The Journal of Peasant Studies

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From protecting peasant livelihoods to

essentializing peasant agriculture: problematic
trends in food sovereignty discourse

Rachel Soper

To cite this article: Rachel Soper (2020) From protecting peasant livelihoods to essentializing
peasant agriculture: problematic trends in food sovereignty discourse, The Journal of Peasant
Studies, 47:2, 265-285, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2018.1543274

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2018.1543274

Published online: 26 Jan 2019.

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THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES
2020, VOL. 47, NO. 2, 265–285
https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2018.1543274

From protecting peasant livelihoods to essentializing peasant

agriculture: problematic trends in food sovereignty discourse
Rachel Soper
Department of Sociology, California State University, Channel Islands, San Diego, CA, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
In response to neoliberal food and agriculture policy, peasant Food sovereignty; peasant
movements fought for increased state support of the small-farm livelihoods; indigenous
sector. Vía Campesina now proposes agroecology and localized communities; agroecology;
Ecuador
trade as environmental solutions to the current climate crisis by
advocating for the ‘peasant way.’ This discourse is problematic
because peasant farmers are not inherently supportive of local,
sustainable food. Drawing on ethnographic field research with
indigenous peasant communities in the rural highlands of
Ecuador, this article illustrates how existing peasants practice
chemical-intensive, monocrop, and export-oriented production. In
using peasant as an ideal type rather than an historical ethno-
class, post-development scholars essentialize peasant agriculture.

Introduction
At the International Year of Quinoa event in Riobamba, Ecuador in 2013, Javier Ponce,
director of the Ministry of Agriculture, greeted the audience by telling the campesinos
how important they are, since peasants protect biodiversity and contribute to food sover-
eignty. He pointed to quinoa as a symbol of resistance and thanked quinoa producers for
carrying on the practices of their ancestors who lived in harmony with nature. After the
Ministry of Agriculture thanked peasants, the president of the quinoa producer coopera-
tive, Coprobich,1 took the stage to thank Rafael Correa for supporting small farmers. ‘¡Por
fin!’, he said, ‘At last we have a president that opens his eyes to the agrarian sector – to
pequeños productores!’
This event is emblematic of food sovereignty in Ecuador. On one hand, there has been a
‘return of the state’ to the rural agrarian countryside, as the Ministry of Agriculture under
Rafael Correa has invested in policies and programs that support the small-farm sector
(Clark 2016). On the other hand, this pivot away from neoliberalism has come about on
the back of problematic discourse that essentializes indigenous and peasant people as
inherently ecological and opposed to capitalism. In pairing essentialist discourse with
practical programs that protect small-farm livelihoods, the Correa administration has
been critiqued by scholars for departing from the food sovereignty framework since

CONTACT Rachel Soper rachel.soper@csuci.edu

1
Copbrobich is also known as COPROBICH, which stands for Corporación de Productores y Comercializadores Orgánicos Bio
Taita Chimborazo. ‘Bio Taita’ is Kichwa for ‘Our Father,’ referring to the snow-capped volcano Chimborazo. In English, this
translates to the Corporation of Organic Producers and Sellers ‘Our Father’ Chimborazo.
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
266 R. SOPER

