Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

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agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty
These organizations are often structured around farming issues as well as social
and political issues. At the local economic level, they look to find niche markets or
create value-added products. Socially, they focus on education, health, and the
conservation of natural resources. Among these local organizations there can be a
wide range of goals, but these groups can come together nationally to create an
agenda and work toward larger political change that will help to address local issues.
The strength of having this diversity of scale and commonality of purpose is that as
one organization falls, another can quickly take its place to continue its work.
Gómez also emphasized the importance of these campesino organizations in
developing innovative forms of grassroots organizing and economic development.
Farmer organizations can promote their own solutions and act as bridges between
different sectors of society but, he added, an organization that only focuses on
opposition to public policy without involving the grassroots is doomed to fail. Gómez
used the example of Mexico, where there are 18 campesino organizations that consider
themselves national, but the majority of them have no grassroots base. The majority
of campesinos, he claimed, are not organized.
Lopes spoke of an identity problem in farmer organizing in Brazil as a
consequence of [President] Lula’s political success. In Brazil, the groups that
supported Lula believed that once they got into the government, things would be
different. Now the movement is the government, no longer outsiders, and organizers
are figuring out ways to come to terms with this.
Participants agreed that immigrant farm worker issues needed to be emphasized
in any discussion of farmers’ movements. Jose Montenegro, director of CIDERS, an
organization working with Mexican farm workers in the U.S., has found that a large
percentage of migrants feel connected to their homeland and identity as farmers, and
many of them express interest in one day returning to Mexico to continue farming.
However, Montenegro acknowledged, this is not always possible: “When we cross
borders, we lose our histories.” Now declining economic conditions are providing
fewer and fewer opportunities for young people in parts of Mexico to continue
farming, forcing them to migrate north to the U.S. Montenegro stressed the
importance of training and outreach to young people who feel pressured to migrate.
Robin Sears, from Columbia University, added that she has observed the positive
effects of this sort of education and outreach to rural youth in Amapá, Brazil.
Montenegro cited the example of Sinaloa, Mexico, to emphasize a point revisited
throughout the session and the workshop in general: farmers are struggling due to
the increasing consolidation of agricultural land in few hands. In the next twenty
years, he estimated, beautiful green fields will cover Sinaloa, but they will be owned
by only four companies, not the families and communities that once occupied them.
Minor Sinclair, from Oxfam America, spoke about a boycott against Taco Bell,
organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, to raise awareness of
the plight of 2 million undocumented workers in the U.S. who have no legal rights.
He believes that organizing people without rights can succeed, although this work is
very challenging. Participants in the session agreed with this assessment. Although
the problems are difficult and organizing can be complicated, all participants are
committed to continuing to work on them.
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