Agroecology
/ˌaɡrəʊɪˈkɒlədʒi/noun
The study of farming systems as ecosystems, and the movement that applies those findings to food production.
The Greek roots
Literally: “study of the farm household”
The story of the word
Ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 from οἶκος, the household, because he saw nature as an economy of species keeping house together; agroecology simply moves that household onto a farm. The term appears in the 1920s and turns political in the 1970s, when Latin American researchers used it to argue for peasant knowledge against the Green Revolution. Economy shares the same οἶκος, so ecology and economics are literally two accounts of one house.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
In a sentence
The farm was redesigned along agroecology lines, with hedgerows doing the pest control.
Agroecology treats the field, the soil and the farmer as one system.