Resource description:
This paper demonstrates the political power of agroecology to reorient food systems away from profit accumulation and towards better meeting community needs and food security. It depicts agroecology as anything but a purely technical intervention. This paper details the concrete mechanisms that lead to profit accumulation in traditional production systems.
Abstract
Food systems (FSs) are entangled in multiple crises, while failing to deliver healthy nutritious food for all. A significant amount of research suggests that the root cause lies in the complete integration of FSs within global capitalist structures, and the consequent subordination of issues of fairness and sustainability to profit accumulation. We first illustrate how the subordination of FSs to profit occurs. We point out how this subordination erodes the autonomy of producers, with strong environmental and social consequences for consumers and society at large. Subsequently, we discuss how agroecology could transform FSs and enhance producers’ autonomy, while mitigating the environmental and social dysfunctions. We stress how the transformative power of agroecology lies in its double nature: concrete/technical and social/political. By acting on both dimensions, agroecology may help to reorient FSs away from sheer profit accumulation and towards community needs, in line with the tenets of food sovereignty.
Author/Contact:
CEDDIA Michele; BOILLAT Sebastien; JACOBI Johanna
