Inside the First International Convening on Participatory Action Research for Climate Advocacy (IPA-Global)

“Colho um sol que arde no chão,
lavro a luz dentro da cana,
minha alma no seu pendão.
Madrugada camponesa,
faz escuro (já nem tanto),
vale a pena trabalhar.
Faz escuro mas eu canto
porque a manhã vai chegar”
Madrugada camponesa – Thiago de Mello.
(Extract of a poem recited by Antonia Borges da Silva, MST, Brazil)

(Madrugada camponesa reflects the quiet strength and dignity of rural life at dawn, capturing the profound connection between farmers and the land as a symbol of resistance.)

What if local communities and Indigenous Peoples were the researchers, rather than being the subjects of study? And what if policymakers finally see agroecology as one of the key solutions to climate change? 

These questions became a shared possibility at the first International Convening on Participatory Action Research for Agroecology and Climate Advocacy, gathering 41 collaboratives from the 43 grantees and partners that are part of the Agroecology Fund’s IPA-Global Initiative—IPA standing for Investigación Participativa en Agroecología or Participatory Research on Agroecology.

From November 17 to 21, collaboratives from grassroots organizations representing national networks, platforms, NGOs, farmers, Indigenous peoples, and fisheries organizations from 16 countries gathered in Guararema, São Paulo, Brazil. They came to exchange experiences and examine how Participatory Action Research (PAR) strengthens advocacy for agroecology and climate justice.

The convening took place amid an intense moment of social mobilization in Brazil. Many participants arrived directly from a hopeful gathering of civil society activists, Cúpula dos Povos (People’s Summit) in Belém, and from the once again more exclusive COP30 official proceedings, where deep divisions between the blue and green zones highlighted the persistent exclusion of grassroots voices from the high-level decision-making on climate solutions.

Participatory Action Research: A Pathway to Community Land Governance

To elevate community knowledge and leadership in agroecology-based climate solutions, the Agroecology Fund (AEF) launched the IPA-Global Initiative, supported by the Waverley Street Foundation. Today, IPA-Global includes grantee partners working across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the European Union, representing diverse food producers, ecosystems, and political contexts.

IPA-Global builds on the lessons learned from the IPA-LAC initiative, AEF’s first effort to provide substantial support to Participatory Action Research (PAR) processes. IPA-LAC ran from 2023 to 2025 and involved seven collaboratives from Latin America with financial support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

PAR is an approach that emerges from the legacy of many engaged researchers and thinkers, such as the Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda, who believed that people must become researchers of their own realities to transform them, and the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed forms the critical and pedagogical soul of PAR. In addition, numerous community-based, Indigenous, and feminist approaches around the world have long practiced and shaped the principles we now associate with PAR. Since 2023, the Agroecology Fund has supported partners in adopting and developing this approach to strengthen both research and advocacy.

▶ Meet some of the IPA-Global initiatives:

DAY 1 — Understanding the Political Moment for Small Farmers in Brazil

The convening opened with remarks from Daniel Moss and Angela Cordeiro, Co-Directors of the Agroecology Fund, and John Wilson, Advisory Board Member. They emphasized how PAR is a useful tool for communities to ask their own questions—those that matter for their livelihoods, territories, and families. This principle of co-creation is fundamental to agroecology (one of 13 guiding principles) and one of the main differences between this approach and the Green Revolution, which focuses solely on technology transfer to communities.

João Pedro Stedile, a member of the National Directorate of the Landless Rural Workers Movement [Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra] (MST), was the first panelist to present (via a pre-taped video) a detailed timeline of Brazil’s long struggle for agrarian reform and for a fair food economy rooted in family farming.  

 “We cannot remain with our arms crossed, waiting for governments to act… We are fighting against land concentration and agribusiness to establish family farming. But we must change the paradigm toward food systems that protect water, sovereignty, and biodiversity,” says Stedile.

The MST is a social movement that seeks a just and inclusive land reform. This movement has been a powerful voice in civil society, driving Brazil’s commitment to agroecology forward and connecting it to the pathway to confront the climate crisis.

Antonia Borges da Silva, a member of Via Campesina Brasil and the MST, emphasized the importance of knowledge co-creation and training in accelerating the agroecological transition. During her intervention, Antonia also mentioned the main areas where MST is focusing its work: adopting small-scale equipment to ease the workload—particularly for young people and women—and improve labor productivity; revitalizing degraded soils through locally produced bio-inputs and soil biodiversity inoculants; and restoring forest cover to strengthen both environmental health and food production.

“Investing in training and knowledge co-creation is essential to advance agroecology transition.” 

says Antonia Borges da Silva.

After these reflections, the 41 IPA-Global collaboratives presented posters showcasing community-defined research questions and political goals—an inspiring display of grassroots leadership in action.

“We are leading research on Indigenous people, by Indigenous people and for Indigenous people. We do it in a participatory manner where we involve the community in doing their own research,” 

shared Samson Lauri Letuya from the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program (Kenya)

DAY 2 — What We Learn When Communities Lead

During the second day of the convening, the discussions focused on how PAR can strengthen collective capacity for action. Partners from across regions shared practical insights from their work. At the same time, participants engaged in open reflection spaces to assess the strengths and limitations of using PAR to generate knowledge, mitigate entrenched power, and deepen influence.

