Evolution of Short Food Supply Chain Innovation Niches and Its Anchoring to the Socio-Technical Regime: The Case of Direct Selling through Collective Action in North-West Portugal

This paper employs MLP (Multi Level Perspective) applied to a study on the transition to SFSC (short food supply chain) innovation taking place in North-West Portugal. MLP allows capturing transition phenomena and analysing them from a perspective that posits intervening factors and events on a three-level scale. Emphasis is laid on the institutional actors and factors that influence these processes, namely the Three Interrelated Analytic Dimensions and Types of Anchoring. Methodologically, personal interviews were conducted with 34 farmers who either are carrying out SFSC initiatives, or have dropped out, or even have never considered participating in them. A process of anchoring the innovation to the local socio-technical regime has been identified, characterised by a low buy-in from institutions and stakeholders. The anchoring that has been found has the peculiarity of occurring only in some points of the intersection between niche and regime, in a process in which it survives bordering this threshold, thanks to the mobilisation of multiple innovations. This type of anchoring, not yet described in the literature, draws attention to a possible pathway that innovations can follow, and brings implications for projects and for policy proposals to support the agroecological transition.

Exploring complementarities between modelling approaches that enable upscaling from plant community functioning to ecosystem services as a way to support agroecological transition

Promoting plant diversity through crop mixtures is a mainstay of the agroecological transition. Modelling this transition requires considering both plant-plant interactions and plants’ interactions with abiotic and biotic environments. Modelling crop mixtures enables designing ways to use plant diversity to provide ecosystem services, as long as they include crop management as input. A single modelling approach is not sufficient, however, and complementarities between models may be critical to consider the multiple processes and system components involved at different and relevant spatial and temporal scales. In this article, we present different modelling solutions implemented in a variety of examples to upscale models from local interactions to ecosystem services. We highlight that modelling solutions (i.e. coupling, metamodelling, inverse or hybrid modelling) are built according to modelling objectives (e.g. understand the relative contributions of primary ecological processes to crop mixtures, quantify impacts of the environment and agricultural practices, assess the resulting ecosystem services) rather than to the scales of integration. Many outcomes of multispecies agroecosystems remain to be explored, both experimentally and through the heuristic use of modelling. Combining models to address plant diversity and predict ecosystem services at different scales remains rare but is critical to support the spatial and temporal prediction of the many systems that could be designed.

The Political Ecology of Hedgerows and Their Relationship to Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in the UK

Hedgerows can make an important contribution to agroecological transitions and to an overall contribution to multifunctional agro-ecosystems with multiple benefits for biodiversity, climate change mitigation, soil health, human health, well-being, and livelihoods. Where such agroecological transition assumes the form of political agroecology, this can underpin transformation of the farming system towards food sovereignty. Current mismanagement of hedgerows is constraining the optimum delivery of ecosystem services by these important features of the British landscape. This mismanagement is, moreover, an integral part of a (capitalist) productivist degradation of the countryside that is contributing to the delivery of ecosystem disservices and is, therefore, antithetical to the adoption of agroecological production practises. Being contrary to the requirements of political agroecology, it is similarly antithetical to the requirements of food sovereignty. In response, this paper outlines what appears to be required, in policy and political terms, for the adoption of an agroecological and food sovereignty framework enabling the sustainable management of hedgerows and maximising their potential for ecosystem services delivery.

Legume Breeding for the Agroecological Transition of Global Agri-Food Systems: A European Perspective

Wider and more profitable legume crop cultivation is an indispensable step for the agroecological transition of global agri-food systems but represents a challenge especially in Europe. Plant breeding is pivotal in this context. Research areas of key interest are represented by innovative phenotypic and genome-based selection procedures for crop yield, tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses enhanced by the changing climate, intercropping, and emerging crop quality traits. We see outmost priority in the exploration of genomic selection (GS) opportunities and limitations, to ease genetic gains and to limit the costs of multi-trait selection. Reducing the profitability gap of legumes relative to major cereals will not be possible in Europe without public funding devoted to crop improvement research, pre-breeding, and, in various circumstances, public breeding. While most of these activities may profit of significant public-private partnerships, all of them can provide substantial benefits to seed companies. A favorable institutional context may comprise some changes to variety registration tests and procedures.

Agroecological Transitions: A Systematic Review of Research Approaches and Prospects for Participatory Action Methods

There have been many calls for an agroecological transition to respond to food shocks and crises stemming from conventional food systems. Participatory action research and transformative epistemologies, where communities are research actors rather than objects, have been proposed as a way to enhance this transition. However, despite numerous case studies, there is presently no overview of how participatory approaches contribute to agroecological transitions. The present article therefore aims to understand the effect of applying participatory action research (PAR) in agroecology. We undertook a systematic review of articles reporting methods and results from case studies in agroecological research. On the one hand, our systematic review of 347 articles shows that the agroecological research scope is broad, with all three types—as science, a set of practices and social movement—well-represented in the corpus. However, we can see a clear focus on agroecology “as a set of practices” as the primary type of use of the concept. On the other hand, we found a few case studies (23) with a participatory approach while most studies used extractive research methods. These studies show that understanding the drivers and obstacles for achieving an agroecological transition requires long-term research and trust between researchers and farmers. Such transformative epistemologies open doors to new questions on designing long-term PAR research in agroecology when confronted with a short-term project-based society.

