D1.1 – Draft report on agroecology initiatives and policies

Agroecology, as a holistic concept, is embracing today a diversity of interpretations, intentions and realties depending on the country considered and its context, history, stakeholders involved, and socio-political environment. Considering the aim to scale up agroecology, to document and analyse its development in different contexts is a critical and necessary step to get larger insight and knowledge about the state of art of agroecology, and for supporting its expansion and take-up at policymaker level.

Through the “mapping of agroecology” we aim at providing an overview of the situation and reality of agroecology in different European countries. This could be seen as a step on the road of building a common understanding of agroecology as well as its development at European level (Wezel et al., 2018) and in the frame of the planned creation of an European partnership in Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures. The mapping did not aim to be completely exhaustive but rather illustrative, synthesizing and provide key insights, due to the dynamic nature of initiatives developments with new elements steadily added.

This first part of the mapping on agroecology development highlight clearly differences of development and recognition of agroecology among countries in Europe. While the concept is still being in its infancy in certain countries, there were many initiatives with a link either direct or indirect to agroecology and some of its principles. Clear educational programs are lacking in different countries despite many initiatives formal or informal in this area. Dedicated research units, programs and project seems to be also lacking in most countries, allowing knowledge generation and sharing.

Gathering a unique number of initiatives link to agroecology this work is an opportunity to pave its way in Europe. As stressed in other study (Gallardo-López et al., 2018) the coexistence of different vision, definition and use of the concept of agroecology is clearly highlighted. The mapping of agroecology in parallel in different European countries allow to compare – to a certain extent – the development of agroecology in those countries and more importantly allow to summarize the main barriers and perspectives in order to enlarge its development.

Within the realm of the project, more countries are under way to be mapped and will add to the 10 countries shortly presented in this report. This will allow to broaden the analysis and provide insight to increase the development of agroecology.

 https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/research-area/agriculture-and-forestry/ecological-approaches-and-organic-farming/partnership-agroecology_en