# Methodological challenges in assessing the viability of agroecological practices: lessons from a multi-case study in Africa

Nadine Andrieu, Benoît Dedieu, Pierre Girard, Eric Scopel, Christine Magaju, Catherine Dembele, Wolde Mekuria, Richard Coe

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Nadine Andrieu, Benoît Dedieu, Pierre Girard, Eric Scopel, Christine Magaju, et al.. Methodological challenges in assessing the viability of agroecological practices: lessons from a multi-case study in Africa. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 2025, 45 (2), pp.15. 10.1007/s13593-025-01010-9 hal-04993365

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# Methodological challenges in assessing the viability of agroecological practices: lessons from a multi-case study in Africa

Nadine Andrieu<fnref n="1" />☐, Benoit Dedieu<fnref n="2" />, Pierre Girard<fnref n="3" />, Eric Scopel<fnref n="4" />, Christine Magaju<fnref n="5" />, Catherine Dembele<fnref n="6" />,
Wolde Mekuria<fnref n="7" />, Richard Coe<fnref n="5" />,<fnref n="8" />

Accepted: 11 February 2025

© The Author(s) 2025

## Abstract

Despite a growing literature highlighting the benefits of agroecology in Africa, policy makers, donors, and scientists are still debating the “viability” of agroecological practices. However, assessing the viability of agroecological practices poses challenges, and so far, no studies have clearly documented them and options for addressing them. The aim of this paper is to describe the main methodological challenges we faced in assessing the viability of agroecology in 11 case studies in Africa so that others planning assessments can benefit from what we learned. Seven methodological challenges discussed are (i) defining an object of study through a list of practices or agroecological principles, (ii) having a practice-based assessment versus a systemic assessment at field or farm scales, (iii) having a subjective assessment of the viability of agroecological practices based on farmers’ perspective or an “objective” assessment, (iv) having a qualitative or quantitative assessment, (v) having a diachronic versus synchronic assessment, (vi) having a multisite approach versus a single-site study, and (vii) having a context-specific assessment method or a unitary assessment method. We conclude that the assessment of the viability of agroecological practices needs to be multicriteria, systemic, and based on farmers’ perspectives and not practice-based using a single simple metric. This is a change from the conventional way such systems are evaluated based on quantitative metrics. We recommend using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative assessments that highlight farmers’ perceptions of practices embedded into their farming systems, using transversal and context-specific data.

**Keywords** Agroecology · Farming systems · Methodology · Multi-case study

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## 1 Introduction

Agroecology is increasingly promoted as a trajectory for the development of sustainable and resilient food and agriculture systems in response to both global and local challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, degradation of natural ecosystems, and inequitable rural livelihoods (Debray et al. 2019; Gliessman 2016; HLPE 2019). Agroecology is based on several principles that include biophysical and socio-technical dimensions (Barrios et al. 2020; FAO 2019; Leippert et al. 2020). Wezel et al. (2020) identified 13 principles of agroecology, namely biodiversity enhancement, biomass and nutrient recycling, synergy among the elements of agroecosystems, soil and plant health, human and animal health, input reduction, economic diversification, knowledge co-creation, social values and diets, fairness of trade, employment and rights, connectivity between producers and consumers, land and natural resources governance, and participation that creates an enabling environment for

<footnote>Nadine Andrieu
nadine.andrieu@cirad.fr</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ UMR Innovation, Univ Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, F-97130 Capesterre-Belle-Eau, Guadeloupe, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² UMR SELMET (systèmes d’élevage méditerranéens et tropicaux) INRAE, Cirad, Institut Agro, 2, place Pierre Viala, F-34060 Montpellier, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ UMR ART-DEV., Université de Montpellier, CIRAD, CNRS, Université Paul Valéry, Accra, Ghana</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ UPR AIDA, Université de Montpellier, CIRAD, Fortaleza, Brazil</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5 CIFOR-ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Center for International Forestry Research-World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), Sahel Office, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ International Water Management Institute (IWMI) East Africa and Nile Basin Office, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Statistics for Sustainable Development, Reading, UK</footnote>
farm and food systems transformation. In regions with intensive industrialized agriculture, agroecological transitions are described as a movement towards systems with reduced negative social and environmental externalities (Duru et al. 2015; Tarsiguel et al. 2023). However, in many African contexts, agroecological transitions aim to improve low-input, low-productivity farming systems, while avoiding or reversing the degradation of the natural resource base and being equitable and empowering for farmers (Boillat et al. 2022; Tittonell et al. 2012).

In Africa as elsewhere, there are controversies on the relevance of agroecology as a response to the specific challenges of the continent. Some authors claim that agroecology is able to provide economic benefits, food security, and nutritional safety for local populations (Bezner Kerr et al. 2019a, b; Cartsburg et al. 2024; Epule and Chehbouni 2022; Losch 2022), along with positive benefits on such things as pollinator richness (Vogel et al. 2023), soil degradation (Tittonell et al. 2012), and water use efficiency under African dry conditions (Naudin et al. 2019). Other authors claim that agroecology is a barrier to improving agricultural productivity, keeping farms in a poverty trap, and consequently not being able to address the challenges of feeding a growing population and ensuring decent employment in the context of 250 million of young people entering the job market before 2050 (Christiaensen and Maertens 2022; Laske and Michel 2022; Mugwanya 2019). These differences of opinion about agroecology have their roots in many different understandings of the aims, principles, and practices of agroecology. A result is that policy makers ask for evidence that agroecology can provide a realistic, useful, and acceptable, or *viable*, trajectory of agricultural development for Africa.

While the definition of “viability” is often left vague, the viability of agricultural systems generally refers to the financial return from the management of a farm. Christensen and Limbach (2019) proposed a broader definition including profitability, access to farmland, healthy agricultural natural resources, and social values. This suggests that viable agricultural systems deliver economic, social, and environmental value to stakeholders since, in the long term, systems that fail to provide all three cannot function. Trade-offs between economic, social, and environmental performance are personal and are not only based on economic rationality as the dominant neo-classical postulate would suggest. Hence at the farm and household level, viable agroecological practices can be defined as those that farmers find useful given their aims, resources, constraints, and values. In addition to the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of agroecological practices, structural characteristics of the farms, access to knowledge, and labor, including farmers’ work and working conditions, are known to be important resources or constraints to their implementation that consequently need to be included

when assessing the viability of agroecological practices (Compagnone et al. 2018; Dedieu et al. 2022; Dumont and Baret 2017; Duval et al. 2021; Place et al. 2003).

