Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ing life, the life of our Pachamama , because the land is our mother', (Informant 1,
MOCASE-VC, interviewed 22.2.2010).
The struggle for land is also about the historical marginalization of the
campesino sector both in the province and nationally. It is about political exclusion,
atrocities, a predatory economic environment, lak of services and cultural intoler-
ance by the hegemonic economic and political elite. Equally, it is about human and
citizen rights, food sovereignty and autonomy.
Since the late 1980s, the mobilization and organization of the campesinos in San-
tiago del Estero has aimed to contest the political culture and economic models that
disadvantage them. Because campesinos' livelihoods are rooted in their land both
economically and socially, the issue of land tenure is paramount for them. As one
member of the MOCASE-VC asserted:
he most severe hallenge is that if we want to be free we must begin to produce
food, produce our own food … And one of the most serious hallenges for this
is that the spaces and the land [that campesinos have] are very small spaces that
do not allow the development of the family, as a natural development.
Focus Group 2, MOCASE-VC, interviewed 20.3.2010
An important notion here is the moral claim to the freely hosen ability to pro-
duce one's own food, to avoid dependence on others. Perhaps of greater import-
ance, though, is the multifaceted significance of land. Loss of land entails not only
production-related ramifications but also serves as an impediment to the social re-
production of the campesino family unit.
Traditionally, campesino families in Santiago del Estero cultivate small and
private parcels of land while their animals graze freely in the forest, whih is treated
as a common, alongside the herds of neighbouring families. The advancement of the
agriculture frontier has initiated a process of enclosure. As a result, these commons
have diminished in area (in some parts of the province more than others) to a point
where they cannot sustain the campesinos ' herds, let alone the natural reproduction
of their family. If space constraints do not allow for social reproduction of the peas-
antry, then a process of depeasantization, where peasants become proletariats - as
theorized in the Disappearance Thesis (Araghi, 1995) - is inescapable. In the pro-
cess, the benefits of diversified production to the diets of the campesinos , as well as
the knowledge that enables their successful exploitation of seasonally dry landscape,
will be lost.
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