Agroecology has quickly become a buzzword in academia and we argue that scholarship is divided between a narrow, technical approach and a broader approach that considers the societal structures that help shape it. We aim to place agroecology firmly in its sociohistorical context and consider the issue of land crucial to understand how agroecology is used as a political tool for emancipation. We conducted ethnographic research into the issue of land in Santiago del Estero, a province in Argentina that is characterized by the encounter of different models of agriculture. Our paper is based on three main arguments: 1) the struggle for agroecology is intimately connected to the struggle for land; 2) these struggles are often violent on a physical, psychological and symbolic level; and 3) the question of agroecology is consequently a question of agency andempowerment.

Agricultural innovations have often been framed within a narrow, modernist narrative of technological modernisation and yield improvements - economic targets that often do not take the needs and knowledges of local communities into account. We therefore propose to re-define the term as 'endogenous innovation' to emphasise community agency and epistemic empowerment, in analogy with endogenous development processes. We analyse case studies in Ghana in the Upper East and Bono East region, where we find empirical examples of endogenous innovations in the making. These require endogenous infrastructure that create decision-making spaces for farmers, mediators who bridge diverse knowledges, and epistemic justice. The notion of endogenous innovation therefore disrupts the vision of who counts as an 'innovator' in innovation processes by highlighting the epistemic agency of communities and opens up new ways of thinking about change that is more aligned with the needs and perspectives of local communities.

Urban and peri-urban agri-food systems increasingly contribute to food security, nutrition, and livelihoods in rapidly urbanising Sub-Saharan African cities. However, these systems are characterised by fragmented governance arrangements, weak institutional coordination, and unequal access to agricultural services and markets, particularly among leafy vegetable farmers. This study examined governance structures and systemic challenges shaping urban and peri-urban agri-food systems in Tanzania. A qualitative research design was employed using Process-Net Mapping and Thematic Content Analysis to analyse actor networks, institutional processes, and governance dynamics. Primary data were collected through nine Focus Group Discussions and eighteen Key Informant Interviews involving farmers, brokers, traders, public officials, private actors, and non-profit organisations in Dar es Salaam and Pwani regions. The findings identified three dominant agri-food systems: tenant smallholder, tenant community gardening, and intermediary-driven smallholder systems operating under private, private-public, and private-public-third-sector governance arrangements, respectively. Private agri-input dealers, brokers, fellow farmers, and non-profit organisations emerged as influential actors facilitating access to agricultural inputs, extension services, and markets. Nevertheless, insecure land tenure, weak regulation, exploitative brokerage, exclusionary support systems, and limited technical capacity constrained farmers’ participation. The study demonstrates that hybrid governance arrangements can enable urban agricultural production and market access, but they do not necessarily produce inclusive outcomes. Their effectiveness depends on the quality of institutional coordination, accountability, and farmers’ ability to negotiate access to land, services, and markets. These findings point to the need for stronger extension systems, improved land tenure security, better regulation of agricultural input markets, and more inclusive farmer organisations.

IntroductionThe growth of urban food markets in African cities has made them central to food access, employment, and everyday livelihoods, particularly for low-income residents. Yet these markets are often governed through hybrid arrangements in which municipal authorities, trader associations, and informal actors share responsibilities in uneven and contested ways. This paper examines how power and participation are negotiated within the governance of Mabibo Market, one of Dar es Salaam’s largest food markets.MethodsDrawing on document analysis, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and Gaventa’s Power Cube, the paper analyses how visible, hidden, and invisible forms of power shape participation across formal, invited, and informally claimed governance spaces.ResultsThe findings show that municipal oversight has strengthened administrative control and contributed to market upgrading but also reproduced asymmetrical authority. Traders and their associations are formally included in governance structures, but their role is largely procedural, with limited influence over decisions on stall allocation, fees, rule enforcement, and infrastructure. Informal networks, historical claims to space, patronage, and gendered leadership norms further shape access to resources and voice.DiscussionThe paper argues that hybrid governance should not be assumed to produce inclusion simply because state and non-state actors coexist. Instead, Mabibo Market reflects a form of managed participation in which formal inclusion coexists with continued state dominance and embedded inequalities.

