Agroecología: innovaciones para sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios sustentables

The report promotes agroecology as a holistic science, practice, and social movement that offers a sustainable alternative to industrial agriculture. It argues that agroecological systems provide stable yields, enhance biodiversity, and increase resilience to climate change and disasters. The document contrasts this with 'false solutions' like Climate-Smart Agriculture and sustainable intensification, which it claims maintain corporate dependencies. It concludes with policy recommendations centered on food sovereignty, gender justice, and the protection of small-scale producers' rights to land and seeds.

• Agroecology is defined as a multidisciplinary approach that integrates scientific discipline, practical application, and a social movement, combining biological and ecological dimensions with ancestral and customary knowledge of small-scale producers.
• Evidence indicates that agroecological systems can achieve more stable total yields per unit area than high-productivity industrial systems. A study of 9 million farmers across 52 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America showed crop yield increases of 50-100% for rain-fed crops like maize.
• Agroecology enhances climate resilience; for example, after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 in Nicaragua, agroecological plots showed more vegetation, higher soil moisture, and fewer economic losses compared to conventional plots.
• Small-scale producers are the primary guardians of global genetic diversity, preserving 75% of the world's seed diversity for staple crops such as maize, rice, wheat, and potatoes.
• The report identifies 'Climate-Smart Agriculture' (CSA) and 'sustainable intensification' as 'false solutions' that co-opt agroecological practices to maintain the industrial model and corporate control through patented seeds and synthetic biology.
• Digitalization in food systems is criticized for facilitating the commodification of genetic information and concentrating power in the hands of remote actors, potentially undermining food sovereignty and the exchange of seeds between farmers.
• Gender inequality in resource access significantly impacts food security; if women had equal access to land, credit, and education, they could increase farm yields by 20-30% and reduce the number of undernourished people globally by 12-17%.

APA

Ortega-Espès, D. (2018). Agroecología: innovaciones para sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios sustentables. Friends of the Earth International. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecologia-innovacion-ES.pdf

Chicago

Ortega-Espès, Delphine. Agroecología: innovaciones para sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios sustentables. Friends of the Earth International, 2018. https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecologia-innovacion-ES.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ortega-Espès |first1=Delphine |title=Agroecología: innovaciones para sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios sustentables |publisher=Friends of the Earth International |date=November 2018 |url=https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecologia-innovacion-ES.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ortegaesps2018agroecologa, author = {Ortega-Espès, Delphine}, title = {{Agroecología: innovaciones para sistemas agrícolas y alimentarios sustentables}}, institution = {Friends of the Earth International}, year = {2018}, month = nov, url = {https://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Agroecologia-innovacion-ES.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }