ABSTRACT
This chapter maps current discourses around agroecology and considers how key groups behind these discourses are more or less able to influence related policy processes. It does so by presenting the results of a discourse analysis applied to the FAO Regional Symposium on Agroecology for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems for Europe and Central Asia. The analysis identifies, analyzes, and quantifies the dominant discourses invoked by scientists, farmers, policy-makers, and civil society organizations, and assesses how they were able or unable to influence the policy recommendations that came out of the symposium. The analysis uncovers a conflict between technical and socio-cultural discourses of agroecology. We conclude that presenting these opposing discourses as compatible within the recommendations creates a false sense of consensus. We further note the term ‘agroecology’ at the symposium meant different things to different people, but that this fundamental difference was not addressed. As a result, the final recommendations do not accurately reflect that the majority of the assembly was backing the socio-cultural discourse. We conclude that improved processes are needed to identify and facilitate the conflicts that emerge from competing visions of the pathways towards a regenerative food future.
