Navigating agroecological transitions: key factors for Bolivian small producers

This paper presents the learnings from a study that used qualitative research methods to explore how to promote agroecological transitions (AETs), conducted over four years with Bolivian farmers and consumers in Cochabamba. The study examines how different motivations and production practices shape farmers’ engagement with agroecology. The research applied thematic analysis to construct farmer typologies and identify factors influencing perceptual and behavioural transformation towards AE practices. The results show three farmer typologies based on motivations and production practices: i) conventional production and offer; ii) mixed production and offer; and iii) AE production and offer. Thematic analysis identified a set of primary and secondary factors common across typologies that affect transformations towards AE, with the main factors including risk-aversion, plot size and family tradition, and secondary ones such as health and new AE knowledge versus family tradition. A gap emerged in how these factors affect changes in perspectives and behaviours across farmer types. Understanding the role of context-specific factors in AE transformations is essential to improve AE training and implementation approaches, and the discussion interprets farmers’ risk perceptions through behavioural economics, particularly Prospect Theory, which highlights loss aversion and reference-dependent decision-making.