7
Thursday
THE MORUNG EXPRESS
26 March 2015
PERSPECTIVE NEWS ANALYSIS, FEATURE AND DISCOURSE
From food sovereignty to transition initiatives
Olivier de schutter
W
Open Democracy
hen the idea of food sovereignty emerged twenty years ago, from the mobilisation of campesinos in Costa Rica and from the protest marches of small farmers in the Indian state of Karnataka, it had one important lesson to teach us: policies in the areas of food and agriculture should not be taken hostage to the exigencies of international trade. This idea was central to the establishment in 1993 of the Via Campesina, which was soon to grow into the largest transnational social movement in existence, now spanning 164 local and national organizations in more than 70 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and representing an estimated 200 million farmers. As an antidote to the globalization of food markets, food sovereignty was very much a product of its times. The Uruguay round of trade negotiations launched in 1986 was nearing its conclusion, and at the request of major developing countries, agriculture had been placed at the centre of the table of the big bargain to be struck: food, it was becoming clear, was set to become the next frontier of the great mill of commodification, and farmers from the world over were asked to compete against one another — and let the least competitive disappear. Food sovereignty was, first and foremost, a story of solidarity against adversity, of cooperation against competition. The trade negotiators wanted their farmers to compete: instead, rallying behind the new slogan, they decided to unite. A strange ballet of words occurred: those talking about trade « liberalization » were condemning farmers to new forms of pressure and coercion from the global marketplace and from the large agrifood companies that dominate it, while those speaking of food « sovereignty » meant in fact the opposite of food wars — they meant alliances across national borders. With food sovereignty, a set of new displacements occurred: social movements replaced governments as the main source of legitimacy; the building of resilient communities through small-scale farming and the relocalization of agrifood systems was given priority over the search for efficiency gains and economies of scale; and (in the words of Jan Douwe van der Ploeg) the art of farming replaced the business of agriculture as the way to describe the future role of farmers. Food sovereignty activists and their allies were attacked on a number of grounds. They were accused, first, of pitting the interests of food producers above those of consumers, especially urban consumers, who were supposed to want abundant and cheap foods (and a variety of foods all year round), with the longest shelf-life possible. We now understand much better the limits of such an approach. We have come to realize, over the past twenty years, the considerable damage inflicted upon us by the « low-cost » food economy that left it to the large agribusiness actors to take care of feeding us, through the supermarkets and long food chains. Ill-health from bad diets made up from industrially processed foods, low wages in the food sector (from the tomato-pluckers in Florida to the fast food workers in the McDonald outlets), and ecological damage on a large scale - all can be traced back to the obsession with more production, bigger scale, and the lowering of prices at all costs. Low prices, we now insist, should not serve as a substitute for decent wages, and for social policies that should allow everyone, even the poor, to afford prices that are fair for all. Food sovereignty activists were accused of denying the benefits of trade, and the efficiency gains that can result from each region specializing in what it is comparatively best at producing. To this, their answer has been--our answer has been--that trade over long distances, controlled by the companies who own the logistics and control the networks, and the ability to source their bananas or their soybean from farmers located thousands of kilometers away, is not the only trade there is; that local and regional markets have been neglected and insufficiently supported; and that this neglect has not simply allowed the expansion of long-distance trade, but to a large extent also resulted from long-distance trade being given priority in public policies. Food sovereignty activists are now able to point, moreover, at the considerable
in the past to provoke society-wide transformations. It also brings about considerable benefits in terms of public health. Stronger community links, richer social relationships, it has been shown, are the single most important predictor of increased life expectancy, more even than the avoidance of tobacco or of excessive alcohol consumption, or even of a lifestyle that is active rather than sedentary. Fourth, food sovereignty initiatives favor resilience over efficiency. They are guided by the realization that we have entered an uncertain world — and that the pathway to recovery is largely unchartered. Peak oil, the imbalances in the cycle of nitrogen, genetic erosion as a result of the spread of monocropping schemes, soil degradation, the repeated shocks that result from climate changes, the logistical nightmares associated with the congestion of cities — these well-documented threats will mean in the future more instability, more volatility, and the need to invent more solutions and to do so faster. Just as resilience is at the heart of the movement that began in 2006 with the Transition Towns (now Transition Movement), it is a major concern now to many bottom-up, citizen-led initiatives that claim a right to food sovereignty. The keywords here are relocalization, diversity and (as an outcome of both) reduced dependency. The more that solutions can be designed locally, using local resources (in addition to outside resources rather than simply instead of them, for these outside resources may remain available as a back-up solution should local systems break down or prove insufficient), the less vulnerable any local system will be to outside shocks — such as a sudden increase in energy prices, a breakdown of supplies, or an economic crisis that placed basic items out of reach of the poorest. And the more these solutions are diverse, the better the local system will be equipped to deal with contingencies, unpredictable by definition in the form that they will take, but that nevertheless we can predict with assurance shall happen. - Fifth, finally, the motivations and interests of food sovereignty are closely aligned with those of agroecology. As a contribution to the science of agronomics, agroecology aims to reduce the use of external fossil-based inputs, to recycle waste, and to combine different elements of nature in the process of production in order to maximize synergies between them. But agroecology is more than a range of agronomic techniques that present some of these characteristics. It is both a certain way of thinking of our relationship to Nature, and it is growing as a social movement.
