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rotecting future generations

through commons

Editors

Saki Bailey

Gilda Farrell and Ugo Mattei

Trends in

Social Cohesion No. 26

Council of Europe Publishing

8/11/2019 id2430704


French edition:

roteger

/es

generations futures

ravers /es biens

communs

ISBN

978-92-871-7706-3

The opinions expressed in this work are

the

responsibility

o the

authors

and

do

not

necessarily

reflect the official policy

o

he

Council o

Europe

All rights

reserved

. No part o this publication may be translated,

reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic

CD-Rom, Internet, etc.) or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without

prior permission in writing from the Directorate o Communication

F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex or [email protected]).

Cover design: Documents and Publications Production Department

SPDP), Council

o

Europe

Cover photo: Masakazu Matsumoto

Layout: Jouve, Paris

Council o Europe Publishing

F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex

http

://book.coe .int

ISBN

978-92-871-7707-0

Council

o

Europe, December 2013

Printed at the Council

o

Europe

8/11/2019 id2430704


Peasant farming: commoning through

co production for future generations

by Luigi

Russi

239

•

24

ntroduction

The

global debate on the future

o

agriculture is too often charac

terised

by

one notable omission : peasant farming. When peasant

farmers

are

considered

in

the context

o

mainstream approaches,

centred on the maximisation

o

production through an increasing

technification

o

agriculture

Lang

and

Heasman

2004:34), they

are

invariably relegated

to

the role

o

the last

o

the Mohicans , bearers

o

the rudiments

o

a surpassed culture (understood both

as an

outlook on the world and method

o

cultivation) that will, sooner or

later, be wiped away.

In

this chapter, I argue instead that similar mainstream accounts

completely

miss

the

essential

role

o

peasant farming

in

promoting

stewardship for the natural

resource

base, a role that

has

allowed

this mode

o

farming

to

endure

in

ecological

symbiosis

to this day

(despite the widespread technification

o

agriculture that

was

pursued

relentlessly throughout the 19th century). Most importantly, peasant

farming

displays

features which,

in

the light

o

the present environ

mental

crisis,

seem to offer a way out

o

the impasse to which exten

sive, technified agriculture has been a decisive contributor. From this

lens, therefore, peasant farming emerges as an attempt to

carve

out

spaces

o

co-production through which to promote intergenerational

justice,

by

helping rebalance the existing disequilibria brought about

by

the productionist approach to agriculture.

I develop

my

argument through the following

steps.

First,

I introduce

the concept

o

peasant co-production, and examine

how

it

has been

challenged

by an

increasing fencing

o

the conditions

o

agricultural

239. Research Assooate,

Institute for

the

Study of Political Economy

and Law,

International

University College

of

Tunn

and

M.

Phil.JPhD

candidate

1n

International

Politics,

City

University

London.

240 . This article 1s

adapted

from

Russi

L (2013), Hungry Capital

The

Financialization

o

Food

Zero

Books,

Winchester. The author would e o ac nowledge Zero

Books

for

permission

to

reproduce sections

from

the book 1n this chapter

.

8/11/2019 id2430704


production outside of the fa rm, through the role of multinationals,

but

also

of state apparatuses implementing forms of blind hier

archical control. Secondly, I speofically look at peasant farming as a

form

of

resistance, or counterwork , through the opening

of spaces

that enable the subtraction or exodus of the activity of farming from

the sum total of commodity relations. Finally, in the conclusion I

review the main points and observe how peasant co-production can

be specifically articulated as an instance of commoning for intergen

erational justice.

easant f rming and industri l griculture

Ploeg (2008:23) defines the peasant condition as consisting both of an

element of resistance and

an

element of autonomy.

In

other words, it

can

be characterised

as

both

an

attempt to minimise dependency rela

tions (for example from the market),

as

well

as

a practice of building

autonomy through the creation of a resilient farm that relies mostly

on inputs that

are

produced internally. The two aspects are to some

extent

sides

of the same coin,

as

the building

of

autonomy - especially

vis-a-vis market-mediated relations -

carves

spaces of resistance to the

profitability calculus of economic relations, replacing that logic

with

different metrics of

success

endogenous

to

the peasant world Ploeg

2008:269),

as

exemplified for instance by the concept of beautiful

farm Ploeg 2008: 117-8). It is within this background that the logic

of farming

as

co-production between man and living nature acquires

centrality as an ordering principle that lies outside of the logic of

economic profitability that hovers over the world of food production,

acting both as a limit and a first victim to the expansionism of profit

driven relations under the pressure of a productionist paradigm.

In

peasant farming, it is the relational aspect- co-production - that

takes primacy over the elements of man and nature. Far from

being fixed entities, in fact, the latter acquire their reciprocal identities

precisely through the ongoing interaction and mutual transforma

tion Ploeg 2008:24) entailed in the process of co-production. So,

for example, in a co-production relationship man is moulded

as

a

designer of

ecosystems, who

deploys common sense and craft

to

create a durable habitat to support human dwelling Tudge 2007:39-

40; Carolan 2012 :205). Similarly, nature

receives

meaning as a set of

living relationships between different ecological components Biel

2012:5) .

These

relationships

are

regarded

as an

aid

in

the struggle

for autonomy through the establishment of a resilient resource base,

8/11/2019 id2430704


rather than an obstacle to be worked around through the superimpo

sition

of

engineered connections (Carolan 2012:206-7

).

This

relationship

of

co-production increasingly features

as

the first

victim of the inclusion of farmers into market circles (which increases

patterns of dependency), and the ensuing need

to

replace the metric

of

peasant quality with one based purely on cost-benefit calculations

Tudge 2007 :58). Indeed, the organic nature of agricultural produc

tivity - which lies at the core of the logic of co-production,

based

as

it is on the acknowledgment of and co-operation with ecological

cycles -

is

widely recognised

as

an obstacle

to

capitalist accumulation

(Bernstein 2001 :27). In light

of

this, the inclusion

of

rural production

within a wider web

of

economic relations

has

occurred through the

stripping away of ecological complexity mediated

by

a technological

effort aimed at the simplification and standardisation of agricultural

production,

so

as to replicate the ideal

of

control experienced in the

factory setting (Bernstein 2001 :28). Hence, technological innovation

has played a crucial role in the decline

of

smallholder, peasant agricul

ture, towards entrepreneurial farming based on a high dependency

on markets and the ensuing internalisation of the logic of financial

costs

and benefits (Goodman and Redclift

1991

:71). It was precisely

through a technification

of

agriculture that the latter was made less

labour-intensive (thereby freeing up labour), while simultaneously

retaining productivity despite increases in scale

so

as

to

restructure

agriculture

as

the breadbasket of industrial centres).

This

techno

logically-driven marginalisation of the peasantry has affected different

parts

of

the world at different times: it took hold in the Western world

by the turn of the 19th century (Goodman and Redclift 1991 :96),

whereas

it

proceeded in several stages,

ut

most intensely from the

1970s with the Green Revolution, in the former colonised world

(Bernstein

2001

:35-6).

Despite the wide variety in the specifics of peasant farming

across

the

world, autonomy vis-a-vis market relations

has

been said

to

represent

the edge

of

the struggle between peasant and more entrepreneurial

modes

of

farming across the developed and the developing world

(Ploeg 2008:39, 42; Harriss 1982:22; Girelli 2011 ). In this respect, the

tendency towards establishing relations

of

dependency with a market

of

mechanical and chemical inputs

such

as

fertilizers and pesticides)

and with one

of

agricultural commodity outputs (dominated by agri

food corporations and retail giants) (Bernstein

2001

:28), has acted

against the peasant principle of distancing the farm from markets

to

8/11/2019 id2430704


make

it

more resilient (Ploeg 2008:114).

