Critical Adult Education in Food Movements

This book focuses on research that shows the importance of critical adult education for the spread of food sovereignty and agroecology to more people and places. It pays particular attention to the important role that learning, education and pedagogy can play in social transformation for food sovereignty and justice—an approach referred to broadly as “Learning for Transformation”. It reveals common dynamics and principles that critical education for food sovereignty share in different contexts. The book draws together 8 chapters that offer new critical insights about why, where, and how learning for transformation is being implemented,—and what next.

Previously published in Agriculture and Human Values Volume 36, issue 3, September 2019

Chapter “Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.


Table of Contents:
Introduction to the symposium on critical adult education in food movements: learning for transformation in and beyond food movements—the why, where, how and the what next?.- Transformative agroecology learning in Europe: building consciousness, skills and collective capacity for food sovereignty.- Farming for change: developing a participatory curriculum on agroecology, nutrition, climate change and social equity in Malawi and Tanzania.- Multi-actor networks and innovation niches: university training for local Agroecological Dynamization.- What’s wrong with permaculture design courses? Brazilian lessons for agroecological movement-building in Canada.- Teaching the territory: agroecological pedagogy and popular movements.- Food sovereignty education across the Americas: multiple origins, converging movements.- Images of work, images of defiance: engaging migrant farm worker voice through community-based arts.

About the Author :
Colin R. Anderson is an Associate Research Professor and the Director of Research for the Institute for Agroecology at the University of Vermont (UVM). Foregrounding participatory research, learning and action, his work focuses on how to enable just transitions for sustainability, equity and well-being. He aims to co-produce and deploy knowledge with communities, networks, researchers and social movement organizations who are organizing to confront intersecting crises we face today and who are reimagining and building alternatives.
Rosa Binimelis is a researcher and activist working on food sovereignty at the cooperative Arran de terra in Catalonia. She has worked on the multidisciplinary analysis of agrifood systems. Her research interests include agroecological transitions and public policies, food sovereignty and socio-environmental conflicts related to the food system and rural areas. In parallel, she works with rural communities and social movements on food sovereignty, social transformative economies and alternative agri-food systems, mainly in Catalonia.
Michel P. Pimbert is Professor of Agroecology and Food Politics at Coventry University and the Director of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience in the UK. His research interests include agroecology and food sovereignty; the political ecology of biodiversity and natural resource management; participatory action research methodologies; and deliberative democratic processes. He works with small and family farmers, indigenous peoples, and communities to advance transdisciplinary and transformative ways of knowing that regenerate local ecologies, economies and cultural diversity.
M. G. Rivera-Ferre is a Research Professor working on grassroots innovations in agri-food systems at the Spanish National Research Council in INGENIO (CSIC-UPV). With a multidisciplinary profile in the analysis of the society and environment interactions within agri-food systems, she has a particular interest in alternative agri-food systems following the food sovereignty paradigm and in the analysis of feminists and commons theories as to be adopted in agri-food research. She is also interested in the way different mental models and discourses co-exist in agricultural research and management. She has worked on the potential of local traditional agri-food knowledge in adaptation to climate change.