Institutionalization of agro-ecology – IDAE

Objectives

Long relegated to the periphery of public action, the scientific world and the debates and practices of dominant agricultural professional organizations, agro-ecology has made a remarkable entry into the agricultural world over the last decade. What is behind this shift? What does this transition from the periphery to the spotlight mean for actors who have historically promoted this model of agricultural development, most often against entrenched institutional political, techno-scientific and professional thinking? It is these questions that this project tries to answer, drawing mainly on the expertise of a collective of researchers in the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, political science, geography) and agronomy.

Several lines of work are explored more specifically, starting from the situation of three countries (France, Brazil, Argentina): the international circulation of ideas and concepts around agro-ecology, public policies in favour of agro-ecology and the greening of agricultural practices, the upstream and downstream markets of agro-ecological production, the knowledge regimes involved and their transformation, and the plurality and diversity of agro-ecological models.