Dr Laura Rival

Projects

Agroecological practices and the redesign of agrifood systems

There is today a broad consensus on the multiple risks faced and injustices caused by industrial agriculture and the globalised food chain, as well as a growing agreement on the systemic approach needed to find viable solutions for the production, processing, distribution and consumption of nutritious food in the world. The redesign of agriculture for the long-term has nevertheless led to the formation of competing policy agenda, recommendations and priorities, which are best analysed using a policy narrative approach informed by ethnographic research.

This project (i) documents the extent to which agroecology is reshaping dominant narratives around food and agriculture; (ii) investigates the role played by agroecological values and innovations in the transformation of industrial agriculture; and (iii) examines comparatively the contribution of agroecological farming to Latin American agriculture. The main objective of this research is to shed light on the types of innovation in agrifood system design that agroecology makes possible.