Uganda’s Albertine Graben is a significant biodiversity hotspot facing critical threats from human activities, including extractive industries, human settlements, and agriculture. This tension intensifies the conflict between humans and wildlife, particularly regarding primates, such as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), as these actions have diminished their habitats. The study was guided by the following question: How does the extraction of natural resources in Uganda contribute to human-wildlife conflict, and what role does environmental justice play in addressing these issues? To address this question, the study utilised a qualitative research methodology that involved direct observation and in-depth interviews with respondents conducted within the villages of Hoima and Kagadi districts. The findings revealed that human-wildlife conflict has existed in numerous villages within the specified districts despite conservation efforts by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and various partner organisations to address the issue. Besides the ongoing extractive industrial activities close to forest reserves, pose a significant threat to biodiversity, including chimpanzees. Although the policy framework and other regulatory procedures are well-defined, implementation measures must be adjusted to align with an environmental justice framework. This approach is crucial for achieving an equilibrium between the needs of primates and human communities, serving as a coexistence strategy.

Informal food vendors constitute a significant portion of the workforce in Arusha, Tanzania, and play a crucial role in the local food system. Despite their importance, these vendors lack political and social agency, resulting in their underrepresentation in decision-making processes. This study explores the potential of urban food policy councils (UFPCs) to support these vendors, focusing on the Arusha Sustainable Food System Platform. Recently, the platform faced a government directive to relocate street vendors without their participation. This case study examines the platform’s response to this directive.Using a conceptual framework that positions UFPCs as politicized spaces, centered on social justice, epistemic justice, and empowerment, and an analytical framework based on critical governance, this research employs document analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups with market vendors, and participative observations of platform meetings and events.The findings reveal that the ASFSP refrained from engaging with vendors due to several factors: a focus on food safety concerns overshadowing social justice concerns, a preference for formality that excludes informal actors, and limitations imposed by the city council, with relocation decisions made at the national level beyond the platform’s influence. Nevertheless, the platform shows significant promise in addressing democratic deficits in Arusha’s local food systems, but further steps are necessary for it to function effectively as a politicized space. Its transformative potential is contingent upon being embedded within a broader democratic context.The framework of UFPCs as politicized spaces offers a possibility to connect the food democracy debate and UFPC literature. Additionally, the study offers practical insights for the platform and similar councils to improve the inclusion of street vendors in decision-making processes.

Increasingly, European member states are using remote sensing technologies to determine if farmers comply with measures of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Member states use satellite images, aerial photographs and geotagged pictures, and combine this with advanced algorithms and machine learning to determine if farmers comply with requirements that they have set out in their CAP strategic plans. Our research analyses the use of satellite images and the software used to process this data at paying agencies to understand how these technologies are enabling new forms of governance and what these technologies mean for how farmers are seen (literally and figuratively) by government agencies. This research is based on 12 semi-structured interviews with the developers of the technologies used to monitor compliance, which includes people working for paying agencies as well as people working at research institutes and companies where they provide technical support to the development and use of remote sensing at paying agencies.This research reveals that the governance of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), facilitated by remote sensing, fosters an audit culture characterized by strict control and compliance. The emphasis on mapping, quantifying, and representing agriculture underpins this governance model and drives further technological advancements. However, participants highlight the shortcomings of remote sensing technologies in effectively controlling farming practices. By integrating theories of bureaucracy and governance with a critical perspective on techno-utopianism, we examine these dynamics. Our findings indicate that the current application of remote sensing within the CAP is constrained not only by technical limitations but also by the existing governance framework. The push for quantification leads respondents to advocate for the further adoption of technical innovations to enhance control over agriculture. In conclusion, we suggest that a policy shift is necessary to break free from this technology trap.

Agroecology is often portrayed as a new paradigm challenging industrial agriculture. What a paradigm or a so-called paradigm shift consists of, is not always clear, however. This paper does not aim to introduce a novel definition of agroecology, but rather to critically interact with the concept of paradigm shift, both through a focus on power relationships within academia and between academia and alternate epistemologies. Our arguments stem from comprehensive ethnographic field work done in Argentina between 2019 and 2024 and are based on the notion that (a) academic spaces are inherently contested spaces and knowledge production does not occur in a vacuum, but in a context shaped by strong economic interests and power dynamics; (b) agroecology is a paradigm in consolidation; and (c) the role of non-Western epistemologies in the production of knowledge on agroecology is often ignored and the relationship between academia and actors involved in these epistemologies is often an unequal one. Through the interrogation of the characterization of agroecology as a “paradigm shift”—often used as a buzzword in academia—we contend that in order for agroecology to be truly emancipatory and not just another frontier of capital accumulation, a transdisciplinary shift is fundamental.

Local knowledges of farmers often remain marginalized in wider agricultural development interventions. Scholars, practitioners and non-profit organisations have stressed the importance of including farmers as veritable experts in their own right, and of recognising their knowledge. Yet these calls for epistemic pluralism have often focused on the interaction between academic knowledge and local knowledge, while the interaction amongst different local knowledges has received less attention. In this ethnographic study, we attempt to unravel dynamics amongst local knowledges by studying interactions amongst migrant and autochthonous farmers in Forikrom, Ghana. We show that migrant and autochthonous farmers form distinct epistemic communities as these farmers pursue different agricultural and epistemic aims. Epistemic diversity becomes most apparent regarding agricultural techniques and certain yam varieties. However, epistemic homogenisation threatens this diversity. For instance, indigenous yam varieties are being displaced in the community in favour of shorter maturing varieties. We provide insights into the ruling relations that guide the choices that migrant farmers make and how this leads to processes of epistemic homogenisation. These drivers include the land tenure system, economic imperatives and labour relations, socio-cultural norms, agricultural policy and local politics. Furthermore, we explore how a community-based “boundary” organisation in Forikrom, the Abrono Organic Farming Project (ABOFAP), counters such homogenisation by mediating pluralistic approaches.

In 2022, the Union de Trabajadores de la Tierra proposed the Law of Access to Land to the Argentine Congress for the fourth time. This proposal followed the 2021 publication of the results of the 2018 agricultural census-the first valid agricultural census since 2002. In this paper, we compare the census results of 2018 with those of 2002, looking at two themes: (1) land concentration and distribution; and (2) crop cultivation and application of agrochemicals. We found that small-scale farms have drastically decreased in both units and hectare coverage in the past 20 years, mainly due to the expansion of monoculture cropping, which is part of a model of agriculture that is characterized by intensified application of agrochemicals and the cultivation of genetically modified crops. Although post-neoliberal governments emphasize the importance of small-scale farmers, they have advanced, not halted, the expansion of agribusiness at the cost of small-scale farming.

The Ugandan government has made progress in developing extractive industries, but its commitment to environmental protection and improving living conditions for rural communities remains inadequate. The impact of extractive industries is increasingly evident, as droughts and poor crop yields threaten food security and local economies. Thus, the advocacy of non-state actors, such as civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations, and community-based organisations, is essential for promoting climate justice and implementing sustainable, eco-friendly practices in this sector. Thus, the research question is: How have non-state actors' discourses effectively rallied rural communities and government entities to enhance climate justice within extractive industries? Employing a qualitative methodology, the research involved indepth interviews and focus group discussions with diverse stakeholders in the Albertine Graben. Our findings discovered that for non-state actors, climate justice revolves around three discourses (socio-cultural, ecosystembased, and policy connectivity). These are interrelated through collaborative governance, which seeks to enhance transparency and accountability within the extractive industries. However, climate injustice remains widespread in the region, highlighting the ongoing failure to achieve climate justice in extractive industries. Therefore, collaborative governance is essential for promoting climate justice and enabling equitable decisionmaking that addresses the environmental and social disparities caused by extractive industrial activities.

This paper sheds light on the integration of digitalisation in multifunctional and diversified agriculture. In this empirical work based on socio-cyber-physical assemblage thinking, first we found that on-site material and immaterial conditions like living on the farm, farm settings, and creative human work still matter and deserve more attention in responsible digital agriculture. Second, in our small sample we found that internet and cloud-computing are the main digital technologies used in on-farm diversification, particularly infrastructures-as-a-service and software-as-a-service. Third, when farmers introduce digital technologies in their diversification, three tentative configurations of socio-cyber-physical assemblages are outlined and can be further assessed in future research: punctiform, horizontal, and vertical configurations, or a combination thereof. For each configuration, we illustrate key features and examples. Nine clusters of factors were identified as affecting these assemblages. These factors could help researchers and practitioners to understand why the digitalisation of diversified farms can be so diverse and needs to be carefully adapted. For policymakers, these factors can also serve to qualify the setting up of conditions to steer integrated agri-food-rural policies towards on-farm diversification, including responsible digitalisation. The paper argues that digitalisation in agriculture can unfold through different strategies (minimising, mutualising, grounding, enlarging digitalisation) and requires holistic and ambitious policy commitments for sustainability. For example, the paper suggests the setting up of a new EU-wide target for increasing the share of farmers engaged in on-farm diversification through the Common Agricultural Policy or European Farm-to-Fork Strategy.

