From 2-6 September, X Congresso Internacional de Agroecologia took place in Viseu, Portugal, bringing together people from around the world to explore how agroecology can enable flourishing resilient and sustainable food systems.
Dr Raquel Lujan Soto delivered a talk looking at the co-existing definitions of agroecology in Europe.
Defining agroecology
One of the main objectives of Agroecology-TRANSECT is to offer guidelines to generate public policies that help scale up agroecology. Currently, there are various definitions of 'agroecology' in use at both European and global level.
In Europe, predominant definitions include those proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN), and the definition included in the Nyéléni declaration, proposed by organised social movements.
View a larger-scale image here.
(Illustration references below)
Raquel say, 'At this conference I talked through an analysis of the specificities and commonalities of these three definitions, and described potential tensions between them, which could slow down these transitions if not addressed'.
Dr Raquel Lujan Soto is part of the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources team at Agroecology-TRANSECT partner CSIC, based in Spain, and works closely with our Innovation Hub Inspira Territorio in Andalucía. She and her team are currently working on a paper conceptualising agroecology for climate change mitigation, resilient agriculture and enhanced biodiversity in the European context.
Find out more about Inspira Territorio
Illustration references
[1] FAO, 2018. The 10 elements of Agroecology: Guiding the transition to sustainable food and agricultural systems, FAO.
[2] HLPE 13 Principles, Agroecology Europe, illustrations by Dorottya Poór.
[3] Nyéléni definition, Ledant, C., Hagel, I., Nobelmann, M., Smuk Stratenwerth, Ewa Van Den Berg, L., Ingold, R., Ferrante, A., Wiklińska, A., Bondadini, M., Worsdell, L.S., Barré, E., 2022. Agroecology guidebook: Bridging generations through knowledge sharing.