There are various initiatives to generate evidence about agroecology in Africa. Most of them are based on one or two case studies (Berre et al. 2022; Pépin et al. 2021; Lucantoni et al. 2023) and hence have limited scope for scaling-up findings. There are also initiatives to establish common tools for producing original data on agroecology. For example, FAO's Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE) assessment tool (Lucantoni et al. 2023; Mottet et al. 2020) is being used in a number of countries but has the aim of characterizing the status of agroecological transitions and does not focus on the viability of practices.

To help fill this evidence gap, a consortium, made of four international agricultural research centers, a French agricultural research center, three African national agricultural research centers, an American university, and an African non-governmental organization, conducted the “Viability of Agroecological Practices in Africa” project from January 2021 to December 2022 (Figure 1). Designing and carrying out the project has generated insights into some of the methodological challenges in assessing the viability of agroecology in Africa. The aim of this paper is to describe these insights so that others planning assessments can benefit from them. The paper presents an outline of the project structure and methods used followed by a description of the methodological challenges we faced, the choices we made, the key lessons, and their implications for assessing the viability of agroecological practices.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1** Soil and water conservation using planting basins in Mwala, Kenya, one of the study sites (credit: Kelvin Trautman).</figcaption></figure>

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# 2 Material and methods

## 2.1 Overall presentation of the research study

The study was established in January 2021 to understand the viability of agroecological practices at the farm and household level across environmental and demographic gradients in Africa. Of particular importance to this paper are as follows:

* Focus on viability, not the impact of agroecological practices

* Initial reference to agroecological practices, not systems or transitions

* Focus on farm and household levels, not communities, landscapes, or wider aggregations

Initial specific aims included the following:

1. Assessing quantitatively and qualitatively the labor (e.g., workload, employment, arduousness, skill level, meaningfulness) required by agroecological practices

2. Understanding income and food security outcomes for households using agroecological practices

3. Understanding levers and lock-ins influencing the viability of agroecological practices

4. Estimating the economic value of ecosystem services and disservices associated with agroecological practices

Some of these aims had to be modified as we developed the approach, and these are described in this paper.

A call for case studies was made by the international agricultural research centers managing the funding, resulting in suggestions each of which was described by a short concept note. The specific definition of a case was left open but was intended to be a location linked with institutions developing research and support activities to enhance agroecology. From these, 11 case studies in 8 countries were selected as they had action teams on the ground currently promoting or analyzing agroecological practices in a diversity of social, economic, and environmental contexts and types of interventions across Africa (Table 1). All the case studies except that in Tanzania had previously involved research organizations. Case studies had varied numbers of sites within the same country. In total, 21 sites were part of the study (see Figure 2).

The project was not designed to engage in further innovation or promotion of agroecology in the case study locations, but to generate evidence on viability based on the existing experience. Assessment activities were planned for a 2-year project. The methodological process followed is summarized in the following steps.

* Appointing a Methods Group. The Methods Group was drawn from collaborating organizations both involved in the case study teams and managing the funding. It coordinated the development of the methods used in all cases. It included gender-balanced researchers with different backgrounds: social, environmental, economic, and agronomic scientists as well as data scientists and research methods specialists (first quarter (Q1) of 2021).

* Developing methods. A seven-step method was developed through an interactive process of drafting, discussion, reflection, and revision involving all case study teams and coordinated by the Methods Group (Table 2) (Q2–Q4 of 2021).

* Piloting and training in methods. When the common method was finalized and agreed upon, some members of the Methods Group contributed to training case study teams and piloted data collection tools (Q2 and Q3 of 2021).

* Data collection. Teams engaged in each case study collected their own data. A common data platform for data sharing was established by the Methods Group (Q3–Q4 of 2021 and throughout 2022).

* Data analysis for each case study. Case study teams were responsible for analyzing and reporting their own case (from mid-2022 to now).

* Compilation of initial results and identification of themes for cross-case analysis. This was done at the end of the initial 2 years of the project. Anyone involved in the project could take part in the analysis and writing of cross-case analyses they were interested in (December 2022).

* Cross-case analyses and identification of key messages on the viability of agroecological practices. The current paper is part of this effort (2023 and continuing).

The different steps of the methodological process were designed by the Methods Group to both generate information on viability and inform the following steps (Table 2). The diversity in case study contexts meant that protocols had to be adapted to each case, and not all steps were implemented or integrated in analyses at all sites.

## 2.2 Drawing methodological lessons on assessing the viability of agroecological practices

During the development and application of the method used in the project, we faced various methodological challenges and learned some lessons as we sought solutions. To draw these lessons, we carried out a qualitative assessment based on interactions with local case study teams, discussions we had when implementing the method, responses process to the questions of the teams implementing the method, and analysis of the (grey and peer-reviewed) literature produced
<table><caption>**Table 1** The case studies.</caption><thead><tr><th>Case studies</th><th>Typical agroecological practices</th><th>Genesis</th><th>Lead research institution and composition of the research team</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Agroecology in Kenya</td><td>Traditional leafy vegetables (TLVS), composting, kitchen gardens, poultry units, community empowerment through self-designed action plans, market linkages, stakeholder platform, and community seed banks</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists as part of land restoration initiative</td><td>Alliance/CIAAT<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including agrobiodiversity, nutrition, rural institutions</td></tr><tr><td>Agroecology center in Tanzania</td><td>Wide range of crop production practices</td><td>Long-term co-development through farmer training</td><td>SAT (NGO)<br>No researchers, people from NGO</td></tr><tr><td>Agropastoral and pastoral systems in Senegal</td><td>Seasonal and inter-annual livestock mobility—use of rangelands (dunes, lowlands, plains) according to seasons and animal species</td><td>Indigenous</td><td>CIRAD<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including social scientists, animal scientists</td></tr><tr><td>Agro-sylvo-pastoral systems in Burkina Faso</td><td>Interaction between crops, livestock, and trees + by-products recycling (manure, crops residues) at farm level and landscape level</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>CIRAD<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including agro-economist, geographers, agronomists, animal scientists</td></tr><tr><td>Compost, livestock, and crop production in Tunisia</td><td>Mixed-crop-livestock integration, agroforestry, and compost</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>CIRAD-ICARDA<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including animal scientists, agronomists</td></tr><tr><td>Agroecology comparisons in Madagascar</td><td>Crop diversification, conservation agriculture, cover crops, compost</td><td>Research and national organization, researcher-led</td><td>CIRAD/FOFIFA/GSDM<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including agronomists, economists</td></tr><tr><td>Legumes and agroecology in Ethiopia</td><td>Crop-livestock integration, food legumes</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>ICARDA<br>monodisciplinary (quantitative economists)</td></tr><tr><td>Agroforestry and soil and water conservation in Kenya</td><td>Crop diversification, agroforestry</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>CIFOR-ICRAF<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including soils, land restoration, agroforestry, rural institutions</td></tr><tr><td>Exclosures in Ethiopia</td><td>Mixed-crop-livestock systems, exclosures to manage common land and watersheds</td><td>Government of Ethiopia, Community watershed teams, NGOs</td><td>IWMI<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including landscape management or restoration, socio-economist, anthropologist</td></tr><tr><td>Agroecology in Malawi</td><td>Botanical pesticides and compost, legumes</td><td>Co-developed between farmers and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>Cornell University<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including social scientists, soil scientists, nutrition</td></tr><tr><td>Tree-crop associations and biomass in Burkina Faso</td><td>Interaction between crops, livestock, and trees + by-products recycling (manure, crops residues) at farm level and landscape level</td><td>Co-developed between farmers, NGO, and scientists, researcher-led</td><td>ICRAF<br>Multidisciplinary team with expertise including agronomists, forestry science, animal science, economists</td></tr></tbody></table>

