Can agroecology be a path towards food systems transformation?

#Agroecology a social movement or a science-based approach?

Since the UN Food Systems Summit (#UNFSS ) in 2021, a vibrant international community has emerged in support of agroecological approaches. Today, 47 member countries and more than 100 organizations are members of the?Agroecology Coalition ,?born from the UNFSS, and hosted at our Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT .

Interest in the scientific community around agroecological approach has also been growing in the past few years: evidence shows a steep increase in the number of articles and book chapters published between January 2005 and December 2021 on the subject matter, with 66% of these published since January 2017.

While the topic is high on the agenda of many countries and organizations, it is also fueling a huge debate, and at times strong divisions, between those that consider it to be a social movement and those that push for its recognition as a scientific approach.

What does research tell us on #agroecology ?

Research tells us that there is lots of science behind agroecological practices, and many of its benefits are still being explored. However, much of this science focuses on understanding on farms practices rather than exploring the socio-political dimensions of agroecological approaches, and how these interact to encourage or discourage their adoption.

To fill this gap, CGIAR has launched a new Research Initiative on Agroecology dedicated to investigating the specificities of agroecology across the world, and the economic, social, and political barriers and enablers to scaling up these approaches. Our goal is to understand how agroecological principles apply to different environments, what trade-offs exist, and under what conditions these approaches perform better than other approaches.

What we’ve learnt so far is that generally enabling environments that encourage the adoption of agroecological practices remain limited despite benefits demonstrated in specific contexts. ?But some successful cases exist, that can be replicated across regions and countries. For example, in Zimbabwe, we found that economic factors, such as government incentives mechanisms, and a supportive market environment were key drivers that enabled the success of past initiatives on agroecology.

What is needed to scale up #agroecological practices across different regions?

While there is no silver bullet, three key elements for upscaling agroecological practices are:

1.??????Accelerating research on agroecology to evaluate its performance across scales and contexts

Although many tools exist that assess agricultural systems, most of them don’t look at environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability, nor use indicators that are sensitive to agroecological principles. One of the objectives of our new Initiative on Agroecology is developing an assessment framework to measure the agronomic, economic, environmental, and social performance of farming systems at different stages of the agroecological transition. Results will be useful to identify when agroecological practices are effective, and when trade-offs exist between development objectives, helping to catalyze investment in agroecology by both private and public sector.

2.??????Increasing investment in farmers that uptake agroecological practices

Governments and private sectors will need to work together to set up the right mechanisms to finance the transition towards agroecological approaches and address the inevitable trade-offs that come with it. Encouraging the transition agroecological approaches will only be possible by better connecting smallholder farmers to public procurement programmes create market opportunities and demand for their products, and establishing incentives to support the transition, as well as disincentives and penalties towards those who have no interest in reconverting.

3.??????Strengthening #partnerships at global, regional and country level

While the #climate , #food and #biodiversity challenges are shared across many countries, risks levels are different and as such there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Addressing these challenges depends on the geographical, economic, and social context.?If that’s the case, solutions need to be co-created with national research systems, the private sector, and most importantly, with the end-users: farmers.

Collaboration and co-creation are the core of the new CGIAR ’s vision for partnerships.?In this spirit, our Initiative on Agroecology has resulted from extensive dialogue with partners, including the private sector, national research centers, farmer cooperatives, and international organizations. The research team is now composed by more than 100 researchers from 8 CGIAR centers along with partners in?seven countries: Burkina Faso, India, Kenya, Laos, Peru, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe.

Looking ahead

In the next two years, the initiative aims to create a network of national and international researchers, farmers, policy makers, and private sector companies, to promote integration of research and innovation processes, facilitate co-design and testing of context-specific agroecological innovations and create an enabling environment to encourage uptake and upscale of agroecological approaches.

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For more information on the Initiative, please reach out to Marcela Quintero (CIAT) Quintero, DDG-Research, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT ([email protected] ).