BIO
Nils McCune is an academic, author, and food rights activist. His scholarly work explores the connections between the political economy of food systems, agroecology, and food sovereignty, as informed by over a decade and a half of participation in rural social movements and their efforts to take agroecology to scale through various forms of social and territorial learning.
Nils is a former North America regional secretariat staff member of the global peasant movement, La Via Campesina, and has worked directly with its member organizations on the ground in Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. His work brings together social movement pedagogy with agroecological transformations as a way of consolidating peasant economies in North, South, Central America and the Caribbean.
His approach to participatory action research has helped him develop useful processes of co-creation of knowledge with social movement actors. His work on soil health in Cuban agroecosystems highlighted how distinct land tenure arrangements have far-reaching consequences for soil microbial communities and soil structure, as soil indicators were found to be accurate predictors of land tenure and economic viability of small farmers. His research on the peasant economy in Puerto Rico with Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer found that participation in the social movement and Via Campesina member Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica was highly associated with farm recovery after hurricanes Irma and Maria, as these farmers were able to increase their labor income by decommoditizing a portion of the production process. In Nicaragua, his work with the creation of the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) Ixim Ulew alongside Peter Rosset, Helda Morales and colleagues from Ecosur’s Grupo de Masificación de la AgroecologÃa highlighted the territorial mediators of agroecological transformation, in essence showing that learning theory applies not only to individuals but also to territories.
Nils is currently the Co-PI of a participatory action research (PAR) project involving three IALAs articulated through La Via Campesina’s agroecological training teams. Along with Becky Tarlau of Stanford University, David Meek of the University of Oregon and Olga Domené of Ecosur, Nils’ work combines agroecology, Chayanovian economics, rural sociology, comparative education theory, political ecology and critical geography to explore how original agroecological pedagogy created by social movements leads to the transformation of territories in Colombia, Chile and Nicaragua. Colombia’s IALA Maria Cano prepares young people to move forward the nation’s long-stalled agrarian reform process to build true peace with social justice.
In parallel, he is participating in the development of a People’s Agroecology School of Vermont alongside Rural Vermont, several community organizations, and member organizations of La Via Campesina, as well as Martha Caswell from the Institute for Agroecology, in an emerging co-creation that highlights the pedagogical attributes of mutual aid work brigades to defend small farming. Along with Black Dirt Farm, Wheelock Mountain Farm, Regeneration Corp, Cooperation Vermont, and others, this school seeks to support agroecological transformations in the Green Mountain state and beyond.
At the Mesoamerican level, Nils is co-organizing a regional Community of Practice through an Agroecological Corridor methodology that brings together many of the farmers from the Campesinx-to-Campesinx movement, social movement agroecology schools, peasant youth, native beekeepers, participatory action researchers and grassroots leaders in a territorial mosaic of popular education in agroecology.
Area(s) of expertise
Agroecology, Rural Social Movements, Peasant Economy, Food Sovereignty, Popular Education
Bio
Nils McCune is an academic, author, and food rights activist. His scholarly work explores the connections between the political economy of food systems, agroecology, and food sovereignty, as informed by over a decade and a half of participation in rural social movements and their efforts to take agroecology to scale through various forms of social and territorial learning.
Nils is a former North America regional secretariat staff member of the global peasant movement, La Via Campesina, and has worked directly with its member organizations on the ground in Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. His work brings together social movement pedagogy with agroecological transformations as a way of consolidating peasant economies in North, South, Central America and the Caribbean.
His approach to participatory action research has helped him develop useful processes of co-creation of knowledge with social movement actors. His work on soil health in Cuban agroecosystems highlighted how distinct land tenure arrangements have far-reaching consequences for soil microbial communities and soil structure, as soil indicators were found to be accurate predictors of land tenure and economic viability of small farmers. His research on the peasant economy in Puerto Rico with Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer found that participation in the social movement and Via Campesina member Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica was highly associated with farm recovery after hurricanes Irma and Maria, as these farmers were able to increase their labor income by decommoditizing a portion of the production process. In Nicaragua, his work with the creation of the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) Ixim Ulew alongside Peter Rosset, Helda Morales and colleagues from Ecosur’s Grupo de Masificación de la AgroecologÃa highlighted the territorial mediators of agroecological transformation, in essence showing that learning theory applies not only to individuals but also to territories.
Nils is currently the Co-PI of a participatory action research (PAR) project involving three IALAs articulated through La Via Campesina’s agroecological training teams. Along with Becky Tarlau of Stanford University, David Meek of the University of Oregon and Olga Domené of Ecosur, Nils’ work combines agroecology, Chayanovian economics, rural sociology, comparative education theory, political ecology and critical geography to explore how original agroecological pedagogy created by social movements leads to the transformation of territories in Colombia, Chile and Nicaragua. Colombia’s IALA Maria Cano prepares young people to move forward the nation’s long-stalled agrarian reform process to build true peace with social justice.
In parallel, he is participating in the development of a People’s Agroecology School of Vermont alongside Rural Vermont, several community organizations, and member organizations of La Via Campesina, as well as Martha Caswell from the Institute for Agroecology, in an emerging co-creation that highlights the pedagogical attributes of mutual aid work brigades to defend small farming. Along with Black Dirt Farm, Wheelock Mountain Farm, Regeneration Corp, Cooperation Vermont, and others, this school seeks to support agroecological transformations in the Green Mountain state and beyond.
At the Mesoamerican level, Nils is co-organizing a regional Community of Practice through an Agroecological Corridor methodology that brings together many of the farmers from the Campesinx-to-Campesinx movement, social movement agroecology schools, peasant youth, native beekeepers, participatory action researchers and grassroots leaders in a territorial mosaic of popular education in agroecology.
Areas of Expertise
Agroecology, Rural Social Movements, Peasant Economy, Food Sovereignty, Popular Education