A U Youth Lab for Agroecology (episode 2)
I share here the second episode of the Youth Lab for Agroecology serie, where I explain how youth will catalyze the regeneration of our landscapes.
The year is 2030 — the end of the UN’s decade of landscape restoration. It’s true that the last 10 years have been tough but thanks to collective action, large-scale land restoration is taking place across Europe. By placing farming within the ecological functions of land, global food production is now part of the solution to this century’s biggest challenges. An unprecedented number of young people chose to take on this responsibility.
What’s more, our new generation of farmers did it together, by co-creating a network where they learn regenerative farming skills by helping the previous farmers generation in their projects. In one region of France, the project scaled up to about 5000 youth ready to regenerate and produce food, replacing half of the farmers who get retired. Where did it start?
2020: The first Travelling Agroecology School starts
We are in september 2020. Youth climate movements are bigger than ever, especially after a 3 months global Covid-19 crisis. Most of the youth understood coronavirus as a last warning from our planet. The awareness of the youth is huge, their energy and passion is powerful, this is a beautiful fertility. Some people may wonder: how can we empower them to create an amazing future?
At the same time, the first promotion of the Travelling Agroecology School of the Les Agron’Hommes project starts with 15 students. This one year program to learn agroecology by getting involved in farmers projects on the field will allow youth between 20 and 25 years old to help farmers in their agroecology transition. The program is co-created between youth, the school facilitators and the needs on the field (by field, I mean farmers and all stakeholders who see and feel what we need) .
During the first 2 months of the program, youth are rooted in an Ecosystem Farm, a farm prototype on the agroecology transition, in the region of Bretagne. They will get to know each other, dive into their values and mission, understand better what they can do for the world and the local region based on their dreams and skills they want to develop.
The students could afford the price of the two first coaching months by launching together a massive crowdfunding, to get citizens involved in their projects too. One of the students, Theo, 20 years old, says “We were dreaming alone, now we dream together and we are bringing it to reality by starting with a first step”. All this is possible thanks to collective intelligence and inspiring intervenors (soil life, story telling, agroforestry, meditation, yoga, listening, video making and podcasting)…
Students taking the U Lab journey
The first Travelling Agroecology School will create fertility for a U Youth Lab to emerge in 2021 or 2022. Capacity building of youth to Theory U is essential, and they can follow a U Lab online part of their journey. A lab focused on food, climate, soil and education to empower youth for the transition would be amazing.
We are still on our way to choose what would be the best practical way to do it. Part of the students will build their agroecology journey following principles and experiences of the 4 Returns, going to 4 Returns landscapes and learning from what is happening there. In March 2020, I got a lot of fertility by taking part to a seminar of the Harvests of Tomorrow Lab in the Netherlands, facilitated by Commonland.
Getting hands in the (social) Soil
Since learning happens by doing, students have the opportunity to practice agroecology in the Ecosystem Farm. They will build a project of agroecology journey and focus on a topic of the agroecology transition:
🌳 Regenerative grazing and agroforestry 🌳 Communication and marketing for young agroecology farmers 🌳 Veggies growing following the forest succession 🌳 Making wine in agroforestry systems 🌳 Bringing the 4 returns to France thanks to storytelling in other countries 🌳 Building soil fertility by bringing high diversity cover crops into corn production 🌳 Collective intelligence in a multi-generation farm …
It’s a never-ending list !
At the end of this phase, they will meet their potential sponsors (“parrains” in French, which means stepfather): groups of farmers, private companies, NGOs, local village, who will choose to invest in the project of a student because they believe the project will help the cause they defend. During the second half of this period, they will get to know a specific landscape, their stakeholders, listen and understand farmers, and choose which whom they want to work with, learn with, and help.
End of November, the students are ready with a big toolbox in their Head, Heart and Hands to leave for an agroecology journey of 7 months: 2 months in the local landscape and 5 months in another region/country. Travelling and going out of your comfort zone accelerates learning. The journey is designed so that students helps knowledge and experiences travel from farm to farm, they will have an impact in each farm and the distance-coaching happening all along the journey is meant for that. Of course, considering the worldwide situation with coronavirus, travelling in another country might be difficult, but a journey in different regions of our own country can already be an inspiring and “out of comfort zone” situation.
The « Harvest » will happen when they come back to the landscape they left with an important personal transformation. How this inner transformation can help bring a landscape transformation? This is the goal of the last month : students all together with facilitators to see how this fertility created can be a catalyzer of the agroecology transition.
2022: Empower a diversity of stakeholders and generations
This fertility created will allow participants of the first promotion to help stakeholders dive into the U process during a U Lab, hosted in the region of Bretagne with the focus « How youth can, with Head, Hand, Heart leadership, catalyze the agroecology transition? ».
As shown on the drawing I made to represent the journey, all stakeholders will go through the U together during 1,5 to 2 years: youth from the Travelling Agroecology School, youth from local agriculture schools, farmers, industries, local public actors (region, village), teachers or school/universities directors, banks. A mentorship system will allow senior stakeholders to support/mentor a youth, paying the price of the 5 to 7 seminars happening during the process. What is different from U Labs happening now all over the world is that youth are the drivers of the journey.
I think that the best moment for youth to go on their 5 months is between the Sensing and Cristallizing phases of the U, integrating the Presencing phase. I would love to have your ideas for this choice !
2030: scaling up to a Region
Previsions show that by 2030, half of french farmers will be retired: from 425 000 to 220 000. The agriculture education system is not tackling the erosion of soils and farms. If 3 students in each group of 15 students enjoyed our program and wish to create their own, the multiplication of farmers-facilitators will be exponential: we can reach 3000 to 6000 students who went through the program (the recipe can be adapted to any public by the way, there are just some ingredients to respect). In the region of Bretagne, where about 10 000 farmers will be retired by 2030, we can stop farms erosion and even create double more fertility by bringing 6000 young farmers ready to regenerate the landscape creating ecosystem farms.
🌻 Dive into the Les Agron’Hommes project
🌻 Discover The 4 returns project
🌻 Do you want to help us with your skills, ideas and funds?
