In this highly readable book, Peter Rosset and Miguel Altieri offer a clear analysis of the principles of agroecology and its potential to address major social, economic and environmental challenges of food and farming in the 21st century. Most notably, the book demonstrates the importance of social organization, peasant agroecology schools and social movements for bringing agroecology to scale. By focusing on the contested nature of the science of agroecology and its contemporary politics, the authors invite the reader to embrace an agroecology that transforms rather than conforms with the dominant agri-food regime. A stimulating read! Michel Pimbert, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University Agroecology: Science and Politics by Peter Rosset and Miguel Altieri will be an important book that does an excellent job at summarizing what agroecology is as a science, a practice and a movement, as well as the debates that are currently going on regarding agroecology. Ivette Perfecto, George W. Pack Professor of Natural Resources, University of Michigan This small book has a very important message for the agroecology movement as well as for each of us as agroecologists. The scientific basis of agroecology and how agroecology confronts the industrial agriculture model is now broadly accepted, but how this approach can overcome the political and economic power of this model is much more controversial. This book clearly and forcefully states that agroecology must also address the politics of the food system, who has power and control, and how what might be called political agroecology must be included so that deep change can occur. We must heed this call to action! Steve Gliessman, Professor Emeritus of Agroecology, UC Santa Cruz, author of Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems In this short, straightforward book, two of the world's foremost experts in agroecol-ogy team-up to lay out the historical, scientific, and political basics of agroecology. As this timely publication makes clear, the recent rise of agroecology in official discourses on hunger and climate change is not just because of agroecology's relevance to the urgent challenges of our time it is a reflection of the struggle between farmers and scientists committed to a socially and ecologically rational food system,

Sembrando Alternativas; cosechando esperanzas. (Re)campesinización agroecológica en las lomas del Escambray, Provincia de Villa Clara, Cuba.

Thesis

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Sep 2012

Valentín Val

En Cuba, la profunda crisis agroalimentaria sufrida a finales del siglo pasado desencadenó un replanteamiento del modelo agroalimentario y un retorno a la producción campesina. El objetivo general de este trabajo es indagar si el proceso de (re)campesinización y producción agroecológica adoptado como estrategia de supervivencia, hoy podría constituir una propuesta alternativa de producción y de vida al paradigma del desarrollo de la modernidad hegemónica. Esta reflexión crítica emerge en diálogo con un grupo de campesinos/as asociados/as a la Cooperativa de Créditos y Servicios “Ignacio Pérez Ríos” (CCS-IPR), participantes del Movimiento Agroecológico Campesino a Campesino (MACAC) de la Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños (ANAP) en las lomas del Escambray, Municipio de Manicaragua, provincia de Villa Clara. En este trabajo el concepto de (re)campesinización tiene múltiples acepciones; por el retorno efectivo de la fuerza laboral al trabajo agrícola, por la resignificación y la reconfiguración del modelo productivo, así como por las reflexión y (re-)articulación de las formas de ser, estar y habitar el mundo en ese retorno agroecológico. Así la agroecología adquiere un potencial revolucionario contrahegemónico y radical, con un replanteo profundo de las relaciones sociales y ambientales originadas desde la alteridad ontológica, desde espacios de enunciación y epistemes que (re-)emergen ante la crisis socio-ambiental como alternativas y críticas al paradigma de la modernidad hegemónica, del capital y el desarrollo. Una crítica radical válida tanto para el capitalismo depredador, como para el socialismo desarrollista del siglo XX. Este trabajo se presenta en un formato experimental con una estructura en dos columnas, intentando dar cuenta de un mismo fenómeno social, en un relato polifónico, desde diferentes puntos de vista, múltiples formas de lenguaje y una variada textura narrativa.

