The market-leading textbook on this topic, the first edition was groundbreaking in the field and subsequent updates have maintained this as the definite work on Agroecology. A Companion Website offers the entire contents of the updated practical manual, Field and Laboratory Investigations in Agroecology, to book buyers, split into student and lecturer resources. These 24 sample investigations facilitate hands-on learning that involves close observation, creative interpretation, and constant questioning of findings. There is newly streamlined treatment of agroecology's foundations in ecological science, making the text more compatible with typical course curricula. A wealth of new content has been added while maintaining the book's concise, affordable format. The book uses a unique framework that presents agroecology as a science, movement, and practice. Updated case studies and updated chapter content incorporates the most recent knowledge, issues, progress, and research. New chapters offer brand new content: (Alternatives to Industrial Agriculture, Ecological Pest, Weed, and Disease Management, Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture, Agriculture and the Climate Crisis) while a revised analysis and critique of the food system's embeddedness in the extractive capitalist world economy reflects ideas in the emerging field of political agroecology. There is more explicit content on co-creation of knowledge, participatory and transdisciplinary research in this edition than any other.

Agroecology: A Transdisciplinary, Participatory and Action-oriented Approach is the first book to focus on agroecology as a transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented process. Using a combined theoretical and practical approach, this collection of work from pioneers in the subject along with the latest generation of acknowledged leaders engages social actors on different geo-political scales to transform the global agrifood system. The book is divided into two sections, with the first providing conceptual bases and the second presenting case studies. It describes concepts and applications of transdisciplinary research and participatory action research (PAR). Transdisciplinary research integrates different academic disciplines as well as diverse forms of knowledge, including experiential, cultural, and spiritual. Participatory action research presents a way of engaging all relevant actors in an effort to create an equitable process of research, reflection, and activity to make desired changes. Six case studies show how practitioners have grappled with applying this integration in agroecological work within different geographic and socio-ecological contexts. An explicit and critical discussion of diverse perspectives in the growing field of agroecology, this book covers the conceptual and empirical material of an agroecological approach that aspires to be more transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented. In addition to illustrating systems of agroecology that will improve food systems around the world, it lays the groundwork for further innovations to create better sustainability for all people, ecologies, and landscapes.

Agroecology: A Transdisciplinary, Participatory and Action-oriented Approach is the first book to focus on agroecology as a transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented process. Using a combined theoretical and practical approach, this collection of work from pioneers in the subject along with the latest generation of acknowledged leaders engages social actors on different geo-political scales to transform the global agrifood system. The book is divided into two sections, with the first providing conceptual bases and the second presenting case studies. It describes concepts and applications of transdisciplinary research and participatory action research (PAR). Transdisciplinary research integrates different academic disciplines as well as diverse forms of knowledge, including experiential, cultural, and spiritual. Participatory action research presents a way of engaging all relevant actors in an effort to create an equitable process of research, reflection, and activity to make desired changes. Six case studies show how practitioners have grappled with applying this integration in agroecological work within different geographic and socio-ecological contexts. An explicit and critical discussion of diverse perspectives in the growing field of agroecology, this book covers the conceptual and empirical material of an agroecological approach that aspires to be more transdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented. In addition to illustrating systems of agroecology that will improve food systems around the world, it lays the groundwork for further innovations to create better sustainability for all people, ecologies, and landscapes.