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<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2** Location of the study sites.</figcaption></figure>

by case study teams and those working on cross-case analyses (Appendix 1).

Many of the methodological challenges appeared as choices that have to be made either between alternatives or along a continuum of options between two extremes (Table 3). These are discussed first, in each instance describing the nature of the dilemma and choices to make, the decision we made, and why and what we learned from using that approach.

# 3 Lesson on methods

## 3.1 List of agroecological practices or set of principles

In a project designed to provide evidence on the “viability of agroecological practices,” a first step is to define an “agroecological practice” since it is the object of assessment. There are two parts that need considering, “agroecological” and “practice.” Farming involves many operations and activities, so what determines a “practice”? Asking people to describe practices results in a very wide range, from the broad such as “agroforestry” to the specific such as “plant the beans 2

weeks before the maize.” At what level should a practice, the proposed unit of analysis in this study, be defined? Agroecology is described conceptually by principles. A practice such as “plant the beans 2 weeks before the maize” could be agroecological if it is part of a process of moving to integrated cereal-legume systems with the aim of improving soil health and nutritional content of food produced, diversifying production, and increasing the synergy between farm components. It might not be agroecological if it is part of monocropping the two crops in a high-input farm. Wezel et al. (2020) define agroecology in terms of principles and this list of principles is the most widely quoted. Most of the principles describe agroecology as a direction of change (for example, input reduction, enhancing positive ecological interaction) rather than a state. Thus, practices can be labelled as agroecological if they represent a change or difference from less agroecological alternatives that are also in use, without reference to the origins of the practice or the length of time it has been used.

In the study, we defined “agroecological practices” with reference to the agroecological principles (Wezel et al. 2020). We defined agroecological practices as those that, deliberately or not, implement or make use of one or more of the principles of agroecology and where a less
<table><caption>**Table 2** Summary of the common method designed and used in the case studies.</caption><thead><tr><th>Step</th><th>Method</th><th>Purpose</th><th>Sample</th><th>Data assembled</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>Assembly of secondary data about each site</td><td>Describe and understand the context of each case study site</td><td>-</td><td>21 sites from 11 case studies</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Key informant interviews (2 hours) from April to August 2021</td><td>Elicit grounded information on the status of agroecological trajectories in the site, the main policies and interventions promoting them, and perceptions of the social, economic, and environmental benefits of agroecological practices</td><td>Key informants are defined as people who know the farms and people of the area well, whether or not they have been involved in the case study project/intervention to date and whether or not they are promoters of agroecology</td><td>239 interviews</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Analysis of perceptions on agroecology</td><td>Thematic analysis of data collected from the previous step</td><td>-</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Farm and farm household surveys (1 to 3 hours) from July to December 2021</td><td>Understand farm structures, patterns of use of agroecological practices, and relations between them</td><td>Farms are a representative sample of the diversity of farms and farmers in the study area using a sample stratified by relevant factors that are expected to be associated with level of use of agroecological practices and their performance in the study area. When no pre-existing samples of farmers exist, snowball sampling was used</td><td>5025 farms surveyed</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Typologies of farming system</td><td>Multifactorial and cluster analyses of farming systems based on the data collected in the previous step</td><td>-</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Focus group discussions (FGDs) from December 2021 to July 2022</td><td>Validate results from step 4 and investigate other drivers and lock-ins influencing the use of agroecological practices</td><td>Each focus group was composed of 6–10 farmers and was single-sex—with women or with men</td><td>85 FGDs recorded</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Detailed studies on labor from July to December 2022</td><td>Understand implications of agroecological practices for labor and work—changes in work patterns and quality of work, especially looking at gender issue</td><td>Farms chosen to cover at minimum two types of farms characterized in steps 4–5, as combinations of practices (more or less agroecological) and of socio-structural variables. They have been already included in step 4 sample</td><td>837 farm households surveyed</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Participatory cost-benefit analysis from July to December 2022</td><td>Generate insights on relative roles of economic, social, and environmental dimensions in decisions to use agroecological practices</td><td>At least two groups composed of 10 participants, one representing “less agroecological” farmers and one representing “more agroecological” farmers based on the typology of farms in each case study area</td><td>14 communities across 5 case studies</td></tr></tbody></table>

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<table><caption>**Table 3** The main methodological challenges we faced in assessing the viability of agroecological practices.</caption><thead><tr><td>Methodological challenges</td><td>Choice 1</td><td>Choice 2</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Identifying practices to assess</td><td>List of agroecological practices</td><td>Set of agroecological principles</td></tr><tr><td>Choosing the scale and unit of analysis</td><td>Practice assessment</td><td>Systemic assessment at crop or farm scales</td></tr><tr><td>Definition and metrics for viability</td><td>Objective</td><td>Subjective</td></tr><tr><td>Choice of data type</td><td>Qualitative</td><td>Quantitative</td></tr><tr><td>Understanding change</td><td>Diachronic assessment</td><td>Synchronic assessment</td></tr><tr><td>Number of sites</td><td>Single-site study</td><td>Multisite study</td></tr><tr><td>Synthesis of results across sites</td><td>Context-specific assessment method</td><td>Unitary assessment method</td></tr></tbody></table>

agroecological alternative practice is also used. This definition was shared and discussed with case study teams. Since data was collected from farmers and other local informants, the level of integration of what makes up a practice was left open to their interpretation and respondents used their own implicit definitions. The concept of an agroecological practice was often determined by the way agroecology had been introduced and talked about through projects (Table 2). For example, in Madagascar, the dissemination of agroecological techniques was by research and development programs that aimed at the regeneration of the soil and increase in yields. They introduced “conservation agriculture” so this was described as an agroecological practice in that case study, though others have described multiple practices under the same heading of conservation agriculture (Giller et al. 2015). In Ethiopia, the exclosure of grazing land was promoted as a landscape restoration and water and land conservation technique and interpreted as an agroecological practice, but so were components of it such as harvesting grass. Some practices were defined at field scale (e.g., intercropping) whereas others applied at farm and watershed levels (e.g., terracing, crop-livestock integration).

