1. Achieving Food System Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes
- Author
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Coline Perrin, Adrien Baysse-Lainé, Annie McKee, Adam Calo, Steven R. McGreevy, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, Mai Kobayashi, Sarah Ruth Sippel, Pierre Gasselin, Naomi Beingessner, Kirsteen Shields, André Magnan, The James Hutton Institute, Innovation et Développement dans l'Agriculture et l'Alimentation (UMR Innovation), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN), Institute of Cultural Anthropology, University of Leipzig [Leipzig, Allemagne], University of Manitoba [Winnipeg], University of Edinburgh, Pacte, Laboratoire de sciences sociales (PACTE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Sciences Po Grenoble - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble (IEPG ), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), University of Regina (UR), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), and Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
- Subjects
agroecology ,food system transformation, food sovereignty, agroecology, resilience, property regimes, land tenure, land reform ,media_common.quotation_subject ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,0507 social and economic geography ,land tenure ,02 engineering and technology ,Entitlement ,Horticulture ,Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law ,Food processing and manufacture ,land reform ,[SHS.DROIT]Humanities and Social Sciences/Law ,Political science ,ddc:630 ,TX341-641 ,Agricultural productivity ,Land tenure ,resilience ,media_common ,2. Zero hunger ,Global and Planetary Change ,[SHS.SOCIO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Sociology ,Ecology ,Nutrition. Foods and food supply ,05 social sciences ,021107 urban & regional planning ,[SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography ,15. Life on land ,[SHS.ANTHRO-SE]Humanities and Social Sciences/Social Anthropology and ethnology ,TP368-456 ,Political ecology ,food sovereignty ,property regimes ,[SHS.SCIPO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Political science ,Food sovereignty ,13. Climate action ,Political economy ,Food systems ,Psychological resilience ,food system transformation ,050703 geography ,Agronomy and Crop Science ,Land reform ,Food Science - Abstract
International audience; Although evidence continues to indicate an urgent need to transition food systems away from industrialized monocultures and toward agroecological production, there is little sign of significant policy commitment toward food system transformation in global North geographies. The authors, a consortium of researchers studying the land-food nexus in global North geographies, argue that a key lock-in explaining the lack of reform arises from how most food system interventions work through dominant logics of property to achieve their goals of agroecological production. Doing so fails to recognize how land tenure systems, codified by law and performed by society, construct agricultural land use outcomes. In this perspective, the authors argue that achieving food system “resilience” requires urgent attention to the underlying property norms that drive land access regimes, especially where norms of property appear hegemonic. This paper first reviews research from political ecology, critical property law, and human geography to show how entrenched property relations in the global North frustrate the advancement of alternative models like food sovereignty and agroecology, and work to mediate acceptable forms of “sustainable agriculture.” Drawing on emerging cases of land tenure reform from the authors' collective experience working in Scotland, France, Australia, Canada, and Japan, we next observe how contesting dominant logics of property creates space to forge deep and equitable food system transformation. Equally, these cases demonstrate how powerful actors in the food system attempt to leverage legal and cultural norms of property to legitimize their control over the resources that drive agricultural production. Our formulation suggests that visions for food system “resilience” must embrace the reform of property relations as much as it does diversified farming practices. This work calls for a joint cultural and legal reimagination of our relation to land in places where property functions as an epistemic and apex entitlement.
- Published
- 2021