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ABSTRACT
This essay examines the impacts of global food crises on rural social movements (RSMs) and recalls the context of the capitalism in crisis within which their resistance efforts are situated. It reviews key areas of RSM action: building alternative practice, deconstructing dominant narratives, boosting organizational strength, deepening political education, mobilizing to win battles that impact peoples' livelihoods, expanding convergence among movements, and reclaiming governance from corporate capture. It suggests that the transformative potential of this multitude of activities might be further sharpened by setting them within a long-term strategy of contrasting and progressively supplanting the capitalist mode of organizing the economy and society.
Acknowledgements
I deeply thank the rural social movements with whom I have built relations of trust and mutual esteem over the past years.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See, for example, HLPE Citation2020a; IPES Food Citation2022, Clapp Citation2023a; GRAIN Citation2023a, McMichael Citation2020; Bello Citation2022.
2 See ETC Citation2022a for a discussion of the evidence behind this statement.
3 I directed the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) relations with civil society for many years, seeking to open up FAO – and the UN system more generally – to organizations of small-scale producers, including through the World Food Summits which were key moments in building international RSM networking (see McKeon Citation2009a; Citation2009b). I now engage in global food governance dynamics in support of RSMs, particularly through the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (see McKeon Citation2015; Citation2021) and in action opposing corporate invasion of food governance (see McKeon Citation2018).
4 Starting from an assessment of the 1980s drought in Africa as experienced by affected African communities (McKeon Citation1988), these include most recently two rounds of popular consultations with communities and social constituencies around the world documenting the local impacts of COVID 19, conflicts and climate change, reactions by government authorities and by communities themselves, and the transformative changes that are being advocated from below (CSIPM Citation2020; Citation2022); counter-mobilization against corporate capture of food systems and the UNFSS (Food Systems 4 People Citation2021); and an autonomous assessment of the ‘national pathways’ promoted by the UNFSS undertaken by movements in Africa (CSIPM Citation2023).
5 A ‘half-full’ approach, in the terminology of Borras (Citation2023).
6 The Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers Organizations of West Africa (ROPPA) appointed me some years ago as their technical advisor on international issues and I have closely followed the evolution of this movement’s strategies (see McKeon et al. Citation2004; Citation2017). The interview with a West African peasant leader published recently in JPS is a welcome addition to coverage of this area (Coulibaly and Grajales Citation2023).
7 For a succinct introduction to food sovereignty, which has received substantial attention in The Journal of Peasant Studies – particularly since the critical dialogues hosted by Yale University and the Institute of Social Studies in 2013–2014 (https://www.iss.nl/en/research/research-networks/initiatives-critical-agrarian-studies/food-sovereignty-critical-dialogue-20132014-conference-papers-series) – see https://nyeleni.org/en/international-food-sov-movement/.
8 Of whom Franz Fanon, Samir Amin and Issa Shivji, John Iliffe and Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch are only a few of the better known.
9 As magisterially depicted in Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Part (Citation1958). We might hypothesize that, by the same token, this extraneousness might give contemporary peasant movements a distance on what is happening today, a sense that it is not necessarily in the order of things.
10 See Philip McMichael’s recent article in JPS updating the concept of ‘double movement’ for critical agrarian studies (McMichael Citation2023). See also Goodwin (Citation2018) where the concept is extended to the Global South.
11 FAO was a reference point within the multilateral system for the G77 from the time of the call for a New International Economic Order in the 1970s and for RSMs in the 1990s and the first decade of this century, as an alternative forum to the WTO, but it has increasingly been subject to infiltration by corporate interests in the current geo-political context and under the leadership of its present senior management (FIAN and Corporate Accountability Citation2022). The WEF, founded in 1971, brings together and promotes the interests of the most important multinational corporations of the world (https://www.weforum.org/about/world-economic-forum/). The HLPE is an extremely interesting example of a ‘science-policy’ interface, with its multisectoral composition, its recognition of the value of traditional and practitioner knowledge, and its interactive methodology: https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/en and Clapp Citation2023b. The CSIPM, like the HLPE an integral part of the reformed CFS, is the largest global network of CSOs active on food issues. Autonomous and self-organized, it ensures priority voice in debates in the CFS for Indigenous Peoples, RSMs and other organizations representing sectors of the population most affected by global policy issues under discussion: https://www.csm4cfs.org/.
12 See Bauer and Iles Citation2023 for a reflection on the implications of this substitution.
13 See, for example, IPES-Food (Citation2022), CCFD (Citation2022), Bretton Woods Project (Citation2022), ECVC (Citation2022), FIAN (Citation2022).
14 The situation in Gaza has carried this abhorrent practice to the point of genocide.
15 The close relation between the positions of the CSIPM and those of the HLPE provides an encouraging illustration of how social movements’ perspectives and claims can be validated by analyses conducted by autonomous, multisectoral groups of experts like the HLPE or IPES Food. The congruence between the positions of the WEF and those of FAO, on the other hand, constitutes a disturbing example of how intergovernmental institutions that ought to defend public sector values and objectives risk being highjacked by corporate interests.
16 See video recorded panel on ‘Soaring fertilizer prices: what alternatives to save the 2022–2023 agricultural campaign?’ (‘Flambée des prix des engrais: quelles alternatives pour sauver la campagne ?’): https://www.facebook.com/roppawestafrica/videos/705899007505569/.
17 For a strong denunciation of the kleptocracy of civil servants in West Africa see Coulibaly and Grajales (Citation2023).
18 The narrative regarding the ‘appropriateness’ of these ‘solutions’ is further reinforced by the impacts of climate change for which political and structural solutions continue to be avoided, as at COP 28 where the links between agriculture and climate change were finally recognized, but in a way that highlighted market and technology-driven ‘solutions’ and avoided agroecology. See civil society assessments including Moran (Citation2023) and IATP (Citation2023).
19 While the West African peasant movements have received somewhat less attention in English- language literature than have Latin America organizations and the global network La Via Campesina, they have been followed closely over the years by French-speaking researchers in France (for example CIRAD – Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement) and West Africa, (for example IPAR in Senegal and IRPAD in Mali) and by sources like Inter-réseaux – développement rural, an informative network focused on the roles and challenges of family farming with a range of members including some West African rural networks. The evolution of these movements is also richly recorded in initiatives that have captured the voices and views of rural leaders (for example the ‘Portez les paroles paysannes’ initiative of GRAD – https://www.grad-s.org/pages/paroles-paysannes/paroles-paysannes.html). Special mention among French chroniclers of West African peasant movements goes to Bernard Lecomte, a founder of GRAD (see Lecomte Citation2008 for a review of the phases of the construction of the West African peasant movement), and to an insightful and discrete sociologist, Loic Barbedette, who since 1982 has accompanied a number of West African rural associations and networks in carrying out their own analysis of their contexts and their itineraries.
20 The Maisons Familiales Rurales, the Senegalese version of a French association.
21 With its multifunctional optic and its penchant for critical reflection, self-evaluation, popular education, and rooted peasant-based knowledge the FONGS has continued, over the years, to function as a source of innovation for the West African movements.
22 Understood to include fisherfolk and pastoralists.
23 Despite its fragilized situation and its insertion in a steadily evolving agrarian context (Barbedette Citation2004; ROPPA Citation2017; Gyapong Citation2020).
24 Among the most dramatic evidence emerging from one of the popular consultations in Africa (21 July 2021) was the sharp rise in household violence against women, resulting in increases in unwanted pregnancies on the part of girl children.
25 Social movements are now adopting the term ‘peasant agroecology’ to distinguish the ‘real thing’ from fake imitations whose products are invading supermarket shelves.
26 It is encouraging to see that, thanks to persistent social movement advocacy, they are receiving increased recognition also at the level of global institutions like ILO and the UN General Assembly. See UNGA resolution on ‘“Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development” adopted on 18 April 2023: https://social.desa.un.org/sdn/new-un-resolution-on-social-and-solidarity-economy.
27 The term ‘family farming’ does not do justice to more inclusive French version. A key figure in reinstating the centrality of the exploitation familiale in West African strategizing was Senegalese sociologist Jacques Faye, in particular in his paper on L’Exploitation Familiale du Terroir à l’Environnement International produced in Citation1999 in the context of an innovative FAO technical assistance project supporting the Senegalese peasant movement.
28 For accounts of the birth and evolution of the FONGS see Cissokho (Citation2009), McKeon et al. (Citation2004), and Hrabanski (Citation2010).
29 Interview conducted in June 2019 by the author of this article.
30 For more information on the peasant-controlled data collection system developed in Senegal see CNCR (Citation2014). This system has made it possible to differentiate among more and less resilient categories of family farms, which require differentiated forms of support, in a constantly evolving agrarian setting. This work has been extended to the regional level in the form of a ‘Family Farming Observatory’ which generates evidence for advocacy vis-à-vis public policies and reflection within the movement on key issues such as the situation and aspirations of youth in the context of a penalizing rural economy and traditionally patriarchal family model. See ROPPA (Citation2020a).
31 ‘Filières’ in the French terminology.
