Another World Is Possible: Taking Africa’s Agroecology Story to the World Social Forum.

At the World Social Forum in Benin, the global movement for agroecology met, argued, and planned. CEFROHT was in the room.

What happens when thousands of farmers, activists, lawyers, faith leaders and young people from across the world descend on one West African city with a single stubborn belief?

You get the World Social Forum.

In August 2026, the Forum marked its 25th anniversary in Cotonou, Benin, under the same motto it has carried since its birth: another world is possible. Some participants had travelled for weeks. Caravans of peasant farmers and civil society groups from across West Africa arrived carrying a message about land, water and seed that could not be ignored.

CEFROHT was there because agroecology is not a side topic at gatherings like this. It is one of the clearest pictures of what that other world could actually look like.

What we brought to the table

We came with a story worth telling. A story of how a conversation with East African lawmakers became the EAC Agroecology Bill, which the regional parliament unanimously allowed to be introduced this year. Of how four learning centers in Uganda have trained more than a thousand smallholder farmers. And of how the Agroecology Legal Network for Africa is gathering lawyers across the continent to defend farmers in the language that governments understand best, the language of law.

That last point drew people in. Many movements in Cotonou are brilliant at organizing farmers and mobilizing communities. Fewer have lawyers at the heart of their strategy. We believe agroecology will not win by being right. It will win by being protected, in seed laws, pesticide regulations and land rights that hold up in court.

Agroecology will not win simply by being right. It will win when the law protects it

What we brought home

We left Cotonou with new and deeper connections to global and continental partners advancing agroecology at scale. We compared notes with movements facing the same pressures we face in East Africa: corporate control of seed, land grabbing, and the steady push of industrial farming models into places where they do not belong.

We also came home with a reminder. African farmers are not waiting to be rescued. They are organizing, travelling across borders and demanding a seat at the table. Our job is to make sure the law gives them one.

Gatherings like the World Social Forum can sound like a lot of talk. We see them differently. Every bill we have pushed, every coalition we have built, began with people finding each other in rooms like these.

Another world is possible, but it will not build itself. Join the movement. Partner with us, support our agroecology work, or write to us at info@cefroht.org.