Agroecology is a big word. At AFD we use it all the time and we have for years. Often as a concept and a set of good practices we wish and hope to promote in the course of the five to ten years of the projects we finance as a donor agency. Also, as a reassurance that we are pushing agricultural development in the “South” away from some of the flaws, risks and downfalls (namely in environmental and social terms) of the “conventional” model of the “North”.