4. Political Dimension of Agroecology
4.1 Agroecology prioritises the needs and interests of small-scale food producers who supply the majority of the world’s food and it de-emphasizes the interests of large industrial food and agricultural systems.
4.2 Agroecology puts control of seed, biodiversity, land and territories, water, knowledge and the commons into the hands of the people who are part of the food system and so achieves better-integrated resource management.
4.3 Agroecology can change power relationships by encouraging greater participation of food producers and consumers in decision-making on food systems and offers new governance structures.
4.4 Agroecology requires a set of supportive, complementary public policies, supportive policymakers and institutions, and public investment to achieve its full potential.
4.5 Agroecology encourages forms of social organisation needed for decentralised governance and local adaptive management of food and agricultural systems. It also incentivizes the self-organisation and collective management of groups and networks at different levels, from local to global (farmers organisations, consumers, research organisations, academic institutions, etc).
Impact of this dimension
Through its political dimension, agroecology transfers the source of power in food systems from focusing on the interests of an increasingly small number of large industrial agricultural entities to direct producers, ie small-scale food producers who supply the majority of the world’s food. It challenges and helps remedy the injustices caused by corporate power’s domination in the existing food system. When part of a food sovereignty approach, agroecology represents a democratic transition in food systems that empowers peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolks, indigenous peoples, consumers and other groups, allowing their voice to inform policy making from community to national and international level. It lets these groups claim/achieve their right to food.
Judith Hitchman, Urgenci (France/UK) & Pedro Guzman, RENAF (Colombia)
The political dimension of agroecology gives practical expression to food sovereignty, placing small-scale food producers at the heart of policy processes and decisions that affect them. It seeks to meet multiple challenges from security of access to productive resources (land, water, seed), to food and nutrition security through climate resilience with sustainable long-term solutions that promote agroecological diversification and food sovereignty.
Agroecology movements, that are commonly composed of grassroots food producers and consumer-led, are promoting a spreading of agroecology to other farmers and communities (horizontal scaling up or scaling out). Alongside scaling out, the political dimension requires a favourable public policy environment in which agroecological solutions can be multiplied (vertical scaling up).
Example 1: The benefits of a farmer-led transition to agroecology in the Philippines
MASIPAG (Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura or Farmer-Scientist Partnership for Development) is a network of small-scale farmers, NGOs and scientists from the Philippines. The network covers over 35,000 farmers and works to support them as they transition to farmer-led sustainable agriculture and as they try to develop a socio-political and economic context in favour of sustainable family farming. While the organisation promotes agroecology, it does so within a farmer-led context that prioritises the knowledge and involvement of farmers including in breeding rice, the development of location specific farmer-led agroecological systems, the training and involvement of other farmers through farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange and the development of marketing schemes based on participatory guarantee systems. Seed in the hands of farmers – and their knowledge of how to breed and improve varieties – is a way of reclaiming seed over this important common good and farmers’ answer to being lock-in to intellectual property on seed and the free, subsidized distribution of input-reliant seed. The MASIPAG farmers have developed a range of farming techniques that are adaptable to different agro-climatic conditions and are free of corporate control. The farmer-led breeding process helps ensure seed is well adapted and performs well. If disaster strikes, farmers in unaffected areas provide seed for affected farmers. To improve seed availability, most provincial organisations have a policy of seed reserves. Exploiting varieties of different resistances and tolerances – which is essential to the network’s climate resilience strategy – requires over 2,000 rice varieties from MASIPAG. Currently, MASIPAG has identified and bred 18 drought-tolerant, 12 flooding-tolerant, 20 saltwater-resistant and 24 pest-resistant rice varieties.
In 2009, a study based on interviews with 280 fully organic farmers, 280 converting to organic and 280 conventional farmers as reference group provided convincing evidence that the MASIPAG approach had improved food security and nutrition, health and the financial situation of farming families. Fully organic farmers had high on-farm diversity, producing on average a 50% bigger crop than conventional farmers, better soil fertility, less soil erosion, increased tolerance of crops to pests and diseases and better farm management skills. They ate a more diverse, nutritious and secure diet and their net incomes per hectare were one and a half times higher than those of conventional farmers. On average, they had a positive annual cash balance and were less indebted than conventional farmers, whose household budget was in deficit. Even farmers converting to organic had improved incomes and food security.
This demonstrates the effect of the political dimension when farmers and food producers work together to regain control over resources by involving all protagonists and farmer/scientist partnerships, which overcome unbalanced power relationships. This has a positive impact on other dimensions of agroecology, as is the case with the social, cultural economic and environmental dimensions.
Sources/further information
Bachmann, L., Cruzada, B., Wright, S. (2009). Food Security and Farmer Empowerment. A study of impacts of farmer-led sustainable agriculture in the Philippines.
Example 2: Creating national agroecology platforms to address political dialogue in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali
In Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, civil society has organized several consultations since 2016 to build a collective approach to addressing agroecology nationally. Several farmers’ organizations and local, national or international NGOs are interested in testing, implementing or promoting agroecology as a practice but also as a social movement. To develop a common vision and improve political dialogue with government, they decided to create national platforms that shared the same vision on agroecology.
In CCFD–Terre Solidaire’s programme on agroecological transition (PAIES), partners in three countries (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) were involved in creating and defining these platforms: the Plateforme national sur l’agroecologie paysanne (national platform for peasant agroecology – Mali), the Collectif Citoyen pour l’Agroécologie (people’s collective for agroecology – Burkina Faso) and the Plateforme Raya Karkara (Niger).
As regards the political dimension of agroecology, platforms have tried to include all constituencies (farmers, women groups (especially food processers), consumers and researchers) and are intending to set up a more local (regional) agroecological platforms. In their vision and planning, they all want to work on regaining control over land, water and seed.
These platforms are now actively promoting peasant-based seed systems (and also opposing cotton GMOs in Burkina Faso). In these three countries, national studies exist or are in progress on existing legal seed systems. Farmers’ organizations and researchers are being encouraged to meet and develop specific positions on peasant seed in order to propose new legislation that will include and protect peasant seed. In Burkina Faso, due to a West African coalition (COPAGEN) that produced a report on the effect of GMOs, a moratorium on GMO research was proposed to the national research institute.
CCFD–Terre Solidaire produced a review in late 2017 of these three organizations covering their origins, current activities and future initiatives. It took them some time to define a common vision on agroecology. Mali went a step further by focusing on peasant agroecology. The main political demands of these platforms include agroecology in national agriculture policies and their related implementation programmes. Some have already started specific advocacy such as an agroecology master in Niger or the creation of multi-stakeholder review process in Mali.
Sources/further information :
Mali :
– More about the national platform and its manifesto on agroecology (French)
– The seed system study in Mali (French): « Semences, normes et paysans: état des lieux du cadre normatif et institutionnel du système semencier et de la place des semences paysannes et des droits des agriculteurs au Mali »
Burkina Faso:
– Cotton Bt GMO peasant research (French): « Le coton BT et nous: la vérité de nos champs – synthèse d’une recherche paysanne sur les impacts socio-économiques du coton Bt au Burkina Faso »
Agroecological platforms review:
– In French: « Capitalisation du processus de structuration des plateformes agroecologiques au Mali, Niger et au Burkina Faso »