Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Navigating opportunity spaces: Understanding behavioural change towards agroecological transitions in Mandla, India

¹University of Hohenheim, Inst. of Agric. Sci. in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), Germany
²International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Natural Resources and Resilience Strategies Unit, Germany
³International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Natural Resources and Resilience, India

Abstract

Transforming agri-food systems towards sustainability and resilience is critical for addressing global challenges like climate change, food insecurity, and environmental degradation. Fostering such transitions requires understanding how actors exercise agency within constraints and possibilities of their local environments. This study examines how actors in Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh, India—where farming is predominantly rainfed and based on rice, wheat, and pulses—are engaging with emerging agroecological initiatives. These include intercropping, reduced chemical input use, and soil and water conservation, often embedded in collective efforts like Self-Help Groups and Community Nutrition Gardens. The study focuses on opportunity spaces—the range of actions perceived as possible and desirable—shaped by interlinked structural subsystems: resource availability, governance, market dynamics, and social-relational networks. Grounded in the ACT framework (agency in food systems transformation), this research uses a qualitative case study approach to unpack multi-scalar dynamics of individual and collective action. Primary data were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews, four focus groups, and participant observations from November 2024 to February 2025. Preliminary findings show that while individual motivations—such as concerns about degradation and aspirations for family and community well-being—drive agroecological adoption, addressing systemic constraints often requires collaboration and collective action. Some practices, like diversified cropping systems, depend on individual decision-making, while issues like water management or political representation require collaborative strategies. Local institutions and community groups enhance knowledge exchange, enable resource access, and foster inclusive participation. Actors’ opportunity spaces to address constraints are co-shaped by social-relational power dynamics within resource access, institutional engagement, and economic subsystems. The study deepens empirical understanding of agency as a situated, relational phenomenon and highlights the importance of interventions that expand opportunity spaces. It offers insights for designing participatory, inclusive approaches that bridge behavioural drivers with systemic transformation pathways in agroecology.

Keywords: Agency, agroecology, behavioural change, collective action, community nutrition gardens, governance, India, opportunity spaces, rural institutions, self-help groups, social-ecological systems

Contact Address: Regina Birner, University of Hohenheim, Inst. of Agric. Sci. in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), Stuttgart, Germany, e-mail: regina.birneruni-hohenheim.de