#Agroecology: Just cover crop cultivation or a transformative system?
Researchers from Germany and Spain have recently tried to answer the question within the context of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project FoodSHIFT 2030 and AGROECOLOGY, the European Partnership ‘Accelerating Farming Systems Transition: Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures’.
They concluded that the various interpretations and associated approaches available, often undermine the transformative and systemic potentials embedded in this term. The authors argue that Agroecology, when correctly interpreted, would also bring a fair transformative contribution to the “(re)-shaping of the agri-food systems”.
The term Agroecology, whose origin derives from Latin-American countries, means different approaches when used in different contexts thereby creating ambiguity about its unique practices and benefits, besides being easily co-opted by business. Instead, often Agroecology is oversimplified and only associated with a few principles such as cover crop and multi-crop cultivation, healthier soil, and biodiversity protection. For these reasons, the paper presents a framework to assess the transformative potentials of agricultural approaches that make use of the term agroecology.
We here provide just a few highlights of this complex topic, as discussed in the publication:
- Definition: an ‘agroecology approach is grounded in ecological thinking where a holistic, systems-level understanding of food system sustainability is required’;
- Pillars: one of the pillars of a ‘true’ agroecology is the prevention of the ‘commodification’ of natural resources that considers land, lakes, water, sea, and other natural resources as a commodity to exploit;
- Governance: governance structures should be set beyond the farm level – as it is now- and include landscape and nature management at a large territorial scale as well as tools for multi-stakeholder participation;
- Technology: innovative technologies can enhance efficiency, but they need to be embedded in the agroecology approach.
We recommend this reading to everybody wanting to learn more about Agroecology.
Link to the study "Complementing or co-opting? Applying an integrative framework to assess the transformative capacity of approaches that make use of the term agroecology": https://lnkd.in/dpWubiyS
Authors: Beatrice Walthall, José Luis Vicente-Vicente, Jonathan Friedrich, Annette Piorr, Daniel López-García.
#theAgricult #Agroecology #Governance #AgriFood #Crop #Biodiversity
