A Plurality of Viewpoints Regarding the Uncertainties of the Agroecological Transition

Abstract

The concept of agroecological transition revives debates on how to deal with complexity and uncertainty. While the adaptive approach and its "adjust along the way" principle have been adopted as a relevant general framework to deal with partially irreducible uncertainty, the different approaches to the definition and management of uncertainty are rarely explicitated. In this chapter we highlight the diversity of these stances through brief presentations of research work that is related to agroecology and sustainable development, and anchored in various disciplines (modelling, management sciences, economics, ecology). This gives us a first glimpse of the variety of concepts used to describe uncertainty, characterising nature and the different approaches to manage it. It shows also that these definitions of uncertainties, clearly derived from particular disciplines or school of thought, can be applied together in a more or less complementary way. Finally, we discuss how

Considering the Diverse Views of Ecologisation in the Agrifood Transition: An Analysis Based on Human Relationships with Nature

“…This is because they consider ecologisation as a process 'in the making' through lived experience and experimentation of actions that support our links to nature, the effects and consequences of which can be collectively debated. This also leads them to favour an open-ended perspective with regard to change, and setting objectives and transition paths over a deterministic perspective (Magda et al 2021). Finally, experience-based approaches overcome certain disciplinary divides by promoting an interdisciplinarity focused on sharing and comparing perspectives on the objects of nature, as opposed to encompassing approaches that aim to deal with both ecological and social processes (e.g.…”

Building agroecology with people. Challenges of participatory methods to deepen on the agroecological transition in different contexts

“…Even though there is a common trend to strengthen communities and re-configuring market relations towards alternative, local food networks, there are other important ingredients of the equation, such as the 'participants' profiles or the need to work on the symbolic and emotional context of the transition which may be also addressed (Mendez et al, 2017;López-García et al, 2019). A focus on transitions as an open-ended process for gaining growing sustainability in food systems (Magda et al, 2019), in which the 'itineraries of results' might follow very diverse paths (López-García et al, 2019), seem to be more adequate for adapting PAR approaches to the differentiated situations of farmers and rural communities in the current globalized food system, and to address the hybrid and changing strategies of small and/or organic farms to keep their economic viability (Darnhofer, 2014).…”

“…So new elements of complexity on the conception of agroecological transitions and the participatory methods to support them are introduced. Thus, a more complex and renovated approach to agroecological, participatory research is needed (Ollivier et al 2018;Magda et al 2019).…”

An agroecological turn in intermediating sustainability transitions with continuous living cover

“…Intermediaries are considered to be significant actors in orchestrating this niche-regime-landscape alignment and thus may prove critical to the advancement of CLC agriculture. However, both the MLP and the associated field of transition intermediaries have been critiqued for their (1) assumption that green innovations are inherently positive, (2) lack of interrogation of the outcomes or consequences of a sociotechnical shift toward "more sustainable" innovations, and (3) their disregard for distributional consequences (Avelino and Rotmans, 2009;Lawhon and Murphy, 2012;Geels, 2019;Magda et al, 2021). Therefore, the study of CLC transition intermediaries can benefit from an additional lens that is attentive to such shortcomings.…”