Agroecology: Growing the Roots of Resistance

Abstract

Agroecology today has a strong focus on bringing sustainability to food, feed, and fiber production. But there is also a larger focus on the social, economic, and political “drivers” that move food systems beyond the conditions that have created un-sustainability in modern industrial agriculture. With its ecosystem foundation, the science of agroecology has become a powerful tool for food system change when coupled with an understanding of how change occurs in society. In this paper I trace the roots of agroecology to its emergence as Agroecología in Mexico in the 1970’s as a form of resistance to the Green Revolution. Agroecology has become much more than a science for developing better, safer, and more environmentally-sound food production technologies. Agroecology is more than a way to practice agriculture, such as organic or ecological production. Agroecology is also a social movement with a strong ecological grounding that fosters justice, relationship, access, resilience, resistance, and sustainability. Agroecology seeks to join together the ecological and social cultures that helped human society create agriculture in the first place.