Agroecology Now!: Transformations Towards More Just and Sustainable Food Systems

by Colin Ray Anderson, Janneke Bruil, M. Jahi Chappell, Csilla Kiss, Michel Patrick Pimbert

Overview

This open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Agroecology transformations represent a challenge to the power of corporations in controlling food system and a rejection of the industrial food systems that are at the root of many social and ecological ills. In this book the authors analyse the conditions that enable and disable agroecology’s potential and present six ‘domains of transformation’ where it comes into conflict with the dominant food system. They argue that food sovereignty, community-self organization and a shift to bottom-up governance are critical for the transformation to a socially just and ecologically viablefood system. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, students, policy makers and professionals across multidisciplinary areas including in the fields of food politics, international development, sustainability and resilience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030613150
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	12/07/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Colin Ray Anderson is Associate Professor at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK. His research focuses on food systems, sustainability transitions, social movement organizing and knowledge mobilization.
Janneke Bruil is a co-founder, facilitator and researcher at Cultivate!, an international collective that works with social movements to advance healthy and just food systems rooted in agroecology. She is also an active member of Voedsel Anders, the Dutch food sovereignty platform.
M. Jahi Chappell is the Executive Director of SAAFON (the Southeastern African-American Farmers’ Organic Network), the author of the award-winning book Beginning to End Hunger, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water, and Resilience, UK.
Csilla Kiss works as International Research Engagement and Liaison Officer at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, UK. She supports collaborative research across the world on socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems.  
Michel Patrick Pimbert is Professor of Agroecology and Food Politics as well as Director of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, UK.  

Table of Contents

1. Introduction.- Part I. Agroecology and Sustainability Transformations.- 2. Origins, Benefits and the Political Basis of Agroecology.- 3. Conceptualizing Processes of Agroecological Transformations: From Scaling to Transition to Transformation.- Part II. Domains of Agroecology Transformations.- 4. Domain A: Rights and Access to Natural Ecosystems — Land, Water, Seeds and Biodiversity.- 5. Domain B: Knowledge and Culture.- 6. Domain C: Systems of Economic Exchange.- 7. Domain D: Networks.- 8. Domain E: Equity.- 9. Domain F: Discourse.- Part III. Drilling Down on Power and Governance in Agroecology Transformations.- 10. Power, Governance and Agroecology Transformations.- 11. Reflexive Participatory Governance for Agroecological Transformations.- 12. Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“At a time of converging crises— social, environmental, economic, health— agroecology is capturing global attention as a real alternative to the industrial food system and a way to mitigate climate change, biodiversity loss, the loss of farming knowledge, farmer insolvency, and more. This timely book presents how agroecology, as a transformative vision and practice, combats the exploitative capitalist food system of oppression and marginalization, not only of the world’s farmers but of the primacy of human well-being and ecological health. This book is an indispensable guide to transformative agroecology in its multiple domains, illustrated through multiple case studies and analysis of the roles of governance and power.” (Molly D. Anderson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Food Studies at Middlebury College, USA)

Editorial Reviews

The insights of this book are highly relevant to policy makers, but its scholarly approach makes it suitable for audiences … especially undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary, sustainability or social sciences programs and agroecology practitioners. … ‘Agroecology now!,’ has a wide array of material with more accessible language, as well as videos. … This book is likely to help the reader to reflect on their own agency and how it relates to transformation of their local food systems.” (Rafael Cavalcanti Lembi, Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. 39, 2022)

From the Publisher