I thank the Committee for opening this draft up for public review. My contribution is independent, but in agreement with several points listed in the key summary points of a review document put forward by a transdisciplinary team of scientists (referred to from here on as “Comments”), submitted late Sunday evening (4 Nov 2018).
I include an attachment of my contribution, for the Committee's consideration.
In particular I address section 3 of the report, considering the dimension of i) scale, ii) knowledge, and iii) how transition relates to the first two points. I deal particularly with agency and how it can be made more central in the report.
My comments relate to several points in the Comments including:
- supporting the notion that policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.
- that knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment that goes byeond science and industry to the knowledgemaking roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.
They particularly support and provide suggestions to address the following:
- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore illfitting for an agroecology report.
- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.
- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.
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At the heart of my three points on scale, knowledge, and transition, is agency, which the report has identified as central to the narrative of agroecology’s relation to the world of scientific and technological development. My first general comment is about the absence of socio-political language in the report, which makes it difficult to make the case for agency front and centre of the narrative. The draft’s depoliticisation of the context from which different narratives about agroecology (chapter 3.2) arise, runs the risk of reducing their distinct impulses to a homogeneous set of interchangeable terms, that will consequently inform the report’s actual audience: policy makers and business leaders with no understanding of the historical context of these approaches and terms. Rather than pushing forward a set of agroecological directions with new evaluative potential, the draft will allow status quo business and governance mechanisms to swap out old appearances for a new set of (“unevaluative”; see page 32 of the comments) terminology and appearances.
The better option would be to clearly define the contextual background of the 9 different agroecological narratives the report identifies: the question of “who” and “where”, and bring that more fully into the report. This relates to the point made that “[a]n innovation system cannot be prized apart from what gave birth to it” (Comments, 28). Whopractises and espouses and puts forward each narrative, in which part of the world does it emerge, and which groups respond to these? This first grounding (if possible, in a chart or diagram) will allow the “Barriers and drivers of innovation” (Section 3.1) section to identify more clearly the challenges facing each of these, including policy and technological lock-ins. It also allows (and requires) the question of Scale (Section 3.2.1) to be better interrogated and refined, and sets out potential connections between the different stakeholders (private, public, people etc) that can be taken up in Section 4, making the report a key enabling site/“enabling environment” (Comments) for future connections to address the unevenness of the social landscape that produces each approach. Bringing in this context will also allow the report to more assiduously deal with agroecology as a continuum of levels that speaks to differentially embedded socio-technical practices, and which can be systematically considered without losing the particularity of each transition necessary in each context. This builds on the combined comments from the scientists also articulates in a detailed reply on page 30, to Section 2.2 (on Innovations theory and the use of agroecology as a black or white concept). This is ultimately I believe the report’s ambition and strength also: the ability to set out something that passes for an impartial, holistic overview of agroecology’s potential contribution to business leaders and policymakers today.
In each point I focus my attention around the central concept of agency, in contribution to the report’s goal.
I thank the Committee for opening this draft up for public review. My contribution is independent, but in agreement with several points listed in the key summary points of a review document put forward by a transdisciplinary team of scientists (referred to from here on as “Comments”), submitted late Sunday evening (4 Nov 2018).
I include an attachment of my contribution, for the Committee's consideration.
In particular I address section 3 of the report, considering the dimension of i) scale, ii) knowledge, and iii) how transition relates to the first two points. I deal particularly with agency and how it can be made more central in the report.
My comments relate to several points in the Comments including:
- supporting the notion that policy recommendations should shift to an "enabling environment" concept.
- that knowledge generation deserves a deeper and broader treatment that goes byeond science and industry to the knowledgemaking roles of farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and other producers, as well as the contributions of social movements to the "scaling across" of agroecology knowledge and practice.
They particularly support and provide suggestions to address the following:
- Avoid emphasis on "Innovations" theory, which is grounded in business and manufacturing studies and therefore illfitting for an agroecology report.
- Avoid treating agroecology as an essentialized, singular concept, which sets up for rigid binaries between conventional/industrial and agroecology.
- Instead, emphasize transitions to sustainable food systems, and the process of making those transitions in science, policy, and practice.
---
At the heart of my three points on scale, knowledge, and transition, is agency, which the report has identified as central to the narrative of agroecology’s relation to the world of scientific and technological development. My first general comment is about the absence of socio-political language in the report, which makes it difficult to make the case for agency front and centre of the narrative. The draft’s depoliticisation of the context from which different narratives about agroecology (chapter 3.2) arise, runs the risk of reducing their distinct impulses to a homogeneous set of interchangeable terms, that will consequently inform the report’s actual audience: policy makers and business leaders with no understanding of the historical context of these approaches and terms. Rather than pushing forward a set of agroecological directions with new evaluative potential, the draft will allow status quo business and governance mechanisms to swap out old appearances for a new set of (“unevaluative”; see page 32 of the comments) terminology and appearances.
The better option would be to clearly define the contextual background of the 9 different agroecological narratives the report identifies: the question of “who” and “where”, and bring that more fully into the report. This relates to the point made that “[a]n innovation system cannot be prized apart from what gave birth to it” (Comments, 28). Whopractises and espouses and puts forward each narrative, in which part of the world does it emerge, and which groups respond to these? This first grounding (if possible, in a chart or diagram) will allow the “Barriers and drivers of innovation” (Section 3.1) section to identify more clearly the challenges facing each of these, including policy and technological lock-ins. It also allows (and requires) the question of Scale (Section 3.2.1) to be better interrogated and refined, and sets out potential connections between the different stakeholders (private, public, people etc) that can be taken up in Section 4, making the report a key enabling site/“enabling environment” (Comments) for future connections to address the unevenness of the social landscape that produces each approach. Bringing in this context will also allow the report to more assiduously deal with agroecology as a continuum of levels that speaks to differentially embedded socio-technical practices, and which can be systematically considered without losing the particularity of each transition necessary in each context. This builds on the combined comments from the scientists also articulates in a detailed reply on page 30, to Section 2.2 (on Innovations theory and the use of agroecology as a black or white concept). This is ultimately I believe the report’s ambition and strength also: the ability to set out something that passes for an impartial, holistic overview of agroecology’s potential contribution to business leaders and policymakers today.
In each point I focus my attention around the central concept of agency, in contribution to the report’s goal.
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