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the key to all the others. In the absence of strong accountability mechanisms,
the political cost of doing little while promising much is close to zero. Without a
real capacity for small-scale farmers to organize themselves, their bargaining
position in the food chains will remain weak: they will continue to sell at wholesale
prices to the buyer who acts as a gatekeeper to markets, while having to pay retail
prices for their inputs. And their weakness as economic actors will result in their
insignificance as political actors. Because they do not count in the eyes of the
policy-makers, mostly biased towards export-led agriculture and industrialization,
small-scale farmers will not have the ability to influence policies that concern
agricultural research and development or the regulation of agricultural markets.
Accountability and empowerment are therefore key to achieve change in all the
areas that matter to the ability for small-scale food producers to become more
productive, to have better incomes, and to benefit from a market environment that
is responsive to their needs. The better they are organized into cooperatives and
unions, the more they will be able to count both as economically powerful actors
in the food systems, and as a constituency that policymakers cannot afford to
ignore. This will allow them, in turn, to influence decision-making, and to ensure
that investments in agriculture serve their needs rather than robbing them of the
resources on which they depend, or that trade policies shall not deprive them of
their ability to live decently from farming, and instead shall ensure their access
to markets.
Accountability and empowerment can unlock the possibilities for the
kind of transition we need. Indeed, no significant advance can be achieved without
them. Decision-makers have largely co-opted the vocabulary and the slogans
of the visionaries I was referring to, who have been questioning the productivist
paradigm in agricultural development for thirty years. But because the question
of power has been side-lined − ignored at best, and more often repressed, change
has not really happened. Powerful words are found in solemn declarations, but
actions often have not followed words.
This failure to act is even less excusable now because of the urgency and
because our understanding of what needs to be done has significantly improved
over the past few years. And also because alliances now have become possible,
to unite different food movements and different groups which were traditionally
seen as having divergent, or even opposed interests. The urban poor were seen as
having an interest in cheap food at the expense of the rural areas who were taxed
and cheated to satisfy the needs of cities. We have come to realize now that both
groups have the same interest in local food systems that can at the same time
increase farmers’ incomes and ensure the provision of nutritious and adequate food
at affordable prices to the urban consumers. The interests of “the West” were seen
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