risks that countries take when they depend on imports for their food, as global markets undergo regular shocks and prices regularly spike. Resilience requires diversity, including a diversity of markets; uniformity breeds the exact opposite. These debates have dominated the past twenty years, and they are still very much alive. No clear winner has emerged yet. The battle for food sovereignty still must be fought, in the streets, in the fields, and in pages of The Guardian or of the New York Times — all spaces that must be occupied and recaptured. But a generation has passed, and the problems facing the food systems have grown bigger. Food sovereignty today is much more than it was: it is invoked by food policy councils in North America, from Toronto to Oakland; it is the rallying cry behind the growth of farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture; it is a slogan heard in food banks that seek to reconnect people to their local farmers and to the food systems they depend on more broadly, such as The Stop in Toronto; it is referred to by The truly green revolution Agroecology is the truly green revolution we need those who want to produce their own food, through vegetable gardens in their urban neighborhoods or for this century. It invites us to embrace the complexity of Nature: it sees such complexity not as a liabilin the schools to which they send their children. ity, but as an asset. The farmer, in this view, is a discoverer: he or she proceeds experimentally, by trial Unambiguous food sovereignty This represents a remarkably diverse set of ini- and error, observing what consequences follow from tiatives, and it may be tempting to conclude that the which combinations, and learning from what works key advantage of food sovereignty is in its ambigu- best —even though the ultimate « scientific » explaity, allowing different experiments to unite behind nation may remain elusive. This is empowering: the it, and gradually contribute to filling out its meaning. farmer is in the driver's seat, where she constructs Though there is much truth in this view, this should the knowledge that works best in the local context in not blind us to the fact that there exists a deep under- which she operates. In contrast, so-called « modern lying convergence behind these various attempts to » agriculture, which is in fact twentieth-century agritransform food sovereignty from slogan into action. culture, did the exact opposite: it sought to simplify Second-generation food sovereignty seems to pres- Nature. What to do on the field was defined by whatever was prescribed by « science » developed in laboent five key characteristics: - First, it seeks to build bridges between urban ratories. The path from research to practice was uniconsumers and local farmers, by inventing differ- directional, and it was seen as unproblematic: since ent ways to rebuild local food systems. This is in solutions were based on science, they were considpart a change in strategy: The frontline was the ered universally applicable. The experiential knowlWorld Trade Organization ministerial summits in edge of the farmer was irrelevant at best; at worst, it Seattle or Hong Kong, but it is now the local school was treated as « prejudice », and as an obstacle to the board, the company’s canteen, or the local farm- top-down implementation of sound scientific preers’ market. Alliances are being built at local lev- scriptions from « experts ». In this view from twentieth century science, the el between citizens, farmers, and municipalities. Food sovereignty was accused of placing the inter- complexity of Nature is a problem: simplify it if you ests of farmers above those of urban consumers: can, and never mind if this means robbing from the by some magic, it is now the urban middle-class, farmer her developing artistry, and transforming often joining forces with low-income communi- that art into the literacy of reading instructions for ties claiming more food justice, who are the most use on the spray bottles and on the seed bags. As a social movement, agroecology encouragdynamic part of the movement. - Second, these various innovations that form es peer-to-peer exchanges of information between food sovereignty today are democratizing: People farmers. It prioritizes local solutions relying on lowere passive consumers, responsible ones at best, cal resources. And it transforms the relationship bethey’ve now become active citizens, seeking to re- tween the farmer and the « expert » from the departclaim control over their food systems and to exercise ment of agriculture or from the international agency, their right to choose. It is not simply that the act of not in order to reverse it and to replace one hierarchy consuming has become political. It is more than that: with another, but in order to move towards the copeople seek to co-design food systems, to participate construction of knowledge, as most clearly illustratin shaping them, to recapture them. We were famil- ed by participatory plant breeding. iar with the slogan