Much of development thinking still treats resilience as recovery: how quickly can farmers return to “normal” after a shock? In many contexts, normal is already unjust, fragile, and environmentally destructive. Instead, resilience is framed as the capacity to absorb shocks, adapt to change, and transform food systems altogether. This includes:
- anticipatory capacity (preparing for shocks),
- absorptive capacity (coping during crises),
- adaptive capacity (adjusting livelihoods), and
- transformative capacity (changing the structures that generate vulnerability in the first place).
To systematically explore the interlinkages between resilience and agroecology and to formulate recommendations for strengthening the interlinkages, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), through GIZ’s Sector Project Rural Development commissioned a study to examine how projects that apply agroecological approaches contribute to strengthening the resilience of rural communities and landscapes. The study covered a total of 61 projects in 26 countries across the Global South.
Conceptualizing the Link Between Resilience and Agroecology
The study conceptualizes the contribution of agroecology to resilience by proposing a very intricate resilience pathway framework segmented with clusters of agroecological principles and their associated resilience outcomes (see Fig. 1 below). The brief informs that the attribution of agroecological principles to resilience pathways as seen in Fig. 1, is indicative rather than prescriptive, and as such, principles primarily associated with one pathway may also apply to other pathways.
- Socio-political resilience pathway: For instance, farmer field schools, participatory training platforms and community-led experimentation facilitate the exchange of practices, collective problem-solving and local innovation. These approaches enhance anticipatory and adaptive capacities while laying the foundation for transformative change.
- Economic and food chain resilience pathway: Diversification strategies (e.g., intercropping, agroforestry, and small-scale processing) enable households to prioritize family consumption, while input reduction strategies (e.g., substituting external chemicals with locally produced organic inputs) reduce production costs, increase autonomy, and stabilize incomes. These together strengthen absorptive and adaptive capacities.
- Ecological and climate resilience pathway: For example, soil health measures (improving fertility, managing soil structure, and controlling erosion) contribute to adaptive and transformative resilience capacities through the enhancement of organic matter, water retention, and overall productivity
Some Key Takeaways from the Study
- All agroecological principles enhance resilience capacities, however, synergies between principles yield even greater resilience benefits for rural communities and landscapes.
- Considering individual principles, economic diversification, and, to a lesser extent, input reduction and synergy, are the most effective for enhancing resilience capacities.
- Resilience-building efforts mainly target absorptive and adaptive capacities, while transformative capacity is primarily strengthened through multi-level and multi-stakeholder approaches.
- Time and political will is necessary in building resilience through agroecology. The study informs that resilience develops within 6-9 years at farm and community level but usually takes longer at watershed and landscape level.
For policymakers and practitioners involved in planning and implementing programmes in the fields of resilient rural areas, the study brief offers six interconnected levers for strengthening resilience capacities through agroecology in project implementation. kindly click on the download below
Author: Prince Asiedu
Prince Asiedu is an intern within GIZ's Resilient Rural Areas Sector Project. He is a food systems transformation and sustainability transitions enthusiast with a focus and a working experience in agroecology and climate-resilience food systems, ecosystem and biodiversity conservation, and agricultural innovations and scaling pathways. In addition, he serves as a science communicator for platforms such as ClimaTalk, and the Tropentag academic conferences.
