allowed movement activists to become involved in intergovernmental negotiations
– for instance, around the ‘Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure’ that were passed
in 2013, as well as the High Level Panel of Experts’ discussions around such issues
as ‘land grabbing’.
Thus, movement framings centre on the themes of food sovereignty and
agroecology, and the associated challenge to corporate control of the agri-food
system. It is argued that small-scale, peasant farming can indeed ‘feed the world’
through agroecological practices, if only the system was more just and less skewed
towards incumbent corporate interests. Identities are constructed in relation to a
somewhat idealized notion of the ‘peasant’ or ‘small-scale farmer’, seen as struggling
for self-determination and autonomy in the face of monopoly capitalism and the
depredations of neoliberal markets (Guzmán and Martinez-Alier, 2006). The
resources mobilized have been significant, less in financial terms although there
are important backers, but in terms of the intellectual, organizational and mobil -
ization capacities of movement participants and their allies in other movements,
among radical academics, and in some cases within government agencies, in
international organizations and among some political leaders.
This building of the movement over 20 years has nevertheless faced challenges,
not least in the uncomfortable relationship between local concerns and political
action on a global stage. The ‘ideal type’ peasant deployed in global campaigns
very often does not exist. A strategically deployed essentialism in wider movement
discourse may sit uneasily with the lived realities of people on the ground. Many
people juggle different livelihoods – in town, in the rural areas, across occupations
– and rarely follow the autonomous peasant route. Equally, by attempting to encom -
pass consumers, workers and others in the overall frame, the potential class and
political differences may disrupt a seeming consensus. Consumers may not be aligned
with producers, and workers not with their farmer employers, so the coherence
of a struggle against capital may sometimes fray at the edges.
Equally, the edicts about how to farm in an ‘agroecological’ way are resisted by
those keen to use more modern technologies, arguing that these too can create positive
environmental and livelihood impacts if used sensitively. A technological funda -
mentalism sometimes undermines the credibility of the argument in certain contexts,
especially when the struggle to provide food and livelihoods is especially pressing.
Such ideals, it is argued, may be all well and good in a richer context, where people
are prepared to pay for the privilege of ‘green’ agroecological products, but when
poverty and hunger stalks, such rich-world luxuries may not be possible.
3
That said, La Via Campesina and the food sovereignty movement more broadly,
with its building of networks and its increasing institutionalization, is making inroads
into mainstream global debates. Once dismissed as the radical fringe, now food
sovereignty and smallholder rights are being debated in international fora, with the
UN announcing that 2014 is the Year of Family Farming, while on the ground
and in the more local struggles, the radical edge and activist momentum is being
maintained.
124 Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones
– for instance, around the ‘Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure’ that were passed
in 2013, as well as the High Level Panel of Experts’ discussions around such issues
as ‘land grabbing’.
Thus, movement framings centre on the themes of food sovereignty and
agroecology, and the associated challenge to corporate control of the agri-food
system. It is argued that small-scale, peasant farming can indeed ‘feed the world’
through agroecological practices, if only the system was more just and less skewed
towards incumbent corporate interests. Identities are constructed in relation to a
somewhat idealized notion of the ‘peasant’ or ‘small-scale farmer’, seen as struggling
for self-determination and autonomy in the face of monopoly capitalism and the
depredations of neoliberal markets (Guzmán and Martinez-Alier, 2006). The
resources mobilized have been significant, less in financial terms although there
are important backers, but in terms of the intellectual, organizational and mobil -
ization capacities of movement participants and their allies in other movements,
among radical academics, and in some cases within government agencies, in
international organizations and among some political leaders.
This building of the movement over 20 years has nevertheless faced challenges,
not least in the uncomfortable relationship between local concerns and political
action on a global stage. The ‘ideal type’ peasant deployed in global campaigns
very often does not exist. A strategically deployed essentialism in wider movement
discourse may sit uneasily with the lived realities of people on the ground. Many
people juggle different livelihoods – in town, in the rural areas, across occupations
– and rarely follow the autonomous peasant route. Equally, by attempting to encom -
pass consumers, workers and others in the overall frame, the potential class and
political differences may disrupt a seeming consensus. Consumers may not be aligned
with producers, and workers not with their farmer employers, so the coherence
of a struggle against capital may sometimes fray at the edges.
Equally, the edicts about how to farm in an ‘agroecological’ way are resisted by
those keen to use more modern technologies, arguing that these too can create positive
environmental and livelihood impacts if used sensitively. A technological funda -
mentalism sometimes undermines the credibility of the argument in certain contexts,
especially when the struggle to provide food and livelihoods is especially pressing.
Such ideals, it is argued, may be all well and good in a richer context, where people
are prepared to pay for the privilege of ‘green’ agroecological products, but when
poverty and hunger stalks, such rich-world luxuries may not be possible.
3
That said, La Via Campesina and the food sovereignty movement more broadly,
with its building of networks and its increasing institutionalization, is making inroads
into mainstream global debates. Once dismissed as the radical fringe, now food
sovereignty and smallholder rights are being debated in international fora, with the
UN announcing that 2014 is the Year of Family Farming, while on the ground
and in the more local struggles, the radical edge and activist momentum is being
maintained.
124 Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones