from the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
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The JAFSCD spring issue contains a collection of commentaries that emerged from the U.S. Agroecology Summit 2023 (held in Kansas City, Missouri, in May 2023). The editors of this special section, Antonio Roman-Alcalá and Colin Anderson, hope the collection provides insights into the dynamics of organizing in the U.S. toward agroecology, within research and outside of it.
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The collection offers points of generative conflict and difficult conversation, which may help move practitioners and researchers alike toward greater alignment via reflective thinking. The commentaries have only been edited for readability, in order to present an authentic diversity of voices.
“Agroecology”—a term used to describe the science, practice, and social movements of sustainable and socially just food systems—has not circulated as much in the so-called United States as it has abroad. But that is changing. In addition to an uptake of the term and its principles by international institutions like the UN’s FAO, agroecology is appearing more and more frequently in U.S. university programs, research programs, and the rhetoric of U.S. social movements.
In May of 2023, 100 scientists, social movement leaders, Indigenous organizers, and food producers gathered in Missouri to discuss agroecology and the prospects for scaling it out in the U.S. In particular, organizers of this first-ever U.S. Agroecology Summit 2023 sought to define a research agenda that could support such a scaling out. But a clear research agenda did not result from the summit’s 3-day participatory dialogues. Rather, tensions emerged between academia and social movements, building from the histories of negative experiences of academia and the standard practices of conventional research processes (especially among Indigenous participants and more broadly among communities of color). The summit made it apparent: to advance agroecological research that truly speaks to the term’s vaunted commitment to social transformation, trust first needs to be built between those doing agroecology-related research (in academia) and those living agroecology day to day.
In this collection of commentaries, sourced from participants in the summit but also its outside critics, readers will find various perspectives on this important question of trust-building among researchers and practitioners. Commentaries also address questions of agroecological research (in terms of its content, process, and future). Many also engage debates about the roles of the USDA, academics, social movements, farmers, and food purveyors in bringing about a more agroecological world—and the roles of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacism in preventing such a world from emerging.
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| Climate-smart agroecology suggests shift to bison production in the U.S. Northern Great Plains |
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Photo of bison in the Northern Great Plains by commentary author Bruce D. Maxwell. |
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In a new JAFSCD commentary, Increasing the scope and scale of agroecology in the Northern Great Plains, authors Bruce D. Maxwell and Hannah Duff of Montana State University present an argument for expanding the purview of agroecology to include larger time and spatial scales than are traditionally considered, particularly in the Northern Great Plains (NGP). For example, climate projections represent a serious threat to current crop and animal production in the NGP, and thus agriculture in the region must shift to protein production in the form of bison that are allowed to roam freely across large landscapes. Native peoples of the region will logically provide the leadership in the shift. Read this agroecology commentary for free.
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Join the National Agricultural Library (NAL) for “Locating Black Stories at the National Agricultural Library” on May 22, 2024, 10:00–11:30 AM EDT. In person attendance is encouraged, but there is a virtual option. Inaugural NAL Scholar in Residence Dr. Bobby J. Smith II will talk about his experience doing archival research at NAL to recover stories around Black people's historical relationship to agriculture via the USDA. Dr. Lopez Matthews, state archivist and public records administrator for the District of Columbia, will provide commentary. For more information, go here. Register to attend in-person or online here. |
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