Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
to purchase food only produced in a small nearby area would sever these
relationships.
W hen producers and consumers are integrally connected because of
historical and contemporary political economic dynamics, can ethical
and environmentally sustainable consumption and production be con-
fined only to “local”?22 The cultural politics of Kerala's organic farming
movement suggest otherwise. Tensions within the state's agricultural sec-
tor suggest that the buy-
local movement everywhere would be well served
if it integrated social, cultural, and historical factors in its political analysis
of the food system. Truly reforming our industrial food system to become
more equitable and ecological will require us to rethink the politics of
“local.” After all, and as others have pointed out, it is still possible to ex-
ploit workers and harm the environment while buying only local goods.23
To rethink “local,” however, is not meant to efface its place in our global-
izing world but to beter see how its politics are intimately connected to
global politics.
The twentieth anniversary of La Via Campesina, a global agrarian
peasant movement comprised of over 150 member organizations in 70
countries, underscores a more sagacious and radical way of thinking about
“local.” Since 1993, La Via Campensina has been advocating for “food sov-
ereignty,” a concept that goes beyond self-suiciency and localism.24 This
more comprehensive concept has been gaining momentum among social
movements, farmers, agrarian communities, and alternative agricultural
organizations worldwide.
Food sovereignty refers to the ability of local farmers and agrarian
communities to democratically make decisions about their production
practices, marketing strategies, and livelihoods, with local and global con-
sumers in mind. As food activist Raj Patel recently stated in an interview,
food sovereignty does not trump swaraj or self-suiciency: “It is just that
in practice in the world that we live in at the moment, it is hard to imagine
a country or a territory or a city being self-suicient, but it is easier to
imagine that people can carry on exchanging but exchanging in terms
where there is actually a democratic discussion first about the terms of
that exchange.”25
Unlike self-suiciency or more narrow conceptions of “local,” food
