Peasant Movement Research Articles

Conceptions and Practices of Autonomy among Indigenous and Peasant Movements in Latin America

This paper seeks to categorize the forms of autonomy developed by Indigenous and peasant movements in Latin America into three types: a) de jure autonomies versus de facto autonomies; b) explicit autonomies versus implicit autonomies; and c) (mono)ethnic autonomies versus popular or class autonomies. We argue that the debate between these conceptions takes on a possible strategic importance when it comes to the dialogue between Indigenous and peasant struggles regarding the defense of territory as well as in the conception of peasant autonomy, understood as a strategy of struggle and local self-governance.

The Social Reproductive Roots of Agrarian Contention: Gendered Labor amid Peasant Struggles in Tunisia

AbstractThis paper revisits the Tunisian 2010–2011 uprising and its ensuing decade of agrarian contention as a crisis of social reproduction stemming from the combined effects of depletion and dispossession. It traces the lineages of the grievances that continue to animate the Tunisian countryside to the multiple and often enmeshed labours—both productive and reproductive—of peasant and rural women. In underscoring the interconnectedness between these labours and the ebb and flow of various contestations against depletion and dispossession, it recognises social reproduction as a site of deep exploitation as well as an arena of day‐to‐day struggle. Guided by social reproduction theorisations and leveraging a multi‐sited ethnography conducted during July and August 2023, this paper relies on participant observation/observant participation and unstructured interviews conducted with predominately landed and landless peasant women, the testimonies of whom serve as a conduit for an important dialogue between feminist materialist analyses of social reproduction and peasant movements.

1970년대 가톨릭농민회의 쌀생산비조사와 농민운동

1970년대 가톨릭농민회의 쌀생산비조사와 농민운동

Grassroots agroecology advocates challenge funding objectives focused on U.S. Department of Agriculture

First paragraphs: In the spring of 2023, members of the organiza­tions in La Via Campesina’s North America region who participate in the Seeds, Agroecology, and Biodiversity Collective became aware of plans for a summit on agroecology to take place in Missouri in May 2023. At the time, the Summit website stated that “The primary goal of the meeting is to elevate agroecology in the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) portfolio and ulti­mately increase the quality and quantity of public funding available for agroecology research.” Although this goal was later edited, the U.S. Agroecology Summit 2023 was partially funded by USDA NIFA. As members of the global peasant movement La Via Campesina, and as supporters, promoters, and practitioners of the principles of agroecology, we recognize the dangers of involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in our growing but fragmented movement, especially through funds allocated by the USDA for research into agroecology. Here in the United States, it is our responsibil­ity to ourselves and to peasants around the world to insist that any research, promotion, or discus­sion of agroecology be grounded in food sover­eignty, feminism, Indigenous knowledges, and bio­diversity, and to defend its fierce demand to end imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, neoliberal market-based economies, free trade, false climate solutions, and corporate control of globalized food systems and resources. . . .

The communist movement in Nghe-Tinh and political parties in the French Indochina (1930–1931)

The article analyzes the experience of the French Colonial Empire of the 1930s in ensuring internal security in the Indochina region. The social, economic and climatic causes of political unrest (1930–1931) in the northern part of Annam, namely in the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh (Nghe-Tinh), are examined. The characteristics of the three ideological directions on which the political parties of Indochina are based are given. The development of the peasant movement and the creation of alternative administrations in villages to replace colonial ones are demonstrated. The new institution for a number of villages will be the Soviets, under the leadership of the Indochina Communist Party. The view is reflected of the colonial administration of Indochina on socio-economic problems. The adjustments in the French colonial army are presented in the form of sending additional contingents, as an example, the arrival of the 4th battalion of the Foreign Legion from Algeria to Indochina. The attention is paid to the key source under the title: «Contribution to the history of political movements in French Indochina». It testifies to a victorious turning point for the French administration in suppressing armed uprisings in Indochina. The document is a transcript and represents the testimony of Vietnamese who were members of the Indochina Communist Party. The despite the difficulties for France in maintaining internal security in the Indochina region by 1931, order in the colony was almost restored.

