Sowing peace: Violence and agrobiodiversity in the Colombian Amazon

Abstract

This article investigates how violence is intertwined with agrobiodiversity and the implications for “territorial peace” in Colombia. Our investigation is situated within the context of campesinos’ defense of their territories and struggles over seeds. “Territorial peace” involves the imposition of agro-industrial development onto territories. Its implementation is intertwined with increasing violence including the killings of campesinos and defenders of their territories. This violent peace also involves the control of seeds and campesinos’ agriculture, contributing to the loss of life-giving agrobiodiversity of these territories. This ultimately threatens the possibilities of a peace. Grounding the notion of peace within the territory, the article turns to how campesinos’ cultivation of agrobiodiversity contributes to the conditions in which peace germinates. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Putumayo, Colombia, it describes how campesinos cultivate peace in soils sedimented with violence through the reparation of campesinos’ relations with Amazonian agrobiodiversity. This is a way of grounding campesinos within the life of the selva Amazónica. For these campesinos, who call themselves “selvasinos,” Amazonian farming is a political proposal that confronts ongoing violence, including the imposition of agro-industrial development imposed onto the territory. It is a defense of their territory which translates into the defense of life and the construction of “territorial peace” grounded in the life of the selva.