Toward a Feminist Agroecology

Agroecology is gaining ground as a movement, science, and set of practices designed to advance a food systems transformation which subverts the patterns of farmer exploitation currently entrenched in dominant agricultural models. In order for agroecology to achieve its espoused twin aims of social and ecological wellbeing, women and other historically marginalized stakeholders must be empowered and centered as the movement’s protagonists. The importance of gender and social considerations is not limited to patently social aspects of the agroecological agenda, but bears relevance in every dimension of agroecology. Yet, issues related to gender have commanded relatively little attention in the agroeocological literature. In this paper, we review HLPE’s 13 defining principles of agroecology through a feminist lens to demonstrate the ways in which human dimensions and power dynamics are interwoven in every principle. Through this analysis, we demonstrate that a feminist approach is instrumental to establish a socially just and ecologically sustainable agroecological transition.

Saberes tradicionales y transición agroecológica en la Mixteca Poblana

This article contains results of a broad research conducted in the rural community of Ayoxuxtla de Zapata in the Mixteca Baja Poblana. The main objective of the research is to locate, describe and analyze agroecological processes from the close relationship between knowledge, practices and beliefs; considering that local traditional knowl-edge (culture) is in connection with the practical (productive) implications and the development of a cosmos in the reproduction of beliefs. It starts from the hypothesis that traditional knowledge is part of the local identity and are fundamental elements of the agroecological transition. Biotic and cultural processes related to traditional agroecosystems such as tlacolol are described and analyzed. Through the theoretical approach of ethnoecology and by means of a coarse ethnography, an integral reading of knowledge, practices and beliefs was made, which is systematized and presented in a biocultural matrix. In a table on epistemic plots of both agricultural activities is pre-sented the comparison with agroindustrial production systems such as monoculture greenhouses found in the region.

Agricultural rewilding: a prospect for livestock systems

CONTEXT: Agricultural intensification is a major cause of biodiversity loss. Biodiversity conservation and restoration generally involve human intervention. In comparison, rewilding, a radically different approach to address the erosion of biodiversity, aims to increase the ability of ecological processes to act with little or no human intervention, and thus to enhance biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. OBJECTIVE: In this review and call to explore the potential of rewilding for agriculture, in particular for livestock systems, we identified effects of agroecological livestock systems on biodiversity and analysed similarities, differences and complementarities between the agroecological transition and the rewilding of livestock systems.METHODS: We researched literature in the Web of Science Core Collection that focussed on biodiversity, livestock, agriculture, rewilding and interactions among them.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Agricultural rewilding is an emerging form of land use that we conceptually position between agroecology and rewilding. It combines restoration of ecological processes with some degree of agricultural production, most often of animals. Over time, human land-use has aimed to increase plant and animal output, which has degraded the ecological integrity of ecosystems. This process of dewilding accelerated with the advent of agriculture. In recent decades, certain agricultural landscapes and farms have evolved in the opposite direction, decreasing material human inputs and improving ecological integrity. This evolution takes three forms: agroecological transition, agricultural rewilding and rewilding. Of these, the first and third concern relatively large areas. A selection of 11 agricultural rewilding projects established for at least 5 years in the United Kingdom had areas of 121-4402 ha. The projects targeted 48 key species/breeds, 23 of which were ecosystem engineers: 18 grazers, 4 pig breeds and beavers. The main actions to enhance rewilding were extensive grazing and habitat restoration. The main economic activities were meat or animal sales, tourism and education programmes. Agricultural rewilding may provide a multifunctional model to which livestock farms may transition to respond better to societal demands.SIGNIFICANCE: Agricultural rewilding offers a new and inspiring prospect for livestock systems and poses research questions about its relation to agroecology and rewilding, its implementation, its potential for plant production and its value for livestock farmers. The forms it can take remain to be explored, and the potential influence of these forms on biodiversity, ecosystem services and environmental impacts needs to be characterised. Exploring the forms that agricultural rewilding may take requires close collaboration among ecologists, animal scientists and agronomists.

Sustainably soil management in agroecological transition processes

La agricultura industrial en gran escala promueve una explotación intensiva del suelo que puede comprometer su sostenibilidad en el tiempo. Como respuesta, la Agroecología propone una serie de prácticas que devuelven al suelo su capacidad productiva. Esta investigación empleó un marco de análisis sobre sostenibilidad, para identificar indicadores que relacionen el estado y manejo del suelo con las dimensiones física, química y biológica. Fueron seleccionados nueve indicadores de sostenibilidad aplicados en veintitrés fincas con distintas trayectorias en el proceso de transición agroecológica localizadas en Subachoque, Cundinamarca, Colombia. Los sistemas productivos con cinco o más años en transición obtuvieron los valores máximos para ocho de los indicadores evaluados. Se evidencia cómo la agroecología genera cambios en la sostenibilidad del manejo del suelo, asegurando características edáficas apropiadas para mantener su capacidad productiva a través del tiempo