they assist peasants to further integrate into agro-industry. Indeed, the Ministry of Agricul-
ture supported Coprobich with $300,000 to finance the construction of a new processing
plant to clean and package quinoa for sale in the international market. This critique of the
Correa administration’s implementation of food sovereignty for assisting peasant commu-
nities in their efforts to better commercialize their products is rooted in a widespread
understanding of food sovereignty as agro-ecological production for local market
consumption.
Vía Campesina is the international peasant movement that popularized the term food
sovereignty. They emerged in response to the neoliberalization of food and agriculture
policy, opposing the retreat of the state in supporting the small-farm sector through
tariffs, subsidies and price supports. Yet over time, Vía Campesina food sovereignty dis-
course has shifted from protecting peasant livelihoods to promoting the localization of
food through agro-ecological methods.
Post-development scholars like McMichael (2009) celebrate Vía Campesina’s resistance to
the corporate food regime by reproducing claims that peasants are inherently ecological.
According to McMichael, peasant farming is ‘distinct from other forms of farming in prioritiz-
ing ecological value’ (2013, 146). In addition, ‘peasant mobilization is an acknowledgement
that the human and ecological wake created by the globalization of the corporate food
regime is the central contradiction of the twenty-first century’ (2009, 147). Peasants mobilize
for resources, under this logic, not just to improve their livelihood security, but to voice their
discontent with the environmental impacts of global industrial agriculture.
Bernstein (2016) and McMichael (2016) debate Vía Campesina’s portrayal of peasant
agriculture. Bernstein asserts that peasant agriculture and capitalist agriculture are not
necessarily opposed and certainly not dichotomous. Peasants are not ‘capital’s other,’
insists Bernstein, despite the ‘ensemble of qualities attributed to them, which include
their sustainable farming principles and practices’ (2014, 1041). Bernstein problematizes
this notion of peasants as ecologically superior and claims the ‘overarching framework
of the vicious and virtuous’ (2014, 1031) fails to recognize that peasant class differentiation
has taken place throughout agrarian history.
Indeed, the indigenous peasants who belong to the quinoa cooperative, as well as two
other case communities, all gladly engage with global industrial agriculture. They see
modern industrial production methods and global markets as necessary in order to main-
tain viable agrarian livelihoods. While genuine commitment to agro-ecological production
for local consumption might exist among Ecuadorian peasant leaders, that commitment
was not found among my research respondents. The indigenous peasant farmers in my
study prefer the export-oriented model that is perceived as better for their livelihoods
over the agro-ecological one that is supposedly connected to their cultural values and
ancestral knowledge. While not necessarily representative of all indigenous peasants in
Ecuador, these findings are relevant to a broader scholarly debate about the food sover-
eignty movement’s portrayal of peasants.
Some food sovereignty proponents recognize that peasants have departed from tra-
ditional agriculture. While acknowledging that peasants have been incorporated into
global industrial commodity chains, Van der Ploeg (2014) and Robbins (2015) advocate
for re-peasantization through agroecology. In this regard, peasant agriculture is used as
an ideal type that aims ‘to theorize “peasantness” in [a] supra-historical hence essentialist
fashion’ (Bernstein 2016, 641). Presenting peasant agriculture as an ideal type that small
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 267

farmers should work towards obfuscates (1) the existence of actual peasant class cat-
egories, situated in historical context, and (2) their struggles for government support of
small-farm livelihood security, regardless of whether or not they use those resources to
produce agro-ecological food for local consumption.
The historically marginalized ethno-class of indigenous peasants in this study mobilize
for access to resources not so they can use those resources to grow sustainable food for
the local market, but rather so they can practice whatever means necessary to sustain their
rural agrarian livelihoods, even if that entails pesticides, monoculture or export trade. The
ecological sustainability goals of the food sovereignty movement might not represent the
lived realities of these indigenous peasants on-the-ground, yet policies that redistribute
resources and invest in the small-farm sector are welcomed. In this regard, the dual
environmental-livelihood goals of the food sovereignty movement are not always comp-
lementary; just because peasants mobilize against neoliberalism does mean they are in
favor of local agroecology.

Dual environmental and livelihood goals of the food sovereignty

movement
Food sovereignty is a dynamic concept, not a fixed set of principles (Edelman et al.
2014). Nevertheless, in this section I aim to categorize the way that scholars and activists
have written about the concept. In particular, I note that food sovereignty has dual
environmental and livelihood goals, which are sometimes, but not always, compatible.
Moreover, I identify that food sovereignty discourse has shifted over time from empha-
sizing peasant livelihoods to prioritizing sustainable agriculture. In doing so, the anti-
neoliberal globalization efforts of peasant movement organizing are being conflated
with pro-agroecology.
Food sovereignty was popularized during the struggle against the neoliberalization of
food and agriculture policy. Vía Campesina used the term as a slogan to resist against
international institutions dictating national agricultural production and trade policies,
aiming to get the World Trade Organization out of agriculture. While Vía Campesina is
made up of a diverse group of member organizations, ‘all share a broad opposition to neo-
liberalism’ (Edelman 2005, 338). Food sovereignty was embraced by rural social move-
ments as ‘an alternative to the neoliberal approach’ (Altieri and Toledo 2011, 607).
This opposition to neoliberalism was framed mostly in terms of its detrimental impact
to peasant livelihoods. Food sovereignty thus advocated for a strengthened role of the
state to protect peasants against corporate globalization (Edelman 2005). It upholds
nation’s rights to protect their small producers from dumping through protections
against cheap imports and by distributing productive resources and technologies to
small producers so they can sustain their agrarian livelihoods (Edelman 2005). It advocates
for a strong central government to protect the peasant sector from migration and dispos-
session. In doing so, Vía Campesina echoed earlier peasant demands for access to land and
fair market prices (Edelman 2005).
Indeed, in their published materials, Vía Campesina promotes ‘food sovereignty as the
key to provide livelihoods to millions’ (2009, 73). They have stated that their goal ‘is to
bring about change in the countryside – change that improves livelihoods’ (2009, 41),
which can only occur ‘when local communities gain greater access to and control over
268 R. SOPER

