Agro-Ecology and Food Sovereignty Movements in Chile: Sociospatial Practices for Alternative Peasant Futures

Abstract

The agro-ecology and food sovereignty movements of southern Chile promote alternatives to the hegemonic agro-export regime that dominates the landscape. We explore these mobilizations and the strategies they employ, with a particular focus on a network of peasant women “seed curators.” The global agri-food complex relies on a flat and universalizing spatiality of land as resource and food as commodity, in which the character and fate of individual places is of little importance. This is paired with a hierarchical monopolization of knowledge, where producers become recipients rather than creators and custodians of agricultural inputs and know-how. In response, peasant movements have given birth to alternative spatial practices based on horizontal networks that join together interdependent producers and places. By sharing traditional and agro-ecological knowledge, cultivating alternate circuits of exchange, and building urban–rural partnerships, these movements seek to reshape the horizons of possibility both for peasant communities and for the broader agri-food system.

智利南部的农业生态与粮食主权运动，提倡在支配地景的霸权农产出口政体之外，寻求另赖可能。我们探讨这些动员及其所运用的策略，并特别关注一个名为“种子监护人”的女性农民网络。全球的农产品复合体，仰赖土地的扁平及普遍化空间性作为资源，以及粮食作为商品，其中个别地方的特徵与命运，并不具太大的重要性。而与其搭配的是知识的阶层式独佔，其中生产者成为接收者，而非创造者及农业投入与技术祕诀的看守人。农民运动，催生了根据将相互依存的生产者及地方连结在一起的水平网络的另类空间实践。透过分享传统及农业生态知识、培育交换的交替迴路，以及建立城乡伙伴关係，这些运动企图同时为农民社群与更广泛的农产品系统，重塑可能性的范畴。

Los movimientos de agroecología y soberanía alimentaria del sur de Chile promueven alternativas al régimen hegemónico agro-exportador que domina el paisaje regional. Exploramos estas movilizaciones y las estrategias que ellas emplean, enfocándonos particularmente sobre una red de mujeres campesinas “curadoras de semillas.” El complejo global agro-alimentario depende de una espacialidad plana y universalizadora de la tierra como recurso y del alimento como mercadería, en la que el carácter y suerte de los lugares individuales revisten poca importancia. Lo anterior va de la mano con una monopolización jerárquica del conocimiento, donde los productores se convierten más en receptores que en creadores y custodios de los recursos agrícolas y del saber. Como respuesta, los movimientos campesinos han dado lugar a prácticas espaciales alternativas basadas en redes horizontales que conectan a los productores interdependientes con los lugares. Al compartir conocimiento tradicional y agro-ecológico, cultivando circuitos alternos de intercambio y construyendo compañías urbano-rurales, estos movimientos buscan reconfigurar los horizontes de posibilidad tanto para las comunidades campesinas como para el más amplio sistema agro-alimentario.

Key Words:

• agro-ecology
• agri-business
• Chile
• food sovereignty
• peasant agriculture

关键词：:

• 农业生态
• 农企业
• 智利
• 粮食主权
• 农民农业。

Palabras clave:

• agroecología
• agroindustria
• Chile
• soberanía alimentaria
• agricultura campesina

Funding

The research, and also the collaboration between the authors, was funded by Fondecyt Initiation grant 11110020.

Notes

1 We use CS to refer to the interviewees who are curadoras de semillas, members of the seed saving network. We use I after the main coding to indicate when the interviewee is indigenous. All original recordings were in Spanish, with translation by the authors.

2 We use ML to refer to the interviewees who are movement leaders.

3 The fattening of the tulips refers to a state-sponsored projected to encourage peasant farmers to participate in the commercial bulb industry, where they would purchase seed bulbs and care for them until they were large enough for commercial sale.

4 Here it is important to set aside the certified organics sector. Certification is of limited importance to peasant producers due both to cost and administrative and technical requirements. At the same time it is also rejected for political reasons, precisely because it represents a top-down flow of knowledge and a loss of farmer autonomy.