Rice Against Communism: The Politicisation of Agriculture from ‘Above’ and ‘Below’

During the last decades, the politicisation of agriculture has been observed when peasant movements claimed rights to land and food sovereignty. But where did this politicisation come from? I distinguish two types of politicising agriculture: ‘from above’ and ‘from below’. While the latter has received much attention, particularly drawing on La Via Campesina, the former has so far received less spotlight. This is problematic because it relegates ‘politicisation’ to social movements and by that normalises the politicisation of agriculture, which has made their resistance necessary in the first place. I historically situate the transnational smallholder movements that have been politicising issues around food production since the 1980s, particularly in South-east Asia. They have been doing so because, in the decades preceding their activism, Western governments and international organisations politicised the issue to fight communism with the expansion of industrialised agriculture, which they exported in the ‘Green Revolution’. I trace this politicisation ‘from above’ (drawing on the US intervention in Indonesia) and the delayed political responses of peasant movements in Indonesia and beyond.

Moving with the Soul: Cipari Peasant Movements for Land Rights in Indonesia

This research explains movements by peasants in Cipari, Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia, in demanding their land rights. Compared with similar cases in Indonesia, efforts by Cipari peasants paid off in the end and presented a unique case of success. Cipari peasants obtained ownership rights to the land on their terms. Through an empirical case study approach, we found that the Cipari peasant movement to fight for land rights lasted for a long period of time, beginning in the post-independence era and extending through the post-collapse of Indonesia’s New Order regime. For Cipari peasants, land is not just a means of production or economic resource but also has socio-cultural value and, more importantly, embodies spiritual (religious) values. These social and cultural factors provided the main driver for Cipari peasants to persist in undertaking their resistance movement. Over a long process, Cipari peasants obtained legal title to land in the form of land certificates. We show that the Cipari peasant social and resistance movement emerged and continued to develop not solely because of political opportunities but especially due to its socio-cultural values about land.

The work of Social Services with peasant movements: supply systems and food sovereignty

Resumo: O artigo tem como objetivo analisar as possibilidades de assistentes sociais atuarem em parceria e apoio a organizações camponesas, a partir da experiência na extensão universitária. A particularidade da fome no Brasil e o trabalho de base são debatidos, para, então, refletir sobre o trabalho no projeto de extensão “Assentados da reforma agrária e universidade” (QADE/UFRJ). A conclusão situa a experiência em relação à soberania alimentar e aos desafios da profissão.

Historical memory and restitution of community land in the peasant community of Pararin (Ancash) in the decade of 1960

This paper is situated within the field of historical anthropology and examines the process of land restitution of the peasant community of Pararin, in Northern Peru, in the context of peasant movements in their struggle for land. The people of Pararin are considered as actors of their local history with capacity for agency. Thus, in the decade of 1960, this peasant community used their historical memory to come together, and undertook a process of struggle to reclaim what their regarded, historically, their agricultural lands in the Fortaleza valley. Ultimately, they obtained the recognition of the State, but not without some unexpected difficulties during the process.

CRISPR futures: Rethinking the politics of genome editing

New genome editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9 aspire to automate and standardize laboratory practices of genetic engineering at the molecular scale. They have been promoted as a ‘revolutionary’ means of production, which will revitalize industry, transform agribusiness and adapt it to changing climatic conditions. To realize this vision, a fundamental regulatory shift is now being enacted by multiple national governments around the world from Argentina to Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and the European Union. As corporate science is directly in the service of private entities guided by a strict market rationality, while public research is increasingly pushed to prioritize immediate ‘industrial applications’ and the achievement of measurable ‘socio-economic impact’, genomic interventions are mostly geared towards expanding, accelerating and securing the accumulation of capital on a global scale. Structural market demands are embodied in gene-edited bodies produced for commercialization. While the emerging international regulatory regime for gene-edited organisms has been largely shaped by discussions focused on technical questions of health and safety, this tendency indicates the necessity of a wider democratic debate that would include the socio-economic, ethical and ecological concerns recently stressed by indigenous and peasant movements around the world. How will these new GM bodies transform the way people live and work in agricultural lands, industrial facilities, barnyards and slaughterhouses, in biotech labs and medical clinics? How will they affect lived ecologies? What types of multi-species worlds are being constructed through bioengineering practices, by whom and according to what political visions?

Re-Thinking Recipient Agency in South-South Cooperation: Strategies of Contestation, Strategies of Transformation and the South’s Own View of Development

Emerging donors have paid little attention to recipient agency in South-South Cooperation (SSC), instead emphasizing the supposedly horizontal character of South-South relations and the respect for (governmental) sovereignty. Focusing on the ProSavana, the Brazil-Japan-Mozambique large-scale agricultural project that was supposed to transform the Mozambican savannah into a commodities exporter, this article explores the political battle between the proponents of the ProSavana and the transnational movement of peasants that contested it. Drawing on the theory of discourse, the article offers a reconceptualization of agency in SSC as the capacity and ability (of indigenous populations) to transform Northern hegemonic discourses (embodied by the ProSavana) and replace them with the South’s own view of development. Based on similarity claims between Brazil and Mozambique’s experience with agricultural development, the peasants’ movement was successful in contesting the project by discursively linking ‘ProSavana’ with ‘land grabbing’ and ‘food insecurity’ but was not able to promote a more propositional discourse that would replace the ProSavana. My analysis shows that successful strategies of transformation will depend on the mobilization of discursive resources that resonate with the greater community as a ‘common good’. The article draws broader implications for movements that seek to contest large-scale (agricultural) projects.

The Role of Proletarian Poetry in Peasant Movement of Pakhtunkhwa: A Critical Study of the Selected Poetry of Sayyid-Ul-Abrar Ghar

Sayyid-ul-Abrar (1948-79) alias, Ghar was one of the prominent proletarian poets of the former NWFP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan, who’s poetry played a significant role in the evolution and growth of socialist realism in Pashtu literature. The historic Peasant Movement of 1970s especially the Hashtnagar Peasant’s uprising and agrarian struggle elsewhere in other parts of the province, were directly influenced through the proletarian poetry produced by Ghar and his contemporary Master Sultan Khalakyar. This study attempt to engage the selected poetry from Ghar’s two books; Sparghai [ Embers] and ‘Da Khwarikah Cheagha’ [ The cry of working class]as a case study to understand the links between poetry, art, and politics in a broader perspective of socialist realism. The important themes of these selected poetry, analysis of its contents with English translation, are also reproduced throughout this paper as evidence for better understanding of the subject interconnection of proletarian poetry with peasant’s struggle.

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

Social movements see participation formats of international organizations (IOs) with suspicion. They increasingly retreat from cooperation to contest IOs from the outside, because they fear co-optation without real policy impact. However, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) was an exception to this trend because its opening up was seen as long-term dialogue facilitating discussions about the nature of food production, and because it created credible institutional mechanisms that were trusted by activists to give influence to farmers and peasant movements. Therefore, the food sovereignty movement participated within the FAO framework in a remarkably institutionalized way throughout the 2010s. But in 2019, when the United Nations (UN) announced to hold a food systems summit (United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS)), this changed dramatically. The food sovereignty movement, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and eventually scientists, decided to boycott the summit, instead organizing an alternative Peoples’ Summit, and withdrawing from long-held institutional roles in the FAO. How can this be explained? This article traces the process from the announcement of the UNFSS to its implementation, stressing how institutional trust was damaged by several decisions in the process that undermined the good faith of activists. As we show in detail, the circumvention of established institutional mechanisms, and the feeling of betrayal on the side of the movement, was decisive for losing institutional trust. Importantly, a mixture of substantive and institutional changes in the context of UNFSS not only undermined the movement’s trust into the integrity and ability of the summit organizers, but thereby also provoked movement efforts to delegitimize UN food governance at large.

Reform, Rebellion and Party in Mexico, 1836–1861

Brian Hamnett's new book straddles two periods more often treated separately: “Independent Mexico” (1821–55) and the Wars of Reform (1857–61). This is an interesting choice. Undoubtedly, the time frame allows him to analyze the changing of the political class's generational guard: from the domination of men who had reached adulthood before the insurgency (Lucas Alamán, Anastasio Bustamante, Antonio López de Santa Anna) to the following generation (Benito Juárez, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Tomás Mejía), who came of age in the 1820s and 1830s. However, it does leave the reader questioning why he decided to exclude the French Intervention (1862–67) from his investigation, given its relevance to the arguments he makes. Hamnett does not give his reasons, but I suspect that this is due to his greater interest in the Liberal cause than the Conservative, as I will elaborate below.Hamnett's book also unites two historiographical narratives usually considered separately: the history of the political and economic intrigue that accompanied state-building efforts in Mexico, and the sociopolitical local history of resistance to and rebellion against these endeavors. The depth of analysis presented rests on the varied scholarship that Hamnett has produced over the years and clearly benefits from his wealth of archival research. Moreover, this juxtaposition gives him the relevant perspective to be able to challenge the received wisdom of both narratives. As a result, he questions the association so often assumed between democracy, the Liberal elite, and rural leaders, stating uncompromisingly that “Mexican Liberalism in origin, character and objectives was not a peasant movement or rural-based party. In the strictest sense, it was not democratic” (p. 245). He does not deny that rural actors were relevant to the national political scene or that village leaders pursued a variety of political projects. He simply suggests that it is a mistake to examine them through the lens of party loyalty or Liberal ideology.In fact, Hamnett doubts whether party is a useful category of analysis for this period of Mexican politics, since neither Liberals nor Conservatives “had organisation, hierarchy, structure, formal membership or regular financing. They remained shifting agglomerations of factions, often focused on personalities or small groups of individuals agreeing on a number of issues and policies” (p. 244). Even so, he recognizes that these issues, however reduced, did drive Liberal and Conservative action in government. In the case of the Liberals, the Reform Laws and the Constitution of 1857 articulated their most important policies. His treatment of the Conservatives is more limited and, in my view, sometimes overly dismissive. It is not true that the Conservatives had no “alternative plan of government” to the constitution in 1857; rather, constitution writing had become discredited within this group (p. 218). A more detailed examination of Teodosio Lares, architect of Santa Anna's last government and a mainstay of the Second Empire, would have revealed this.A more important historical variable, in Hamnett's opinion, is the unrelenting pressure of foreign interests within Mexican politics. As he states in the very first line of the introduction, “Between 1836 and 1861 the Mexican Republic was caught, without allies or outside support, between European powers and an expansionist United States” (p. 1). And we see as the book develops how political decision-making responded as much to this neocolonialism as it did to internal concerns. The weapon of first resort was invariably money: the insistence on reparations for foreign nationals who got caught up in the popular protests and revolts that characterized Mexican public life after 1810, and then the regular attempts by bondholders to recover stakes on loans obtained in London during the 1820s. Squeezed on all sides, Mexico's government was always short of cash and thus perennially weak. Pressure could be brought to bear via the seizure of ports (as did the French in 1838 and the tripartite powers in 1861), direct invasion (as did the United States in 1846 and France in 1863), or the offer of cash for land purchase or access (as the United States did on multiple occasions). While Mexican politicians tried to play the powers against each other—the Conservatives looking for allies in Europe and the Liberals in the United States—they always paid a price for these alliances.In short, Hamnett's book provides a deep, multifaceted perspective on the causes and consequences of political instability in Mexico between 1836 and 1861. It connects the dots between local politics, the construction of personal power bases (his portrayals of Mejía, Manuel Verástegui, and Santiago Vidaurri are particularly adept), and the national political scene. Given the current polarizing climate of Mexican politics and the disintegration of its party system, it should be required reading for our politicians.

Peasant Struggles in Times of Crises: The Political Role of Rural and Indigenous Women in Chile Today

This article explores the political role of rural and indigenous women in the context of the socio-environmental, health and political crises in Chile, where social movements have pressured the political establishment to decisively move towards a change in Chile’s constitutional foundations. The study analyses the historical political demands and strategies of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI) as a case of the women’s peasant movement with a relevant political role in shaping the social demands in the face of the crises. Following the political ecology of food through the decolonial and ecofeminist perspective and the social movement theory, findings indicate the current relevance of rural and indigenous women as political actors of change, a relevance that has been neglected for most of Chile’s history. With their leadership and socially grounded demands, peasant and indigenous women are influencing the political agenda decisively using strategies that are shared with other peasant movements in Latin America. Rural and indigenous women are fundamental political actors that should undoubtedly be considered when studying struggles for social change in the 21st century.

