The University of Vermont is thrilled to announce that Colin Anderson, Co-Director of the UVM Institute for Agroecology and Associate Research Professor in the Department of Agriculture, Landscape and Environment will join the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Anderson will serve as part of the drafting team for an upcoming report on “Building Resilient Food Systems.”
Colin Anderson remarked, “I’m honored to contribute to this important global process. When we talk about resilience in food systems, it is vital to foreground the root causes that undermine equitable resilience. With a focus on structural change, addressing inequity and by centering the health of people and nature, we can illuminate the pathways towards just transformations in food systems.”
Anderson is one of only two US scientists invited to be on the panel and one of only five North Americans. Meeting this week in Rome, the HLPE is the UN body responsible for providing independent, evidence-based scientific analysis to inform global food security and nutrition policy. The panel’s reports play a pivotal role in shaping the agenda of the CFS, directly influencing global discussions on food security and sustainable agriculture. The upcoming “Building Resilient Food Systems” report will be central to the CFS’s program of work for 2024-2027, and is expected to guide policy development at both global and regional levels.
“We are excited and proud that Colin Anderson has been selected to contribute to this important international endeavor,” said V. Ernesto Mendéz, Executive Director of the Institute for Agroecology. “This invitation speaks to Colin’s exceptional scholarship, expertise, and leadership in agroecology, as well as the significant impact of the Institute’s work. We look forward to seeing the valuable contributions that Colin and the HLPE team will make toward advancing resilient food systems globally.”
The CFS’s inclusive and transparent process for developing HLPE reports ensures broad engagement with stakeholders, including civil society, indigenous peoples, and policymakers from around the world. Past HLPE reports, such as the 2019 flagship publication on “Agroecology and Other Innovative Approaches”, have been instrumental in advancing global discourse on agroecology and influencing policy frameworks aimed at building sustainable and resilient food systems.
UVM’s IfA has long been committed to advancing transformative agroecology through research, education, outreach, and policy work. As a leading voice in the global agroecology movement, the Institute’s mission aligns closely with the HLPE’s focus on fostering more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems worldwide. Anderson’s participation in the HLPE drafting team reinforces the IfA’s commitment to driving change in global food policy and advancing agroecology in key international debates.
Anderson expressed the value of his participation for the State of Vermont, “In the face of growing shocks and stressors from climate change, communities in Vermont and New England are looking for solutions to build equitable resilience. This report will be relevant and linked directly to our work in the region, for example to our Leahy funded work in the Northeast Kingdom where communities are organizing to build resilient food systems to withstand floods and other climate related risks.
From October 3 to October 9, dozens of local farmers, farmworkers, organizers and activists gathered in Greensboro Bend, Vermont, for the 2024 Short Course in People’s Agroecology, with participants from Rural Vermont, the National Family Farm Coalition, the Farmworkers Association of Florida (FWAF), the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) of Canada, Union Paysanne in Quebec, Organización Boricuá from Puerto Rico, and the Institute for Agroecology of the University of Vermont. This short course was based on the agroecological work brigade methodology that has been led by Boricuá and other organizations across the world. Learning by doing and learning through solidarity were two major pedagogical dimensions of the course.
The brigade gathered on the land of small farmers and agrarian leaders across Vermont, forming dialogue, often through opening and closing circles in which people shared their voices and developed their listening skills. Experienced practitioners spoke on themes including building and sustaining cooperatives; racial justice in Vermont and the US; mutual aid networks; challenging heteropatriarchy in farming communities; building courage and solidarity against colonialism, apartheid and genocide; integrating affordable housing into agroecological farms; harm reduction and healing from trauma; closing nutrient cycles in the food system; hen, goat, and earthworm raising; field preparation, post-harvest management; small business management; beginning carpentry; and scaling agroecology at the community level.
Preparing for garlic planting.
From marching on the picket lines of Migrant Justice in support of its demands for Hannaford to join the Milk with Dignity program, to joining Northeast Kingdom Organizing (NEKO) in packing a showing of the housing crisis documentary Just Getting By, the presence of the brigade was an important means of living into solidarity with the struggles for social justice in the state.
Participants learned about the housing and food crisis widely experienced by Vermont communities, struggles with land access for young farmers, and different frameworks for liberatory movements. They made art together, commemorating those killed in the Palestinian genocide and condemning the continued, direct US support of Israel through weapons, intelligence and logistics. Together, they rebuilt part of a sugar shack, planted hundreds of pounds of garlic, mucked out goat sheds, and harvested squash. They moved a lot of firewood, in true brigade formation, as the leaf colors stunned their eyes and the Northeast Kingdom received the first fall frosts. Some participants even witnessed the northern lights!
Stacking wood with a chain of participants. Many hands make light work.
With brigade visits to Wheelock Mountain Farm, Black Dirt Farm, Dawn Land Farm, Riverside Farm, Ezili’s Respite Farm and Sanctuary, Crystal Ledge Farm, Cedar Mountain Farm, and the Quechee Abenaki Gardens, there was both a tremendous generosity of time, wisdom and spirit on the part of farmers, and a new sense of movement-capacity to bring labor to concrete situations, highlighting solidarity as a real factor in small farm survival in the hostile political economy of a corporate, colonial food system.
It truly does take a village.
Wheelock Mountain Farm played the crucial role of providing shelter, kitchen, discussion space, library access, stoves and firewood, and a sense of home before, during, and after the entire Short Course.
Dawn Land Farm, Ubuntu Freedom, Black Dirt Farm and Riverside Farm offered educational content and teaching time. Riverside Farm, FUSDA, Bear Roots Farm, and Sweet Rowan Farm provided healthy and delicious food. Russell Maroon Shoatz III provided cooking expertise throughout the week. Sage Mountain offered a passenger van for transportation across the state. The Institute for Agroecology (IFA) provided logistical, programmatic and pedagogical support throughout. The member organizations of Via Campesina North America and Via Campesina Caribbean Region made a major effort to be present, even as a hurricane was bearing down on the US South and Caribbean geographies. And of course, many people who were not present gave their time to taking care of children, homes, organizations, families and farms so that those who were there could be present. A large part of building change from the grassroots is learning and understanding how many actors must come together, give the best of themselves, and feel good about a process.
tanamá varas teaches the brigade about garlic planting, and everyone gets to work!
The participants in the 2024 Short Course in People’s Agroecology learned with and from one another while deepening their relationships and connection through shared work, political analysis, and a vision for a better world. Together, they wrote a declaration following the time they spent together.
DECLARATION OF THE 2024 SHORT COURSE IN PEOPLE’S AGROECOLOGY:
This past week the People’s Agroecology School, a project of Rural Vermont, held the 2024 Short Course in People’s Agroecology – a place where people from Vermont, Florida, California, Quebec, Ontario, Bkwejenong, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and beyond congregated to discuss Agroecology and its political implications.
We visited and worked side by side with farmers from Barre, Groton, Greensboro Bend, Stannard, Bethel, Hartland, and Queechee, where we were able to hold spaces of hard work, play, reflection, and exchange of ideas.
Working together shoulder to shoulder, we realized that we all share similar struggles.
No matter where we come from, we are affected by the 800 military bases that the US has around the world, with their price tag and their impact on global peace, global resistance, and global warming. US-initiated wars since 2001 have caused the death of over four million human beings, and there have been 250 US military operations since 1992, causing untold suffering. The US military alone emits more CO2 than any other single entity on the planet.
The US commitment to war, domination of land and water resources, and profit margins for corporations, is suffocating our planet. Since January 2023, there have been 153 declarations of major disaster in the United States alone. Climate-driven disasters are on the rise at an astonishing rate across the world. The determination of the United States to prevent alternatives to the capitalist model takes place as the planet’s self-regulating mechanisms are being overwhelmed. Tax dollars kill!
Agroecology is so much more than farming; it’s about building community. We are all part of something much bigger than ourselves. This is why we cannot turn away from the fact that our brothers and sisters in Palestine need our support. As Rural Vermont clearly articulated in its Letter to the Editor to the Vermont weekly Seven Days on October 9, asking local organizations to show support for Palestine, we need to open our hearts and have honest conversations around this issue. The Israeli occupation must end, and US support for Israeli apartheid and genocide are unconscionable.
Agroecology connects us with community, in equality and solidarity, as well as with our surroundings and the land. When we take care of the living soil sponge, of our Earth Mother and our kind, together we can have bountiful crops, absorb atmospheric carbon and rainfall, and work towards decolonization of our minds and practices. The mindset of domination, elimination, and othering can be countered by a belief in ourselves, our diversity, and the fertility of our world. We need each other, just as we need the microbial communities in our bodies and in our soil. We need the vast variety of life and landscape, fields and friends, pollinators and people, to remember who we are and where we belong.
Vermont has experienced three hundred-year floods in 13 months, Florida has been hit by two major hurricanes in 13 days, and Puerto Rico has been impacted year after year with increasingly severe tropical storms. Droughts are longer, floods are more severe. All of our territories are being affected, and this is just the beginning of the terrible changes to our climate that colonialism and capitalism are unleashing. We choose agroecology as a means to keep being human and take care of our families and communities as our climates change.
Housing is a human right. Our food is our freedom. We are our environment. When we struggle for our own rights to access land, nourish each other without toxic chemicals, ban cancer-causing pesticides, practice natural and traditional medicine, speak from the heart, take care of our neighbors no matter where they were born or what languages they speak, demand that police end their reign of terror against black and brown communities, organize for the release of political prisoners, and put forward a platform for a just transition from the extractive, fossil fuel economy to a regenerative, loving and restorative model, we grow in humanity, health, and responsibility. Vermonters, please support your local farmers and join groups supporting mutual aid networks and working towards our collective wellbeing.
Members of the People’s Agroecology School of Vermont will be facilitating a workshop at the October 19 Conference for the Struggle for Land and Liberation, hosted by the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation, from 10am to 7pm at the Old North End Community Center in Burlington. The workshop will be focused on land struggles, food sovereignty, movement building, and solidarity from farmers’ perspectives. Other workshops will be led by groups in Vermont working in prison abolition, migrant justice, LGBTQIA+ liberation, and more. Everyone should leave this conference with at least three concrete actions they can take to materially impact the situation in Palestine. Each group leading workshops will make clear how the struggle for Palestinian liberation is relevant to the people who organize with them – nothing is relevant if you do not take action.
The 2024 Short Course in People’s Agroecology reminded us of a phrase of Rachel Carson– the sense of wonder. After these days of collective labor, deep conversation, and community caretaking, we stand in awe of all of you, the forests, and of ourselves, as we carry so much history in our hearts and responsibility in our hands. We can support each other to build a new way forward, with food sovereignty, agroecology, land to tend, and love in our eyes. Being together on this Earth is enough reason to celebrate, cooperate, commemorate, and fight like hell for an end to war, occupation, abuse and exploitation. Vermont, may you sing a rebel song!
The crew gathers for a photo after a day of building community and supporting one another.
Among the bucolic hills of Knoll Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont, 45 researchers, organizers, policymakers, and civil society actors gathered for a workshop in pursuit of building a just and sustainable food system, work that is more critical than ever.
Organized by the UVM Institute for Agroecology, Food Solutions New England, and Agroecological Transitions for Territorial Food Systems (ATTER)the insightful workshop, “Weaving Just and Sustainable Food Futures: Regional Approaches and Strategies,” was held on July 15 and 16. The focus centered on governance, power, and equity in regional food systems and leveraged participants’ experiences, case studies, and knowledge to explore transformative concepts such as the Right to Food, Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, and a Just Transitions.
Workshop participants gathered in front of the historic barn at Knoll Farm. The Knoll Farm Barn was salvaged, taken down, moved piece by piece by oxen and resurrected on its current location in 1923 by the McLaughlin family.
“Regional approaches to organizing food systems have received a lot of attention and we are interested in centering these concepts and their focus on holistic approaches to systems change, human rights, equity,” says Colin Anderson, associate director of the Institute of Agroecology at University of Vermont.“In this way, we can address the root problems that are undermining sustainability and justice in the food system and work towards the social and political transformation needed to foster just and sustainable food systems”.
Specifically, theworkshop delved into regional governance across all of its discussions, emphasizing multi-actor and cross-sector coordination. As discussed, thisapproach leads to new institutional arrangements, visions, policy changes, and markets while fostering democracy, justice, innovation, and strengthening civil society. A particular focus was placed on understanding issues of governance, power, and equity in the regionthrough novel research approaches that can be leveraged by on-the-ground actors to effect change.
While New England was the focal region, the workshop included case studies, perspectives, and participants from other geographies. Several case studies from the International ATTER Project, which explores efforts to scale up agroecological transitions in European, American, and Brazilian territorial food systems, were discussed.
Left: Fran Miller, senior staff attorney and adjunct faculty member at the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS) at Vermont Law School (VLS), speaks with Katie Horner (center), Postdoctoral Associate at the UVM Institute for Agroecology. Right: Emilie Inoue, Plant Health Section Chief with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture (right), picks organic blueberries at Knoll Farm with Theresa Ong, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College.
Over the two days, participants focused on Co-learning, Connecting, and Collaborating. They deepenedtheir understanding of transformative approaches to regional food systems with one another; built and strengthened their relationships across the region and the country, including dialogue, food, outdoor activities, and field visits; and explored opportunities for new partnerships, projects, publications, and lines of work.
For example, we will be holding an online seminar on regional food systems where Claire Lamine and Karine Nunes will be presenting about work on territorial food systems and agroecology in France and Brazil (sign up for our newsletter to receive notices about this event and others like it).
Left: Graham Unangst-Rufenacht, policy director for Rural Vermont (left), speaks with Amber Tamm, head florist at the Catamount Farm, and tanamá varas, Catamount Farm Manager and FTP Lead Instructor. Right: Participants meet in the barn at Knoll Farm for a breakout session. (Left to right: Ulum Pixan Athoil Suk’il, Education Director at NOFA/Mass (Northeast Organic Farming Association); Karen Spiller, Thomas W. Haas Professor in Sustainable Food Systems and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Social Work Department at University of New Hampshire, Durham; Karine Nunes, PhD candidate in sociology at the School of High Studies on Social Sciences in France; Karen Nordstrom, Policy Program Co-Director, Food Solutions New England; and Anni Bellows, Professor of Food Studies and Graduate Program Director at Syracuse University.
Organizing Committee and Support
The workshop was organized by Colin Anderson, UVM Institute for Agroecology, Molly Anderson, Middlebury College, Karine Nunes, INRAE and Montsd’Ardèche Regional Natural Park (France), Karen Nordstrom, Food Solutions New England at the University of New Hampshire Sustainability Institute, and Claire Lamine, INRAE (France).
Members of IfA recently presented at a political ecology conference in Lund, Sweden, adding an agroecological perspective to the rich discussions and debates of the event and holding up our own ideas to a political ecological lens. Attending conferences like these allows us to engage with and build understanding among like-minded disciplines.
POLLEN (Political Ecology Network) is a global network of researchers, groups, projects, and networks, organized around geographical ‘nodes’. The network uses conferences as a point of encounter between diverse traditions and to advance political ecology research and social movements.
Read on for a quick recap of the inspiring presentations and discussions from the conference and the thematic areas in which these fields mutually reinforce one another.
Left: This year, the POLLEN was held at Lund University, one of the oldest public universities in Northern Europe. Center:The IfA team enjoying some delicious Danish smørrebrød (open faced sandwiches) at a market in Copenhagen before the conference began. Right:Andrew giving a talk on financing transformative work in Agroecology.
Presentations
🎤 Janica’s Presentation: Janica explored how agroecology and food sovereignty (FS) offer transformative solutions to environmental and socio-economic crises in our food systems. She emphasized the importance of understanding farmers’ definitions of FS in different contexts, highlighting a case study from smallholder coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Through focus groups and surveys, these farmers defined their FS and contrasted it with their actual food production and consumption practices, demonstrating principles of epistemic justice.
🎤 Andrew’s Presentation: Andrew briefly described research exploring practitioner ideas of how donor support for agroecological transformations would need to look qualitatively different from the conventional mechanisms of resourcing agricultural and rural development. This research draws heavily on recent efforts to address the relatively meager investments in agroecology on the global stage despite its popularity in the rhetoric of international institutions. And it’s informed by the experience and insights of donors and grantees on how grant-making protocols can incorporate decolonial principles of justice and plurality.
🎤 Roundtable with Janica, Martha, Katie, and Michelle: The roundtable delved into how political ecology can deepen the impact of agroecology across four dimensions: soil health, agroforestry, agricultural diversification, and education. They discussed coalition building, integrating diverse types of knowledge, and tackling tensions in research. Central themes included epistemic justice, pluralism, social-ecological sufficiency, redistribution of natural resources, and the role of mental models in identifying complementary approaches to radical systems change.
Left: Lund cathedral.Right: Andrew, Janica, and Katie waiting for a bus in Lund (public transportation is great!).
Key Themes
We identified some key themes connecting Political Ecology and Agroecology:
Food Sovereignty: Empowering communities to define their food systems and ensuring sustainable and culturally appropriate food production. Through dialogues and encounters at the conference, diverse global perspectives on food sovereignty were shared, enriching collective understanding and practice.
Right to Food: Advocating for the fundamental human right to access nutritious food. Engaging with critical social scientists deepened our understanding of the connections between food rights and broader social justice issues.
Justice: Promoting social, economic, and environmental justice within food systems. The conference facilitated transdisciplinary dialogues that bridged the gaps between academia, activism, and art, advancing collective commitments to justice.
Pluriverse: Recognizing and respecting diverse ways of knowing and being in agroecological practices. POLLEN 2024 provided a platform for pluralizing knowledge, challenging dominant paradigms, and fostering intercultural and transnational solidarities.
Decoloniality: Challenging and dismantling colonial legacies in agricultural systems and funding models. The conference provided space to unpack entangled inequalities and explore non-dominant epistemologies, moving towards decolonial futures based on mutualism and cooperation.
Our lasting impression? We’re more excited than before to continue to dialogue with political ecology across the geographies and societal boundaries in which agroecology is taking hold. We’re also grateful for the ways in which this encounter deepens the IfA’s capacity to promote transdisciplinarity, plurality and critical perspectives through its research and education.
After leaving the conference in Lund, the team took some time to visit Finland and the stomping grounds of our dear colleague Janica and to lend a brief hand on the farm that has been in her family for many generations. More on that to come in our next post.
Left: Exploring Lund.Right: One of the many interesting sessions at the conference.
Left: Janica and Diana (from Stockholm Resilience Center) sharing insights from their work with Mexican coffee farmers. Right: Michelle, Janica, Martha, and Katie before their roundtable discussion.
The University of Vermont’s Institute of Agroecology (IfA) is excited to announce the recipients of a new, small grant program: Community-Engaged Research in Agroecology and Food Systems. With funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research, these grants will support a cohort of UVM faculty undertaking community-engaged research projects related to agroecology and sustainable food systems.
“These projects bring UVM faculty and students together from different colleges across campus with community partners in meaningful and impactful action research projects,” Colin Anderson, the IfA’s Associate Director, said. “We are excited to engage with all project partners in this year-long learning cohort. By meeting together throughout the year to share experiences and to learn together, we will deepen our understanding of agroecology and our practice of community-engaged participatory research.”
Beyond the awarded funding, this grant program will offer months-long engagement, bringing together faculty and co-investigators into a shared space of co-learning and reflection. The cohort’s first meeting took place on Friday, May 24 to share research experiences, practice active listening, and discuss the pillars of agroecology. Representatives from all six projects joined the first meeting; their projects include evaluating ecosystem health through citizen science, exploring agroecological practices in traditional working landscapes, linking conservation efforts and food security through agroecology, participatory pre-breeding of culturally significant crops, examining community health and Black agrarian agroecology, and a pilot project with trans, queer, and BIPOC farmers through the UVM Food Justice Lab. These smaller grants are pivotal in enabling innovative research that connects academic inquiry with real-world applications, fostering sustainable practices and enhancing food security across various communities.
Left: Anaka Aiyar, Quinn DiFalco, M. Salim Uddin, and Josh Farley participate in the discussion. Center: Harvest at New Farms for New Americans, Burlington, VT, photo courtesy of Quinn DiFalco. Right: Katie Horner, Krizzia Soto-Villanueva, Andy Kolovos, and Teresa Mares listen while Michelle Nikfarjam summarizes her segment of research for the “Histories and continuities of working landscapes and livelihoods in New England: Agroecological case studies of agroforestry, fiber farming, and hunting” project.
Project Summaries
Building a Baseline: Evaluating Ecosystem Health at NFNA through Citizen Science
This grant — led by co-principle investigators Quinn DiFalco (CALS) and Joshua Farley (CDAE) — will address a number of concerns with the New Farms for New Americans (NFNA) program, in which intergenerational families, the majority of whom are resettled refugees, grow crops each year at the Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington, Vermont. While the NFNA is successful, several aspects of the program will be addressed, including conservation and soil management, reduced till land access, climate-smart education, and perennial agriculture. While DiFalco’s and Farley’s project will directly benefit the NFNA — with resilient farming and training opportunities — there will also be an effort to analyze and assess the ecological health of the floodplain.
Histories and continuities of working landscapes and livelihoods in New England: Agroecological case studies of agroforestry, fiber farming, and hunting
How does agroecology help us to bettered understand the histories and continuities in agroforestry, fiber farming, and hunting in the Northeast? Teresa Mares (CAS) aims to find out with their project. Understanding that while the Northeast food system is a mosaic of traditional, technological, and emerging practices for sustaining livelihoods, it’s also grappling with significant ecological, economic, and sociopolitical changes impacting the relationships between people, place, and our animal and plant relations. Mares’ lab plans to trace these impacts across three case studies: subsistence hunting, agroforestry, and fiber farming.
No Monkey Business – Linking Conservation of Gibbons, Agroecological practices, and Food Security among tribal communities living in a bio-diversity hotspot in India
While most of the projects awarded from this grant are focused on agroecology practices in the Northeast, Anaka Aiyar (CALS) and co-principal investigator Divya Vasudev (Conservation Initiatives) strive to develop a framework to understand and strengthen the linkages between agri-food systems, the health of gibbon populations (an Apex biodiversity species), and food security concerns of the forest-dwelling community living in a biodiversity hotspot in a resource-constrained context in the hilly and densely forested north-east of India. Ultimate, Aiyar and their partners want to understand the challenges of agroecological practices, conservation, and socio-economic considerations for local communities and develop a framework where goals for sustainable agrifood systems can be coupled with social–ecological systems and conservation.
Participatory pre-breeding of culturally significant crops, Sorghum and Mungbean
In the global south, participatory plant breeding (PPB) has historically been prioritized and pursued. Daniel Tobin (CDAE) and co-principal investigator Jasmine Hart (CALS) propose to examine the “intermediate zones,” areas with fewer agroclimatic stressors but barriers to end user adoption of improved plant varieties. By collaborating with the BIPOC-led organization, Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, Tobin, Hart, and their partners will address the lack of literature prioritizing PPB with a culturally meaningful perspective for the diaspora of many cultures found in the US.
