Brazilian Foreign Policy and Family Farming: Internationalisation Processes through the Analysis of ‘Forums and Arenas’

Abstract

Brazil’s federal government officially defined family farming (FF) as a public policy agenda in 1996; however, since then, Brazil’s foreign policy in the field of agriculture has given priority to the role of agribusiness in the export of commodities and its contribution to the country’s GDP and trade. While questioning the governmental narrative rooted in a dual agricultural structure (wherein FF and agribusiness would both be similarly relevant), this article also highlights the internationalisation processes of FF through the analysis of different forums in Brazilian foreign policy. Our goal is to understand how each of these forums and arenas has contributed to the international acknowledgement of FF as a ‘best practice’, but also to analyse the strengths and sustainability of what we label as the internationalisation resilience of FF, particularly when we consider the severe reflux of FF policies in Brazil since 2016.

“One Single Agriculture”: Dismantling Policies and Silencing Peasant Family Farmers in Brazilian Foreign Policy (2016-2022)

“…Engaging with the current global wave of de-democratization, these studies seek to understand how established policies, programs and systems decrease in both density and intensity. In Brazil, this field of inquiry has mushroomed in recent years, in response to the country's democratic backsliding (Sabourin et al 2020;Luiz and Milani 2022;Serafim et al forthcoming). Yet its application to foreign policy remains overlooked.…”

“…Although Brazilian policies for peasant family farming go back over 50 years (Campelo and Bortoletto 2022), it was during the PT rule that family farmers, including peasants and their interests, decisively appeared in the public agenda, including foreign policy (Brasil 2013;Luiz and Milani 2022). That is, peasant interests were included in foreign policymaking, through the participation of individuals and organizations self-identified as peasants, as well as the representation of their interests by third parties -organized civil society and state bureaucracy.…”