In agroecology, farmers continuously build situation-specific knowledge that allows them to develop under unpredictable and changing circumstances. There are no  fixed prescriptions in agroecology about how to produce, process, market or store food, feed, medicine and fibre. Rather, different practices work in different ways depending on each specific context and ecosystem. This is why agroecology is knowledge-intensive and why the combination of different types of knowledge is so essential in agroecology.

Knowledge co-creation is especially relevant and urgent in the context of climate change. Developing climate resilient agriculture is all about building knowledge related to locally rooted adaptation strategies. Farmers’ knowledge of seeds, land, water and other local resources is absolutely central in this process.

Solutions to problems or ways of improving production emerge through experimentation, practice and learning with others, especially because different types of actors generate different types of knowledge. Bringing people with various perspectives, experiences and questions together can facilitate creativity and innovation. Co-creation of knowledge happens when such new knowledge emerges from sharing, learning and working together with other people.

The various contributions in this issue take a look at the following questions: what kind of knowledge are we creating in agroecology? How can learning and sharing turn into co-creation of knowledge? How can farmers become equal players in co-creation of knowledge with scientists, policy makers and others? How is co-creation relevant for the agroecological movement?

What knowledge and whose knowledge?

In agroecology, knowledge about the way the farming system works as a whole is important. Often, innovation requires knowledge about the relationships among elements of the agroecosystem, for example insects, pests and companion plants (see this article). Or -in the social world- between farmers’ preferences and diverse varieties of crops (see this article).

Questions and uncertainties are also a highly relevant form of knowledge; knowing what we do not know can shape further inquiry and courses of action. Both in the experiences from Mexico and from India people came together and organised around a quest for knowledge. This is also evident from this article which points at our lack of knowledge about effective policies that work for agro-biodiversity.

And in order to act, we need knowledge about how (through what methods and procedures and skills) a desirable outcome such as higher yields, healthier soils or better nutrition may be achieved. Last but not least, co-creation may involve knowledge about people involved in the process. This is relevant because innovation often requires alignment between people who depend on each other to get something done.

While scientific knowledge aims to be largely explicit, a lot of relevant knowledge and skill in agriculture is tacit, implicit or hidden in (women) farmers’ practices and in their heads. Bringing it to the table may require deliberate exploration, elicitation and discovery. Experiences in Rwanda and the Netherlands indicate that in these processes, it is necessary to first establish trust among different actors.

Furthermore, as this article points out, questions about whose knowledge ‘counts’, and why this matters are fundamental ones – but rarely addressed, As a result, practical knowledge held by food producers is often grossly unrecognised. This may especially be the case for women’s knowledge, even though they make up 70% of the farmer population worldwide.

Beyond individual learning

“The diverse knowledge and ways of knowing of our peoples are fundamental to agroecology. We develop our ways of knowing through dialogue among them”
– Declaration of the Nyéléni Forum on Agroecology, 2015

What distinguishes co-creation of knowledge from individual learning is the collective generation of new knowledge. Agroecology blends different types of knowledge: traditional, indigenous knowledge, farmers’ knowledge, and scientific knowledge, to name a few. Each of these types of knowledge holds different treasures. Indigenous practices often hold clues about innovative ways of doing things, based on years and years of experience, such as how to manage pests using local, available resources. Farmers’ knowledge can contribute context-specific insights about a particular type of seed, planting dates, or soil resource. Scientific knowledge can inform us about processes and phenomena that are more difficult to see and comprehend with the naked eye. Bringing together these types of knowledge has led to ground-breaking insights in the eld of agriculture. The partnership experience of farmer Jim Cochran and academic Steve Gliessman is a good example of this.

As described eloquently by Elizabeth Mpofu, co-creation of knowledge occurs regularly in day-to-day life as people ask and discuss questions in an attempt to resolve problems, and as they jointly put solutions into practice. From such a process, and this often happens in agroecology, innovations can emerge that are not only technical but that are also social or political in nature. Innovation often emerges over time and requires repeated meetings and sharing. As an experience in Honduras indicates, a long lasting commitment between the actors is therefore fundamental for these processes.

Co-creation between practice and science

A very specific and important, but delicate type of knowledge co-creation happens between farmers and scientists, as many of the articles in this issue demonstrate. This has a long history. When co-creation of agricultural knowledge is mentioned today, the first kind of co-creation that most people think of is that between scientists and farmers. Already in the 1940s, British soil scientist Sir Albert Howard wrote his famous book ‘An Agricultural Testament’, in which he beautifully describes different systems of compost-making as practiced by Indian farmers. A plethora of participatory methods have been developed since then and nearly 50 years of agricultural research ensued that involved farmers in one way or another.

While many of these processes remained top-down, and farmers were only nominally consulted or involved as ‘beneficiaries’, more radical thinking and practice emerged in which farmers were seen as researchers in their own right. These notions were at the roots of the birth of ILEIA and its magazine in 1984. This kind of thinking manifested itself in, for example, the Farmer to Farmer methodology which originated in Central America, and many other initiatives which together formed the basis for the agroecology movement. At the heart of many such approaches is Paulo Freire’s adagio that poor and exploited people can and should be enabled to analyse and change their own reality.

And this work continues to evolve. This issue of Farming Matters moves away from the lab-to-land mentality in knowledge sharing and looks at existing practices and processes in which farmers truly engage in processes of co-creation. The stories presented on these pages indicate that farmers can be central players in co-creation of knowledge. Although it is still not the norm, there are cases where farmers have a role in setting the research agenda, carrying out the research and analysing the results.

As top-down processes are increasingly met with bottom-up resistance, perhaps one of the most remarkable changes that can be noted over the last decade of participatory research is the co-creation of a new attitude towards the role of farmers in co-creation processes, from both the farmers and the scientists, as Victor M. Toledo points out in this interview.

Creating knowledge in the movement

Agroecological movements are growing stronger around the world. Much of this movement building evolves around knowledge sharing about identity, history, territory, culture and strategy, leading to collective advocacy and organisation as well as other types of political use of knowledge in interactions with others. The Nyéléni processes that bring together various actors around food sovereignty and agroecology are testimony to the strength that can be generated by knowledge co-creation processes.

Another example can be seen in India, where communities are building resilience to climate change through an innovative assessment of the impacts of and responses to climate change in their region. This has given them strength to stand up against the externally imposed REDD (the UN programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Three authors from Coventry University argue that fundamentally rethinking and reshaping the co-creation of knowledge can advance the struggles of social movements who are striving for agroecology and food sovereignty.

This issue of Farming Matters offers a rich palette of practices of knowledge co-creation in agroecology. Around the world, people are generating insight into some of the key factors that can strengthen co-creation processes. As agroecology is gaining momentum as a practice, a science and a movement, further exploration of these factors is necessary. The crucial next step will be to embed these insights firmly in fundamentally new types of practice, policy and research for healthy food systems based on farmer-led agroecology.

Jessica Milgroom and Janneke Bruil work at ILEIA, the Centre for Learning on Sustainable Agriculture and the publisher of Farming Matters

Cees Leeuwis (cees.leeuwis@wur.nl) is a Professor of Knowledge, Technology and Innovation at Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

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Learning is a lifetime activity. Nowhere is this clearer than in agriculture, and especially among women farmers. Being responsible for over 70% of agricultural production on our continent, we farm through knowledge sharing. In complex and closely knit social groups, starting in early childhood, knowledge is birthed, nurtured and passed on. This knowledge relates to a wide range of topics, such as seed selection and storage, farming methods, nutrition and traditional medicine.

Our grandparents used to tell us: ‘chara chimwe hachitswanyi inda’, meaning: ‘for a person to achieve his or her goals they need help, ideas and knowledge from other people’. So we share knowledge as we walk to fetch water, gather firewood, during traditional ceremonies and as we take our children to clinics. Every space in our community is a space to learn and share what one knows.

Women farm through knowledge sharing

As women, despite historical negligence because of patriarchy, we have used co-creation of knowledge to assert our rights and to strengthen the position of rural women. We formed groups and started to engage in farmer-to-farmer learning. We organized seed fairs to share the diversity of our own native indigenous seeds and we organised food fairs to showcase our traditional foods. This enabled us to link with consumers. By sharing ideas and sharing knowledge we joined other women’s organisations and lobbied together for favourable agricultural policies. This helped us to better understand how government structures operate.

As we women are responsible for producing enough food in times of climate change, we decided to work with other farmers and progressive researchers to co-create new ways and means of farming. After many years of perfecting our ways of farming, and because our social, ecological and economic contexts are changing, scientists and policy makers are beginning to embrace our knowledge. They see the value of our methods of ecological farming, now called agroecology, that is rooted in indigenous knowledge systems, and seeks harmony and respects mother nature. Our way of farming is currently being propagated as a way to solve the climate crisis and reduce poverty. Through knowledge co-creation with progressive scientists and many others, we as women farmers are working towards achieving food sovereignty (not food security) and producing enough food for our families.

Elizabeth Mpofu

Elizabeth Mpofu (eliz.mpofu@gmail.com) is the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina and the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Organic Smallholder Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF).

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‘Amilcar’ is the name of a farmer and of a new variety of bean. The variety, which is praised for its excellent culinary properties, was identified by Amilcar’s wife at an early stage of a bean trial and then improved by Amilcar with the support of researchers. Using genetic marker technology, Zamorano breeders subsequently identified a line of the Amilcar variety that is resistant to bean golden yellow mosaic virus. Disease-resistant Amilcar seed has become a regional commercial success. For Amilcar the farmer, the bean variety is a source of personal pride because it is highly appreciated by his community.

Participatory Plant Breeding

The economic contraction in Honduras during the 1980s led to a decline in agricultural research and the disappearance of agricultural extension from public sector services. This left the private and not-for-profit sectors to deliver fee-based extension services. These were inaccessible to most family farmers cultivating the steep, marginal hillsides of north-central Honduras. It is these farmers who are most vulnerable to climate change-related food insecurity. Honduran hillside farmers have selected their own seed for countless generations without knowledge of more formalised breeding methods. Farmers select for steady yields, but these also tend to be low. In 1993, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture began to train local teams of farmers in research skills in ‘Local Agricultural Research Committees’ known as CIALs for their Spanish acronym (Comités de Investigación Agricola Local). Shortly afterwards, two local NGOs, the Foundation for Participatory Research with Honduran Farmers (FIPAH) and the Program for Rural Reconstruction (PRR), started to support this initiative through their own programming. In 2000, in collaboration with the Pan-American Agricultural School (Zamorano), scientists at Zamorano and NGO agronomists began to specifically focus the CIAL research on participatory plant breeding. Since then, this research initiative has snowballed into a farmer NGO-scientist synergy that has both made a place for itself in the regional seed market and become indispensable to the country’s research network.

Innovative processes emerge

It is the synergy between farmers, NGOs, and scientists that provides added value to the breeding process

The CIAL research process begins with a participatory diagnosis and ranking of local agricultural problems, which CIAL members decide to address. Experiments take the form of controlled trials in which farmers compare different varieties on their farms. In participatory plant breeding, farmers collaborate with scientists at Zamorano, who may either cross a popular local bean variety with an improved one at farmers’ request, or scientists provide farmers with advanced lines of unreleased materials to choose from. CIAL members, trained in participatory research by NGOs, have learned formal selection techniques allowing them to conduct successive selections on their farms. In order to ensure adaptation to local conditions, new varieties are screened first on a very small scale before selected varieties are tested on a larger scale and finally, successful varieties are propagated. To date, the partnership between Zamorano, NGOs, and CIALs has led to the development of 23 new bean varieties.

Institutionalised co-creation

Often, the participatory plant breeding process shows differences in the criteria used by farmers compared to those typically chosen by the scientific community. For farmers, taste and early maturation play an important role in the selection, whereas breeders generally seek to improve disease resistance, yield, and architecture. By engaging in joint research, farmers and scientists have succeeded in developing varieties that are more adapted to farmers’ needs and conditions, increasing the adoption rate of new beans and reducing the time between research and dissemination of materials.

Research support must be sustained over the long term in order to allow for trusting partnerships to evolve between the different players

This experience has shown that when farmers are put into the driver’s seat and provided with the tools to conduct formal research, they successfully develop the varieties that most suit their needs. This is evidenced, for example, by the selection of drought-tolerant and shorter maturation varieties that do well in poor hillside soils and help farmers ‘to escape the drought’. Additionally, those participating in the program use agroecological management approaches, including making and integrating natural fertilisers and pesticides, as well as introducing greater crop diversity into their fields. As a result, they have managed to substantially reduce ‘los junios’, the hungry period. The CIALs benefit from the strong local demand for varieties generated through participatory plant breeding by the region’s farmers, creating an economic incentive for participatory plant breeding research. Individual actions that lead to innovation, such as the selection of locally suitable varieties, are also motivated by collective values that come from being part of a CIAL and the prestige gained from sharing new varieties with family and friends.

Lessons learned

Typically, agricultural research has characterised farmers as passive recipients of aid rather than mainstays of their own research agendas. Conventional plant breeding is usually supply-driven: new varieties are released without knowing whether or not farmers like them. This mindset not only devalues local knowledge, but also increases existing differences in power relations between farmers and researchers. Participatory plant breeding on the other hand, is demand-driven. In Honduras, giving skilled farmer researchers an important role has not only benefited the formal scientific sector, but has also achieved a fundamental shift away from the top-down model of conventional breeding of the past.

As the Honduran experience shows, participatory plant breeding is not simply adaptive research where farmers fiddle with breeders’ materials. In this context, it is the synergy between farmers, NGOs, and scientists that provides added value to the breeding process. The experience described here underlines the potential of farmer-centred approaches to support climate change adaptation and mitigation. The diversity of varieties created through participatory plant breeding puts them at the cutting edge of climate change adaptation. It also shows us that research support must be sustained over the long-term in order to allow for trusting partnerships to evolve between the different players. Moreover, to incentivise farmers’ long-term engagement in participatory plant breeding research, seed regulatory systems must allow for the development of small seed enterprise.

Sally Humphries, Juan Carlos Rosas and Marvin Gomez

Sally Humphries (shumphri@uoguelph.ca) is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Canada.
Juan Carlos Rosas (jcrosas@zamorano.edu) is Professor of Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Escuela Agricola Panamericana, Zamorano, Honduras.
Marvin Gomez (marvincernapm@yahoo.es) is an agronomist with the Foundation for Participatory Research with Honduran Farmers (FIPAH). He is USC Canada’s project head in Central America.

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The transition towards sustainable food systems has often been conceived on the basis of two sets of instruments: legal regulations that impose certain ways of acting and prohibit others, or economic incentives such as taxes and subsidies to reward good practices and discourage less good practices.

This classic view of transition operates on the basis of a conception of power that is top-down and centralised. In this view, power is something we take, grab, or fight for, instead of a much more decentralised concept that needs to be exercised across view on transition imposes uniform solutions across the board without taking into account local contexts, available local recourses, and the motivations that people have to act together. This way of conceiving the transition to sustainable food systems is now recognised as insufficient. We must think of another way.

A different understanding of transition starts from the bottom and from local solutions, rather than from the top and the centre of political power. Alternative food networks are bourgeoning at the local level and are defining solutions for the future based on local knowledge. Another characteristic of new transitions is that the solutions do not come from technicians or experts or those who retain a monopoly of knowledge. The solutions come from ordinary women and men who invest time and energy in working out alternatives for their immediate environment.

Beginning from the local also allows building hybrid government systems in which politicians, economic actors and civil society organisations can join efforts in one single forum to rethink their food systems and invent new solutions. Now the challenge for public action is therefore to redefine its grammar in order to learn from these local-level, citizens-led initiatives.

The two views must be reconciled. Traditional top-down tools remain useful in certain contexts, but perhaps the state -and politicians more generally- should also understand that they need to learn, observe what is going on, be surprised by what these initiatives can teach them and, finally, they have to put public action at the service of citizen-led initiatives.

Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter (olivier.deschutter@uclouvain.be) is a Professor of at the Catholic University of Louvain and at the College of Europe, and he is co-chair of IPES-Food. He was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2008 – 2014.

This is an excerpt from a speech that was delivered to the Voedsel Anders conference on fair and sustainable food systems, February 2016, Wageningen, the Netherlands. Watch the full speech here.

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Mali

Crops and livestock: You can have them both

Farmers in Koutiala, a district in Southern Mali grow cereals to feed their families and keep cows for milk and as a form of savings. There, all the arable land is currently under cultivation. During the four months of the rainy season, farmers prioritise the cultivation of cereals over fodder production for livestock. A shortage of feed for the animals during the dry season leads to low milk production and high mortality of cattle. Farmers, in partnership with a local NGO and researchers from local and international research centres jointly determined the most promising pattern of intercropping maize with cowpea, a crop with high fodder value. Together farmers and researchers experimented in small plots. With intercropping at the right moment in the rotation, farmers can feed their livestock without compromising food self-sufficiency of their household. By collecting extra manure in the stall, farmers could fertilise the cereals and the extra income from the milk could be re-invested in farm assets or goods for the family: “This is a key lesson that we will bring back to our families”.

Contact: Gatien Falconnier (gatien.falconnier@wur.nl)

Belgium

Farmers give potatoes a new life

The Flemish farmer network – Biobedrijfsnetwerken (BBN) supports the development initiatives that bring farmers, advisors, and researchers together to tackle agricultural production challenges. For example, farmers from Greenflow, a cooperative of organic farmers in Flanders, Belgium came together to find a way to meet the high standards of retailers. These farmers, with inspiration from advisors and researchers increased the shelf life of their potatoes. The potatoes are brushed instead of washed and therefore retain their flavour and take longer to perish. Moreover, the farmers designed and produced a paper bag that has a personalised label to inform consumers who produced their food and where it came from. Farmers have a lot of knowledge they can share, whilst other stakeholders, such as advisors and researchers, can provide complementary expertise to help the farmers innovate their management practices.

Contact: Sabrina Proserpio (sabrina.proserpio@bioforumvl.be)

France

Solving the challenges of social entrepreneur farmers France

In 2015, Neo-Agri association and MakeSense started the AgriSenseTour in France to help farmers overcome their entrepreneurial challenges by working together with… gangsters! Ok, not real gangsters, but members of the MakeSense community who call themselves that way and who facilitate one-hour creativity workshops to help social entrepreneurs overcome obstacles. These workshops are called “Hold-Ups” (as it fits nicely with the concept of being a gangster) and now, with this initiative, also target new peasants. There is no need to be an expert to take part in a Hold-Up, anyone can participate. Hold-Ups foster co-creation by and between farmers and citizens. They use creative techniques to help participants share ideas and sometimes even resources. From growing shiitake mushrooms on brewery waste to creating a system of organic waste collection and composting to sharing transport costs to access consumers, Hold-Ups have helped farmers design innovative agroecological techniques. Moreover, anyone can learn to prepare and facilitate a HoldUp thanks to an online open source library of tools which can be accessed upon (free) registration as a MakeSense community member.

Contact: Sidney Ortun Flament and Bruno Macias (contact@neo-agri.org), www.makesense.org

Indonesia

Responding to climate change locally

An anthropologist, an agrometeorologist and Universitas Indonesia students and other scientific and administrative support staff have teamed up with rice farmers in Indramayu (Java) and on Lombok, to face changing local climatic patterns. The aim is to generate reliable climate services on which farmers can base their crop management decisions. This is done through co-production of knowledge that is rooted in scientific and local expertise and takes place in mutually supportive undertakings. They consist of conducting field experiments, rainfall measurements and agroecological observations (soil, plants, water, biomass, pests) on a daily basis. With these data that farmers collect, farming strategies are jointly developed and discussed monthly in Science Field Shops. Including monthly climate predictions, farmers and scientists learn about agrometeorological consequences of climate change locally. Training of Trainers allows upscaling of the Science Field Shops.

Contact: Kees Stigter (cjstigter@usa.net) and Yunita T. Winarto (yunita.winarto@gmail.com)

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The high altitude hills and cooler temperatures of the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa provide the ideal conditions for agriculture. However, population pressure and years of civil conflict have caused soil exhaustion and limited the availability of spare land, as well as paralysed agricultural advisory and extension services, resulting in poor access to markets. Not surprisingly, farm households in parts of this region rank among the most food insecure and malnourished in the world. Although there is great uncertainty about the type of solutions that will effectively solve these problems, it is clear that developing, testing, and implementing these solutions require collaboration between several groups of stakeholders.

Collective action

To facilitate this collaboration, ‘multi-stakeholder innovation platforms’ (IPs) started in 2013 in Rwanda as part of a larger research-for-development programme called Humidtropics. An IP is a space for learning and change. It is a group of individuals with different backgrounds and interests. The objective of these IPs is to facilitate knowledge co-creation through joint problem analysis, priority setting, testing of innovations, and learning. To start off, (inter)national agricultural research organisations, together with the government and development partners, identified sites in the Great Lakes Region with agricultural potential to improve livelihoods and market opportunities, and to reduce land degradation. In Rwanda, for example, a small team of Humidtropics and government researchers together with a representative of the national peasant organisation decided to focus on Kadahenda, in the north of the country. There, they teamed up with local authorities and different farmer groups. They identified opportunities to boost agricultural production in the region, and decided that improving the quality of and access to potato (Solanum tuberosum) seed would be a good starting point.

A journey starts

In February 2014, a group of Kadahendan farmers, representatives from government and the private sector, as well as researchers and NGOs came together to take this further. After discussing concrete research and development activities, such as testing different potato varieties, intercropping, and pest and disease control, the first community IP was launched. The members of this IP were involved in the selection of the varieties and designing the activities. Volunteer farmers conducted trials on their land, while government and research organisations provided inputs such as seeds and management advice. To support the community level IPs, a national level IP was established to provide science advice and services. Despite the initial enthusiasm, however, the young IP did not manage to get any potato seed into the ground because the involved organisations did not manage to mobilise resources to do so.

Solving problems, growing confidence

To address this problem, Humidtropics provided ‘platform-led innovation funds’. What was special about these funds was that the members of the IP could decide how to spend them. From that moment on, the intensity of activities in Kadahenda increased. Community IP members started meeting whenever they felt there were problems that required a group discussion. Slowly but surely, IP members in Kadahenda gained faith in the platform, and farmers helped one another planting and harvesting, and shared problems and their potential solutions with the whole group. Additionally, experienced farmers assisted new members to become familiar with the IP and its activities.

Despite the growing confidence, challenges kept emerging. This demanded even more collaboration and problem solving by IP members. One of these challenges related to the farmer’s lack of access to manure. To address this problem, farmers decided to set up a system among themselves in which each farmer IP member paid 1.3 USD monthly. With this money, the group bought a sheep that was given to one of the members. Each month, another member received a sheep and, once the sheep reproduced, the lamb was given to another IP farmer.

In order to evaluate the collaboration process, community and national IP reflection meetings were organised at the end of each season. During these meetings, specific research or development activities were abandoned or adopted, depending on the reflections and the changing priorities of the IP members.

Looking back

Almost three years after their inception, some lessons have been learned regarding the performance and impact of IPs for knowledge co-creation. Putting resources in the hands of stakeholders enabled them to steer the research and development agenda, and to implement activities that no other projects or businesses were able to support. Having IPs at the local and national levels can bridge different innovation processes. Addressing communitylevel barriers (e.g. access to land, inputs, credit, and markets) often requires change at higher policy levels. The regular IP reflection meetings stimulated short-loop learning and timely adaptation of research and development activities to support collective action. The experience here shows that community level IPs can provide the space necessary for different types of knowledge, experiences, skills, resources, and attitudes to come together and co-create innovation. However, collaboration between different groups of stakeholders across different levels is also difficult. People have different interests, needs and objectives that sometimes clash. We are continuously learning about what works and what does not work as we move along.
Marc Schut on behalf of the of the CIALCA / Humidtropics East and Central Africa Team*

Marc Schut (m.schut@cgiar.org) is responsible for coordinating the social science activities for the Humidtropics research programme. For more about this initiative see: Schut et al. (2016) in Experimental Agriculture, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S001447971500023X.

This article was written on behalf of the CIALCA / Humidtropics East and Central Africa Team: Chris Okafor, Cyrille Hicintuka, Sylvain Mapatano, Desire Kagabo, Emmanuel Njukwe, Solange Zawadi, Dieuwke Lamers, Pierre Celestin Ndayisaba, Mariette McCampbell, Murat Sartas, Piet van Asten and Bernard Vanlauwe (http://www.cialca.org / http://www.humidtropics.org).

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As we pass the rows of lettuce, cabbage and leek, the farmer whose biodynamic farm we are visiting tells us about the birds he has spotted lately, the newly-built nature trail, and the pond where a rare lily last seen 15 years ago has reappeared. The other biodynamic farmers participating in the Farm Talk, two large-scale vegetable producers who each farm more than a hundred hectares, and a dairy farmer, listen, observe and ask questions. Our host shows us the triangular area between the pond, the hedge and the field, long-infested with stinging nettle, which he finally turned into a hay meadow. Later, as we sit at the kitchen table in the farmer’s house reviewing all of the biodynamic aspects of the farm, the visiting farmers suggest the possibility of adding more animals to the farm system in order to close the nutrient cycle. The farmer already keeps bees for honey, and the new hay meadow is only big enough for two cows or heifers. Other options are weighed. Eventually, the host farmer and his wife decide to explore the possibilities for integrating animal husbandry into their farming activities in the coming year.

