From neoliberalism to national developmentalism? Contested agrarian imaginaries of a postneoliberal future for food and farming

Abstract

This review examines three recent books that address the relationship between neoliberalism and agribusiness, on the one hand, and the demise of smallholder farming, traditional diets and the rise of diet‐related chronic illness, on the other. The first, by Timothy Wise, adopts what may be characterized as an ‘agrarian populist’ stance, constructing a universal binary between trans‐nationalizing agribusiness and a unified family farm sector. Protagonists from the latter are seen to embody the future, using agroecology to feed the world sustainably in a time of climate crisis. This is not a consistently propeasant stance, however; Wise seems rather to advocate a ‘farmer road’ to national capitalist development. The other two books, by Alyshia Galvez and Gerardo Otero, cover quite similar ground to one another, looking explicitly at the rise of neoliberalism, the decline of traditional farming and diets and the rise of processed food‐related diseases. Unlike ‘agrarian populists’, both authors privilege the state and ‘class struggle’ (sensu lato) in analysing the dynamics of neoliberalism, free trade agreements and food policies. Normatively, both see the state as pivotal in generating policies centred around smaller scale farming and the production of nutritious food for all. For Otero, like Wise, these policies seem to be tied to a form of national developmentalism as an escape route from neoliberalism. For Galvez, the future is less clear‐cut—although by inclination ‘propeasant’, she does not exclude elements of national developmentalism in envisioning a postneoliberal world.

Missing the Target: Brazil's Agricultural Policy Indirectly Subsidizes Foreign Investments to the Detriment of Smallholder Farmers and Local Agribusiness

“…To promote supply chains with greater market shares by domestic companies could be the first step in the transition to sustainable production systems aiming to strengthen family farming and environmental responsibility. However, this change will only be possible with the rupture of the current agricultural financing model and the consequent change in political conditions (Tilzey, 2021). In this sense, transition to a genuinely green economy would require the radical redistribution of land to agroecologically-based smallholder production and the elimination of agro-industrially produced exports priority.…”

Resistencia a la transición agroecológica en México

“…Por un lado, se ha escrito bastante sobre la resistencia a favor de la agroecología, textos que se refieren a la lucha contrahegemónica de campesinas y campesinos de diversas regiones del mundo, para defender su agua, su tierra y su cultura alimentaria frente al sistema agroalimentario globalizado o hegemónico (Dutta, 2012;Gandarilla, 2012;Labigalini, Saquet y Oliveira, 2017;McMichael, 2005;Monjane y Bruna, 2020;Rodríguez, Pini y Baker, 2016;Tilzey, 2021;Rabello, Concheiro y Thomaz, 2018). Pero, por otro lado, poca atención ha recibido el estudio de la resistencia a la que se enfrentan las iniciativas de transición agroecológica, sobre todo en regiones donde prevalece la hegemonía del paradigma de la modernización agroalimentaria.…”

“…A partir de 2021, con base en las propuestas gubernamentales en pro de una agricultura sustentable, como lo demuestra el impulso de diversos programas de la Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (SADER) y de la Secretaría del Bienestar en México (La Jornada, 2021), se ha vivido un boom de iniciativas en beneficio de la agroecología, esfuerzos que podrían terminar en el fracaso porque no se está considerando la resistencia a la transición agroecológica presente en la práctica cotidiana de una agricultura cuyos principios fundamentales se centran en el paradigma de la modernización agroalimentaria. Por otra parte, diversos sectores tecno-científicos defienden todavía los procesos agroindustriales propios de la revolución verde (Tilzey, 2021), de ahí la necesidad de poner en evidencia dicha resistencia y de analizar los factores que la reproducen.…”

The Political Ecology of Hedgerows and Their Relationship to Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in the UK

“…Far from sustaining the biodiversity and landscape resource as before (through organic rotational systems or as an inadvertent result of economic depression), agriculture now became the central factor in its loss and decline (Tilzey, 2000). A massive acceleration in the rate of biodiversity loss and decline followed, attributable structurally to the impacts of a particular model of capitalist development termed "national developmentalism" (Tilzey, 2020). As applied to the agriculture sector, we may refer to this model as "political productivism, " a state-managed policy framework to which an acceleration of the processes of "appropriationism" and "substitutionism" 3 are central.…”