Relationship between Black Agrarian Agroecology and Community Health Outcomes: A Place Based Pilot Study Among African American Women
Using a holistic approach with both quantitative and qualitative data, Teresa Leslie (CALS) plans to explore the perceived health outcomes of the African diaspora. Specifically focusing on African American women in the Boston region, Leslie will utilize a community engagement framework to compile deep and embedded insights into perceptions of health and well-being, understanding and experiences with agroecology, and the perceptions and beliefs around the influence of agroecology on food systems and health. Ultimately, Leslie anticipates these insights can inform and establish culturally appropriate health hubs within urban agricultural spaces.
Three UVM Food Justice Lab pilot projects with trans and queer farmers and farmers of color in New England
Agroecology programs at universities in the United States are increasingly focusing on the social side of agroecology, often framed as “food sovereignty” and studied with community or participatory action research. However, many of those universities have yet to integrate and institutionalize these frameworks to their potential. The IfA’s own mission emphasizes this participatory action research method to advance just transformations in food systems. Working within that framework, and understanding that food justice scholarship must be grounded in community practice, Ike Leslie (CALS, UVM Extension) will use this award funding to develop three pilot projects with trans and queer farmers and farmers of color in New England, ultimately establish long-term relationships and support UVM-community collaborations centered on applied food justice, agroecology research, teaching, and practice.
Burlington, VT – In an article published today in Nature Food, a team of international experts delves into the urgent need for democratizing knowledge to revolutionize global food systems. Titled “Knowledge Democratization Approaches for Food Systems Transformation,” the article emphasizes the necessity of incorporating traditional, Indigenous, and place-based knowledges into decision-making processes to address blind spots in current food system policies and actions.
Burlington, VT – In an article published today in Nature Food, a team of international experts delves into the urgent need for democratizing knowledge to revolutionize global food systems. Titled “Knowledge Democratization Approaches for Food Systems Transformation,” the article emphasizes the necessity of incorporating traditional, Indigenous, and place-based knowledges into decision-making processes to address blind spots in current food system policies and actions. A consortium of experts from diverse backgrounds, including V. Ernesto Méndez and Colin R. Anderson, professors at the University of Vermont and co-directors of the UVM Institute for Agroecology (IfA), shed light on the critical role of democratizing knowledge in transforming global food systems.
Méndez emphasizes the human significance of this research, “Until now we have privileged western scientific knowledge, and this article urgently calls for us to include different types of knowledge and to recognize the people who have developed it.”
The article advocates for a shift towards participatory and transdisciplinary approaches that integrate a wide array of knowledge systems, including those of Indigenous, scientific, and traditional understandings. By embracing this diversity of practices, researchers can generate contextually relevant solutions and foster more inclusive and equitable food systems. The authors also suggest that this is of primary importance when developing policy that impacts food systems.
Led by Samara Brock from Yale University, the article is an outcome of an international process convened by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food on the Politics of Knowledge that brought together food systems leaders to strategize on advancing research and evidence for agroecology. Drawing from case studies worldwide, the authors highlight innovative approaches that involve local actors in knowledge production and exchange. Examples include farmer-managed natural regeneration in sub-Saharan Africa, the 1,000 Farms initiative in the USA, and the Hua Parakore system in Aotearoa New Zealand. They also provide examples of policy groups who are using this co-creator model to improve outcomes and increase adoption of innovative approaches.
Despite the breadth of disciplines of the authors Méndez points to the cohesive perspective of the paper’s contributors, “It is key to note the diversity of sectors represented in the authorship- we have scientists, practitioners, staff from non-profit organizations and philanthropists- all making an urgent call for us to democratize our knowledge base as the foundation to attain an equitable and sustainable food system transformation.”
The principles outlined in the article emphasize the importance of epistemic justice, intercultural co-creation, and knowledge mutualism and exchange in democratizing knowledge-policy processes. These principles, the authors argue, are essential for addressing biases and empowering marginalized communities in shaping food system transformations.
Members of a farmer research network use mobile phone photos to monitor and report potato pests and diseases in Cotopaxi, Ecuador as part of the McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program. Photo credit: Israel Navarret.
The Farmer Research Team members of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities program run a bokashi fertilizer training, Malawi, Fall 2020.
Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) is studying the true costs and benefits of natural farming against other counterfactual farming methods by measuring all major economic, social, and health impacts.
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About Nature Food:
Nature Food is a monthly online journal publishing top-tier original research, reviews, comments and opinions on the theme of food, crossing the disciplines of food-related research in the natural, applied and social sciences. With a comprehensive scope, Nature Food provides researchers and policy-makers with a breadth of evidence and expert narratives on optimizing and securing food systems for the future.
About the Authors:
The study was led by Samara Brock at Yale and the authors of the article represent a diverse group of experts from academia, research institutions, and civil society organizations worldwide. Their collective expertise spans fields such as agroecology, Indigenous knowledge systems, participatory research, and food sovereignty.
Samara Brock, Lauren Baker, Amanda Jekums, Faris Ahmed, Margarita Fernandez, Maywa Montenegro de Wit, Francisco J. Rosado-May, V. Ernesto Méndez, Colin R. Anderson, Fabrice DeClerck, Molly D. Anderson, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Brendan Hoare, Hannah Wittman, Amaury Peeters , Peter Gubbels, Cerasela Stancu, Stéphane Bellon , Jonathan G. Lundgren, Swati, Vijay Thallam, Jane Maland Cady, Paul Rogé
About the UVM Authors:
V. Ernesto Mendez is Professor of Agroecology in the department of Agriculture, Landscape and Environment and co-director of the Institute for Agroecology (IfA) at the University of Vermont. His research and teaching focus on agroecology, agrifood systems, smallholder coffee systems, participatory action research (PAR), and transdisciplinary research approaches. He also serves as vice-president of the board of directors of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA).
Colin Anderson is an Associate Research Professor in the department of Agriculture, Landscape and Environment at UVM, and the Associate Director of the IfA. His work focuses on community- and people-led processes of transformation for resilience, social justice and well-being. Colin is committed to engaged and participatory research, learning and action in his methodology and pedagogy. This is anchored by a commitment to knowledge mobilization, which involves a political and social process of co-producing and deploying knowledge.
About the IFA at UVM:
The UVM Institute for Agroecology (IfA) is seeding more equitable and sustainable food systems. IfA uses a systems approach that addresses the root causes of problems in the food system. We seek to center equity, participation, and social transformation in our research, learning, and action programs across diverse geographies.
For media inquiries or further information, please contact:
Reid Parsons, Reid.parsons@uvm.edu
Ren Dillon, Director of Strategic Communication, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Ren.Dillon@uvm.edu, 802-793-2209
🚨Click here to read a new commentary by IfA members, Ayana Curran-Howes and Nils McCune for the AgroecologyNow! platform that pushes agroecology to engage with the labor movement, asking the following questions, on this very relevant day:
🐜 What do we mean by work, anyway? The strange separation between “productive” and “reproductive” work, the evolution of exploitation in capitalism, the “humanism” that negates the labor and energy of non-human life forms are all prodded to reconceptualize what we mean by work.
✨ Agroecology’s forgotten origins in the labor movement and more specifically in the farmworker movement’s response to industrial agriculture and pesticide poisonings.
❤️🔥 Who’s work matters? We return to our understanding of what work is and why we need an agroecology of care in order to address the interconnected needs of an expanded group of workers: microbiota, women, farm workers, and farm animals.”
Hardwick Community Garden shared potato bed harvest 2022.
In September 2022 community gardens gathered at Atkins Field for a unique potato harvest. This was part of a pilot program to collectively grow a crop using a no till approach. Participants who helped plant, water, weed, and/or patrol for bugs were able to bring them home. They even had enough to send some surplus to the Hardwick Area Food Pantry. The team harvested 225lbs of edible potatoes, weighed after composting the ones that animals got to first! They grew a number of different varieties including the classic white flesh types, a variety of red skins, purple potatoes, and some fingerlings. Photos by Hayley Williams, featuring the bounty of potatoes, and community gardeners Bethany, Bob, Judith, and Katherine!
We are excited to announce that we have been awarded a Seed Grant from the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships on Agroecology and Just Transitions research in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom (NEK). This grant will support a cooperative project between the UVM Institute for Agroecology, Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE), Northeast Kingdom Organizing (NEKO) and Rural Vermont, with the goal of seeding an ongoing program of collaborative research, action and learning.
This initiative will engage with local communities to analyze regional food systems using PAR (participatory action research). In addition to promoting community engagement and collaboration, the project will support a program of community engagement around flagship programs of the CAE (Yellow Barn, Atkins Field and Farm Connex) and NEKO (the Barton Hub).
The NEK, like many rural areas, faces complex issues exacerbated by recent global events, underlining the urgency for innovative, community-led solutions. The goals of the project are to work together to increase the visibility of current food systems work in the area, develop a Food Systems Scorecard to identify critical factors in thriving food systems, and provide in-depth analysis to inform future strategy for regional organizations.
This project is linked to the UVM Institute for Agroecology’s ongoing work to support agroecology transitions in communities around the world through research, learning and action. In this context, we are eager to connect the local with the global, for example through our participation in the international ATTER project – a global network of partners working on territorial food systems and agroecology. We anticipate that the learnings and innovations from the NEK can offer provocative and relevant insights for related efforts in other geographies and, conversely, that our work in Vermont will draw inspiration and learnings from related initiatives elsewhere.
Stills from filming Farm Connex in 2022. By Elizabeth Rossano.
Images include photos of: Michael Bellizzi (tan coat) Don Maynard, Neal Renaud (black vest and shorts), Robert Duggan (bob)
Stills from filming Farm Connex in 2022. By Elizabeth Rossano.
Images include photos of: Michael Bellizzi (tan coat) Don Maynard, Neal Renaud (black vest and shorts), Robert Duggan (bob)
Northeast Kingdom Organizing
Northeast Kingdom Organizing
Northeast Kingdom Organizing
Students from Reach! Hardwick work with Emily Cayer of the Northeast Grainshed Alliance to learn about local wheat, and plant a grain patch at Atkins Field. The SQFT Garden - Atkins Field 2022 1x 16SQFT Loaf of Bread and 4x 4SQFT Muffins were planted.
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Leahy Institute for Rural Partnership Grant Program
Last week, the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships announced the funding of grants totaling over $1.7 million to more than a dozen deserving projects around the state. Vermont organizations representing a broad spectrum of diverse interests including community school building, clean energy, flood resilience, regenerative agriculture and health care access will be lifted by the first round of grant funding.
Our project will be one of thirteen partnerships funded across the state of Vermont that will be addressing a broad suite of rural challenges.
“Grant funding through the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships is a shining new example of the potential for innovation in UVM’s land-grant mission of service to Vermont,” said UVM President Suresh Garimella. “These grants will connect our faculty experts and students to groups with ideas for transformative projects that will make a direct impact for communities throughout Vermont. These collaborations deepen and reinforce the bond between the success of our state and the success of our university.”
Under terms of the grants, UVM faculty experts and students will work with partner organizations through student internships and service-learning experiences. Tricia Coates, Director of the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships believes collaboration between local stakeholders and the university will result in lasting relationships that will build long-term capacity.
“We had an extraordinary response when we announced this grant program late last year,” said Coates. “With the help of our Institute board of advisors we selected 13 projects we believe will move the needle on some key challenges facing our communities.”
We are eager to work with the Leahy Institute for Rural Partnerships as a part of this wider effort to strengthen our Vermont communities.
Exploring Sustainable Agriculture:
The AX Summer Research Fellowship at UVM
Are you passionate about sustainable agriculture and eager to dive into hands-on research? Look no further than the Agroecology Extension (AX) Summer Research Fellowship at the University of Vermont. This fully-paid, 10-week fellowship offers undergraduates from across the United States the opportunity to immerse themselves in the vibrant world of agroecology in the heart of Vermont.
The AX Fellowship is a collaborative initiative between UVM Extension and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, spearheaded by the Institute for Agroecology situated on UVM’s main campus in Burlington, VT. The fellowship pairs students with mentors involved in diverse applied research and outreach projects, ranging from pest management to ecological landscape design. With UVM providing the projects, mentorship, and research sites, participants bring their enthusiasm and willingness to engage under the warm Vermont summer sun.
Program Goals
The AX Summer Research Fellowship is designed to achieve several key objectives:
Transdisciplinary Learning
Participants gain hands-on experience and develop adaptable research, leadership, and outreach skills by engaging with real-world agricultural challenges.
Career Preparation
The fellowship prepares students for careers and further education in agroecology and extension, equipping them with the tools and knowledge needed to thrive in these fields.
Faculty Collaboration
Fellows are matched with UVM faculty and staff, offering them the opportunity to work within Vermont’s multifaceted agricultural landscape and contribute to new and ongoing Extension outreach projects.
Community Engagement
The program is committed to addressing issues of power and privilege in agroecology and extension. Through collaboration with a diverse network of stakeholders, including researchers, farmers, and organizational leaders, participants explore complex contemporary issues through the lens of agroecology.
POWER AND PRIVILEGE
While we are a largely white-led program in a predominantly white state, we work diligently to address topics of power and privilege in agroecology and extension. To do this, we collaborate with a broad and diverse network of researchers, farmers, organizational leaders, and academics. We invite them into the program to address complex contemporary issues through the lens of agroecology. In partnering with UVM Center for Cultural Pluralism, UVM Identity Centers and the Living Well Program, we further facilitate students’ connections with campus resources focused on wellbeing and belonging.
Join Us!
The AX Summer Research Fellowship offers a unique opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of sustainable agricultural practices, develop valuable skills, and engage with extension work in Vermont. Whether you’re interested in environmental science, sustainable cropping systems, or ecological landscape design, there’s something for everyone in this dynamic program.
Ready to take the next step in your academic and professional journey? Apply now and be part of a transformative summer experience with the AX Fellowship at UVM.
Final Call for Proposals - Institute for Agroecology Small Grants (2024)
The UVM Institute for Agroecology is now accepting grant applications for the 2024 calendar year. Five grants, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, will be awarded to community-engaged research projects led by UVM faculty. Projects must be related to agroecology and sustainable food systems, and funds must be used before December 31, 2024. Full information here.
New Deadline: We have extended the application deadline to 11:59pm Tuesday March 5th 2024, providing applicants with additional time to refine their proposals and ensure their alignment with the program’s objectives.
New Option for Application
Community Partner Option: Recognizing the invaluable role of community partnerships in advancing agroecological research, we’re introducing a new option for signaling community support. As part of your application, you will now have the choice to include either a community partner letter of support, or a list with the name(s) and contact information for your community partner(s). If you opt for the second option and are a finalist, we will contact your partner(s) for a brief conversation.
Grant Details
Grant Objective: Community-Engaged Research in Agroecology and Food Systems, a small grants program, will support a cohort of UVM faculty undertaking community-engaged research projects related to agroecology and sustainable food systems.
Financial Details: Five grants, ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, will be awarded to projects demonstrating strong collaboration with community partners and a commitment to addressing systemic inequities in food production and distribution. Funds are made available from the UVM Office of the Vice President for Research.
Timeline: The deadline for application is March 15, 2024. Recipients will be notified of awards by March 30, 2024. The timeline to spend grant funds is calendar year 2024 (by December 31, 2024).
Eligibility: The principal investigator (PI) must be a UVM faculty member. Co-principal investigators and collaborators can include other faculty, staff and graduate students. An individual can only serve as PI for one active small grant award.
Further Information and Application
For complete grant details and application, please visit this site or click the button below.
The University of Vermont’s new Institute for Agroecology (IfA) held its flagship summit, Seeding Transformation, a global forum on food systems and agroecology last week to mark the launch of its global programs. Hundreds of people convened at the Davis Center, while others around the globe watched by live-stream, exploring agroecology’s potential as a transformative solution to regenerate the environment, cool the planet, and provide good, healthy food for all.
With diverse panels made up of academic, social movement and farmer voices from Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe, the conversation ranged from the need for paradigm shifts to grounded proposals for expanding the practice and use of agroecology in the US and worldwide.
“We’re trying to center the University of Vermont as an impact-driven institution, and agroecology is an amazing fit with what already is happening at UVM,” Vice President for Research and Economic Development Kirk Dombrowski said in his opening remarks to the summit. “Vermont is a different kind of place and UVM is a different kind of university. Food systems are absolutely at the center.”
Anna Lappé, Executive Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and national bestselling author and advocate for food justice and sustainability, delivered the summit’s opening keynote, laying out the risks from mainstream high-input, fossil-fuel dependence and unequal food system, while articulating possibilities for positive, impactful change.
“I’m aware that all of us, no matter where are, gather with the specter of the climate crisis all around us,” Lappé said. “I read headlines about the heartbreak[ing floods] in Libya but also here in Burlington, I listened to your farmers at Intervale Community Farm talk about what is was like in July to be harvesting food in the morning and then, several hours later, kayaking across completely flooded farm fields where everything was lost.”
Anna Lappé delivered the keynote at Seeding Transfmorations, speaking about the possibility of combating climate change with regenerative food systems. (Photo by Joshua Defibaugh)
Lappé continued: “But if this time should teach us anything, it’s that we have no idea what’s going to happen next and from that comes a deep and profound sense of possibility and I certainly feel that today, standing here at such a special occasion, the launch of this incredible new Institute for Agroecology at a public, land-grant university in the United States of America.”
Speakers and panelists ranged from leaders here at UVM, farming collective organizers, academics, and educators in the field of agroecology. The first panel, “Big Ideas and Big Breakthroughs Driving Just Transitions in Food Systems,” moderated by Martha Caswell, the IfA’s Associate Director of Community and Learning, featured Blain Snipstal of the Black Dirt Farm Collective, who spoke about “afroecology,”
“Afroecology is the form of art, movement, practice and process of social and ecological transformation that involves the re-evaluation of our sacred relationships with land, water, air, seeds and food,” Snipstal said. “So much of the black experience in the U.S., the agrarian experience, is grounded in the legacies of farmers who are still tilling the land. Part of our process is to rediscover their seeds, their knowledge, their understandings and put them into an organizing process that can galvanize the next generation of producers and organizations working within our context.”
Batamaka Somé, an anthropologist from west Africa and Regional Leader in the McKnight Foundation’s Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, traveled from his home in Burkina Faso to attend Seeding Transformations to strengthen his connection to the IFAs global network and to deepen his understanding of agroecology as a transformative pathway to a more just and sustainable food system.
“I’m a social scientist and there are things that I was sure I knew but I was challenged, I questioned myself on issues and I think it was a good opportunity to improve and cultivate my knowledge,” Somé said. He also commended the IfA and the summit for hosting a global audience.
“We live in a world where intolerance is much more seen and we tend to forget it’s the loudest voices from the few that we can hear, but there are the silent voices of the many,” Somé continued. “What has been done here addresses that reality. People have come from all over the world. It’s impressive to see people sharing not just their practices, but also the theories and people from different disciplines seeing how they can get together to advance and solve the issues not just of agriculture but food systems. It’s amazing.”
The IfA hosted the 50 international collaborators for a 3-day planning retreat. (Photos by the participants)
Following the global forum, the IFA team hosted the 50 international collaborators for a 3-day planning retreat to develop joint research, learning and action. The conversations and planning that ensued will inform the IfA’s global programs which are supported by the McKnight Foundation and the 11th Hour Project, among others. Some of the ideas, programs and projects that were discussed and advanced at the retreat included:
Supporting agroecology schools in grassroots farmer organizations around the world, including in Vermont.
Building a transatlantic partnership with like-minded institutions to cultivate the next generation of research leaders for agroecology and to develop a global network of educational programs supporting agroecological transformations.
Influencing policy processes for biodiversity conservation at international (COP15) and national levels.
Amplifying the focus on youth, women and feminism in agroecology
Strengthening Agroecology in Latin America through building networks.
Mobilizing evidence for agroecology for change in policy, practice and to shift narratives that undermine agroecology
Centering land access and campaigns to support community-based farming and learning centers
Working to change the mechanisms for agricultural and development funding so that they are better designed to support agroecological transformations.
Stay tuned for more to come by watching the IFA website and social media channels.
Update from the field: Soil analysis in the coffee plots
Between March and June this year, as part of our soil health project in smallholder coffee plots in Guatemala and Mexico, our team returned to the farms to collect soil samples and some additional data. As in the first visits, we focused on the same two sites within each plot: those that farmer-participants considered most fertile and least fertile. In total, we visited 60 plots in Mexico and Guatemala, collecting 120 soil samples in total. From there, we’ve moved on to analysis, including several analytical methods that we’ve conducted within the cooperative offices. A new post in the blog we’ve created to follow this process details what we’ve been up to over the last few months and a bit more on why we’re doing it.
Transitions toward just and sustainable food systems are complex processes involving evolving relationships between communities of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria, as well as conscious action by growing numbers of people with shared values. At the Institute for Agroecology (IFA), we focus on transformative learning as the fundamental component of building movements and co-creating understandings that can lead to positive change in agroecosystems, communities, territories and institutions.
Over the past two months the Institute’s Agroecology Support Team facilitated an online International Course on Agroecological Transitions with the participation of adult professional students from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
The six-week course, entitled Agroecology for Life: Problem-solving in Transition Processes, was designed as a primer in Participatory Action Research for researchers, professionals and members of social organizations that accompany communities in processes of transformation using agroecological principles.
Taking full advantage of the tools of digital online education, the course combined lively synchronous discussion sessions with guest speakers, asynchronous forums, videos, readings from popular press and academic sources, songs and Andean prayers asking permission of Mother Earth.
Screenshot of one of the many dialogues among participants throughout the course
This context includes the language and culture of Quechua and Aymara peasant farmers in the Andean region of tropical mountains and vertical archipelagos reaching from the Pacific Ocean to the Altiplano desert at elevations above 13,000 feet above sea level, as well as recent sociopolitical change emerging from new constitutions in 2008 and 2009 that recognized the “plurinational” character of Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively. In addition to the colonial language, Spanish, indigenous languages Kishwa and Shuar were recognized as official languages by Ecuador’s Constitution of 2008, while Bolivia’s 2009 Constitution recognized 37 official languages.
An agrobiodiverse plot in Bolivia
Indeed, the institutional context for agroecological transitions is unique in the Andes. Ecuador was the first country in the world to incorporate the Rights of Nature into its Constitution, and Bolivia followed suit in 2010 with the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which grants all nature equal rights to humans. Both countries have constitutions that recognize the state’s responsibility to guarantee food sovereignty, the right of peoples to build, control and defend their own food systems according to their knowledge and culture.
This context shows the need for “a more horizontal, humble approach that sees the relativity of academic knowledge and NGO practice, one that recognizes rural communities and food producers as the fundamental pillar of agroecology,” according to Freddy Congo, an Ecuadorean popular educator with the Union of the Peoples of Moreles (UPM) in Mexico, winner of the Rural Vermont’s Agroecology, Education & Organizing Fellowship Award, and participant in the course.
A meeting of the Andes Community of Practice in 2022 in Puembo, Ecuador
Knowledge co-creation, mobilization, and exchange among these projects is one of the goals of our work, so a central theme of the course in on fostering participatory methodologies.
We need spaces that connect us in a broad and diverse fabric, in order to recognize the diverse ways of perceiving agroecologies on the road to food sovereignty, the emancipation of our peoples, social justice and the good life. The course Agroecology for Life is one of those spaces, where a variety of ways of thinking, feeling and being people are shared in cooperation, co-construction and co-learning.
Georgina Catacora Vargas, the Bolivian agroecologist, president of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA) and guest lecturer in the course, argues that “our methodologies are the lenses with which we characterize and reflect on reality, as well as the reflection of our epistemological position, the way in which we (co-)create knowledge.” Her guest appearance in the course was a highlight mentioned by many participants in course evaluations.
Beyond the conceptual and methodological aspects of the Agroecology for Life course, an emerging property of the effort is the idea of building and consolidating a learning community: a space for mutual respect, cross-pollination, and exchange. As Renato Pardo, a course participant and program officer at PROSUCO in Bolivia, put it, the strength of the course is in the “possibility of sharing experiences with other institutions and other professionals working on similar themes.”
We’ve been so pleased with how the course has turned out, and have experienced and observed so much growth and integration as a result. We’ve also received positive feedback from our partners. In a recent communication, Claire Nicklin, Andes CoP Regional Representative for CRFS, noted “the IFA team did a fantastic job of facilitating a warm and collaborative space for practitioners to meet and discuss agroecological transitions.”
Do you have experiences, examples, stories or insights about how policy can support (or undermine) agroecology? Consider submitting an article to the first issue of the newly named magazine, “Rooted: Agroecology, Cultures and Foodways” [formerly ‘Farming Matters’].
Rooted magazine is a new platform for the exchange of voices, perspectives and knowledge of food producers and others at the forefront of action to transform food systems through agroecology.
For the inaugural edition issue of Rooted, planned for early 2024, we are warmly inviting you to contribute grounded stories that:
demonstrate the potential of policies to support the practice and spread of agroecology for food systems transformation;
reflect on how peoples’ advocacy, organizing and political processes are shaping relevant policies for agroecology.
We are especially looking for lessons and insights from real experiences.
How policies matter for agroecology
Agroecology has continued to gain momentum and recognition for its transformative potential to respond to today’s crises and to achieve food sovereignty. There is a growing evidence base about the impact of agroecology, and incidental policy support. Yet there are still many systemic barriers that prevent agroecology from achieving its potential in transformations towards more just and sustainable food systems.
Food systems are complex, and policies influencing them exist at multiple levels (local, national, regional, international) and in different domains. These include access to land and tenure regulations, seed laws, food safety regulations, water use mechanisms, market development, trade rules, state programs for rural women or youth, and regulations regarding social organization, among many other things. They also address community processes, ways of interacting and customary law. Policies are not only state-led. People’s agroecological processes or indigenous governance are equally meaningful forms of policy co-creation.
These (sometimes) disparate policies shape the governance of food systems: the way in which decisions about food and farming are made, by whom and where. Very few examples exist of policies that effectively enable agroecology. When they do exist, meaningful implementation is often lacking. So what can we learn from instances where policies for agroecology do exist and work?
This issue of Rooted aims to gather and consolidate concrete examples of how policies can facilitate the development of agroecological food webs, and enable the transition away from industrial food and farming systems.
Your contribution
You are invited to contribute your stories and experiences of policies that strengthen agroecology. We are particularly interested in delving into the following questions:
●How have actors in the food system and their experiences been able to shape policies (and their implementation) that support a transformative agroecology?
●How can policies be developed and implemented so that they provide a solid basis for agroecology to thrive without inhibiting the autonomy of food system actors?
●Are there examples of policies that have facilitated the use and spread of agroecological practices or encouraged the social relations that support it? What were the conditions that made these effective?
●What kinds of policies exist that reconfigure the power of corporations in the industrial food systems and support the agency and autonomy of food producers?
●What can we learn from existing policy for the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants at national levels?
●What kind of people’s policies (including processes, proposals, convergences, governance arrangements and vision statements) have been created in support of agroecology and how?
●What are the lessons from these experiences for the practice, science and/ or movement of agroecology?
How to submit your contribution
We invite summaries of between 250 and 500 words. If selected, you will be invited to draft a longer article of around 2000 words. We invite two types of contributions:
1) ‘Testimonies’: which detail lessons from experiences from the ground and reflect on their wider relevance. What did you do? What worked (or not?) and why (or not)?
2) ‘Opinion/ perspective pieces’: these should also be grounded in concrete experiences, but focus on presenting a cutting-edge proposal for the future.
We will give priority to contributions from authors that have been involved in the experience themselves. We will seek to present a balance between knowledge from practice and academic contributions.
No writing experience is required: our editors will provide ample support where desired.
Rooted is published by Cultivate!, the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience of Coventry University and the Institute for Agroecology at the University of Vermont. We work in close collaboration with LEISA Revista de Agroecología and AS-PTA’s Revista AgriCulturas.We proudly carry forward the long legacy of Farming Matters magazine.
The Time for Agroecology is Now: Weaving a Research Agenda to Support Transformative Agroecology in the U.S.A.
This blog shares some reflections from the Institute for Agroecology on the upcoming U.S. Agroecology Summit in Kansas City which focuses on developing a roadmap for agroecology research. In the run up to the conference, there have been some important discussions on how to best advance a research program that can support agroecology transitions. We have been reflecting on these discussions and are sharing some of our thinking here in the run up to the conference.
Written by Institute for Agroecology (IFA) team members: Colin Anderson, Martha Caswell, Katie Horner, Ernesto Méndez and guest: Antonio Roman-Alcalá
Social movements in the U.S. are advancing agroecology, along with food sovereignty, food justice and wider movements for just transitions to transform food systems.
When we’re out spending time with collaborators in international networks and movements, we are often urged to push for agroecology in the U.S. given its outsized influence on the world stage. They ask, why aren’t we doing more to build out agroecology here at home – in the U.S., the so-called “belly of the beast” – and how can we act, from the U.S., to support the growth of agroecology in other places.
It is true that the U.S. lags behind relative to other places in terms of social movements pushing for agroecology. While there are powerful voices making the case for agroecology in the U.S., it is significantly underdeveloped in policy and in practice, and deeply undermined by disabling factors related to our national political economy.
The participants are diverse but have one thing in common: a belief that agroecology provides the most viable pathway for transforming food systems for social justice and sustainability. Recognizing that there are other spaces where different aspects of agroecology (e.g. practice, movement base building, advocacy, etc.) are being developed, this summit focuses on research in particular. It has been organized by committed scholars who believe in a transdisciplinary approach that brings together the knowledge of social movements, practitioners and researchers.
To this end, a back-of-the-envelope tally shows a fairly balanced mix of people, including: a) ~30 civil society leaders and farmers (half of whom were nominated by organizations who were invited to participate); b) ~30 researchers who focus their work within the natural sciences and c) ~30 researchers representing the social sciences.
The Summit includes the participation of researchers, farmers, policy-makers, Indigenous people, funders, students and an intentional spread in geographical representation. Because agroecology values multiple ways of knowing and appreciates that interplay, many participants fit into more than one of the categories listed above.
Ensuring diverse participation was a priority for the Organizing Committee, who are committed to: a) bringing diverse voices and ways of knowing to the table; b) creating an agenda and process for the conference that allows these diverse participants to share their views; and c) guiding the discussions through a participatory design.
Despite these commitments, the conference cannot claim to represent the full diversity of perspectives and interests that engage in agroecological research. This is due in part to the politics of knowledge that encircle our food system, and is also reflective of the fact that the Organizing Committee convening the summit is composed primarily of researchers. Naming the biases that we carry includes recognizing that this convening may replicate the over- and under-representation of certain types of knowledge. Despite this limitation, we feel excited to be in conversation with the many that will come together in Kansas City.
From our view, initiating conversations about the change needed within research institutions is critically important for transgressing the boundaries that often lock us into static thinking and ineffective sectoral approaches. By doing our best to invite plural perspectives, make space for emergent ideas, and implement a participatory design process, we hope to also be laying the groundwork for an intense and generative process of relationship-building, co-learning, and co-production of knowledge across sectors.
Since these convenings are often planned ‘behind the curtain’, in the lead up to the conference, we want to share some of the discussions and debates we have had in our planning for the summit and our reflections on issues that have emerged in conversation with our peers, partners, and allies:
Linking to Food Sovereignty
Taking an internationalist perspective
Where is this taking us?
Any hope for agroecology needs to be rooted in the struggle for sovereignty
We know that we desperately need to study, hone and implement farming practices that improve soil health and support agrobiodiversity. These technical and scientific issues are important, yet they are insufficient for realizing socially just and resilient agrifood systems – even if they have been proven effective many times over. Our social movement partners are steadfast in the demand that any summit on agroecology needs to foreground food sovereignty – a concept that has been developed and fought for by peasant, Indigenous and other movements around the world for decades.
Our position at the UVM Institute for Agroecology (IFA) is that for agroecology to be a viable alternative to corporate-industrial agriculture, we must transform the wider political, economic, and cultural context that undermines the food sovereignty of peoples and communities. A precondition for agroecology is that people have the right to define their own food and agriculture systems – among other things this means control over seeds, ceremony and land; each of which are critical components of food sovereignty. That is to say, our efforts to build agroecology must center issues of power and agency.
Agroecology in the U.S.: An internationalist Perspective
In ongoing discussions on the implications of an agroecology summit in the U.S., we have wrestled with the tension of needing to get our own house in order, while also staying connected to international dynamics.
This includes naming how economic, cultural, and political systems of power and control in the United States have long undermined food sovereignty and dismantled agroecological food systems around the world. This continues to be the case as U.S. foreign policy, corporate NGOs (AGRA, CropLife), and development agencies expend massive resources and power to promote industrial agriculture businesses and interests, downplaying the destructive implications of these actions.
We also need to check our hubris. Those who hope to advance agroecology in the US.. have so much to learn from farmers, peasants, Indigenous communities, and researchers who have long been advancing agroecology in the Global South. We risk neglecting their experience and knowledge if efforts to build agroecology are carried out in national isolation.
This video highlights the internationalist perspective on agroecology, exemplifying the local approaches to agroecology in different parts of the world. It also chronicles the International Forum on Agroecology which brought together diverse organizations and international movements of small-scale food producers and consumers to build a common platform for agroecology, published in the form of a declaration.
The Outcomes – Where is This Going?
We come to this summit with an intention to continue this learning journey and national conversation-process. We intend to listen carefully, especially to our grassroots attendees and their views on what is needed from the domain of research in the coming years. We aim to amplify the outcomes of the conference and work with those who share a commitment to transformative agroecology that leads to direct action for addressing these needs.
We will come to the summit with an open mind and heart, in the spirit of humility, mutuality and solidarity. We will arrive prepared to listen, share, learn and be challenged through dialogue with the diversity of voices that are about to converge in Kansas City. Onwards!
Agroecology Blooms in Vermont: Announcing the UVM Institute for Agroecology
The roots of agroecology at the University of Vermont (UVM) were set over a decade ago. Since then, agroecology has grown and flourished. With today’s launch of a new Institute, agroecology has come into full bloom at UVM, marking a new cycle of research, learning and action aimed at creating more just and sustainable food systems.
We can’t wait for new seeds to be planted, and for new collaborations to grow with partners in Vermont, the USA, and around the world. Together we will mobilize knowledge for agroecology and food sovereignty to transform food systems and address the multiple crises that stem from industrial food systems: Inequity, the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, diet-related disease, food insecurity, and the degradation of the environment.
Our approach to agroecology focuses on understanding and designing food systems to regenerate the environment, cool the planet, and provide good, healthy food for all. Agroecology is rooted in indigenous practices and ancestral knowledge, which are combined with scientific approaches to reimagine how our food systems can and should function. Our approach to agroecology is not only about changing farming techniques, but is also about transforming policy, science, cultures, and economies to bring about more just food systems.
The institute for Agroecology works with and for farmers, Indigenous people, social movements, and communities who are driving change in Vermont and around the world. Through research, learning, and action, we mobilize knowledge to nurture agroecology research, practice, and movements.
We are committed to co-creating more just and sustainable food systems and know that this work must be done in collaboration with those who are most impacted.
The IFA will support the transition towards agroecology through five strategies:
Research: undertake critical, transdisciplinary, and participatory action research to uncover new ideas on strategies for redesigning food systems
Convene: bring together collaborators within and outside of academia to cross pollinate ideas and relationships across local, national, and international networks.
Amplify: develop creative communication and advocacy strategies to influence policy, narratives, hearts, and minds.
Cultivate: prepare the next generation of agroecologists through undergraduate, graduate, community-based, and professional learning programs.
Activate: support local economic, ecological, social and cultural processes to grow agroecology on the ground in Vermont and around the globe.
Our work is powered by partnerships with farmers, collaborators, communities, and other people who make generous contributions to the Institute and to wider efforts to create a more just and sustainable food system. This support and partnership is critical for our work, both today and into the future. We are grateful to the University of Vermont for administrative and financial support, and for our generous financial sponsors, including from the McKnight foundation’s Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems (CRFS) program and a major gift from Schmidt Family Foundation’s 11th Hour Project, announced today.
Interested in deepening your knowledge of Participatory Research?
Want to learn about the principles and practices of agroecology?
This Fall, the UVM Institute for Agroecology is offering two online courses for graduate students, advanced undergrads, as well as activists and professionals seeking creative learning in agroecology. Read below to learn more about these course offerings.
We believe that we learn best from a diversity of sources and a diversity of voices – online participation means you can join us from almost anywhere. Read below about our two offerings this fall (September-December 2023).
Class meeting times and location: Fall Semester 2023: August 29th – December 12th. 2 hour Weekly online meetings on Thursdays from 12-2pm EST.
Registration: To register for credit as a for-credit UVM student, click here. To register through continuing education as a non-credit student click here.
Participatory, transdisciplinary and action research have become internationally recognized as pillars of knowledge production for sustainable and just food systems. Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be described as a process of research, education and action in which participants work together to understand and transform reality.
In this course, students will examine how these approaches can deepen our collective understanding of complex issues and support societal transformations for social justice and sustainability, especially in the context of agroecology. Together, we will encounter the ‘politics of knowledge’ or the ways that power and privilege shape science, academia, innovation, and development, as well as the value of “people’s knowledge”. We will also engage with critical theoretical traditions, such as feminism and decoloniality.
Then we will get practical and focus on the nuts and bolts of doing PAR in agrifood system studies and action. We will examine examples of agroecological PAR projects, to draw lessons learned and to find inspiration. We will shine a spotlight on several methods used within this tradition including, for example, participatory photography, popular education, theatre, indigenous approaches, deliberative methodologies, auto-ethnography and different forms of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods inquiry. This course develops students’ PAR and transdisciplinary competencies through a systematic engagement with theory, skills, methods, and a critical reflexive self-examination of our role in the research processes.
Class meeting times and location:Fall Semester 2023: August 29th – December 12th. Weekly interactive synchronous sessions by zoom – Tuesdays from 12-2pm EST
Registration: To register for credit as a for-credit UVM student, click here. To register through continuing education as a non-credit student click here.
This 15-week online course presents an in-depth overview of research and applications in the field of agroecology. The last week students will participate in a virtual experience that engages with our local Vermont partners and their farms.
The course seeks to provide students with both conceptual and practical content, covering the evolution of the field of agroecology, from its origins to the present, as it gains increasing recognition in scientific, policy, social movement and farming spaces. Students will engage in some of the debates agroecologists are now facing, as they grapple with maintaining the core characteristics of the field as it is increasingly applied by a wide diversity of actors. A special emphasis is placed on discussing the different expressions of agroecology as a science, a social movement and a practice. We will consider the intersections of agroecology and transdisciplinarity, as we integrate different knowledge systems to search for solutions to the current challenges of our agrifood systems. And finally, we will explore the use of participatory action research (PAR) and agroecology principles, as an essential approach to agroecological research and practice.
Patio histórico en la Sede Antonio Machado de la Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, en Baeza, España.
Fue hace diecinueve años que pisé por primera vez el hermoso patio histórico de la Sede Antonio Machado de la Universidad Internacional de Andalucía (UNIA), ubicada en la localidad de Baeza. La UNIA es un consorcio de ocho universidades de la región de Andalucía, en el sur de España, que ofrece cursos continuos y a distancia, generalmente desarrollados a través de colaboraciones entre las 8 instituciones. En el momento de mi primera visita, yo era un candidato doctoral que estaba terminando mi grado en agroecología en la Universidad de California, Santa Cruz, trabajando con mi mentor Stephen R. Gliessman. Steve había logrado traer a media docena de sus estudiantes doctorales para que lo ayudaran a enseñar y co-aprender con los profesores y participantes del programa de maestría en Agroecología: Un Enfoque para la Sustentabilidad Rural. Estaba muy agradecido por la oportunidad y profundamente impresionado con el plan de estudios transdisciplinario y la amplia variedad de personas representadas en el alumnado. Fue una muy profunda experiencia de aprendizaje para mí.
Estudiantes de la maestría trabajando en sus presentaciones de grupo.
Unos años más tarde, cuando empezaba como un nuevo profesor de agroecología en la Universidad de Vermont, Estados Unidos, nuestros colaboradores, los profesores Manuel González de Molina (Manolo) y Gloria Guzmán Casado, de la Universidad Pablo de Olavide, en Sevilla, me invitaron a unirme a ellos para enseñar un módulo similar. Desde entonces, la invitación está abierta todos los años, y voy tanto como puedo. Obtengo mucho al participar en esta colaboración a largo plazo. Interactúo con estudiantes latinoamericanos y europeos de una amplia diversidad de orígenes, desde activistas de movimientos sociales hasta legisladores y jóvenes académicos. También me permite afinar mi enseñanza en español y aprender de diversas experiencias y perspectivas. Este año tuvimos estudiantes de Brasil, Colombia, Argentina, México, Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Alemania, Guinea Ecuatorial y España. También pude interactuar con cuatro iniciativas agroecológicas en Andalucía, como parte de un viaje de campo dirigido por mi colega Gloria.
Concha, agricultora y dueña de El Cortijo del Pino, una finca de frutas y de turismo rural, muestra a los estudiantes una trampa que utiliza para controlar plagas en sus peras, manzanas y albaricoques.
Este año tuvimos estudiantes de Brasil, Colombia, Argentina, México, Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Alemania, Guinea Ecuatorial y España. También pude interactuar con cuatro iniciativas agroecológicas en Andalucía, como parte de un viaje de campo dirigido por mi colega Gloria. Para el módulo de este año, los estudiantes usaron un marco de principios de agroecología para caracterizar cualitativamente las iniciativas que visitamos, las que incluyeron El Cortijo del Pino, una operación de turismo agrícola y rural; Valle y Vega, una cooperativa agroecológica en la ciudad de Granada; La Retornable, una industria agroecológica centrada en bebidas vegetales locales, y servidas en contenedores reutilizables; y “Salvemos la Vega”, un grupo de defensa ciudadana para salvar el patrimonio agrícola de la Vega de Granada.
El valle de la Vega de Granada, con la Sierra Nevada al fondo.
Aquí discutimos con agricultores, consumidores y ciudadanos preocupados por los desafíos que se han convertido en condiciones cotidianas de nuestro mundo: impactos del cambio climático; barreras para cadenas de suministro de alimentos más cortas; y la invasión del desarrollo urbano en tierras agrícolas, que a su vez limita el acceso a la tierra para aquellos que aspiran a convertirse en nuevos agricultores y agricultoras.
De gran importancia en este viaje fue poder conversar con mi compañero Manolo y mi compañera Gloria. Ellos me compartieron sobre Alimentta, el nuevo tanque de pensamiento que ha surgido recientemente, y que tiene una agenda de acción para la transformación hacia sistemas alimentarios sostenibles en España. Además, y de gran relevancia para nuestro nuevo Instituto de Agroecología (IFA, por sus siglas en Inglés) en la Universidad de Vermont, fueron las conversaciones sobre la necesidad de construir un “frente unido” de instituciones académicas afines que buscan institucionalizar y promover una agroecología transformadora, basada en la equidad, la investigación transdisciplinaria y participativa, y el análisis de factores políticos y estructurales. Además del Laboratorio de Historia de los Agroecosistemas, en la Universidad Pablo de Olavide y Alimentta en España, el Instituto de Agroecología ha establecido colaboraciones con socios de todo el mundo, incluyendo al Centro de Agroecología, Agua y Resiliencia (CAWR) de la Universidad de Coventry, en el Reino Unido, y El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), en Chiapas, México.
Fachada de la sede Antonio Machado de la UNIA, en Baeza.
Courtyard in the Antonio Machado campus of the International University of Andalucía, in Baeza, Spain.
It was nineteen years ago when I first stepped into the beautiful historical courtyard of International University of Andalucía’s (UNIA) Antonio Machado campus, located in the town of Baeza. The UNIA is a consortium of eight universities from the Andalucía region in southern Spain, which runs continuing and distance courses, usually developed through collaborations among the 8 institutions. At the time of my first visit, I was a graduate candidate finishing up my doctoral degree in agroecology, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, working with my mentor Stephen R. Gliessman. Steve had managed to bring half a dozen of his graduate students to help him teach and co-learn with the professors and participants of the master’s program in Agroecology: An approach for Rural Sustainability. I was very grateful for the opportunity and deeply impressed with the transdisciplinary curriculum and wide variety of backgrounds represented in the student body. It was a deep learning experience for me.
Master’s students working on their group presentations.
A few years later, as I was establishing myself as a new professor of agroecology at the University of Vermont, our collaborators, professors Manuel González de Molina (Manolo) and Gloria Guzmán Casado, from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, in Sevilla, invited me to join them to teach a similar module. Since then, the invitation is open for me to come every year, and I go as much as I can. I get a lot from engaging in this long-term collaboration. I interact with Latin American and European students from a wide diversity of backgrounds, ranging from social movement organizers and activists to policy makers and young academics. I also hone in on my teaching in Spanish and learn from diverse experiences and perspectives. This year we had students from Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Equatorial Guinea, and Spain. In addition, I interacted with four agroecological initiatives in Andalucía, as part of a field trip led by my colleague Gloria.
Concha, farmer and owner of El Cortijo del Pino, a fruit and rural tourism operation, shows students some of the traps she uses to control pests in her pears, apples, and apricots.
For this year’s module I had students use an agroecology principles framework to qualitatively characterize the initiatives we visited, which included El Cortijo del Pino, a farm and rural tourism operation; Valle y Vega, an agroecological cooperative, in the city of Granada; La Retornable, an agroecological industry focusing on local vegetable drinks served in reusable containers; and “Salvemos la Vega” a citizens advocacy group to save the agricultural heritage of la Vega de Granada. Each student group assessed the strengths and weaknesses of one of the initiatives, using agroecology principles, and presented their analysis to the rest of the class. We visited the “Vega de Granada”, a rich, fertile valley where agricultural activities increasingly compete with the urban sprawl of the nearby city of Granada, home to the famous Alhambra palace.
La Vega de Granada valley, with the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background.
With farmers, consumers and concerned citizens, we discussed the challenges that have now become a staple of our world- impacts of climate change; barriers to shorter food supply chains; and the encroachment of development on agricultural land, which in turn limits the access to farmland for young aspiring growers.
One of the most exciting things that happened on this this trip was to catch up with my colleagues Manolo and Gloria. They were able to share about Alimentta, a new think tank that has recently emerged with an action agenda for sustainable food systems in Spain. In addition, and, of great relevance to our new Institute for Agroecology, were conversations about building a strong united front of like-minded academic institutions seeking to institutionalize and advance a transformative agroecology- one grounded in equity, transdisciplinary and participatory research, as well as engagement with political and structural factors.
In addition to the Laboratory of the History of Agroecosystems at Universidad Pablo de Olavide and Alimentta in Spain, the IFA is discussing collaborations with partners from around the globe, including the Center for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University, and El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), in Chiapas, Mexico.
Facade of the UNIA’s Antonio Machado campus in Baeza.
We’ve added a new update about our work on soil health with coffee farmers to our project blog that tracks our Participatory Action Research process with producer organizations in Mexico and Central America. To read the new field update, please click here.
Two months ago, our tenacious project teams in Mexico and Guatemala visited more than 50 smallholder coffee farms as part of what we’ve come to call the Suelos project (“suelo” is Spanish for soil). These activities are officially supported under a project called “Towards a regional vision for agroecological soil management in the coffee landscapes of Mesoamerica” with funding through a Gund InstituteCatalyst Award.
The objective of the project, in short, is to co-produce knowledge about the relationships between the structure of coffee agroecosystems, indicators of soil health, coffee productivity and coffee cup quality. This knowledge will be the basis for articulating a local plan of action for protecting soil health in coffee-producing landscapes.
To read more about our recent visits to the coffee plots (and about our Participatory Action Research process in general), head over to our project blog.
As mentioned in our previous blog post, representatives from the world’s nations are currently gathering in Montreal for the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The goal of the meeting is to adopt a “Global Biodiversity Framework” which will guide international collaboration to reverse dramatic losses of global biodiversity for the next 30 years. Yet, to our peril, agroecology and agrobiodiversity have been marginalized in these debates.
I (Colin) grew up on a farm in the Canadian Prairies and am still charmed by the region’s big skies and agricultural landscape. Seas of yellow canola flowers blossoming as far as the eye can see. Wheat fields, gently swaying in the wind, stretching from fencerow to fencerow. Beautiful blankets of color, pleasing to the eye.
These simplified agricultural systems have an alluring beauty on the surface, but they are devoid of the potential diversity of crops and livestock that, when integrated, allow for a more efficient and synergistic use of resources. What’s more, they are hostile towards wild biodiversity through the elimination of habitat, the application of herbicides and pesticides and the degradation of soil health.
Nevertheless, the intensification of industrial agriculture in this image remains the dominant model being promoted globally – a model of agriculture that must be transformed if we are to reverse global biodiversity losses and sustain life on Earth for our grandchildren. That is why the United Nations set up the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in 1992, and why, 30 years later, with biodiversity losses still accelerating, decisive action by governments is vitally urgent.
Where is agricultural biodiversity in global decision-making about biodiversity conservation?
The COP15 meeting comes during a mass extinction event. A high percentage of global biodiversity, and biosphere integrity, is at risk, and threatened especially by the dominant economic and social drivers of industrial food systems. In short, the stakes for this CBD meeting are unfathomably high.
The evidence from FAO, IPBES and IPCC has clearly established that agriculture and land use change are among the main drivers of biodiversity loss. Large-scale, industrial-style agriculture threatens 86% of the 28,000 endangered species and, in a blow to food security and resilience, these farming systems are responsible for the loss of most of our genetic diversity in crops and livestock over the last century. Currently, only 12 plant species and 5 livestock breeds make up 75% of the world’s industrial food system, with just 3 species (wheat, rice and corn) providing half the calorie intake. According to the IPBES Global Assessment, these genetically shallow agricultural systems are increasingly vulnerable to pests, pathogens, climate change and other factors.
Notoriously sidelined in UN negotiations, however, is a focus on highly threatened ‘agricultural biodiversity’ – the major sub-set of biodiversity in the areas where people live and work. It includes all the biodiversity, above and below ground and in waters, which supports our food and agricultural systems, provides food, fiber, shelter, clean water, medicine and underpins vital ecosystem functions.
Without deeply transforming industrial food systems towards ones that will prioritize agroecological systems of production, the losses of agricultural biodiversity will proceed unabated, placing the very basis of human existence in peril.
Instead, CBD debates on biodiversity have come to focus on proposals for setting aside large areas of land to conserve pristine nature. The touted 30×30 campaign, for example, proposes setting aside 30% of territories in Protected Areas by 2030. These types of programs, however, often harm and displace millions of knowledgeable, biodiversity-conserving Indigenous Peoples and local communities from their traditional territories.
Such a focus distracts attention from what is happening on the other 70% of land, where there’s a drive to intensify agricultural production using biodiversity- and habitat-reducing homogeneous monocultures. This aligns with the power structures of the industrial agrifood system. It intentionally marginalizes and displaces the people who have the greatest history, sophisticated knowledge, and potential to protect, restore, and enhance highly heterogeneous agricultural biodiversity.
Biodiverse agroecology – a compelling alternative paradigm to build back agricultural biodiversity and confront our intersecting crises
Biodiverse agroecology involves the application of ecological principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems, drawing from Indigenous and local knowledge, and directly addressing the political changes needed to transform food systems. It focuses on redesigning agricultural practices, policies, networks and governance, based on a set of principles that emphasize biodiversity, resilience, people’s knowledge, the fundamental role of women and the importance of food sovereignty.
While industrial food systems are destroying biodiversity, smaller-scale agroecological farms are at the forefront of conserving and enhancing agricultural biodiversity, and improving ecosystem functioning, while producing the majority of the world’s food. Peasant, indigenous and territorially rooted agroecology is vital to maintaining agricultural biodiversity, within farm plots and across rural landscapes. These agroecosystems conserve the heterogeneity and variety within species and among species at community and ecosystem levels.
There are countless examples of agroecology emerging around the world. Agroforestry systems enhance biodiversity through incorporating trees and shrubs into cropping or livestock lands, providing resiliency against climate change and improved rural livelihoods. The adoption of intercropping, such as in the Mesoamerican milpa systems, where corn is planted alongside beans, pumpkin, chili, and other vegetables create rich mosaics of biodiversity in farms and landscapes. In India, Amrita Bhoomi trains farmers on Zero Budget Natural Farming – a local agroecological method that needs no external inputs, very little water, and relies on natural processes. These agroecological approaches not only enhance agricultural biodiversity in farmers’ fields but also provides habitat for the biodiversity in the surrounding ecosystems, to the wider benefit of people and the environment (see infographic below).
'Soil to Sky of Agroecology vs. Industrial Agriculture' Infographic by the Christensen Fund
To build up biodiverse agroecology, it is important to transform the enabling environment and confront the power of corporations and agribusiness in maintaining the status quo. This requires prioritizing, in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, the inclusion of the implementation of already agreed upon actions that sustain agricultural biodiversity. Specifically, we need to scale out peasants’ dynamic management of biodiverse agroecology while respecting indigenous peoples’ and peasants’ collective rights to seeds, livestock breeds, territories and forms of production.
Regardless of the outcomes of this year’s CBD /COP15, civil society actors should engage in broad, coordinated actions and movement building to continue to strengthen agricultural biodiversity in communities and policies. Only in this way can we truly transform food systems, stem the loss of agricultural biodiversity and address the intersecting crises of inequality, diet-related illness, climate change, and hunger.
The COP15 convenes governments from around the world to agree to a new set of goals for nature over the next decade through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and is structured around a range of high-level negotiations and side events.
Click on the image above to read the policy brief
Our coalition’s mission at this event is to emphasize the critical importance of including agroecology within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Agroecology and its focus on agricultural biodiversity is critical to all three pillars of the CBD: conservation, sustainable use, and equity, and must be incorporated in Target 10 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. As substantiated by scientific evidence, agroecology represents an unparalleled opportunity to address the losses to biodiversity being driven by industrialized food systems. In addition to its contributions to biodiversity conservation, agroecology delivers multiple co-benefits: climate change adaptation, food security, ecosystems resilience, sustainable livelihoods and human rights.
With the inclusion of language that proposes concrete solutions, we can transform from damaging industrial global food systems to biodiverse agroecology. To that end, the coalition has developed a policy brief that lays out how agricultural biodiversity and agroecology can be integrated into the Convention on Biological Diversity. We will also hold a side event on Thursday, December 8th, at 1:15 EST called “Missing the Mark? Biodiversity Targets Risk Failure without Agroecology” (see flyer below and click here to register for the meeting online).
How can you get involved?
Read and share the policy brief. It’s available in English, Spanish, and French.
Tune into our side event on Thursday, December 8th, 1:15pm-2;45pm EST (See the flyer below and register for the meeting)
This book focuses on research that shows the importance of critical adult education for the spread of food sovereignty and agroecology to more people and places. It pays particular attention to the important role that learning, education and pedagogy can play in social transformation for food sovereignty and justice—an approach referred to broadly as “Learning for Transformation”. It reveals common dynamics and principles that critical education for food sovereignty share in different contexts. The book draws together 8 chapters that offer new critical insights about why, where, and how learning for transformation is being implemented,—and what next.
This book contributes to the ALC stream of research on “pedagogy and learning for agroecology”, which can be viewed here. This book, originally published as a special issue in Agriculture and Human Values, brings further visibility to the contributions of the authors. Over the last three years, the work on pedagogy, education and learning in agroecology, food sovereignty and sustainable food systems continues to grow, with many new contributions deepening our understanding of the ways that learning can be configured in different contexts to advance change. For example, this recent special issue on, Critical and Equity-Oriented Pedagogical Innovations in Sustainable Food Systems Education, includes 14 original research and perspective articles that dig deep into questions on how to tackle inequity and build critical perspectives in/through food system education. A quick search on Google Scholar on education and agroecology (here) or food sovereignty (here) reveals a trove of wonderful papers from around the world exploring some of the evolving contours of this area of scholarship. For those hungry to develop their understanding, theory and practice – we invite you to click through and explore. Should you lack access to any of these articles, please reach out to the authors.
Critical Adult Education in Food Movements Editors: Colin R. Anderson, Rosa Binimelis Adell, Michel P. Pimbert, Marta Rivera Ferre
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction to the symposium on critical adult education in food movements: learning for transformation in and beyond food movements—the why, where, how and the what next?. . . 1 Colin R. Anderson, R. Binimelis, M. P. Pimbert, and M. G. Rivera-Ferre
Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty . . . 11 Colin R. Anderson, Chris Maughan, and Michel P. Pimbert
Farming for change: developing a participatory curriculum on agroecology, nutrition, climate change and social equity in Malawi and Tanzania . . . 29 Rachel Bezner Kerr, Sera L. Young, Carrie Young, Marianne V. Santoso, Mufunanji Magalasi, Martin Entz, Esther Lupafya, Laifolo Dakishoni, Vicki Morrone, David Wolfe, and Sieglinde S. Snapp
Multi-actor networks and innovation niches: university training for local Agroecological Dynamization . . . 47 Daniel López-García, Laura Calvet-Mir, Marina Di Masso, and Josep Espluga
What’s wrong with permaculture design courses? Brazilian lessons for agroecological movement-building in Canada . . . 61 Marie-Josée Massicotte and Christopher Kelly-Bisson
Teaching the territory: agroecological pedagogy and popular movements . . . 75 Nils McCune and Marlen Sánchez
Food sovereignty education across the Americas: multiple origins, converging movements . . . 91 David Meek, Katharine Bradley, Bruce Ferguson, Lesli Hoey, Helda Morales, Peter Rosset, and Rebecca Tarlau
Images of work, images of defiance: engaging migrant farm worker voice through community-based arts . . . 107 Adam Perr
Hot off the press! The new edition of the foundational textbook “Agroecology” is now available! Congratulations to co-authors Ernesto Méndez (ALC), Vic Izzo (ALC), Steve Gliessman, and Eric W. Engles, and to Andrew Gerlicz (ALC) who provided editorial support!
This edition focuses on the transformations necessary for achieving a just and sustainable food system, capturing agricultural, ecological, economic, social, cultural, and political elements of agroecology. It includes new chapters of relevant topics, such as ‘Ecological Pest, Weed, and Disease Management’, ‘Agriculture and the Climate Crisis’, and Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture.
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today named the University of Vermont (UVM) as regional winner of the 2022 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award in recognition of the extraordinary community engagement of the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC), as a community of practice working to advance participatory action research (PAR) and agroecology around the world. Read the full article by CALS Communications Manager Rachel Leslie, here. View the video produced as part of the award competition below.
Tammy Harris of SAAFON facilitating a session at the Encounter. Photo Credit: Jesús Vázquez
The use of agroecology to confront social injustice was at the center of discussion during this summer’s Each One Teach One Agroecology Encounter, a three-day event convened by the organization Rural Vermont as a celebration of La Vía Campesina’s30-year anniversary. The Encounter brought together around 140 activists, farmers, and farmworkers from throughout the Americas at the Center for Grassroots Organizing in Marshfield, Vermont. Those attending included local Vermont organic farmers, migrant farm workers and climate migrants; members of the Black agrarian movement from the Southern US; urban farmers and youth of all ages; and delegates from national and international peasant and farmworker organizations (see full list below). The Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC) was on hand to gather stories, support organizers, and facilitate participation by international guests.
The format of the event was part community discussion, part skill-share. Local farmers and community leaders shared workshops on draft animals, the solidarity economy, herbalism, work brigades, printing, and participatory pizza-making. While participants held in common the goal of healthier communities, ecosystems, and societies, the unique perspectives present contributed to dynamic conversations where distinct ways of understanding and using agroecology were explored.
Photo Credit: Jesús Vázquez
Attendees also looked to the future, envisioning a system of Via Campesina North American schools of agroecology (NASA) where people from grassroots organizations would build skills in both the productive and community-organizing dimensions of agroecology. This approach is inspired by existing and successful models of agroecology and movement-building schools in other regions of La Via Campesina. The schools provide technical agroecological training, popular political education, and traditional ecological knowledge, while being rooted in the specific needs of local communities. The dialogues at the Agroecology Encounter revealed questions about access and audience and, in particular, a demand for educational processes that meet the needs of young people
of color who don’t currently have access to farmland. These topics will re-emerge in additional listening sessions planned for the months to come.
The event is part of process that began with a Campesinx-a-Campesinx gathering in 2014 in Florida, which gave rise to around a dozen encounters of the People’s Agroecology Process in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico between 2014-2020. In 2021, the ALC partnered with the People’s Agroecology Process to offer an advanced course in people’s agroecology – using technology to further enrich the conversation and relationships even when gathering in person wasn’t an option. The ALC engages in movement activities as part of its Participatory Action Research approach and its commitment to transformative collective impact through scholar-activism and long-term, horizontal relationships.
We frequently hear requests for simple, short guidelines or principles that can be used by practitioners of participatory approaches to research, learning and action. In this context, we put a call out for ‘your input!’ to create a crowdsourced curated reading list on ‘protocols and guidelines for participatory, engaged-, decolonial, indigenous, feminist and other related traditions of research’.
While we will make reference to more conceptual and longer pieces on these topics (and the importance of not only focusing on technical ‘protocols’), we are focusing on compiling accessible, short and pragmatic resources.
Do you have anything to add? Ideas? Comments? Links? Write to: colin.anderson@uvm.edu
The Code of Ethics of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) reflects the vision of the Society and provides a framework for decision-making and conduct for ethnobiological research and related activities. The goals are to facilitate ethical conduct and equitable relationships, and foster a commitment to meaningful collaboration and reciprocal responsibility by all parties.
In particular, there is a list of questions author Linda Tuhiwai Smith recommends that researchers and communities engaged in research ask and try to answer before engaging in joint research activities:
Who defined the research problem?
For whom is this study worthy and relevant? Who says so?
What knowledge will the community gain from this study?
What knowledge will the researcher(s) gain from this study?
What are some likely positive outcomes from this study?
What are some possible negative outcomes?
How can the negative outcome be eliminated?
To whom is the researcher accountable?
What processes are in place to support the research, the researched and the researcher?
The Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) is a feminist, anti-colonial lab specializing in monitoring plastic pollution and have iteratively created a lab book to guide their own praxis:
“Our Lab Book is a living manual of our values, guidelines, and protocols. Part manifesto and part ‘how to’ guide, it outlines how the lab works socially and scientifically. The Lab Book is always being updated and changing, and lives in a shared collaborative format so that lab members can make comments and update material.”
This Ally Bill of Responsibilities provides a simple guideline for allies of indigenous struggles and useful for thinking for how this applies in a research context
Other related resources suggested as a part of the crowdsourcing process
Interested in deepening your knowledge of Participatory Research?
Want to take a deep dive into Social Movement organizing for food sovereignty and agroecology?
This Fall, the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative is offering two online courses for graduate students, advanced undergrads as well as activists and professionals seeking creative learning in agroecology. Read below to learn more about these course offerings.
We believe that we learn best from a diversity of sources and a diversity of voices – online participation means you can join us from almost anywhere. Read below about our two offerings this autumn (September-December 2022).
Note that two additional agroecology courses will be offered in the spring semester (Jan-May 2023): The Ecological Foundations of Agroecology (PSS 312) and a new course tentatively titled “Agroecological Transitions for More Just and Sustainable Food Systems” will be offered in Spring ’23. These courses can be taken as a part of a Certificate of Graduate study in agroecology (learn more here).
Available for credit or for non-credit (continuing professional development) Instructor: Colin R. Anderson (colin.anderson@uvm.edu) Class meeting times and location: August 30-December 6. 2 hour Weekly online meetings on Tuesdays (time tbd).
Participatory, transdisciplinary and action research have become internationally recognized as pillars of knowledge production for sustainable and just food systems. Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be described as a process of research, education and action in which participants work together to understand and transform reality.
In this course, students will examine how these approaches can deepen our collective understanding of complex issues and support societal transformations for social justice and sustainability, especially in the context of agroecology. Together, we will encounter the ‘politics of knowledge’ or the ways that power and privilege shape science, academia, innovation, and development, as well as the value of “people’s knowledge”. We will also engage with critical theoretical traditions, such as feminism and decoloniality.
Then we will get practical and focus on the nuts and bolts of doing PAR in agrifood system studies and action. We will examine examples of agroecological PAR projects, to draw lessons learned and to find inspiration. We will shine a spotlight on several methods used within this tradition including, for example, participatory photography, popular education, theatre, indigenous approaches, deliberative methodologies, auto-ethnography and different forms of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods inquiry. This course develops students’ PAR and transdisciplinary competencies through a systematic engagement with theory, skills, methods, and a critical reflexive self-examination of our role in the research processes.Au
Photo Credit: La Via Campesina
Agroecology, Food Sovereignty & Social Movements (PSS 314)
Available for credit or for non-credit (continuing professional development) Instructor: Martha Caswell (martha.caswell@uvm.edu) Class meeting times and location: Weekly online meetings on Wednesdays from 9:00 – 10:30 EST.
Agroecology and food sovereignty are increasingly seen as intertwined alternatives to the predominant globalized and industrial agrifood model. “Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.” (Declaration of Nyéléni, 2007)
In this course, we will ask questions about the coherence of food sovereignty as the path forward, and about the role of social movements as the driver of change. Students will investigate social, political, and economic elements of the global food system from multiple perspectives, considering the ability to scale-up agroecology, and the potential intersection between agroecology, food sovereignty, and government policies. We’ll benefit from guest lectures by several professionals actively involved in the struggle for agroecology and food sovereignty.
The ALC Agroecology Support Team in their work with the McKnight CCRP program launches a new publication series: Perspectives on Agroecology Transitions. This series of short publications explores different aspects of agroecology transitions. It focuses on praxis, which is the continual consideration of theory/reflection with practice/action. This helps us to think deeply about our work and how to best contribute to social transformation. These short publications, each available in French, Spanish and English, are intended to be used by agents of change in agroecology transitions (including farmers, activists, researchers, policy-makers and others).
The first publications in the series have been released:
Join our Introduction to Agroecology Course this Spring
Looking for a crash course that brings a learning community together to explore the social, political, ecological and cultural dimensions of agroecology? Join in on our Intro to Agroecology course. This year’s offering is fully online and will bring you into an interactive learning environment with committed instructors and inspiring guest speakers. More information below.
This 4-week online course presents an in-depth overview of research and applications in the field of agroecology. The last week students will participate in a virtual experience that engages with practitioners from our widespread agroecology network.
The course seeks to provide students with both conceptual and practical content, covering the evolution of the field of agroecology, from its origins to the present, as it gains increasing recognition in scientific, policy, social movement and farming spaces. Students will engage in some of the debates agroecologists are now facing, as they grapple with maintaining the core characteristics of the field as it is increasingly applied by a wide diversity of actors. A special emphasis is placed on discussing the different expressions of agroecology as a science, a social movement and a practice. We will consider the intersections of agroecology and transdisciplinarity, as we integrate different knowledge systems to search for solutions to the current challenges of our agrifood systems. And finally, we will explore the use of participatory action research (PAR) and agroecology principles, as an essential approach to agroecological research and practice. We will cover international and domestic geographic perspectives, and examine, more in- depth, agroecology and PAR with 3-4 local Vermont farms.
COURSE DAYS & TIMES:
Full Course timeline: May 23 – June 17, 2022
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Describe the state and evolution of the field of agroecology and engage in the debate on agroecology’s dimensions as a science, a social movement and a practice
Understand and apply a principles-approach to agroecology
Understand some of the opportunities and challenges of applying agroecology and PAR in three local Vermont farms
Understand the challenges and opportunities of applying agroecology as a transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approach
Engage in active peer-to-peer learning with fellow classmates, instructors and guests.
Students taking it as a non-credit course will receive a Digital Badge signifying completion of the course.
Event: “How the Other Half Eats” – an Online Seminar with Priya Fielding Singh
Join us for this online event with Priya Fielding-Singh for a presentation and interactive discussion of her new book, How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequity in America.
Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more than in how we eat. In this session, sociologist and ethnographer PriyaFielding-Singh draws on her years of field research to bring us into the kitchens of dozens of families to explore how—and why—we eat the way we do. She will discuss her timely and powerful new book, How the Other Half Eats, which unpacks nutritional inequality in America through an in-depth examination of class, race and health.
The majority of public and philanthropic funding supports ecologically and socially damaging forms of agriculture and food systems. How can financing be transformed so that it fosters transitions towards more just and sustainable food systems and enables agroecology to meet its full potential? This is the question that underpins a stream of research led by Coventry University, the University of Vermont and AgroecologyNow!.
The Need to Transform Food Systems
We urgently need to transform food systems. The depth of the ecological and social threats we are facing are staggering. A growing pile of high-profile UN and scientific reports have shown how the industrial food system is failing to nourish people around the world and at the same time is directly linked to growing inequality, injustice, ill-health, climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse.
Business as usual is no longer an option and we need to transform how we produce, move around and consumer food. Agroecology reflects a paradigmatic shift that can guide our pursuit of more just and sustainable food systems, and reflects a bold transformation that is becoming increasingly attractive, viable and urgent.
Our action research on agroecology transformations is a part of a growing body of work in social movements, civil society, academia and amongst food producers to figure out how we get from here to there: how do we transition from our current state of crisis and degeneration to just and sustainable food systems. The question of how to finance or resource these transitions is a vital, yet grossly underdeveloped area of work.
