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Cited by 8Sustainability and Climate Change GovernanceAgriculture, Land Use, Rural DevelopmentSustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis

Sustainability transitions in the making in agroecosystems: Changes in research scope and methods

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Rossing, Walter A.H., Dogliotti, Santiago, Martin, Guillaume·2023·Agricultural Systems
DOI 10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103719
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Abstract

CONTEXT The urgency of redesigning the way food is produced and consumed has implications for the systems perspective of agronomy. An increasingly important strain of research addresses the ‘how-to’ question associated with the transformation of ‘maldesigned’ agricultural systems and produces ‘transformative knowledge’ as part of transitions in-the-making. Such knowledge production goes beyond ‘transformation knowledge’ resulting from the more classical analytical agronomic approaches and stances. Contributing to transitions in-the-making thus calls for systems agronomists to question their profession's why, what, and how. OBJECTIVE This special issue brings together contributions by systems agronomists collaborating with other scientists and societal actors revealing the less visible stream of fine-grained work to support transitions in-the-making in agroecosystems. METHODS In this introductory paper, changes in research scope and methods emerging from the contributions are highlighted to reinforce the engaged systems agronomist's roles in contributing to food system transitions. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Three results stand out: 1) Contributing to transitions in-the-making necessitates going beyond analysis-oriented research stances to address the ‘how’ of transformative knowledge, and move beyond the more time-efficient dominant ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions; 2) Meta-methods are emerging about how to adapt and embed existing agronomic knowledge products within change processes.…

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  • These cycles of data collection, analysis, and reflection were part of the overarching project's learning-oriented approach that built on earlier coinnovation approaches of the team.

    “These cycles of data collection, analysis, and reflection were part of the overarching project's learning-oriented approach that built on earlier coinnovation approaches of the team (Rossing et al. 2021(Rossing et al. , 2023)).”

    From A heuristic framework to portray agroecological transition initiatives in reflexive arrangements, illustrated with a conservation agriculture network in Denmark (2025) · cites this paper as Rossing et al. 2023

    Section 2 (p. 3) describes a co-innovation project in which monitoring and evaluation stimulated learning and prompted adjustments; section 3.3 (p. 5) also describes earlier design cycles involving Rossing and colleagues. The paper does not establish that the citing document’s particular data-collection, analysis, and reflection cycles belonged to an overarching project approach built on those earlier efforts. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Rossing, W. A. H., Dogliotti, S., & Martin, G.
Affiliations
  • Wageningen University & Research (NL)
  • Universidad de la República de Uruguay (UY)
  • Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
Corresponding author
Rossing, Walter A.H.
ORCID
Venue
Agricultural Systems
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2023-08
Volume
210
Pages
103719
ISSN
0308-521X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103719
OpenAlex
W4385539648
Cited by
8
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1
FWCI
0.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Agricultural Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
Keywords
sustainability transitions, agroecosystems, transformative knowledge, food system transformation, meta-method, knowledge production, social change, engaged research

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