The Land Question in the Food Sovereignty Project

Abstract

This essay explores the changing landscape of food sovereignty politics in the shadow of the so-called 'land grab'. While the food sovereignty movement emerged within a global agrarian crisis conjuncture triggered by northern dumping of foodstuffs, institutionalized in WTO trade rules, the twenty-first-century food, energy and financial crises intensify this crisis for the world's rural poor (inflating prices of staple foods and agri-inputs) deepening the process of dispossession. The circulation of food is compounded by global financial flows into enclosing land for industrial agriculture and/or speculation, challenging small producer rights across the world. Under these conditions, the terms of struggle for the food sovereignty movement are shifting towards a human rights politics on the ground as well as in global forums like the FAO's Committee on World Food Security. This includes in particular the need to develop a discursive politics to reframe what is at stake, namely the protection and support of a production model based on social co-operation, multifunctionality and ecologically restorative principles.

Translating the Politics of Food Sovereignty: Digging into Contradictions, Uncovering New Dimensions

“…Since 2007, three spikes in food prices have occurred, all partly fueled by commodities speculation. Corporations continue their patterns of vertical integration, while also turning to schemes such as contract farming to 'incorporate smallholders into global value chains': small-scale farmers may own the land, but in many cases, cede degrees of control over their economies and labor (McMichael, 2015). A new wave of investment, in farmland-the oft-cited 'land grab'-is also bound up in the transformation of global agricultural politics and trade (McMichael, 2012).…”

“…These flows of capital and financial interests represent a real shift in power, an increase in the power of unregulated markets to distribute resources. Unlike in the heyday of the WTO, there is no single governing authority from which to regain (food) sovereignty (McMichael, 2015).…”

“…. but also organized physical and economic enclosures' (McMichael, 2015). Meanwhile, in both the global North and South, food insecurity is becoming an increasingly urban concern, intensified by these new waves of dispossession.…”

“…A new wave of investment, in farmland-the oft-cited 'land grab'-is also bound up in the transformation of global agricultural politics and trade (McMichael, 2012). 7 This 'investment-led assault' (McMichael, 2015) is multifaceted and has shifted the terms of opposition to include defending '"ways of life" on the land against not only market forces . .…”

“…While the countries of the G8 remain major players in global food politics (see McMichael, 2015), they must now play alongside other powerful actors, from the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to the growing 'pink tide' of left-leaning countries in Latin America (see Schiavoni, 2015). These shifting axes of power are reflected not only in new relationships among states, but also between states and civil society, as can be seen with the newly reformed UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) (see McMichael, 2015;Claeys, 2014). Such developments simultaneously pose new challenges and openings and raise new questions for the role of the state vis-à-vis food sovereignty-a theme that emerges throughout this issue.…”