Can Australia transition to an agroecological future?

Australia faces seemingly impossible barriers to transitioning to agroecology. Nonetheless, many possibilities for a distinctively Australian agroecology exist. Some Australian farmers have helped create methods for rehydrating landscapes, while Indigenous peoples are reclaiming crops and farming methods well-adapted to Australia's diverse regions.To appraise the prospects for agroecological changes in Australia, I modify in two ways the Multi-Level Perspective framework widely used in transitions research. First, I elaborate the notion of lock-ins that impede systemic change.Looking at Australia reveals an array of socio-ecological lock-ins that matter alongside the more familiar political economy lock-ins. These include settler colonialism, climate/environmental change, and scientific & technological priorities. Second, I add 'massification' (or the growth of a movement supporting change toward agroecology) as one possible process for overcoming these lock-ins. I work through several key drivers of the process of taking agroecology to scale to show how agroecological transition might happen.

Automated summary

Australia faces challenges in transitioning to agroecology, but there are also possibilities, such as farmers rehydrating landscapes and Indigenous peoples reclaiming crops adapted to the diverse regions. These changes reflect a potential shift towards agroecological practices in Australian agriculture.