Initially known as the ‘Mansveltscore’ (after one of the co-founders of this method, Jan Diek van Mansvelt), Farm Talks were developed in 2008 by the biodynamic farming association and the Demeter certification organization in the Netherlands as a potential alternative to the certification system. The method was regularly evaluated and adjusted but it was decided in 2013 that the outcomes of the Farm Talks were not suitable for inclusion in the accreditation for Demeter certification. Nonetheless, the Farm Talks continue as a practice that provides a space for farmers to evaluate and learn from each other’s experiences to support the development of their own farms, and of biodynamic farming in the Netherlands. Approximately 130 Dutch farmers currently participate in the Farm Talks.

Exploring opportunities

In each Farm Talk a group of four to five peers representing different agricultural sectors visit the farmer whose farm is evaluated. During the biannual visits, a coach from the biodynamic farming association facilitates the process. The host farmer discusses the strengths and challenges faced on the farm, and together with her peers, examine possibilities for development. Through discussion, participants explore the meaning of biodynamic farming and sustainability. This contributes to a collective and context-specific understanding of these concepts.

During the review, the farm is characterised and evaluated against predetermined biodynamic principles. In anticipation of a Farm Talk, the host farmer prepares the visit by revising a set of questions to evaluate her own farm based on eight different, yet related themes (see the figure Farm Talk). Additionally, each host defines possible development actions for the farm. Although the structure of each Farm Talk varies, four phases are observable.

Collective, yet context-specific understanding

First, during a short tour, the host shows the farm focusing on the parts that either represent a challenge for the farmer or that are unique and pleasant. Next comes a crucial feature of Farm Talks: ’characterising’. The aim of characterising is to capture the essence of both the farm and the farmer as they are on the day of the visit. This is done after the tour, before the farm is systematically discussed. Sitting at the table, all farmers and coaches take a moment in silence to visualise an image, word, or picture that represents the essence of the farm and farmer. This vision should represent their feelings and perceptions beyond the explicit questions and answers that have been previously exchanged.

Care farming is a popular practice in Western Europe that involves the use of farming practices for therapeutic purposes. Recently, during a farm visit at a care farm, images such as a ‘Rubik’s cube’ or a ‘wizard juggling many plates in the air’ and an ‘octopus’ came to the minds of the farmer peers. These images reflected the farm’s complex organization. Everyone was impressed with the host farmer’s ability to organize the farm’s various tasks around people with special needs and capacities, and to deliver orders timely while dealing both with several care institutions and inclement weather, all the same time. Although these images vary greatly among participants, they often seem to convey a similar message. Moreover, the exercise makes room for creativity and imagination to be expressed and paves the road for a deeper discussion about the farm.

This special constellation of backgrounds helps to develop innovative ideas and insights

After ‘characterising’ the farm, participants rate its performance on the same eight themes the farmer had used to evaluate her own farm before the visit. In the peer review phase, the host farmer discusses her own appraisal and compares her ratings to the scores given by her peers. Differences in the evaluations often form the basis for new insights. From the discussion, issues that could be developed or that required attention are noted. Then, the host selects the aspects she would like to work on, develop, improve, find out or learn. She formulates a specific action plan to reflect these goals that begins with ‘I want…’.

An atmosphere of trust

In the Farm Talks, groups consist of farmers from different sectors. This special constellation of backgrounds helps to develop innovative ideas and insights, as well as to prevent discussions that are too specialised from taking place. The role of the coaches is important to give structure to the meeting and to create a safe and positive atmosphere where challenges can be shared openly. The coach can facilitate the process by interfering when discussions become too technical, by shifting in focus to another farmer, or by introducing aspects not yet discussed.

A Farm Talk requires a frank reflection of the aspects that work well on the farm and those that can be improved, as well as an atmosphere of trust and openmindedness. This is cultivated through transparently communicating the expectations of the talk, an appreciative inquiry and a collaborative and positive attitude. An atmosphere of trust allows colleagues to ask questions and support the farmer through exploring their basic motivations, assumptions, and values together with them, as well as helping them to establish specific development actions.

Evolving together

The experiences here emphasise the importance of an honest reflection and critical discussion of on-farm challenges. Transparency and good facilitation within an atmosphere of trust add to an integrative farm characterisation and actions for future development. Discussing the meaning of biodynamic farming within the context of a specific farm supports the co-creation, understanding, and dissemination of the concept. This is seen in the example at the beginning of this article. After the farm tour, the group of farmers discussed the biodynamic principle of integrating livestock into the system to close the nutrient cycle. The participating farmers gained something. For the farming couple, this meant the opportunity to explore different options for integrating more animals onto their farm. All other farmers were reminded of the importance of ruminants in biodynamic farming for improving soil fertility. Farm Talks not only enable farmers to inspire one another, but they also help to deepen farmers’ own understanding of sustainability, which benefits society at large.

Evelien de Olde and Petra Derkzen

Evelien de Olde (evol@eng.au.dk) is a PhD candidate at Aarhus University in Denmark and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Petra Derkzen (petra@stichtingdemeter.nl) coordinates the Demeter certi cation for biodynamic agriculture at the Demeter Foundation in the Netherlands.

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Our food is based on a great diversity of plants, animals, fish and micro-organisms. This diversity has been developed through collective knowledge, co-created between food producers and nature. It is the basis of all agroecological production systems. Through working with nature, peasants, including hunter-gatherers, artisanal àshers, livestock keepers, and other small scale food providers have learned about and innovated with ways to enhance and sustain agricultural biodiversity. The first to do so were women who innovated by collecting, sowing and selecting seeds. Food producers shared knowledge, together with their seeds and breeds, with peasants in other territories across countries and continents where, in turn, the co-creation of knowledge greatly expanded agricultural biodiversity suited to diverse ecologies, environments and human needs. The result is many hundreds of thousands of different plant varieties and thousands of livestock breeds and aquatic species which have been selected or adapted to serve specific requirements.

Common to the worldviews of many peasant food providers is the belief that all of nature is living and that human beings are part of the family of living creatures and the environment, not outside of it. These worldviews have deep implications for how peasants and other small scale food providers create knowledge. Nature shapes the possibilities of life for human societies. Culture, beliefs and our values, in turn, shape how we take care – or do not take care – of nature. Awareness of the links between nature and culture are explicit in many societies. And in many others, where that awareness has been lost, people are organising and taking action to reclaim this awareness. Humans and other living beings have been engaged in an ancient relationship of mutual interaction shaping each other’s existence in a process of co-evolution.

