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Agroecology
A Transdisciplinary,
Participatory and
Action-oriented Approach

Edited by
V. Ernesto Méndez
Christopher M. Bacon
Roseann Cohen
Stephen R. Gliessman
Agroecology
A Transdisciplinary, Participatory and
Action-oriented Approach
Advances in Agroecology
Series Editor: Clive A. Edwards

Agroecology: A Transdisciplinary, Participatory and Action-oriented Approach,

V. Ernesto Méndez, Christopher M. Bacon, Roseann Cohen, Stephen R. Gliessman
Agroecology, Ecosystems, and Sustainability, Noureddine Benkeblia
Agroecosystems in a Changing Climate, Paul C.D. Newton, R. Andrew Carran,
Grant R. Edwards, and Pascal A. Niklaus
Agroecosystem Sustainability: Developing Practical Strategies, Stephen R. Gliessman
Agroforestry in Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Louise E. Buck, James P. Lassoie, and
Erick C.M. Fernandes
Biodiversity in Agroecosystems, Wanda Williams Collins and Calvin O. Qualset
The Conversion to Sustainable Agriculture: Principles, Processes, and Practices,
Stephen R. Gliessman and Martha Rosemeyer
Global Economic and Environmental Aspects of Biofuels, David Pimentel
Integrated Assessment of Health and Sustainability of Agroecosystems, Thomas Gitau,
Margaret W. Gitau, and David Waltner-Toews
Interactions between Agroecosystems and Rural Communities, Cornelia Flora
Land Use Intensification: Effects on Agriculture, Biodiversity, and Ecological Processes,
David Lindenmayer, Saul Cunningham, and Andrew Young
Landscape Ecology in Agroecosystems Management, Lech Ryszkowski
Microbial Ecology in Sustainable Agroecosystems, Tanya Cheeke, David C. Coleman, and Diana H. Wall
Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Agroecosystems, Mario Giampietro
Soil Ecology in Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Lijbert Brussaard and Ronald Ferrera-Cerrato
Soil Organic Matter in Sustainable Agriculture, Fred Magdoff and Ray R. Weil
Soil Tillage in Agroecosystems, Adel El Titi
Structure and Function in Agroecosystem Design and Management, Masae Shiyomi and Hiroshi Koizumi
Sustainable Agriculture and New Biotechnologies, Noureddine Benkeblia
Sustainable Agroecosystem Management: Integrating Ecology, Economics and Society,
Patrick J. Bohlen and Gar House
Tropical Agroecosystems, John H. Vandermeer

Advisory Board
Editor-in-Chief
Clive A. Edwards, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Editorial Board
Miguel Altieri, University of California, Berkeley, California
Patrick J. Bohlen, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
Lijbert Brussaard, Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
David Coleman, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
D.A. Crossley, Jr., University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
Adel El-Titi, Stuttgart, Germany
Charles A. Francis, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Stephen R. Gliessman, University of California, Santa Cruz, California
Thurman Grove, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina
Maurizio Paoletti, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
David Pimentel, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Masae Shiyomi, Ibaraki University, Mito, Japan
Sir Colin R.W. Spedding, Berkshire, England
Moham K. Wali, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Agroecology
A Transdisciplinary, Participatory and
Action-oriented Approach

Edited by
V. Ernesto Méndez
Universit y of Ver mont, Bur lington, USA

Christopher M. Bacon
S a n t a C l a r a U n i ve r s i t y, Ca l i fo r n i a , U S A

Roseann Cohen
Community Agroecology Network,
Santa Cruz, California, USA

Stephen R. Gliessman
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the

Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
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International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4822-4177-8 (eBook - PDF)

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 Contents
Preface.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii
Foreword�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ix
Acknowledgments�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xi
Editors�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii
Contributors������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xv

Chapter 1
Introduction: Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary, Participatory, and Action-oriented Approach������ 1
V. Ernesto Méndez, Christopher M. Bacon, and Roseann Cohen

Chapter 2
Agroecology: Roots of Resistance to Industrialized Food Systems������������������������������������������������ 23
Stephen R. Gliessman

Chapter 3
Transformative Agroecology: Foundations in Agricultural Practice, Agrarian Social
Thought, and Sociological Theory�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 37
Graham Woodgate and Eduardo Sevilla Guzmán

Chapter 4
Political Agroecology: An Essential Tool to Promote Agrarian Sustainability������������������������������ 55
Manuel González de Molina

Chapter 5
Learning Agroecology through Involvement and Reflection���������������������������������������������������������� 73
Charles Francis, Edvin Østergaard, Anna Marie Nicolaysen, Geir Lieblein,
Tor Arvid Breland, and Suzanne Morse

Chapter 6
Complexity in Tradition and Science: Intersecting Theoretical Frameworks in
Agroecological Research�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������99
John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto

Chapter 7
Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, and the New Green Revolution������������������������������������������������� 113
Eric Holt-Giménez and Miguel A. Altieri

Chapter 8
The Intercultural Origin of Agroecology: Contributions from Mexico���������������������������������������� 123
Francisco J. Rosado-May

v
vi CONTENTS

Chapter 9
Participatory Action Research for an Agroecological Transition in Spain: Building Local
Organic Food Networks����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 139
Gloria I. Guzmán, Daniel López, Lara Román, and Antonio M. Alonso

Chapter 10
Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, and Urban Agriculture in the United States������������������������������ 161
Margarita Fernandez, V. Ernesto Méndez, Teresa Mares, and Rachel Schattman

Chapter 11
On the Ground: Putting Agroecology to Work through Applied Research and Extension in
Vermont������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 177
Debra Heleba, Vern Grubinger, and Heather Darby

Chapter 12
Agroecology as a Food Security and Sovereignty Strategy in Coffee-Growing Communities:
Opportunities and Challenges in San Ramon, Nicaragua������������������������������������������������������������� 193
Heather Putnam, Roseann Cohen, and Roberta M. Jaffe

Chapter 13
The Mesoamerican Agroenvironmental Program: Critical Lessons Learned from an
Integrated Approach to Achieve Sustainable Land Management.������������������������������������������������� 217
Isabel A. Gutiérrez-Montes and Felicia Ramírez Aguero

Chapter 14
Analysis of Tropical Homegardens through an Agroecology and Anthropological
Ecology Perspective����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 233
Alba González-Jácome
 Preface
The spark that ignited this book, and other related publications, started with conversations
among Steve Gliessman, Ernesto Méndez, and Manuel González de Molina while teaching at the
agroecology graduate program of the International University of Andalucía (UNIA), Spain, in
2011. The discussions centered on how an increasing number of publications on agroecology were
starting to appear in the scientific and gray literatures, and our perception that not all agroeco-
logical perspectives were being adequately discussed. This led to the idea of preparing a special
edited issue to inaugurate the launch of the renaming of the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture
with the new name of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, the first international English
language journal with “agroecology” in the title. After further discussions with Chris Bacon and
Roseann Cohen, they joined Ernesto as guest editors, and the special issue was published in 2013.
Our second project was to produce an open access, Spanish translation of the special issue, which
appeared as a number in the Spanish journal Agroecología in 2014. This edited book represents the
third contribution of this conceptual project. Steve Gliessman joined us as an editor with a goal of
bringing together fully revised contributions to the special issue as well as additional conceptual
and empirical chapters. The motivations behind this collection of work are to (1) more explicitly and
critically discuss the different perspectives that are present in the growing field of agroecology and
(2) provide conceptual and empirical material of an agroecology that aspires to be transdisciplinary,
participatory, and action-oriented. We hope that this volume will provide an inspiration for others
who are working to innovate and transform our current agri-food system into one that is more sus-
tainable for all people, ecologies, and landscapes.

V. Ernesto Méndez
Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group (ARLG), University of Vermont
Christopher M. Bacon
Department of Environmental Studies, Santa Clara University
Roseanne Cohen
Community Agroecology Network
Stephen R. Gliessman
Community Agroecology Network and University of California at Santa Cruz

vii
 Foreword
As a contribution to the science of agronomy, agroecology aims to reduce the use of external
fossil-based inputs, to recycle waste, and to combine different elements of nature in the process of
production, in order to maximize synergies between them. But agroecology is more than a range of
agronomic techniques that present some of these characteristics. It is both a certain way of thinking
of our relationship to nature, and it is growing as a social movement.
Agroecology invites us to embrace the complexity of nature; it sees such complexity not as a
liability, but as an asset. The farmer, in this view, is a discoverer as he or she proceeds experimen-
tally, by trial and error, observing what consequences follow from which combinations and learning
from what works best—even though the ultimate “scientific” explanation may remain elusive. This
is empowering; the farmer is put in the driver’s seat, constructing the knowledge that works best in
the local context in which he or she operates. In contrast, so-called “modern” agriculture, which is,
in fact, the twentieth-century agriculture, did the exact opposite—it sought to simplify nature. What
to do in the field was defined by whatever was prescribed by “science” developed in laboratories.
The path from research to practice was unidirectional and it was seen as unproblematic. Since solu-
tions were based on science, they were considered universally applicable. The experiential knowl-
edge of the farmer was irrelevant at best; at worst, it was treated as “prejudice” and as an obstacle
to the top-down implementation of sound scientific prescriptions from “experts.” In this view from
twentieth-century science, the complexity of nature is a problem; simplify it if you can, and never
mind if this means robbing the farmer of the opportunity to develop his or her art and of transform-
ing that art into the literacy of reading instructions on spray bottles and seed bags.
If agroecology stems from a renewed understanding of nature and our relationship with nature,
it naturally follows that it is also a social movement. This movement encourages peer-to-peer
exchanges of information between farmers. It prioritizes local solutions relying on local resources.
And it transforms the relationship between the farmer and the “expert,” be it from a department of
agriculture or from an international agency. This is not done in order to reverse it and to replace one
hierarchy with another, but to move toward the co-construction of knowledge. This is very clearly
illustrated by participatory plant breeding examples.
It is only if we see agroecology as something other than a particular set of agronomic techniques
that we can understand the opposition that it faces. Indeed, as a branch of agronomy that borrows
from ecology to undertake the act of farming within the ecosystems in which that act takes place,
agroecology is particularly well suited to meet the challenges of the day. In our still dominant
industrial farming system, it takes about 10 calories of fossil energy to produce one calorie of food,
a clearly unsustainable approach as we reach peak gas and peak oil. This system is a huge emit-
ter of greenhouse gases at least 13.5% of total human-generated greenhouse gas emissions come
from agriculture. This rises up to one-third once we factor into that calculation the deforestation
to create pastures and expand cultivated areas as well as the various stages of food processing,
packaging, transport, and retail. Small-scale farms are systematically put at a disadvantage, and
this is because they are less well-equipped to mechanize and to achieve economies of scale. This is
because they are less competitive in a world in which farmers are asked to become suppliers of raw
commodities—of large volumes of uniform “stuff”—for the food processing industry. The impacts
on rural development are considerable, as small family farms are disappearing in huge numbers.
Moreover, as it has been shaped in the past, industrial food systems have encouraged the shift
to highly processed foods, including ready-to-eat “convenience” foods and ultraprocessed “junk”
foods. The consequences of such modern approaches are well-known. Worldwide, the prevalence
of obesity doubled between 1980 and 2008. More than 1 billion adults are now overweight, and
another 400 million are obese. Combined with more sedentary lifestyles and tobacco and alco-
hol consumption, inadequate diets are resulting in the rise of noncommunicable diseases. Type 2

ix
x FOREWORD

diabetes, heart disease, or gastrointestinal cancers—all directly related to diets—are now growing
fast in all regions, and not only in rich countries as was the case in the past.
Agroecology provides a number of answers. It favors a gradual transition away from the fos-
sil energy-based farming of the earlier generation, and it seeks to preserve soil health and reduce
soil erosion. In fact, it is mostly because of its environmental benefits that agroecology is now of
interest to governments and international agencies. Although it can be practiced on a large scale,
its insistence on intercropping techniques and on various combinations between plants, trees, and
animals—in order to reestablish the agro-silvo-pastoral complementarities that “modern” agri-
culture has negated—make it especially suitable when practiced on relatively smaller farms. As
such, increased support to agroecology shall contribute to rebalancing a competition between large,
industrial-sized farms and smaller farms. This balance is currently significantly skewed in favor of
the former agricultural model. Agroecology favors better nutrition, both because greater diversity
on the farm results in greater diversity on the plates for the communities who produce their own
food, and because of the proven benefits to health. Organic crops, recent studies show, have an up
to 60% higher number of key antioxidants than conventionally grown ones, and of course show
much lower levels of pesticide residues and toxic heavy metals, such as cadmium, than industrially
grown crops. Most importantly, agroecology represents a shift away from the quasi-exclusive focus
on growing large areas of cereals in monocultures, which over the past 30 years had in fact reduced
the diversity of the plants on which our diets are based, and has favored an ever-increasing reliance
on heavily processed foods that are richer in saturated fats and in added sugars and salt. The health
benefits of an agroecological revolution would be significant.
Why is it, then, that despite all the benefits it may provide, agroecology remains marginal-
ized? Four major lock-ins still form considerable obstacles to the agroecological revolution. First,
technologies and infrastructures are biased in favor of achieving economies of scale through large
monocultures that can be more easily mechanized. Second, dominant agribusiness actors—the
large commodity buyers and food processing companies—are better positioned to supply markets
with low-priced foodstuffs against which other actors who use the other more sustainable modes of
production are unable to compete. Until industrial farming methods are obliged to fully internalize
the social and environmental costs they impose on the collectivity, this will not change. Third, our
lifestyles have evolved with the industrial way of producing food that we have been encouraging.
People today have less time to cook, they have relegated food to a secondary place in their lives, and
many families have lost even the most basic cooking skills. This culinary knowledge is required to
reduce the dependency on heavily processed foods, including the convenience foods that we have
become so accustomed to. Fourth and finally, political obstacles remain. Large agribusiness actors
veto any significant change that would threaten their position in the system and that would question,
in particular, the relegation of the farmer to the position of a captive buyer of inputs and a provider
of raw materials to the food processing industry.
These obstacles are formidable. This is why food democracy—the ability for people to make
real choices about how to produce food, what to produce, and how to eat—is a key to unlocking the
system. The agroecological revolution is much needed. It will succeed, however, only if we over-
come the political economic obstacles to change. I welcome this volume as an important contribu-
tion to this ambitious and urgent undertaking.

Olivier De Schutter
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2008–2014)
Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
 Acknowledgments
As with most agroecological endeavors, this book is the result of a highly collaborative process.
We are grateful to John Sulzycki and Jill Jurgensen from CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group
for their enthusiastic support of this book from beginning to end. We are also indebted to Rachel
Schattman, doctoral candidate at the UVM Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group (ARLG), for
her inquisitive editorial work and formatting of all of the chapters in this volume. We deeply appre-
ciate the effort of all the contributing authors who have generously shared their work. V.E. Méndez
would also like to thank his wife, Karen, and children, Adriel and Sofia, for their unconditional
love, joy, and support through this and all projects, and acknowledge the members of the ARLG
for providing motivation, good humor, and support as an agroecological “community of practice.”
Steve Gliessman thanks his partner, Robbie Jaffe, for her persistence in insisting that the social and
ecological components of agroecology must be fully linked and integrated for effective food system
transformation to occur. Rose Cohen thanks her daughter, Emma Sofia, for inspiring her to work
toward a better future; her husband, Alan, for his companionship and support through project after
project; and the Community Agroecology Network for sharing in the challenges and successes of
putting agroecology into practice. Chris Bacon offers a profound thanks to daughter, Rosalía, for
her creative and loving spark and wife, Maria Eugenia Flores Gómez, for her support, thoughtful
ideas, and loving presence.

xi
 Editors
V. Ernesto Méndez is an associate professor of Agroecology and Environmental Studies at
the University of Vermont’s (UVM) Environmental Program and Department of Plant and Soil
Science, Burlington, Vermont. At UVM, he leads the Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group
(ARLG), a community of practice that studies and contributes to develop practical solutions to
key issues in our current agrifood system. His empirical work is mostly with smallholder cof-
fee farmers and cooperatives in Mesoamerica and a variety of growers in Vermont. His research
uses agroecology as a transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented approach, focusing on
the interactions among agriculture, food, farmer livelihoods, and environment. Most of his work
utilizes a participatory action research (PAR) approach to directly support agroecological practice
and farmer livelihoods. A native of El Salvador, he has more than 20 years of experience doing
research and development work with smallholder farmers in Mexico and Central America. He
holds a BS in Crop Science from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo,
California, an MS in Tropical Agroforestry from the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher
Education Center (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica, and a PhD in agroecology and environmental
studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, California.

Christopher M. Bacon is an assistant professor with the Department of Environmental Studies

at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California. After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in
Nicaragua, he completed a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa
Cruz, California, and an S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship affiliated with the Geography
Department at University of California, Berkeley, California. His primary research involves small-
holders, cooperatives, and food security in the context of market and climatic change in northern
Nicaragua. It examines the political ecology of conventional and alternative food systems and their
impacts on rural development and change. He often uses community-based participatory action
research and agroecology to study questions, such as, how do changes in the governance of fair
trade coffee commodity chains relate to rural livelihoods, seasonal hunger, and ecosystem services
in Latin America’s diversified farming systems? In addition to continued work in Central America,
a second line of research focuses on environmental and food justice in California. Previous work
has been published in Global Environmental Change, the Journal of Peasant Studies, Ecology and
Society, and World Development.

Roseann Cohen holds a PhD from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, California, with a specialization in Latin American and Latino Studies. Her
research focuses on the sociocultural significance of farmers’ relationship to their crops and land,
as well as the impacts of insecure land tenure, forced migration, and violence on farming communi-
ties. She has worked in Colombia and is now expanding her research to migrant farmworker com-
munities in California engaged in urban community gardens. After completing a fellowship at the
Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, she is currently the execu-
tive director for the Community Agroecology Network (CAN), Santa Cruz, California, a nonprofit
committed to sustaining rural livelihoods and landscapes in the global south through the integra-
tion of collaborative research, agroecological capacity-­building, and locally informed development
strategies.

Stephen R. Gliessman holds graduate degrees in botany, biology, and plant ecology from the
University of California, Santa Barbara, California. He has accumulated more than 40 years of
teaching, research, and production experience in the field of agroecology. His international experi-
ences in tropical and temperate agriculture, small-farm and large-farm systems, traditional and

xiii
xiv EDITORS

conventional farm management, hands-on and academic activities, nonprofit and business employ-
ment, and organic and synthetic chemical farming approaches have provided a unique combina-
tion of experiences and perspectives to his formation as an agroecologist. He has been a W.K.
Kellogg Foundation Leadership Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow. He was the founding director of the
Agroecology Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), California, one of the
first formal agroecology programs in the world, and was the Alfred and Ruth Heller Professor of
Agroecology in the Department of Environmental Studies at UCSC until his retirement in 2012. He
is the cofounder of the nonprofit Community Agroecology Network (CAN), Santa Cruz, California,
and currently serves as president of its board of directors. His textbook, Agroecology: The Ecology
of Sustainable Food Systems, is in its third edition and has been translated into many languages. He
is the editor of the international journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and dry farms
organic wine grapes and olives with his family in northern Santa Barbara County, California.
 Contributors
Antonio M. Alonso Alba González-Jácome
Universidad Internacional de Andalucía Coordinator of Technical Assistance; Dirección
Baeza, Spain General
SEPE/USET
Miguel A. Altieri Tlaxcala, México
Department of Environmental Science, Policy
and Management Manuel González de Molina
University of California Agroecosystem History Laboratory
Berkeley, California Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Sevilla, Spain
Christopher M. Bacon
Department of Environmental Studies and Vern Grubinger
Sciences University of Vermont Extension and Northeast
Santa Clara University Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Santa Clara, California Education (SARE)
Brattleboro, Vermont

Tor Arvid Breland Isabel A. Gutiérrez-Montes

Department of Plant Science Academic Program in Development Practice,
Norwegian University of Life Sciences Education Division, Tropical Agricultural
Ås, Norway Research and Higher Education Center
(CATIE)
Roseann Cohen Turrialba, Costa Rica
Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
Santa Cruz, California Gloria I. Guzmán
Agroecosystem History Laboratory
Heather Darby Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Northwest Crops and Soils Program Sevilla, Spain
University of Vermont Extension
St. Albans, Vermont Debra Heleba
Northwest Crops and Soils Program and
Margarita Fernandez Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research
Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group and Education (SARE)
(ARLG), Department of Plant and Soil University of Vermont Extension
Science St. Albans, Vermont
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont Eric Holt-Giménez
Institute for Food and Development Policy
(Food First)
Charles Francis Oakland, California
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture
University of Nebraska Roberta M. Jaffe
Lincoln, Nebraska Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
Santa Cruz, California
Stephen R. Gliessman
Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
Santa Cruz, California

xv
xvi CONTRIBUTORS

Geir Lieblein Felicia Ramírez Aguero

Department of Plant Science Academic Program in Development Practice,
Norwegian University of Life Sciences Education Division, Tropical Agricultural
Ås, Norway Research and Higher Education Center
(CATIE)
Daniel López Turrialba, Costa Rica
Agroecosystem History Laboratory
Universidad Pablo de Olavide Lara Román
Sevilla, Spain Universidad Internacional de Andalucía
Baeza, Spain
Teresa Mares
Department of Anthropology Francisco J. Rosado-May
University of Vermont Universidad Intercultural Maya de
Burlington, Vermont Quintana Roo
José María Morelos,
V. Ernesto Méndez Quintana Roo, México
Department of Plant and Soil Science
University of Vermont Rachel Schattman
Burlington, Vermont Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group
(ARLG), Department of Plant and Soil
Suzanne Morse Science
College of the Atlantic University of Vermont
Bar Harbor, Maine Burlington, Vermont

Anna Marie Nicolaysen Eduardo Sevilla Guzmán

Department of Plant Science Instituto de Sociología y Estudios Campesinos
Norwegian University of Life Sciences Universidad de Córdoba
Ås, Norway Córdoba, Spain

Edvin Østergaard John Vandermeer

Department of Plant Science, Department of Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Mathematical Sciences and Technology Biology
Norwegian University of Life Sciences University of Michigan
Ås, Norway Ann Arbor, Michigan

Ivette Perfecto Graham Woodgate

School of Natural Resources and Environment UCL Institute of the Americas
University of Michigan University College London
Ann Arbor, Michigan London, UK

Heather Putnam
Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
Santa Cruz, California
 CHapTeR 1

Introduction
Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary, Participatory,
and Action-oriented Approach

V. Ernesto Méndez, Christopher M. Bacon, and Roseann Cohen

CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Agroecological Mainstreaming................................................................................................. 2
1.3 An Examination of the Different “Agroecologies”................................................................... 3
1.4 Agroecology as a Transdisciplinary, Participatory, and Action-oriented Approach................. 4
1.4.1 Agroecology and Transdisciplinarity............................................................................5
1.4.2 Participatory and Principles-based Approaches in Agroecology..................................5
1.4.3 Toward Transformative Agroecology............................................................................ 8
1.4.4 Challenges.....................................................................................................................9
1.5 Examples of Agroecological Initiatives Seeking a Transdisciplinary, Participatory,
and Action-oriented Approach..................................................................................................9
1.5.1 The Vermont Agricultural Resilience in a Changing Climate Initiative....................... 9
1.5.2 Application of a Transdisciplinary and PAR Approach.............................................. 10
1.5.3 Discussion of Selected Results.................................................................................... 11
1.5.4 Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons..................................................................... 11
1.5.5 Food Security and Sovereignty with Smallholder Coffee Cooperatives
and Farmers in Nicaragua........................................................................................... 12
1.5.6 Application of a Transdisciplinary and PAR Approach.............................................. 12
1.5.7 Selected Results........................................................................................................... 13
1.5.8 Opportunities, Challenges, and Lessons..................................................................... 14
1.6 Scaling Agroecology Out: Optimizing Production and Democratizing Access..................... 15
1.7 Discussion of the Contents of the Edited Volume................................................................... 16
References......................................................................................................................................... 18

