4 This chapter describes the role small-scale organic farmers are playing as adult educators in alternative food networks and as leaders for food systems transformation. Findings are drawn from a survey of organic farmers in British Columbia, Western Canada. Adult Learning in Alternative Food Networks Catherine Etmanski, Ingrid Kajzer Mitchell On September 18, 2013, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a 340-page report on the topic of sustain- able agriculture and its links to food security in the current era of climate change. The report indicated that a fundamental paradigm shift is needed in agricultural development. Contributing authors suggested that we must move from conventional industrial agriculture toward more sustainable prac- tices. Moreover, the report recognized that “a farmer is not only a pro- ducer of agricultural goods, but also a manager of an agro-ecological system” (UNCTAD, p. i). The pages that follow expand on this idea that a farmer is more than simply a food producer. In recent publications, Etmanski (e.g., 2012, 2015) has argued that small-scale organic farmers are key leaders in food systems transformation and educators addressing the complex socio-economic and en- vironmental challenges we face today. This chapter builds on earlier work to present preliminary survey fndings from a case study located on Vancouver Is- land and the surrounding Gulf Islands. The chapter is organized as follows: We begin by situating the organic farming movement as a “food justice” response to the detrimental impacts of global industrial agriculture. We then describe the intersection of food and adult learning, laying the ground for farmers’ de- scriptions of informal, incidental, and self-directed learning, as well as their experiences of action learning on their farms. We expand on this by describ- ing how strong alternative food networks (AFNs), such as the organic farming movement, provide fertile ground for learning. This context is followed by an introduction of the case study and then an overview and discussion of our preliminary fndings. We conclude by raising areas of caution and articulating the next steps in this study. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 153, Spring 2017  2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/ace.20220 41