32 See Barbedette (Citation2004) and Cissokho (Citation2009) for vivid accounts of the misfit between commodity production-oriented agricultural programs and the reality that production actually takes place in family farms rooted in diversification and self-reproduction.
33 One of the first acts of the newly created Senegalese CNCR was to stimulate its members’ sense of responsibility by urging them to make good on unpaid rural taxes (McKeon et al. Citation2004), a measure that the Latin American members of the nascent LVC found incomprehensible.
34 UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, adopted by the General Assembly on 17 December 2018: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1650694.
35 Although the percentage continues to be contested precisely because it is such a telling piece of alter-capitalist evidence (ETC Group Citation2022a).
36 See CONCORD (Citation2017).
37 This imperative has to be contextualized in the range of existing situations, from those where organized agrarian movements are weak or absent to those where they are better structured and more combative (Borras and Franco Citation2023).
38 The influence of donors, for example, has been an object of concern since the beginnings of the growth of peasant movements in the 1990s (see McKeon, Watts, and Wolford Citation2004 regarding West African movements and Edelman Citation2024 for the example of ASOCDE). It is far from superseded today although it seems to be receiving less critical attention. Factors such as competition for donor funds among CSOs and donor-imposed conditioning of RSM programmes and ways of operating hinder the growth of strong, autonomous movements.
39 Without romanticising the complex and conflictual nature of social movement relations (see Borras and Franco Citation2023).
40 Including ROPPA, which maintains a dominantly masculine voice despite the creation of a ‘Women’s College’, support for women’s economic activities, and inclusion of women in delegations.
41 Powerful voices in the CFS sought to limit to the scope of these negotiations to quantitative data and to ignore the difficult issue of data governance, but the CSIPM is profiting from this occasion to raise awareness of social movements concerning the challenges posed by digitalization. See https://www.csm4cfs.org/policy-working-groups/data/
42 The Senegalese CNCR has recently taken strategic advantage of scheduled presidential elections to launch a mobilization involving thousands of people in localities throughout the country around a six point agenda responding to key concerns of family farmers: formalizing the statute of ‘family farmer’, extending social protection measures to agricultural producers, convening the national council that is intended to create a space for their dialogue with authorities, strengthening rural finance, implementing more effective strategies in favor of rural youth, finalizing the process of land tenure reform launched over 25 years ago. The year-long, participatory process of developing and substantiating the advocacy agenda constituted an effective action of political education for peasant organization leaders and membership. CNCR (Citation2024).
43 See Asbed (Citation2022).
44 See Holt-Giminez and Shattuck (Citation2011). See also Wiebe (Citation2023) on the delicate issue of building solidarity that is inclusive of diversity without diluting the radical core.
45 In reaction to the COVID 19 pandemic ROPPA took the initiative to establish a monitoring and action committee (Comité de Veille et d’Action) including the regional pastoralists networks and other regional CSOs, which has continued to function as a convergence space. See ROPPA (Citation2020b).
46 See IPC (Citation2023) and Nyéléni (Citation2023).
47 The UNFSS and the countermobilization are extensively documented and analysed in the documentation available on the websites of the CSIPM (https://www.csm4cfs.org/policy-processes/challenging-the-food-systems-summit/) and the Autonomous People’s Response to the UNFSS (https://foodsystems4people.org/) and in multiple academic articles. See, in particular, a special issue of Development edited by members of the academic group that was formed to support the efforts of the CSIPM and the countermobilization (Volume 64, Issue 3–4): https://link.springer.com/journal/41301/volumes-and-issues/64-3. For analyses of multistakeholderism and where it is heading see Food Systems 4 People (Citation2023a), FIAN (Citation2023); McKeon Citation2017; and Gleckmann Citation2023.
48 For a critical reaction to the Stocktaking Event see Food Systems 4 People (Citation2023b).
49 Lead researcher for this study was Mamadou Goita, director of IRPAD, a key facilitator of African rural social movements.
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Nora McKeon
Nora McKeon studied history at Harvard and political science at the Sorbonne before joining FAO, where she directed the organization’s relations with civil society. She now engages in research, teaching and advocacy around food systems, food movements and global food governance. She is technical advisor on international questions of the West African network of peasant and agricultural producer organizations, ROPPA. Her publications include: The United Nations and Civil Society: Legitimating Global Governance? (Zed 2009), Global Governance for World Food Security: A scorecard four years after the eruption of the ‘food crisis’ (Heinrich Böll Stiftung 2011), Food Security Governance: empowering communities, regulating corporations (Routledge 2015), and ‘Global Food Governance’ (Development, Vol 63 issue 2, September 2021).