Pathways to Scaling Agroecology in the City Region: Scaling out, Scaling up and Scaling deep through Community-Led Trade

Poppy Nicol

doi:10.3390/su12197842

Abstract

Scaling agroecology has the potential to support more sustainable and just food futures. This article investigates a case of community-led trade operating in the city region of London. Drawing upon interviews with stakeholders and practice-based ethnographic fieldwork, challenges and opportunities for agroecology are examined. Three dimensions of scaling agroecology are identified as pathways to sustainable and just food futures in the city region: scaling out, scaling up and scaling deep. Findings suggest scaling out agroecology requires access to secure, affordable land and infrastructure for agroecological communities of practice, alongside investment in capacity building for agroecological communities of practice via learning platforms (such as training programmes) and knowledge exchange (such as farmer-to-farmer and trader-to-trader learning). Second, scaling up agroecology requires transformations in policy, planning and legislation that value and invest in agroecological practices and divest in unsustainable and unjust food systems, supported via translocal networks for exchange of good practice. Third, scaling deep agroecology requires investment both in transformative learning opportunities and networks that support agroecological communities of practices, including those with lived experience of food injustice. Findings have implications for the question regarding scaling agroecology in the city region.

Highlights

Amidst growing understanding of the links between industrial food systems, ill-health, environmental damage and injustice, a widening international community recognises agroecology as a leverage point to improve environmental and human health outcomes [2] and as a pathway to sustainable and just food systems [7,8,9,10,11].Agroecology can be understood as a science, a practice and movement [12]
Agroecology as a movement highlights the important role of horizontal forms of knowledge exchange and farmer-to-farmer learning in food system transformation [21]
This article makes a contribution to agroecology scholarship through analysis of three components of scaling agroecology via a case of community-led trade operating in the city region of London

Summary

Introduction

Amidst growing understanding of the links between industrial food systems (which tend to include input-intensive agriculture; concentrated livestock production; mass marketing of highly processed foods; and deregulated commodity chains [1]), ill-health (including occupational hazards; environmental contamination; contamination, alteration and unsafe food; and food insecurity [2]), environmental damage (including air, water and atmospheric pollution; soil depletion; and biodiversity loss [3]) and injustice (ranging from exploitation, oppression and race- and class-based inequalities [4,5,6]), a widening international community recognises agroecology as a leverage point to improve environmental and human health outcomes [2] and as a pathway to sustainable and just food systems [7,8,9,10,11].Agroecology can be understood as a science, a practice and movement [12]. Over the last two decades, agroecology as a scientific discipline has shifted from the scale of field or agroecosystem to whole food systems thinking [13,14]. It has been described as “the integrative study of the ecology of the entire food system, encompassing ecological, economic and social dimensions” [13] As an assemblage of practices, agroecology offers techniques that aim to enhance ecological processes and beneficial interactions, reduce dependence upon external inputs and promote resource efficiency within agroecosystems [10,15]. Agroecology as a movement highlights the important role of horizontal forms of knowledge exchange and farmer-to-farmer learning in food system transformation [21]

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Discussion

Conclusion