Transitions and scaling up of agroecology in Peru and Bolivia: brief notes and reflections on some cases for debate

Agroecology is evolving rapidly as a scientific discipline, as a set of practices, experiences and knowledge of ancestral and family agriculture.

Transitions and scaling up of agroecology in Peru and Bolivia: brief notes and reflections on some cases for debate
  • Andean region
  • Bolivia

The massification of agroecology is advancing differently in Latin America, because it depends on various conditioning factors that at the global level are related to the policies, interests and supremacy of the market, industrial agriculture and the green revolution. However, agroecology is evolving rapidly as a scientific discipline, as a set of practices, experiences and knowledge of ancestral and family agriculture, as well as a counter-hegemonic social movement to the policies that shape agrifood systems. The literature on the subject is profuse and solid, reaffirming its global importance as a realistic and necessary alternative to the food crisis and the negative environmental externalities resulting from the economic model and conventional agriculture.

In this article, we will discuss some reflections on the state of agroecology in megadiverse Andean countries such as Peru and Bolivia, and its implications for the complex multi-processes of agroecological transition and scaling up. We are therefore interested in distinguishing between the basic definitions of transition (changing from one state or mode of being to another) and scaling up (extending a change or innovation to a higher level, space, number or dimension), in order to develop certain approaches as working hypotheses according to the cases analysed that will allow us to understand the status of agroecology and the prospects in both countries.

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