The

squeezing

of

modern

farming in a supply-chain-type relation with industrial capital - both

through the provision of che mical and mechanical inputs and the

purchase

of

outputs for further

process

ing/sale -

has

given

rise

to

wh t

has been termed the technolog i

cal

treadmill Lang and Heasman

2004: 148). In essence, as farmers increasingly move into technology

intensive, monocultural techniques, this allows them

to

increase their

production while prices

are

still high. However, as more farmers do the

same,

prices fall, and new increases in scale and/or enhancements in

technology are

necessary to

stay afloat. Therefore, the costs

of

non

farm inputs rise

precisely because farmers respond

to

decreasing prices

by increasing

size

and using artificial inputs Ploeg 2008:129). One

has

to

add

to

this that, in the present day, increased concentration in

the upstream sectors further compresses the prices farmers are able

to

obtain (Ward 1993:358; Lines 2008:73). The result

is

a squeeze on

farmer incomes, which has - in turn - called for state action

to

stabilise

the conditions within which market dependency could endure

without

wiping out farming altogether Ploeg 2008:127). So, for example, the

European Common Agricultural Policy CAP)

is

a paramount example

of a scheme which was established

to

subsidise industrial agricul

ture,

so

as

to

hold up farmers entangled in a novel ordering that would

-

without

these crutches - have

been

more fragile than peasant agri

culture (Borgan 1969:252-60). Within the new paradigm of mecha

nised agriculture, features like scale and specialisation become

key,

contrary

to

the experience

of

peasant farming, where intensive (rather

than extensive) cultivation and diversity rather than monocultural

specialisation are some of the ways in which autonomy is achieved

(Rowbotham 1998:119). This,

of course,

has

occurred at the cost

of forgoing the need

to

preserve the natural resource

base,

leaving

unchecked a whole host

of

ecological problems that can be ascribed

directly

to

technified agriculture Weis 2010:316; Tudge 2007:102-4).

Additionally, the job

of

farming has changed drastically. On the one

hand,

it

has gone from a craft-based occupation

to

something

not

much different

to

working on the assembly line, as farmers follow

instructions

to

assemble their industrial and chemical inputs

together in

wh t has

been called farming by numbers

Tudge

2007: 123). Secondly, the need to embrace increasing technological

innovation

has

often forced farmers into a spiral

of

debt (Rowbotham

1998:114). Aside from making farming a frustrating, lonely experience

to

the point of forcing some farmers

to

take their own lives (Laughton

2008:

51 ),

technification and indebtedness have also pushed aside the

8/11/2019 id2430704


quality logic of peasant farming . Instead,

farme

rs have increas ingly

internalised the

calculative practices

adopted

in

wi

de

r business ci

rcles,

with productivity

having

to grow by

an

amount suffioent to

keep up

loan repayments

(so

that financial

solvency,

as

opposed

to ecolog

ical soundness, has

become

the driver of

farm

ing dec isions) .

Ploeg

provides

a telling

example

of

these chang

ing

trends

in

relat

ion to the

choice

of milking cows (Ploeg 2008: 131-2).

When these

are

selected

only with a view to

maximising

milk output

given

the price paid for the

cow, issues such as cows health and their breeding within the farm no

longer find

any

space as animals become mere throwaway inputs,

which can literally be milked for a few years and then replaced with

others

as

their productivity declines .

This,

of

course,

is

possible only

in

a context of

calculative practices

that have no way of accounting for

such factors as the increased

resilience

of using native breeds or farm

raised

cows

(Ploeg

2008:49) .

The systematic

invisibility of the peasant logic within purely

economic

and market

relations

makes it so that peasant production

is

regarded

as

a

residual

by-product that will - sooner or later -

be

wiped away.

Peasants

lose,

in

a

rural

world re-patterned after market principles, their

right to

exist

as

peasants

and

the conditions for their enduring repro

duction

are

curtailed through takeover of their development possibili

ties

(Ploeg

2008: 126, 129). Takeover can

take

a myriad possible

shapes.

Some concrete

examples

are

: forcing a market of milk quotas

upon

small producers (resulting in a concentration of opportunities for milk

production

upon entrepreneurial farms) (Ploeg

2008:134),

the

curtail

ment of

access

to crucial

resources such

as water supplies

in

Catacaos

(Peru)

(Ploeg

2008 :72-3), the imposition of regulatory measures that

only

entrepreneuria

l farms

are

able to

meet (Ploeg

2008:220). This last

case is

exemplif

i

ed by

the standardisation

of hygiene

practices

in rela

tion to the processing of foodstuffs in the

EU

.

24

So,

for example, E

Regulation 852/2004 lays out general

requirements

to which premises

on which food processing

takes place

have to comply.

The

regulation

allows the

competent local authorities to

derogate

from these general

rules, in order to

accommodate

the needs of local, on-farm and small

scale production (Meulen 2009:66) .

However,

inertia at the

level

of

local authoriti

es

in

carving

out

exceptions has

practically translated in

the

impos iti

on

of

requ

i

rements

that peasant farmers

can

hardly

meet

(Meulen 2009 :

67

), considering the size of own production

rarely

makes

241 . I am grateful to

Robert

o

Sche

lli

no

for

po

inting

this

out to

me

.

8/11/2019 id2430704


it worthwhile to undertake the investment needed to comply with rules

put in place with the entrepreneurial farmer in mind (Angrisano 2011).

In this respect, paradigmatic examples

are

the request to plaster the dry

stone walls

of

a room where cheese

is

ripened (Meulen 2009:67), as

well as the possibility

of

exclusion

of

the dwelling-house from the places

in which foodstuffs may

be

lawfully processed (where processing

is understood to include heating, say for making jam or tomato puree,

or ripening

cheeses)

(Artisan Forum 2005:

15).

This

last example also illustrates

how

peasant farming

is

not simply

threatened from the private (for example, agrifood multinationals),

but also from

the

public , as the techniques

of

peasant farming,

wh ich embody ecosystem-specific relations

of

co-production honed

over years

of

experience, come

to

be replaced by top-down, central

ised and hierarchical regulation (Ploeg 2008:218-20). Oddly enough,

that very regulation - rather than sheltering farming from processes

of

privatisation and industrialisation - makes farming increasingly acces-

sible only

to

actors

that

are capable

of

complying

with

high demands

for standardisation through a superimposition

of

engineered relation

ships over ecological feedback mechanisms.

In

sum, as agriculture

is

streamlined to

fit

into a global system

of

commodity relations, the set

of

calculative practices centred on finan

cial cost and benefit hijack the peasant logic

of

farming and simulta

neously strengthen relations

of

dependence to financial institutions

(such as banks), markets and agrifood corporations that erode the

space available

for

peasant relations to endure. Increasingly often, this

process of

monetisation translates into chronic short-termism that-

from an ecological point

of

view - depletes the very resource base,

the reproduction

of

which

is

essential

to

the production

of

food in the

long run (Tudge 2007:101-4).

Counterwork commons as

spaces

of

co production

Any discussion about intergenerational justice in relation

to

agriculture

has to

begin

with

a basic understanding

of

the second law

of

thermo

dynamics.

The

latter states

that

a closed system spontaneously tends

to

become more disorderly (or entropic) by eating away its internal struc

ture, until it disintegrates. Let s explore this a bit further. First

of

all, a

system

can

be understood as a set

of

relationships that are organised

in

such

a way as

to

gain autonomy from a surrounding environment

(Meadows 2009:11-2). It follows that,

for

a system

to

reproduce itself,

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it is necessary for it

to

draw resources from that environment, and

to

dissipate its waste into the same environment. It may help to think of a

biological system like a human being that needs

to

draw nourishment

from its environment and

to

dissipate waste into that environment

in

order to stay alive. So long as the environment is capable of making

available resources

to

fuel the system s reproduction and

to

recycle the

latter's by-products, the system/environment relationship can be

said

to

work

in

symbiosis.

A cultivated plot

can be

considered as an organised set of relation

ships that can endure in

so

far as a set of environmental conditions

hold (existence of adequate water supply and climatic conditions,

soil ecosystems

th t

replenish nutrients expended in crop cultiva

tion). So long as this symbiotic exchange between a system and its

environment exists, then there is in principle no limit to how long

that system can endure over time. However, as soon as those rela

tionships break up (for example because the environment's ability to

support the system has been exhausted) the system will behave as

if it were closed (because of depletion of the environment it relies

upon) and will tend progressively eat up its own structure and disin

tegrate (Biel

2011 :166).