For the purpose of our assessment, we only included practices that can be compared with less agroecological alternatives used in the same area. We consequently included local or traditional practices in our assessment if there was a less agroecological alternative significantly applied in the same context despite the recognition that various agroecological practices have been implemented for a long time (Altieri et al. 2017). For example, intercropping cereals with a legume was considered an agroecological practice in our study if some farms in the same location also grow monocrop cereals. If no one is monocropping in that context, then the cereal-legume intercropping was not considered. This definition avoided contentious debate over the positioning of agroecology with respect to traditional or innovative farming systems. Agroecological practices included were both recent developments and long established, and included practices that were indigenous, brought from outside or co-developed (Appendix 1: Table 2 of Viability Project Team, 2023).

We found that farmers use a very wide range of practices at field, herd, and farm levels that are aligned with agroecological principles (Table 4). In our cases, these are dominated by practices that limit the use of or reduce the need for external inputs, improve and maintain soil health, and

<table><caption>**Table 4** Numbers of practices that operationalize agroecological principles reported used by farmers surveyed across 11 case studies.</caption><thead><tr><td>Principle (Wezel et al. 2020)</td><td>Number</td><td>Example of practices identified from step 4 (n=5025 farms)</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Input reduction</td><td>29</td><td>Improved compost, legume integration, biopesticides</td></tr><tr><td>Soil health</td><td>26</td><td>Reduced tillage, green manure, erosion management</td></tr><tr><td>Synergy</td><td>16</td><td>Intercropping, agroforestry, home gardens</td></tr><tr><td>Recycling</td><td>12</td><td>Using crop residues, integrating rice and fish</td></tr><tr><td>Biodiversity</td><td>12</td><td>Agroforestry, using local varieties, exclosures</td></tr><tr><td>Economic diversification</td><td>11</td><td>Market gardening, seed production</td></tr><tr><td>Animal health</td><td>9</td><td>Biopesticides, local breeds, fodder storage</td></tr><tr><td>Social and diets</td><td>4</td><td>Local seeds and varieties, home gardens</td></tr><tr><td>Land governance</td><td>3</td><td>Livestock mobility, reforestation</td></tr><tr><td>Connectivity</td><td>2</td><td>Local seed production and use</td></tr><tr><td>Fairness</td><td>1</td><td>Local seed use</td></tr><tr><td>Participation</td><td>0</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Knowledge co-creation</td><td>0</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>53</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>
increase synergies and recycling. Given our focus on farm and household levels, some principles such as land governance or connectivity were underrepresented.

Rather than a predefined list of agroecological practices, we let key informants and farmers in case study sites describe themselves as such practices and found a diversity of reinterpretations of agroecology.

## 3.2 Practice-based assessment versus systemic assessment at crop or farm scales

Assessing the viability at the farm scale of agroecological practices calls for a practice-based assessment. Practice-based assessment is a conventional way of assessing agricultural change with, for example, cost-benefit analyses of practices. Policy makers expect to see these kinds of assessments because of the technicist conception of agricultural development centered on the adoption of new technologies. However, as known from farming system approaches, only a systemic approach can permit an understanding of why and how technologies are implemented by farmers (Darnhofer et al. 2012; Milleville 1987). Furthermore, the performance of a system depends more on how its parts interact than on how they act independently of each other (Darnhofer et al. 2012). Additionally, there are often gradients in the intensity of the use of agroecological practices across farms in the same context. For example, “legume integration” can mean anything from (a) increasing the land allocated to a single legume crop to (b) a change from mono-culture cereals to the use of diversified legumes in crop, soil, and human nutrition management. Simple comparisons of a more and less agroecological practice with other things staying constant on the farm are rare outside of experiments, meaning data on the effects of practices when used by farmers are hard to generate. While practice-based approaches are used by organizations that do not promote systemic changes, they may not align with the way farmers think about what they are doing or with core concepts of agroecology (Altieri et al. 2017). Indeed, agroecology promotes systemic changes, recognizing synergies between the different components of agroecosystems at field, farm, and food system scales (Gliessman 2016). The “system” here is not only a farm and farmer with their resources, values, decisions, and a set of practices, (Darnhofer et al. 2012), but also the socio-technical regime, meaning the social, economic, environmental, and political context within which they sit.

We first attempted to use a practice-based approach, using the definitions above, because of the aim of the study. However, this was rapidly adapted to a system-based approach at field and farm scales. While in step 2, we collected data on the perceived benefits and constraints of agroecological practices, in step 4 and subsequent steps, we proposed to have a systemic description of the farm structure and

practices (Table 2). The farming system was defined as a combination of structural variables (e.g., land, labor, capital), practices, and strategies (soil fertility and pest management, share of legumes, income diversification). The typologies built from this step considered the links between farm structure and specific combinations of practices adopted and helped us understand the various modalities of implementing combinations of practices and agroecological principles (Appendix 1: Vall et al. 2023). In step 5, we asked farmers to validate these typologies of farming systems. In step 7, the participatory cost-benefit analysis was generally based on the comparison of alternate farm systems as recognized by farmers, such as with and without livestock integration, not on specific practices.

Figure 3 illustrates some of the ways practices identified by farmers were used in combination in three of our case studies. It is clear that trying to assess the viability of any node in the network of practices without reference to those it is connected to will be inadequate. Furthermore, use of an agroecological practice (such as increasing legume diversity) could go along with use of a new non-agroecological practice (such as increased use of synthetic pesticides). Agroecological practices were combined both with other agroecological and non-agroecological practices in a variety of ways.

