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Abstract
Food sovereignty policy initiatives face significant challenges in their quest to be approved. This article examines the case of Nicaragua’s Law 693, the Law of Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security, which was passed in 2009. Drawing on empirical research, the article details the initial stages of the policy-making process – from the origins and development of the proposal for a food sovereignty law to its introduction and initial deliberation by the National Assembly to the breakdown in the approval process because of conflict over the law’s content. Using theoretical insights from the food sovereignty and food security policy literature, Law 693 is examined, noting key limitations food sovereignty faced during the policy-making process. The study finds that the strength and force of national food sovereignty discourses, the ability of food sovereignty advocates to convince others of the legitimacy and viability of the food sovereignty approach, and the willingness of the state to create the necessary conditions to foster food sovereignty are all important factors when evaluating the potential for food sovereignty to be successfully adopted into public policies.
Acknowledgments
The author expresses her appreciation to Fidaa Shehada, Falguni Guharay, Nils McCune, three anonymous reviewers, and especially Christina Schiavoni for their thoughtful insights and suggestions on this contribution.
Notes
1. Wittman et al., “Seeing like a Peasant,” 2. Since its introduction by LVC, the concept has evolved and become more nuanced. This is easily traced via declarations from successive international meetings addressing food sovereignty, at which the concept has been collectively deliberated and rearticulated. Despite variances, most definitions of food sovereignty share common elements.
2. Edelman, ‘Food Sovereignty.”
3. Edelman, ‘Transnational Organizing in Agrarian Central America”; Edelman, “Food Sovereignty”; and Martinez-Torres and Rosset, “La Vía Campesina.”
4. See Desmarais, Globalization and the Power of Peasants; and Rosset, “Food Sovereignty.” For a description of the productionist approach, see Lang and Heasman, Food Wars.
5. See, for example, McMichael, “Global Development and the Corporate Food Regime.”
6. La Vía Campesina, “The Right to Produce.”
7. See Araújo, “The Promise and Challenges of Food Sovereignty Policies”; Araújo and Godek, “Can Food Sovereignty Laws make the World more Democratic?”; Beauregard, “Food Policy for People”; and Wittman et al., “Seeing like a Peasant.”
8. See Araújo and Godek, “Can Food Sovereignty Laws make the World more Democratic?”; Beauregard, “Food Policy for People”; Wittman et al., “Seeing like a Peasant”; and Giunta, “Food Sovereignty in Ecuador.”
9. For comprehensive discussions of the food sovereignty framework and its evolution, see Desmarais, Globalization and the Power of Peasants; Pimbert, Towards Food Sovereignty; and Windfuhr and Jonsén, Food Sovereignty.
10. Lang and Heasman, Food Wars.
11. Mooney and Hunt, “Food Security.”
12. Gamson, “Constructing Social Protest.”
13. Candel et al., “Disentangling the Consensus Frame of Food Security.”
14. Moony and Hunt, “Food Security.”
15. Candel et al., “Disentangling the Consensus Frame of Food Security.”
16. See, for example, Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change.
17. Patel, ‘What does Food Sovereignty look Like?”
18. Ibid; and Wittman and Desmarais, “Farmers, Foodies and First Nations.” See also Drolet et al., “Food Security in Nicaragua.” Drolet et al.’s unpublished study tested an FAO policy analysis framework and placed very little emphasis on the food sovereignty dimension of Law 693; however, they did find that key Nicaraguan stakeholders – some of whom participated in making Law 693 – understood food sovereignty in significantly different ways.
19. Boyer, “Food Security,” 333; Claeys, ‘The Creation of New Rights”; Mesner, “The Territory of Self-determination”; and Shiavoni, “Competing Sovereignties.”
20. Boyer, “Food Security,” 333.
21. Ibid., 334.
22. Clark, “Food Sovereignty,” 7. See also Peschard, “Farmers’ Rights and Food Sovereignty.”
23. McKay et al., “The ‘State’ of Food Sovereignty in Latin America.”
24. Shiavoni, “Competing Sovereignties,” 3. See also Giunta, “Food Sovereignty in Ecuador” for a discussion of how such relations are being renegotiated in Ecuador; and Trauger, “Toward a Political Geography of Food Sovereignty.”
25. See Clark, “Food Sovereignty.”
26. In Nicaragua, the concept of ‘sovereignty’ is historically significant and can be traced back to Augusto César Sandino’s popular nationalist movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Thanks to the influence of Sandino in the Revolution, the concept was an intrinsic part of revolutionary rhetoric.
27. See, for example, Austin et al., “The Role of the Revolutionary State”; Biondi-Morra, Hungry Dreams.
28. For a rich description of PCAC, see Holt-Giménez, Campesino a Campesino.
29. For a rich description of PCAC, see E. Holt-Giménez, Campesino a Campesino: Voces de Latinoamérica – Movimiento Campesino a Campesino para la Agricultura Sostenible, Managua: SIMAS, 2008.
30. Interview with MAF representative, July 27, 2012.
31. The ATC was instrumental in the establishment of both UNAPA, which represents small producers, and MAF, which is comprised of six national agriculture and forestry organisations, including the ATC and UNAPA. In addition to the ATC, UNAPA and MAF became members of LVC. UNAG left LVC in 1996–97, although it remained the home of PCAC-Nicaragua.
