Agroecology and the reconstruction of a post-COVID-19 agriculture
Newsletter no 48 - Nyéléni process: towards a global forum of food sovereignty - nyéléni
<aside> 💡 I would like to focus on the drivers and proposed solutions to the global food system crisis, how they’re similar to the overarching themes of the contemporary climate crisis discussed in Module I, and leave with some questions as we begin to explore complex intersections in Module II. The Western concept of universalism, colonial legacy, and forced monoculture has proven yet again to be detrimental, specifically focusing on its impact to agrobiodiversity and sustainable agriculture and food systems. The climate regime’s proposed solutions ring hollow despite being marketed as “‘sustainability’, ‘conservation’ or ‘green’ values” as TNI points out in “The Global Land Grab”. Within the food system crisis, commodification of nature (e.g. green grabbing outlined by TNI’s “The Global Land Grab”) and dependence on unproven technology (e.g. BECCS outlined by FOEI’s “A Leap in the Dark”) are the same justifications we have seen in the overall climate crisis.
Inversely, in Altieri and Nichols’ “Agroecology and the reconstruction of a post-COVID-19 agriculture”, they argue that agroecology “entails a fundamentally different vision” where it seeks “to insure food sovereignty, agrarian reform, the establishment of cooperative models, and the protection of biodiversity”. One could further argue that these values are aligned to ecofeminist manifestos from previous readings. FOEI’s “Agroecology: Innovating for Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems” discusses, “It is important to understand which kinds of innovation need to be encouraged, where, and for whom,” and outlines public policy recommendations. Given these main points as I’ve outlined and that most of the readings mentioned were published before 2021, it leads me to some questions. How has thinking around nutrition and food systems changed since 2020? Is innovation the same as development or different? Besides recommendations for public policy, what about recommendations for grassroots movements?
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