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

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92 agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty are mixed in quality, but greater difficulties arise when the policies are implemented. The officials in charge of executing the new policies are either ignorant of what agroecology is and how to deal with it, or simply do not agree with the new paradigm and refuse to comply with the new orientations. From the ANA membership, it is more and more clear that this situation will mean a disaster for the agroecological approach as a government initiative. All new policies are threatened by their lack of articulation, sheer sabotage in execution, and an institutional culture in government bodies that strongly resist any changes in the development paradigm. Brazilian civil society organizations are expecting the participation of FAO (the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization) in a concerted process involving NGOs, farmer organizations, and various government bodies to help to overcome several of these problems. Policy formulation can benefit from worldwide experiences that FAO can bring to the process but, most of all, it is FAO’s respectability and ideological power that can enormously contribute to breaking the prejudices still ingrained in Brazilian civil servants, including the newly arrived left wingers from the Workers Party. yale school of forestry & environmental studies
case study: living the amazonian dream 93 Case Study: Living the Amazonian Dream – Breaking Boundaries Through Market- Oriented, Small-Scale Agroforestry 1 Corrina Steward “Our story starts in the era of Chico Mendes, 2 but from a different side, or so we thought,” explains Sérgio Lopes, the former coordinator of RECA (Reflorestamento Econômico Consorciado e Adensado) and current director of the government’s Familial Production department in Acre, Brazil. Unlike the traditional rubber tappers of western Amazonia, the farmers in RECA did not come to the Amazon until the 1980s, when the Brazilian government launched a land reform effort that included giving title to Amazonian land to poor farmers from all regions of Brazil. These colonist farmers are often blamed as the main perpetrators of deforestation in the Amazon because of their agricultural practices, which include slash-and-burn techniques, and they are often viewed as lacking social cohesion. 3 Due to these perceptions, colonists are frequently bypassed as candidates for conservation and sustainable development projects, a process that ironically continues the cycle of poverty and environmental degradation that forced them to migrate. As an organization, RECA aimed to break the social, market, and ecological boundaries that prevented them from attaining their Amazonian dream of a sustainable livelihood and home. Their story is one of hope, courage, and human ingenuity that will resonate with all smallholder farmers who are negotiating the complexities of global integration. RECA families hail from numerous Brazilian states: Paraná, Santa Catarina, Minas Gerais, and Espirito Santo. Many families spent most of their lives moving from one state to the next, hoping to improve their lives through farming opportunities. Like so many colonist farmers, their struggle for food and economic security did not end with the gift of Amazonian land. Says Lopes, “I wanted to be a farmer. To have land. We received the land but not the working conditions. We wanted to plant coffee and cacão, but we realized we couldn’t.” Juraci Texeira Alecrim, another farmer in RECA, explained how he cleared his land and began planting the usual tropical crops–corn, rice, and beans–only to watch them yield nothing. “We knew coming here that it was a difficult place and there would be hardships and suffering,” Maria Isabel Bacelar, 1 Adapted from the film “Projeto RECA: Encontra alternativa nas plantas Amazônicas” (RECA Project: Finding alternatives in Amazonian plants) (1995). Acre, Brazil: PPG7 Demonstration Project. 2 The leader of the rubber tappers’ movement, who was assassinated for his efforts to protect traditional rubber tappers’ rights to land and rubber trees. 3 Browder, J. (1995). “Deforestation and the environmental crisis in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 30 (3): 123. yale school of forestry & environmental studies
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Report Number 4 Agroecology and the
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Agroecology and the Struggle for Fo
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eakout session reports Food Soverei
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mcafee 9 Sustainability and Social
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mcafee 11 organizations or depicted
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mcafee 13 industrial agriculture, n
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mcafee 15 Producing Food or Produci
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mcafee 17 ● Major international d
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mcafee 19 Agroecology is not a mono
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mcafee 21 ● Land reform of a kind
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zimmerer 31 An Expanding Interface
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zimmerer 33 The Mesoamerican Biolog
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zimmerer 35 constellation of areas
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levins 37 A Whole-System View of Ag
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levins 39 Equity Versus Sustainabil
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iographies of editors 161 Biographi
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participants 163 Workshop Participa
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participants 165 Jean Marc von der
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esources 167 Resources Farmer-to-Fa
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esources 169 ATTRA - www.attra.org
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esources 171 Just Food - www.justfo
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esources 173 International Institut
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cover photo captions 175 Cover Phot
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This report originated in an intern
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