Video 1 – UVM’s Colin Anderson and Nina Moeller (from CAWR at Coventry University) presented results of their studies analyzing finance for agroecology at an official COP26 side event in Glasgow November 2022. “How effective is climate finance in catalzing an urgently needed paradigm shift in food systems?” with a resounding: “a lot remains to be done!” A representative of the Green Climate Fund listened. We can only hope the conversation will continue. Click this link to watch the recording.
Our recent brief highlights how, in an enabling policy context, agroecology has proven to achieve robust gains in poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, women and youth empowerment and biodiversity and climate resilience.
Agroecology applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems. It includes practices aimed at mimicking or harnessing complex ecological processes, moving beyond the farm to include food production, distribution, consumption, and waste management.
Historically, although science plays an important role in developing agroecology, the knowledge that underpins agroecology has emerged from the practices of indigenous peoples and smallholders across the world. Agroecology is a scientifically and experientially justified practice of agriculture that (1) is sensitive to the ecosystems in which it takes place and (2) fosters the democratic participation of food producers, putting human rights and agency at the center.
Video 2 – In a recently published animation, we articulate the main arguments that have arisen through our research on financing and agroecology. “Institutions keep pouring money into harmful industrial agriculture. We urgently need investments in agroecology. We need to defund industrial agriculture and funnel that money into agroecology. Furthermore the delivery of funding needs to be better so that it can support agroecological pioneers and work for systemic change. It’s time to make money move for agroecology and together foster social justice and sustainability in food systems.” Also in Spanish and French subtitles.
Transforming Finance for Agroecology
Our research makes it clear that financing from institutions and donors for agricultural and rural development is woefully inadequate and work against just transitions in food systems. This is an issue of both quantity and quality:
1. Quantity: There is not enough money going to agroecology.
Even within the already small amount of financing for agricultural development as a whole, almost all of this funding is allocated to encouraging farmers to adopt detrimental forms of high-energy, high-input industrial agriculture. A growing body of research has shown how agroecology is significantly marginalised in the financial architecture of development at all levels. There is a clear need to shift more funds towards agroecology.
The need to shift the quantity of money away from industrial agriculture was articulated brilliantly by one of our research participants,
“But another dimension of funding agro ecology is also linked to the amount of funding and the amount of support both in terms of policy as well as in terms of investments, that goes to the opposite of agroecology. And in some respect, one could claim that stopping this counter investments and the continued policy inclination for the opposite of what the agroecology wants to the kind of transformational agroecology wants to promote is equally important than generating let’s say, direct funding for agroecology. You could say that many agro ecological solutions actually squeezed by an over funded and an over emphasized other type of agriculture and other type of food system.”
2. Quality: Funding that is allocated towards sustainable agriculture and agroecology is often delivered in unhelpful and even damaging ways
The mechanisms, delivery and ‘modalities’ of funding are often highly problematic because they: are driven by donor rather than peoples needs; fail to affirm the agency of people; are inflexible; have inappropriate monitoring/evaluation systems; do not address inequity; and are based on short term approaches.
We have been working with Donors (e.g. the European Union, FAO, Green Climate Fund, Agroecology Fund), advocacy groups (Action Aid, CIDSE) and other researchers to explore the question of: When donors do decide to target sustainable agroecological food systems, how can we transform the modes and approaches of financing so that it actually enables agroecology?
Based on this research, a recent policy brief with Action Aid International provides a series of considerations and recommendations to increase the quantity and quality of funding for agroecology:
Substantially shift funding allocations to agroecology.
Funding for agroecology should be underpinned by a principle of co-governance where donors are accountable to the most affected. Donors should consider long-term multi-phased support for building agroecology in territories.
For financial support to be effective in supporting agroecology, a large portion of it needs to be comprised of small to mid-scale grants through food producer organizations and civil society organizations who are close to the ground.
Currently, agroecology is often marginally, or not at all, included in agricultural funding programs. Donors should closely evaluate their funding programs and shift towards agroecology explicitly as a target of funding.
Agroecology transitions are complex social and participatory processes that require adaptability in how plans are developed and implemented. In this context, it is vital that funders allow for flexibility in spending, activities and in monitoring and evaluation.
We recommend that donors engage in an in-depth and ongoing dialogue with food producer organizations to examine and increase the quantity and effectiveness of funds that are allocated towards agroecology, and to improve the quality of delivery.
This work continues, as we collaborate with our partners to advance the Transformation of public and philanthropic finance so that agroecology can achieve its unmet potential as a vital approach to confronting our global challenges.
Contact: colin.anderson@uvm.edu for more information.
Growing empathy: Community building and food justice inspired by women
Amaya Carrasco-Torrontegui, PhD student in the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative, was awarded the Extraordinary Community Builder Recognition Award in Farm and Food Justice. In this blog post, she shares her inspiring acceptance speech.
On November 5th I had the honor to receive the “Extraordinary Community Builder Recognition Award in Farm and Food Justice” of the Women, Food, Agriculture Network. The Organization aims to engage women in building an ecological and just food and agricultural system through individual and community power in the United States. An organization built by women and that cares about women opportunities.
This award made me reflect that as humanity we are facing many challenges, like climate change and the current pandemic, but one of the biggest challenges, that not many people mention, is hyper individualization. To face apathy for the other and individualism, we need exactly what the Women, Food and Agricultural Network does: promote community and cooperative relations. Millions of women smallholders, typically invisible, are the ones who put food on the plate of millions more, particularly children and elderly –like, stated in a quote that has touched my heart:
“If you teach a man to farm, his family will eat. If you teach a woman to farm, the community will eat” (Unknow).
This resonates with me because during my years working in agriculture, I have witnessed how this reflection is a reality. During my time living in St. Louis, Missouri, I saw the power of women and food to build community. For four years I supported UCity and Bloom, an NGO focused on hands-on education in public school gardens. Through my involvement I observed the power of food as a key instrument to change food habits, especially in African American and Latinx children. This initiative was created by a group of women that decided to build community through the development of urban gardens in their neighborhood.
Source: Amaya Carrasco Torrontegui. 2019. School gardens run by UCity and Bloom
I also had the opportunity to reconnect with the cycles of life and nature through my participation in an apprenticeship program in an organic farm school rooted in Ferguson, EarthDance; the organization was created by a woman with the mission of teaching about farming and how to produce healthy food for the community. I also was part of Urban Harvest STL, an NGO that produces food in roof tops and donates all the produce to people in need. The leader of the organization was another woman that also was my professor at Harris-Stowe University, a historical university, and who is my coach nowadays. As you may have noticed, there is a pattern, all these organizations were created by women.
Source: Urban Harvest STL. 2018. Amaya Carrasco in the Food Roof Farm.
In the Global South, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2020), 60-80% of the food that is consumed is grown by women farmers. This is something that I have personally seen while interviewing a group of urban farmers of the AGRUPAR project. In the city of Quito, my hometown, there are around 1,400 gardens and 80% of them are led by women with indigenous heritage (Carrasco-Torrontegui & Cárdenas, 2021). However, their work producing food is often seeing as a set of domestic activities, an invisible sphere, not productive because is not associated to an income. In the global scale, inequalities are striking, even though many women are farmers, men are the ones who own resources such as land, water, work tools. The women of AGRUPAR drive an economy of “diversity-oriented practices in the face of homogeneity, cooperation in the face of competition, collective access rather than private property and preference to barter instead of commodification” (Carrasco-Torrontegui & Cárdenas, 2021: 90). The same set of practices and values are particularly present in rural indigenous communities experiencing feminization of agriculture. I also have the privilege of being a part of the Caliata Initiative, a notable sustainable food system where women are the backbone.
Source: Amaya Carrasco-Torrentegui, 2009. Women working in the minga (Andean communitarian work) in Caliata.
Despite challenges and inequalities, there is hope, particularly in empowering women –as Ruth Bader said: “fight for things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you”. For that reason, I want to congratulate the work of Women, Food, and Agriculture Network and say that I feel grateful to be a member of it. This recognition of my work could not be possible without the support of all the organizations and people that have help me and inspired during all these years. Definitely:
Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.
References:
Carrasco-Torrontegui, A. & Cardenas, S. (2021). Chapter 3: Urban agriculture lead by women: Just and resilient cities. Urban political ecology to face climate change. In Faculty of Latin-American Social Science (Ed.)
FAO (Organizacion de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentacion). 2020. “La mujer y la seguridad alimentaria”. Accessed from: https://bit.ly/3nhVFGU
The West Africa (WAf) CoP is a dynamic group and an example of a community with a perspective on the future, which extends across local and global horizons. Agroecological transitions are actively taking shape in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, stemming from experience and knowledge in agricultural practices, nutrition and market activities. Research methods also have been changing over the years to engage project actors and farmers in collaborative participatory learning and to support innovations that build on local resources. Furthermore, the CoP has catalyzed actions directed at creating gender equality and social justice.
When the WAf CoP gathers, everyone’s work becomes a shared experience and an opportunity for co-learning.
In April 2021, the Agroecology Support Team (AES) proposed a workshop on the theme of agroecological transitions (AET) through a lens of agroecological principles and personal values.
The goal was to strengthen projects’ confidence in their own knowledge and to ease familiarity with the AET as a process. The participants engaged with two main activities: 1) contextualizing agroecological principles to make them actionable within local realities; and 2) envisioning an agroecological transition for a desired change grounded in contextualized principles, personal values and local resources. Agroecological principles can inspire and orient us, but they become alive only when the actors enrich them with their words and realities. Assimilating practical references and examples, the definition of local farmers can ground action more easily.
A participant said that the recognition of the knowledge in hand of a community, and the exchange of this knowledge, are necessary to let the transition process emerge. In Niger, poverty is a big problem that agroecology must face but there is also a socio-cultural tradition of community work that can be a key resource, said another participant. Some communities organize themselves to support vulnerable people. Valuing this culture, we want to support communities that meet, find their own solutions and take initiatives around integration of people, animals and nature – a work of peace. In this way we can make synergies tangible and advance in the transition. Not forgetting that poverty calls for concreteness, a participant reminded us of producers’ weak purchasing power, which limits the effective application of agroecological technologies. He appealed to the necessity of activities that bring revenue and security. The agroecology transition requires lots of action and time. It needs to deliver outcomes.
The AES team proposed a schematic of an agroecological transition (AET) process (Figure 1) to facilitate an AET visioning activity. The process is broken up into three phases along a circle, suggesting the natural cyclic motion of transitions. It tracks the phases of building a common ground with our transition companions, focusing on a few specific intentions and then acting, always remembering to circle back and reflect on learned lessons, renew our values and principles and direct our attention to our next action step.
The compelling story of the farmers from The Shashe farms in the Runde catchment area of Zimbawe provided a concrete example of a value- and AE principles-based vision of an agroecological transition. This transition, led by Elizabeth Mpofu, engages multiple actors and disrupts narratives of failure (or problems) by reshaping them into narratives of assets and participatory action. We can read this story through the lens of the AET process (Figure 2). Mrs E. Mavedzenge, local farmer, says “We don’t allow water to just run through our fields; we keep every drop of water. We harvest rainwater which flows from the road and, as it rains, into the contours that we have built.” We recognize phase 1 as the people from the Shashe farms and Elizabeth Mpofu come together with their knowledge and core values, and use agroecology to create change. We find phase 2 in the focus on soil aridity and phase 3 with the synergy of principles guiding action (Figure 2).
Figure 2: AES’ depiction of the agroecology transition (AET) described in the project “The Shashe farms in the Runde catchment area of Zimbawe”. Top figure: a challenging factor – livestock –can be turned into an asset and trigger a real AET. Bottom figure: Concrete steps of the AET process guided by principles. For example, the third photo is described by “What water means to the soil’s life is what blood means to a person’s life”, which connects to the FAO element of Efficiency (innovative agroecological practices produce more using less external resources).
Inspired by the Zimbabwean example, the workshop participants were invited to work in groups by country and create a vision for an AET that starts from a local problem and can be turned into an asset through a transformative process and collaborative response. The groups’ visions were ambitious enough to be exciting but also achievable with local resources and the CCRP program’s support. They were also far enough into the future to work towards keeping faith and commitment. The groups aligned their visions and values to agroecological principles and showed attentive sensitivity to the CCRP principles as well. Indeed, co-learning, gender equity, diversity, support of better livelihoods and sustainability were all integral part of the visions.
Figure 3: Examples of slides presented by the workshop groups. Target agroecological principles were diversity, recycling and circular economy. The names of the group members or the names of the group projects are next to each slide.
The workshop participants showed that agroecological transitions are possible. In the AET visioning, groups identified new synergies among projects and/or strengthened existing ones seeking to have a more holistic view of the work and benefit from expert complementarity. The actions proposed relied on local knowledge, resources and adaptive capacity (examples in Figure 3). Groups contextualized the FAO agroecological principles using words that reflected local experience and needs. For example, the principle of resilience was expressed as “ensuring good nutrition and diversified income generation in a context of climate variability”. This specificity resulted in more realistic and actionable visions.
The majority of the presentations emphasized the interconnection among science, practice and movement. The explicit inclusion of socio-economic or socio-political factors, in the visions, was a sign that agriculture is seen in its human dimension, too. For example, the principles of food sovereignty and diversification were related to the political aspects of control over seeds and choice of crop varieties. Those two principles are also key entry points for supporting and promoting women’s equality in terms of economic independence, access to education and decision-making processes at both the family and broader scale levels.
The participants clearly highlighted the influential role of regional and national policies on the future of food systems, agroecological practices and education in their countries. They sought a voice to influence national decisions and were aware of the importance for these decisions to be formulated with the participation of those intended to adopt the agroecological practices.
With a wealth of available information, has anyone really connected the data dots in coffee? The State of Coffee Smallholder Platform, an open access data resource for coffee farmers and other actors along the coffee value chain, seeks to remove barriers from equitable information sharing to help all value chain actors better assess socio-economic and environmental gaps, outcomes and trends. The platform, along with an accompanying report, will paint a more holistic picture of smallholder coffee farmer livelihoods and communities, while doing so in a way that’s less cumbersome for those gathering and reporting information. Stemming from a partnership between the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative at the University of Vermont, Lutheran World Relief, Heifer International and Statistics for Sustainable Development, this initial pilot focuses on Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, with the goal of expansion into a larger effort with broader industry support.
Panelists:
Rick Peyser, Senior Manager for Coffee and Cocoa, Lutheran World Relief
Carlos Barahona, Managing Director at Statistics for Sustainable Development (Stat4SD)
Janica Anderzén, PhD candidate in Agroecology, Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative, University of Vermont
Ernesto Méndez, Professor of Agroecology and Co-Director, Agroecology & Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC) at University of Vermont
Ciara McHugh, Statistician at Statistics for Sustainable Development (Stat4SD)
Cory Gilman, Strategic Initiatives Manager: Coffee and Commodities at Heifer International
Gabrielle Hayes interned with the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative and the Gund Institute for Environment at UVM this summer as part of her degree from Columbia University. Before attending graduate school, she worked in urban agriculture and outdoor education in New York City for 6 years, farming in every borough but Staten Island. She is a founding member of the NYC chapter of the National Young Farmer’s Coalition and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
In March 2020, soon before New York City businesses and schools were shuttered for a long siren-filled spring, I went to my local Trader Joe’s in downtown Brooklyn. The freezers and many of the dried goods shelves were empty. An employee had filled a large section of the produce area, labeled as potatoes and yams, with artichokes. In the mad dash to fill refrigerators and pantries inspired by an unfamiliar pathogen spreading throughout the city, artichokes were apparently the one vegetable New Yorkers were unfamiliar enough with to ignore.
At the time, I was managing and teaching an urban agriculture program for high school students. With the ground still frozen, this meant traveling through the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn to teach students the basics of plant and soil science and to show them seed catalogues with pictures of the purple carrots, red lettuce, and yellow cucumbers that we could grow in whichever community garden they’d be working in. “Tell me what you want to eat! We can grow anything! Except those artichokes. Our growing season is getting longer because of climate change but it’s still too short to start those now.”
I also taught them the difference between local and industrial food systems. Many students were first-generation Americans with family in Ecuador or Trinidad or Mali. They told me stories of the local market or the fruit trees and chickens outside their family’s home in the place they called “my country”. The students whose connections outside of the U.S. had been severed had a harder time visualizing a local food system. But they understood what I meant when I explained that the burdens and benefits of the industrial system are not evenly distributed. Many had been to the Upper East Side of Manhattan on school trips or had witnessed opulence on their television screens. Yet they lived with the pollution-filled air that results from the Bronx being the entry point for most of New York City’s food or they shopped at supermarkets that restock the produce section so infrequently your chances of finding carrots or an unwrinkled pepper are slim to none.
I taught them that growing your own food means gaining power. It frees you from reliance on the international supply chains that restrict the varieties sold in supermarkets to ones that travel well and that are subject to break down, as they did during the early days of the pandemic. I dreamed that some may become interested in farming as a profession and hoped more realistically that they may learn to love their local community garden or to experiment with growing tomatoes on their fire escape.
The experience of farming in food apartheid[i] neighborhoods shaped my understanding of the American food system. I received a daily reminder that this system, while lauded for its productivity, has succeeded neither in
eliminating hunger nor providing universal access to the nutritious food needed to maintain bodily health. In my classes at Columbia University, where I am currently studying in pursuit of a Master’s in Public Administration – Development Practice, we talk of “structural transformation”. This is the idea that for a country to escape widespread poverty, there must be an increase in agricultural productivity such that labor is freed up to work in other industries. This spurs urbanization and, ultimately and desirably, reduces the number of farmers, and the value to the economy of their agricultural labor, effectively to zero. Disregarding that the equivalence of economic growth to progress is a Western invention, the assumption that farmers inevitably disappear in the process of raising living standards is a fallacy. To provide one example: Ireland, whose GDP per capita is higher than that of the United States, recently enacted a sustainable food policy intended to increase the value of its agricultural sector by providing support to, not encouraging the elimination of, family farms[ii]. The share of employment in agriculture there is 4.8%, compared with 1.4% in the United States [iii].
The ethos of structural adjustment, this idea that rural areas should be emptied, underpins much of the funding, research and efforts that have been devoted to agricultural development over the past several decades, despite the evidence provided by the United States that a likely outcome is inequitable and unsustainable food systems. The Green Revolution in Asia, while rightfully praised for reducing hunger and perhaps saving the lives of millions through increased agricultural productivity, also led to the suicides of an estimated 15 million farmers over the past 60 years [iv]. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which has received roughly $1 billion in funding over the last 15 years, has failed to improve food security in the relevant countries, and failed to increase yields by even one third of their original goal [v]. It is clear that the assumption that we need only to create high yielding seeds or provide fertilizer to increase agricultural productivity and therefore improve lives, is not accurate.
This is why I find hope in agroecology. Its adaptable principles that lead, over time, to increased yields and improved ecosystem health, align with what I was taught at The Farm School, where I completed a year-long residential and experiential learning program. Central Massachusetts receives enough rain that we had no need for irrigation save in emergency situations. The specific practices that we used will not apply in arid environments. But the agroecological principles used to design those practices (such as nutrient cycling, promoting biodiversity, and integrating animal and vegetable growing systems) translate to diverse settings.
The agroecology movement, exemplified by the work of La Via Campesina, aims to advance food sovereignty by addressing political and economic factors that limit its existence. Defined in the 2007 Nyéléni Declaration as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems”, a world in which food sovereignty is realized looks nothing like the United States.
Garden education programs like the ones I’ve managed exist in urban areas as an antidote to the crises of physical, mental and environmental health wrought by structural transformation pushed to its maximum degree. The industrial food system of the United States is not broken. It was designed to exploit land, resources and bodies in pursuit of productivity and profit and it has succeeded spectacularly. It is not a system that requires only tweaks to become “climate-smart”. It is not a system that can be replicated in every climate, landscape and form of government. It is not a system that should be replicated at all. Agroecology provides a path to designing food systems that are culturally and environmentally appropriate, sustainable for people and the planet. In this time of increased focus on food systems and their interaction with our rapidly changing climate, may those with the power to shape the future learn from the past.
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Footnotes
[i] I use the term “food apartheid”, coined by farmer and food justice activist Karen Washington, instead of the more commonly used “food swamp” or “food desert” to connote the man-made nature of this phenomenon. Swamps and deserts are vital ecosystems.
[ii] Though positive in comparison to what is happening in the United States, this is not an agroecological policy and it has been criticized for not doing enough to address water pollution or to protect biodiversity.
[iv] Ayanthi Karunarathne, David Gunnell, Flemming Konradsen & Michael Eddleston (2020) How many premature deaths from pesticide suicide have occurred since the agricultural Green Revolution?, Clinical Toxicology, 58:4, 227-232, DOI: 10.1080/15563650.2019.1662433
[v] Wise, Timothy A. . “Failing Africa’s Farmers: New Report Shows Africa’s Green Revolution Is ‘Failing on Its Own Terms.’” Global Development and Environment Institute – Tufts University, July 2020. Working Paper No.20-01. https://sites.tufts.edu/gdae/files/2020/07/20-01_Wise_FailureToYield.pdf
This summer, 8 undergraduate students from across the University of Vermont participated in the first year of the Agroecology Extension Summer Research Fellowship, a collaboration between UVM Extension, the Plant and Soil Science Department, and the ALC.
We’re excited to share two opportunities to dig deeper into what the fellows were up to this summer around Vermont: a special feature on UVM Extension’s Across the Fence TV program and a CALS story, Agroecology in Action. Thanks to those who helped capture and share pieces of this program in its inaugural year.
The fellowship is a part of USDA NIFA’s Research and Extension Experience for Undergraduates (REEU) program and will continue for the next 4 years. In future years, the workforce development grant will bring students both from UVM and institutions across the country to Vermont for an immersive summer research and extension experience in agroecology.
Interested in learning about how to apply participatory, trandsdiciplilary and action research in your work? Sign up for this online course taking place from September to December 2021.
Participatory, transdisciplinary and action research have become internationally recognized as pillars of knowledge production for agroecology and food sovereignty. These approaches are also complex and unorthodox in many contexts and requires a careful and intentional cultivation of a researcher’s commitments, skill and competencies. This course will help students to meet this challenge through a systematic engagement with theory, skills, methods and a critical reflexive self-examination of our role in the research processes.
AVAILABLE FOR CREDIT OR FOR NON-CREDIT (CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT). Visit here for more info. Email: colin.anderson@uvm.edu with questions.
CLASS MEETING TIMES AND LOCATION: Weekly zoom meetings on Tuesdays from 13:15 to 15:15 EST.
In this course, we will build a foundation for our learning by examining the ‘politics of knowledge’ or the ways that power and privilege shape science, academia, innovation and development. To this end, we will engage with critical theoretical traditions, such as feminism and decoloniality, to help students understand and challenge oppressive power relations in society as they are expressed in the knowledge systems that we are embedded within.
The course will explore different approaches to participatory and transdisciplinary research applied in different contexts.
If this sounds like challenging material, that’s because it is! But don’t stress too much, we’ll do our best to demystify and unpack these concepts together and to ground these ideas in relation to our own work, lives, and perspectives. We will also get practical and focus on the nuts and bolts of doing Participatory Action Research (PAR), which can be described as a process of research, education and action in which participants work together to understand and transform reality. It generally involves iterative cycles of inquiry by collectives of people seeking to address problems of common practical and political concern. We will shine a spotlight on several methods used within this tradition including, for example, participatory photography, popular education, theatre, indigenous approaches, deliberative methodologies, auto-ethnography and different forms of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods inquiry.