of workplace democracy; we must Making the links now open up our eyes to food democracy. The links between food sovereignty, transition - Third, the social innovations that form the food sovereignty movement seek to strengthen so- initiatives and agroecology are not circumstantial, or cial links. As Polanyi has remarked in his “Notes of a question of tactical alliances. They are based on a a Week’s Study of the Early Writings of Karl Marx”, shared diagnosis and on a similar impatience with the ascendancy of the market economy has had the the system we inherit. The mainstream food system, effect of corroding human relations: just like use- they note, is corporate-led, energy-thirsty, and so ful goods have been objectified into commodities obsessed with « low-cost » that it treats as externaliand human needs transformed into demand, «the ties--as costs to be borne by the whole of society--the personal relationship of individuals co-operating ill-health, rural depopulation and ecological damwith one another» has been degraded into « the im- age it is associated with. The time for alternatives to personal exchange-value of the goods produced by develop has come. Alternative food systems should them». The penetration of market relationships in allow people to democratize, to relocalize, and to be all spheres of life thus has impoverished human re- guided in our search less by the imperative of effilations: people are individualized and less and less ciency demanded by the markets, and more by the socialized, they are assigned roles as producers and quest for ownership that citizens demand. There is considerable resistance to be expected. as consumers, as buyers and as sellers, and they Vested interests, neo-Malthusian anxieties, sunk communicate through prices. When people establish a food policy council, costs, growth-obsessed macroeconomics, a certain however, when they create a community garden, or idea of « progress » or or « modernization », shoppers’ when they join forces to convince the school board to routines and gendered division of roles — these are buy local and organic, they move away from the roles all major obstacles to change. But the conventional food system is not made preassigned to them by the division of labor within society: they redefine their social identities, acting as of one piece only, and it can be transformed brick by brick. Alternatives can emerge bottom up, as citizens to reshape their environment. This not only allows them to escape the sense of social innovations conceived as experiments, indisempowerment that we experience in our roles as creasing pressure for reform. That, ultimately--the voters and consumers, as we realize that casting a broadening of political imagination--is what food ballot or buying responsibly has hardly allowed us democracy is about.
Bad capitalism and Good capitalism
E
very country follows some kind of economic system to grow its economy. In a communist country, the state owns and controls the means of production, sets most prices and wages, and often cares little about what goods consumers want. Usually, this is not the case in democratic countries where some attributes of capitalism characterize their economies. An economy is said to be capitalistic when most or at least a substantial proportion of its means of production are in private hands, rather than being owned and operated by the government. Of course, no economy is completely capitalistic. There are always certain socialist features even in a capitalist economy and that’s how it should be. For that matter, a mix of the different types of capitalism (see below) is always found in every capitalist economy. But whatever form of capitalism a country may adopt, it will have a profound implication and effect on its growth performance. For our purpose of understanding the various forms of capitalism, we will classify the economies of the different capitalist countries in four categories: State-Guided Capitalism: Ina state-guided capitalist system, it is the government, not the private sector, which directs economic traffic for growth and regulates the market through tariffs, quotas, and taxes. Moreover, the government decides which particular industries to support and even which individual firms to grow. Such state-intrusive system is attractive to politicians and bureaucrats alike not only because their power is elevated when they seem to be “running” the economy, but also because their permission is required to launch and conduct businesses. The state-guided approach may be a key to jump-starting growth in less developed countries in the initial stages because people in such places lack access to technology or are possibly ignorant about growing the economy, but to conclude that indefinite continuation of the same approach will yield the most benefits all the time is a mistake. India, for example, has been a state-guided capitalist economy for a long time. But since 1991, it has become more open to embrace market-driven, entrepreneurial capitalism, especially in computer