I have in my hands an advance copy of the book "Food Sovereignty in Canada" put out by Fernwood Publishing.  I am very proud! I would tell you exactly what I did for this book, but then my thin veneer of anonymity would be blown. I will say that I did copy-edit half of it, and did substantive editing for three of the chapters. Please don't tell me about any typos I missed. That was probably the other copy-editor.

The rest of you will have to wait until November to get a copy, but I'm going to whet your appetite:

"The language of food sovereignty was initially introduced by La Via Campesina to express both the truth of power relations within the food domain and the hope for the democratic, widely dispersed, just distribution of those powers over food...In order to transform the dominant forces, including those related to politics, economics, gender, the environment and social organization, we need to be able to imagine and articulate new relationships to food, community and ultimately the earth."

"Instead of the current construct of farmers producing and individual consumers buying food, where both the access to and production of food are determined by the market, food sovereignty begins from the position of citizens engaged in decisions about providing life-sustaining good food."

From the publisher: "Achieving food sovereignty requires conceptual and practical changes, reshaping menus, farming, communities, relationships, values and policy, but, as the authors clearly demonstrate, the urgent work of building food sovereignty in Canada is well under way."

Inside:
"Advancing Agriculture by Destroying Farms? The State of Agriculture in Canada"
"Indigenous Food Sovereignty: A Model for Social Learning"
"Growing Community: Community Gardens as a Local Practice of Food Sovereignty"
"Community Nutrition Practice and Research: Integrating a Good Sovereignty Approach"
"Transforming Agriculture: Women Farmers Define a Food sovereignty Policy for Canada"
and more!

Food Sovereignty In Motion

La Via Campesina in Movement... Food Sovereignty now! from La Via Campesina on Vimeo.

"According to the FAO, 800 million people suffered from hunger in 1976. Nowadays that figure exceeds 1000 million. Why? Because the system doesn't want to solve the issue of hunger." - Carlos Marentes, UTAF, USA

"A production model that has turned food into financial speculation and land into financial speculation. The Green Revolution and the transgenic revolution don't aim to eradicate the hunger of thousands of millions of human beings. They want profits for the few owners of those large companies. - Angel Strapazzone, MOCASE, Argentina

"This agriculture is an agriculture without people. It's an agriculture that doesn't accommodate nature and human beings."
- Itelvina Masioli, MST, Brazil


"It is essential to reclaim the importance of agricultural work in the world and the importance of people who dedicate themselves to agriculture and who feed humanity." - Luis Andrango, FENOCIN, Ecuador

"It's the strength of the organization that produces change into practice. Being in La Via Campesina and being organized gives me the hope I can change the world and create a new society."
- Dayana Mezzonato, MST, Brazil

Why Land?

 

When I started grad school, I received the good advice to create 10-second, 30-second, and 2-minute spiels in response to, "And what is your research about?"  I received the advice, but I didn't follow it. I have a 5-second spiel - "Alternative agricultural land tenure in Saskatchewan" (I talk fast) - and then I have a lot of flailing about as I add explanations and qualifications.

Truth is, I don't know why I ended up focusing on land. I remember having to come up with an idea for a grant application at the same time as I was reading Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ("property and robbery are synonymous terms") for a class on theories of justice, just months after my father passed away and left the state of the family farm in limbo. Out of that stew, an idea about land emerged. And then it mutated.

If you've ever had to explain to an 18-month old why he can't walk across a neighbour's lawn, you might realize how ridiculous ideas about property are. If you go on to read Locke, you realize his ideas about labour and property conveniently justified dispossession of aboriginal peoples. Then when Jun Borras tells you that property rights are not things, but social relationships, you get interested. And when, with Jennifer Franco, he tells you that "Ultimately, food sovereignty is about effective control over wealth and power", you get excited.

So. Today, I am starting a draft of my thesis, trying to sift through my data and analyses, trying to unite all the pieces that I have written for classes and conference presentations, trying most of all to sieve out all of the fascinating, but unfortunately unrelated, food systems information I have amassed in the past two years. Trying to focus.