local productive resources’ (2009, 41). Moreover, ‘Peasants and rural communities should
be able to control the use of the land … control the use of water, and have access to
sufficient credits … A genuine agrarian reform is crucial’ (Vía Campesina 2009, 184). In
this way, food sovereignty is a continuation and extension of the longstanding peasant
struggle for agrarian reform to redistribute resources and bolster the small-farm sector.
In contrast to other food movements, Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2011) portray food
sovereignty as more concerned with the redistribution of productive resources. The
peasant movement organizations affiliated with Vía Campesina are fighting for the
‘right to continue being agriculturalists’ (Edelman 2005, 332). Because of the reduced
role of the state in the era of neoliberal restructuring, government support of small-
farm livelihoods is an integral part of food sovereignty. Martinez-Alier et al. (2016) consider
food sovereignty part of a global movement for environmental justice, but I distinguish
between the justice component, which pertains to redistributive livelihood security, and
the environmental component, which pertains to sustainable local agriculture.
In addition to peasant livelihood discourse, Vía Campesina also makes bold statements
about the ability of peasant farmers to reverse climate change. Vía Campesina repeatedly
asserts that peasants can cool the down the planet (2014, 62). This claim has been
defended by scholars like Martinez-Alier (2011) and Van der Ploeg (2014, 999), who
assert that ‘peasant agriculture … has the capacity to produce (more than) sufficient
good food for the growing world population and … can do so in a way that is sustainable.’
In this way, food sovereignty has come to be known as a movement towards ecological
sustainability. Prominent environmental sociologist Foster (2014, 48) even asserts that
Vía Campesina is a main force of the ecological revolution. According to Robbins (2015,
463), ‘food sovereignty proposes a major shift in nature-society relations and a step
toward mitigating the metabolic rift.’ Martinez-Alier (2011, 146) has stated that ‘Via Cam-
pesina is perhaps the most important socio-environmental movement in the world.’
Vía Campesina states that the global industrial model of agriculture has had disastrous
environmental consequences. Policy documents point to the role of high-input industrial
agricultural production – including the ‘use of fertilizers, pesticides, long transport lines
and high levels of mechanization’ – in increasing greenhouse gas emissions (Vía Campe-
sina 2009, 61). As a response, they propose a different model: ‘Low input agriculture based
on local resources primarily for domestic consumption is one of the solutions to global
warming’ (Vía Campesina 2014, 62). The sixth international conference agenda makes
clear ‘We will continue to promote and defend peasant-based, agro-ecological production
as a real answer to the climate crisis’ (Vía Campesina 2014, 32).
As part of their environmental agenda, agro-ecological production for local consump-
tion is promoted. While agroecology typically refers to production practices and local typi-
cally refers to market destination, the two categories overlap as local often entails
diversified staple foodcrops rather than specialized export monoculture and agroecology
entails relying on local ecosystems to produce food for local markets. At the same time
that ‘the food sovereignty framework views local food systems as ideally embedded in
small-scale, peasant production using agroecological methods’ (Robbins 2015, 453),
agroecology is defined as ‘an approach that very much privileges the local: providing
for local markets that shorten the circuits of food production and consumption, and
hence avoid[ing] the high energy needs of “long-distance food”’ (Altieri and Toledo
2011, 588).
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 269

Not only does food sovereignty discourse place much emphasis on the importance of
localization, but this trend has increased over time (Robbins 2015). According to Robbins
(2015), localization was not explicitly part of original notion. In the early framing of food
sovereignty, local food systems were not discussed; instead, the emphasis was placed
on defining food and agriculture policy at the national level and asserting the rights
of peasants to exist and continue producing food (Robbins 2015, 453). Indeed,
Edelman (2014) notes that Costa Rican activists used the term food sovereignty as
early as 1991 to oppose dumping and argue for sovereignty in exports so that
foreign firms stop controlling Costa Rica’s agricultural export trade. In this sense, oppos-
ing neoliberal globalization is not the same as opposing monocrop exports or being in
favor of local agroecology.
Yet, despite this origin, food sovereignty is increasingly becoming synonymous with
sustainable agriculture. As Martinez-Alier (2011, 146) points out, Vía Campesina defends
traditional peasant agriculture as more energy efficient than modern industrial agriculture
(Martinez-Alier 2011, 156) and insists that peasant agriculture conserves biodiversity and
uses less polluting agrochemicals (151). In this regard, peasants are defended not just
because they are part of a marginalized historical ethno-class, but also because their agri-
culture is more ecologically sustainable. In recent Vía Campesina discourse, earlier liveli-
hood demands continue to be present, ‘albeit dressed-up in more acceptable language
stressing eco-friendly “sustainability”’ (Brass 2015, 196).
Thus, the food sovereignty movement holds twofold objectives: Vía Campesina is in
favor of supporting peasant livelihoods through redistributive government policy and in
favor of reducing the ecological footprint of the food system through agroecology and
local trade. These dual goals are seemingly congruent. Protectionist and redistributive pol-
icies to bolster peasant livelihoods are often justified as means to produce ecological out-
comes. According to Vía Campesina logic, supporting peasant livelihoods and supporting
agro-ecological production for local consumption are one-and-the-same. Yet, the exist-
ence of peasant farmers who wish to continue being agriculturalists but do not wish to
use their natural and human resources to grow agro-ecological food for local market con-
sumption problematizes the notion that these dual goals are complementary. Vía Campe-
sina is at the same time defending an existing group of people who pertain to an historical
ethno-class as they are promoting a future trend towards local agroecology. The problem
with this combination of goals is that it risks essentializing all peasants as local and sustain-
able, which goes against the interests of those peasants who wish to continue participat-
ing in global industrial agriculture.