32. Interview with GISSAN representative, August 24, 2011.
33. See FAO, Rome Declaration on World Food Security.
34. D. Zeledón, “Proceso de la Ley de SSAN en Nicaragua,” National Assembly of Nicaragua, Managua, n.d, 1.
35. Including United Nations agencies, international institutions, international cooperation agencies, government agencies, NGOs and universities.
36. The Alemán government, as well as the governments that preceded and followed it (the Chamorro and Bolaños administrations), were neoliberal in their orientation.
37. Alemán Lacayo, “De Creación de la Comisión Nacional.”
38. Lorio Castillo, Avances en la aplicación de la Ley de Soberanía, 8; and FAO, “Estado de la Seguridad Alimentaria.”
39. See National Assembly of Nicaragua for a chronology of the bill once it was introduced. Accessed April 4, 2014, http://www.asamblea.gob.ni/trabajo-legislativo/agenda-legislativa/ultimas-iniciativas-dictaminadas.
40. “Interview with Dora Zeledón – April 2002,” http://www.rdfs.net/news/interviews/zeledon-apr2002_en.htm.
41. For more in-depth discussion of the PNSAN’s limitations, see Lorio Castillo, Avances en la aplicación de la Ley de Soberanía; and Sahley et al., The Governance Dimensions.
42. Interview, July 6, 2012.
43. A MAF representative stated that the impetus behind the formation of GISSAN came from LVC to promote food sovereignty through the establishment of links between farmer organisations and CSOs. Personal communication, February 7, 2013. At one point in the mid-2000s, GISSAN membership peaked at 70-some organisations. GISSAN’s membership included organisations that were also part of other organisational networks and coalitions tackling issues that were expressly part of the food sovereignty framework and included in GISSAN’s platform, namely the fight against GMOs, water privatisation, and the negotiation of what would become the Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement.
44. The mission and vision statements quoted here were retrieved from GISSAN’s former website, http://gissannicaragua.org, in April 2010. This website is no longer active.
45. Personal communication with former GISSAN/UNAPA representative, October 24, 2014.
46. Interview with GISSAN representative, August 24, 2011.
47. Ibid.
48. Interview with Food Policy Consultant, June 27, 2012.
49. See Hunger-Free Latin America and Caribbean website, at http://www.rlc.fao.org/en/initiative/the-initiative, accessed 4 April 2014.
50. See http://www.asamblea.gob.ni/trabajo-legislativo/agenda-legislativa/ultimas-leyes-aprobadas/ for a copy of the letter sent by the president of the committee, Deputy Walmaro Gutiérrez, to the First Secretary of the National Assembly, dated October 5, 2005.
51. Interview with GISSAN representative, August 24, 2011.
52. Ibid.
53. The National Assembly, however, was still controlled by the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC).
54. ‘Zero Hunger’ provides rural women with seeds, small livestock, and technical assistance to encourage food production and greater family and community food security. CSSA was short-lived. After six months the director was reappointed to lead the Zero Hunger programme.
55. Interviews with National Assembly deputies, August 21 and 27, 2011.
56. Interview with National Assembly deputy, August 21, 2011; Zeledón, “Proceso de la Ley,” 2.
57. COSEP is the principle advocacy organisation for the private sector in Nicaragua and plays a strong role in policy formation, with its representatives working not only on national policies but also on international policies, including DR-CAFTA.
58. Interview with former FAO official, March 7, 2012.
59. There are 92 deputies in the National Assembly, thus the proposed law received strong support from the legislature.
60. Following the approval of the law in general, the law is then ‘approved in the particular’ by the deputies, meaning that each article of the law is reviewed, debated and voted on. Once a law is approved in general, no changes can be made to its content except through motions.
61. For the transcripts of the National Assembly debates on the law, see http://www.asamblea.gob.ni/trabajo-legislativo/diario-de-debates/.
62. Interview with former FAO official, March 7, 2012; and interview with COSEP representative, June 26, 2012.
63. A step typically carried out by the National Assembly before the passing of a law in which different societal actors are consulted as to their position on proposed legislation.
64. From the viewpoint of the private sector, it was unclear, first, what ‘strict control’ referred to and, second, how food safety would be assessed without having clear means by which to measure or analyse the risk posed by products containing genetically modified material.
65. Interview with Campesino a Campesino representative, June 6, 2012; and interview with Centro Humboldt representative, March 11, 2013. It was explained that many Sandinista leaders had become businessmen in the 1990s and had investments or strong ties to powerful agribusinesses.
66. Interview with COSEP representative, June 26, 2012.
67. Ibid.
68. See, for example, Murphy, “Expanding the Possibilities for a Future Free of Hunger.”
69. For example, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), “Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: General Comment 12,” Twentieth Session, Geneva, April 26–14 May 1999, subsection 29, at http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/3d02758c707031d58025677f003b73b9; and FAO, The Right to Food in Practice.
70. See Müller, “The Temptation of Nitrogen.”
71. Clark, “Food Sovereignty.”