In summary, agroecology concerns systems and system change so relevant methods for assessing viability will use a systems framework.

## 3.3 Objective and subjective assessments for providing evidence of viability

Policy makers, donors, and scientists generally ask for an objective assessment of the relevance of agroecology (Montenegro de Wit and Iles 2016). In response, synthetic indicators of viability have been developed in various studies (Ditzler et al. 2018; Drakopoulos et al. 2021; Kabir et al. 2017). Such objective assessments are based on indicators such as gross margin, cost-benefit analyses, profitability, or riskiness but tend to ignore farmers’ perceptions of viability. However, we defined viable agroecological practices as those that farmers find useful given their aims, resources, constraints, and values. In this context, “values” refers to farmers’ judgments and beliefs about what is important to them. Farmers integrate many different things when deciding whether a practice is useful for them: they can consider the economic benefit they will get from it but also their perceived effects on the local environment and human well-being (Bezner Kerr et al. 2022; Herrera Sabillon et al. 2022). Hence, farmers’ decisions on the viability of agroecological practices depend on many factors which are subjective and individual-based. Subjective components of assessment are inevitable at the aggregate level as well. Agroecology has multiple social,

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3** Network diagrams showing combinations of agroecological practices used by farmers in three case studies. The diameter of each node depends on the number of farmers using the practice (log scale).</figcaption></figure>

environmental, and economic dimensions so multiple factors affect farmers’ decisions. How these are combined and relative importance depend on subjective values. This is core to the whole essence of agroecology (Mottet et al. 2020; Zahm et al. 2019; Darmaun et al. 2023). Hence, the demand for objective assessments of the viability of agroecology must be challenged. Realistic assessments of the viability of agroecology will inevitably have to include subjective components. The individual values that come into such assessments are complex social constructs and change all the time, contributing to the context specificity of any results.

Thus, to understand viability, we looked at perceived benefits and narratives of key informants in study sites on agroecological practices in step 2 and the effective use and combinations of agroecological practices by farmers in step 4 together with the motivations (Table 2). We also looked at the drivers and lock-ins to this use from the farmer’s perspective in step 6 and associated labor constraints or opportunities in step 7. Additionally, the participatory cost-benefit analysis, implemented in a few case studies in step 7 that is a standard objective indicator of viability, attempted to merge the conventional approach of balancing the advantages or benefits of a system with the disadvantages or costs, but from a farmer’s subjective perspective that includes all the social, economic, and environmental factors they consider

The thickness of the line joining two nodes depends on the number of farmers using both practices (log scale). Graph drawn using the igraph (2.1.3.9002) library in R (Csárdi et al, 2025).

important. All these data were coming from opinions, perceptions, or experiences. We also included objective assessments such as the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (Coates et al. 2007) in step 4 or work durations in step 7.

In summary, combining objective and subjective assessments of viability by farmers can help capture the essence of what makes agroecological practices useful for farmers while some key objective metrics can support and perhaps legitimate conclusions with policy makers. However, the assumption that it is only objective metrics that are relevant to policy needs challenging.

## 3.4 Qualitative, quantitative, or mixed assessment

Designing assessments of agroecological systems or practices includes choosing when to use qualitative or quantitative data. Superficially, the distinction is clear: quantitative data can be recorded and presented unambiguously as numbers. However, the difference is not as simple as that. For example, data recorded as categories has both qualitative and quantitative characteristics, and much household-level qualitative data can be presented as quantitative summaries at a higher level. Choices of qualitative or quantitative approaches are closely related to use of subjective or objective assessment; both objective and subjective data may be either qualitative or quantitative. Objective assessments
called for by donors are generally supported by quantitative data (Montenegro de Wit and Iles 2016). They allow simple and understandable comparisons between alternatives and analyses of investments. However, combining objective and subjective assessments to capture the viability of agroecological systems, as suggested in Section 3.3, calls for a combination of quantitative and qualitative data.

The mixed methods we used included both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis steps (Table 2). The collection of quantitative data in step 4 (cultivated area, household size, herd size, share of legumes, etc.) aimed to describe farming systems in order to find relations with the use of agroecological practices. The qualitative data on viability included perceived benefits of agroecological practices, narratives (steps 2 and 3), drivers, and lock-in to their adoption (step 6). Qualitative data was also collected to assess in an operational way aspects that would otherwise require long and costly direct quantitative measurement. For example, we asked for farmers' opinions on the environmental effects of using agroecological practices and recorded a very wide range of effects. A more usual approach is to measure quantitatively a few commonly cited environmental factors, such as soil carbon. This would have been costly, did not fit within the constraints of the project (for example, because of lack of a baseline), and would not have given insights into the very wide diversity of environmental factors that contribute to farmers' assessment of viability (Coe et al. in prep). In step 7, we also articulated both quantitative assessment of the amount of work and its organization (who is doing what) and qualitative perception of tasks by men and women (skill demanding, done with pleasure, with riskiness for health) (Hostiou and Dedieu 2012). Table 5 highlights how the articulation of quantitative and qualitative assessment supported the comprehension of the role of work availability and organization on the use of agroecological practices and consequently on viability.

In summary, quantitative and qualitative data need to be combined for an assessment of viability taking into account both objective and subjective dimensions to answer to the expectations of different kinds of stakeholders, including both policy makers and farmers.

## 3.5 Diachronic versus synchronic assessment

According to the principles, agroecology concerns the direction of change in agricultural systems (Wezel et al. 2020). Hence, the assessment of viability should be based on an assessment of changes from a less to more agroecological system, not the absolute state of a system. Ideally, this requires a dynamic assessment of the trajectory of changes, measuring things over time and understanding their drivers. Agroecological transitions may be weak or strong, as defined by various authors referring to the intensity of changes in

practices, the redesign of the whole system, and the importance of changes in the norms and values of the farmers and institutions (Coquil et al. 2017; Gliessman 2016; Plumecocq et al. 2018; Therond et al. 2017). Furthermore, these transitions may be supported by transformative or step-by-step co-design processes, more or less quick in the function of the intensity of the targeted changes, and the diversity of farmers' initial conditions (Meynard et al. 2023). Hence, longitudinal data is needed, and the ideal methodological framework is consequently diachronic. However, there are challenges to collecting and interpreting longitudinal data. Firstly, though the focus is on farms, the socio-technical regime of farming systems is also changing, including the changes introduced by research and development projects that provide training, inputs, and other support for innovation. Other changes may be induced by the enlargement of farms, the evolution of the family workforce, and the portfolio of activities that provide the household income (Dedieu et al. 2006). An assessment of viability at the farm level also needs to include higher scales of assessment to understand these changes in context, including those resulting from planned interventions or projects. Secondly, assessments and data generation in research projects typically have to be completed within a short time (2 years in our case), limiting the scope of measuring changes over time. Thirdly, relevant baseline data are often missing since change is continuous, with some change occurring before the start of the project, and the fact that decisions to measure change are only taken after gaining the impression that something is changing as a result of intervention (again the reality in our case). Finally, longitudinal data can be quite easily collected on a small sample of collaborative farms but it becomes more difficult on the large sample needed to understand diversity and convince policy makers. Consequently, synchronic assessment is often used and the typologies built based on these data can be used for predicting longer-term dynamics (Vall et al. 2006).