The progressive replacement of ecological cycles with market-medi

ated, engineered relationships reduces precisely the ability of agricul

ture to

rely

on underlying ecosystems

as

a consequence of the latter's

disruption, and consequently undermines the former's continuing

viability. Suffice it to think of the replacement of polycultures with

monocultures, which has

in

turn ushered the use of a set of imple

ments (mechanical and chemical) that have progressively disrupted

those ecosystems of bacteria, nematodes and fungi that are

necessary

for soils to naturally replenish their fertility

(Biel

2012).

Some

have

gone as far as speaking of a veritable imperial colonisation of agri

cultural practices, which are re-patterned

in

order

to

accommodate

commodity relationships that generate a profit (rather than fostering

ecological durability) (Patnaik

2011

:226).

If we understand the progressive streamlining of agriculture to

fit

financial metrics of profitability

as

a process of imperial expansion

and colonisation, then peasant farming, besides being the first victim,

also emerges

as

the first pocket

of

resistance

or,

as

has

been written

in the literature, of counterwork (Long 2008). Counterwork can

be understood

as

the deployment

of

agency within a system, in

such

a way as

to

challenge existing patterns and instead experiment with

8/11/2019 id2430704


new ones (Long 2008:84), a kind

of

hacking aimed at re-embed

ding the system in the context of broader concerns

for

the continuing

viability of the environment that susta i

ns

it. In this respect, where the

economic system

closes lines of development for peasant co-produc

tion, new ones can be reinstated through different connections, so

that

access

to

consumers or financing which has been

the

object

of

disassembling (in order

to

be assembled anew in accordance

with

the

ordering principle

of

Empire)

is

actively reconnected and re-patterned

by peasants Ploeg 2008:268). In this way, undesirable patterns come

to

be challenged and reversed,

so

as to assert particular assemblages

of peasant co-production as being outside the purview of what can

be

restructured

for

financial extraction. It

is

through the carving

out

of

new

spaces

for co-production that peasant farming becomes an instance of

commoning in opposition

to

increasing commodification (Holloway

2010:29-30). There are many examples

of

this tendency.

One I have encountered personally is Genuino Clandestino (Angrisano

2011 ), an Italian network allowing farmers

to

market products such

as jam or tomato puree) that have been manufactured on the farm,

rather than on dedicated processing facilities required by the law.

Often, the investment in dedicated processing facilities

is

not

viable

for small farmers that cannot rely on enough throughput

to

justify

the expenditure. Hence, although

clandestine - as they

are

not

produced in legally compliant laboratories - these products

are also

genuine , as farmers are accountable

to

each other and

to

the

broader consumer community (with which they have a direct relation

ship)

for

the quality

of

their products. Genuino Clandestino is itself

an illustration of a broader movement of solidarity-based purchase

groups, which are networks

of

farmers and consumers, aimed at initi

ating direct exchanges

of

agricultural produce

for

everyday consump

tion, providing an alternative

to

supermarket shopping for medium-

to

low-income consumers (Brunori,

Rossi

and Malandrin 2011 :48). In

this respect, these build on the limitations perceived in other forms

of

alternative food networks, such

as

fair trade, and try

to

improve

on the shortcomings encountered in those experiments by going one

step further and bypassing big retail

to

avoid co-optation (Jaffee and

Howard 2010:387-99).

