Steps and Missteps of Agroecology in Public Policies in Brazil

Brazil is recognized as the first country to institutionalize a national policy aimed at promoting agroecology. Whether due to the achievements made or the obstacles encountered, the Brazilian experience in this field is rich in lessons. In this text, we highlight key elements that mark the historical trajectory leading towards the institutionalization of the National Agroecology and Organic Production Policy (PNAPO), as well as the challenges that remain to be consolidated as a guiding framework for structural transformations in the country's agrifood systems.

Emerging Agroecology in Brazil

The emergence, dissemination, and public affirmation of agroecology in Brazil coincided with the period of democratic achievements that began in the 1980s, after two decades of military dictatorship, when the Green Revolution project was imposed on Brazilian society. In association with the historic struggles of the Brazilian peasantry for the defense of land reform and social rights, the context presented the challenge of incorporating new forms of production and resistance in rural territories as a critical expression of the advance of the Green Revolution's scientific-technical model.

The emergence, dissemination, and public affirmation of agroecology in Brazil coincided with the period of democratic achievements that began in the 1980s.

Responses to this challenge converged into the emergence of a broad and decentralized process of social experimentation with alternative agricultural practices throughout Brazil. The constitution of networked action dynamics created the conditions for building the cohesion of this social movement characterized by the enormous diversity of practices and cultural and political identities.

The first networking initiative in the agroecological field, still in the 1980s, was the Alternative Technologies Project Network (Rede PTA), a coalition of NGOs operating in the South, Southeast, and Northeast regions, closely connected with local field organizations and movements. Later, in the early 2000s, the conditions matured for the formation of two national coalitions: the National Agroecology Articulation (ANA) and the Brazilian Association of Agroecology (ABA-Agroecology). ANA is defined as a network of organizations, local/regional networks, and social movements, while the latter is an organization of professionals from the scientific-academic field.

Building Social Movements in Agroecology

The context for the creation of these agroecological convergence spaces was particularly favorable with the beginning of Lula da Silva’s government in 2003. The federal government was then more open to proposals originated by civil society to have agroecology being incorporated, at least formally, as a reference point for guiding agrarian, agricultural and food policies. It was through this greater permeability that the federal government expanded and diversified the range of public policies for family farming and traditional peoples and communities.

However, this greater recognition did not mean, in practice, a rupture with the technical-economic prescription of the Green Revolution. Most of the allocated resources, especially in the National Program for Strengthening Family Farming (PRONAF), continued to promote productive specialization in commodities based on a highly market-dependent technical model (bank credit) and industrial inputs (agrochemicals and motorized mechanization).

Only in 2011, when Brazil became the world’s largest consumer of agrochemicals and had the second-largest area planted with transgenic crops, did President Dilma Rousseff commit to implementing an action to align public policies of her government with the principles of agroecology, during the Marcha das Margaridas1, with 70,000 women farmers in attendance.

ANA (including ABA-Agroecology) was invited by the government to draft a detailed proposal and discuss it with the various ministries and agencies involved. For the first time, social organizations faced the challenge of translating their broad proposals for rural areas and food systems into operational tools for public policies, including the definition of objectively verifiable targets.

After presenting ANA's proposal in April 2012, a long negotiation process was established until the official creation of PNAPO in August of the same year, through a presidential decree. In this negotiation, it became clear that the civil society proposal had a much broader and deeper scope than what the government was willing to accept. Recognizing that the strong land concentration in Brazil - one of the highest in the world - was one of the biggest obstacles to the advancement of agroecology, ANA’s proposal included land reform and the defense of territorial rights for indigenous people and traditional communities as essential measures for PNAPO. However, this proposal exceeded the limits set by the government for the agroecology policy.

Recognizing Agroecology Through Government Action

Although the National Agroecology and Organic Production Plan (PLANAPO) did not meet civil society's expectations, its announcement represented a highly significant political advance in the process of institutionalizing the agroecological perspective by the Brazilian state. The advancement was not specifically related to the content of the initiatives included in the Plan, as most of them had already been implemented by the ministries and agencies that compose PNAPO. The relevant innovation was connected with the creation of spaces for intersectoral management and social participation and oversight of the policies themselves.

PLANAPO consolidated itself as a political reference for social oversight and dialogue between the federal government and civil society organizations. In this capacity, it functioned as an institutional innovation niche, in which new proposals and policy instruments were developed, tested, and monitored with civil society participation.

The notion of an institutional innovation niche is important to understand PNAPO’s limitations in the light of agribusiness hegemony over the state. While agroecological initiatives were being conceived and implemented, a set of contradictory measures with larger budgets and political impact were presented by the government or the National Congress itself. A paradigmatic example of the political conditioning faced by PNAPO has been the difficulty in establishing the National Program for Reducing Pesticides (PRONARA), one of the priorities of civil society organizations.

While agroecological initiatives were being conceived and implemented, a set of contradictory measures with larger budgets and political impact were presented by the government or the National Congress itself.

Confronting Political Barriers to Agroecology

The coup d’état orchestrated by conservative and reactionary forces in the National Congress halted the virtuous negotiation process for improving agroecology policies. Between 2016 and 2022, a significant dismantling of the hard-won institutional framework occurred, including the disbanding of social participation councils, essential spaces in the institutionalization trajectory of the agroecological paradigm. The reintegration of agroecology into public policies began in 2023 with the start of the Lula III government.

However, as in other countries, the electoral victories of democratic and progressive sectors have not automatically translated into political projects aimed at overcoming the dominance of the neoliberal ideology over the state organization and public policy directions. The progress of agroecology is directly conditioned by the simultaneous weakening of neoliberal thinking, which has spread and become deeply rooted in state institutions and society. This hegemony, which found its political and ideological legitimization in agribusiness, expresses the ongoing dispute of values that refer to and organize relationships in society.

The reactivation of PNAPO in 2023 occurred under a government formed by a broad political coalition strongly conditioned by the interests of national and international big business. In addition to weakening the organizational capacities and expression of organizations linked to the agroecological movement, this condition restricts the political maneuverability and creativity of the government itself in continuing the institutional innovation cycle initiated a decade earlier during the first governments led by the Workers' Party.

Agroecology presents itself in the current historical moment as a key proposal to catalyze the social forces necessary to overcome the political standoff.

Agroecology presents itself in the current historical moment as a key proposal to catalyze the social forces necessary to overcome the political standoff that presents as alternative options the continuity of liberal democracy - clearly favorable to the expansion of the agribusiness economy - and the far-right authoritarianism, which is gaining its social support due to the inability of the neoliberal prescription to respond to the deepening socio-ecological crisis.

For agroecology to continue asserting itself as an effectively mobilizing social project, it is essential to keep it as a multi-level collective action, whose presence in the institutional sphere is based on the leadership and teachings that spring from social experiences rooted in concrete territorial contexts. Therefore, the strengthening of territorially referenced collective action combined with action in networks connected at different scales must be maintained as a focus of attention and a strategic principle for the continuity of the agroecological movement.