Given the duration of our project, we based our data collection and analysis on the comparison of different farms at the same time (Figure 4). Based on these synchronic data, we tried to extrapolate changes or links between types of farming systems. For example, in Burkina Faso, the integrated crop-livestock farmer type can be seen as a possible transition for a crop farmer type that converted cotton income into cattle acquisition, allowing more recycling and diversification at the farm scale. However, without information on the initial state of the farming systems, we cannot say whether these types fall on the same transition pathway. Diachronic data were also collected by 30-day recall period in step 4 for food security assessment and with the focus groups in steps 6 and 7. In step 6, focus groups played with cards representing the main agroecological practices found in the previous step to identify the social, economic,

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>
<table><caption>**Table 5** Qualitative and quantitative assessment of work associated with the use of agroecological practices.</caption><thead><tr><th>Data</th><th>Step</th><th>Main result</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Qualitative data</td><td>Step 4: face-to-face questionnaire surveys from 1 to 3 hours, conducted from July to December 2021 with 5023 farmers<br/>Sampling changed from on site to another based on existing dataset and sampling frames: random, rational, or snowball sampling was used to ensure the representation of each type of farming systems</td><td>The lack of workforce is the main reason for stopping using animal manure, compost, and mulching</td></tr><tr><td>Focus groups on drivers and lock-in to adoption of agroecological practices</td><td>Step 6: 85 focus group discussions of 1 to 2 hours, composed of 6 to 10 farmers selected from step 4, and conducted from December 2021 to July 2022</td><td>Labor is the second most frequent barrier to the adoption of agroecological practices after knowledge access</td></tr><tr><td>Individual surveys on working conditions</td><td>Step 7: 837 household face-to-face questionnaire surveys selected from step 4, surveys from 1 to 4 hours, conducted from July to December 2022</td><td>Manure and compost are perceived as tiring for farmers and having an impact on their health</td></tr><tr><td>Quantitative data</td><td>Step 7: 837 household face-to-face questionnaire surveys selected from step 4, surveys from 1 to 4 hours, conducted from July to December 2022</td><td>Some agroecological practices increase the amount of work for women in specific farming systems (e.g., the use of organic manure in agropastoral systems of Tunisia, small herders with transhumance in Senegal, mix-maize systems in Tanzania)<br/>Three work organization patterns were found:<br/>- Low level of delegation of the tasks to temporary workers; the tasks being executed by the farmer him/herself (type 1) or the whole family workers (type 2).<br/>Being autonomous (farmer or family) as far as work is concerned is one of the guidelines for the design of the farming system<br/>- High level of delegation of seasonal tasks (crops, vegetables) to temporary workers (type 3)</td></tr><tr><td>Gender-differentiated survey on working time dedicated to agroecological practices</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Categorization of the quantitative variables collected to run a multiple-component analysis</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4** Diachronic and synchronic assessment of the viability of agroecological practices.</figcaption></figure>

or environmental changes they induced. In step 7, focus groups used working calendars to identify what has changed in working time and organization after the introduction of new agroecological practices.

## 3.6 Multisite approach versus a single-site study

A detailed description of the viability of agroecological systems would require understanding the multiple technical and human drivers affecting the use of practices and perception of benefits within the specific socio-technical regime, not only what is within the farm boundary. Understanding this complexity requires deep, multidisciplinary investigation over time. It is only feasible to carry out such research in a few cases. At the same time, the diversity of contexts within Africa is high. If a study aims to identify similar and generalizable patterns across sites, then multiple sites are needed. A strength of having a multisite approach is that it allows us to cover a diversity of socio-technical contexts, farming systems, and types of practices and explore regularities between sites. Thus, because of limited resources, the dilemma is often whether to use sufficient depth in a single site or do more superficial studies at a representative sample of sites. This trade-off is illustrated in Figure 5.

We used a multisite case study approach (Figure 2). The 11 case studies were further enriched by several of the cases using multiple sites. For example, in Tunisia, the study was based on two sites, one dominated by pastoralism and the second by intensive irrigated crop production. However, these were

“case studies” in the conventional sense of being purposively selected to meet certain criteria and were not claimed to be representative of the continent.

Some sites showed similarities in terms of farming systems, for example the maize-based systems found in Tanzania and Kenya. On the other hand, some sites were highly specific, such as pastoralism in Senegal (Table 1). The sample of case studies could not be selected to represent the continent for practical and logistical reasons. There are large spaces on the map with no data, and some contexts were lacking such as cases in urban or peri-urban areas. Cases where agroecology had been driven by social movements were also lacking. Most case studies were based on research-led activities. Consequently, our results are only valid in areas with similar agroecology development activities.

In summary, there are always trade-offs between deep single-site and wide multisite assessments, the choice depending on both resources and objectives. A compromise is to select cases where deep data have already been collected by expert case study teams. It is hard to integrate existing deep data about a case into cross-case analyses because of a lack of consistency in what that existing data contains. However, it helps in understanding contextual drivers affecting viability.

## 3.7 Context-specific assessment method or unitary assessment method

While agroecology principles are global, the practices and experiences of agroecology are highly context specific.

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5** Trade-off in study design: deep description in a site versus wide appraisal across sites. Studies that achieve both will be impractical because of their large size</figcaption></figure>

Questions about viability in one context may not be relevant in another. However, multi-case studies are done so that results can be compared and compiled across diverse contexts. This requires data to be collected in ways that are comparable at the different sites, which is most likely when the same method is used everywhere. The TAPE approach (FAO 2019) proposed a unitary tool allowing the comparison of cases across the agroecological dimensions defined by FAO (Lucantoni et al. 2023; Mottet et al. 2020). In other multisite studies, a common analytical framework, rather than a specific tool, was used to describe various case studies. This is illustrated in the study of Baritaux et al. (2016) who used the concept of “ecological embeddedness” to understand how, why, and to what extent the natural environment influences development and shapes relationships between agents within food networks in five case studies. In other examples of building common methods to be applied across sites, the aim was to replicate a standard approach but without the objective of producing a comparative analysis (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2019; Sain et al. 2017).