This process of co-evolution has created agricultural biodiversity and the agroecological systems it supports. Its dynamic management is an essential part of longterm peasant strategies for survival and autonomy. Agricultural biodiversity is the manifestation of the creativity and knowledge of peasants as they engage with the natural environment to satisfy their needs. It embodies a dynamic and constantly changing patchwork of relations between people, plants, animals, other organisms and nature, continuously responding to new challenges and finding new solutions.

Threats and responses

Agricultural biodiversity, and the creativity and collective knowledge on which it is based, is threatened by the industrial model of production and consumption. In response, peasant societies and social movements are organising locally, regionally and internationally to defend agroecology and regenerate their dynamic management of agricultural biodiversity in the framework of food sovereignty. Together with other relevant actors, for example NGOs and like-minded scientists, they are improving collective knowledge about how to respond.

This results in very diverse, multilayered strategies. Peasants are developing their interlinked and localised models of production and consumption and, especially women, are providing biodiverse foods for autonomous food systems and local food webs served by local, and sometimes cross-border, markets.

Peasants are fighting to reclaim access to their territories, migratory routes and fishing grounds. Securing their control over their territories allows them to regenerate agricultural biodiversity, above and below ground and in waters, through, for example, agroecology, agroforestry, artisanal fisheries, community management of mangroves, and mobile pastoralism. In Colombia, for example, peasants are proposing to regain control over their territory and renew a relationship with nature that does not lead to its destruction, as at present. They want food production based on the traditional knowledge of respect for the natural environment, using agroecology. In Palestine, restrictions of access to coastal waters are severely affecting the diverse fishery and the food security of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Peasants are asserting their inalienable rights for collective control over seeds and biodiversity. They are developing Maisons des Sémences, supporting peasant seed networks, seed fairs and maintaining diverse breeds of livestock and diverse fisheries. Even in regions degraded by industrial systems, local food providers are re-learning the importance of biodiversity. For example, French bakers cum seed breeders are regenerating varieties of wheat suited to the local environment and artisanal baking, meeting local demands for high-quality breads.

Peasants are producing, and often processing, local foods, feed, fuel and fibre for markets that support biodiversity. Community supported agriculture based on agroecology, and associated processing, can sustain biodiverse production by selling a wide range of varieties of cultivated and wild plants, breeds of livestock and  fish species. For example Andean breeds of alpaca, which produce a diversity of 11 colours of alpaca fibre and are well adapted to the harsh environment, require a supportive market to fend off the lucrative but biodiversity-blind market which demands uniform white alpaca fibre that is subsequently dyed artificially.

Peasants are engaging in research that increases agricultural biodiversity of plants, livestock and aquatic organisms. Their research respects collective rights and encourages the co-creation of diverse knowledges. For example in Iran, evolutionary plant breeding, which is a strategy for rapidly increasing on-farm biodiversity, farmers cultivate very diverse mixtures of hundreds or even a thousand or more of different varieties and allow these to evolve and adapt to their local conditions. These evolutionary populations are living gene banks in their own fields from which seeds from the most adapted varieties and mixtures are used for sowing crops.

Autonomous and self-organised participation in policy formation

Peasants are now included in policy formation. Democratic decision making processes including peasants have now been realised as a result of pressure from peasant organisations. In the UN Committee for World Food Security (CFS), for example, peasants can now debate issues with the same rights to express their views as other actors, including governments. A critical issue under discussion is the oversight of the governance of agricultural biodiversity and agroecology, in terms of their contributions to food security. This is a priority of peasant organisations for the agenda of the CFS. Peasants’ representatives are urging similar forms of engagement in the International Seed Treaty (ITPGRFA) and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture so they can more effectively champion the policies needed to sustain agricultural biodiversity and realise Farmers’ Rights, and challenge policies that serve monopoly interests in the food system.

Peasant knowledge is key, but it must be in dialogue with other knowledges. Yet, recognition by many international and national institutions of the importance of peasant knowledge rarely means giving priority to it. In reality, where multiple knowledge systems are concerned, the supremacy of positivist (modern) science is tacitly assumed by those serving monopoly power. Attempts to incorporate indigenous or peasant knowledge and public or citizen science often include only those aspects that are consistent with positivist science.Given the substantial economic and political investment in research that undermines the development of knowledge in support of agricultural biodiversity, an urgent issue is to give precedence to the co-creation of knowledge, by peasant producers and other like-minded actors, which will challenge the dominance of positivist science. It is crucial to identify how, together, we can develop the knowledge needed to reclaim research for the public good; to realise changes in governance that will ensure the implementation of research that is directed towards enhancing a wide range of agricultural biodiversity, sustained ecologically in the framework of food sovereignty. This, perhaps, is one of the greatest challenges for the co-creation of knowledge.

This article and a new 16 page brochure are based on a report prepared for the Agricultural Biodiversity Working Group of the IPC for Food Sovereignty. The report titled’Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: the perspectives of small scale food providers’ is a Thematic Study for FAO’s report on ‘State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture’. The brochure, together with the fully referenced report in English, is posted at www.foodsovereignty.org/biodiversity.
Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish versions of the brochure will follow shortly.

Brochure: Peasants give life to biodiversity

This is a sponsored contribution based on a report prepared for the Working Group on Agricultural Biodiversity of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC Rome Secretariat – m.conti@croceviaterra.it).

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Padma, who has travelled 300 miles from her village in the Eastern Ghats, joins a group of the Gond indigenous people of central India next to a small government-built reservoir at the edge of their ancestral forest. Her hosts have built a large structure from materials usually used for weddings. This is to be the venue of interactions between Adivasis (India’s indigenous people) small farmers, pastoralists and Dalits. They have come together with those who do not farm, but who are concerned about food sovereignty.

In the past era of scientism, the insights of farmers like Padma were excluded from processes where knowledge was validated and policies were formulated. The 2015 gathering in which she is participating is one of the spaces being claimed by many such communities. Eating, meeting and sleeping in the same makeshift tents, food producers enter into dialogue with others involved in the food system as part of a growing social movement – India’s Food Sovereignty Alliance (see also this article). They share stories and critically reflect with scientists, local government officials and other policy makers.

Research that focuses on technological fixes without addressing the politics of knowledge cannot address the world’s food crises

During the meeting they discuss government policies relating to seeds, water and land in relation to the threats these may bring to their livelihoods. The event builds on twenty years of knowledge sharing and movement building by a network whose origins are firmly rooted in the teachings of Paulo Freire and the many Indian pioneers of democratic practice and critical thinking in communities. The lack of financial support for such efforts from large NGOs does not hold the movement back. On the contrary, organising accountable structures from the bottom-up, alongside horizontal working practices, strengthens the movement’s resilience.

Mainstream agricultural development has been largely based on scientism – a worldview based on imposition of a logic based on nineteenth century physics that ignores or displaces local and indigenous knowledge systems. Policies based on scientism generally promote top-down technologies and development that is indifferent to local priorities or involvement. The imposition of green revolution technology in the global South has often been argued to increase productivity, but it has done little to decrease hunger. It has had dire consequences for the environment, food and nutritional security and the resilience of people like Padma.

Science has an important role to play in agricultural development. However, the marginalisation of local knowledge and priorities, combined with the overwhelming focus of science on improving yield, has pushed agroecosystems and rural livelihoods to breaking point. The Food Sovereignty Alliance is not alone in arguing that research that focuses on technological fixes without addressing the politics of knowledge and the democratic deficit in the governance of food systems and society is incapable of addressing the world’s multi-faceted food crises.

A broad shift to agroecology requires a deepening of democracy that breaks the knowledge monopoly held by professional scientists and powerful institutions, particularly policy-makers. It also requires political and cultural transformation that empowers food producers and citizens in the governance of public agricultural research. It must support the autonomous knowledge production processes carried out by citizens, local communities and social movement organisations such as India’s Food Sovereignty Alliance and international platforms such as La Via Campesina.

Networks and collaboration

From this perspective, innovation and development based on agroecology emerges from creative processes of knowledge co-production and mobilisation carried out by diverse collectives of farmers, citizens and scientists. Around the world, these processes are gathering momentum through farmer-to-farmer networks, participatory action research and other equitable collaborations between food providers, researchers and activists.

A series of farmers’ juries, initiated by the Deccan Development Society’s Prajateerpu in 2001, have successfully challenged the displacement of people by mechanised agriculture in India. During the last two years, both the Food Sovereignty Alliance and older groups, such as the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), have combined an agroecological, evidencebased approach with strong grassroots campaigning.

A broad shift to agroecology requires a deepening of democracy that breaks the knowledge monopoly held by professional scientists and powerful institutions

This has undermined the top-down narratives of genetically modified crops, land consolidation and mechanisation being the route to better livelihoods and health. It has allowed traditionally trained scientists to enter into dialogue with these social movements and is opening new opportunities for social movements to influence agricultural development in India.

Agroecology has been rightly called a practice, a science and a social movement. Equal attention to each pillar of this knowledge triangle – practical, scientific and political knowledge – is key to unlocking the potential of agroecology. Yet, practical, local knowledge is undervalued by mainstream research and development institutions. Questions about whose knowledge ‘counts’ as being more or less valid, and why this matters, are generally left unasked.

Rejecting scientism

Although some mainstream institutions and scientists are starting to pay attention to agroecology, their narrow framing of agroecology as a science and the intentional ignoring of the deeply political and social nature of agroecology and agroecological knowledge systems is another example of the bias that is inherent in scientism.

For example, participatory technology development (PTD) has traditionally emphasised technical innovations as the solution to sustainable agriculture, obscuring the political, institutional and cultural contexts. Using such a framework means that farmers like Padma are given passive parts in development schemes. Their presence in so-called participatory processes are merely a means of policy makers gaining legitimacy for decisions that they have already made. This democratic deceit allows the structural violence perpetrated by neocolonialist, neoliberal and institutionally racist policies to go unchallenged.

The danger of a narrow understanding of agroecology as scientism was made clear when the FAO organised a technical symposium in Rome on agroecology in September 2014. Encouragingly, this was the first major FAO meeting to focus on agroecology, and has since been followed up with regional level consultations in Asia, South America and Africa. However, at the Rome meeting, scientists dominated the agenda and civil society representatives were only marginally represented. The organisers restricted the meeting to so-called technical discussions, attempting to censor debates about politics. Presenters were discouraged from discussing political topics related to biotechnology, seeds and especially food sovereignty.

This decoupling of the political from the practical and the technical puts agroecology at risk of being coopted by mainstream institutions. Social movements are rejecting this type of development as false agroecology with its overemphasis on elite scientific knowledge. Formally trained scientists have a role, but equally important are the local knowledge, practice and the experience that citizens (whether producers or co-producers) have gained through their lives on the farm or even at the market, shopping for dinner and cooking.

Social movements as sites of knowledge mobilisation

The political dimension of agroecology requires that its practitioners and advocates move beyond conceptions of the co-production of knowledge to take up the mobilisation of existing and newly co-produced knowledge as a part of political struggles to transform the food system.

Social movements are bringing citizens together to articulate the knowledge that forms the foundation of agroecology, enabling collective analysis of the problems that need to be addressed and providing a common platform that can help raise awareness and mobilise people for political change.

One example is the International Forum for Agroecology in Mali in February 2015 organised by the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty and La Via Campesina. At this forum, food providers from around the world collectively articulated a declaration that had been drawn up through a bottomup process. The statement defines agroecology from the perspective of a range of more-or-less democratically organised social movements. This declaration should be a key reference point for all agroecological projects that claim to be politically progressive.

These efforts at participatory democracy are inevitably flawed and we are finding that there is much to learn from other struggles for social justice, such as the US civil rights movement, anti-colonial movements in the global South and the international networks of people living with HIV/ AIDS. However, the Mali statement marks another important step towards more democratic processes of co-production and mobilisation of knowledge amongst social movements.

Experiential learning

Practitioners and advocates must take up the mobilisation of coproduced knowledge as a part of political struggles to transform the food system

There is an urgent need for public investment in agroecological research – however it is essential that the governance of public research be democratically controlled in the interests of food providers and the public. The democratisation of agroecology research needs to occur throughout the research and development cycle. Non-elites who bring expertise from their life experience, must be part of redesigning scientific and technological research, evaluations of results and impacts of research, the choice of upstream strategic priorities, and the framing of overarching policies.