Some key challenges discussed included the fact that learning from Indigenous and local communities takes time—knowledge cannot be extracted through quickly designed research questions. Additionally, farmers’ and Indigenous peoples’ knowledge is often underestimated, with communities too frequently treated as data sources rather than co-creators. Critical questions persist: Who owns the data? Who frames the questions, and for whose benefit? 

Carlos Barahona, managing director of Stats4SD, finds PAR revolutionary because it challenges the way knowledge is generated.

 “PAR empowers civil society to strengthen practices that make us more climate resilient.”

PAR has also enabled the collaboratives to observe the diverse ways in which local communities perceive and engage with agroecology. For the Hubula People, who hold sovereignty over the Baliem Valley in Wamena, Papua, Indonesia, for example, agroecology is referred to as the 3W10, which encompasses the connection to the Wen (farming), Wam (pig and a symbol of fertility), Wene (ceremonial rituals), and Osili (settlement system).

“For the Hubula, farming is not only about food production; it is deeply embedded with spiritual meaning, communal solidarity, and collective ethics. The Indigenous Peoples want a research agenda where they can go back to the honay, which is the way they call their traditional house, a way to say that they want to go back to their identity”, says Elfira Rosina Rumkabu from the Papua Democratic Institute (PD-Institute). 

Participants also highlighted the critical strengths of PAR, including the affirmation of farmers’ agency, supporting them to share their experiences, own their data, and claim a space in decision-making; connecting diverse actors; mobilizing knowledge; and building confidence to co-design research initiatives.

DAY 3 — Learning from Brazil’s Movements: Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes  & the Nova Esperança Settlement

During the third day, participants visited two emblematic spaces of political education, agroecology, and grassroots resistance in  Brazil: the Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes (ENFF) and the Nova Esperança settlement of the MST. These visits offered a living example of how political formation, land reform, and community-led solutions shape struggles for justice, food sovereignty, and climate resilience.

Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes: A Living Monument of Popular Education

Founded in 2005, the ENFF is named after Florestan Fernandes, a politician and one of Brazil’s most influential sociologists, known for his work on ethnic–racial relations and the democratic inclusion of Black and Indigenous peoples.

The MST emphasizes that the school is not only a place of learning—it is a place of memory and global solidarity.

The idea of a national people’s school emerged in 1966, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that it took shape through collective action. More than 1,000 activists from around the world worked in the construction, while also running literacy campaigns for the workers on-site. Over 40,000 donated books form the school’s library, encompassing literature, history, politics, lullabies, and more.

The ENFF hosts children of MST families and grassroots movements from across Latin America. In a presentation video about the school, an MST leader said, “This is not the MST’s school. It is Latin America’s school. It is the school of the working class of the world.” 

Indeed, the IPA Global visitors to the school were impressed by its international scope and by how it combines technical learning on agroecology with a critical political dimension on how to fortify the agroecology movement. 

The MST’s journey toward agroecology emerged in the 1990s through the critique of chemical inputs and destructive monocultures. Echoing Stedile’s video message, Douglas Estevam, member of the political-pedagogical coordination of ENFF, described this approach as a natural extension of the school’s and MST’s primary goal: securing a just and inclusive agrarian reform that ensures communities can exercise collective governance over their lands.

Visit to Nova Esperança: Agroecology on Recovering Land

In the afternoon, the group visited Nova Esperança, one of the 20 MST settlements in the Paraíba Valley. Once a degraded and deforested farm for pesticide-intensive coffee monoculture. 

Today, it is home to 63 families across seven settlements, who live and farm collectively.

Tais, a farmer and agronomist who participated in the community’s long struggle for land rights  – which began in 1997 – walked us down the abundant furrows of her 12-acre agroforestry farm, which she and her mother manage. The land is a model of integrated agroforestry, an explosion of biodiversity that respects the customary land rights of local communities in Brazil.

“Humans destroy mountains to be able to produce their own food, but we don´t believe in that approach. The food system can survive without using pesticides that degrade the soil,”

says Tais.

DAY 4 — Communications, Culture, and Collective Strategy

The fourth day began with a vibrant Communications Exhibition, exemplifying the work carried out by the IPA-Global collaboratives. The exhibition showcased agroecological products, including grains, honey, and herbs, as well as cultural artifacts that reflected Indigenous knowledge and identity. It also showcased communications tools, including reports, policy briefs, and toolkits, on various aspects of agroecology.

Participants self-organized into open-space discussions, choosing topics such as Participatory Action Research (PAR) methods, women’s inclusion in PAR, market price challenges, countering industry-driven narratives on food security, the role of animals in agroecology, strategies for engaging rural youth in agroecology, and Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS).

Partners also reflected on ways to strengthen emerging relationships within the IPA Global Learning Community.  

DAY 5 — A reflection about the outcomes of the convening

For the participants, the IPA-Global convening demonstrated a powerful truth: Communities already hold many of the solutions. What they need is recognition, resources, and respectful collaboration with allies.

PAR is not just a methodology—it is a commitment to shifting power, valuing lived experience, and building climate solutions from the ground up.

For donors, the message is clear: Investing in community-led research is an investment in climate resilience, food sovereignty, and social justice.