Dear FAO -
Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments.
I have been working in agroecology for over 15 years, as a community-based and now university-affiliated educator, farmer, and researcher. I believe agroecology is inherently a systemic view of agricultural systems which must take the interplay of social and ecological factors into account. This means that agroecology must be taken as a science, social movement, and practice – all in dialectical relationship. Subtracting any of these elements, or marginalizing the voices of those who advance agroecology through research, community organizing and political advocacy, or producing food itself through agroecological methods, is unacceptable in any process intending to be authoritative on the subject of agroecology.
Here are some additional comments:
a) The scope of the report should reflect what I have described above, and should additionally foreground and elevate the voices of farmers and movements who have been working towards agroecology for decades – as their voices are much less often heard and their insights are invaluable.
b) The project team should include scientists from a variety of social, geographic, and disciplinary backgrounds. It is crucial to have this intersection to avoid narrow forms of disciplinary or reductionist thinking, and to create synergies between forms of knowledge. This therefore indicates that actors outside of what is conventionally considered “science”, that is: agroecological farmers and advocates should also be included on the team.
c) The evidence included in the report also merits scrutiny, meaning that practical knowledge and wisdom from farmers and social movement actors should be considered meaningful and useful. “Evidence” that works from a place of profit-making self interest, however (as in marketing materials for agriculture-related products of large corporations) should not be admissible.
d) It is imperative that the whole report making process be transparent, and this includes disclosure for any conflicts of interest among the team, as well as regular communication by the team and the FAO with relevant stakeholders from around the globe. Because there is already an inequity in access to communications technologies, it should be emphasized that those on the peripheries who are impacted by agroecology (such as smallholder farmers across the developing world) may require special efforts on the part of the FAO to reach and include.
Thank you,
Antonio Roman-Alcalá
Antonio Roman-Alcalá