AgroEcology is the application of ecology to the design and management of sustainable agro-ecosystems. It is a whole-systems approach to agriculture and food systems development. It links ecology, culture, economics, and society to sustain agricultural production, healthy environments, and viable food and farming communities (taken from the University of California, Santa Cruz AgroEcology Website).
Dalgaard et al. refer to agroEcology as the study of the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment within agricultural systems. Consequently, agroEcology is inherently multidisciplinary, including factors from agronomy, ecology, sociology, economics and related disciplines (Agroecology, Scaling and Interdisciplinarity." Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment 100(2003): 39-51.)
Today, many researchers, practitioners and civil society organizations would include traditional knowledge as integral to the understanding of agroEcology.
Noted agroEcology activist and scholar, Miguel Altieri, describes it thusly: " ... the science of agroecology, which is defined as the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems, provides a framework to assess the complexity of agroecosystems (Altieri 1995). The idea of agroEcology is to go beyond the use of alternative practices and to develop agroecosystems with the minimal dependence on high agrochemical and energy inputs, emphasizing complex agricultural systems in which ecological interactions and synergisms between biological components provide the mechanisms for the systems to sponsor their own soil fertility, productivity and crop protection (Altieri and Rosset 1995)." See More ...
PLANT is committed to AgroEcology and unequivocally opposes genetically engineered agricultural practices and the leveling of biodiversity, which the present model of industrial agriculture ruthlessly imposes. Many Global South organizations are doing heroic work to raise awareness about how corporations co-opt food security policies through the imposition of GMOs, seed patenting and land grabbing. We join with these organizations in their on-going advocacy to secure Food and Seed Sovereignty. Everyone’s fundamental right to source their own nutritious food is a continuous struggle across the globe in the face of aggressive and manipulative strategies to the contrary.