In the past, narrow concepts of participatory research confined non-researchers to ‘end of the pipe’ technology development (e.g. participatory plant breeding). We now need to move to a more inclusive approach in which previously excluded groups can define the strategic priorities of research and governance regimes before funds are allocated for potentially damaging programmes.

Time for transformation

Rejecting the philosophy and value system of scientism that underpinned the green revolution, Padma and other experts-through-experience around the world seek further opportunities to embrace more participatory modes of knowledge building and mobilisation. The holistic vision and value systems that underpin this knowledge radically depart from mainstream research and innovation systems. We need to build a framework with people coming from diverse worldviews that is capable of transforming the dominant industrial food system. Only then can we shift towards social justice, sustainable livelihoods and environmental democracy.

Tom Wakeford, Colin Anderson, Charanya R., Michel Pimbert

Tom Wakeford (tom.wakeford@coventry.ac.uk), Colin Anderson (colin.anderson@coventry.ac.uk) and Michel Pimbert (michel.pimbert@coventry.ac.uk) are from the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, at Coventry University in the UK, which established the People’s Knowledge working group (http://www.peoplesknowledge.org/) (Twitter: @peepsknow)
Charanya R. (charanya88@gmail.com) is a member of the Food Sovereignty Alliance India

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Stephen Whitfield, 2015, Routledge 210 pages. ISBN: 9781138849334

Risk, uncertainty, ignorance, ambiguity –these are not simple words of speech but rather conditions of incomplete knowledge. This book examines the challenges of adaptation in smallholder farming in Africa, analysing the social, economic, political and climatic uncertainties that impact on agriculture in the region and the range of solutions proposed. Drawing on case studies of genetically modified crops, conservation agriculture, and other ‘climate smart’ solutions in eastern and southern Africa, the book identifies how uncertainties are framed ‘from above’ as well experienced ‘from below’, by farmers themselves. It provides a compelling insight into why ideas about adaptation emerge, from whom, and with what implications. Deeply thought-provoking, the book is an important guide for innovative thinkers in the design and implementation of climate smart agriculture in Africa.

Understanding nature: Case studies in comparative epistemology

Hub Zwart. 2008. Springer Netherlands. 286 Pages. ISBN: 9781402064920

‘Real’ knowledge of nature is a notion that we strongly relate to science, and for good reasons. Through research, the sciences have produced robust and reliable forms of knowledge, using methodologies that can usually be trusted upon. At the same time, laboratories and similar research settings are highly artificial environments that constitute rather modified versions of reality. This work departs from the recognition that science is not the only route to understanding nature. Notably, works of literature such as novels, plays, and poems on nature may be based on careful observations, quite elaborate and true to life. Comparative epis- temology is a discipline that critically analyses the relative validity and value of various knowledge forms. Drawing upon this disciplinary perspective, this book compares the works of prominent representative of Western science with the writings of their literary counterparts. It is a major contribution to the expanding  field of Science and Literature Studies, allowing basic insights from the sciences and the humanities to mutually challenge and enlighten one another.

The diversity of knowledge. Reflections on the Agrobiodiversity@knowledged programme

Henkjan Laats, Edith van Walsum, Janneke Bruil, Danielle Peterson (Eds). 2015. 34 Pages.

Knowledge about agricultural biodiversity is among the most valuable assets held by family farmers, and a key to their food security and food sovereignty. Despite this importance, this knowledge is disappearing at an alarming rate. In recognition of the need for greater knowledge building and sharing on agrobiodiversity, Hivos and Oxfam-Novib hosted a three-year program to facilitate agrobiodiversity knowledge sharing between family farmers, civil society organizations, and research organisations. Drawing on real experiences, this publication offers in- sights into international knowledge community building, as well as to the rich diversity of knowledge cultures of the diverse participants. The reflections in this book offer a clearer picture of the ‘backstage’ communication and action required for the agroecological movement.

Living knowledge

Jens Dorland & Michael Søgaard Jørgensen (Eds). 2014. Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark. 379 pages. ISBN: 9788793053021

This publication presents around 30 papers and work-in-progress papers submitted to the 6th Living Knowledge Conference held in Copenhagen, April 9-11, 2014. While there have been some advances in increasing citizen participation in community-based research and in policy processes and decision-making, there is still a long way to go before citizens and civil society organisations are fully accepted as equal partners and providers of knowledge and expertise to solve societal challenges. The Living Knowledge conference stemmed from the recognition that the time has come to recognize civil society as producer of knowledge. The cases presented in this book include innovative ideas and initiatives in agroecology, permaculture, and urban agriculture, which communities and civil society organizations over the world have developed and organised.

Knowledge politics: Governing the consequences of science and technology

Nico Stehr. 2015. Routledge. 252 pages. ISBN: 978159451087

‘
Knowledge politics’ is, according to author Nico Stehr, a phenomenon that has emerged as a consequence of new technologies and society’s response to them. This book discusses Western society’s response to the wealth of technological innovations developed since the 1970s, including genetically engineered foods, reproductive cloning and the reconstruction of the human ancestral genome. The author explores the fusion of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and transgenic human engineering, whose products may, as its proponents claim, some day cure disease, eliminate pollution, and generally improve human survival. Knowledge Politics shows how human civilization has reached a new era of concern about the life-altering potentials of new technologies. Concerns about the societal consequences of the expansion of scientific knowledge are being raised more urgently and are moving to the centre of disputes in society and to the top of the political agenda. This work discusses the consequences of knowledge politics and society’s possible approach to solving conflicts over present and future scientific innovation.

Towards an agroecological transition in Southeast Asia: Cultivating diversity and developing synergies

Jean-Cristophe Castella and Jean-Francois Kibler (Eds). 2015. GRET, Vientiane, Lao PDR. 92 pages.

This publication came into being as an endeavour to provide a broad, yet 
non- exhaustive, overview of the current situation of agroecology in the Great Mekong Region. Starting from the early 1990s, a multitude of initiatives have emerged in this region for supporting agroecology. The French Agency for Development (AFD) has been an active supporter of these initiatives, especially in relation to the promotion of Conservation Agriculture and the establishment of the Conservation Agriculture Network for South East Asia (CANSEA). The book is divided in two sections. The  first one provides an analysis of the diversity of practices, actors and experiments related to the main schools identified in the six countries: organic farming, IPM and integrated crop management, home gardens and VAC, SRI, Conservation Agriculture, and Agroforestry. Section II highlights common challenges for up scaling agroecology in the Great Mekong Region and shows evidence of the interest of regional stakeholders for promoting synergies through networking.

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