EVST-4640 : Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systms

Agroecology can be defined in many ways but, in general, it is the ecology of sustainable food systems. Agroecology is a production practice that uses ecological and traditional knowledge to manage agricultural systems sustainably. It is also is a social movement, inherently linked to the food sovereignty movement. It is also a research discipline, aimed at examining how farms and landscapes can be managed to promote ecological, cultural, social, and economic sustainability. Agroecology as a research practice recognizes that agriculture has ecological, social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions. Agricultural systems come about from interactions between crop production, global environments, and social systems, and require a deep understanding of ecology and related environmental studies fields (e.g. political ecology, anthropology, economics). During this course we will explore the many lenses through which agroecologists study complex agricultural systems. In doing so, you will gain a multidimensional understanding of agricultural and food systems.