Peter Rosset

La Vía Campesina: the birth and evolution of a transnational social movement

The origin and evolution of the transnational peasant movement La Vía Campesina is analysed through five evolutionary stages. In the 1980s the withdrawal of the state from rural areas simultaneously weakened corporativist and clientelist control over rural organisations, even as conditions worsened in the countryside. This gave rise to a new generation of more autonomous peasant organisations, who saw the origins of their similar problems as largely coming from beyond the national borders of weakened nation-states. A transnational social movement defending peasant life, La Vía Campesina emerged out of these autonomous organisations, first in Latin America, and then at a global scale, during the 1980s and early 1990s (phase 1). Subsequent stages saw leaders of peasant organisations take their place at the table in international debates (1992–1999, phase 2), muscling aside other actors who sought to speak on their behalf; take on a leadership role in global struggles (2000–2003, phase 3); and engage in internal strengthening (2004–2008, phase 4). More recently (late 2008–present, phase 5) the movement has taken on gender issues more squarely and defined itself more clearly in opposition to transnational corporations. Particular emphasis is given to La Vía Campesinas fight to gain legitimacy for the food sovereignty paradigm, to its internal structure, and to the ways in which the (re)construction of a shared peasant identity is a key glue that holds the struggle together despite widely different internal cultures, creating a true peasant internationalism.

The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Agroecology has played a key role in helping Cuba survive the crisis caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe and the tightening of the US trade embargo. Cuban peasants have been able to boost food production without scarce and expensive imported agricultural chemicals by first substituting more ecological inputs for the no longer available imports, and then by making a transition to more agroecologically integrated and diverse farming systems. This was possible not so much because appropriate alternatives were made available, but rather because of the Campesino-a-Campesino (CAC) social process methodology that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) used to build a grassroots agroecology movement. This paper was produced in a ‘self-study’ process spearheaded by ANAP and La Via Campesina, the international agrarian movement of which ANAP is a member. In it we document and analyze the history of the Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement (MACAC), and the significantly increased contribution of peasants to national food production in Cuba that was brought about, at least in part, due to this movement. Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.

Agroecology versus input substitution: A fundamental contradiction of sustainable agriculture

The central question posed by this essay is whether sustainable agriculture will be able to rescue modern industrial agriculture from its present state of crisis. To answer this question this article begins by outlining the economic, social, and ecological dimensions of the crisis, each of which must be addressed by an alternative paradigm in order to pull agriculture out of crisis. It then examines a persistent contradiction in the alternative agriculture movement: that of input substitution versus agroecologi‐calty informed transformation of farming systems. It is argued that the prevalence of input substitution, which emphasizes alternatives to agrochemical inputs without challenging the monoculture structure of agricultural systems, greatly diminishes the potential of sustainable agriculture. By only addressing environmental concerns, this dominant approach offers little hope of either reversing the rapid degradation of the resource base for future production or of resolving the current profit squeeze...

The greening of the “barrios”: Urban agriculture for food security in Cuba

Urban agriculture in Cuba has rapidly become a significant source of fresh produce for the urban and suburban populations. A large number of urban gardens in Havana and other major cities have emerged as a grassroots movement in response to the crisis brought about by the loss of trade, with the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989. These gardens are helping to stabilize the supply of fresh produce to Cubas urban centers. During 1996, Havanas urban farms provided the citys urban population with 8,500 tons of agricultural produce, 4 million dozens of flowers, 7.5 million eggs, and 3,650 tons of meat. This system of urban agriculture, composed of about 8,000 gardens nationwide has been developed and managed along agroecological principles, which eliminate the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers, emphasizing diversification, recycling, and the use of local resources. This article explores the systems utilized by Cubas urban farmers, and the impact that this movement has had on Cuban food security.

Rural Social Movements and Agroecology: Context, Theory, and Process

Rural social movements have in recent years adopted agroecology and diversified farming systems as part of their discourse and practice. Here, we situate this phenomenon in the evolving context of rural spaces that are increasingly disputed between agribusiness, together with other corporate land-grabbers, and peasants and their organizations and movements. We use the theoretical frameworks of disputed material and immaterial territories and of re-peasantization to explain the increased emphasis on agroecology by movements in this context. We provide examples from the farmer-to-farmer movement to show the advantages that social movements bring to the table in taking agroecology to scale and discuss the growing agroecology networking process in the transnational peasant and family farmer movement La Via Campesina.

Agroecology and the conversion of lárge‐scale conventional systems to sustainable management

This paper describes the agroecological principles necessary to guide the conversion of high‐input conventional systems to a low‐input management based on crop diversification and livestook integration schemes which break the monoculture nature of conventional systems. The new crop‐crop and crop‐animal combinations result in a series of synergisms and complementarities among farming system components which lead to optimal recycling of organic matter and nutrients, and to balanced pest‐natural enemy populations. Thus, agroecological design goes beyond “input‐substitution” by establishing systems capable of sponsoring their own soil fertility, crop protection and yield constancy. These new agroecosystems provide a sustainable level of productivity with minimal need for external (conventional or organic) resources. Biological structuring sponsors the functioning of the system.

Diálogo de saberes in La Vía Campesina: food sovereignty and agroecology

The transnational rural social movement La Vía Campesina has been critically sustained and shaped by the encounter and diálogo de saberes (dialog among different knowledges and ways of knowing) between different rural cultures (East, West, North and South; peasant, indigenous, farmer, pastoralist and rural proletarian, etc.) that takes place within it, in the context of the increasingly politicized confrontation with neoliberal reality and agribusiness in the most recent phase of capital expansion. This dialog among the ‘absences’ left out by the dominant monoculture of ideas has produced important ‘emergences’ that range from mobilizing frames for collective action – like the food sovereignty framework – to social methodologies for the spread of agroecology among peasant families.

Re-thinking agrarian reform, land and territory in La Via Campesina

Transformations in the model of economic development in Brazil have forced changes in the nature of the struggle for land and agrarian reform. There is no longer room to call for a classic bourgeois agrarian reform, supported by an industrial bourgeoisie or by nationalist forces. Nevertheless...agrarian reform is ever more urgent and necessary. Today the struggle for agrarian reform has become a class struggle against the model of agriculture dominated by Capital. This means that the peasants’ struggle for land rights and a new model of agriculture face a new correlation of forces – with powers of coercion and consensus building that are stronger than those of traditional landowners in the past – and new social actors arrayed against them: capitalized landowners, financial capital, and transnational corporations. Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil

Preventing hunger: Change economic policy

Simply giving people food is not enough to prevent famine, says Peter Rosset. Instead, we need to overhaul the policies that have upended the food supply.

Land Reform and Sustainable Development

Land reform, equitable distribution, economic development, environmental quality, land reform strategies, Brazil, Landless Workers’ Movement, East Asia, rural poverty, land productivity, sustainable agriculture, comparative advantage, small farms.