A Youth Lab for Agroecology
by Opaline Lysiak
curated by Sarina Bouwhuis and Rachel Hentsch
One year ago, I dropped the project of Agroecology Travelling School into my TCL (Transforming Capitalism Lab) online notebook. The TCL programme’s purpose was to “connect us with fellow change makers around the world, equip us with methods and tools for leading the shift toward a new economy in our own local context.” I wrote the project in English after a friend of mine, Jose Edson Santos, told me that I should not “stay within the borders of France,” and that students and farmers from the world should benefit from it. I therefore shared my agroecology project in the context of the TCL programme with a strong intention of bringing the Theory U practices into the agroecology transition. The result: the TCL team found me and invited me to participate during one of the live interactive TCL sessions!
Back in France last year, I was thinking about how I could use U Theory to prototype the agroecology school, when Maurice Sanciaume, also working with the Theory U framework, invited me to connect with Dieter Van den Broeck, who happened to also be my internship supervisor 8 years ago. Dieter told me about the Youth Lab idea they are implementing within his organization, Commonland. I loved this idea, and Maurice is helping me to make it happen.
I will explain here the context of a Youth Lab for Agroecology, adapting the amazing generative scribing drawing of Kelvy Bird for the purpose of this project. Note of caution: even if I try to adopt a global point of view, there is a French influence in my article and some things would need to be adapted to context.
Approaching the Challenge of Agroecology with a Holistic View
Many people — from students of agriculture schools to neo-rural people — have a narrow vision of what agroecology is. Drawing 1 shows the three divides and their connection to some specific figures.
Ecological divide: We lose our soil, not only due to erosion and desertification, but also because we build supermarkets and residential areas on our fertile soils. Climate change, in addition to the loss of biodiversity, is catalyzing a loss of resilience in our landscapes. This comes from the disconnection between Self and Nature.
Social divide: Producing healthy food is the most important job on this planet, but society in general doesn’t connect with farmers through moral or financial support, or getting involved in their projects. Many farmers work alone on their farms and don’t even eat what they produce. One third of French farmers aged 55 and over plan to retire within 3 years.
Spiritual divide: Many farmers no longer really know why they are doing this job. And despite the fact that 160,000 farmers are going to stop their activity within the next 3 years in France, we don’t have enough young people willing to get into farming and take care of all the land that is going to be free, and to produce healthy food.
The challenge of an Agroecology Youth Lab prototype would be to:
Create a learning environment for young people to enable them to co-shape the emerging future of agroecology, by getting them involved in farmers projects at a landscape scale, from global to local.
This challenge would be tackled as follows:
- The student, the one who participates in the Agroecology Travelling School, would get involved in different agroecology projects in different contexts (from one region of the world) during a period of 6 to 12 months. The journey is designed together with the participant, going through the U process and starting with an intention.
- At a specific landscape level, we would bring different communities and generations together and guide them on their U journey. Also, because there would be the Youth Lab physical platform, the students that are participating in the Agroecology Travelling School would become catalyzers, messengers, the «eyes» and «ears» of the farmers and other people who cannot travel so much. Here, the student has a beautiful responsibility: not only to learn and help farmers in other regions or countries, but — based on understanding the needs of the local communities — they will be getting ideas that were born in a different context, and can then adapt them to their own landscape.
- At a global level, the student will catalyze the communication between farmers in different countries, by adding a human level to the technology level (social networks already help farmers to share their ideas, but that’s not enough). I offer here the example of Sébastien, a farmer from Quebec who I met during my own experience of travelling around the world. Many farmers saw the interview I did with him and published on Youtube. However, when he came to France I also enabled exchanges between him and farmers, resulting in two French farmers experimenting his agroecology methods in their own farm.
A Vision for Farming — 20 Years from Now
Having worked with farmers for 9 years now — and even more during the last 2 years, during which time I stopped teaching to live and work directly with farmers in 13 countries — I could let emerge, together with them and with communities around them, a future for agroecology that I can sum up as follows:
- From ego-system to eco-system farming: Farmers will not only make decisions from a deep Self-Nature connection, but they will also have a collaborative way of working on the farm. The ‘Ecosystem Farm’ is an emerging model on the planet. Some large-scale farmers don’t want to work alone on their farm and limit their work to one single production anymore. They want to diversify the farm and invite people from different backgrounds to work with them. This is an incredible opportunity for youth to start working on the land, and for the land to be transferred into good hands.
- Open mind, open heart, and open will: “What is it like to be you?” I love this question from Charles Eisenstein, which sums up how different communities could learn from each other with an open mind, open heart, and open will. This kind of open mindset would help farmers connect with citizens, and citizens understand farmers’ life and challenges.
- Holistic Management decision-making framework: The new generation of farmers needs to know and apply this framework.
- Agroecology landscapes and fields must integrate animals in a way to regenerate the land. Moreover, they need to apply successional agroforestry (or Syntropic Farming) to cultivate not only horizontally/one year, but also vertically/long term, in addition to diversifying productions, creating biodiversity and building farm resilience. Animals and trees are two elements that, in my opinion, are necessary in a no-pesticides/no-till challenge.
A Learning Environnement
To go through the U journey for Agroecology, at a personal, landscape, and global scale, we need to create safe and supportive places, platforms, and environments.
- Students AND other generations and different communities would gather regularly in a farm, to connect to the soil and practice agroecology together.
- The core team would help students and other people create a learning environment using the Presencing Toolbox.
The Youth Lab for Agroecology would include the Agroecology Travelling School (ATS). Let’s illustrate that using Bretagne (North West of France) as the region for setting up the Youth Lab.
We have a group of 20 students from 18 to 25 years old, wanting to follow the one-year ATS course. They will start by gathering at a farm for two months to connect with themselves, the place, and the local challenges and to build their agroecology journey with the help of facilitators. During those two months, they will be at the center of the Youth Lab, connecting with the landscape, going out and seeing what is happening. One student chose to travel to Brazil and Canada to get involved with agroforestry and no-till organic farming for 6 months, because he sensed that this might help farmers in Bretagne and… all landscape resilience. Coming back from his journey, he will use this experience, together with the 19 other students, on the local landscape.
We Need Help to Build This Project
I write “We”, because the Les Agron’Hommes community is growing, but I am still the only one in the team that is devoting all my day time to this project. However, I have the moral support from so many farmers, students, teachers, and citizens who tell me that this project is amazing every day. And I feel that the resources for this project are on their way, which is why I am writing this article. The Youth Lab for Agroecology might just be the Agroecology School of tomorrow. So please do join us, if you feel called to do so!
Some Ideas for How To Get Involved
I am looking for:
- Inspirational music (made local, if possible) for the agroecology videos on my Youtube Channel.
- People to translate videos (English/French/Portuguese and other subtitles).
- Creative people who would like to inspire youth with their video-making, photography, or drawing skills related to agriculture.
- A project manager, since my creative and teaching skills are increasingly required.
- Helpers to organize the first Agroecology International and Multi-Generations Festival, especially facilitators in the U journey and generative scribing facilitators.
- Funding to start the prototype — that would help, too!
View my Youtube channel for other videos on the work we have done: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtJyZlRgsqX2qSkeJtHHLzQ
Get involved in the Les Agron’Hommes project with your talents here: https://forms.gle/czXGgVaBt37pYxM28
