Playing by the rules: formalisation in the agroecology sector during the COVID-19 pandemic

In Spain, small-scale agroecological production has emerged in response to the current environmental and food crisis. However, the lack of a protective legal framework, multiple sanctions and the political inertia of economic growth are deeply constraining and altering the very essence of such initiatives. In particular, new regulations introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the formalisation and institutionalization of the agroecology sector. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the region of Madrid, the article explores the logics and processes through which agroecological producers adjust (or not) to current regulative frames, and the implications of the decisions for their work.