Agroecology has been gaining worldwide interest in recent years as a strategic pathway to transition to sustainable food and agriculture systems. Following the First International Symposium on Agroecology for Food Security and Nutrition, held in Rome in 2014, the FAO organised a series of regional multistakeholder seminars in Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, China, Europe and Central Asia, and the Near East and North Africa from 2015 to 2017. The FAO has released the global report on the seminars and a summary of it (Item 1). Four thematic areas of the common recommendations made during the seminars emerged. They are:
(1) Strengthening the central role of producers and their organizations in safeguarding, utilizing and accessing natural resources. This includes recognizing, preserving and utilizing traditional knowledge and culture.
(2) Fostering experience and knowledge sharing, collaborative research and innovations by, for instance, investing in support for agroecology training initiatives among grassroots organizations.
(3) Promoting markets for agroecology-based products and services.
(4) Reviewing institutional policy, legal and financial frameworks to promote agroecological transitions for sustainable food systems. This includes considering the specific needs of family farmers, including women and youth, by including them in policy development.
Ten elements of agroecology arose from the FAO seminars (Item 2). These constitute a guide for policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders in planning, managing and evaluating agroecological transitions. The elements are: diversity; synergies; efficiency; resilience; recycling; co-creation and sharing of knowledge; human and social values; culture and food traditions; responsible governance; and circular and solidarity economy.
The FAO stresses that agroecology is based on bottom-up and territorial processes, helping to deliver contextualised solutions to local problems. Rather than tweaking the practices of unsustainable agricultural systems, agroecology seeks to transform food and agricultural systems, addressing the root causes of problems in an integrated way and providing holistic and long-term solutions. This includes an explicit focus on social and economic dimensions of food systems. Agroecology empowers producers and communities as key agents of change. It places a strong focus on the rights of women, youth and indigenous peoples. – Third World Network
http://www.fao.org/3/I9035EN/i9035en.pdf
