Beyond soil health and input reduction

Gaps in the social dimension of agroecology research in India: a review

Bibliographic Data

ID24021367
AuthorsChanda Kumari (Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee), Roopam Shukla (0000-0001-8097-9383, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, corresponding author), Gina Maskell (0000-0001-7903-2512, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), Taís Maria Nunes Carvalho (0000-0001-8658-9781, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research), Amritbir Riar (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture), Christoph Gornott (0000-0003-3933-3358, University of Kassel)
Year2026
Pages1-22
Publication date2026-07-31
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAgroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2168-3565 • E-ISSN: 2168-3573
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21683565.2026.2710291
OpenAlexW7172010157
LanguageEN
References cited50

The agroecological transformation in the agri-food system – through thirteen foundational principles – focuses on implementing agricultural practices that enhance ecological balance, reduce dependence on external inputs, and prioritize social equity and participatory governance. The study examines 448 studies in the academic literature on agroecology in India (1980–2024) using two complementary Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, a machine learning-based text mining based on Latent Dirichlet Analysis (LDA) and keyword extraction based on Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), to map dominant topics and keywords. Results show that principles of input reduction (81%), agrobiodiversity (58%), and soil health (50%) were significantly addressed. However, the principles of participation (21%), animal health (12%), and connectivity (8%) were among the least reported. This indicates that principles which are more easily measurable tend to be more incorporated into field practice and hence are reported more frequently. If ongoing planned agroecological projects continue to focus predominantly on the incremental steps of input reduction and resource (soil and water) management with limited focus on integrating and addressing nuanced social equity, the agroecological transition of Indian agri-food systems will struggle to achieve the broader envisaged goal of agroecological transformation.

Agriculture · Agroecology · Context (archaeology) · Dimension (graph theory) · Environmental sociology · Soil health · Agricultural Innovations and Practices · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Agriculture

Tools

Open DOI