Assessing the agroecological status of a farm:a principle-based assessment tool for farmers

Amplifying Agroecological Farmer Lighthouses in Contested Territories: Navigating Historical Conditions and Forming New Clusters in Japan

“…The idea of using and cycling resources within the community or region, including skills, money, and local employment in sustainable agriculture, and more money being spent locally is important for the maintenance of traditional satoyama landscapes and also a tenet of the Japanese organic farming movement. This echoes the importance of resource flows in agroecology (Rosset and Altieri, 2017;Nicholls et al, 2020) and can also be linked to the (re)use of traditional knowledge to enhance the effectiveness of farmers' practices and their independence from inputs provided by external actors. Some of the lighthouse farmers interviewed, most notably Farmers 5, 7, and 9, are explicitly connecting their farming philosophy and practice to a wider discourse of resource circulation that goes beyond agriculture and into broader principles of circular economy applied to the local context (Mori, 2020), which resonates with the idea of agroecological territories and with the principles of territorial resilience proposed by Guzmán Luna et al (2019).…”

“…This indicator is closely reflective of the agroecology farm assessment tool conceived by Nicholls et al (2020), which centered on the practices of each farmer based on agroecological principles including the recycling of nutrients and energy, enhancing soil organic matter and soil biological activity, diversifying plant species and genetic resources over time and space, integrating crops and livestock, and optimizing interactions of farm components. Most of the organic farmers scored relatively high on this indicator, as the development of organic agriculture in Japan, as previously described, is founded on a concern for ecologically sustainable farming methods based on the recycling of local resources, similar to the same set of agroecological principles.…”

“…First, what is the amplification potential of farmer lighthouses and how can we assess it using a farmlevel set of evaluation indicators? Evaluative frameworks to assess agroecological practices at the farm-level have already been developed (Mottet et al, 2020;Nicholls et al, 2020). Equally important in determining the amplification potential of farmer lighthouses is the degree to which farmers are integrated with social networks, their ability to demonstrate leadership in the community, and their level of autonomy in relation to policy, markets and external inputs.…”

Combining systemic and pragmatic approaches for the holistic diagnosis of a farm in agroecological transition in a health context

“…This global concept proposes to redesign farming practices and systems (Gliessman, 1990). In a strict sense, agroecology relies on a better integration of ecological processes in agricultural systems, replacing chemical and energy inputs by natural processes and building on biogeochemical cycles (minerals, energy, water) to reduce environmental impacts (Nicholls et al, 2020). In a larger sense, some authors like Wezel et al (2009), consider agroecology a "science, a practice and a movement" oriented to a reconfiguration of the whole food system (Francis et al, 2003;Lamine and Dawson, 2018;Nicholls et al, 2020).…”

“…Particularly, McGreevy et al (2021) have shown that individual agroecological farms can act as "lighthouses" to amplify the uptake of agroecological principles and practices by other farmers. Thus, to foster this farm-to-farm amplification of the agroecological transition (Nicholls et al, 2020), a specific agroecological diagnosis of farms is essential. This diagnosis should no longer be based on analytical thinking (Hubert et al, 2013) like it was during the modernization of agriculture period.…”