In the battle of ideas over the future of food systems, three concepts, ‘agroecology’, ‘nature-based solutions’, and ‘regenerative agriculture’, are competing for attention. In this briefing note, IPES-Food unpacks the use of these three concepts in international food, climate and biodiversity summits. We find that while ‘nature-based solutions’ is gaining...

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) has collaborated with partners to organize the first trailblazing three-day continental convening on AFRICAN AGROECOLOGICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND TERRITORIAL MARKETS in Munyonyo, Uganda, from May 24th to 26th, 2022. The gathering brought together actors from over 30 countries, with over 130 persons in attendance in person and...

CounterPoint is PANAP’s policy paper on global and regional issues related to people’s food sovereignty and elimination of pesticide harms. The latest CounterPoint focuses on how agroecology must advance in the context of widespread landlessness and massive corporate land grabbing.

Bananas are one of the most commonly grown fruit crops in Malaysia, but local production has declined in recent years. Through site visits and interviews with 74 smallholder banana farmers, this study sought to know the current situation of the local smallholder banana industry, the challenges faced in commercial banana...

This factsheet introduces soil fertility and health, explains how the holistic organic farming approach improves soil fertility, provides some practices which contribute to improving soil health and help meet the nutrient requirement of crops, animals and humans. The information is based on long-term experiments and on-farm research conducted in the...

The 2nd thematic group (TG) meeting shared Member State policy experiences aimed at growing the organic value chain and identified potential areas of intervention that can support collective actions across the organic value chain and in doing so strengthen the role of organic farmers.

Profitability is a key factor affecting farmers’ choices. Ecological organic farming provides many benefits for health, the environment and societal welfare, but is generally percieved to be not as profitable as conventional due to lower yields and high labour costs. However, current research has demonstrated that farm profitability on actively-managed...

Ensuring poultry and pig welfare has become a crucial issue for low-input outdoor and organic farms, currently threatened in Europe by the international sanitary and economic crisis contexts. The PPILOW project helps providing keys for proposing and testing strategies and practices favouring welfare in these production systems. In this 6...

La Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario (FCA-UNR) se ubica en la zona núcleo de la región pampeana por lo cual su evolución institucional ha estado signada por un sinnúmero de políticas públicas orientadas a impulsar y desarrollar un modelo productivo agroexportador. En tal sentido, y...

Some 30 years ago, eminent anthropologist Paul Richards described the practices of smallholder farmers as a type of performance, similar to theatre or a musical act. Farmers acquire skills and competence through practice, rehearsal and improvisation. I have recently learned that the same applies to the marketing of farm produce....

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) virtually launched a new booklet, "Taking Agroecology to Scale - Learning from Natural Farming in India," based on a strong working relationship formed with RySS, which resulted in 15 online webinars on scaling natural farming. The booklet summarizes and reflects on the...

It never ceases to amaze me why it’s so difficult to buy locally produced food that is tasty, seasonal, fresh and chemical-free directly from farmers. Why do government policies and programmes always seem to favour big agro-business and supermarket culture? It’s Thursday. I’m on my way to collect this week’s food...

Some 30 years ago, eminent anthropologist Paul Richards described the practices of smallholder farmers as a type of performance, similar to theatre or a musical act. Farmers acquire skills and competence through practice, rehearsal and improvisation. I have recently learned that the same applies to the marketing of farm produce....

A few decades ago, a former US Secretary of Agriculture told farmers they should get big or get out. A glance through agricultural census data since then would appear to show that this is exactly what farmers have done – gotten bigger, and many have had to get out. But...

Documenting and analyzing the development of agroecology in different countries and context is important to enhance up and out-scaling of agroecology at the European level. Based on the AE4EU project (Agroecology for Europe https://www.ae4eu.eu), a mapping of agroecology in Austria and Germany in its different dimensions was achieved to provide...

Welcome to the Agroecology Europe Summer Newsletter 2022 where we share with you our recent actions,  news and upcoming events. On the agenda this summer: The registration is open for the Agroecology Europe Youth Forum, News from Brussels with policy updates, the methodological guide of the OASIS evaluation tool is available,...

On 27 July 2022, in the frame of Biofach 2022, the international organic trade fair and congress, FiBL Europe organised a session related to the European project ALL-Ready to discuss how organic and agroecology can positively influence each other and to understand the role of organic agriculture in the future...

This document describes the main results that emerged from the application of the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) developed by FAO on the IFAD-funded Regeneration of Landscapes and Livelihoods (ROLL) project in Lesotho. TAPE provided a baseline for analyzing and comparing the performance of different types of agricultural systems across multiple dimensions of sustainability....

Convened under UN auspices, chaired by China, and hosted by Canada, the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted on 19 December 2022 the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), including four goals and 23 targets for achievement by 2030. TARGET 10 on agriculture includes agroecological and other...

Hundreds of smallholder farmers gathered in the city of Morogoro on November 17 and 18 for the 27th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Network of Small-Scale Farmers Groups in Tanzania (MVIWATA). MVIWATA has organized farmers stretching from groups at the grassroots all the way to a national network as the...