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

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Respect for the knowledge of farmers should not prevent researchers from generating
their own insights. Researchers collaborating with farmers bring their own
knowledge to the table. Often, their knowledge is of the systems of governance that
influence the agendas of farmers’ movements. It is important to communicate with
farmers’ movements on this subject. One of our participants, Oaxacan peasant union
president Jesús León Santos, told the workshop that he now feels reinvigorated to
struggle for the self-determination of his community after meeting so many powerful
people who seemed to understand his struggle. Our workshop was León’s first trip
to the United States. While he genuinely appreciated meeting potential collaborators,
the workshop may have been better had it introduced to León challenges he will likely
face as a small-scale farmer in an age of neoliberalism. León was an integral participant
in the learning process during our workshop, but the utility of his visit was
partially unrealized. It might have been useful for him to interact with actors outside
our political bubble – interaction that academics can facilitate.
Academic standards and techniques of knowledge production also challenge
farmers’ movement-agricultural research collaboration. Farmers have a wealth of
knowledge. However, it may exist in forms that are difficult for researchers and
policymakers to piece together. Separate knowledge systems function as a doubleedged
sword. On one side, a lack of understanding of farmers’ knowledge systems by
decision makers increases the possibility of inadvertent, deleterious policymaking. As
Jesús León Santos says, “they [may] have different knowledge than others, that’s
another subject, but it doesn’t mean that . . . they are ignorant.” On the other hand, if
decision makers are resolved to exploit the labor of farmers, less visible systems of
farmers’ knowledge act as safeguards against corruption in local governance. 3
Sometimes, farmers serve their best interests by making choices that the agents of
governance are not aware of, or do not understand the justification for.
In addition, there is the matter of urgency. Applied workers and academics exhibit
fundamentally different responses to urgency in a complex system. Academic
knowledge production is based on the idea that the environment is complex and can
only be understood through careful study. Participating in our workshop spurred
Ronaldo Lec, a Guatemalan permaculturalist, to think about how his organization’s
desire to effect change – even while learning the socio-environmental context –
creates tension. In an interview, he told us:
Sometimes we just want to get things done quickly, and when you want to
get things done quickly a lot of times you discard people’s opinions because
not everybody is very fluent or lucid in transmitting their ideas – but you
have to really take them into consideration. In Guatemala, for example, if you
really want to listen to people, you have to listen to them for a long time in
order to get information, the little [bit of] information you want. You can’t
just ask them and they give you an answer – it’s a long process.
Weighing the tradeoffs, as Lec now does, is an important process.
Our interview with Jesús León Santos highlights some of the basic challenges of
collaboration between academics and social movements. While he says that, “we
3 For more on invisibility and
resilience, please refer to Carol
Carpenter (2001), “The role of
economic invisibility in development:
veiling women’s
work in rural Pakistan.”
Natural Resources Forum 25:
11-19.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies