Agro-ecology: the potential path to Wellbeing

In addition to farming practices, agro-ecology is considered to be the radical Middle Path to the development of well-being societies. Last Friday (8), at the International Forum for Well-being, the speakers indicates how agro-ecology can change the current system.

In our modern world, liberalism and socialism are two political systems driven respectively by ideas of freedom and equality. Communism is a form of socialist ownership of the resources or the means of production by the state. By contrast, in capitalism, the resources or the means of production lies with a private owner.

As a result, in communism the profit of any enterprise is equally shared by all the people, whereas in a capitalist structure the profit belongs to one private owner, only. Reflected in the agricultural systems, state farming vs. corporate farming never go together.

According to Mr.Hans Van Willenswaard, Advisor of School for Well-being at the International Forum for Wellbeing we should find a “third-way” mixing socialism and liberalism. “Well-being society based on agroecology as its core agency to care for the Earth, including Humanity. Agroecological farming is one of our best hopes for building Well-being society in which all world citizens are equal trustees of the Earth”, he said.

Agro-ecologists study not only farming practices but also the effects of those practices in communities as well as economic constraints. A concern mostly to socio-cultural and political means, agro-ecology is a diversification of agricultural systems and local economies; social support networks for small-scale farmers, rural communities and indigenous peoples that reduce socio-economic and political instability.

In another words, it’s a social movement used to preserve small-scale farmers’ access to land and rural communities, besides the Indigenous knowledge of growing food and the government’s need to move away from large-scale agriculture in order to better feed the world and protect nature.