Peasant Movement Research Articles

Agroecology in Ecuador: historical processes, achievements, and challenges

ABSTRACTAgroecology in Ecuador has developed from its early stages as a little known, incoherent response to the Green Revolution into a serious agrarian model, with key principles enshrined in the country’s Constitution and Food Sovereignty Law. This article provides a historical overview and analysis of this process, highlighting key actors, events, and challenges. In particular, this article reveals that the adoption of agroecology as a form of resistance by indigenous and peasant movements played a key role in its development. Furthermore, articulation between organizations, academia, and public institutions helped agroecology grow in conceptual depth, national reach, and political influence. Nonetheless, as the stalled passage of the law on agrobiodiversity demonstrates, significant obstacles to implementation remain.Abbreviations: ACRI: Association of Coffee Growers of the Intag River; AE: Ecology Action; APAA: Association of Agroecological Producers of the Austral; AUCM: Unity Assembly of the Canton of Montufar; AVSF: Agronomists and Veterinarians Without Borders; CCFA: Peasant Agroecological Credit Union; CEA: Ecuadorian Agroecology Coordinator; CEDEIN: Center for Indigenous Development; CEPCU: Center for Pluricultural Studies; CET: Centre for Technological Education; CLADES: Latin American Consortium on Agriculture and Development; COMICH: Confederation of Indigenous Movements of Chimborazo; CONAIE: Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador; COPISA: Plurinational and Intercultural Conference on Food Sovereignty; COPROBICH: Corporation of Organic Producers and Merchants of Chimborazo; CORPOPURUWA: Corporation of Producers of Puruwa; ECUARUNARI: Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality; EFA: Regional Agroecology School; ERPE: Popular Radiophonic Schools; FECAOL: Federation of Agricultural Centers and Peasant Organizations of the Littoral; FECONIC: Federation of Afro-Ecuadorian Communities and Organizations of Imbabura and Carchi; FENOCIN: National Confederation of Peasant, Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian Organizations; FICI: Indigenous and Peasant Federation of Imbabura; IFOAM: International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements; IMBABIO: Biological Production Market Network of Imbabura; LORSA: Organic Law of the Food Sovereignty Regime; LVC: Via Campesina International; MAELA: Latin American Agroecology Movement; MESSE: Social and Solidarity Economy Movement of Ecuador; MIC: Indigenous Movement of Cotopaxi; MST: Landless Workers Movement; NAFTA: North American Free Trade Agreement; PACAT: Union of Agroecological Producers and Associative Commercialization; PROBIO: Ecuadorian Corporation of Biological Producers; RAA: Agroecology Network of the Austral; RAL: Agroecological Network of Loja; RALLT: Network for a Transgenic-Free Latin America; REDESOL: Solidarity Economy Network; RESAKK: Solidarity Economy and Food Sovereignty Network of Kayambi Territory; SOCLA: Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology; SPG: Participative Guarantee System; UNORCAC: Union of Indigenous Peasant Organizations of Cotacachi.

Evo Morales, transformismo, and the consolidation of agrarian capitalism in Bolivia

AbstractThis paper argues that, despite claims to the contrary, there has not been extensive, egalitarian reform in Bolivia since Evo Morales assumed the presidency in 2006. In order to explain agrarian processes in the country during the decade under Morales thus far (2006–2016), it examines the changing balance of agrarian class forces in Bolivian society and associated changes in the class composition of the ruling bloc between 2006 and 2010. It divides contestation over agrarian reform processes during this decade into two periods—one of insurgent contestation (2006–2009), and one of agro‐capital–state alliance (2010–2016). The transformations in class alliances over these periods can be understood theoretically through Gramsci's concept of transformismo (transformism). In particular, this concept captures both the way in which leading layers of indigenous–peasant movements have been absorbed into the apparatuses of the state and thus decapitated, and the dialectic of transformation/restoration that characterizes Bolivia's ongoing “process of change”.

The political economy of the agro‐export boom under the Kirchners: Hegemony and passive revolution in Argentina

AbstractSince the mid‐1990s, the economy and politics of Argentina have been closely intertwined with the expansion of agro‐exports—a process initiated with neoliberalization and continued under “post‐neoliberal” governments. The administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner are among the left‐of‐centre, neo‐developmental governments that were elected to power in Latin America in recent decades. This paper engages Gramsci's concepts of passive revolution and hegemony to analyse the political economy of the agrarian boom in Argentina, focusing on the frictions and contradictions of this national‐popular project. I inspect the political economy of the agro‐export boom, scrutinizing the political alliances and conflicts of the Kirchner governments, and the dilemmas that they have created for peasant movements. Between 2003 and 2015, peasant organizations supported the Kirchners as they discursively confronted Argentine agribusiness. Yet the neo‐developmental approach of their administrations did little to address the socio‐environmental impacts of the agro‐export boom and the glaring material inequalities of rural Argentina, and instead supported authoritarian governors and favoured global agribusiness corporations.

Taking agroecology to scale: the Zero Budget Natural Farming peasant movement in Karnataka, India

This paper analyzes how peasant movements scale up agroecology. It specifically examines Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), a grassroots peasant agroecology movement in Karnataka, India. ZBNF ends reliance on purchased inputs and loans for farming, positioning itself as a solution to extreme indebtedness and suicides among Indian farmers. The ZBNF movement has achieved massive scale not only because of effective farming practices, but because of a social movement dynamic – motivating members through discourse, mobilizing resources from allies, self-organized pedagogical activities, charismatic and local leadership, and generating a spirit of volunteerism among its members. This paper was produced as part of a self-study process in La Via Campesina, the global peasant movement.

ВІДОБРАЖЕННЯ СЕЛЯНСЬКОГО ПОВСТАНСЬКОГО РУХУ В УКРАЇНІ 1917 – 1921 РР. В УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ ДОРАДЯНСЬКІЙ ЛІТЕРАТУРІ Присвячується сторіччю Української революції 1917 – 1921 рр.

In this paper we intend to analyze the image of the peasant insurrectionary movement (1917 – 1921) in Ukrainian pre-Soviet literature. The achievements of pre-Soviet authors, in particular, in the studies of the peasant insurrectionary movement of the stated period, have been defined. Factual materials concerning insurgent peasantry have been found and the research assessment aspects have been generalized. As we have found out only few Ukrainian works from the pre-Soviet literature described the peasant insurrectionary movement of 1917 – 1921. Among the first works were those of M. Hrushevskyj, I. Krypyakevych, Ye. Chykalenko. Special attention to the life of peasantry and its protest movement was paid by the outstanding historian M. Hrushevskyj. He explored this subject in the context of the Ukrainian revolution studies. His works are an important source for the peasant insurrectionary movement studies. At the same time we have stated the absence of works directly covering insurrected peasantry as an integrated force within the Ukrainian revolution. On the other hand, as the historiographic analysis has shown, these first works could be regarded as proto-historiography of the peasant insurrectionary movement as they were produced during the initial stage of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917 – 1921. Keywords: peasant insurrectionary movement of 1917 – 1921, peasantry, revolution, research, Ukrainian pre-Soviet literature, historiography.

The chigirin conspiracy and peasant psychology

This article considers the psychology of the peasants who took part in the Chigirin conspiracy in Kiev province in the second half of the 19th century. The analysis is based on a variety of sources kept in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The author focuses on the unique combination of objective and subjective factors reflecting how the peasant movement was divided by national, interclass, and class conflicts, as well as opposing religious views. It was due to these factors that the Chigirin conspiracy acquired its unique character, which can help clarify how traditional psychology works during protests. The author points out the psychological factors which led to a temporary union between the revolutionary Narodniks and the peasant movement as part of the Secret Druzhina: this had the purpose of raising a rebellion and fighting for the redistribution of land. The article describes the reasons for the failure of the self-styled conspiracy organised by the revolutionary Narodniks, who pretended to be the tsar’s commissars and presented the Chigirin peasants with what was claimed to be documents approved by the tsar but were in fact forged papers. The analysis is based on an interdisciplinary approach. Relying on the hermeneutic paradigm in his attempt to interpret events of the past, the author tries to understand the motives behind their protest and reveal some of the general and peculiar components of peasant psychology during the post-reform period. These components were characteristic of Little Russia’s peasants compared to the peasants of other Russian provinces of the time.

