Citizens, grassroots organisations, scientists, farmers, and policy makers from all over Europe organised the Third Agroecology Europe Forum in Barcelona, World Sustainable Food Capital 2021, and asked in this “Barcelona Letter on Agroecology” for a strong and immediate transformation of the way we eat, the way we work, and the way we live. They showed that a transformation is possible and is already taking place in many European territories and communities that have embraced an agroecological approach.

An agroecological approach to regenerate our food system is needed to halt the negative impact of climate change, biodiversity loss, or pandemics. With Covid-19 we witness what happens to humanity when our lack of respect for nature crosses the line. And this is why the link between healthy people, healthy societies and a healthy planet puts sustainable systems at the heart of the Farm to Fork strategy. This is a practical plan on how to make our food systems resilient with eleven actions:

1. Invest public money in public goods (e.i., carbon sequestration in soils, biodiversity restoration), and ecosystem services (e.g. pollination) by reorienting the main part of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies.

2. End CAP support per hectare and adopt support to people for halting the extinction of farmers’ populations. Develop a CAP approach oriented to generate more employment in the agricultural sector, while reducing its dependence on fossil fuels. Subsidies should be paid for additional efforts, and not for mandatory measures already covered by conditionality and greening in CAP Pillar I.

3. The transition to healthy systems must be done by giving a voice to the ones that are never heard. Bottom-up governance mechanisms for the European food systems, including farmers, food workers, citizens and social movements as fundamental agents are needed. Transitioning means moving from food production to food security and sovereignty, through participatory governance.

4. Decrease support to reductionist agricultural research, and increase investments in public research on agroecology and organic farming, creating Agroecological Living Labs. Transitioning to agroecological systems needs a life-long learning, transdisciplinary and multistakeholder approach, in formal and non-formal education and research. Agricultural sciences curricula should be transformed into agroecological curricula.

5. Rethink the relation between urban and rural societies and territories, as cities and rural life and ecosystem are interdependent. We need to create an alliance based on short supply chains with surrounding territories, as indicated by the “Milan Urban Food Policy Pact” (signed by 199 cities).

6. Consistent participatory planning and additional public funding should be directed to develop governance arrangements that promote healthy and sustainable diets for all, in urban and rural areas. The plan should reinforce the link between food and care policies by having community infrastructures and increasing support of the scholar community. Public funding should also be dedicated to eco territories, including biodistricts and agricultural parks.

7. Digital technologies can play a complementary role in the agroecological transition only if end-user involvement, open technology and peer-to-peer process of sharing innovation is adopted to ensure technology sovereignty.

8. Prices don’t lie, but hide the real cost. The price of food should also reflect the real social and human capital cost (true-cost accounting). An active defense and promotion of the rights and fair payments to workers and the mechanisms of collective representation is needed. It is essential to generate inclusive and participatory multi-stakeholders mechanisms so that agroecological foods and the associated ecosystem services become accessible to all without being part of a cultural or economic privilege, nor derived from stigmatized forms of public or private aid.

9. Develop Eu Policy as well as local/regional programs to facilitate access to land for all and specially for youth through Land Banks, for instance council land redistribution.

This would generate new job opportunities and rural development and promote safe and decent working conditions and wages, in line with workers’ rights and national legislations.

10. We urge the transition to an agroecological food system as a core element of the European strategy on climate and biodiversity action, including ambitious action plans for supporting family farmers as key actors of quality food production, and reinforcing short value chains by including the real cost of productions respecting nature in all the food that is processed and consumed.

11. Assigning public funding to participatory breeding programmes aimed at developing resilient cultivars and breeds by exploiting diversity and genotype through environment interactions. This would allow to fully exploit the potential of low-input systems and marginal agricultural areas.

These actions should not be restricted to the EU, but also consider the openness, solidarity, cooperation with other areas on the planet. To phase out the existing fossil-fuel based agriculture, to transform our food, transport and energy systems, and to protect all life on the planet, citizens, farmers, scientists and young people calling for their right to a decent future. We urge policy makers to implement the agroecological transformation, and even go beyond the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity 2030 strategies with courage and transparency starting from these eleven actions.

SIGNATORIES

We want to thank all 41 organisations and the 169 individuals who have signed the Agroecology Europe Barcelona Letter!

Organisations

ACU (Associazione Consumatori Utenti)
AGROECOLOGY GREECE
Agropolis Fondation
ARC2020
Asociación Intermunicipal Red Terrae
Asociación Los Pies en la Tierra
Asociación Vida Sana
Associação Natureza Portugal | WWF
Associação Terra Sintrópica
Associació de la Producció Agrària Ecològica de Mallorca (APAEMA)
Associazione Italiana di Agroecologia AIDA
Associazione per i Vivai ProNatura
bioRe Association
Carbone Fertile - Centre national d'agroécologie
Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University (UK)
Crete's Culinary Sanctuaries Educational Network
Druživa, o.z.
Farmap asbl
Finca El Cabillón
GAIA - Environmental Action and Intervention Group
GRAND FARM
Magyarországi Agroökológia Hálózat
IFOAM Organics Europe
International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food)
Irish Seed Savers
L'Etnogràfica. Antropologia per a la transformació social
Lipu-BirdLife Italia
Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania
Menjador ca la Rosa Sccl
Mensa Cívica
Meta Meta
Miljömatematik Malmö AB
MUNDUBAT
Municipality of Mértola, Portugal
Perma-Projects
Plukgeluk vzw
SOLAGRO
Terre & Humanisme
Terres Vivantes
Ver de Terre Production
WWF Italia

