Eating is a political act. Solidarity agriculture, practiced under the name of SoLaWi in Germany as in other European countries, is a possibility of living in coherence with this conviction. A farm and a group of families form an economic community that cares about people and the environment, producing clean, fair and healthy food. Solidarity cooperation, beyond destructive comfort zones.
by Stephen Sherwood, Ana Deaconu, and Myriam Paredes
The experience of the Campaign aligns with Deleuze and Guattari for whom being depends on human-material relations that embrace context, material and people and involves an assemblage of extensive-intensive capacities. Change in food is born in the constitution of embodiments, enabled through common (and not-so-common) practice — what we summarize through the metaphor of existence. The boundaries of space are not drawn just by legal documents or the scriptures of a formalized institution, but more so they are inscribed through the “memory” of practice. In this sense, we argue that the Campaign’s influence is largely bound by the socio-material and biological potentials of flavor and taste.
In Food Sovereignty in International Context: discourse, politics and Practice of Place. Edited by Amy Trauger. Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment Alberto Arce, Stephen Sherwood and Myriam Paredes
In our February report, “The Ultimate Mystery Meat,” we revealed how soy production is responsible for ongoing massive deforestation across the Brazilian Cerrado and Bolivian Amazon basin. Our initial field investigation to 28 different locations producing soy in Brazil and Bolivia in September 2016 showed that these large industrial farms sell soy to US-based traders, most significantly to two companies- Cargill and Bunge. In addition to their role in creating a market for deforestation-based soy, we found that these companies are also frequently involved in directly financing land clearance and associated infrastructure development. Cargill and Bunge in turn sell soy to meat and dairy companies, who then sell to large consumer-facing companies like Burger King.
The production of a small family dairy, the result of a settling process with obstacles, has become the solid foundation of a family existence. After a phase of experimentation in the milk processing and the commercialization of the derivatives, the sale of yogurt in the immediate environment has been prioritized. When the production leaves the farm, it is practically already sold, without reaching the market.
ECO Feria’s Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) is a participatory accreditation mechanism reachable for small producers, facilitating the sale of organic food products, benefiting family agriculture and other stakeholders in the social solidarity economy and the consumer as well.
Families in the commune of San Gabriel del Baba are now convinced about agroecological production and now they are enthusiastic promoters of the cause. Their farms became completely agroecological and, so far, their biggest challenge has been to find alternative markets and conscious consumers, but these set back shave not changed their conviction, because, for them, the market and the economic part are not the most important goals.
The management of land plots with agroforestry systems demands conviction and a continuous careful work. The situation in which the pioneer producers of agroforestry Amazonian systems currently live shows that they live well, producing with the forest and without the need to continue deforesting and burning the vegetation.
Fifteen years ago the Red de Guardianes de Semillas (Seed Guardian Network), a collective with full horizontal relations, was born in Ecuador, dedicated to the rescue of native seeds. Each guardian, member of the network shares and applies their knowledge from their autonomous environment. There is a wealth of experiences and practices around production and food, housing and other areas of daily life. Its common denominator: to build the future in the present.