An Agroecology & Innovations online course was taught in English by Schola Campesina Aps, in collaboration with the Grassroots Innovations Assembly for Agroecology (GIAA). It is offered by the University of Vermont’s Institute for Agroecology in partnership with Stats4SD, with support from the McKnight Foundation. The course consisted of 7 video-conference sessions that ran from 11 March to 16 April 2025, including an introductory session of one hour (11 March) followed by 6 sessions of 2 hours each Wednesday.
Over 6 weeks, we explored various aspects of innovation through the lens of agroecology, in particular the learning environment and knowledge system enabling the development of grassroots innovations for agroecology (Session 1), the politics of innovation exploring the risks and harms of the innovation narrative of the agro-industrial model (Session 2), the processes that generate innovations for agroecology, listening to Prolinnova, Atelier Paysan, Honey Bee Network and Family Farming Network on how they promote, document and collectively build grassroots agricultural innovations led by locally rooted organisations (Session 3 Parts 1&2), the “infrastructure” needed to support agroecological innovation processes, including legal frameworks, financial mechanisms, social and governance structures, and technical infrastructure such as software and platforms to support their activities on agroecological innovations (Session 4).
This course was a good opportunity to meet a diversity of actors and organisations with their approaches to grassroots innovations, in addition to having the privilege of hearing from representatives of Prolinnova network, especially Chesha Wettasinha and Makonge Righa, who contributed to this course respectively with presentations on ‘’Local Innovation and Participatory Innovation Development concepts and examples’’ and ‘’Documentation and Dissemination of Local Innovation’’.
Overall, the course went well and brought understanding on the importance of agroecological innovation in this global context of agro-industrialisation.
Contributed by Paul Jimmy, Prolinnova Subregional Coordinator for West and Central Africa