I'll let you know what my research turns out to be about. Then I'll answer the question I posed in the title.

A Democratic Food Policy

Everyone likes democracy, right? I admit there are days when I think I'd make an excellent benevolent despot -  preventative health care would be a priority and your neighbour down the street wouldn't be allowed to rattle your windows with the bass from his car speakers if I were in charge. But I'll choose democracy over corporatocracy* any day. That's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the People's Food Policy Project.

"Things are clearly cooking in food policy, and citizens, often left out of key processes or afforded token consultation roles, are not content with last minute seats at pre-set policy tables. It is time for strong citizen and civil society involvement in the construction of a new food policy for Canada – a policy which places the well-being of the majority and the health of our planet at the centre of all decisions. It is time to reset thetable." (Resetting the Table, p. 7)

The Project just released the outcome of two years' work with over 3500 Canadians through three hundred and fifty Kitchen Table Talks, hundreds of policy submissions, dozens of tele-conferences, ongoing online discussions, three cross-Canada conferences, and support from organizations including Dietitians of Canada, Food Secure Canada, and Food Banks Canada.

"Resetting the Table: A People's Food Policy for Canada" ties together health and nutrition, food security, sustainable livelihoods for farmers and food workers, the environment, international relations, and many other aspects of our food system, comprehensively uniting them in recommendations for a food sovereign food system. However, it is also an ongoing participatory process, providing a model for collaboration, fora for discussion, support for initiatives, and connections between groups and individuals.

They also seem to be having fun. What more could you ask for?

*Corporations and global capital have undue influence and control over the food system, operating beyond the reach of government or public oversight. Rather than being recognized as a biological requirement of life, this has turned food into a volatile commodity. (Resetting the Table, p. 6)

Whereupon I put on my spectacles and grown-up voice. Ahem.

I am presenting a paper as part of a panel at the Joint 2011 Annual Meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society, Association for the Study of Food and Society, and Society for Anthropology of Food and Nutrition from June 9 – 12, 2011 at the University of Montana.

The conference is called "Food and Agriculture Under the Big Sky". (Montana has big skies, we have living skies: I think we can connect on this.) My paper has the unimaginative yet apt title, "Visions of Food Sovereign Land Tenure in Saskatchewan". Here's the beginning:

Last November, I was driving out to conduct an interview in southwestern Saskatchewan and stopped in a small town cafe for lunch. I happened to overhear some of the chat on coffee row. You could tell they were farmers by the ag company caps. One was holding forth on how there were a few farmers in the area who had most of the land, and these big farmers did business directly with Viterra, who offered them all sorts of deals to get their business, and because of this, soon the Co-op in the town would close. None of the farmers chatting seemed to like the prospect, but they didn't propose any solutions, and they all agreed with the main speaker at the conversation's close: “That's business.

In a similar vein, a professor here told me not to study agriculture, because it was done. Not meaning that it was thoroughly studied, but that from a progressive point of view, there was no hope; it was finished. Well, in the words of one of my interviewees, “Agriculture can't be done. It has to be redone.”

Are you with me? Do you like it? Well, here's the abstract:


A radically different vision of access to and control over land, as the basis of a new food system, is necessary in striving for a socially and ecologically just agriculture. Using data from in-depth interviews of farmers involved in a progressive agrarian organization and in alternative land tenure models, this paper explores visions of radical changes to the dominant agricultural land tenure system in Saskatchewan. Interviewees address primary problems of loss of farmers and rural communities, and accessibility, affordability, and concentration of land, as the result of market forces. They agree on several key points, including the importance of collective action, community, and values of interdependence, diversity, and sustainability, all consonant with food sovereignty's conception of land as multidimensional and noncommodifiable. In the struggle against the hegemonic ideology of private ownership of land, a common politicized vocabulary and frame of reference, and greater communication between actors about strategies, practices, and insights, may facilitate action. Food sovereignty can provide these for various groups tackling land tenure problems in Saskatchewan. 

We'll see how much of this is retained in the paper, which I am still writing. Questions? Comments?

Happy Weekend! I'm off to small-town-with-no-internet.