Pathways to agroecological management through mediated markets in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

Agroecology, as a social movement and scientific discipline, applies ecological principles to the design and management of agricultural systems to improve environmental outcomes and livelihoods for farmers and rural communities. However, little research to date has assessed the policy mechanisms that could facilitate increased adoption of agroecological management practices. We investigated if and how public food procurement programs that provide financial incentives for organic and agroecological production can mitigate key constraints to agroecological transition. We explored the experience of participants in Brazil's National School Feeding Program (PNAE) in Santa Catarina, which offers both a structured market for small-scale family farmers and a price premium for certified agroecological production systems. We found that the PNAE provides an economic incentive for small-scale farmers to begin an agroecological transition by creating a price-differentiated market that is otherwise absent in the regional context. However, without external network linkages -such as participation in farmers' associations, cooperatives, and non-governmental agricultural extension programs that support agroecological practices -the influence of PNAE is limited in stimulating a broader scaling up of agroecological production.

Structuring Markets for Resilient Farming Systems

“…For example, the effects of public procurement may also be affected by farm size. Previous research in our study area showed that farm size influences farmer decisions to participate in PNAE (Guerra et al 2017). Furthermore, as a result of PNAE's market preference for fruit and vegetable crops, diversification may occur in some farm fields (e.g., horticultural plots where vegetables and fruits are cultivated), while in other fields (e.g., corn, soybeans, and other crops not directly consumed by households) "businessas-usual" management practices involving low diversity and intensive input use may remain.…”

“…Farm diversification exists along a continuum, but often includes agroecological management practices such as increased crop rotation complexity, cover cropping (i.e., use of non-harvested crops), use of organic nutrient sources such as legumes or manure, and biological control (Iverson et al 2014). Particular functional groups of crops, such as legume cover crops and perennials, increase functional diversity with plant traits that supply and retain nutrients and increase soil organic carbon storage (Blesh 2017). At larger scales, farm diversification can also reduce agriculture's contribution to global change by reducing external input dependency and associated greenhouse gas emissions.…”

“…Autonomy is also present at higher levels of social and spatial aggregations, such as collective engagements (e.g., farmer cooperatives) (van der Ploeg 2008). For example, alternative marketing networks and farmers' associations can enable transitions towards agroecological practices (Stock et al 2014;Guerra et al 2017).…”

“…A substantial body of research has focused on evaluating outcomes of public food procurement for food beneficiaries, but effects on the farms and households of participating family farmers remain understudied. Recent case studies of food procurement programs in Brazil observed two key changes in family farming practices: an increase in agrobiodiversity and a transition towards agroecological management (Blesh and Wittman 2015;Chappell et al 2016;Guerra et al 2017). Public procurement programs that offer a 30% price premium for organic certification may drive, at least partially, transitions to agroecological management practices.…”

“…Social-ecological services are the products and benefits derived from interactions between people and nature in social-ecological systems (Reyers et al 2013). Public procurement generates a "mediated market" that facilitates family farmers' preferential access to institutional markets for food produced under desired conditions (e.g., local, organic) (Wittman and Blesh 2015;Guerra et al 2017). Policies that create structured demand-i.e., large-scale, predictable demand generated by public or non-profit institutional food procurement-for a range of nutritious foods (e.g., vegetables, fruits, legumes, dairy) may promote diversified farming systems by increasing their economic viability, while also supporting food and nutrition security (Nehring et al 2017).…”