Agroecological food production for health and net-zero: exploring implementation pathways for an agroecological urbanism

Agroecology is a way of farming that regenerates soil, boosts biodiversity, reduces CO2, and treats both workers and consumers with dignity. Urban areas and greenbelts can support agroecological farms, providing communities with nutritious, fairly produced food while reducing environmental impacts and increasing resilience to climate change and other crises. However, policymakers often lack knowledge on how to support this shift. This project will work with farming businesses in Leeds and Bristol to gather evidence on agroecology’s benefits and challenges. Together with stakeholders, the project will co-design practical steps to help policymakers accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems.

Project lead: Chiara Tornaghi (Coventry University)

Project collaborators: Andy Goldring (Chief Executive of Permaculture Association, Britain, and co-coordinator of Climate Action Leeds), Rebecca Laughton (Landworkers Alliance), Maddy Longhurst (Urban Agriculture Consortium and the Policy Influencers Network Group, PING)

Findings

1) Despite integrating both, a focus on the environmental (i.e. ecological/ sustainable/ resource-conserving farming practices) and the social (i.e. social justice, equity, people’s health) dimensions of food system transformation, agroecology is little understood by the institutional community, which remains working in silos. All institutional actors have asked for deeper understanding of how this practice could support them to achieve their goals, including national and international examples of best practices, and local networks similar to the diversity of actors that we brought together in the Ministry of Agroecological Urbanism events.
2) Institutional actors are not aware of the institutional, legal and policy barriers that the agroecological producers are facing, and have requested research to systematically identify them.
3) The agroecology sector has identified specific training gaps, around higher level/coordination or technical knowledge, with most training being focussed on entry level
4) Specific planning restrictions have been identified, that prevent farmers to operate in urban fringes, and that result from the lack of institutional understanding of how agroecology deals with biodiversity, resource conservation, fertility regeneration etc.
5) a number of societal pathways to widen the understanding of agroecology have been identified

Suggestions for further research

Broadly speaking, more research needs to focus on agroecological farming, Agroecological Urbanism, and the interface between urbanisation dynamics and farmers operations.

More research also needs to support DEFRA in the second phase of their implementation of the national food strategy.