False dichotomy and peasant essentialism

The relationship between peasants and global industrial agriculture has become distorted
in movement discourse. Peasant agriculture has erroneously become synonymous with
sustainable production for local consumption. Vía Campesina oversimplifies the
dynamic between global industrial agriculture and traditional peasant agriculture by pre-
senting them as opposing binaries. For example, they state:
The struggle is over two competing – and in many ways diametrically opposed – models …
On the one hand, a globalized, neoliberal, corporate-driven model where agriculture is seen
270 R. SOPER

exclusively as a profit-making venture and productive resources are increasingly concen-

trated into the hands of agro-industry. La Vía Campesina, on the other hand, envisions
… a world based on food sovereignty. Here, agriculture is peasant-driven, based on
peasant production, uses local resources and is geared to domestic markets (Vía Campesina
2009, 43).

Bernstein (2014) and likeminded scholars (Brass 2015; Jansen 2015) critique the food
sovereignty movement for ignoring class differentiation in the agrarian countryside (De
Janvry 1981). Heterogeneous groups are lumped together under the unitary label
‘peasant,’ characterized by their harmonious relationship with nature (Brass 2015), even
though the notion that they inherently possess traditional agricultural wisdom and
want to engage in agroecology is disputed (Castellanos-Navarrete and Jansen 2016). Por-
traying peasants as resisting capitalism ignores capitalism from below and ‘neglects how
smallholders actively seek participation in commodity chains’ (Jansen 2015, 219) to be
‘able to compete in wider national and international markets’ (228). As Brass (2015, 196)
explains, what the ‘movement objects to is not capitalism per se, but rather the market
advantage currently enjoyed by large agribusiness enterprises … its members seek
merely to establish for themselves a better competitive position within the existing capi-
talist system.’ Indeed, Burnett and Murphy (2014) and Edelman (2014) are critical of the
food sovereignty movement for neglecting the importance of export trade for millions
of peasant producers world-wide.
Despite this critique, contemporary food sovereignty scholar-activists continue to
present peasant agriculture as the opposite of capitalist agriculture (Robbins 2015; Van
der Ploeg 2014). Van der Ploeg (2014) acknowledges that peasants have historically
been influenced by capitalist systems, but paints this in a negative light. Far from portray-
ing peasants as remnants of the past, untouched by capital, he acknowledges that the pea-
santry has been influenced by green technologies to become agricultural entrepreneurs.
Yet, Van der Ploeg (2014) considers the integration of peasants into capitalist agriculture as
something that needs to be reversed through ‘re-peasantization.’ This ‘new peasantry,’ is
agro-ecological: ‘In contrast to agrarian entrepreneurs, the peasants of the twenty-first
century put ecological capital centre stage’ (5).
Martínez-Torres and Rosset (2014, 992) also refer the process of re-peasantization
through agroecology. They then contradict themselves by stating that peasants are the
least agro-ecological of Vía Campesina participants. They differentiate between peasant
groups, indigenous groups and rural proletariat, arguing that the latter two are more
radical than peasants because peasants organize around farmer issues like access to
land, credit, subsidies, technology, and price support. In this regard, Martínez-Torres and
Rosset (2014) do note the heterogeneous interests of Vía Campesina member organiz-
ations and whether they are primarily advocating for landless proletariat or middle pea-
sants; yet they celebrate the shift towards agroecology as an improvement from earlier
food sovereignty discourse. In doing so, they uncritically reproduce Vía Campesina’s
essentialism:
We are also defending and recovering our territories because the agroecological peasant agri-
culture we will practice in them is a basic building block in the construction of food sover-
eignty and is the first line in our defense of the Mother Earth … we commit to recovering
our ancestral farming knowledge and appropriating elements of agroecology (which in fact
is largely derived from our accumulated knowledge) so that we may produce in harmony
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 271

