Formed in 2024, Let’s E.A.T. (Educate for Agroecological Transformations) is a response to growing interest in approaches to education that can support agroecological transformations, with an increasing number of colleges and universities running and developing agroecology courses and programs.

What is Let's EAT?

We are a growing international community of practice (CoP) focusing on transformative learning for agroecology in higher education (HE) consisting of people who are either already teaching, or building agroecology programs/courses in HE -  at either undergraduate, graduate and/or post-graduate levels. This also includes continuing education aimed at practitioners and professionals in the field of agroecology.

Our commitment to transformative agroecological learning that transgresses formal-informal education boundaries is to create learning spaces that connect academic knowledge with community and movement building practices across multiple contexts. We aim to deepen our approaches to pedagogy and inspire courses and programs to include learning on all of the 13 principles of agroecology and to approach agroecology as a science, a practice and a movement. We also explore ways that we can surface power imbalances and centre the agency, voice and knowledge of local people, peasant farmers and Indigenous Peoples. This approach aims to enrich students’ cognitive understanding, practical skills, and ethical-political commitments - as three dimensions necessary for education that contributes to just and sustainable food system change. 

What do we do?

Our CoP brings a plurality of perspectives and strengths drawn from diverse traditions, geographies, approaches, pedagogies, and contexts to create a culture of mutual support and co-learning in which to deepen our practice. Together, our aim is to:

1. Share experiences for co-learning and the exchange of ideas, curriculum, pedagogies and institutional innovations.
2. Better understand what higher education for transformation looks like in different contexts, what are the theories of change, the challenges and ways to deepen and grow higher education’s commitment to supporting agroecology and social transformation
3. Cultivate a community of practice amongst higher education programs

Through a series of bi-monthly CoP webinars, we meet to share learning and ideas for critical pedagogies and experiential learning, while exploring some of the following questions:

• What constitutes effective and transformative approaches to agroecological education programs and pedagogy in Higher Education?
• What are the political, economic, social, cultural and epistemic factors that lead to a successful programme?
• How do we nurture transformative educational practices - place-based learning, global citizenship education, and transformative learning that connect local contexts with global systems - within higher education systems shaped by disciplinary fragmentation and neoliberal pressures.

In 2024, we held a seminar series that shared examples, stories, and learnings amongst educators in Higher Education programs from different contexts. These are available below.