Sustainable farming advocates will meet with MPs in Westminster on Wednesday in a bid to spark discussion around a field of farming that has earned approval from UN farming and development groups, expert scientists and even the Royal Family.

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On Wednesday, scientists from Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology and Food Security (CAFS) will launch a new discussion paper on Mainstreaming Agroecology: Implications for Global Food and Farming Systems, at an event being help by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agroecology. The work has been endorsed by organic farming enthusiast Prince Charles.

The paper's launch has been timed to coincide with World Food Day. Agroecology is a field of agriculture that values environmental protection and social justice (at least) as highly as productivity or profitability. Using cutting edge agricultural understanding and social sciences, practitioners develop 'agro-ecosystems' designed to ensure long-term food security on a site-by-site basis.

According to CAFS researchers, the challenge of feeding the world's growing population without further damaging the natural resource base is becoming increasingly urgent and must be met in ways that also allow adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. Although UK government and industry groups have pledged their support for 'sustainable intensification' – increasing production without further damage to natural systems – there is growing concern that damaging practices are being promoted under the banner of sustainable intensification.

Environment groups and researchers have warned that sustainable intensification, although it marries well with the existing paradigm due to its focus on agri-tech, tends to ignore wider socio-political issues such as inequality and access to land, and that a more holistic approach is needed to tackle hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation.

In the discussion paper scheduled for release on Wednesday, CAFS outlines how mainstreaming the process and practices of agroecology could meet the challenges facing agriculture and food production - providing not only food, but also fuel and boosting a range of other ecosystem services (natural functions that provide benefits such as pollination, carbon storage and clean water).

Dr Ulrich Schmutz, an agricultural economist at Garden Organic and one of the lead authors of the CAFS report, commented ahead of its publication, "Agroecology provides a much-needed approach to food and farming by looking at the systems as a whole. This includes the social and economic as well as environmental context of food production systems."

He continued, "Agroecology's potential in the UK is currently neglected; only about 2% of the public agri-technology research is spent on it [versus] 15% on GM crops and 13% on marker assisted breeding. This ratio needs to reverse and UK public research investment should back a much wider technology and innovation mix which truly has the potential to contribute to global food security."

The CAFS researchers have also appealed directly to MPs and other policy makers; their report concludes with "an agenda for change," which demands:

• Agricultural policy should prioritise the use of local resources to meet the requirements of agroecological faming and, where appropriate, support small farm agriculture and co-operatives;
• Economic policy should create market conditions - including financial and regulatory mechanisms - that are favourable to rural and urban agroecological production, and improve markets, to ensure there is an incentive for preserving ecosystem services and supporting farming communities;
• Cross-sectoral policies addressing food, markets and rural and urban development should include the development of robust frameworks for assessing and evaluating existing food production systems. These should focus on the ecological integrity and social-economic benefit, of food systems and use these as a basis for evidence-based policy;
• Knowledge management and agricultural extension should prioritise exchange of knowledge on agroecological management practices between all stakeholders by building regional, national and international information resources and networks.
• Research should address the implications of agroecological management in different cultural and environmental settings, both urban and rural, and further develop agroecological production.

Dr Michael Pimbert, also of CAFs, commented on the centre's policy goals. He said, "This approach is required not only to ensure that all the people of the world are fed, but also for humanity to avoid destroying the life support system and renewable energies upon which it depends. Whilst the term 'agroecology' has been increasingly used in international circles over the past two decades, it is less used and not well-understood in the UK, even within the alternative agricultural movements."