Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Using these criteria, the only two true transnational social movements discussed thus
far would be Fair Trade and MCAC. However, there is one more important movement
meeting these criteria that has yet to be mentioned:  La Vía Campesina (LVC),orthe
InternationalPeasantFarmers'movement.
AlthoughFairTrade,MCACandLVCareallworthyofscholarlyconsideration,LVC
is unique in the breadth of its goals and reach. Neither MCAC, which extends through
Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, nor Fair Trade, with member farmers
inanestimatedsixtycountries,canmatchthesixty-ninecountrieswithLVCmember
organizations.Further,MCAChasfocusedonfarmer-to-farmereducationandhasno
infrastructureforlobbyingormobilization,andthevaluesaddressedbyFairTradeare
limitedbyitsfocusonconsumersovereignty(Fridell2007,JohnsonandMacKendrick,
thisvolume).LVC'scombinationofsustainedtransnationalinteractionsandmobiliza-
tion, an ambitious agenda, and global reach make it unique even among true transna-
tionalfoodmovements.Fortheseandotherreasons,thispiecefocusesonLVC.Toa
largeextent,LVCmaybeseenasanaxisaroundwhichothercontemporarymovements
fordefensiblevaluesinfoodsystemsturn.Ithasshapeddebateandconceptualterrains
attheinternationallevel(e.g.,withintheFAO,WorldBank,andWTO)withvarying
levelsofsuccess(Desmarais2007;Borras2008).“Itsmemberorganisationshaveeven
helpedtopplenationalgovernments...ordefendedthem,”(Martínez-TorresandRosset
2010,151).
Inthischapter,I willexamineLaVíaCampesinaasasocialmovementanditsadvo-
cacyof“defensiblevalues.”Speciically,I willdescribeitsightfor normatively defensible
values —forafoodsystemrelectingidealsofethicsandjustice—anditsquesttobuild
and maintain defensible lifespaces for small farmers in terms of socioeconomic, ecologi-
cal,andpoliticalautonomy.Lastly,I willexaminehowtheiraimsandtacticsalignwith
current scholarship on the issues of sustainability and autonomy.
Defining La Vía Campesina and
Defensible Values
La Vía Campesina and the Global Peasantry
Around40 percentoftheworldpopulationdirectlydependsonagricultureforliveli-
hood.Further,nearly90 percentofthesepeopleworkonsmallfarms(i.e.,undertwo
hectaresinsize),occupyingaround60 percentoftheworld'sarableland(IAASTD
2009,8).hus,“smallholderfarming...remainsthemostcommonformoforganiza-
tioninagriculture,eveninindustrialcountries”(WorldBank2007,91).
In the nearly twenty years since its inception, LVC has worked consciously to
adopt and promote an umbrella “peasant identity” that includes most of these esti-
mated 404  million small farms, intentionally conlating family farmers, subsistence
 
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