Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

case study: from local to national – scaling up agroecology in brazil
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Case Study: From Local to National –
Scaling Up Agroecology in Brazil
Jean Marc von der Weid
Agroecology is accepted as an important tool for sustainable development of family
farming in Brazil by various governmental and civil society organizations, from
municipal to national administrative levels. Ministers of Agrarian Development and
of Environment, heads of agronomic research entities, state governors, and many
other officials have been and are engaged in finding ways to facilitate agroecological
development in the country. All three national family farmers organizations, the Vía
Campesina coalition, the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers
(CONTAG), and the Family Farmers Federation (FETRAF) have defined agroecology
as their main strategic tool to achieve agricultural sustainability.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) got together in August 2002 in Rio de Janeiro
to create a new and broad national network for agroecology, known in Brazil by the
acronym ANA. Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, strongly committed
himself to ANA’s proposals. But these political endorsements of CSO proposals do
not mean that agroecology will automatically become the dominant system of
Brazilian agriculture. First of all, agroecology’s usefulness is recognized by most only
for small farming activities, whereas Green Revolution approaches are seen as the
only possible alternative for large-scale farming. Second and most important is the
strong disparity between government discourse and implemented policies. There is a
wide gap between intentions and actual administrative capacity to promote a conversion
from conventional approaches to agroecological ones. There are policy formulation
problems and, more than that, institutional cultures that are strongly rooted
in completely different paradigms.
Why has agroecology become so important in Brazil, at least as one important
path towards sustainability? What lessons can be learned from the 25-year history of
the agroecological movement in the country? What can be done to mainstream these
experiences?
yale school of forestry & environmental studies