A flexible method gives more room for the case study teams to select what they think is relevant information about their case study. It builds on the specific research interests and analytical skills of the teams rather than being externally determined. However, this flexibility makes the comparisons across cases more difficult. Hence, there is a trade-off between using a common method across all sites that facilitates comparison and using context-specific methods that will generate the most insights.

Our initial plan was to use the same methods at all sites. The general definitions and plan for the 7 steps (Table 2) were based on this. We developed a data platform that housed all collected data. The data platform provided a secure location with access controlled. Our common data platform supported the sharing of common data standards

across sites. Case study teams could access their own data, a dashboard showing progress with data acquisition was visible to all project members, and those researchers engaged in cross-case analyses could access the data they needed. The platform also provided a common structure for information and data, making processing as efficient as possible.

Increasingly during the implementation of the study, we realized that it was important to give more flexibility to case study teams to adapt the general method. This was based on three things:

* The nature of the farming systems. For example, pastoralists and crop producers cannot always be studied similarly.

* The particular interests of the case study teams. In step 7, teams selected the emphasis they wanted to put on detailed labor assessment or rather, participatory environmental cost-benefit analysis or other aspects. They could also decide to explore both dimensions.

* The capacity of the case study teams (human resources, distance to the sites). For example, some teams replicated sites within the same context, while others used a single site.

The flexibility of methods across sites and the definition of viability we used meant the cross-site analysis of results did not simply involve stacking data from each site and including a site factor in statistical analysis.

To make sense of the collected data across sites, we qualitatively analyzed the invariants/variants using two steps: (1) the validation of the data available for comparison, ensuring a common understanding of the information recorded, and (2) the identification of common patterns or relationship across variables using broad categories of responses across cases when needed (such as whether a reason for using a

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>
practice is environmental or what is a large and small farm for each site). While this allowed comparisons across very different contexts, it lost more detailed information about each case. One of our first conclusions from the cross-case analysis was that agroecological practices, as we defined them, are widely used by African farmers, evidence that these farmers find them viable under their specific sets of constraints (Appendix 1: The Viability Project Team, 2023). This is a robust qualitative conclusion that is based on the multisite approach, and one we believe is informative even though it is not in the form of quantitative information (“x% of farmers find practices viable”) that is sometimes expected. Another important cross-case result found by aggregating the information produced in each site on key informant perceptions of agroecology was the identification of multiple common narratives of agroecology, with three distinct narratives being most important: agroecology as a poverty trap, agroecology providing additional technical options available to farmers, and agroecology as a distinct alternative pathway for agrarian development (Figure 6). They highlighted the different views of the nature and role of agroecology and agroecological practices that may explain existing drivers or lock-ins as well as views on what viability means.

To highlight specific patterns across sites, we also conducted multifactorial analyses of data. Extracting clear messages based on multifactorial statistical analyses of thousands of farms can be challenging given the high variability in context, practices, and farming systems. To analyze the data of almost 3000 farms of the broader database in step

4, we iterated between using common indicators across all sites and context-specific typologies. We started choosing common indicators based on agroecological principles (e.g., diversification) and farm structure dimensions (e.g., land, labor, capital). We ran a multivariate analysis on the whole sample in order to identify three main types of farming systems and then we had a deeper look at each case study scale to analyze the diversity within a site.

We found three main types of farming systems according to the specific combinations of agroecological principles (Figure 6) (Appendix 1: Girard et al., 2022). It highlighted that contrary to dominant narratives, agroecology is not only implemented by poor smallholder family farmers. We also identified three different patterns of work organization (based on the farmer, on the family, or making extensive use of wage labor) in 14 sites from 6 case studies and illustrated the variability of the contribution of women within the workforce and consequently for the viability of agroecological systems (Figure 6) (Appendix 1: Hostiou et al. 2024).

In parallel to these cross-case studies, context-specific insights were captured and analyzed in each case study due to the composition and scientific interest of case study teams (Table 1). For example, in Burkina Faso where the research team included animal scientists, they adapted the method to include a specific look at the role of animals as a lever of agroecological transitions. They found that livestock-based farming systems applying more agroecological principles had higher cereal yields than other farming systems (Appendix 1: Vall et al. 2023). However, they were not the

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 6** Main narratives, farming systems, and work organization patterns found from cross-case analyses, with no direct link between steps in each column.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>
most viable due to the transaction costs at the village scale for the use of crop residues (Appendix 1: Orounladji et al. 2024). In the case study in Senegal, additional analyses of risk perceptions were included to understand the occurrence of transhumance (Appendix 1: Bathily 2021). In Tunisia, despite the emphasis made on farming systems, the case study team included an assessment of biomass flows at the territorial scale associated with manure production (Appendix 1: Farhat 2021). In Ethiopia, the case study identified factors associated with the adoption of exclosures (Appendix 1: Mekuria et al. 2023).

In summary, our approach of mixing a common method and local adaption of methods and analysis of individual case studies by those teams, rather than strict uniformity, allowed both cross-case and case-specific results to be extracted.

## 3.8 Overall discussion

Our experience highlighted the need for a broad definition of viability based on farmers' implementation of practices rather than a narrower economics-oriented definition. It also required a systemic approach that conceptualizes agroecology in terms of farming systems, not individual practices or technologies.

The viability of agroecological practices in farming systems is a function of how practices have been introduced or co-developed, farmers' empowerment in the process, and support from local institutions, and not only of the practices themselves. More emphasis should be put on documenting the co-development process of practices. Such data is often lacking and we did not manage to fill this gap. As shown in other studies, most farmers do not define themselves as agroecological practitioners (Montenegro de Wit and Iles 2016). They combine practices that can be related to one or various of the agroecological principles identified by Wezel et al. (2020) to respond to a diversity of constraints and challenges. These practices may also be combined with practices promoted by the green revolution development model. Understanding the specific modality of implementing these combinations was highlighted in step 4 but should be better described.

