This open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Agroecology transformations represent a challenge to the power of corporations in controlling food system and a rejection of the industrial food systems that are at the root of many social and ecological ills. In this book the authors analyse the conditions that enable and disable agroecology’s potential and present six ‘domains of transformation’ where it comes into conflict with the dominant food system. They argue that food sovereignty, community-self organization and a shift to bottom-up governance are critical for the transformation to a socially just and ecologically viable food system. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, students, policy makers and professionals across multidisciplinary areas including in the fields of food politics, international development, sustainability and resilience.

Detailed case studies of agrecological initiatives show how growers, scientists, agricultural organizations, and public agencies can form partnerships to develop innovative, ecologically based techniques for reducing reliance on agrochemicals.

Introduction : why agroecology? -- The scientific principles of agroecology -- The scientific evidence for agroecology : can it feed the world? -- Scaling up agroecology : social process and organization -- The politics of agroecology -- Conclusions : conform or transform?

Sustainable Agroecosystem Management: Integrating Ecology, Economics, and Society examines the challenges for developing integrated approaches to the management of agricultural ecosystems. Providing historical background of attempts to bridge the ecological and agricultural sciences, this book highlights recent efforts to integrate natural and social science perspectives. Through various case studies with global applications, the text explores practical innovative strategies, policies, and research needs for emphasizing whole system productivity, diversification of agricultural operations, and management of agricultural systems that sustain multiple functions including ecological integrity.

Around the globe most people get their calories from "annual" agriculture - plants that grow fast for one season, produce lots of seeds, then die. Every single human society that has relied on annual crops for staple foods has collapsed. Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel and many other needs - in your own backyard, farm or ranch. This book, based on real-world practices, presents an alternative to the agriculture system of eradication and offers exciting hope for our future.

This book represents an interdisciplinary approach to the relevant aspects of agricultural production related to the interactions between natural processes, human activities and the environment. It provides condensed and comprehensive knowledge on the functions of various agroecosystems at the field, landscape and global scale. Understanding and integrating complex ecological processes into field production, land management and food systems is essential in order to deal with the challenges of modern crop and livestock production: the need for food security for the growing human population, and the necessity to combat the detrimental effects of food production on the environment. The book provides the scientific basis required by students and scientists involved in the development of sustainable agroecosystems and contributes to a range of disciplines including Agriculture, Biology, Geography, Landscape Ecology, Organic Farming, Biological Control, and Global Change Ecology.

Foregrounding an innovative and radical perspective on food planning, this book makes the case for an agroecological urbanism in which food is a key component in the reinvention of new and just social arrangements and ecological practices. Building on state-of-the-art and participatory research on farming, urbanism, food policy and advocacy in the field of food system transformation, this book changes the way food planning has been conceptualised to date and invites the reader to fully embrace the transformative potential of an agroecological perspective. Bringing in dialogue from both the rural and urban, the producer and consumer, this book challenges conventional approaches that see them as separate spheres, whose problems can only be solved by a reconnection. Instead, it argues for moving away from a ‘food-in-the-city’ approach towards an ‘urbanism’ perspective, in which the economic and spatial processes that currently drive urbanisation will be unpacked and dissected, and new strategies for changing those processes into more equal and just ones are put forward. Drawing on the nascent field of urban political agroecology, this text brings together: i) theoretical re-conceptualisations of urbanism in relation to food planning and the emergence of new agrarian questions, ii) critical analysis of experimental methodologies and performing arts for public dialogue, reflexivity and food sovereignty research, iii) experiences of resourceful land management, including urban land use and land tenure change, and iv) theoretical and practical exploration of post-capitalist economics that bring consumers and producers together to make the case for an agroecological urbanism. Aimed at advanced students and academics in agroecology, sustainable food planning, urban geography, urban planning and critical food studies, this book will also be of interest to professionals and activists working with food systems in both the Global North and the Global South.