A degrowth lens on agrifood systems: Conceptual reflections and practical applications

The emergence and revival of alternative economic paradigms such as green growth, post-growth, and degrowth reflect growing concerns about the limitations of current growth-oriented models in addressing ecological degradation, resource depletion, and persistent inequalities in agrifood systems. Within this context, the report examines how degrowth has been conceptualised and can be interpreted in agrifood systems, particularly in relation to the challenge of ensuring access to affordable, healthy diets while remaining within planetary boundaries and safeguarding social equity. The report elaborates on five interrelated strategies identified in the degrowth literature (de-economising, de-accumulation, decommodification, deconstruction, and decolonising the imaginary) and explores their potential implications for agrifood systems. It then analyses four initiatives in India and Aotearoa New Zealand, and interprets their activities through these five interrelated strategies. Although the initiatives do not explicitly identify with degrowth, the findings show that these initiatives reflect fragmented and context-specific degrowth-aligned practices, rather than coherent or fully realised transformations. At the same time, the initiatives remain embedded within existing governance structures, markets, and power relations that may constrain their transformative potential. Overall, the analysis highlights that the five strategies are not discrete or sequential, but interconnected, overlapping, and interpreted differently across contexts. This suggests that degrowth strategies can serve as an exploratory and analytical lens to understand emerging transformations in agrifood systems, rather than as a prescriptive pathway for change.