Food sovereignty, food security and fair trade: the case of an influential Nicaraguan smallholder cooperative

Abstract

The relationships among trade, food sovereignty and food security are underexplored. I conducted qualitative research with an influential cooperative to identify lessons that food sovereignty (FS) scholars could learn from fair trade and food security, and explore linkages among these projects. First, most co-op leaders and farmers view these projects as complementary, not contradictory. Second, state-led agrarian reforms and co-ops increase access to land, markets, water, forests and pasture, which have reduced – but not eliminated – seasonal hunger. Third, these diversified fair trade coffee-exporting smallholders could be part of a FS agenda. However, the split in fair trade suggests that only specific versions of fair trade are compatible with FS. Fourth, capable cooperatives can enhance fair trade and FS goals, and food security outcomes. Fifth, organised smallholders resisting the fair trade split could learn from the FS social movement’s strategies. Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge to both approaches.

Keywords:

• agrarian change
• organic coffee
• sustainable food systems
• common property
• Central America
• empowerment

Acknowledgements

Thanks to PRODECOOP’s farmers and staff, and Community Agroecology Network consultant Maria Eugenia Flores Gomez. David Beezer, Alexandra Cabral, William Burke and Rica Santos provide research assistance. I am grateful to the special issue editors and two anonymous peer reviewers for useful comments. Jun Borras and Annie Shattuck encouraged me to finish the Yale conference paper, as I navigated my grandfather Allen Bacon’s passing. This paper is dedicated to Allen and his legacy as one who campaigned for peace.

Notes

1. “Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue.” Conference held at Yale University, September 14–15, 2013. http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/foodsovereignty/index.html.

2. La Vía Campesina (LVC), “Main Issues 2014.”

3. Patel, “Food Sovereignty.”

4. Agarwal, “Food Sovereignty, Security and Democratic Choice”; and Clapp “Food Security and Food Sovereignty.”

5. Burnett and Murphy, “What Place for International Trade in Food Sovereignty?,” 1065.

6. LVC, “Stop the Free Trade Agreements.”

7. Declaration of Nyéléni.

8. LVC, “CFS in Rome.”

9. Murphy, “What you Need to Know about the India–US Agreement,” November 20, 2014, http://www.iatp.org/blog/201411/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-india-us-agreement-at-the-wto#sthash.N6Z39kfS.dpuf.

10. Burnett and Murphy, “What Place for International Trade?”

11. Walton, “What is Fair Trade?”; and Fridell, “Fair Trade Slippages.”

12. See Fairtrade International’s website, http://www.fairtrade.net/.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Raynolds, Poverty Alleviation through Participation; and Jaffee, Brewing Justice.

16. Bacon, “Who decides what is Fair?”

17. Ibid; Raynolds, “Mainstreaming Fair Trade”; Jaffee, Brewing Justice; and Wilson and Curnow, “Solidarity ™.”

18. Fair Trade USA, “Fair Trade USA Resigns.”

19. VanderHoff Boersma, “The Urgency and Necessity of a Different Type of Market.”

20. Jaffee, Brewing Justice.

21. Fairtrade International, “Fairtrade Producer elected Board Chair.”

22. Jarosz, “Comparing Food Security and Food Sovereignty.”

23. Clapp, “Food Security and Food Sovereignty.” See also Patel, “Food Sovereignty.”

24. Sen, Poverty and Famines.

25. FAO, “The State of Food Insecurity.”

26. Devereux et al., Seasons of Hunger.

27. Watts and Bohle, “The Space of Vulnerability.”

28. Bacon et al., “Explaining the ‘Hungry Farmer Paradox’.”

29. Li, “Can there be Food Sovereignty Here?”

30. Mendez et al., “Effects of Fair Trade.”

31. Caswell et al., Revisiting the ‘Thin Months’.

32. Cramer et al., Fairtrade, Employment and Poverty Reduction.

33. Yin, Applications of Case Study Research.

34. Jha et al., “Review of Ecosystem Services.”

35. Bacon et al., “The Hungry Farmer Paradox.”

36. Denaux and Valdivia, Historia de PRODECOOP.

37. Bacon et al., “The Hungry Farmer Paradox.”

38. Mikkelsen, Methods for Development Work.

39. Bauer, “On the Politics and Possibilities of Participatory Mapping.”

40. PRODECOOP annual reports.

41. Austin et al., “Role of the Revolutionary State.”

42. Agarwal, “Food Sovereignty, Food Security and Democratic Choice.”

43. Coscione, “La CLAC y la Defensa del pequeno productor”; and CLAC/Fairtrade, “Comercio Justo.”

44. “Merling Preza makes the Case against FT4all.” Interview with Michael Sheridan, November 9, 2011. http://coffeelands.crs.org/2011/11/merling-preza-makes-the-case-against-ft4all.

45. Burnett and Murphy, “What Place for International Trade?”

46. Dietz et al., “The Struggle to Govern the Commons”; and Agarwal, “Food Sovereignty, Food Security and Democratic Choice.”

47. Bacon et al., “Explaining the ‘Hungry Farmer Paradox’”; Agarwal, “Food Sovereignty, Food Security and Democratic Choice”; and Sen, Poverty and Famines.

48. Poole and Donova, “Building Cooperative Capacity.”

49. Jaffee, Brewing Justice.

50. Ibid.

51. Holt-Giménez and Shattuck, “Food Crises, Food Regimes, and Food Movements.”

52. Burnett and Murphy, “What Place for International Trade in Food Sovereignty?,” 1072.

53. Holt-Giménez and Shattuck, “Food Crises, Food Regimes, and Food Movements.”