B-ACT (Business Agroecology Criteria Tool) is an Excel-based assessment framework developed by Biovision to evaluate how closely businesses align with the 13 agroecological principles established by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). Designed as a complementary tool to conventional business and financial analysis, B-ACT helps investors, donors, entrepreneurs, and development practitioners assess the environmental, social, and systemic contributions of agribusiness enterprises. Rather than focusing solely on financial performance, the tool incorporates ecological health, social equity, resilience, and sustainability considerations into business evaluation. Developed as part of Biovision’s broader suite of agroecology assessment tools, B-ACT complements the Agroecology Criteria Tool (ACT) for projects and Farm-level ACT (F-ACT) for farms.
Tag: Agroecology
Meta-framework guide resource. Reflection checklist to support holistic agrifood system assessment series. United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) policy tracking tool. Checklist 10
The CFS Policy Tracking Tool, developed by the Transformative Partnership Platform on Agroecology in collaboration with the Research and Innovation Working Group of the Agroecology Coalition, is designed to monitor the extent to which governments implement the agroecology-related policy recommendations adopted by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The tool translates 62 action points from the 2021 CFS policy guidance into 22 priority actions that collectively reflect the intent of the five CFS policy recommendations while aligning with the 13 agroecological principles established by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). Its purpose is to provide a structured framework for assessing policy support for agroecological transitions and food system transformation at national and subnational levels.
Metrics Meta-framework guide. Guidance for developing holistic assessments of agrifood systems: A 10-step approach
There is increasing recognition that we need to measure food and agriculture (agrifood) systems’ performance holistically, including social, environmental and economic aspects. As a result, hundreds of frameworks and tools have been developed, each one for a particular purpose (Crossland et al. 2025). Choosing between the hundreds of available frameworks and tools can be overwhelming, yet it is also likely that none of these assessment approaches will perfectly meet all your specific needs. There is no one tool that will be appropriate for everyone, everywhere. The TRANSITIONS Metrics project developed the Metrics Meta-framework (Box 1) to help you navigate through this diversity of available frameworks and tools and help you design a holistic assessment of agrifood systems that is fit for your specific purposes and needs. The Meta-framework presented in this guide takes you through a 10-step process to design such an assessment tool. If you follow the 10-step process presented in this guide, you will end up with a practical method for a holistic agrifood system assessment that meets clear objectives and user needs. It might be a simple implementation of a standard tool. It might be a modified version of an already existing tool. Or, it might be a completely new and original assessment tool.
Meta-framework guide resource. Reflection checklists to support holistic agrifood system assessment series
The reflection checklists aim to help you think through and reflect on what types of data and output a few commonly used tools produce, helping you select the right tool for your needs. They may validate your choice of tool, lead you in adapting or modifying it, or prompt you to think of an alternative.
Agroforestry Module 1: Introduction to agroforestry and co-creation of agroforestry systems
This module introduces the background, concepts, principles and practices of agroforestry. As a developing scientific field and a promising land-use approach, agroforestry offers solutions to various land-use challenges. The module explains what agroforestry is, and highlights its potential benefits, co-creation of agroforestry systems and key constraints, exploring the interactions between its different components. Co-creation of agroforestry systems combines farmers’ traditional ecological knowledge with scientific expertise to design customized land-use systems, which enhance biodiversity, soil health and livelihoods. The module also introduces the concept of Multipurpose Trees and Shrubs on agricultural landscape and gives an overview of the main agroforestry practices promoted in Malawi. This field guide also provides references, especially to available manuals for agroforestry innovations and practices.
Agroforestry Module 2: Managing selected agroforestry systems and practices
Agroforestry provides an integrated land management strategy that brings together trees, crops, and sometimes livestock to improve productivity, strengthen ecological resilience, and support long-term sustainability. This module introduces participants to key and selected agroforestry systems and the principles that guide their effective management, including species selection, spatial arrangement, soil fertility improvement and conservation-oriented practices. By exploring and practicing the tree management skills under diverse agroecological zones, participants will gain the knowledge and skills needed to optimize tree–crop interactions, improve land productivity and support climate-resilient agriculture. Additionally, the module draws attention to agroforestry’s role in reducing land degradation, enhancing biodiversity, as well as strengthening the livelihoods of smallholder farming households.