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Agroecology has emerged as an approach that helps us to better understand the ecology of
traditional farming systems and respond to the mounting problems resulting from an increasingly
globalized and industrialized agri-food system (Altieri 1987). In its early stages, agroecology
mainly focused on “applying ecological concepts and principles to the design of sustainable agricul-
tural systems” (Altieri 1987; Gliessman 1990). This was followed by a more explicit integration of

1
2 AGROECOLOGY: A TRANSDISCIPLINARY, PARTICIPATORY AND ACTION-ORIENTED APPROACH

concepts and methods from the social sciences, which were necessary to better understand the
complexity of agriculture that emerges from unique sociocultural contexts (Guzmán-Casado et al.
1999; Hecht 1995). In the last decade, the number of publications and initiatives that people describe
as agroecological has increased exponentially (Wezel and Soldat 2009). The result is the emergence
of several distinct standpoints, which, in this paper, we refer to as different agroecological perspec-
tives or “agroecologies.” As can be expected in any field of science or knowledge, we can observe
some important differences between specific agroecologies. Hence, the objectives of this introduc-
tory chapter are to (1) discuss the implications of the increasing use and adoption of agroecology
in unprecedented scientific, social, and political spaces; (2) examine the evolution of the field of
agroecology into distinct perspectives or “agroecologies;” (3) illustrate the application of an agro-
ecological perspective grounded in transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented approaches,
including two case studies; (4) discuss the issue of scalability in agroecology; and (5) introduce the
reader to the objectives and contents of this edited volume.

1.2 AGROECOLOGICAL MAINSTREAMING

Agroecology has reached a high level of prominence in a diversity of academic, policy, and
advocacy spaces worldwide (Guzmán-Casado et al. 1999; IAASTD 2009; Wezel and Soldat 2009).
An important example of this was the recently held International Symposium on Agroecology for
Food Security and Nutrition in September 2014 (http://www.fao.org/about/meetings/afns/en/), orga-
nized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This was the first event
on agroecology organized by the FAO in its history, and it was attended by several high-ranking
officials and agriculture ministers from France, Brazil, Costa Rica, Senegal, Algeria, Japan, and the
European Commission. In addition, through persistent, long-term efforts, agroecologists have been
able to institutionalize the field in academic organizations, including the establishment of a grow-
ing number of agroecology programs and degrees at universities of both developed and developing
countries (Francis et al. 2003; http://sustainableaged.org/projects/degree-programs/). Other applica-
tions of agroecology are more recent, but just as important. These include the adoption of the field
by policy-oriented actors, as well as a wider use of agroecology within rural social movements and
farmer or peasant organizations.
The appearance of agroecology in international food and agricultural policy debates is not
new. However, until recently it was mostly used in the context of nongovernmental organizations
focusing on sustainable agriculture and rural development topics and more specifically those ori-
ented toward empowering small-scale farmers and resource-poor rural communities (e.g., Food
First).
The turning point for the inclusion of agroecology at higher policy circles probably came with the
publication of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology
for Development (IAASTD), and its recognition that the field represented a promising alternative
approach to resolve the interrelated global problems of hunger, rural poverty, and unsustainable devel-
opment (IAASTD 2009).* Subsequently, Oliver De Schutter, who was appointed as the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food between 2008 and 2014, continually advocated for the use
of an agroecological approach to confront global food insecurity and advance the right to food. De
Schutter did this through policy-oriented p­ resentations and lectures, publications geared for a broad

* The IAASTD is a high-profile report commissioned by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the World Health orga-
nization, which sought to direct research and development policy solutions to the issues of global hunger, poverty, and
sustainable agricultural development. It brought together hundreds of scientists and institutions from all regions of the
world over a seven-year period. It is considered by many as the agricultural equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel for
Climate Change (IPCC) reports. On the other hand, other scientists have expressed serious doubts about the rigor of the
report. Its findings remain somewhat controversial.
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