This authoritative Encyclopedia provides an innovative approach to theory, reviews, applications and examples relevant to the basic concepts of water science and water management issues in order to facilitate better interdisciplinary cooperation.

En 2022, la Unión de Trabajadores de laTierra propuso por cuarta vez al Congreso argentino su Ley de Acceso a la Tierra. Esta propuesta siguió a la publicación de los resultados del censo agropecuario de 2018, publicado en 2021, que fue el primer censo agropecuario válido desde 2002. En este artículo, comparamos los resultados del censo de 2018 con los de 2002 a través de dos temas distintos: a) la concentración y distribución de la tierra; y b) los cultivos y la aplicación de agroquímicos. Encontramos que los productores de pequeña escala han disminuido drásticamente tanto en unidades como en hectáreas de cobertura en los últimos veinte años, debido principalmente a la expansión de los monocultivos, que forman parte de un modelo de agricultura que se caracteriza por una aplicación intensificada de agroquímicos y el cultivo de organismos genéticamente modificados. Aunque los gobiernos posneoliberales enfatizan la importancia de los pequeños agricultores, han impulsado en vez de detenido la expansión de los agronegocios a costa de la agricultura de pequeña escala.

The multi-actor approach in the EU's Horizon 2020 program has seen use across a large number of research projects. However, there remain questions about the extent and depth of participation that is achieved in these research projects, and how it may enable joint production of scientific theory next to readily applicable practical knowledge. This article aims to explore the latter question by focusing on the potential of such co-theorising, understood as the involvement of stakeholders in producing scientific outputs. We analyse how researchers involved in this research project view the participation of stakeholders, how they deal with tensions in participation, and how these tensions are resolved. Through 17 semi-structured interviews with researchers involved in the project's Living Labs we show that there are tensions between the interests of stakeholders, the project requirements and research interests. The findings indicate that a focus on including the stakeholders in theorising comes at a cost of practical relevance to the stakeholder. To safeguard the practical relevance of participation, researchers choose to exclude discussion on theory and theoretical concepts from the living labs. This is despite an initial belief that co-theorising and the further participation of stakeholders in producing scientific outputs holds merit. Hence, researchers purposefully prioritize practical relevance to stakeholders, thereby reducing the potential for co-theorising. The fact that theories already need to be defined in a proposal stage and project's limit scope for redefinition of core concepts, make that advancing theory together with stakeholders is not well accommodated for in Horizon 2020. This also bears relevance for the Horizon Europe program which follows a similar approach.

Hunger reduction, a universal goal, is often pursued through the concept of food security, which partially shifts the responsibility from national states to food banks. However, the active involvement of various stakeholders in food banks is frequently overlooked. The first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security to acknowledge the necessity of stakeholders´ participation in achieving food security. Despite the significant influence of power relations on the operations of a food bank, there is a shortage of evidence on the role of power relations among stakeholders in food banks, particularly in developing countries. Therefore, this paper delves into the power dynamics among actors in a food bank in a metropolitan region in Bolivia (Plurinational State) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on the food sovereignty of the actors and the region. Our research was guided by an analytical framework based on Gaventa’s Power Cube and the definition of food sovereignty from the Declaration of Nyéléni. We employed rigorous qualitative research methods, including participatory observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews, over three months in an iterative process. Our findings reveal that power relations can enhance the food distributed by the food bank, but they can also limit the agency of actors, particularly the most vulnerable, such as women and children, leading to constraints in food access. These power relations were influenced by trust among actors, their motivations and needs, cultural and spiritual values, and their presence in social media.

Food insecurity is a growing global concern, with millions of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition every day. Street-connected children are disproportionately vulnerable to food insecurity due to their living conditions and social status. However, little is known about their food insecurity experience, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study, therefore, aims to address this gap by examining the food insecurity experiences of street-connected children in Jimma, Ethiopia. This qualitative study was conducted from July to September 2021, and involved children living on the streets in various parts of Jimma city. In this study, we utilized interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations to investigate food acquisition strategies, hunger experiences, coping mechanisms, and challenges in food access among these children. Our findings indicate that street-connected children struggle to secure adequate, safe, and stable food, encountering pervasive hunger. Their limited resources and income exacerbate their dietary challenges. Their lack of food access not only represents a major challenge in their day-to-day lives but is also central to the various vulnerabilities and adversities they face. Moreover, their persistent hunger complicates their ability to improve their living conditions and exit from the street life. In conclusion, the study underscores the urgent need for focused attention on alleviating food insecurity among street-connected children, particularly in low-income countries.