The course will explore the value of ‘people’s knowledge’ and the notion of cognitive justice which demands, “It demands recognition of knowledges, not only as methods but as ways of life. This presupposes that knowledge is embedded in an ecology of knowledges, where each knowledge has its place, its claim to a cosmology, its sense as a form of life. In this sense knowledge is not something to be abstracted from a culture as a life form; it is connected to a livelihood, a life cycle, a lifestyle; it determines life chances.” (Visvanathan 2009)
We will look at PAR especially in the context of agroecology and examine how the integration of PAR and transdisciplinary approaches can serve to deepen our collective understanding of complex problems/issues. Students will learn how to apply a transdisciplinary PAR approach to topics in agrifood system studies and action. We will examine examples of agroecological PAR projects, to draw lessons learned and to find inspiration. Students will be asked to articulate and develop their own self-understanding of their praxis as a researcher. In addition to asynchronous online learning, this course will include a synchronous 2-hour weekly online meeting via MS Teams that will involve a range of different interactive activities including discussions, workshops and guest speakers. Regular and active participation in these sessions is a core component of the course learning and assessment. Students will take on a rotating role in designing and facilitating a student-led component of the weekly meetings.
READINGS:
Required:
Wakeford, T., and Sanchez Rodriguez, J. (2018). “Participatory Research: Towards a More Fruitful Knowledge”, in: Connected Communities Foundation Series.(Bristol: University of Bristol/AHRC Connected Communities Programme).
Weekly assigned articles, videos, podcasts, etc.
Recommended:
Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2021) Decolonizing Methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. 2nd edn. London: Zed Books
Freire, P. (2017) Pedagogy of the Oppressed(Penguin Modern Classics). London: Penguin.
All required readings (e.g. journal articles, news excerpts, fact sheets, etc.) will be provided.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course students will have:
Developed an understanding of participatory action research (PAR) and transdisciplinary approaches, and how they are distinct from other research and action approaches;
Deepened their understanding of how knowledge is situated, gendered, racialized, colonial and thus has contributed to social injustice and oppression;
Considered how these structures and power dynamics influence research processes;
Explored how PAR and transdisciplinary approaches can be applied in agroecology, including through the examination of inspirational case studies;
Learned about designing research that is both rigorous and provides meaningful contributions to the community/stakeholder(s) and the researcher(s);
Thought about their own positionality to situate themselves in the learning objectives above;
Developed strategies for critical self- and collective reflection and evaluation in participatory research processes and practice;
The course will include an exploration of the nuts and bolts of participatory and transdisciplinary research.
Current Food Systems PhD student and ALC member Amaya Carrasco-Torrontegui was chosen for the Graduate Student Award for Outstanding MS Research and Scholarship in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, where she completed her MS in Leadership for Sustainability.
Community wellbeing was at the center of Amaya’s capstone, which also included a strong component of self awareness, leadership, and heart. Amaya developed and led an eight-session seminar in Spanish on sustainable food production in collaboration with the Missouri University Extension that was attended by 240 participants from nine different countries. The course was titled Agricultura Urbana Sostenible. She also offered support to people growing their own food with sustainable agriculture techniques in the United States, Ecuador, and other countries in Latin America; a particularly significant need during the COVID-19 pandemic when many were experiencing food shortages.
“Carrasco Torrontegui knows what it’s like to be a migrant; she has grandparents from Basque country in Spain, parents from Chile, and she was born in Ecuador.
“For me, it was very difficult to come to the U.S. because I didn’t have friends and my visa didn’t allow me to work or study,” Carrasco Torrontegui said. “And that was very hard.”
While walking around her neighborhood in St. Louis, Carrasco Torrontegui passed by a plot of land where people were growing plants.
She found out it was part of U City In Bloom, a nonprofit with more than 200 community gardens in University City. A volunteer at that garden happened to be from Ecuador, too; she became Carrasco Torrontegui’s first friend in the U.S. and introduced her to the world of urban agriculture.
“I discovered that was a passion for me — growing food, connecting with people, being in nature, learning from plants and insects,” Carrasco Torrontegui said.” From an article in NewsTribune.
Felicidades Amaya on this award and completion of this incredibly valuable project! Read the abstract of Amaya’s research and full paper: BE YOU: A JOURNEY TO FIND COURAGE. Amaya is currently involved in the Collaborative Crop Research Project, so stay tuned to see what she does next.
From capstone paper: Urban agriculture class with the older adults of the 60 and Piquito Project
This exciting collaboration will fund the development of an innovative undergraduate fellowship program in 2022 rooted in a transdisciplinary extension experience that will catalyze not only the dissemination of cutting-edge research ideas and technologies, but also demonstrate a healthy collaborative community for a thriving researcher and farmer partnership at a time when collaboration will be key to addressing increasingly complicated agricultural challenges.
This essay was written by Luis about his experiences assisting Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez – both ALC members – with her research en El Yunque. This essay was originally published in Spanish in 80 grados and then translated by the author and published on www.luisalexis.com. Here’s more about Aura’s research.
This essay was originally published in Spanish at 80 grados. It was translated by the author and published on www.luisalexis.com.
I was thinking of two things while walking: that my legs could not hold me anymore and that I wanted to see a coquí, Puerto Rico’s endemic frog. We had been within the green labyrinth of El Yunque, Puerto Rico’s tropical rainforest, for almost four hours. Although I wanted to look up and appreciate the plethora of stars, I kept my gaze down so that the flashlight on my head would light the way. Falling down on one of those paths, full of rocks and roots, while carrying a backpack full of scientific equipment, is not a pretty picture. There were times when I slipped, but still had not fallen. I was in the back of the line, walking slowly to see if I could spot a coquí, but without missing the pace of the team. “Look, Luis,” Aura said after a while. And there it was, quiet on a log, ready for the photo. After that, she asked us to turn off our flashlights.
Aura Alonso-Rodríguez is an ecologist. She studies human and climatic impacts on tropical ecosystems through insects. Two other people and I accompanied her on her once or two times-a-year pilgrimage to El Yunque, under the new moon. We were assisting her in her research, focused on understanding the impacts of Hurricane Maria on moth (nocturnal butterflies) communities. It is under the new moon that this type of sampling can be done effectively: the darkness reduces competition between the light from the trap and from the moon, thus attracting more moths.
The voices of the rainforest multiplied and amplified once we shut off the lights. To be immersed in the darkness of our rainforest and to listen to its sounds is not an opportunity that I am often given. In that moment, I finally looked up to the skies and appreciated the stars without fear of falling. As a drizzle began, we turned on the lights, and continued our walk back to the where we started.
We arrived around 6:30 P.M. to the El Verde field station, the research center of the University of Puerto Rico located in El Yunque. The objective was to go to the three spots that Aura selected, where we would place three traps with ultraviolet bulbs that would attract the moths. We carried three 25-pound batteries into the rainforest; each of us with a backpack full of equipment and several bottles of water and snack bars. It was almost 11 P.M. by the time we got back to the parking lot. The rain helped disguise the sweat and tiredness of our bodies.
That new-moon-weekend in July 2020 brought back memories of when I did research in the field, but it also reminded me of how complicated and complex it is, as many things are out of our control. Especially, when there is an ongoing pandemic. We returned to the house while listening to the symphony of our stomachs. And although we were tempted to open a few beers and socialize, we opted to go to sleep after eating, as we had to return to the forest around 5:00 A.M. When I saw Aura’s disappointment and frustration when finding the traps turned off the next morning, I knew we should have had at least one beer before going to sleep.
The coquí posing on a tree, and the trap turned on. Inside of the bucket there is a little flask with chloroform, and a forest of newspaper.
I arrived in Rio Grande, one of the municipalities where El Yunque is located, Friday afternoon. Aura and I met at a local supermarket to buy food for the weekend. The last time we saw each other was two months earlier, in Vermont, where we are studying. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then hugged. Obviously, breaking pandemic protocols made us feel bad — even though we had been in isolation for a long time, preparing for that sampling weekend at El Yunque. It felt good to escape from the south of Puerto Rico, where I live. The drought, plus the Saharan dust, had the area all covered in brown and misty landscapes. These episodes of severe drought are becoming more frequent and intense in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico, like most islands in the region, is expected to see increasing temperatures due to climate change. Seeing so much green, while following Aura towards the house near the rainforest where we would be staying, was almost magical. “It is very dry here too, even if it doesn’t look like it” –she told me, as we got the equipment out of her car.
Aura has been collecting moths in El Yunque since the beginning of 2017. Little is known about them. In particular, their role in nocturnal pollination, which is important for the ecosystem, and for agricultural production. Aura told me that, “[all] butterflies belong to the order Lepidoptera, and more than 90% of them are nocturnal. The last study about them in Puerto Rico was done in 1998 (1); 1,045 species of butterflies were estimated, of which 26% are native to the archipelago.” The objective of her project was to know the degree of difference, if any, in moth communities (assemblages) in two forest areas in El Yunque: one dominated by Sierra Palm (Prestoea montana), and the other by Tabonuco trees (Dacroydes excelsa). There are 4 types of forests and various microclimates that make El Yunque a special place. To that we add its cultural and traditional significance, particularly the one that our Taino ancestors gave it. Unfortunately, human impacts, such as light pollution, solid waste mismanagement, and poorly planned constructions, together with natural impacts that are intensifying due to climate change (also human-driven), such as droughts and stronger storms, have increased the vulnerability of our national forest, producer of water, air and beauty. People like Aura seek to understand how, specifically, these impacts harm their biodiversity, in order to outline effective ways for conservation.
I underlined “was” in the paragraph above because Aura’s study now revolves around understanding how those assemblages changed with the impact of María, a 2017 category 4 hurricane that caused damage or death to 23-31 million trees in Puerto Rico [2]. “[Our study] is one way of better understanding the response and recovery of the forest to this impact.” Preliminary data from the study suggests that the assemblages were completely changed by the impact of the hurricane, regardless of forest type [3]. Nonetheless, after the hurricane, the number of individuals (abundance) and the number of species (richness) was higher in the area dominated by Tabonuco trees. “These trees are strong, they create underground connections between them, unlike Sierra Palms that do not provide good shelter due.” Therefore, given that the impacts will continue to occur, if we want to safeguard the biodiversity of the forest, it is important to conserve those areas dominated by Tabonuco, most of which are remnants of mature forest. Meaning that these areas have not been affected by human disturbances. Aura is confident that future samplings will shed more light on that preliminary conclusion.
The figure on the left shows the assemblages in Sierra Palm and Tabonuco before and after María. Each point represents the species composition at a different sampling site. By agglomerating the points in the different ovals, the statistics show that the assemblages changed due to the impact of the hurricane in both types of forest. The figure on the right, divided in two, shows richness and abundance. In both, the boxes on the left side show that the richness and abundance of both areas was similar before the hurricane. But those on the right side show that assemblages in the Tabonuco forest had more richness and abundance after the hurricane.
As we walked under the subtle light of dawn to where we had left the traps, Aura pointed out areas and described how they were like before the hurricane. Frankly, everything looked the same to me. It was remarkable how embedded she was in the landscape and the connection she had with the forest. I told the team that if they were following me, we would have already gotten lost and would never find where we left the traps. “I grew up in the forest,” Aura said. And just as she had seen El Yunque transform, she also saw how the mountains of Carraízo, where she was raised, transformed throughout her childhood. Witnessing the change of the landscape catalyzed questions that she would later answer through her scientific work. “What do you feel?”, I asked her when we got to the first spot and saw the light off. Although there was a hint of anger and frustration, Aura took a deep breath and began to tell us the possible causes. She had checked the voltage of the batteries and tested them before the weekend. But as she said, it was not in her control that they got damaged. Sometimes one wastes so much energy in pondering over something one does not control. And now, whenever something similar to the “battery situation” happens to me, I think about how Aura responded to it.
We proceeded to remove the trap — we noticed that several moths were caught, but not the number that she expected. Yes, seeing their corpses raised uncomfortable questions in me. But their life cycle is very short and sampling once or twice a year does not harm the population―I said to myself. When collecting all the equipment, Aura took out a densiometer and together with the other colleague measured the canopy to see how much light enters the area. By comparing the canopy cover data that Aura took before and after Hurricane Maria, she can determine how much the forest has recovered since the hurricane. Then we walked up the mountain to find the second trap off. The same happened with the third. And what do you do when an experiment goes wrong in El Yunque? Well, you go for a dip in a swimming hole.
Above, Aura is setting the trap. Below, holding the densiometer, and separating the collected specimens.
While floating in the river, Aura went over different options on how to deal with the setback. She would soon have to return to Vermont, and coinciding with the new moon in Puerto Rico is not an easy thing. So, she had to re-sample to not miss the opportunity. The next day, when I had to go back to the hot south, we returned with charged batteries and set up a camera to see how long the light bulbs lasted. Before I left, I went with her to the laboratory to help sort the samples we collected the previous night. We were classifying all the moths by morphospecies, that is, by how they resemble each other. “That’s why I like insects, you have to learn how to see the details” -she said, while she explained to me how difficult it was to determine the real species, particularly that of the smallest ones.
I wanted to stay longer to help with the resampling, but responsibilities in the south required attention. As I was driving home along the old highway, it was clear how the green was turning brown. During that week, I could not get what happened in El Yunque out of my mind, plus my flat feet kept reminding me of how much we walked. Neither could I shake off that moment of silence and stillness when we turned off the lights. At the end of the week, Aura told me that they managed to acquire new batteries and that she decided to repeat the sampling the following month. Putting the camera served to check how long the bulbs were on and thus be able to adjust their results.
There are three new moons this summer of 2021, so maybe I’ll be an assistant to my ecologist friend again. Meanwhile, I hope to educate myself more about Tabonucos, about where they are in Puerto Rico, and on what we can do as a society to protect them. As the song of Francisco Roque Muñoz says, “Un jacho de tabonuco, tengo yo para alumbrarme” (A piece of Tabonuco, I have to light up the way).
Torres, J. A. y S. Medina-Gaud, 1998. Los insectos de Puerto Rico. Acta Científica 12: 3-41
Aura Alonso-Rodríguez. University of Vermont – Rubenstein School. (2019, October 29). Vegetation types influences the response of moth communities to hurricane disturbance in a tropical rainforest. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9f0bIK0Ac
Buscando mariposas bajo la luna nueva en El Yunque – This essay was published originally in 80 grados (Puerto Rico) in March 12, 2021.
Iba caminando y pensando dos cosas: en que ya no aguantaba las piernas y en que quería ver un coquí. Llevábamos casi cuatro horas bosque adentro en El Yunque. Aunque quería mirar hacia arriba y apreciar el revolú de estrellas, tenía la mirada hacia abajo para que la linterna en mi cabeza iluminara el camino. Caerse en una vereda de esas, llenas de piedras y raíces, mientras se carga un bulto lleno de instrumentos científicos, no debe ser bonito. Hubo ocasiones en que resbalé, pero aún no me caía. Yo iba atrás en la fila, caminando lento para ver si lograba ver un coquí, pero sin perder el paso del equipo. “Mira, Luis”—dijo Aura al ratito. Y allí estaba, tranquilito en un tronco, listo para la foto. Luego de eso, ella nos pidió que apagáramos las linternas.
Aura Alonso Rodríguez es ecóloga. Estudia los impactos humanos y climáticos en ecosistemas tropicales a través de los insectos. Otras dos personas y yo la acompañamos en su peregrinación a El Yunque bajo la luna nueva para asistirle en su investigación, enfocada en entender los impactos del huracán María en las comunidades de mariposas nocturnas. Es bajo la luna nueva cuando este tipo de muestreo se puede hacer de manera efectiva: esa fase oscura ayuda a que la luz de la trampa no compita con la de la luna y así pueda atraer a las mariposas.
Los sonidos se intensificaron tan pronto apagamos las luces. No hablamos. Escuchar al bosque tropical más importante de Puerto Rico no es algo que se me da mucho. En ese momento pude mirar hacia arriba y apreciar el revolú de estrellas. Al comenzar una llovizna, prendimos las luces y continuamos.
Llegamos alrededor de las 630 P.M. a la estación El Verde, centro investigativo de la IUPI ubicado en El Yunque, para ir a los tres spots que seleccionó Aura, donde colocaríamos las tres trampas con bombillas ultravioletas que atraerían a las mariposas. Cargamos tres baterías de 25 libras cada una; cada quien con una mochila llena de equipo y varias botellas de agua y barritas para merendar. Ya eran casi las 11 de la noche cuando regresamos al estacionamiento. La lluvia ayudó a disimular el sudor.
Ese fin de semana de luna nueva en julio 2020 me trajo recuerdos de cuando hacía investigaciones en el campo, pero también me hizo recordar lo complicado y complejo que es, pues muchas cosas no están bajo nuestro control. Especialmente, cuando hay una pandemia en curso. Nos fuimos escuchando la sinfonía de nuestros estómagos. Y aunque nos tentaba abrir cervezas y socializar, optamos por ir a dormir después de comer, pues teníamos que volver al bosque alrededor de las 5:00 A.M. Al ver las bombillas de las trampas apagadas cuando volvimos al bosque y la cara de decepción y frustración de Aura, supe que debimos habernos bebido por lo menos una cerveza antes de dormir.
El coquí posando y la trampa recién prendida. Adentro hay un envase con cloroformo y un bosque de papel periódico.
Yo llegué a Río Grande viernes por la tarde. Me encontré con Aura en un supermercado del área. La última vez que nos vimos fue dos meses antes, en Vermont, donde cursamos estudios. Nos quedamos mirándonos unos segundos y nos abrazamos. Obviamente, nos hizo sentir mal romper los protocolos pandémicos—aunque llevábamos mucho tiempo en aislamiento, preparándonos para ese weekend de muestreo en El Yunque. Me hizo bien escapar del sur. La sequía, más el polvo del Sahara, tenían la zona toda arropada de marrones y paisajes brumosos. Ver tanto verde, mientras seguía a Aura hacia la casa dónde nos quedaríamos, fue casi mágico. “No te creas, esto está bien seco aquí también” –me dijo, mientras bajábamos el equipo de su carro.
Aura lleva desde principios del 2017 recolectando muestras de mariposas nocturnas, de las cuales no se sabe mucho. Particularmente, su rol en la polinización nocturna, lo cual es importante, no solo para el ecosistema, sino incluso para la producción agrícola. “Las mariposas (todas) son del orden Lepidoptera y más del 90% de ellas son nocturnas. El último estudio en Puerto Rico fue en el 1998 [1]; se estimaron 1,045 especies de mariposas. El 26% son nativas del archipiélago.” ―me contaba Aura. El objetivo de su proyecto actual era conocer el grado de diferencia, si alguna, en las comunidades de mariposas nocturnas (ensamblajes) en dos áreas del bosque: una dominada por palma de sierra (Prestoea montana) y otra por tabonuco (Dacroydes excelsa).
En El Yunque hay 4 tipos de bosques y varios microclimas que hacen de él un lugar especial. A eso le añadimos su significado cultural y tradicional, particularmente la que le dio nuestros ancestros Taínos. Lamentablemente, los impactos humanos por contaminación lumínica, desechos sólidos y construcciones mal planificadas, en conjunto con impactos naturales que van intensificándose por el cambio climático (también causa humana), como las sequías y tormentas, han hecho que la vulnerabilidad de nuestro bosque nacional, productor de agua, aire y belleza, vaya en aumento. Personas como Aura, buscan entender cómo, específicamente, esos impactos perjudican su biodiversidad para entonces delinear maneras efectivas para la conservación.
Arriba subrayé “era” porque el estudio de Aura giró en torno a comprender cómo esos ensamblajes cambiaron con el impacto de María, huracán que causó daños o muerte de 23-31 millones de árboles en Puerto Rico [2]. “Es una manera de entender mejor la respuesta y recuperación del bosque”. Datos preliminares [3] de su estudio muestran que los ensamblajes cambiaron por completo por el impacto del huracán indistintamente del área. Sin embargo, después del huracán, el número de individuos (abundancia) y la cantidad de especies (riqueza) fue mayor en la zona dominada por tabonuco. “Esos árboles son fuertes, crean conexiones entre ellos bajo la tierra, a diferencia de las palmas de sierra que pierden las pencas y quizás no proveen buen refugio”. Por lo tanto, dado a que los impactos seguirán ocurriendo, si queremos salvaguardar la biodiversidad del bosque, es importante conservar esas zonas dominadas por tabonuco. Aura confía en que los próximos muestreos arrojarán mayor claridad a esa conclusión preliminar.
La figura de la izquierda muestra los ensamblajes en palma de sierra y tabonuco antes y después de María. Cada punto representa la composición de especies en un sitio de muestreo diferente. Al aglomerarse los puntos en los distintos óvalos, la estadística muestra que los ensamblajes cambiaron por el impacto del huracán en ambos tipos de bosque. La figura de la derecha, dividida en dos, muestra riqueza (“richness”) y abundancia (“abundance”). En ambas, las cajitas del lado izquierdo muestran que la riqueza y abundancia de ambas áreas era similar antes del huracán. Pero las del lado derecho muestran que en el bosque de tabonuco se encontró mayor riqueza y abundancia de mariposas nocturnas después del huracán.
Aura señalaba áreas y describía cómo eran antes del huracán, mientras caminábamos hacia donde habíamos dejado las trampas. Francamente, para mí todo se veía igual. Era notable cuán inmersa estaba ella en el paisaje y su conexión con el bosque. Y más cuando no había amanecido del todo. Yo le comentaba que, si me estuvieran siguiendo a mí, ya nos hubiéramos perdido y nunca encontraríamos dónde dejamos las trampas. “Yo me crie en el bosque” ―me decía Aura. Y así cómo había visto a El Yunque transformarse, también vio cómo la montaña de Carraízo, dónde se crio, fue transformándose a través de su infancia. De ahí comenzaron preguntas que luego contestaría a través de su trabajo científico. ¿Qué sientes? –le pregunté cuando llegamos al primer spot y vimos la luz apagada. Aunque hubo una pizca de enojo y frustración, Aura respiró profundo y comenzó a contarnos las posibles causas. Ella había verificado el voltaje de las baterías y las había probado. Pero como ella dijo, el que se dañasen no estaba en su control. A veces uno se vuelve loco ponderando sobre algo que no controla. Y ahora, cada vez que pasa algo similar al papelón de las baterías, pienso en cómo Aura respondió a la situación. Procedimos a quitar la trampa—notamos que se atraparon varias mariposas, pero no la cantidad que se esperaba. Sí, me dio cosita verlas muertas. Pero su ciclo de vida es bien corto y muestrear una o dos veces al año no perjudica a la población. Al recoger todo el equipo, Aura sacó un densiómetro y junto a la otra compañera se midió la cobertura de dosel, para conocer cuánta luz entra a la zona. Comparando los datos de cobertura de dosel que Aura tomó antes y después del huracán María, ella puede determinar cuánto se ha recuperado el bosque desde María. Luego, nos fuimos jalda arriba para encontrar el segundo spot apagado. Pasó lo mismo con el tercero. ¿Y qué se hace cuándo un experimento sale mal? Pues, nos fuimos a nadar un rato a una charca del área.
Arriba Aura está montando la trampa. Abajo, se muestra el densiómetro y a Aura separando los especímenes recolectados.
Mientras flotaba en el río, Aura compartía distintas opciones para lidiar con la situación. Pronto tendría que volver a Vermont, y coincidir en Puerto Rico con la luna nueva no es cosa fácil. Por lo que había que volver a muestrear para no perder la oportunidad. Al otro día, cuando yo tenía que volver al sur caluroso, regresamos con las baterías cargadas y colocamos una cámara para saber cuánto tiempo duraba la bombilla prendida. Antes de irme, fui con ella al laboratorio para ayudarla a clasificar las muestras. Ese día también aprendí que decirles “polillas” no es lo mejor. Alevilla o mariposa nocturna. A cada ratito Aura me decía que estaba poniendo distintas mariposas juntas. Las estábamos clasificando por morfoespecie, o sea, por cómo se parecen entre sí. “Por eso me gustan los insectos, hay que saber ver los detalles” -decía, mientras me explicaba lo difícil que era determinar la especie real, particularmente de las más pequeñitas.
Yo tenía ganas de quedarme más días para retomar muestras, pero las responsabilidades en el sur requerían atención. Mientras guiaba por Fajardo, camino a Juana Díaz por la carretera vieja, se notaba bien claro cómo el verde se tornaba marrón. Durante esa semana, no me podía quitar de la mente lo ocurrido en El Yunque, más mis pies planos no paraban de recordarme todo lo que caminamos. Tampoco me podía desprender de ese momento de silencio y quietud cuando apagamos las luces. Al final de la semana, Aura me contó que lograron adquirir nuevas baterías y que decidió repetir el muestreo el mes siguiente. Poner la cámara sirvió para conocer cuánto tiempo estuvieron las bombillas prendidas y poder así ajustar sus resultados.
Hay tres lunas nuevas este verano 2021, quizás volveré a ser asistente de mi amiga ecóloga. Mientras tanto, conviene educarnos sobre los tabonucos, sobre dónde están y cómo conservarlos. Como dice la canción, “Un jacho de tabonuco, yo tengo para alumbrarme”.
Para conocer más sobre Aura y su trabajo, oprime aquí.
Torres, J. A. y S. Medina-Gaud, 1998. Los insectos de Puerto Rico. Acta Científica 12: 3-41
Aura Alonso-Rodríguez. University of Vermont – Rubenstein School. (2019, October 29). Vegetation types influences the response of moth communities to hurricane disturbance in a tropical rainforest. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9f0bIK0Ac
Left photo credit: Janica Anderzén, Right photo credit: Scott Lewins
ALC members Scott Lewins, Vic Izzo, Janica Anderzén, and Alejandra Gúzman Luna have received funding to advance their Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects both locally and internationally. We’re so grateful for the support and excited to see these projects through!
This generous grower support has helped launch the Agroecology Extension Summer Research Fellowship, an experiential learning experience focused on the development of adaptable research, leadership, and outreach skills. The goals of this exciting new initiative include training the next generation of extension researchers, and contributing to new and ongoing Extension projects dedicated to UVM’s Land Grant mission.
From the Gund Institute for the Environment’s website: Gund Graduate Fellow Janica Anderzén (CALS) will study the ecological, economic, and social importance of bees for coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Native and managed bees help shade-coffee farmers ecologically by pollinating coffee and food crops. Farmers who manage honeybees are less financially dependent on coffee, increasing their resilience. Her results will inform farmer and community education programs and dialogues with local governments regarding harmful pesticides. Project collaborators include: Gund Postdoctoral Fellow Alejandra Gúzman Luna (CALS); Rémy Vandame, Michelle Rosales, Daniela Gallardo Olimón, Yliana Delfín Fuentes, and Omar Argüello Nájera of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR); and Rigoberto Hernández Jonapá, Jose Antonio López Pérez, Williams Salomon Roblero, and Inés Lucia Pérez Gómez of Campesinos Ecológicos de Sierra Madre de Chiapas (CESMACH).
Read more about Janica, Ale, and the ALC’s work with coffee farmers and diversification of coffee farms here.
ALC co-director Martha Caswell and other members of the ALC contributed a chapter to a new book titled Urban Agroecology, Interdisciplinary Research and Future Directions. The chapter discusses an ongoing participatory action research (PAR) project with urban and peri-urban agroecology project partners in Burlington, Vermont. For years, the ALC has been building a relationship and working with the Vermont Community Garden Network,the Intervale Center,New Farms for New Americans, andthe Catamount Farm. Components of this PAR process have resulted in participatory mapping and inventorying of agroecological practices with the Intervale Center, student design projects facilitated through PSS courses taught by Stephanie Hurley and Annie White, and upcoming collaborations for a summer research fellowship with VEPART to tackle pest management challenges.
Map based data collection with the Intervale Center. Photo: María A. Juncos-Gautier
The research in this chapter brings together agroecological principles, landscape design, and cultural ecosystem services in a transdisciplinary, PAR approach to assessing urban agroecology in Burlington. While Vermont is a predominantly rural state, this chapter explores the growing field of urban agroecology through urban and peri-urban farms and gardens in and around Burlington. Urban agroecology utilizes the frameworks and approaches of agroecology and applies them to urban contexts. As demonstrated in existing research, urban agrifood systems fill a multifunctional role in urban areas and can contribute to addressing issues such as food insecurity, public health crises, and poverty. As such, there is great potential for the application of agroecology in urban agrifood systems, and in further exploring and amplifying the benefits.
While the ALC’s work with these partners is ongoing, the value and importance of vibrant local food systems has been highlighted in the current COVID-19 pandemic and resulting food crisis. Through our PAR process, we look forward to continuing to facilitate conversations and connections within Burlington that center around agroecology and its potential within the urban and peri-urban context. As articulated in the chapter, “Ideally, by reinforcing its presence and relevance, agroecology can become a unifying catalyst for broad food system transformation in Burlington” (p 316).
Chapter Citation:
Caswell, M., et al. (2021) Agroecological transformations in urban contexts: transdisciplinary research frameworks and participatory approaches in Burlington, Vermont. Pp. 299-320. In M. Egerer and H. Cohen (eds) Urban Agroecology: Interdisciplinary research and future directions. Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis.
The ALC is excited to share the news that ALC Co-director Ernesto Méndez has been selected as the inaugural Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) Fellow at UVM. This competitive fellowship provides institutional support for the institutionalization of the ALC as a University of Vermont institute. Tentatively named the International Agroecology and Food Systems Institute, this initiative will integrate research, education, and outreach to better understand and support food systems that are ecologically sound and socially just. This new unit will have three primary areas of focus, 1) Agroecological performance, 2) Agroecology, food sovereignty and justice, and 3) Innovative pedagogy for agroecology.
This fellowship comes at a critical time as multiple crises nationally and globally have worsened and revealed issues in our food and agricultural systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown our high level of vulnerability to industrialized agricultural and food systems. Supply chains got broken, healthy and nutritious food became inaccessible, and those who are on the front lines of food production were forced to take on enormous risk. Alternatively, ecologically sound and socially just agrifood systems, which rely on local food production at small and medium-scale production, have emerged as a more stable and sustainable alternative that can withstand multiple crises globally. The transformation of the ALC, which started as a research group, will create an opportunity to address many of these issues through agroecological frameworks, deepening the capacity and learning of agroecology and food systems scholars, and students and community partners at UVM and beyond.
By: Nell Carpenter and Martha Caswell, with input from Megan Browning, Vermont Agrarian Commons
In the spring of 2020, Bread and Butter Farm, a farm partner of the ALC, became the founding farm of the Vermont Agrarian Commons, one of a collection of ten Agrarian Commons nationwide. The Agrarian Commons is a model for land access that challenges notions of land ownership established in the U.S. by European colonizers, and seeks to redefine land access for farmers, with particular attention toward the next generation of farmers. By reconsidering relationships to land, this movement provides new options in reaction to the U.S. Agricultural Crisis, and its many ecological, sociocultural, and economic impacts. Though there is a global movement toward agricultural commons as a viable, and desirable model – there are context-specific details that are particular to each locale.
Below, we will dig deeper into the Bread and Butter example to better understand how this works, but to start let’s set the stage for its relevance. The Agrarian Commons is a model inspired by centuries of thought, practice, and community. This model recognizes that the current model of land ownership over the land currently known as the U.S. was a foothold in colonizing the land, dictated by capitalist and white supremacist frameworks of leadership and governance. The Agrarian Commons model envisions a return to a relationship with the land that more closely resembles the reciprocal, stewardship of land that has been practiced through intergenerational management by BIPOC and peasant communities around the world. Read more about who and what has inspired the Agrarian Commons here, and hear current stakeholder perspectives here.
As we know, land is a limited and expensive resource, which can mean that farmers who are able to access land are perpetually working to lessen their debt, but aren’t ever able to escape that burden. This can result in farmers spending the majority of their careers engaging in unsustainable agricultural practices to chip away at mortgage debt that only gets passed to the next farmers of that land. Many tools and structures such as conservation easements exist to help lessen these costs, however, land access for those who want it remains a primary challenge, especially for BIPOC community members who have been excluded by long histories of racist and exclusionary policies.
Graphic from: https://agrariantrust.org/
The commons is a strategy for increasing access to land and freeing up financial resources for regenerative agricultural practices by making land available at a lower price and providing a structure for land to be held in community, rather than individually owned. This lower price is possible because the land is acquired by a nonprofit legal entity (501c2) – in this case the Vermont Agrarian Commons – through fundraising or land donation. The Commons then provides a 99 year ground lease of the land to a farm business – in this case Bread and Butter Farm. The Agrarian Commons are governed locally by a board composed on ⅓ leaseholding farmers, ⅓ community stakeholders, and ⅓ Agrarian Trust staff, and exist in partnership with Agrarian Trust (501c3). The Agrarian Commons model and lease structure is governed by bylaws, such that each farm business operating in the commons adheres to a level of social and ecological sustainability in their operations with a focus on agriculture in community. The land in the commons is, thus, decommodified, out of the real-estate market, and considered a member of the commons alongside the business(es) it hosts. While Bread and Butter is the founding farm for the Vermont Agrarian Commons, there will be opportunities for the Commons to grow with additional land and farms over time. Other Agrarian Commons exist around the country, in various states from California to Virginia. Explore them all here.
Beyond breaking the cycle of unsustainable land ownership and inequitable access and tenure to land, the Agrarian Commons can be a step towards food sovereignty, particularly for BIPOC and immigrant communities. In Central Maine, the Little Jubba Central Maine Agrarian Commons was just established in association with the Somali Bantu Community Association (SBCA). This land will expand their existing Liberation Farms land for SBCA farmers, an important foothold of food access and cultural vibrancy for the Somali Bantu Community. The Little Jubba Agrarian Commons and others will be able to ensure that the land remains in their possession for at least the next 99 years. In tracing the current and historic stealing of land, genocide, and racist land policy, this is a significant step in creating opportunities for BIPOC farmers and communities to reclaim land. And, in the event that an Agrarian Commons entity dissolves, the “bylaws ensure that all assets will transfer to Indigenous communities and communities of color as one small way to move against the perpetuation of white-led nonprofit ownership of land” (https://agrariantrust.org/).
In late October, the ALC welcomed Megan Browning from the Agrarian Trust/VT Agrarian Commons for a discussion about the commons with our Community of Practice. In just a little over an hour, we learned about the overarching vision and then dug into the legal details. After lots of questions and discussion, it’s clear that this movement is on its way towards very concrete impact in the United States.
Graphic from: https://agrariantrust.org/
Megan is working with Corie Pierce and Brandon Bless of Bread and Butter Farm (BBF), as well as additional board members, to establish the Vermont Agrarian Commons through the acquisition of land. BBF is a collaborative working landscape that actively honors its land, animals, community members, soil, plants and history. The original parcel of land farmed by BBF was around 140 acres of extremely depleted land. In 2018, BBF entered into a three year lease for eventual ownership of 375 acres of land that would have otherwise sold to developers. The negotiation involved significant contributions by the Vermont Land Trust, town of South Burlington, town of Shelburne, and Dirt Capital Partners, as well as the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Currently, BBF manages over 600 acres of land through ownership and lease, which is the land to become the Agrarian Commons with the support of the partners named above, local community members and, Agrarian Trust.
Corie wrote a piece about this experience that you can read here, but here’s a preview to help you understand what this means to Corie and others at BBF.
“We absolutely love this model because it does so many things!!
Most importantly, it helps to guarantee a high standard of managing land forever by excellent farmers.
It means that this land WILL be farmed forever! It can never be a gentleman farm that is just mowed each year and owned by an individual who chooses to work elsewhere and not farm but have the luxury of their own 500 acres for themselves.
Bread & Butter Farm is relieved of our mortgages and allows us to make investments in the farm business for the future for the people who work here and for the needed infrastructure.
We commit this land to a commons model where there will be 17 miles of beautiful trails that weave through the 500 acres for the community to enjoy (think Shelburne Farm walking trails in the southeast quadrant of South Burlington!), and…
This will become a model for future farms in Vermont and for the country, which is EXACTLY what we need!! More viable models so that more amazing land steward/farmers are incentivized to farm and are ABLE to farm so that we can provide nourishing food for our community and simultaneously building soil and health of the land. And many more amazing reasons.”
Read more about the Vermont Agrarian Commons here, and follow along by following @agrariantrust and @breadandbutterfarm on social media, as well as joining the Agrarian Trust newsletter list here.
NEWS: ALC team contributes to important paper discussing ‘The evolving landscape of agroecological research’
A paper recently accepted in the journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems charts the evolving landscape of agroecological research using innovative bibliometric and network analysis. Led by Dr. Rachel Mason, a PSS alum who now works at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, the article analyzed the evolution of themes in agroecology research between 1982 and 2018. The author team, which included ALC Co-director Ernesto Méndez, ALC research associates Gabriela Bucini and Scott Merrill, and ALC doctoral candidates Alissa White and Janica Anderzén, examined the evolution of agroecological research using research papers from the Web of Science. This manuscript is an important contribution about the evolution and growth of the field of agroecology as shown by trends in scientific publications. Moreover, the content of the scientific papers signals that agroecological science has been increasingly engaging with social movements and taking a wider food systems perspective.
The figures below summarize and characterize agroecology in academic research over time, demonstrating an increase in work focusing on food sovereignty, food justice and social movements (you can click on each figure to enlarge). The paper uses citation-based networks to identify discrete areas of research within agroecology, and shows that many of those areas build on knowledge from social science disciplines. We share the abstract and link to the article after the figures.
Number of papers from 1982-2018
Thematic network analysis
Word use annual total
Category usage
Abstract:
It has been widely argued that agroecological science, which originally developed as the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems, should engage with the social and political issues that affect production agriculture, and incorporate knowledge from a variety of sources. In this paper we use techniques from network science and bibliometrics to evaluate the degree to which this transformation has taken place. By creating networks based on over 3,000 agroecology papers and the roughly 160,000 references they cite, we distinguish the sub-fields (“research fronts”) that made up agroecology in three time intervals: 1982 – 2004, 2005 – 2013, and 2014 – 2018. We also identify the main disciplines from which the research fronts in 2014 – 2018 drew their supporting knowledge. We suggest that, very broadly, themes in agroecological research include: Ecosystem services; (agro)biodiversity; approaches to agricultural intensification; tropical agroecosystems (particularly coffee); pest and weed management; organic agriculture; cropping systems; system transitions, modeling and design; climate change adaptation; food sovereignty; education; and the nature and purpose of agroecology itself. Some research fronts mainly cite papers in natural science fields such as ecology, environmental science, agriculture, and entomology. However, others draw upon work in social science areas including development studies, environmental studies, and anthropology. The analysis presented in this paper demonstrates that agroecology has indeed evolved to possess many of the characteristics of an “ecology of [the entire] food system”. We anticipate that this work will also be of use to those wishing to gain an overview of the field or identify key papers, knowledge gaps and potential collaborations.
Citation: Mason R., White A., Bucini G., Anderzén J., V.E. Méndez., Merrill S.C. (2021) The evolving landscape of agroecological research. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 45: in press.
NEWS: Highlighting ALC Co-director Ernesto Méndez on multiple panels
ALC Co-director Ernesto Méndez has participated on three virtual events in the past month, one based out of the University of Vermont as well as two hosted by other institutions. See below for ways to access recorded versions. We are grateful for the opportunity to join in on important conversations, about food systems, agroecology and climate change, which are being held during such a critical time.
On October 7, Ernesto Méndez joined five experts in agroecology in giving ‘lightning talks’ on their interpretation of the evolution of agroecology as a practice, research discipline, and social movement. Recording coming here soon.
On October 8, Ernesto Méndez interviewed author Jonathan Safran Foer about his book, We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, and work surrounding climate change. The event was heavily attended.
On September 18, Méndez joined four other experts in the field to discuss redistributive policy tools towards the “5D of Redistribution”: Decolonization, Decarbonization, Diversification, Democratization, and Decommodification. Watch the recording here.
BLOG: In the Vibrancy of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Andes Community of Practice / En la Vivacidad de la 16ª Reunión Anual de la Comunidad de Práctica de los Andes
By/Por: Gabriela Bucini, Ernesto Méndez, Nils McCune and Amaya Carrasco (Agroecology Support Team/Equipo de Apoyo en Agroecología)
When we imagine the Andes, we see majestic peaks and a vibrant texture of landscapes and cultures. Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru are the three countries where the projects of the Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP), funded by the McKnight Foundation, work together as a community of practice (CoP). The CoP is formed by local NGOs, research centers and other associations, which directly work with smallholder farmers. Central to the activities of the Andes CoP is to support producers who wish to orient their farms towards agroecology, conserving soil health, enhancing agricultural biodiversity and integrating different knowledge systems, including indigenous knowledge and western scientific methods.
Participants of the CdP 15, July 2019, Ecuador.
Every year, in an invigorating atmosphere of friendship and collaboration, the Andes CoP gathers in one of the three countries to exchange insights and discuss new and lifelong questions that kindle the research of the CoP across farms and communities. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 16th conference of Andes CoP took place online. Yasmin Jalil and Sergio Larrea aptly organized the online system, supported by the CoP organising committee and the regional team composed by Claire Nicklin, Roberto Ugas and Carlos Barahona. Yasmin and Sergio facilitated the conference, and the animated and keen group, was able to instill life to two weeks of high-quality content. This included seminars, thematic groups, open spaces for discussion and planning, presentations of advances in GIS mapping, as well as a new session dedicated to agroecology fellows.
Agroecology is at the core of the CCRP program’s commitment to support an ecologically sound and socially just transition of the Andean food system. The CCRP’s interest is particularly directed to collaborative agroecological research and knowledge-sharing, aimed at strengthening the capacities of farmer groups, research institutions and development organizations. The Agroecology Support Team (AES) includes Ernesto Méndez, Gabriela Bucini and Nils McCune, of the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC), at the University of Vermont (UVM). AES seeks to deepen the agroecological knowledge of the program participants and assists in research and co-learning that supports a transition towards agroecological systems.
Ernesto, Nils and Gabriela participated at the Andes CoP16 and facilitated a dialogue around agroecological transitions. The two sessions entitled “Reflexión sobre Agroecología en Los Andes” (Reflection on the agroecology in the Andes) provided fertile ground to collectively reflect on the current state and visions for the future of agroecology in the region. The AES team proposed questions for nine working groups aimed at bringing collective awareness around the values and principles that guide their work with Andean producers, and which are vital to create strength and cohesion in the agroecological journeys of the local communities.
Agroecological Visions for the Andean regions
What does it mean to be in an agroecological transition? Where are we starting and where do we wish to go? What principles guide us in the journey? The work of answering these questions and envisioning actions to start or to continue the agroecological transition were grounded in the CoP wisdom and experience. To catalyze the dialogue, Ernesto gave a presentation on agroecological principles and showed concrete examples of principles-based transitions in two farming systems of Vermont, U.S.A, where the ALC is located. His presentation encouraged the participants to note that agroecological principles have the depth to support real change and the width to reach different contexts and cultures in the world. These principles can hold meanings that overlap with indigenous principles, such as those of the Andean cosmovision, and can therefore be held together.
The visions for the regions of the Bolivia central plateau, the central zone of Peru and the central zone of Ecuador were shared in a plenary session. The themes spanned across the three dimensions of agroecology – science, practice and movement – with strong emphasis on the social, cultural, political and economic dimensions. Technical skills are important but need to be built within a participatory and sincere exchange of knowledge between indigenous farmers and technicians. The CoP visions wish to enhance the inclusion and legitimization of indigenous knowledge in the farming practices and in the schools, in order to strengthen the presence of local farmer organizations in the governance, to continue to work on women’s empowerment, equity and food sovereignty. Markets for agroecological and autonomous products and conscious consumers supported by short market chains are important for the future of farming in the regions. The visions call for responsible policies that account for the interests of local farmers, instead of supporting capitalistic and extractive farming and mining practices.
Agroecological components, such as agricultural biodiversity, seed conservation, ecological pest management, water conservation/management, soil health, risk management for climate change, and healthy nutrition are all part of the visions for agroecology in the Andes. The challenges of COVID-19 add a need for the health of the people with whom we interact. “Agroecology is a concept in construction at the scale of the individual, the family, the community and the territory”, said one participant. Another participant noted that “agroecology is a trajectory that is made on the base of principles but also on the base of the analysis of opportunities and threats in the current conjuncture.” When we look at the principles that will orient the journeys of the CoP, we find them in the integration of different knowledge systems and in particular the Andean cosmovision, which recognizes the connection of natural and human systems. The CoP emphasizes participatory and horizontal learning approaches based on trust, solidarity, respect, humility, cooperation, equity and inclusion at all levels. The collective action and complementarity of efforts that leverage the capacities and values of people can lead to a transformation not only of single individuals but also of families, farms, communities and ultimately, of food systems. Sovereignty is essential, the CoP recognizes, in the three dimensions: in the resources, the food and the individual choices.
Opening ‘mistica’, with a focus on Andean cosmovision, for the CoP 15, in Ecuador, in 2019.
What is missing for agroecology to be strong in these territories? Technical skills are necessary to improve research quality, but they need to also be supported by an agroecological approach that influences political economies, and more explicitly, national, regional and local policy. The principles of participation, co-learning and humility transform research by creating relationships of trust that empower all participants to work for change. A key challenge identified was the connection with consumers, both in rural and urban contexts. For a new agriculture based on indigenous and agroecological principles to thrive, it is necessary to educate and direct consumers towards healthy diets and a preference for traditional/local food ingredients. Influenced by consumers, markets can then also more directly support agroecological food systems. Another challenge is keeping local knowledge alive by integrating scientific and technical knowledge with indigenous knowledge, viewing them both on an equal basis. This process can start in schools where the new generations can be encouraged to apply local knowledge. Technology poses a more general challenge, according to some people in the CoP, which poses questions on who brings the technologies and how to make sure that it is appropriate for the local environment and culture.
Music and socializing in the CoP 16
Noches de cultura and a closing of a beautiful story
On Friday night, it was time to take out the musical instruments and warm up the voice. All are welcome to share their talents …both modest efforts, as well as the more experienced! The CoP Andes has wonderful musicians! The charango and the guitarra accompanied voices and brought many smiles through computer screens. Music and song bring people together in a special way and makes us feel close.
We close with a personal story illustrating the relationships that support the co-creation of agroecological knowledge, shared by Juan Torres from the project “Semillas y Escuelas” (“Seeds and Schools”). He often visits producers of his project and works with them in the fields. He shares his knowledge and learns from them. During a visit, he asked a producer what he wished. The producer said: “You always come to the field and get to know our environment and how we work. I’d like to come to where you work once and see how you learn and you work”. This led to an arrangement for the producer to go visit the campus of the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Lima, Peru. The producer enjoyed visiting the big library and the building where Juan works. A simple visit opened a new vision of science and generated more equity in the relationship. This story reminds us that an individual’s professional positionality and experience can become a place of learning and discovery for others, if we are open to listen and share. Equal interest in the technician/academic and the producer to share their knowledge can open new horizons and strengthen relationships for expanded learning.
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En la Vivacidad de la 16ª Reunión Anual de la Comunidad de Práctica de los Andes
Cuando imaginamos los Andes, vemos majestuosas montañas y una textura vibrante de paisajes y culturas. Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú son los tres países en los cuales los proyectos del Programa Colaborativeo para la Investigación en Cultivos (CCRP, por sus siglas en Inglés), financiado por la Fundación McKnight, trabajan juntos como una Comunidad de Práctica (CdP). La CdP está formada por ONG locales, centros de investigación y otras asociaciones, que trabajan directamente con los pequeños agricultores. Un aspecto central de las actividades de la CdP de los Andes, es el apoyo a los productores que desean orientar sus granjas hacia la agroecología, conservando la salud del suelo, mejorando la biodiversidad agrícola y la integración de los diferentes sistemas de conocimiento, incluyendo conocimientos indígenas y los métodos científicos occidentales.
Participantes de la CdP 15, Julio 2019, en Ecuador
Cada año, en una atmósfera vigorizante de amistad y colaboración, la CdP de los Andes se reúne en uno de los tres países para intercambiar ideas y discutir nuevas ideas y cuestiones que persisten, y las cuales catalizan la investigación de la CdP en las granjas y comunidades. Este año, debido a la pandemia de COVID-19, la 16ª conferencia de la CdP de los Andes ocurrió en línea. Yasmin Jalil y Sergio Larrea, organizaron acertadamente el sistema en línea, con el apoyo del comité organizador de la CdP y el equipo regional compuesto por Claire Nicklin, Roberto Ugas y Carlos Barahona. Yasmin y Sergio facilitaron la conferencia, y el animado y entusiasta grupo, pudo dar vida a dos semanas de seminarios de alta calidad, grupos temáticos, espacios abiertos para el debate y la planificación, presentaciones de los avances en la cartografía con SIG, así como una nueva sesión dedicada a los becarios de agroecología.
La agroecología es la base del compromiso del programa de la CCRP de apoyar una transición en el sistema alimentario andino, de manera ecológica y socialmente justa. El interés de la CCPR está dirigido en particular a la investigación agroecológica en colaboración y al intercambio de conocimientos, con el fin de fortalecer la capacidad de los grupos de agricultores,y a las instituciones de investigación y organizaciones de desarrollo. El Equipo de Apoyo en Agroecología (AES, por sus siglas en Inglés), integrado por Ernesto Méndez, Gabriela Bucini y Nils McCune, del Colaborativo y Medios de Vida (ALC, por sus siglas en Inglés), de la Universidad de Vermont (UVM), busca profundizar los conocimientos agroecológicos de los participantes en el programa y prestar asistencia en la investigación y el aprendizaje conjunto que apoye a la transición hacia sistemas agroecológicos.
Ernesto, Nils y Gabriela participaron en la CdP16 de los Andes y facilitaron un diálogo en torno a las transiciones y transformaciones agroecológicas. Las dos sesiones tituladas “Reflexión sobre Agroecología en Los Andes” proporcionaron un terreno fértil para reflexionar colectivamente sobre el estado actual y las visiones para el futuro de la agroecología en la región. El equipo AES propuso preguntas para nueve grupos de trabajo con el fin de crear una conciencia colectiva en torno a los valores y principios que guían su trabajo con los productores andinos, y que son vitales para crear fuerza y cohesión en los recorridos agroecológicos de las comunidades locales.
Visiones agroecológicas para las regiones andinas
¿Qué significa estar en una transición agroecológica? ¿Dónde estamos empezando y a dónde queremos ir? ¿Qué principios nos guían en el viaje? La labor de responder a estas preguntas y prever medidas para iniciar o continuar la transición agroecológica se basó en la sabiduría y la experiencia de la CdP. Para catalizar el diálogo, Ernesto hizo una presentación sobre los principios agroecológicos y mostró ejemplos concretos de transiciones basadas en principios en dos sistemas agrícolas de Vermont, Estados Unidos, donde se ubica el ALC. Su exposición alentó a los participantes a observar que los principios agroecológicos tienen la profundidad necesaria para apoyar un cambio real y la amplitud necesaria para llegar a diferentes contextos y culturas del mundo. Estos principios pueden tener significados que se alinean con los principios indígenas, como los de la cosmovisión andina, y por lo tanto pueden mantenerse unidos.
Las visiones para las regiones del altiplano central de Bolivia, la zona central del Perú y la zona central del Ecuador se compartieron en una sesión plenaria. Los temas abarcaron las tres dimensiones de la agroecología -ciencia, práctica y movimiento- con un fuerte énfasis en las dimensiones sociales, culturales, políticas y económicas. Los conocimientos técnicos son importantes, pero es necesario crearlos en el marco de un intercambio participativo y sincero de conocimientos entre los agricultores y técnicos indígenas. Las visiones de la CdP desean mejorar la inclusión y la legitimación de los conocimientos indígenas en las prácticas agrícolas y en las escuelas, fortalecer la presencia de las organizaciones locales de agricultores en la gobernanza y seguir trabajando en el empoderamiento de la mujer, la equidad y la soberanía alimentaria. Los mercados de productos agroecológicos y autónomos y los consumidores conscientes apoyados por cadenas de mercado cortas son importantes para el futuro de la agricultura en las regiones. Las visiones exigen políticas responsables que tengan en cuenta los intereses de los agricultores locales, en lugar de apoyar las prácticas agrícolas y mineras capitalistas y extractivas.
Nube de palabras con los principios más buscados realizados en los Andes
Los componentes agroecológicos, tales como la biodiversidad agrícola, la conservación de semillas, el manejo ecológico de plagas, la conservación/gestión del agua, la salud del suelo, la gestión de los riesgos del cambio climático y la nutrición saludable forman parte de las visiones de la agroecología en los Andes. Los desafíos de COVID-19 añaden una necesidad de cara a la salud de las personas con las que interactuamos. “La agroecología es un concepto en construcción a escala del individuo, la familia, la comunidad y el territorio”, dijo un participante. Otro participante señaló que “la agroecología es una trayectoria que se realiza sobre la base de principios, pero también sobre la base del análisis de oportunidades y amenazas en la coyuntura actual”. Cuando miramos los principios que orientarán los recorridos de la CdP, los encontramos en la integración de diferentes sistemas de conocimiento y en particular la cosmovisión andina, la cual reconoce la conexión de los sistemas naturales y humanos. La CdP hace hincapié en los enfoques de aprendizaje participativos y horizontales basados en la confianza, la solidaridad, el respeto, la humildad, la cooperación, la equidad y la inclusión en todos los niveles. La acción colectiva y la complementariedad de los esfuerzos que aprovechan las capacidades y los valores de las personas pueden conducir a una transformación, no sólo de las personas individuales, sino también de las familias, las granjas, las comunidades y, en última instancia, de los sistemas alimentarios. La soberanía es esencial, según la CdP, en tres dimensiones: en los recursos, en los alimentos y en las opciones individuales.
‘Mística’ de apertura con un enfoque en la cosmovisión andina, para la CoP 15, en Ecuador, en 2019.
¿Qué falta para que la agroecología sea fuerte en estos territorios? Los conocimientos técnicos son necesarios para mejorar la calidad de la investigación, pero también deben estar respaldados por un enfoque agroecológico que influya en las economías políticas y, más explícitamente, en la política nacional, regional y local. Los principios de participación, co-aprendizaje y humildad transforman la investigación al crear relaciones de confianza que facultan a todos los participantes para trabajar en pro del cambio. Un desafío clave identificado fue la conexión con los consumidores, tanto en contextos rurales como urbanos. Para que prospere una nueva agricultura basada en principios indígenas y agroecológicos, es necesario educar y orientar a los consumidores hacia dietas saludables y una preferencia por los ingredientes alimentarios tradicionales/locales. Influenciados por los consumidores, los mercados también pueden apoyar más directamente los sistemas alimentarios agroecológicos. Otro desafío es mantener vivos los conocimientos locales mediante la integración de los conocimientos científicos y técnicos con los conocimientos autóctonos, considerando a ambos en pie de igualdad. Este proceso puede comenzar en las escuelas, donde se puede alentar a las nuevas generaciones a aplicar los conocimientos locales. La tecnología plantea un desafío más general, según algunas personas de la CdP, que plantea cuestiones sobre quién aporta las tecnologías y cómo asegurarse de que son apropiadas para el medio ambiente y las culturas locales.
Música y socialización en la CdP 16
Noches de cultura y una hermosa historia final
El viernes por la noche, era el momento de sacar los instrumentos musicales y calentar la voz. Todos son bienvenidos y bienvenidas a compartir sus talentos… ¡Los principiantes y los más experimentados! ¡La CoP Andes tiene músicos maravillosos! El charango y la guitarra acompañaron a las voces y trajeron muchas sonrisas a través de las pantallas de las computadoras. La música y el canto unen a la gente de una manera especial y nos hace sentir cercanos.
Cerramos con una historia personal que ilustra las relaciones que apoyan la co-creación del conocimiento agroecológico, compartida por Juan Torres del proyecto “Semillas y Escuelas”. Él visita a menudo a los productores y trabaja con ellos en los campos. Comparte sus conocimientos y aprende de ellos. Durante una visita, preguntó a un productor qué deseaba. El productor dijo: “Siempre vienes al campo y conoces nuestro entorno y cómo trabajamos. Me gustaría venir a donde trabajas una vez y ver cómo aprendes y trabajas”. Así que arreglaron que el productor fuera a visitar el campus de la Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina en Lima, Perú. El productor disfrutó visitando la gran biblioteca y el edificio donde trabaja Juan. Una simple visita abrió una nueva visión de la ciencia y generó más equidad en la relación. Esta historia nos recuerda que la posición profesional y la experiencia de un individuo puede convertirse en un lugar de aprendizaje y descubrimiento para otros, si estamos abiertos a escuchar y compartir. El mismo interés en que el técnico/académico y el productor compartan sus conocimientos puede abrir nuevos horizontes y fortalecer las relaciones para un aprendizaje más amplio.
One of the most important components of participatory action research (PAR) is the Action. Where it falls in the cycle varies: sometimes the action can emerge as a result after careful analysis of the data; or it can be a catalyst earlier in the process, centering the value proposition that both the researchers and community members should be receiving real benefit from the effort.
On a sunny Thursday morning in June, at the New Farms for New Americans (NFNA) farm near the Ethan Allen Homestead, Action rolled in. There it was, hitched to the back of a red pickup. To most eyes, it looked like a simple structure. A shed maybe? Or, as one farmer remarked walking by, “a break room?” But, as with most things, there is more to this structure than meets the eye.
Carpenter Linsey Brunner (left) and NFNA Program Specialist Alisha Laramee (right), discuss the best placement for the shade structure (Photo credit: Martha Caswell)
For the past three years, Alisha Laramee, program specialist for NFNA, has been participating in the Urban and Peri-Urban Agroecology initiative with UVM’s Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC). We are currently in the second year of a USDA Hatch grant to explore the expression of agroecological principles in urban and peri-urban spaces in Burlington. Our partners include NFNA, the Vermont Community Garden Network, UVM’s Catamount Farm, and the Intervale Center. Alisha has been cautiously interested in this project but is also judicious with her time and energy. She gives all she has to the farm and farmers. When we have been able to fit into that equation, it’s been great. But Alisha has been a strong advocate for her priorities, and there isn’t a lot of room for theoretical conversations about whether or not what’s happening on the farm counts as agroecology.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, New Farms for New Americans (NFNA) is an agriculture program for refugees and immigrants based in Burlington, VT. NFNA supports farmers and gardeners to grow culturally significant crops, increase access to food, land, and agricultural resources, and learn about growing food in Vermont. They facilitate ongoing work with over 275 refugee clients from various countries in Africa and Asia. NFNA has sites in multiple locations, including the Ethan Allen Homestead (2.5 miles from downtown Burlington) and the Intervale (among others), representing mostly peri-urban contexts.
The Ethan Allen site is a secluded, peaceful spot along the Winooski River, with full sun and the rich alluvial soils that come from being in the flood plain. The drawbacks of this site include a high risk for floods and the fact that it is difficult to access without your own transportation. Early on, Alisha mentioned the problems they faced with flooding, pointing out the eroding riverbank, asking if buffer strips or hedgerows might be effective adaptations to consider. As conversations continued, we worked to align what Alisha was identifying as needs with the dimensions of agroecology as defined through the CIDSE principles, and discussed two priorities: the first was improving pollinator presence (an environmental consideration), and the second was the need for a shade/supply area to encourage gathering and sharing tools/knowledge (socio-cultural consideration).
Partnering with co-PI Stephanie Hurley and ten of her students from the Ecological Landscape Design course in the Plant and Soil Science Department worked with Alisha and developed designs for the NFNA farm site and its surroundings. Student designs included options for creating riparian buffers, floodplain wetlands and earthworks to increase flood resilience; pollinator gardens provide nectar and pollen to a biodiverse array of pollinator species and potentially increase crop production; and ideas for structures to provide much-needed shade for the farmers, and to be multifunctional for equipment storage, group gatherings and a safe place for children to play.
Alisha reviewed the design options considering which would meet the criteria that the community had shared; they wanted shade, but since many of the participants carry trauma from their time in refugee camps visibility (being able to see what was going on inside of the structure at all times, from all sides) was also critical. The potential cost of a shade structure with these many benefits was a significant concern. The Winooski Park District required that the structure be mobile, for seasonal use and in the event of floods. Graduate Student Josh Taylor, has been working closely with Alisha as part of his dissertation research, and he and Alisha applied for and were awarded a City Market Seedling Grant to support the construction of the shade structure. That’s when the wheels really started rolling. Originally the project was going to be a community build with the farmers, but COVID-19 removed that possibility. In an effort to see the shade structure through to completion, Alisha contracted RG Builders LLC, a small, local business to complete the build. Carpenter Linsey Brunner (pictured above) donated all of the hours she dedicated to this project, and after recently completing the UVM Master Gardeners program, is eager to consider other ways she can contribute to NFNA’s mission.
Farmers picking up donations from Red Wagon Plants (Photo credit: Martha Caswell)
Sounds good, you might say to yourself, but how does this connect to research? There are several answers to this. The first is that we have found that the most important research question isn’t always the first to emerge. I was visiting Alisha on the day when the shade structure was delivered, but instead of talking about the shed, we talked about the devastation farmers were facing from pest and disease pressures in their plots. We realized that VEPART could potentially work with NFNA to identify ecological and integrated pest management (IPM) strategies that would help them be more resilient to the threats they are facing. We also hopeful that the shade structure will be a site for future workshops and focus groups, which will give us the opportunity to assess participant opinions about how the structure impacts their time at the farm. Because of all of this, we see this Action as a catalyst, that has been participatory, and has provided us good cause for reflection and reassessment of our research directions.
We also value in the co-production of knowledge that has happened among all of us throughout this process. NFNA has just been awarded a highly competitive USDA Urban Agriculture Grant and in the coming year, they will partner with VCGN to develop a leadership and mentorship program. We see lots of potential for continued cross-pollination among people and ideas as this PAR process continues to unfold. It’s not unusual for PAR projects to diverge slightly from their original paths. As noted in a recently published paper “…participatory research projects, which aim at transformative impacts in complex settings beyond knowledge products and learning, need to sustain high intensities of actor interactions in knowledge coproduction throughout all research phases to achieve their sustainability impact goals.”1
That’s our end goal. Prioritizing research, and learning alongside our partners, but never at the expense of the community. Alisha says working with the ALC and thinking about agroecology helps her to ‘see with new eyes’, and she also continues to say – “call it what you want, I just want to do right by the farmers.”
1 Tribaldos, T., C. Oberlack, and F. Schneider. 2020. Impact through participatory research approaches: an archetype analysis. Ecology and Society 25(3):15.https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11517-250315
Querencia as “love of home, love of place” is described by American author and founding father of Nuevomexicano Chicano literature, Rudolfo Anaya, in his foreword to Querencia: Reflections on a New Mexico Homeland (University of New Mexico Press). And it is this querencia for northern New Mexico- El Norte- that is inextricably tied to the land and how the practices of cultivation have defined both place and people. This querencia extends to the wisdom of Native and colonist antepasados whose Indo-Hispano heritage is rooted in La Madre Tierra, from the headwaters that serve the oldest acequia systems in the United States, to the adobe walls that envelop familia, to the parciantes on these acequias who collaborate to share water to grow for the needs of the community. It is these food traditions that have assured food security in northern New Mexico for centuries. Continued colonization and development of irrigable land move away from these practices and threaten the livelihood of these agroecological systems.
Historic acequia waters channeled to farmland (Photo credit: Camilla Bustamante)
“…from centuries past to present, the wisdom of the ancestors alive, and I listening.”- R. Anaya
The villages of northern New Mexico (El Norte) are home to the descendants of prehistoric Native Pueblo and Spanish colonist peoples who established communities along the headwaters and streams flowing into the Rio Grande in an otherwise arid land. Access to these waters, joined with indigenous wisdom and colonist understanding created that which is sacred and has fostered ceremony, community and familia. Seasonal and companion planting, such as the Three Sisters being squash, corn, and climbing beans; the use of the alkaline in soil to preserve dried maiz concho (corn) so it would be available in the winter for posolé and frijole con chico, that would be part of many family meals. Still today, though threatened by the affliction of greed, the food systems in El Norte cultivate an earnest respeto y permiso (with respect and permission) for the land and people.
In a conversation with old-timers in northern New Mexico a rancher who was 86 in 2005 told me that the land degradation didn’t start “until the fences came in with the Forest Service.” He reflected on the days when livestock were rotated to new locations each season to keep the underbrush and risk for overgrazing down. He noted that the rotation of livestock was in its own way, fire management. It was also the rotation of vegetation crops that maintained the quality of the otherwise sandy loam soil. Communities planned their crops and exchanged their harvests that supported a more balanced diet. Once I was referred to derogatorily by an employer as a beaner, referencing my Chicana heritage. It was shortly after that when the Food and Drug Administration revised the Food Pyramid, placing legumes at the top. Proudly I can note that the people of El Norte, and many other indigenous communities, have known what is healthy for them.
Community, by nature, is self-defined, fluid in the outcome of shared values with each generation contributing to its ongoing identity. The communities of El Norte have long been formed by those who share a mutual respect for the relationship between water and land, sharing in the identity of El Norte. It is here in El Norte, where nature is a sacred member of the community, where seeds are family, and where days for planting and harvest are aligned with those of patron saints and phases of the moon. The food traditions of El Norte were born from the wisdo
m of the ancestors establishing an unwrote discipline that has been practiced for centuries. Greed, contemporary and historic, has often challenged the balance of life in this area. It has been in revisiting the folkore of our ancestors, and alignment with natures systems, where we have often found solutions to our modern-day conflicts.
“…we learned a deep, enduring love for the sacredness of the earth, for the unity of life, a harmony that brings peace and happiness. Querencia means vecinos.” -R. Anaya
Acequia with pool (Photo credit: Camilla Bustamante)
Nature as a sacred community member is ever evolving and adapting to the influences of its vecinos. From the headwaters that are driven to nourish the fields, orchards and livestock, agua es vida – life wants to live. Nature’s course is to nourish, and traditional farming methods were seemingly aware of this fact. It is in El Norte where querencia is born of indigenous knowing and cultivated in a manner that cannot be disputed, and are supported by science. It is in these local practices where a sense of place and identity are formed and shared with our vecinos. When we are in disharmony, nature will seek to create balance. To live as a parciante on an acequia means to abide by a system that seeks to assure that all vecinos are served equally. When we contest natural laws, nature will hold its course and time will reveal the victor. When discord disrupts balance, our sense of unity and harmony is compromised. The lessons of our ancestors teach us to work with and respect natural systems and hold natural laws as sacred.
It has been said that the remains of ancestors that billow when the wind picks up the land. It is this land where seeds are planted and provide nourishment as they have for the ancestors and will for future generations. For farmers whose use of the land has become tradition, and the tradition is to produce food, the connection becomes integral to identity – if “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” then there is profound meaning in connection to the land. In El Norte there are communities whose identities are based on the connections to the land and the ancestors who billow in the seasonal winds. It is not uncommon that seeds are identified by a family name and referenced by the grandmother who acquired it for a family or community.
As the local communities have transitioned from the barter to the cash economy, the local food system has become a complex dynamic of access, economics, tradition, and identity.
Our sense of place, with unique geographic elements, customs, practices and people, conforms only to the natural environment that surrounds it. In historic communities with pre-historic roots, such as in El Norte, the foods are unique to place. Some foods have been derived from indigenous tradition and others have been adapted from European influence to accommodate ingredients available to the area. It is here where the influences of the natural environment on food culture contribute to both personal and community identity. Shared experience contributes to community identity, and sense of place contributes to how we see ourselves in our community. External influences on the traditional people of El Norte have only in the last century had a profound influence on the economics and perception of wealth, as well as the desire for convenience. Labor on the land is less desirable when comfort and convenience can be purchased. Community food traditions are threatened by imported food commodities and systems and the threat to community health prevails. As our traditional community food systems are challenged, so is identity. Knowledge of oneself and sense of community is necessary for mental and spiritual health, and when nature is part of our community, our physical health is a benefactor. The messages of our ancestors remain constant and the traditions contribute to the livelihood of the lands and its peoples.
Food systems are complex, and policies influencing them exist at multiple levels (local, national, regional, international) and in different domains. These include access to land and tenure regulations, seed laws, food safety regulations, water use mechanisms, market development, trade rules, state programs for rural women or youth, and regulations regarding social organization, among many other things. They also address community processes, ways of interacting and customary law. Policies are not only state-led. People’s agroecological processes or indigenous governance are equally meaningful forms of policy co-creation.
We invite summaries of between 250 and 500 words. If selected, you will be invited to draft a longer article of around 2000 words. We invite two types of contributions:
Critical Adult Education in Food Movements
Gabrielle Hayes interned with the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative and the Gund Institute for Environment at UVM this summer as part of her degree from Columbia University. Before attending graduate school, she worked in urban agriculture and outdoor education in New York City for 6 years, farming in every borough but Staten Island. She is a founding member of the NYC chapter of the National Young Farmer’s Coalition and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. 
By 
Camilla was a participant in this years Introduction to Agroecology course (PSS 311), part of our 