Lobeniza: The outcome of an agroecological adaptive pathway in a rural food system undergoing transformation

Abstract

Local food systems in southern Mexico are increasingly affected by water scarcity, climate variability, and peri‐urban change. Despite growing scholarship on adaptive strategies and agroecology, limited empirical evidence explains how long‐term organizational dynamics translate agroecological principles into sustained adaptation under changing environmental and social conditions. This study examines the emergence of Lobeniza, a short‐cycle amaranth variety promoted through the agroecological work of Centéotl A.C. in Zimatlán de Álvarez, Oaxaca, as the outcome of a long‐term community‐based adaptive pathway. Using organizational archives, collective interviews, agroclimatic observations, field evidence, and nutritional analyses, the study reconstructed how water scarcity, seed management, agroecological experimentation, and collective learning reshaped local food strategies over time. Results indicate that adaptation to irregular rainfall cannot be reduced to the adoption of a drought‐tolerant crop. Instead, adaptive capacity emerged through collective experimentation, territorial adaptation, organizational continuity, and the reconfiguration of food practices. In this context, Lobeniza represents the material expression of a broader socioecological adaptation process shaped by cumulative organizational learning and rural–peri‐urban transformation. The study contributes to debates on agroecology, territorial food governance, and adaptive pathways by showing that adaptation in rural–peri‐urban food systems is socially constructed through collective learning and long‐term organizational processes rather than through isolated technical innovations.