B6-499 Avances de la agroecología en Cuba-Libro

Book

Full-text available

Aug 2018

Resumen Los libros Transformando el campo cubano y Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance, narraron el inicio de la agricultura sostenible cubana, mostraron lo logrado de ejemplo mundial, pero hoy informamos los avances al pasar de agricultura de sustitución de insumos a agroecología. Este libro, recoge aspectos de agricultura urbana y suburbana, programa campesino a campesino, fincas forestales integrales, biodigestores, microorganismos nativos, integración agricultura/animales, innovación local, capacitación y otros, con aportes de Miguel Altieri, Peter Rosset, Eric Holt. En 600 páginas, 7 Secciones, 37 capítulos de interés e impacto, recuadros de 20 experiencias concretas y encarte a color de 16 páginas informa avances de la agroecología cubana. Aporta resultados de agricultores y técnicos aplicando sistemas agroecológicos, para producir alimentos para la población, con eficiencia productiva, económica, energética, ambiental y saludable para los seres humanos. Palabras clave: Cuba, sistemas agroecológicos, innovación local Abstract The books Transformando el Campo Cubano and Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance, informed the beginnings of Cuban sustainable agriculture, showing the successesas a world example, but today are informing the advances in the process from an inputs substitution agriculture to agroecology. This book include aspects such as urban agriculture, peasant to peasant program, integral forestry farms, biodigestors, native microorganisms, agriculture/animals integration, local innovation, and others, with contributios from Miguel Altieri, Peter Rosset and Eric Holt. In 600 pages, 7 sections, 37 chapters of interest and impact, 20 abstracts with concrete experiences, and a 16 colour charts, informing advances of Cuban agroecology. Show results of farmers and technicals by applying agroecology systems, for producing foods for the population with productive, economic, energetic, environmental and healthy efficiency for the human beigns.

ORGANIZAÇÃO ESPACIAL E EXECUÇÃO DO PROGRAMA DE AQUISIÇÃO DE ALIMENTOS DA AGRICULTURA FAMILIAR ENTRE 2003-2012

Article

Jun 2016

Neste trabalho serão apresentados tópicos relacionados a organização e execução do Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos da Agricultura Familiar (PAA), entre 2003-2012 no Brasil. Para tanto foram usadas as informações divulgadas pela Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (CONAB) relacionadas as modalidades Compra com doação Simultânea, Formação de Estoque e Compra Direta da Agricultura Familiar. De acordo com os Balanços de Avaliação da Execução do Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos, disponibilizados pela Secretaria de Avaliação e Gestão da Informações (SAGI), a CONAB é o maior comprador do PAA, respondendo integralmente pelas modalidades Compra Direta da Agricultura Familiar, Formação de Estoque e, parcialmente, pela modalidade Compra com Doação Simultânea, executada também por estados e municípios, via assinatura de convênios ou termos de adesão com o Governo Federal. O PAA obteve avanços significativos entre 2003-2012, sobretudo no que diz respeito ao número de recursos aplicados, quantidade de alimentos e número agricultores familiares atendidos no Brasil. Em relação a espacialização e organização do Programa destaca-se a Região Sul como a mais beneficiadas pelas ações do PAA, embora a Região Nordeste apresentou crescimento expressivo quanto aos recursos e agricultores beneficiados. Conclui-se que o PAA vem apontando um caminho construtivo para agricultura familiar brasileira, embora o Programa precisa se ajustar as disparidades do regionalismo brasileiro.

Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (2nd ed)

Book

Jul 2012

Raj Patel

Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico

Book

Dec 2001

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo

Ecological Complexity and Agroecology

Book

Oct 2017

Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture

Book

Feb 2018

Miguel A. Altieri

This new edition builds on the explosion of research on sustainable agriculture since the late 1980s. By separating myth from reality, Miguel Altieri extracts the key principles of sustainable agriculture and expounds on management systems that “really work.” Providing case studies of sustainable rural development in developing countries, he goes beyond a mere description of practices to include data that reveal the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of alternative projects. Each chapter of Agroecology has been enriched and updated with the latest research results from around the world. New emphasis has been placed on such issues as the ecological economics of agriculture, policy changes needed for promoting sustainable agriculture, rural development in the Third World, the role of biodiversity in agriculture, and new research methodologies.

Scaling up Agroecology through Market Systems: Using Technology Justice in agriculture to leave no one behind

Book

Sep 2015

Bringing agroecology to scale: key drivers and emblematic cases

Abstract

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