The project aimed to produce evidence for Africa. More diversity of context could have been included. For example, urban and peri-urban situations were absent but the rapid growth of cities in Africa makes them important. Various studies highlighted the political dimension of agroecology (Gliessman 2016, Hrabanski and Le Coq 2022). In both case study teams and key informants, there was little representation of people taking a more political view of agroecology, with few civil society activists involved. However, our sample of cases did cover a diversity of situations of national policy support for

agroecology. For example, in Ethiopia, exclosures were largely promoted by government institutions; in Senegal, there is a growing awareness of public policies on agroecology; in Burkina Faso, on organic farming; in Kenya, county-level policies on agroecology are being developed; and in Malawi, public policies were mostly oriented towards the promotion of access to credit, improved seeds, and farm inputs.

The feasibility of using a common method across all sites was influenced by the level of interaction between teams working on each case and the coordinators—the Methods Group in our project. A high level of interaction builds common understanding and real co-creation of methods. A co-creation approach to the development of the common method is important as a value, and for ensuring the methods are relevant and feasible in each location (Bezner Kerr et al. 2019b). It means there is feedback and learning between teams in the field and those coordinating methods. It requires enough time to be dedicated to be sure that concepts and methods are commonly understood and to limit the trade-offs between the specific interests of each team and the broader objective of the research study. However, it is costly in human, environmental, and financial terms, and requires high levels of dedication from everyone and significant time. Keeping everyone engaged is not an easy task. The teams in each case study were not necessarily motivated to contribute to the collective methodological co-design process, with the value of the project to them being a deeper understanding of their own case. The time and resource costs were also important when it came to piloting and training in data collection methods. We could generally only pilot each step in a few case studies and then provide training remotely, both of which were suboptimal.

The principle of co-development was also challenging to apply because the project was initiated and designed in outline externally, meaning the case study teams were not the ones initiating or demanding the cross-case comparisons. While the institutes leading each case study applied to join the project, the application was not always made by the people on the ground responsible for implementing it.

## 4 Conclusions

Our aim was to provide insights on the methods to be used by researchers wishing to provide evidence on the viability of agroecological practices. There are few studies that have listed clearly the methodological challenges faced when assessing the viability of agroecological practices. Our four key lessons are:
* The systemic nature of agroecology and its multiple aims of changing social and environmental dimensions of food and agriculture means that assessment should be based on systems and not specific practices.

* Farmers' values and interests bring together the multiple dimensions of agroecology in their decision-making. Hence, the farmers' perspective must be part of any assessment of the viability of agroecological systems.

* Farmers' interests and values are shaped by culture, experience, training and learning, social pressure, and norms. Thus, the viability of systems and sets of practices is a function not only of those systems or practices, but also of the way they have come into a given context.

* Mixed methods combining quantitative and qualitative assessment with subjective and objective assessment are necessary and can be powerful tools for characterizing these systems and understanding narratives, perceived benefits, and constraints.

There is no single correct method for understanding the viability of agroecological systems and changes. There are multiple valid choices, and the designers of any assessment need to navigate between alternatives based on their objectives, context, resources, and constraints. When the aim is to provide evidence that will convince only policy makers, it is tempting to limit that evidence to things they are used to dealing with, such as financial returns to an investment or increases in productivity. However, agroecology demands attention to social and environmental domains that are often missing from policy dialogue on agricultural change. Hence, we also need to change perceptions of what is important for whom, giving “thick legitimacy” to integrated system assessment (Montenegro de Wit and Iles 2016). Industrial agriculture shaped the type of evidence used by policy makers and donors; shifting to agroecology requires changing assumptions about the important evidence. In our study, we tried to make compromises by mixing quantitative and qualitative assessment, transversal and more context-specific data collection and analysis, and participatory cost-benefit analysis in order to slightly change the conventional way used to assess agricultural systems. The methods and lessons learned should be relevant to other researchers with the same agenda, facing similar challenges.

## Appendix 1 List of the publications of the Viability project cited in the study

Asseloka E (2021) Déterminants des inégalités de niveau de vie des ménages (agro) pastoraux : cas de la zone sylvo-pastorale du Senegal. Memoire d'ingénieur, ENSAE

Bathily B (2021) Effets des chocs sur la décision de transhumer des ménages (agro)pastoraux du Ferlo (Sénégal). Memoire d'ingénieur. Memoire d'ingénieur, ENSAE

Farhat M (2021) Approche socio-économique de la pratique de gestion de fumier à l'échelle des exploitations agricoles (Kairouan, Tunisie). Mémoire de fin d'étude, Institut Agro

Girard P, Mercandalli S, Berre D, et al (2022) Family farming and agroecology in sub-Saharan Africa: small is beautiful? Clermont-Ferrand

Hostiou N, Benoit D, Girard P, et al (2024) Diversity of work organization patterns in Africa: the family farm in question. Les exploitations agricoles et les métiers en agriculture : Évolutions, transformations, perspectives. Angers

Kuzo J (2023) Agroecology and work in African agricultural farms: an analysis through work organization. , 45. Master Ecodeva, Institut Agro

Mekuria W, Dessalegn M, Amare D, et al (2022) Factors influencing the implementation of agroecological practices: Lessons drawn from the Aba-Garima watershed, Ethiopia. Front Environ Sci 10:965408. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.965408

Orounladji BM, Sib O, Berre D, et al (2024) Cross-examination of agroecology and viability in agro-sylvo-pastoral systems in Western Burkina Faso. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 48:581–609. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2024.2307902

Viability Project Team (2023) Agroecological practices are widely used by African farmers. Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). https://doi.org/10.17528/cifor-icraf/008817

Vall E, Orounladji BM, Berre D, et al (2023) Crop-livestock synergies and by-products recycling: major factors for agroecology in West African agro-sylvo-pastoral systems. Agron Sustain Dev 43:70. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00908-6

**Authors' contributions** All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Nadine Andrieu, Benoit Dedieu, Pierre Girard, and Richard Coe. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Nadine Andrieu and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

**Funding** Open access funding provided by CIRAD. This study was carried out thanks to funding provided by the Sustainable Development Department of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and by the Agroecology TPP through the Viability project (Documenting and Evaluating the Socioeconomic Viability of Agroecological Practices across Africa), which was supported by the Government of France and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees, and Agroforestry.

**Data availability** The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>
## Declarations

**Ethics approval** The study was approved by the CIFOR-ICRAF research ethics committee and was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

**Consent to participate** Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

**Consent for publication** Not applicable

**Conflict of interest** The authors declare no competing interests.

**Open Access** This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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