Agroecology: innovating for sustainable agriculture & food systems

This executive summary from Friends of the Earth International argues for a paradigm shift in agri-food systems, advocating for agroecology as a holistic, multidisciplinary innovation approach. It proposes a 13-criteria framework to evaluate sustainable innovations and provides policy recommendations to mainstream agroecology while opposing industrial agricultural models and 'false solutions' like climate-smart agriculture.

• The current dominant agri-business and high-input industrial model of agriculture is identified as a cause of global crises, including hunger, natural resource depletion, environmental degradation, and climate change, necessitating a paradigm shift in food systems.
• Innovation in agriculture should not be limited to technology or productivity but should be holistic and multidisciplinary, incorporating social, economic, cultural, environmental, and policy processes to benefit small-scale food providers and their communities.
• The document proposes a framework of 13 interconnected core evaluation criteria to assess whether an innovation is sustainable and acceptable. These are grouped into four dimensions: Social, economic and institutional; Environment; Implementation process; and key criteria such as gender justice, climate justice, and scalability.
• Agroecology is presented as a science, set of practices, and social movement that integrates ancestral and customary knowledge with ecological dimensions to transform the entire food system. It is described as technically feasible, affordable, and meeting the proposed innovation assessment criteria.
• Peasant movements have identified eight drivers for scaling agroecology: recognition of a crisis, social organization, constructivist learning processes, effective agroecological practices, mobilizing discourses, external allies, favorable markets, and favorable policies.
• The report warns against 'false solutions' such as 'climate-smart agriculture' and sustainable intensification, arguing that these may misuse the term 'agroecology' to maintain industrial farming systems and jeopardize the capacity of small-scale providers to produce sustainable food.
• Policy recommendations for governments include mainstreaming agroecology into national policies, securing land tenure and collective rights for small-scale producers, ensuring gender justice, and shifting subsidies away from industrial farming toward agroecological practices.

APA

Ortega-Espès, D. (2018). Agroecology: innovating for sustainable agriculture & food systems. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecology-innovation-summary-EN.pdf

Chicago

Ortega-Espès, Delphine. Agroecology: innovating for sustainable agriculture & food systems. Friends of the Earth International, 2018. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecology-innovation-summary-EN.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ortega-Espès |first1=Delphine |title=Agroecology: innovating for sustainable agriculture & food systems |publisher=Friends of the Earth International |date=November 2018 |url=https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecology-innovation-summary-EN.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ortegaesps2018agroecology, author = {Ortega-Espès, Delphine}, title = {{Agroecology: innovating for sustainable agriculture \& food systems}}, institution = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2018}, month = nov, url = {https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecology-innovation-summary-EN.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }