The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement of ANAP in Cuba: social process methodology in the construction of sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

Agroecology has played a key role in helping Cuba survive the crisis caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc in Europe and the tightening of the US trade embargo. Cuban peasants have been able to boost food production without scarce and expensive imported agricultural chemicals by first substituting more ecological inputs for the no longer available imports, and then by making a transition to more agroecologically integrated and diverse farming systems. This was possible not so much because appropriate alternatives were made available, but rather because of the Campesino-a-Campesino (CAC) social process methodology that the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) used to build a grassroots agroecology movement. This paper was produced in a ‘self-study’ process spearheaded by ANAP and La Via Campesina, the international agrarian movement of which ANAP is a member. In it we document and analyze the history of the Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement (MACAC), and the significantly increased contribution of peasants to national food production in Cuba that was brought about, at least in part, due to this movement. Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.     

Contested paradigms of ‘viability’ in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa

This article reviews some of the salient aspects of the controversy over capitalism and the fate of Russian peasantry, among the Russian Marxists and the narodniks immediately prior to and after the Bolshevik revolution. At issue was the characterization of peasant economies. The narodniks believed that neither marginalism nor Marxism fully captured the nuances of peasant agriculture and the economic system/systems that evolved out of it; neither the market model nor class analysis adequately described the allocative and distributive processes in such economies. While nineteenth-century narodniks stressed the role of institutions based in the village community, Chayanov's twentieth-century populism stressed the organizational dynamic of peasant households within an institutional framework. Accordingly, the economics of the Chayanovian interpretation are examined from an institutional and organizational perspective. Such an exercise, it is argued, lends more credibility not only to the narodnik agenda, but also to the peasantist model of development.     

Debt and vulnerability: indebtedness,institutions and smallholder agriculture in South India

ABSTRACT

Expanding access to credit remains a key central government strategy for promoting agricultural development and livelihood diversification in south India and more widely. Smallholders borrowing from multiple credit sources are faced with obligations in addition to financial repayment. Available evidence on the consequences of indebtedness extending beyond monetary debt and its influence on vulnerability is incomplete in important ways. This paper presents an integrated vulnerability framework and illustrates the framework through case studies of three pairs of smallholder clients and credit sources. Using process-tracing and progressive contextualization methods, this paper shows the diversity of feedbacks that shape indebtedness and provides examples of social-ecological consequences. Unpacking these consequences in individual cases demonstrates indebtedness as an important root cause of vulnerability, which is in contrast to an examination of proximate causes, such as credit policy or temperature, that is the focus of a large share of scholarship. The paper shows that different credit sources are associated with different sets of obligations, leading to varied livelihood and agricultural consequences. Suggesting ‘credit stacking’ as an important adaptation strategy and research agenda item, the paper makes a plea for careful analysis of the conditions when credit is a factor in adaptive capacity and indebtedness of vulnerability.     

Keeping ‘our’ land: property,agriculture and tensions between Indigenous and settler visions of food sovereignty in Canada

ABSTRACT

This paper situates literature on food sovereignty and land reforms in relation to academic and popular writings about land issues in Canada. We argue that settler Canadian food sovereignty scholarship and activism has yet to sufficiently grapple with the implications of private property ownership in relation to ongoing processes of settler colonialism. We also argue that efforts to advance ecologically sustainable farming practices in Canada need to confront private property ownership in terms of its contribution to both capitalist and colonial violence.     

The agroecological revolution in Latin America: rescuing nature,ensuring food sovereignty and empowering peasants

This paper provides an overview of what we call ‘agroecological revolution’ in Latin America. As the expansion of agroexports and biofuels continues unfolding in Latin America and warming the planet, the concepts of food sovereignty and agroecology-based agricultural production gain increasing attention. New approaches and technologies involving the application of blended agroecological science and indigenous knowledge systems are being spearheaded by a significant number of peasants, NGOs and some government and academic institutions, and they are proving to enhance food security while conserving natural resources, and empowering local, regional and national peasant organizations and movements. An assessment of various grassroots initiatives in Latin America reveals that the application of the agroecological paradigm can bring significant environmental, economic and political benefits to small farmers and rural communities as well as urban populations in the region. The trajectory of the agroecological movements in Brazil, the Andean region, Mexico, Central America and Cuba and their potential to promote broad-based and sustainable agrarian and social change is briefly presented and examined. We argue that an emerging threefold ‘agroecological revolution’, namely, epistemological, technical and social, is creating new and unexpected changes directed at restoring local self-reliance, conserving and regenerating natural resource agrobiodiversity, producing healthy foods with low inputs, and empowering peasant organizations. These changes directly challenge neoliberal modernization policies based on agribusiness and agroexports while opening new political roads for Latin American agrarian societies.     

恭城新农村建设的路向分析

恭城新农村建设利用本土兴业,种养致富,使经济具有生态性、节能性、友好性、永续性,是对传统农业的创新。它构建了一种城乡融合和农工互补的农村城市化类型,其路径选择对我国中西部地区新农村建设具有重要的启迪意义。     

修改与完善《农业法》若干法律制度的思考

基于现阶段国家保护、支持农业的理念及产业政策的确立和现行<农业法>指导思想、体例结构与重要制度设计上的缺陷,借鉴世界其他国家的立法经验与并结合我国国情,分别对现行<农业法>中的农业投入、农业补贴、农村金融、政策性农业保险等法律制度的完善或重构提出相应的立法建议.     

中国农业立法体系研究——社会主义新农村建设的一种法治视角

我国正在进行社会主义新农村建设,为发展农业经济,需要从农业产业自身的特点出发,依法治农,完善农业立法体系.从农业发展的自身规律出发,概括论述农业立法体系的基本体系,从纵向看中国农业立法分为5个层次,从横向看主要涵盖17个领域.     

毛泽东对中国社会主义工业化道路的探索及其现实意义

半个世纪前,毛泽东结合我国社会主义建设的实践,对中国社会主义工业化道路进行了艰辛而又曲折的探索。毛泽东从发展生产力的角度提出发展我国的现代工业,阐明了工业化的重要意义,论证了我国实现工业化的必要条件,提出了我国实现工业化的标准。毛泽东工业化道路思想经历了四个发展阶段。毛泽东的工业化道路思想对我国今后走新型工业化道路仍有指导意义和启示作用。     

转轨时期俄罗斯远东的农业

俄罗斯实行经济转轨以来 ,远东地区农业生产大幅度滑坡 ,农业企业在困境中求生存、求发展 ,步履维艰。俄远东地区农产品生产成本高、需求缺口较大 ,加之特定的资源和经济社会发展条件 ,为发展中俄农业合作提供了良好的机遇。