software, data-processing, and call-center businesses. Oligarchic Capitalism: This form of capitalism occurs when powerful politicians and their wealthy friends use the agency of government to promote their own selfish interests rather than the interests of the common people, thus leading to unfair distribution of a country’s resources. In other words, the primary goal of an oligarchic capitalistic government is to enhance the power and wealth of the few individuals and their family members. Consequently, extreme income inequality and sluggish economic growth are the results seen in oligarchic capitalistic economies. Unfortunately, oligarchic capitalism is prevalent in many parts of Africa, in most of the Middle East countries, and in a number of states in Latin America. And now, Russia can be added to that list since most of the formerly state-owned firms are now privately owned by a few powerful individuals, including President Vladimir Putin whose net worth is estimated to be $70 billion, according to Forbes’ 2014 billionaires list. Corporatist Capitalism: The economies of most of Europe and Japan are heavily depended upon and directed by large firms or corporations. Here are a some big names: Robert Bosch GmbH in Germany, Ineos Group in Switzerland, E. Leclerc SA in France, Mercedona SA in Spain, Frere-Bourgeouis in Belgium, Eni in Italy, Statiol in Norway, Arcelor Mittal in Luxembourg, Maersk in Denmark, Nokia in Finland, Volvo in Sweden, OMV in Austria, Toyota and Honda in Japan, to name a few. All these big firms were started by entrepreneurs but after a few years of business growth they moved away from their entrepreneurial roots to something very different: corporatist capitalism, one that focuses on not only preserving large firms, but also actively promoting them. As a result, these big firms have been able to dominate the markets to the extent that new entrants and small businesses are often unable to do well. That’s not all, most governments in Europe and Japan have stood behind their big companies by extending subsidies, tax cuts, or loans as well as protecting them from other competitors through tariff barriers. This isn’t to say that all these countries are totally dominated by big firms, because in fact each of them also hosts many small entrepreneurs. However, the entrepreneurs in big firms live at the peripheries and do not significantly influence their economies. Entrepreneurial Capitalism: Most people in the United States dislike big firms that try to keep competition out. That was why they have antitrust legislations such as the Sherman Act 1890, the Clayton Act 1914, and the Federal Commission Act 1914, which are designed to prohibit market monopoly, protect small businesses, and promote consumers’ welfare. The economy of the United States is mostly powered by small businesses and entrepreneurs who are constantly bringing in innovative ideas and new products into the market. This is not a surprise considering the fact that Americans have always had a mindset of innovative entrepreneurship and this culture has been passed down from generation to generation. Often entrepreneurs’ visions are jump-started by venture capitalists, thereby translating radical ideas into new/better products or new/better services that can be sold to large numbers of people. This constant search for “the next-big thing” keeps the economy from stagnation. Other countries have been witnessing these remarkable American experiments and learning from them. For example, countries like England, Israel, and Ireland have already started transitioning from state-guided capitalism to entrepreneurial capitalism and have begun to experience more economic growth as a result. Even China, formerly a state-controlled socialist economy, has developed a new form of semi-state-guided entrepreneurship that has helped make its economy the world’s fastest growing in the last two decades. Now, what’s the Nagas’ choice of method to grow economy? On surface, we Nagas simply copy what Delhi does, which is putting on a practice of state-guided capitalism. But in reality, our economic system is characterized by oligarchic capitalism. We see that the bulk of power and wealth in Nagaland is increasingly being held by the ruling autocrats and those within their family circles. As a result, we have the powerful misusing entrusted power and the rich getting richer at the expense of the wider public. As an underdeveloped society, our Naga people still need the guidance of the state to grow our economy. But our public leaders, just like parents raise their children, must provide proper guidance to everyone under their watch so that we can all be better off economically. And, as we gain more market experiences and become more empowered, we will be able to smoothly transition into entrepreneurial capitalism, which is, I believe, the best path to growth and prosperity.
Readers may please note that, the contents of the articles published on this page do not reflect the outlook of this paper nor of the Editor in any form.