Agroecological roots and routes

S. Bellon, G. Ollivier, A . Wezel

FAO Regional Symposium on Agroecology, Budapest, Hungary, 24-25/11/2026

Introduction

• Acknowledging the legacy of agroecology : a tribute to european « pionners » (XXth century)

• Focus on six pionneering scholars born in Europe, as identified in several papers dealing with the history of AE (Gliessman, 1990 to 2015; Hecht, 1987; Wezel et al., 2009)

• Restriction to an academic dimension, using writtendocuments (papers and books)

• Focus on what their trajectories and proposals were: contents, ideas, (co-) citations, debates, networks

• What can we learn from this? : trends defined, relevance for agroecology today, further pathways…

Outline

• A brief presentation of 6 authors

Azzi, Bensin, Friederichs, Klages, Papadakis, Tischler

• Authors’ specific contributions and differences

• Lessons learnt and orientations for further work

1- A brief presentation of 6 authors

Girolamo Azzi (1885-1969),

In Proc. 1° Congress of Agrarian Ecology, 1955

Wolfgang Tischler(1912-2007)

Juan Papadakis(1903-1997)

Karl Friederichs(1878-1969)

Basil Bensin(1881-1973)

Karl Klages(1898-1967)

1- A brief presentation of 6 authors (ctd)

Based on some seminal papers:

• (Bensin B.M., 1925. Agroecological characteristics description and classification of the local corn varieties chorotypes. Prague).

• Bensin Basil M., 1930. Possibilities for international cooperationin agroecological investigations. Int. Review of Agric. Monthly Bulletin of Agric. Science and Practice (Rome), n° 21, pp. 277–84.

• Bensin B.M., 1938. Agroecology as a basic science of soil conservation. Soil Conservation, vol. 152, pp. 138-41

• Klages Karl. H.W., 1928. Crop ecology and ecological cropgeography in the agronomic curriculum. Journal of the American Society of Agronomy, vol. 10, pp. 336–53

Brief presentation of 6 authors (ctd): books

Three books on Agricultural (Agrarian) Ecology

• Girolamo Azzi (1928 it ; sp ; fr ; en)

• Juan Papadakis (1938 gr; be, ar)

• Wolfgang Tischler (1965)

One book on Ecological

Crop Geography

• Karl Klages (1942; ru, us)

One book on Zoology• Karl Friederichs (1930)

2. Authors specific contributions and differences

(Papadakis, 1938: ecological map of climates)

From G. Azzi, 1928

• Agricultural Ecology : study of the physicalenvironment – climate and soil- as related with the development of cultivated plants and their yield(yield considered from a triple viewpoint: quantitative, qualitative and generative)

• «Meteorological equivalents»/ Soil units & series

• Complex « climate-soil » (as an entity)

• Ecological characteristics (morphology and physiology -> productivity and resistance)

• Factorial combinations (bases for experiments)

From Papadakis, 1938 (and with Azzi)

• Ecology at the center! Study of global phenomenaof life (differing from physiology and biology in labs)

• Autoecology (individuals/ experiments) & synecology(associations/ observations)

• A critique of Azzi’s «Meteorological equivalents»: with attention to biological effects of excess/lack of

• Cultivation methods (plough..) as ecological factor

• Plant breeding programs with an ecological view: limits of « productivity » criterion (-> distinguishvarieties based on their reactions to env. factors)

From Bensin, 1928 (adapted from Léger, 2015)

• Plant breeding of commercial cvs should rely on theircharacters of adaptation to the environment

• Agroecology: study of cultivated plants and theirrelationships with environment based on ecology to grab and understand this adaptive capacity

• Such understanding is the basis of fairer productive systems, due to its accessibility for farmers and enables them access to low-cost solutions to improvetheir production

This ecological approach, contrasting with the prevailingproductivist paradigm, never outperformed in the XXth

Bensin B., 1938. Agroecology as a basic science of soil conservation. Soil Conservation, vol. 152, pp. 138-41

Comparative wordcloud

Based on the titles of authors’ publications, translated into englishColours: terms mostlyused by the authors

Representation with a Factorial Correspondance Analysis(where distances reveal statistical proximities)

3. Lessons learnt and orientations for further work

• History as an asset to understand dynamics in AE? Beyond a « course of time », inertia and strategiesalso counteract.

• Environmental history or agroecological perspective in history (Worster, 1990)? Agroecology contributes to connecting fragmented domains!

• Parallel construction of other disciplines and fieldsalso interfere with AE dynamics (e.g. ecology,agronomy; pioneers in Organics, promoters of Integrated Protection…)

• After a silent ½ century (silent spring) a renewal…

Renaissance and new dynamics

Conclusions

• Relevance of pioneers’ work and proposals (concepts, approaches, academic and learning fields…).Relevance, but relative ignorance… Is this due to the strength of the productionist model? And its renewalwith intensification?

• Common features among these authors: mobility in their trajectories and topics addressed, often at a widerange of scales (plant…); international vision stressingthe intercultural origin of agroecology; contributions to disciplinary evolutions. Differences also appear…

• Opening on ecology, with an integrative vision of the environment (agroecosystems); also questioningmethods (e.g.function of experiments); lower attention given to food, to social sciences and humanities...

Agroecology Europe at work…