So, what gives industrialized agriculture such staying power despite its adverse impacts, even as alternatives offer such benefits? And how can more wholesome food production methods such as agroecology become conventional instead of alternative? . . . .
. . . . [T]here is something less visible that makes the industrial food system powerful: something called legitimacy. Legitimacy is what makes one food system more credible and “normal” than another. . . .
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Agroecology can attain . . . legitimacy through three interconnected pathways: 1) build on and revise existing research practices, developing scientific legitimacy; 2) garner legitimacy in policy, practical and civic arenas; and 3) focus attention on the ethics and values of food systems themselves, which will feed back and affect all other forms of legitimacy.
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At the moment, most Americans still accept industrial food practices as credible and authoritative, . . . But movements are underway to change that. With a focus on what’s right about agroecology, not just what’s wrong with industrial agriculture, we can turn the alternative into the everyday and the undervalued into the legitimate — and give agroecology the credibility and authority it well deserves.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: What Would it Take to Mainstream “Alternative” Agriculture?