Transculturally rural: challenging convivial imaginations of ‘bettering’ life

ABSTRACT During the 1960s–1970s in Ecuador, Indigenous and peasant movements challenged the descriptions of rural life in government education programmes while offering a space of transculture. As Sylvia Wynter [2003. ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument.’ CR: The New Centennial Review 3 (3): 257–337.] proposes it, such space allows to narrate human life with sensibilities non-aligned with normalised cultural particularities of the ideal tacit ‘we’ in national(ised) stories. This text engages with the convivial movements between narratives and counternarratives about rural lives and ways of living. It argues that rural can be thought as a genre and ruralness as a practice of existence, which disrupt overdetermining notions of what counts as dignified life, valid political demands, and possible futures. That disruption is an exercise of conviviality where Indigenous and racialised peoples challenge a living together under rules and practices that demand their assimilation or erasure. Their luchas (fights) are proposals for coexistence through social change. Particularly the article looks at how the poem The Bread of Life, published in the bilingual Kichwa/Spanish newspaper Jatari Campesino, pushed back against the logics of ‘bettering’ lives offered by Fundamental Education and Community Development projects. These were projects espoused by the Ecuadorian Government and UNESCO and funded by the Alliance for Progress, among other foreign aid agencies.

Ludowa reakcja na szlacheckie kłamstwo. Galicyjscy chłopi w obronie Jakuba Szeli

People’s response to the nobleman’s lie. Galician peasants in defence of Jakub Szela This article examines two different narratives (legends) that arose around the figure of Jakub Szela — one of the leaders of the peasant revolt of 1846 in Austrian Galicia. The first one, named the black legend, was fabricated by the noble family of Bogusz, who suffered severely during the peasant revolt. They placed the entire responsibility for their suffering on their subject Szela, with whom they had been in a violent legal dispute for years, and accused him of a plethora of crimes. This negative image, originating from personal hatred, became the dominant view on Szela in Polish history and literature due to a number of artists and historians who reproduced it in their writings. However, as the article demonstrates, the peasants’ view of Szela was different. In the countryside he was perceived as a hero who brought serfdom and nobility’s violence to an end. Interestingly, the white legend was not supported by the peasant movement, which was erected in Galicia at the end of the 19th century. At the time, peasant politicians followed the goal of gaining independence for Poland and raising peasants’ national consciousness, both of which stood in contradiction of the positive memory of Szela, who was perceived by the ruling class as a mass murderer. This changed in the 1930s with the radicalisation of the peasant movement’s modus operandi and fierce clashes with the government. Szela was revitalised by younger and radical politicians who needed a telling symbol of conflict between the people and the elite. He was also used as a figure for revising the history of Poland — occupied and written predominantly by the nobility. So, again Szela was used instrumentally.

Ránquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile by Thomas Miller Klubock

Reviewed by: Ránquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile by Thomas Miller Klubock J. Patrice McSherry Klubock, Thomas Miller. Ránquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022. Thomas Klubock has amassed a rich store of information about the injustices faced by Chilean campesinos in the years preceding the historic Ránquil rebellion of 1934 and the event itself. Thick with description and detail derived from hitherto unused judicial archives and unknown documents, the book adds depth to our understanding of peasant struggles in the south of Chile and the context surrounding the 1934 rebellion. Ránquil was the largest rural revolt in Chile's history. The author fleshes out the roles of the Sindicato Agrícola [End Page 231] Lonquimay, the Democratic Party and the Chilean Communist Party, and wealthy landowning families such as the Puelmas and Bunsters, as well as key peasant leaders such as Juan Segundo Leiva Tapia. Klubock shows that many of the peasants who participated in the rebellion were "disappeared" and murdered, previewing the savage repression to come forty years later under the Pinochet dictatorship. The book leads with an excellent introduction that presents the author's key conceptual observations. "Ránquil is a reminder that political violence and state terror have a long history in Chile," he notes, and continuing movements against inequality "are rooted in the repression of campesinos' recurrent struggles to build a more free and just society" (25). Many of the activists involved—Klubock details the role of indigenous Pehuenche and female campesinos as well as that of male unionists and peasants—sought to initiate a socialist revolution. One of Klubock's major points is that the rebellion was not exceptional or unusual but was rather "the most visible and pronounced clash in a long history of conflicts" in the region (2). Peasants had contested the property rights and deceitful maneuvers of wealthy owners since the nineteenth century. Another important observation is that the peasant movement was revolutionary, aiming to install a socialist transformation. The peasants of Bío Bío were "moving from a pragmatic strategy of working through the legal system and petitioning authorities in Santiago to revolutionary insurrection" (3), writes Klubock. This dimension of the struggle has often been lost in historical treatments of the conflict, Klubock notes; he gathers "considerable evidence that a number of the Sindicato Agrícola Lonquimay leaders were aligned with the Communist Party and articulated its ideological discourse" (12). The author highlights two parallel and opposing tendencies in Chile's history. On the one hand, dissident movements have appealed to the law and to the state to resolve conflicts, and at times the state has responded with reforms and upheld justice and rights. On the other, the state has regularly resorted to repression and violence and narrowed democratic rights to crush challenges and preserve the social order (13). Surprisingly, in his first presidential term, army general Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, who served twice as president, tried to institute reforms to break up large estates in the south and extend labor rights to those who worked the land (87–90). Many campesinos regarded him as an ally in their struggles against the oligarchic families that dominated the region. [End Page 232] Klubock argues that the Ránquil rebellion, when not forgotten by historians, has been categorized as a spontaneous uprising and not part of an organized collective movement. This "impedes a serious historical engagement with [peasants'] political consciousness," he asserts (17–18). Another of his arguments, which I found less persuasive, is that pardons and historical oblivion regarding massacres and repression by state security forces permitted "national reconciliation, functioning as a precondition for Chilean democracy and the legitimacy of the state" (21) as well as the development of a stable multiparty system. But while Chile was stable for long periods, stability is not the same as democracy. There is substantial literature on the long-term consequences of impunity that challenges his assertion that olvido is a necessary precondition for democracy. Similarly, the assumption that impunity and amnesia enhanced the legitimacy of the state is open to question. Chile's unresolved...