Agriculture and the “Literati” in Colonial Bengal, 1870 to 1940

This paper attempts to understand the engagement of the literati in Bengal with issues relating to agriculture in colonial Bengal between 1870 and 1940. The outbreak of the Pabna Tax Revolt in 1873 led to a debate within intellectual circles on the crippling exactions levied on the peasantry by zamindars. They identified this as the primary reason for Bengal’s agrarian backwardness. From the 1880s, however, the debate underwent a change, with a section of the intelligentsia shifting it away from the issue of landlordism as a bottleneck to rural development. This group argued for agricultural modernisation as the way ahead for the agrarian sector. In this new productionist discourse, the vanguard role of introducing new technologies into agriculture was to be played by forward-looking sections of the wealthy and educated urban middle class, who were called upon to take to cooperative farming for the purpose. The advocates of such productionism believed that such progress could be achieved within the framework of existing production relations, dominated by the zamindars of rural Bengal. From the middle of the 1930s, another distinct viewpoint on agrarian relations emerged as part of the Kisan Sabha-led peasant movement. Formed in 1936, the Kisan Sabha took up popular demands that included land reform and abolition of the zamindari system. It sought to improve the material conditions of the peasantry. However, its views on agriculture did not include a demand for the modernisation of agriculture through the application of new and scientific techniques and practices. The issue of agricultural modernisation was thus left to the intelligentsia.

Agriculture in and beyond the Haitian catastrophe

Although the devastation from Haiti’s 2010 earthquake was concentrated in Port-au-Prince, it had deep agrarian roots. This paper situates Haiti’s urban poverty in the chronic exploitation of the country’s peasant classes as a basis for assessing the competing contemporary visions for agricultural development. We argue that the post-earthquake reconstruction has fortified a neoliberal development that is incompatible with the aspirations of the Haitian peasantry. Given the interrelated power of domestic elites and international donors, and the proliferation of disconnected development projects, we conclude that any prospect for pro-poor development hinges on the growth and collaboration of peasant movements.

The Legacy of Agrarian Reform in Latin America: Foundations of the Fair Trade Cooperative System

AbstractCooperatives are essential to the success of fair trade because small farmers must be organized into cooperatives in order to be certified. Fair trade aims to empower small farmers, yet many farmers are only able to obtain fair trade certification because they fought for land and organized themselves into strong cooperatives through state‐led agrarian reform programs. To explore the link between agrarian reform and fair trade, I review the history of agrarian reform in Nicaragua, describing how many of the country's fair trade‐certified cooperatives have roots in the reform programs of the 1980s. The review contributes to a broader historical perspective on the cooperative system at the heart of fair trade. It brings together scholarship with archived magazine articles to explore the connection between the contemporary fair trade system and the hard‐won successes of peasant movements for land reform.

PETANI DALAM PERSPEKTIF ANTROPOLOGI EKONOMI

The concepts of rational and moral choices are both of ideal types in social science. These are only use for a social analysis and not for a social engineering. The rational peasants do not indicate the rational choice that have been introduced by Samuel L. Popkin, they are, on the other hand, in moral choice that have been stated by James C. Scott. The commercialization of peasants and agricultural sectors do not reflect the rational peasant's movement. In the essay, the Indonesian case, the commercialization of peasants are an effect of the state's project of colonial era and the New Order, these aren't the articulation of the rational peasants.

State–peasant movement relations and the politics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This contribution argues that the articulation between the state and peasant organizations’ internal structures – the class characteristics of their mass bases, their leaderships and the modes of interaction between the two – is critical for determining the nature of contemporary struggles guided by the discourse of food sovereignty. It will show that that counter-hegemonic demands are not synonymous with counter-hegemonic practice; rather than struggling to replace the neoliberal food regime, many peasant organizations employ the food sovereignty discourse as a political tool in their negotiations with the state in order to access resources from within the prevailing neoliberal model, not to transform it.

The moral ecology of colonial infrastructure and the vicissitudes of land rights in rural Pakistan

ABSTRACTFor the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on its military farms in central Punjab. In this article, I analyse the historical and cultural significance of this contested land by using insights from recent literature on the politics of infrastructure to examine the contingency of rule in Pakistan, a postcolonial state, which is dominated by its army. I illustrate these dynamics by exploring the challenge brought up by a peasant movement to tacit cultural understandings about land and political subjectivity in central Punjab, the folkloric heartland of Pakistani nationalism. I argue that place-based movements, like the Punjab Tenants Association, can radically challenge our sense of place by giving a relational account of land as both a material substance and a crucial link in the set of relations that define moral, economic and political life. This approach broadens the emerging study of infrastructures by engaging insights from science/technology studies and subaltern studies to examine how cultural legacies of colonial infrastructure projects shape state–society relations in Pakistan.

Uniwersytety ludowe w II Rzeczypospolitej (zarys problemu)

The interest on the part of educational communities of the idea of folk universities – an extracurricular educational venue aimed at the young from rural areas and providing leaders in educational and cultural work with education so as to fulfill the needs of their region – increased along with Poland regaining independence. In fact, in the interwar Poland, an active movement of folk universities was created (consisting of 27 institutions of the kind). Father Antoni Ludwiczak, Ignacy Solarz, Jadwiga Dziubinska were the people who played an exceptional role in its development. The first Polish folk university in the inerwar Poland was opened with the initiative of the People’s Libraries Societies (Polish: Towarzystwo Czytelni Ludowych ) in Dalki near Gniezno, on 5 th October in 1921. The above-mentioned Father Antoni Ludwiczak, who was in charge of the society, became the director of the university. In the institution, similarly to other universities established later by the society (in Zagorze in Kaszuby in 1926, in Odolanow in the south of Wielkopolska aimed at the young from Silesia – in 1927) the education of Catholic Poles was emphasised. The curriculum realised in the university was characterised by its distinctly dominant historic and literary content. The educational profile in the university in Dalki did not satisfy some of the young people from rural areas, who were becoming more radical in social and ideal terms as well as the peasant activists from the older generation associated with them. In these circles, it was claimed that it was not “rural” enough. As a consequence, a new (rural) folk university was established – in 1924 in Szyce – fulfilling the idea of the co-called “folk school”, the main founder of which was Ignacy Solarz. The educational profile of the institution (later continued, most of all, in the folk university in Gac Przeworska) resulted from its associations with the young peasant movement and with the tendencies to educate the young from rural areas in close cooperation with peasant social class and their attempts to reconstruct the Polish countryside politically, socially and culturally, as well as the country itself. The folk university in Sokolowek was established (for female students) in 1927 and was directed by Jadwiga Dziubinska based on ideological foundations similar to the main assumptions of the concept of I. Solarz. However, it realised the model of university as an institution which, on the one hand, improved vocational preparation (especially in terms of agronomic practice) and, on the other hand – was a general expansion of general agricultural education on a lower level (the university enrolled graduates from folk agricultural schools).

Occupied! Property, Citizenship and Peasant Movements in Rural Java

ABSTRACTRecent land occupations by peasant movements in Indonesia have done more than challenge the existing ownership of plantations and forests. They have restructured local property and authority relations by stimulating a strategic critique of public authority and governance practice within the peasant movement. ‘Plantation’ and ‘forest’ are structured under different legal regimes and institutional arrangements, which offer varied opportunities for occupation and subsequent legalization of smallholder land control. Different strategies of occupation and interaction with plantation and forest companies have therefore been pursued. However, legalization of land occupations has remained rudimentary, and possession has not been recognized as property by government institutions. Two cases of occupation history demonstrate in detail how claims to citizenship and property have been opposed, ignored and denied by statutory institutions. Furthermore, they demonstrate how land‐occupying farmers have attempted to become ‘visible’ to and recognized by government institutions, and how — while waiting for this to happen — the peasant movement experiences a sovereign moment.

Where Have All the Peasants Gone?

By revisiting earlier debates around the definition of peasantries and new issues around farming in present-day agricultural regimes, this review underlines the uneven forms of capitalist surplus extraction. After revisiting the classic debate, I explore present-day issues such as market-led agrarian reforms, land grabs, and transnational peasant movements that recenter the peasant debate. The following sections address two expressions of small-scale agricultural production: contract farming and agroecological short-circuit food provisioning. These two varieties of contemporary peasantries express different forms of dependent autonomy and are integrated in value accumulation circuits in different ways. A final section of the article attempts to compare aspects present in agriculture with similar ones present in other sectors of production to show the theoretical value of these discussions.

Evaluating The PRRI Rebellion As A West Sumatran Peasant Movement

This paper examines the following questions: Had the peasants understood the vision of the leadership, would they still have participated in the revolt? Was the swift reluctance towards active military participation the result of a better understanding of the rebellion’s aims as espoused by the core leadership? Are the Minangkabau peasantry prone to future profanations of great tradition narratives? By way of using various sources, the writer tries to trace the PRRI Rebellion in the light of grass-root perspective as it is reflected in the eye of interviewee given Om Fahmi’s description, that believed that the Minang will continue to protest against the imperialism of Jakarta until this state of affairs appeared.Keywords: PRRI rebellion, peasant movement, revolt

Towards an agroecology of knowledges: Recognition, cognitive justice and farmers’ autonomy in France

Most collective agroecological initiatives in Europe today are built around a plurality of knowledge systems. Going beyond the well-documented instrumental goals of this knowledge-plurality, this paper highlights another, perhaps less obvious objective: the pursuit of recognition and cognitive justice.The subordination of alternative farming practices, such as agroecology, to industrial high-input farming leads to the misrecognition of peasant communities. Challenging industrial agriculture hence requires both equality between different forms of doing farming and an active engagement with different ways of knowing farming. Cognitive justice, a concept originating in decolonial thought, encompasses not only the right of different practices to co-exist, but entails an active engagement across their knowledge-systems.Using an example of participatory maize breeding in France, the paper illustrates how peasant movements in Europe organize an ’agroecology of knowledges’, a counter-hegemonic engagement with modern agronomic science, through the recovery and co-production of situational, environment-specific knowledge, and the reskilling of farmers. It aims not only at improving agricultural science, but also at rebuilding collective identities and reclaiming autonomy.

La transdisciplinariedad una herramienta para transformar la investigación y extensión universitaria

La Universidad Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN – Managua) desde la Facultad multidisciplinaria de Matagalpa y la Unión de campesinos organizados de San Dionisio (UCOSD) están realizando un diálogo transdisciplinario desde el año 2013. A través de una investigación acción participativa donde se están articulando diferentes niveles de grado y postgrado de la Universidad con las necesidades organizativas, productivas y ambientales de la organización campesina. Desde las carreras de ingeniería agronómica, economía y economía agrícola se ha dialogado con más de 300 familias campesinas organizadas en la subcuenca del río Cálico. En estos diálogos desde las 13 comunidades donde tienen presencia la UCOSD se ha detectado una enfermedad: la organización comunitaria ha muerto dejando paso a una burocracia administrativa que transforma poco a poco de un movimiento social campesino en una empresa prestadora de servicios campesinos. Las contradicciones que sufren los movimientos campesinos y las familias rurales dialogan con las propias contradicciones que sufre la Universidad en su quehacer investigativo y de extensión. Modelos jerárquicos de poder, visiones del conocimiento encontradas y poco respetuosas, inercias de transferencia y no escucha, dolores personales que cargan mochilas pesadas sobre sus estudiantes o sobre los hijos e hijas de los productores. Estas contradicciones nos ayudan a repensar los modelos de gobierno, los modelos de investigación y extensión y su articulación con docencia que debería impulsar una Universidad para enfrentar los retos y transformaciones de este siglo XXI.
 Rev. iberoam. bioecon. cambio clim. Vol. 1 num 2, 2015, pág. 52-74

The need for unity: an interview with Vishnu Sharma

Vishnu Sharma (1921–1992) came to Southall, West London, in 1957 as a seasoned political organiser in the peasant and trade union movements of the Punjab, who had already, under the Raj, been imprisoned for his political activities. A member of the Communist Party for most of his life, a vice-chair of the 1960s’ Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) and a founder of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, where he also worked for many years, he was involved in a number of national organisations including the National Council for Commonwealth Immigrants (from which he resigned in protest in 1968), the National Council for Civil Liberties, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) and the Anti-Nazi League. He talked, in 1982, during the filming of A Town Under Siege – one of a series of films made by IRR’s sister company in the early 1980s for Channel 4 – about his early life in Southall.

The Class Dynamics of Food Sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This paper examines the class dynamics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador. It argues that the nature of contemporary demands for food sovereignty is heavily influenced by the outcomes of peasant movements’ historical and ongoing internal class dynamics. Processes of class differentiation within peasant organizations in both countries have led to the interests of certain classes predominating over or at the expense of others. Despite La Vía Campesina's projection of ‘unity in diversity’, incorporating sometimes conflicting class interests into the movement is particularly challenging. As such, class analysis must be brought back into debates around food sovereignty in order to gauge (and potentially further) the movement's transformative potential.