The Transformative Potential of Agroecological Farmers: An Analysis of Food System Strategies Developed through Participatory Processes in Nicaragua and the UK

Abstract

In the current social system which tends to marginalise small scale producers, frame the interests of consumers as antithetical to those of producers, and force producers to compete against one another, there are questions about the extent to which strategies and alliances identified by agroecological farmers would be sufficiently transformative (or ‘radical’ according to Holt-Giménez and Shattuck, 2011) to address the problems of our existing food systems. In the context of our globalised and unequal food system, there are also questions about the extent to which strategies of farmers in the so-called global south might complement or contradict those of farmers in the so-called global north. Building on a participatory farmer-led research initiative, this paper analyses the strategies developed by small-scale agroecological producers in the global south (Nicaragua) and north (UK), and the extent to which they might sufficient for transforming food systems to become socially and ecologically regenerative.