The agroecological transition in Senegal: transnational links and uneven empowerment

Sébastien Boillat,Raphaël Belmin,Patrick Bottazzi

doi:10.1007/s10460-021-10247-5

Abstract

Senegal is among the few African countries that counts with an important agroecological movement. This movement is strongly backed up by a network of transnational partnerships and has recently matured into an advocacy coalition that promotes an agroecological transition at national scale. In this article, we investigate the role of transnational links on the empowerment potential of agroecology. Combining the multi-level perspective of socio-technical transitions and Bourdieu’s theory of practices, we conceptualize the agroecological network as a niche shaped by the circulation of different types of capital. Using social network analysis, we investigate the existing flows of resources and knowledge, as well as membership and advocacy links to critically address within-niche empowerment processes. We show that transnational ties play a key role in building the niche protective space, showing a financial dependency of the agroecological niche on NGOs and international cooperation programmes based in Europe and North America. This configuration tends to favor the empowerment of NGOs instead of farmer unions, which only play a peripheral role in the network. However, the multiple innovations focus of agroecology may open up prospects for more gradual but potentially radical change. Based on our findings, we suggest to include more explicitly core-periphery dynamics in transition studies involving North–South relations, including circulation of capital, ideas and norms.

Highlights

Agroecological transitions (AET) are systemic transformations that involve the ecologization of agriculture and food (Magrini et al 2019)
We argue that bridging AET, transnational links and uneven empowerment has the potential to make the notion of “political agroecology” fully operational by highlighting key mechanisms that shape cultural constructions and socioecological change in agroecosystems in political terms
The agroecological niche in Senegal: context, history and scope In Senegal, the first initiatives that focused on environmental issues in agriculture were launched in the 1980s by ENDAPRONAT, a national non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in Dakar by a group of French and African intellectuals in 1972

Summary

Introduction

Agroecological transitions (AET) are systemic transformations that involve the ecologization of agriculture and food (Magrini et al 2019). Agroecology supporters claim that it has the potential to make agri-food systems more socially just besides its ecological objectives (Holt-Giménez and Altieri 2013; Timmermann and Félix 2015; Coolsaet 2016; Anderson et al 2019; Boillat and Bottazzi 2020). This view is strong among farmer movements, in Latin America, who promote agroecology as a means to foster inclusive rural development, ensure food sovereignty and empower small farmers (Altieri and Toledo 2011; Hernandez 2020). Supermarkets can capture organic food value chains (Johnston et al 2009)

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