While interest is generated over new and emerging technologies, there is a diversity of knowledge, technologies and practices in agriculture, health care, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystem management. Many of these support the livelihoods of small farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples and local entrepreneurs affecting millions of people and communities across the world, especially in developing countries. In many cases, national industries have developed from traditional knowledge and endogenous technologies.There are thus vast potential and promises in these sustainable systems and practices, requiring investment and mainstreaming into development policies at the national, regional and international level. A holistic approach to technology assessment and choice would develop sophisticated principles, criteria and indicators that enable countries to benefit from sustainable production and conservation systems.

Recommendations to Take Agroecology Forward in Europe and Central Asia

Recommendations from the FAO’s regional symposium on agroecology in Europe and Central Asia to take agroecology forward in the region. […]

Biocultural Innovation Crucial to Climate Change Resilience

Traditional communities in Peru and China have developed numerous effective biocultural or traditional knowledge innovations to strengthen their resilience to climate change. […]

‘Organic 3.0’ – A Lighthouse for Truly Sustainable Agriculture

‘Organic 3.0’ is meant to be more ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally diverse, and transparently accountable; and will enable the uptake of truly sustainable farming systems and markets based on organic principles. […]

Changing the Questions We Ask About Food

Rather than asking how we can ‘feed the world,’ we should be asking what can improve the social conditions in food and farming systems, how we can secure access to natural resources, and what public policies and processes should govern these systems. […]

Launch of the FAO website on Agroecology

FAO’s website on Agroeocology (www.fao.org/agroecology) highlights and shares relevant knowledge on agroecology. […]

Climate Change Demands Global Transformation of Agriculture Now

The State of Food and Agriculture 2016 stresses that unless action is taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient, climate change impacts will seriously compromise food production in the world’s most fragile regions. […]

Protecting Peasant Seeds from Growing Corporate Capture

The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2016 warns that seeds and biodiversity are under threat as a result of increasing corporate capture and States’ neglect. […]

How to Mainstream Agroecology

A journal paper discusses how wholesome food production methods such as agroecology can become mainstream instead of alternative by acquiring their own “thick legitimacy” to supplant that of industrial food systems. […]

Amplifying Agroecology to Transform Food Systems

The ‘amplification’ of agroecology is defined as the transformation of food systems towards sustainability and equity, rather than just the spreading of a set of food production techniques. […]

A Roadmap to Transform the Global Food System with Agroecology

Agroecology’s five “levels” of food system change, when taken together, can serve as a roadmap to transform the entire global food system towards sustainability. […]