Systems come

to

be when a degree of stability is achieved in the

rela-

tionships from which they emerge. This stability of expectations about

how different elements relate to one another defines the paradigm after

which the system functions, that is a certain way of framing the world

8/11/2019 id2430704


as an out there entity,

on

which the system acts . In the current tech

nified system of agricultural production, a certain

view

of unidirec

tional) causality makes

ecological

feedback relationships which

are

so

important

in

peasant co-production) invisible,

and

consequently

frames

food production as a linear input-output

process

that is open to engi

neering

and

packaging into assets Eisenstein 2011 :51 ). In this para

digm,

in which

land and

biological processes

can e broken

down and

sold,

connections are

put into place that

enable

us to

do

just that. As the

food system oversteps the limits of sustainability, however, new spaces

are

opened for paradigms that

are more receptive

to relationships of

mutual causality, where co-production

is

acknowledged and

respected,

rather

than

worked against.

In

this

respect,

an

interesting effort

appears

to

e

that of

the permaculture movement. This is

a

movement

that is

closely

connected

to

the

use of

agro-ecological principles

in the building

of resilient local economies, and which has led to the establishment of

the Transition Network, a global

web

of local communities in

transi

tion to a

model

of dwelling that is less taxing on

human

and

ecological

resources Hopkins 2008: 134). In

permaculture,

the idea is to start with

a given vision of

the

future and a toolbox of ecological

principles

to

facilitate co-production, and

subsequently

to backcast from that vision

and

start to

create

new connections

that will

lead

to

the

realisation

of the desired paradigm Holmgren 2011; Biel 2012:6 ff.). Within the

Transition Movement,

this

approach

translates

into a visioning

process

that

hovers around

a parad igm featuring a

broader role

for agriculture,

beyond

that of mere breadbasket to

fuel

industrialisation, with new

spaces for reinstating peasant relations of co-production. A centrepiece

of

this broader

role is eco l

ogical stewardship,

articulated through - for

example - decreased

re

liance on artificial inputs, as

well

as improve

ment in

the

qua lity of t

he

so

il (

so

as

to enhance its

role

as

a carbon

sink to mitigate

the

prob lem of

climate

change) Pinkerton and Hopkins

2009:15).

Start in

g from thisvision, a range of initiatives

are

then put into

place that attempt directly to implement it.

One

of these is the

encour

agement of

se

lf-prov1s1on by growing food for

home

consumption in

private

or community

ga

rdens, which enacts a form of distancing from

markets

tha

t s directly related to the peasant condition. In fad,

organ

ic

urban agr iculture can

redu

ce the pressure for productivity

on

existing

local food networ s

Pink

erton and Hopkins 2009:47, 71; Biel 2012:10),

by

mak in

g cities

self

-suffi

cient

to

some

extent.

The

case

of

Cuba

's

capital Ha

vana meetin

g

most

of its fruit and vegetable needs from self

produdion t often heralded as an example of the weight that urban

agriculture can exert (Pnkerton and Hopkins 2009:47;

Piercy, Granger,

8/11/2019 id2430704


and Goodier 2010: 172-3). Furthermore, by disentangling food provi

sioning from transnational networks, localised urban agriculture can

also

open up new possibilities for farmers in import-dependent developing

countries to focus on meeting local demand, rather than produce for

export (Pinkerton and Hopkins 2009:22). Another interesting initiative

is

community-supported agriculture CSA), which attempts to strengthen

direct connections between farmers and the surrounding community.

This typically involves provisioning from local farmers,

as

well

as

sharing

the

risk

of

bad harvests so that payments are made despite fluc

tuations

in

the

size of

the harvest) (Pinkerton and Hopkins 2009: 103).

This type

of

scheme decreases farmers' dependence on Transnational

Corporation networks (for marketing their produce) or on the finan

cial system

because a stable income requires less reliance on loans).

As

a consequence, it enables the recovery

of

peasant metrics

of

quality

(Willis 2012:27), for example by allowing experimentation with organic

methods.

In

fact,

since

these methods require a few years

to

build

soil

fertility and increase output, they are ill-suited

to

generate sufficient

yields to keep up with loan repayments

in

the short term.

