Agri-business, Family Farms and Agricultural Workers: Who's Shaping Agricultural Trade Policies in the Americas?

Examining the discourses and policy options of state and business leaders on economic integration and their implications for communities across the Americas, this paper will analyse the alternative discourses and practices of the Via Campesina and some of its 142 affiliated organizations. Created in 1993, la Via Campesina is a transnational social movement that brings together small and medium-scale farmers, rural women, peasants, indigenous communities, and agricultural workers from 56 countries in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. As Annette Aurélie Desmarais (Pluto Press, June 2007) explains, «it is a leading force against the globalization of a neo-liberal and corporate-led model of agriculture». Their members call for greater social justice, food sovereignty, gender equity, and a peasant-based, sustainable model of agriculture, respectful of the environment.As part of a larger research project, the paper will interrogate the ways in which neoliberal structures of governance are being challenged, and perhaps reshaped by resistance from popular movements. Through critical, empirically detailed research, I will address two basic questions: 1) How are states shaping, and being shaped by international economic agreements and political governance mechanisms in the area of agriculture? 2) How far and in what ways are civil society organizations (CSOs),including business groups, unions, social movements and NGOs, seeking to influence or transform governance mechanisms, and are shaped by those very mechanisms? For example, it is often assumed that democratization is led by dominant forces, from governing elites, business, or worker organisations. It is also assumed that in time, democracy may spread to the countryside, although the peasantry and indigenous peoples are rarely viewed as active agents in the making of democracy. Evidence from various organizations in the Americas, however, would suggest that democratization and innovations in governance mechanisms can emerge from peasant and indigenous organisations. Indeed, after years of struggles and despite numerous setbacks, indigenous peoples from the Brazilian Amazon have spearheaded environmental movements and have succeeded in expanding people=s control over agricultural development. Another key example is the landless peasant movement (MST) in Brazil who has used the power of collective action to take control over the most fundamental resource in their lives: land. The MST has produced innovations in democratic governance, such as participatory decisionmaking and collective action. This movement also shaped global grassroots movements and fora such as the Via Campesina, and the World Social Forum (WSF), while it played a key role in the election of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and the Brazilian Workers Party. In Canada, the Union paysanne and agricultural migrant workers are also organising and challenging the dominant model of governance and regional integration. These examples highlight the complex interaction, north and south, within and between various civil society actors and the states, in the processes of trade liberalisation and «deeper» regional integration. In this way, empirical research of such pressures for new forms of governance and agricultural practices can enable us to paint a compelling picture of recent political action in the Americas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]