Europe’s food and farming sectors may be under strain from policies obsessed with a (biased) competitiveness, but a growing movement is pushing back. The Agroecology Europe Forum held in Malmö, Sweden on 2-4 October 2025, showcased the strength of agroecology as both resistance and science, advancing resilience, decolonialism, and justice across rural landscapes. Robin Llewellyn of Agroecology Europe has more.
“We have changed the course of history before, and we can do it again!”
Those were the words which opened the 5th Agroecology Europe Forum in Malmö, spoken by Lova Brodin of Miljömatematik Malmö AB. With a record 400 participants in attendance, Lova’s words spoke to a widespread belief among these agroecologists from across Europe and beyond: history urgently needs changing.
Reclaiming agroecology from regenerative corporate capture
The food systems of Europe reflect economic power skewed in favour of large companies, and European farming and environmental policies are tilting towards shaping a “sector” which policymakers pledge to make “competitive” – even if the attempt leaves food systems neither socially just nor environmentally sustainable.
“Agroecology brings hope,” Dr. Miguel Altieri, Professor Emeritus of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley, reminded us in an eagerly awaited keynote speech. Rooted in nature, diversity, and food sovereignty – not chemical inputs, monocultures, or fossil fuel dependency – agroecology holds the answers that can transform our food systems.
Dr. Altieri warned of the prevalence of greenwashing, in the form of “regenerative” branding, as well as carbon credits. He also cautioned of the dependency that large corporations stimulate by encouraging farmers to adopt their extractive digital platforms.
“The model that we have of agriculture today has reached its limits,” affirmed Dr. Altieri said. “If we really want to feed the world without destroying nature, there’s only one path and that’s agroecology.”
Agroecology at all levels, starting from the grassroots
How to follow that path was explored through farm visits where participants could candidly exchange hopes, concerns, and experiences, and learn from each other’s successes in transforming food systems through practice.
“Transformation in action” according to Dr. Molly D. Anderson, Research Associate Professor at UVM Institute for Agroecology and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita of Food Studies at Middlebury College, “means people taking ideas and implementing them: actually putting them into practice, which is very difficult in many ways because you are fighting against the flow.”
Positive case studies were multiple. Olga Grönvall Lund told the story of Reformaten, showing how food in hospitals can harm instead of heal – and how activists, producers, and communities can join forces to create fun, tasty, and beautiful system change. Healthy food for people, animals, and the planet is the foundation of a positive food system movement.
From technofix to transformation
Agroecology was also held up as an answer to the use and risks of active substances – especially chemical pesticides – which are becoming increasingly restricted within the EU, due to evidence of their detrimental health and environmental effects.
“Nature offers so much to the farmers’ toolbox,” said Prof. Riccardo Bommarco of SLU, as he highlighted the extensive practices and scientific evidence testifying to the potential of ecologically intensified farming across all farm scales. The benefits are not just in securing plant health, Bommarco said, but also in increasing farm autonomy and in stabilising yields.
Agroecology in action: The first Nordic Agroecology Network
This year’s forum, whose local organisers were MiljöMatematik, Albaeco, SLU, and the Malmö Municipality, had a distinctly Swedish flavour, and during a workshop dedicated to Nordic agroecologists, the desire emerged to establish a Nordic Agroecology Network. This, participants suggested, would sustain the level of mobilisation achieved during the Forum, and also provide vital education and support services. A Mediterranean Agroecology Network has already been established this year, and such networks promise to create regional hubs for agroecological communication, advocacy, and engagement.
For Sophie Scherger, Climate and Agriculture Policy Officer at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), the Forum offered “a really great space to bring the community together. Oftentimes we’re fragmented in different spaces. For myself I spend a lot of time in policy circles that are often very uninspiring, so I hope to get a lot of inspiration and optimism and hope for the future out of this, which is something that we need to have in these very bleak days.”
The event also enabled self-criticism and the recalibration of shared campaigns. According to Marja Möls from Drys Øko urter og grønt, better efforts are needed in connecting with other actors within food systems from beyond the comfort zone of the movement: “I think we need to work more together with the farmers, with the small fruit processors, with other civil society organisations, with more joint ambitions and more joined together.”
Regrounding agroecology in solidarity and human rights
Different sessions were dedicated to aligning agroecology to a growing need for decolonialisation and anti-imperialism across farming, food and rural borders. Building on the Statement of Agroecological Solidarity with Palestine, the Forum further deepened an inclusive reflection process on how to operationalise decolonialism in European policies, science, and movements – be these in the commodification of natural resources through carbon or nature credits, or unfair trade deals.
Agroecology: a movement in motion
For Aziliz Le Rouzo of the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Forum is “a place where agroecology is lived, not just talked about. And that is where change begins…” Much more than a conference, “it creates a space where people can really connect – to exchange ideas, share struggles, laugh together, sometimes cry, and still keep moving forward. It is in those encounters that seeds are planted for the future of agroecology.”
“By feeling as a movement, we feel we are all working towards the same vision,” said Irene Katsaros, a researcher at the Centre for Functional Ecology. “So, co-creating a vision for agroecological networks means that we know about each other’s work, we know how we can complement each other, and each and every one of us knows our roles. By knowing our roles and the diversity of what we can bring into achieving solidarity and into achieving liberation, we can have a joyful revolution because that’s what we want to achieve.”
More seeds will be sown at the next Agroecology Europe Forum that will take place in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2027, where we expect even more participants and a wealth of new achievements.
More
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Letter From The Farm | Seven Years In: Realising Our Agroecological Vision
Fund the Future of Food & Farming: A United Call from Across Europe
Where The Untended Feeds Us – Cécile Gilquin’s “Tiers-Paysage”
The EU’s Public Plate – An Opportunity for Food System Transformation
Passing the Pitchfork – Inside the EU’s new plan to get young farmers in our fields
Op-Ed | From Declaration to Action – Rethinking Rural Power in EU Policymaking
