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ABSTRACT
Because agroecology has different meanings, it may be used in an arbitrary and potentially abusive way when deployed by development cooperation actors conceiving “agroecology-based” development projects. To make the appropriation of agroecology more transparent, we first review the recent attempts in academia to clarify the concept and identify two main trends: a principle-based agroecology and a series of different agroecologies. Based on a critical assessment of these attempts, we then propose a new framework to program, implement and analyze agroecological development projects: it distinguishes different agroecologies with their corresponding categories of principles and their scales of intervention. Further, we argue in favor of a specific category of methodological principles.
Notes
1. see exemplarily the works from Robert Chambers.
2. In our view, reformist rather than radical political agroecologists are of this persuasion.
3. CIDSE is an umbrella organization for Catholic development agencies, and acronym for Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité.
4. Coexistent approaches are for example: Sustainable Agriculture, Diversified Farming Systems, Conservation Agriculture, Agroecology-based Aggradation-Conservation Agriculture, Organic Agriculture, Low-External-Input and Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA), Permaculture.
5. Translated from French original.
6. Value-laden is not pejorative here; on the contrary, agroecology is a value-based concept (cf. for example the discussions about the immaterial territory of agroecology by Rosset and Martínez-Torres Citation2012, and by; Giraldo and Rosset Citation2018).
7. This list of principles was published online only, on the former CAN website.
8. Cf. section “Adding the principle of agrobiodiversity”.
9. In our view, Dumont et al. may miss a point in this critique: even though Stassart et al.’s list is not directly derived from field research insight, the literature they draw upon certainly is.
10. This scope for interpretation is lessened by the FAO’s endeavor to relate agroecology to the targets and respective indicators of the single SDGs (Cf. FAO Citation2018b).
11. This is well illustrated in the report evaluating 15 years of actions by the Agence française de développement to support agroecology and the French Facility for Global Environment: this report shows that agroecology was reduced to Direct Seeding and Mulch-based Cropping (cf. Levard et al. Citation2014).
12. For example, in a development project, external experts (like researchers) may develop a package of new agroecological farming techniques based on ecological principles. This package is then diffused to farmers with a transfer-of-technology approach. In such a situation, the ecological principles of agroecology are respected, whereas the methodological principles are not: the transfer-of-technology approach is in contradiction to them.
13. Note on the indications “explain how” in the table: the “implementer” of these principles must explain what he/she understands by “participation”, “bottom-up” and “action-oriented” in order to avoid that these key concepts are used as empty attributes rather than acknowledging their complexity and the lessons already learned in development research and praxis.