Agroecological entrepreneurship: a driving force in the sustainable transformation of agri-food systems

Francisco Garrido-Garza, Allison Loconto and Douglas K. R. Robinson

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2025, vol. 37, issue 9-10, 1170-1190

Abstract: Agroecological transitions are gaining attention in the scientific literature on socio-technical transitions where studies have tried to determine if and how agroecology can achieve local food security, environmental sustainability and rural development. To date, political sociologists have pointed to the contextual factors that condition the ability of national organic agriculture movements (NOAMs) to influence the direction of a transition, as there are still unresolved questions about how they organize themselves. We address this gap in the present article by exploring the role of entrepreneurship in influencing the direction of agroecological transitions. With a case study of the Tanzanian Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM), we analyse the diverse entrepreneurial activities (i.e. practice promotion, knowledge dissemination and domestic demand consolidation) that enabled a membership-based organization to redefine institutional visions, integrate agroecological principles into business models, and embed entrepreneurship in rural communities. We find that entrepreneurship strengthens farmer autonomy and fosters sustainable rural development. These findings contribute to the literature on transitions by demonstrating that agroecological entrepreneurship is not just an activity for farmers but can be organized through balanced services provision to a diversity of stakeholders. This type of entrepreneurship thus provides direction to an agroecological transition at the national scale.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2025.2530563

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