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1. Planning for agroecology transitions
​Agroecology transitions require support from agricultural planning, food systems transformation pathways and other planning instruments that influence food systems.
Planning for agroecology transitions involves setting the right targets, promoting agroecology transitions in specific landscapes, formulating coherent policies and strategies, and ensuring that environmental, social, and economic outcomes are well integrated. The planning process must involve relevant sectors and stakeholders to create synergies and co-benefits across farming and agrifood systems while anticipating and mitigating trade-offs. Agroecology transitions are best planned at the landscape or territorial scale.
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Four guidelines are outlined to support planning for agroecology transitions:
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Guideline 1.1
Formulate coherent policy and better targets for agricultural planning through agroecology
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Ensure that national policy instruments on agrifood systems integrate targets that support agroecology transitions.
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Accelerate agroecology transitions by promoting sustainable farming and food systems along the agroecological principles within the existing planning framework, supplemented by additional plans that might be needed.
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Strengthen intersectoral and cross-scale collaboration to govern agroecology transitions.
To achieve this, AMS may consider:
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Setting targets for sustainable markets, agribusiness and rural transformations towards:
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Restoring agroecosystem health, soil health and land resources.
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Better production – diversification, quality, safety of products for both export and domestic markets.
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Empowering farmers – diversification of farmer incomes, increased farmer incomes, access to resources, uptake of agroecology practices and technologies, incentivizing young farmers.
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Healthy consumers – diversity of diets, nutrition awareness, affordability of healthy produce.
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Supporting each target by specific policies to promote technological and interconnected innovations, and peer learning.
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Strengthening horizontal policy coherence across sectors, vertical policy coherence among different levels of governance, as well as temporal policy coherence addressing resource allocation and implementation over time, including through multistakeholder platforms.
Guideline 1.2
Engage stakeholders in planning processes
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Build stakeholder ownership for transition and mobilize resources, defining realistic but ambitious targets with them. This entails using the right methods for engaging stakeholders: choosing from surveys, focus group discussions, advisory panels, workshops or consultations, among other methods.
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Foster collaborations and exchanges, and long-term partnerships and coalitions with a focus on agroecology (e.g. regional initiatives like LICA are instrumental in fostering and facilitating cross-country sharing of experiences and knowledge).
To achieve this, AMS may consider:
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Mapping the stakeholders who are most aligned with key targets.
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Starting with a thorough assessment of the current situation, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) in the target areas (e.g. human health, soil health, environmental impacts, resilience) at landscape/subnational, national, and even regional levels.
Guideline 1.3
Apply a landscape or territorial approach
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Foster planning processes that ensure coherent intervention at different landscape levels, recognizing that this is an instrumental scale at which to achieve agroecological benefits.
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Ensure landscape diversity, which is essential to the maintenance of naturally occurring ecosystem services – such as pollination, erosion control, and nutrient recycling – thereby contributing to both productivity and sustainability.
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Harness the potential of landscape management approaches for balancing competing demands and integrating policies for multiple land uses, thereby supporting inclusive multistakeholder engagement (see guideline 5).
Case study:
To go further:
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FAO. 2017. Landscapes for Life: approaches to landscape management for sustainable food and agriculture
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ADB. 2017. Sustainable Land Management in Asia: Introducing the Landscape Approach
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GIZ. 2023. Agroecology: Making Ecosystem-based Adaptation Work in Agricultural Landscapes
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FAO, Agroecology Coalition. 2023. The interface between agroecology and territorial approaches for food systems transformation (Agroecology Dialogue Series, Brief No.1)
Guideline 1.4
Engage private sector and strengthen planning rules for agribusiness
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Strengthen the coordination with large-scale agribusiness using public private partnerships and multistakeholder platforms to orientate private sector commitments and investments towards sustainable agriculture and food systems.
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Align corporate sustainability programmes, and responsible sourcing investments and instruments with agroecological pathways based on country’s and communities’ needs. This may be carried out within national platforms and at subnational levels within landscape approaches.
To achieve this, AMS may consider:
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Combining public and private efforts to strengthen farmer skills and risk management capacity to drive agroecology transitions (e.g. through adapted environmental and social agrifood product standards; see guideline 3), revisited extension services (see guideline 4), tailored financial incentives for farmers (see guideline 7).
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Strengthening planning regulations governing land concessions and agrifood investments (e.g. investments in processing factories that may precipitate forest encroachment, soil erosion or water contamination).
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Co-investing in infrastructure that supports sustainable agriculture, including water management systems, renewable energy sources, and sustainable transport and logistics (see guideline 2 on connectivity needs).