Precision agriculture is often seen as disembodied and placeless, promised to either bring about a fourth agricultural revolution or as the start of dystopian rural futures, where farmers and their knowledge will be replaced by machines. A growing body of literature shows more nuanced ways of working with precision agriculture. This illustrates the need to investigate how, and under which conditions, precision agriculture is integrated and internalised by farmers. Based on 25 in‐depth interviews with male Dutch crop farmers, contractors, researchers, and ag‐tech developers, we develop the concept of the cyborg farmer, who embodies the use of precision technology while maintaining an intimate relationship with agro‐ecological context. This approach challenges the mind–body dichotomy in that the cognitive is not understood as primary, as emotions and the materiality of the body are taken seriously. This perspective emphasises the importance of embodied knowledge in how farmers interpret precision agriculture data. Our findings highlight the productive tension between data‐driven elements of precision agriculture and the embodied and intuitive understanding of agro‐ecological context. This productive tension consists of the successful integration of different forms of knowledge by the cyborg farmer, where embodied sense‐making and precision agriculture data are integrated into the formation of useable knowledge. The cyborg farmer maintains farmer agency and resists the dominance of algorithmic rationality over other forms of knowledge .

Agroecology is receiving increasing attention and recognition as a concept for transitions to more sustainable agricultural and food systems. There is however a lack of characterization of agroecology in agricultural and food systems, while integrated and holistic measurements of their sustainability are scarce. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is considered to be a system explicitly based on agroecological principles and practices which shows potential in the face of the sustainability challenges in agriculture and food systems, but its link with agroecology and its holistic sustainability performance have remained understudied. Therefore, we applied the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) to 24 Community Supported Agriculture farms in the Flanders region of Belgium in order to characterize agroecology and to assess their multidimensional sustainability performance. Our results show that Community Supported Agriculture farms can be characterized as advanced agroecological systems, highlighted by their high to very high performance on many of the elements of agroecology. Moreover, our results show positive outcomes on several sustainability criteria across environmental, social and economic dimensions such as soil health, presence of natural vegetation and pollinators and ecological management of pests and diseases, as well as dietary diversity and profitability criteria like gross value, added value and net revenue. The integration and role of animals in these agroecosystems and the importance of - and dependence on - labor are however identified as two critical aspects regarding the agroecological transitions and sustainability of Community Supported Agriculture. Our findings emphasize the exemplary role Community Supported Agriculture could play in broader agroecological transitions, which, coupled with their high performance on several sustainability criteria, highlight the potential contribution of Community Supported Agriculture, and by extension of agroecology itself, to more sustainable agricultural and food systems in Flanders and beyond.

Extension professionals are expected to help disseminate agricultural technologies, information, knowledge and skills to farmers. In order to develop valuable and long-lasting extension services, it is essential to understand the methods of extension that farmers find most beneficial. This understanding helps adopt improved practices, overcome barriers, provide targeted interventions and continuously improve agricultural extension programs. Thus, assessing factors affecting farmers' choice of agricultural extension methods is essential for developing extension methods that comply with farmers' needs and socio-economic conditions. Therefore, we analyzed the factors affecting farmers' preferences in extension methods, using cross-sectional data collected from 300 households in two sample districts and 16 Kebelles in Ethiopia between September 2019 and March 2020. Four extension methods, including training, demonstration, office visits and phone calls were considered as outcome variables. We fitted a multivariate probit model to estimate the factors that influence farmers' choice of extension methods. The results of the study showed that the number of dependents in the household head, formal education and membership of Idir (an informal insurance program a community or group runs to meet emergencies) were negatively associated with farmers' choices to participate in different extension methods compared to no extension. On the other hand, the sex of the household head, farm experience, participation in non-farm activities, monetary loan access, owning a mobile phone, radio access and membership of cooperatives were found to have a statistically significant positive impact on farmers' choices of extension methods. Based on these findings, the government and the concerned stakeholders should take farmers' socio-economic and institutional traits into account when selecting and commissioning agricultural extension methods. This could help to develop contextually relevant extension strategies that are more likely to be chosen and appreciated by farmers. Furthermore, such strategies can aid policymakers in designing extension programs that cater to farmers' needs and concerns. In conclusion, farmers' socio-economic and institutional affiliation should be taken into consideration when selecting agricultural extension methods.