Politicizing water: Rescaling resistance to extractive development in Guatemala

Many Indigenous and peasant movements denounce the expansion of extractive development as a threat to their lives, livelihoods, and territories that reinforces legacies of colonization and armed conflict. Grassroots resistances to extractive projects converge on concerns over water access and contamination. This essay draws on politically-engaged ethnographic research with Indigenous territorial defense organizations in Guatemala and political ecological perspectives on water politics to examine how the strategic politicization of water affects the scalar potential of Indigenous and peasant environmental movements. I describe how Indigenous and peasant communities, political organizations, and NGOs use water as a transfer point to demonstrate the harms of extractivist projects; pursue legal strategies; form local, regional, and national networks; and to articulate resistances across a range of industries, environmental paradigms, and geographic and ethnic divides, strengthening alliances for alternative ways of being on the land.

Pathways for advancing good work in food systems: Reflecting on the international Good Work for Good Food Forum

The crucial roles that workers, especially seasonal and migrant workers, play in our food systems have come under renewed attention in recent years. The coronavirus pandemic resulted in food work­ers being recognized as critical or essential workers in many countries. In 2021, this coincided with the UN International Year of Fruits and Vegetables (IYFV), highlighting the importance of horticul­tural crops to healthy lives globally. Yet, workers’ quality of life in this most labor-intensive form of food production is often disregarded, or in the case of the UN IYFV, misconstrued. The agriculture-migration nexus—on which food systems depend—remains recognized as a challenge, yet there is limited debate about how it could be ameliorated and a lack of articulation of desirable alternatives. While alternative food and peasant movements propose food system transformation and alternative labor futures based on agroecology, labor lawyers and other advocates propose regula­tion and formalization of workplace regimes to ensure fair working conditions. Most recently, a third pos­sibility has emerged from agri-tech innovators: a techno-centric future with far fewer agricultural work­ers. These three archetypes of agricultural labor futures (agroecological, formally regulated, and techno-centric) have the potential to leave food scholars and activists without a unified, coherent vision to advance. Addressing this gap, this paper reports and builds on insights harvested from the international Good Work for Good Food Forum, organized by the authors with the aim of shaping consensus on positive visions for work in food systems. About 40 scholar-activists across three continents discussed the current challenges facing food workers and crafted a collective vision for good food work. This vision is documented in the form of nine principles supported by a framework of seven enabling pathways. We conclude by em­pha­sizing the need for a people-centered incor­poration of technology and a re-valuation of food workers’ contributions to global food systems. We offer the vision as a collective platform for action to advocate for and organize with workers in food systems.