Introduction to the course, the lead developer, how to navigate the course on NEO, and downloading the workbook you will use throughout the course.

The Green Revolution, industrialized agriculture, and monoculture have had profound impacts on the health of our soils, food production, climate change, vulnerability, and social justice. In this module, we will learn about the history that has led us to the situation we are currently in.

This module explores the question: What is agroecology? As you will learn, agroecology is multi-faceted and is more than simply a new technique for farming. The agroecological approach to agriculture draws on farmer knowledge, ecology, social science, and agronomy, and goes beyond just the production of food to consider natural, socio-cultural, economic, and political dimensions.

In this module, we begin to learn about the basic concepts of agroecological production systems, starting with plants. As many of the experts and farmers that you will hear from in this course will emphasize, the most fundamental part of a successful agroecosystem is deep observation and understanding of your system. If we are growing crops, this means we need to understand how plants work and what they need to thrive. This module is dedicated to understanding plants and how they are affected by light, nutrients, altitude, and other factors.

In this module, we will learn about soil, including how soil is formed, the characteristics and qualities of different soils, and we will start to learn about how to build healthy soils as the foundation of our agroecosystems.

Temperature, humidity, rainfall, and wind all affect plant growth. The average combination of these factors in the area we live determines our local climate. This climate determines the general conditions we have to consider for choosing our crops and managing our agroecosystem. If we understand these factors, we can manage our agroecosystems to either increase or reduce the impacts of temperature, rainfall, humidity and wind on our crops. By doing so, we create microclimates that can help protect our crops from frosts, heat waves, and drought. We can extend growing seasons, grow a greater variety of crops, and create the conditions for a more fruitful harvest. In this module, we will learn to assess these aspects to best design our agroecological systems.

Agroecology heavily draws on an understanding of ecology. What is ecology? Simply put, ecology studies organisms, the relationships between them, and how organisms relate to their surrounding environment. This includes plants, pollinators, microorganisms in soil, animals, and humans. In this module, we will learn key principles of ecology that are important for your own production system.

Our farm is part of the larger landscape. How is our farm impacted by that landscape? How does our farm impact others? In this module, we are going to learn about how our farms fit into the surrounding landscape.

Due to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), the climate is changing and the weather we experience is becoming more extreme. We have to design our agroecosystem for our local climate, taking into account the extremes that can occur, like summer heat waves or heavy rains. In this module, we will learn more about climate change, how it affects us as farmers, and what we can do about it. According to many, given climate trends, agroecology is the future of food production.

With this module, we start to learn how to apply the principles covered so far, so you end this course with a roadmap for creating and sustaining an agroecosystem! To start this process, we hear from farmers and community promoters about their experiences with the transition to and sustaining agroecological systems.

Over the next five modules, we will integrate everything we have learned in previous modules to think about how to actually apply these understandings to our agroecosystem. We will be discussing Diversity, Synergy, Efficiency, Recycling, and Resilience. In this module, we start with Diversity. As we have learned in many of the conversations we have had during this course, diversity is a fundamental aspect of a successful, abundant, and resilient agroecosystem.

What characteristics do certain plants (or other components) have that can support other parts of our system? Where are opportunities to create beneficial relationships? In agroecology, we harness the characteristics of different elements of our production system to create thriving systems that require less work and less input. In this module, we will explore how to design systems whose components work together and why it is important.

Increasing the efficiency of our agroecosystem means putting the resources we have to the best use. In previous modules, we have learned about managing soil health, microclimates, and much more. In this module, we will put this knowledge to use. How can we reduce inputs? How can we reduce losses? How can we incorporate elements that can use the extremes we experience, like extreme heat and sun, to turn them into benefits instead of problems? How can we design our agroecosystem to the specific conditions of where we are growing? How can we better use what we have and harness local conditions to create a thriving agroecosystem?

In this module, we are going to learn about Recycling, and building on what we learned in Module 4, learn how to build nutrient and microorganism rich soils that support resilient crops and agroecosystems.

In this module, we will bring together everything we have learned throughout the course to design a resilient, regenerative, and sustainable agroecosystem - both on our farm and within our larger community.

As you set out on your agroecological journey, remember you are not alone. You are part of a much bigger movement toward creating sustainable, ecologically-friendly, climate-resilient, and just food systems. In our final module, you will hear again from the many people we have met during this course. Each one offers their advice to support you in transitioning to agroecology.