Individuals

Adela M. Sánchez Moreiras
Ahmad Mahdavi
Alain Peeters
Alba Tous Fandos
Alejandro Daniel Rodríguez Álvarez
Alessio Corti
Alexander Wezel
Alfred Grand
Alina F. Noe Bregains
aLp Pir
Anders Højlund Andersen
Andrea Pölz
Angelica Marchetti
Anna Brumer
Anna-Camilla Moonen
Bhupendra Singh Sisodia
Blenda Agell
Camila Arza Garcia
Camilla LP
Caterina Batello
Cavinato Gianni
Cécile Gil
Cecília Varga
Chavée Simon
Chiara Flora Bassignana
Cristina Laurenti
Daniel Meier
Daniel Nemeth
Daniele Antichi
Dr Edward Nderitu Karanja
Dr Les Levidow
Dr. Immo Norman Fiebrig
Edwin Nderitu Mwangi
Eeva-Liisa Korpela
Elaine Bradley
Elena Ambühl
Elisa Lorenzetti
Emanuela Cattaneo
Emile Frison
Enric Tello
Ethel Custers
Eugene Ralston Griffith
Eyal Ben-Simchon
Fatima Lambarraa-Lehnhardt
Federica Luoni
Federico Bigaran
Federico Cattaneo
Federico Leoni
Federico Provenzani
Felix Bianchi
Ferroni Franco
Flavio Alexandre Verdier da Fonseca
Florine Degrune
Francesco Cattaneo
Francesco Sottile
Franco Rainini
Friedrich Leitgeb
Gaio Cesare Pacini
Geoerg Friedrich Horn
Georgios Veikontis
Gianfranco Laccone
Giorgia Giorgi Milne
Giulia Gouet
Giuseppe De Santis
Gusten Brodin
Hellmut von Koerber
Ishwar Patidar
Jean-Philippe Deguine
Jessica Donham
Jessica Johansson
Johanna Herrigel
Johanna Jacobi
Jolene Mestmacher
Jose Luis Vicente Vicente
Juan Pablo Sciurano
Julian Farges
Karim Riman
Karin Pirhofer Walzl
Karla Škorjanc
Karsten Krüger
Kira Miskulnig
Kuat Abeshev
Lander Thyssen
Lanka Horstink
Laura Giappichelli
Letty Fajardo Vera
Lili Balogh
Linda Groot Nibbelink
Lisa Sorensen
Lucas Sebastián Worsdell
Lucy Zwigard
Ludwig Stephan
Maddalena Cirani
Manuel González de Molina
Marcello Maggioli
Marco Pierini
Marcos Lana
Maria Braun
María Celis García
Marieta Okenkova
Marilena Reinhard-Kolempas
Marina Garcia Llorente
Marta Cortegano Valente
Marzia Ranaldo
Matteo Metta
Matteo Petitti
Meheretu Yonas
Michael Löbmann
Michael Schulz
Michel Quicheron
Michelle Bonatti
Mieke van Hemert
Miguel Francisco Silva Encarnação
Nadia El Hage Scialabba
Nathan Einbinder
Nefeli Kalkana
Nicolas Lindemann
Niels De Ceulaer
Nikolaus Hruschka
Nives Zindel
Nora Vogel
Ole Ostermann
Olivier Godinot
Olivier Lefebvre
Omotunde Kasali
Palavalli Sai Chaitanya Reddy
Paola Migliorini
Paolo Barberi
Paolo Guarnaccia
Philippe Paelinck
Phillipe Pointereau
Phoebe Parros
Pietro De Marinis
Rachel Kent
Rainer Weisshaidinger
Riccardo Pavesi
Rita Queiroga Bento
Rosa Batalla i Canut
Ruben Savels
Rudolf Tille
Safya Menasseri
Samanta Rosi Belliere
Samantha de Lucena Cadlato
Samira Amos
Sara Burbi
Sara Molins Cabaní
Sarah Sakineh Zarin
Sarka Hajtmarova
Sergio Segura Calero
Silvia Schmidt
Simone Marini
Srdjan Šeremešić
Stefano Carlesi
Stefano De Leo
Stefano Maria Bocchi
Stella Beghini
Stephen Gliessman
Steven Jones
Szvetlana Acs
Theresa Landwehr
Tim Vandewalle
Timothée Collin
Tommaso Gaifami
Vaibhav Balasaheb Shelar
Vincent Lavavasseur
Vincent Melis
Vlassis Bogris
Wolle Hailie Shiferaw
Zoltán Kálmán

--

For further information, please contact Agroecology Europe:

Agroecology Europe Secretariat

secretariat@agroecology-europe.org">mailto:secretariat@agroecology-europe.org">secretariat@agroecology-europe.org

www.agroecology-europe.org/">https://www.agroecology-europe.org/">www.agroecology-europe.org/">https://www.agroecology-europe.org/

@AgroecologyE (Twitter)

@AgroecologyEurope (Facebook)

Agroecology Europe Association (Linkedin)