Counterwork

can

also be spotted in the enactment

of

new forms

of

conversion,

as

part

of

the peasantry's resistance

to

imperial

restructuring. What this means, according

to

Ploeg (2008:269-70), is

the tracing

of

connections that are not mediated by money so that

they o not need effectively to be converted or translated

in

mone

tary terms), introducing instead elements

of

reciprocity that manage

to

mobilise

resources

that would otherwise go unused, were they

to

be

procured through monetary circuits. A case

in

point here is the provision

of

labour for olive harvests, where neighbouring peasants help each

other

in

exchange for bottles

of

olive oil (rather than a monetary wage)

Ploeg 2008:270).

These

examples - by expressing a symbolic critique

of

market-mediated relations - effectively challenge the worldview behind

the patterning

of

the current economic

system, i.e.

that there

are

scarce

resources

that need

to

be rationed through markets Eisenstein

2011 :23). Instead, they aim to show that reciprocity and co-operation

can,

contrary

to

the assumptions behind the logic

of

the market, actu

ally enhance the wealth

of

a community Tudge 2007:95-6).

onclusion

In

this chapter, I have tried

to

provide a different story from the all

too-common narrative

of

agricultural modernisation mediated

by increasing technological intervention aimed at reproducing the

8/11/2019 id2430704


standards

of

control available in a factory.

Peasant

farming

has

been

understood essentially as a mode

of

farming that works with - rather

than against - ecological cycles; as such, it encompasses a wide range

of

agro-ecological practices present both

in

traditional mixed farming

as well as in more contemporary approaches, such as permaculture.

In

all these instances, co-production between man and nature trans

lates simultaneously in a distancing from markets and the building

of

a resilient resource

base that

makes the practice

of

farming

as

little

dependent on outside inputs as possible. Peasant farming

has

been

steadily undermined in the last century from the advancement

of

industrial

or

technified agriculture, which relies on market-mediated

relationships

to

override ecological constraints. The paramount illus

tration

of

this

is

the extensive monoculture something which does not

occur in nature), which

is

sustained through ample

use of

mechanical

and chemical implements that systematically disrupt those ecological

feedback relationships that allow agricultural production to endure

over time.

The

streamlining

of

agriculture

is

further accentuated by

the standardisation imposed by state apparatuses,

that

disregards the

need for farming practices to be adapted to local ecologies.

At

the same time,

with

the emergence

of

visible cracks in this agricul

tural paradigm, as a consequence of environmental disarray global

warming caused by

C

2

emissions

to

which industrial agriculture

has

greatly contributed to, depletion of soil quality), peasant farming

is

starting to receive the attention itdeserves. Instancesof peasant-inspired

counterwork are virtually as varied as there are peasants, and only a

few

examples have been reviewed

in

the chapter: from the promotion

of

intensive, organic agriculture in cities by the Transition Movement in

England to the opening of alternative markets to disentangle peasants

from the demands

for

standardisation posed by state regulation or big

distributors

in

Ita

ly,

dow n

to

the enactment

of

reciprocity-based trans

actions that cha llenge the expansion of market-mediated relationships

even as a cultural phenomenon. The renewal

of

peasant relationships

in the face

of

the environmental disarray

of

technified agriculture

is

a form

of

resistance that prom i

ses

to put stewardship for the natural

resource

base

back at the centre.

In

this respect,

it

plays a crucial role

in

creating a food system that 1s durable and resilient, where it no longer

is

necessary

to

undertake grabs

of

land

in

order

to

make up

for

the

shortfall

of

fertility in soil depleted by decades

of

mechanisation Biel

2012), and where agriculture manages

to

integrate symbiotically

with

the natural ecosystem in whi

ch

it is practised, rather than giving rise to

open-air laboratories that oust those very ecological relationships that

8/11/2019 id2430704


have made agriculture possible unt

il

now.

This is

why a new story

of

food

as

co-production

can

make a difference . This story should actu

ally have many different versions, depending on the particular set

of

micro-conditions in which food production takes place .

The

struggle

for food sovereignty, understood precisely as the development of as

many different stories of food as there

are

local natural and human

ecologies (Forum for Food Sovereignty 2007; La Via Campesina 1996),

is

therefore

an

important part

of

the work needed

to

restore peasant

co-production to the central role it

deserves

for bringing about a food

system that manages

to

take

care of

the needs

of

future generations.

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