“Agroecology is a way of life. It is a vision of its social and not only productive function in the Earth.”
~ Schola Campesina 2017
Credits:
Music: Kompost, https://www.facebook.com/kompostband/ Michael Sobel, / @michaelsobel7826
Photos: Rafał Smykowski, Ziarno Świadomości
Realization: Łukasz Nowak, Nowespojrzenie, http://www.nowespojrzenie.pl
Partners:
Schola Campesina – http://www.scholacampesina.org/
Nyeleni Polska – https://nyeleni.pl/
PermaKultura.Edu.PL – https://permakultura.edu.pl/
EUL – http://www.eul.grzybow.pl/
Funding:
LUSH Permaculture & Agroecology Fund
Agro-Perma-Lab is an educational project for the development of agroecology and permaculture in Poland. Its purpose is to strengthen the food sovereignty movement by creating an inter-environmental cooperation network, showing synergies (convergences) between agroecology and permaculture practices, and to develop a common vision of agroecology in Poland.
The main event of the project was a 10-day training of agroecology leaders at the Ecological People’s University, focused on building the competences of 20 selected activists from bottom-up agricultural, consumer and ecological organizations. Education in the policy and mechanisms of agri-food systems management, global and environmental conditions for agriculture, as well as agricultural practices themselves is to allow training participants to become local leaders competent in the field of agroecology and permaculture in many aspects.
The training program was inspired by the experience of the international school of agroecology, operating in Italy – Schola Campesina. The main teacher of the training was Andrea Ferrante, coordinator of Schola Campesina ASP and an independent consultant for agricultural policy and agroecology, among others at FAO. The training participants had the opportunity to take part in lectures and workshops led by many experts and practitioners from Poland as well as from Romania (EcoRuralis).
As part of Agro-Perma-Lab, a tool has been developed for diagnosing and designing farms in terms of implementing agroecology and permaculture assumptions. This tool was presented in the publication entitled Agro-Perma-Lab: synergies of agroecology and permaculture. It also describes – with the help of the developed tool – three Polish farms implementing agroecology and permaculture assumptions. The results of the analysis, tool presentation and farm descriptions can be found on the project website.
As part of the project, work was also initiated on the Polish declaration on Agroecology. The goal is to develop a common for a wide environment of non-governmental and agricultural organizations, scientific communities, movements and initiative groups operating in the field of agriculture and food, understanding Agroecology and recommendations for decision-makers. Work will continue throughout 2020.