“Who Has the Power to Adapt?” Frameworks for Resilient Agriculture Must Contend With the Power Dynamics of Land Tenure

Adam Calo

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2020.555270

Abstract

This special issue aims to develop how Diversified Farming Systems (DFS) may contribute to adaptive capacity in order to confer resilience to agricultural systems. In this perspective article, I argue that a framework for DFS and adaptive capacity must adequately contend with the role of farmland tenure on the shape of food systems to be both internally coherent and socially redistributive. Yet, both DFS and adaptive capacity scholarship deemphasize or mischaracterize the role of farmland tenure in favor of ecosystem dynamics. In this paper, I bring together lessons from the agrarian change literature and established critiques of resilience thinking to demonstrate core problems with a framework aimed at linking DFS to adaptive capacity without adequately addressing the role of farmland tenure. Namely, applying resilience thinking as a framework to understand food systems change prioritizes concern over final “states” or processes of farming systems and may ignore who has the power to adapt or who derives benefits from adaptation. The critiques of resilience thinking inform that the result of this apolitical elision is (1) entrenchment of neoliberal logics that place responsibility to cultivate adaptation on individual farmers and (2) provisioning of legitimacy for land tenure systems that can most readily adopt DFS, without understanding how well these systems distribute public benefits. Resilience reformers call for ways to include more power aware analysis when applying resilience thinking to complex socio-technical systems. I suggest that centering the role of land tenure into the frameworks of DFS and adaptive capacity provides a lens to observe the power relations that mediate any benefits of agricultural diversification. Integrating analysis of the social and legal structures of the food system into the DFS for adaptive capacity formulation is a crucial step to transforming resilience thinking from an apolitical tool to transformative and power-aware applied science.

Highlights

This special issue on Diversifying Farming Systems for Adaptive Capacity is motivated by the need to foster resilient farming systems in the face of the Anthropocene’s “triple challenge” of climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable resource provisioning
While I support the core logic of the framing paper, I argue that by focusing on the complexity of land tenure relations, it is possible to show how building on concepts of adaptive capacity and resilience introduces challenges to effectively engage with power-laden concepts like equitable distribution and justice
Investigation of these access mechanisms, often codified in the informal and formal rules associated with land tenure, help explain who is able to make land use decisions and why Diversified Farming Systems (DFS) farmers are often marginalized in this process (Sikor and Lund, 2009)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This special issue on Diversifying Farming Systems for Adaptive Capacity is motivated by the need to foster resilient farming systems in the face of the Anthropocene’s “triple challenge” of climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable resource provisioning. While the authors recommend a series of strategies to encourage inclusion of more farmers of diverse backgrounds, the legal and cultural systems that have shaped racially skewed land access regimes remain entrenched (Horst and Marion, 2018) In this way DFS frameworks recognize the need for diversified tenure categories, for example more smallholders of color, but do not challenge the property structures that create land tenure disparities. Scholars show how land access, or the many ways that institutions, individuals, policies, technologies, and power relations structure one’s ability to benefit from a resource (Ribot and Peluso, 2009) Investigation of these access mechanisms, often codified in the informal and formal rules associated with land tenure, help explain who is able to make land use decisions and why DFS farmers are often marginalized in this process (Sikor and Lund, 2009). Agroecologists view secure farmland tenure as an enabling condition that must proceed technical food system interventions (Anderson et al, 2019; Giraldo and McCune, 2019). Kepkiewicz and Dale (2018) argue that “challenging hegemonic assumptions about private property” must occur before distributive forms of agroecology can emerge in the settler-state context of Canada. Edelman et al (2014) asks, “What kinds of (land) property relations might characterize a food-sovereign society?” Scholars note that unbalanced political power flows through entrenched property relations and serious attention to challenging the broader “episteme of ownership” is needed for food system reform (Trauger, 2014, p. 1144)

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT