Our current industrial food systems are not working for the environment or for people. There is a great urgency for transforming food systems around the world into just and sustainable alternatives, and agroecology holds the key processes for making this happen. This was the focus of the concluding statement from Oliver Oliveros, coordinator of the Agroecology Coalition, at the end of the webinar held in New York on September 14, 2023. The half-day event was co-organized by the Agroecology Coalition and the Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) for Agroecology under the framework of the Science Summit at the 78th United Nations General Assembly. The event also had the full sponsorship of the Permanent Representatives to the United Nations from both France and Senegal. Entitled “Prospects for achieving equitable food systems through agroecology,” the event was an effort by multiple stakeholders and organizations to put agroecology into the conversation on the role and contribution of science to attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The ninth edition of the Science Summit organized around the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA78) focuses on the role and contribution of science to attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The objective is to develop and launch science collaborations to demonstrate global science mechanisms and activities to support the attainment of the SDGs, Agenda 2030 and Local2030. The webinar meeting provided input for the United Nations Summit of the Future, which will take place during the 79th UN General Assembly beginning on September 12, 2024.
The event was structured around three segments:
Game-changing agroecological evidence on diversity, productivity and resilience as well as on equity
Towards conducive policies for transformative research
Towards holistic metrics for agricultural and food system
Each segment was a moderated conversation and featured a presenter and a discussant. For those present at the meeting in New York, each segment was followed by small group discussions that dove deeply into the topic. For the several hundred remote attendees, a novel live note-gathering process captured thoughts and recommendations from around the world. The full findings and recommendations from the webinar will be made available at the Agroecology Coalition’s website (https://agroecology-coalition.org/), and at the website of the Agroecology TPP (https://glfx.globallandscapesforum.org/topics/21467/page/TPP-home).
Reflecting on the humble beginnings of agroecology as a science, farmer practice, and a movement for transformative social change, it is both exciting and encouraging that agroecology is being seriously considered, discussed, and proposed as a means of attaining transformative food system change. For the UN Science Summit, agroecology is being cast as a science that is doing research differently. It is about a paradigm shift in agricultural research for development toward a more systemic, holistic, and transdisciplinary approach. The lack of access to scientific data on agroecology by the global community is seen as a main constraint for scaling evidence-based approaches to sustainable development, highlighting the fundamental relevance of the agroecology principles of co-creation and sharing of knowledge.
Agroecology is a trans-discipline. It integrates formal and informal knowledge systems. It is people-centered and community-based. It is action and activism. Our journal is excited to be one of the fora for highlighting the transformative change needed in our food systems.