A review of social and economic performance of agroecology

• Autores: D’Annolfo, Raffaele; Gemmill Herren, Barbara; Graeub, Benjamin E.; Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro
• Año de publicación: 2017
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Agroecological practices; Sustainable livelihoods framework; Agroecology; Socioeconomic; Sustainable agriculture; Quantitative analysis
• Institución: Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

Fil: D’Annolfo, Raffaele. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Italia.
Fil: Gemmill Herren, Barbara. World Agroforestry Centre; Kenya.
Fil: Graeub, Benjamin E. Mercator Fellow on International Affairs; Switzerland.
Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Andina. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural (IRNAD); Argentina.
Agroecology potentially offers a sustainable path to agricultural development as it integrates ecological principles and social and economic concerns into agri-food systems. While many descriptive studies have documented the experience of farming communities using agroecological approaches, evidence on social and economic indicators of agroecology is poorly documented in a quantitative sense. The present study aims to build a framework and provide a quantitative overview of the effects of adopting selected agroecological practices at the farm level. A literature review has been conducted in order to identify scientific work addressing the contribution of agroecology to a set of socio-economic indicators, which affect human, financial and social assets. Data extracted from 17 peer-reviewed papers were analysed using two techniques: vote counting and general linear mixedeffects models on effect sizes. We found preliminary evidence of agroecology’s positive contribution to improving financial capital. However, data extracted does not provide meaningful information on other capital endowments (human and social). This is mainly due to the fact that there is a lack of data concerning the socio-economic impact of agroecology. In addition, qualitative methods (e.g. Qmethodology) should be integrated into further research in order to capture farmer perspectives