The multidimensional performance of agroecology: what we know and what we are yet to learn
This opinion article argues that the debate surrounding the effectiveness of agroecology should move beyond questions of whether evidence exists and instead focus on identifying the remaining knowledge gaps needed to support evidence-based agroecological transitions. Drawing on a growing body of reviews, meta-analyses, and field studies, the authors highlight substantial evidence that agroecological practices, including crop rotation, intercropping, agroforestry, mulching, composting, cover cropping, and integrated crop–livestock systems, contribute positively to food security, agricultural productivity, farmers’ incomes, climate-change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and climate-change mitigation. Recent studies demonstrate that agroecological practices often outperform conventional systems in terms of soil carbon sequestration, biodiversity enhancement, income stability, and resilience while simultaneously contributing to multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Collecting holistic evidence on agroecology performance to accelerate sustainable food system transitions
A growing body of research shows the potential of agroecology for enabling a shift to planet-friendly and socially just agrifood systems through context-specific transition pathways. We conduct a scoping review to identify and evaluate the potential of 42 existing agroecology adherence and/or agricultural performance assessment tools to generate credible, legitimate, salient and transferable evidence to inform these transitions. Results show that while multiple relevant tools exist, each of them can be strengthened in at least one area. While most tools are transferable (low time and resource requirements) and have legitimacy (open access with transparent methods), tools have variable saliency (holistic scope inclusive of local priorities) and credibility (use scientific design principles and quality assurance processes). For a subset of 11 tools collecting multidimensional performance data, analysis of 263 identified indicators showed there is a bias towards economic measures (notably income, yield, and resilience), while certain social (e.g. land tenure, traditional knowledge retention) and environmental (e.g. climate mitigation) aspects are regularly overlooked. Through a multidisciplinary process engaging experts across 8 countries, we develop a Holistic Localized Performance Assessment for agroecology (HOLPA) framework that integrates and builds on positive features of existing multidimensional agroecology performance assessments tools and overcomes key limitations. The HOLPA framework for analysis, agroecology indicators, key performance indicators, and low-cost localization process can be used to strengthen agroecology performance assessments, empowering landscape actors to identify evidence-based pathways towards agrifood systems where both people and nature can thrive.
Integrated landscapes, systemic change: An agroecological framework for sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa’s persistent low-productivity trap reflects not only low input use but also the limited effectiveness of intensification strategies that expand fertilizer application without restoring the ecological, institutional, and market conditions required for sustained response. Increasing fertilizer use remains essential for closing nutrient deficits, but where soil organic carbon (SOC) is depleted, landscape functions are fragmented, and value chains fail to reward ecological investment, fertilizer alone cannot deliver durable productivity gains. The challenge is therefore not fertilizer versus agroecology, but how to combine mineral fertilizer with organic resource recapitalization, governed by conditional complementarity, and institutional conditions that make fertilizer responsive, efficient, and economically viable. This paper advances a causally explicit agroecological framework structured around four interacting pathways: nutrient-use efficiency, SOC recapitalization, multifunctional landscape governance, and producer–consumer reconnection, through which productivity, ecological function, and economic viability are jointly produced. These pathways operate simultaneously across scales, linking soil processes and ecosystem services to institutions and markets, with outcomes contingent on biomass availability, soil responsiveness, governance capacity, tenure security, and value-chain maturity. The framework is explicitly conditional. As with fertilizer intensification, SOC recapitalization is essential but not universally scalable; its effectiveness depends on directing high-quality biomass to farms where restoration needs, soil responsiveness, and fertilizer-use efficiency are greatest. Agroecological transition is thus understood not as the sequential adoption of practices, but as the coordinated activation of reinforcing ecological and institutional processes in which the judicious and complementary use of organic and inorganic inputs is central to system performance. The imperative, therefore shifts from scaling technologies to diagnosing the biophysical, institutional, and market conditions that determine where such coordinated processes are feasible, how localized gains can be consolidated, and under what conditions they can extend beyond their initial boundaries.
Scaling tree-based agroecological and nature-positive systems: Synthesis of gaps, gendered barriers and opportunities
Tree-based agroecological and nature-positive systems are increasingly recognized for their potential to restore degraded landscapes while enhancing livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and food-system sustainability. However, evidence on institutional, gendered, and implementation barriers limiting their scaling remains fragmented. This study synthesizes lessons from two CGIAR initiatives in Kenya: the Nature-Positive Solutions (N+) project in Kisumu and Vihiga counties and the Agroecology Initiative (AE-I) in Kiambu and Makueni counties to identify gaps, constraints, and opportunities for scaling tree-based systems. The study applied a document-based analytical review of project reports, technical outputs, workshop proceedings, and published literature using the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions (NbS) framework. Evidence was synthesized across three analytical phases: problem definition, intervention and implementation, and scaling. A total of 23 documents (11 N+ and 12 AE-I) focusing on tree-based systems and agroforestry were reviewed. Findings show that participatory approaches effectively identified declining tree cover, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate vulnerability as interconnected drivers of landscape degradation. Farmers consistently recognized agroforestry, fruit trees, riparian restoration, and fodder species as viable restoration pathways. However, implementation gaps persisted as trees were often treated as supplementary activities rather than core restoration assets, while monitoring systems prioritized short-term outputs over ecological indicators such as tree survival, biodiversity recovery, soil carbon, and hydrological functions. Gender disparities further constrained scaling, with women participation being limited to off-farm activities pointing to barriers in land ownership, tree tenure, finance access, and benefit control despite substantial labour contributions. The study concludes that scaling tree-based systems is constrained more by institutional misalignments in governance, monitoring, financing, and tenure than by technical feasibility. Strengthening ecological monitoring, gender-responsive governance, and integration within county restoration frameworks is critical for landscape-scale agroecological transformation.