with, and take good care of, our Mother Earth … .in stark opposition to the corporate ‘model of
death’ … of wastelands poisoned with agrotoxics and transgenics … .When we control terri-
tory, we seek to practice agroecological peasant agriculture … which is demonstrably better
for Mother Earth in that it helps to Cool the Planet (c.f. Martínez-Torres and Rosset 2014,
987; Vía Campesina 2012).

The problem with essentialist discourse is that under this logic, peasants deserve access to
resources because they will use those resources to grow food sustainability. They want
control over resources, yes, but the commitment to cultivate those resources agro-ecolo-
gically may be an empty signifier. The degree to which this essentialism is strategic is
beyond the scope of this paper; yet, even if it is a strategic political tool on the part of
movement actors, it should not be reproduced uncritically by scholars. At the same
time that Altieri and Toledo (2011, 594) acknowledge that the Latin American peasantry
is a heterogeneous group that includes commercial farmers using agrochemical inputs
for international markets, they also claim agroecology to be bottom-up, based on indigen-
ous cosmovisions. In Ecuador, the political impetus behind including agroecology into the
food sovereignty framework came largely from northern agronomists and practitioners
(Clark 2017). Food sovereignty in Ecuador was initially about peasant livelihoods and
only eventually over time, because of NGO intervention, did it shift toward local
agroecology.

Food sovereignty trajectory in Ecuador

Ecuador has the most advanced legal policy framework for food sovereignty in Latin
America (Clark 2017). However, while scholars praise the degree of institutionalization,
they remain critical about the degree of implementation (Clark 2016; Giunta 2014). The
Correa administration is critiqued for falling short on both redistributive and environ-
mental goals. The redistributive critique is more justified, as peasant movements in
Ecuador have long fought for land reform, while the environmental critique is rooted in
peasant essentialism.
Food sovereignty entered the discourse of the indigenous peasant movement during
anti-free trade protests in the early 2000s. Movement organizations presented a Plan
Agrario that centered on government policies to strengthen the small-farm sector. One
of the objectives of this agrarian plan was soberanía alimentaria, which asserted that
the government of Ecuador should ensure the food-producing sector is bolstered so
the nation can depend on food grown within its own borders (El Comercio 2002).
During their ‘March for sovereignty, against the neoliberal model,’ the president of
CONAIE2 warned that free trade with the United States would destroy the small-farm
sector: ‘It is not a treaty, but a submission that will practically erase the production
process of small and medium producers’ (Hoy 2005). Throughout a series of mobilizations,
indigenous peasant protesters blocked major highways to demand a reactivation of the
small-farm sector.
Correa’s 2006 presidential election campaign promised to reform agrarian policy in
favor of rural smallholders. The Mesa Agraria, a coalition of four peasant organizations,
2
Confederación de Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indígenas del Ecuador [Confederation of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of
Ecuador].
272 R. SOPER

signed an agreement with Correa during his presidential run that if elected he would
initiative a Revolución Agraria based on the peasant movement’s demands for food sover-
eignty (Henderson 2017a). These demands centered on access to land and water and the
allocation of state resources to reactivate the peasant economy (Henderson 2017a, 44).
Once elected, Correa formed a Constituent Assembly to re-write the Constitution, which
included the leader of FENOCIN,3 one of Vía Campesina’s member organizations (Giunta
2014). The 2008 Constitution adopted soberanía alimentaria as a strategic goal and gov-
ernment obligation. Many core demands were institutionalized, including state support
to distribute land to the peasant sector, affordable credit, and state-funded training (Hen-
derson 2017, 44).
In 2009, the Food Sovereignty Law, LORSA4 was formulated with the input of a larger
agrarian network called the Red Agraria (Peña 2015). LORSA outlines fundamental respon-
sibilities of the state to redistribute land, protect the national agri-food sector through
tariffs, and facilitate micro-enterprise so small producers can better market their products
(Title 1, Article 3). These can be seen as peasant livelihood objectives that build off of pre-
vious indigenous peasant movement demands. At the same time, LORSA also affirms
respect for the rights of nature, sustainable management of natural resources, and
good environmental practices during agricultural production (Title 1, Article 2). Title 1,
Article 1 commits to respecting and protecting agro-biodiversity, traditional knowledge
and ancestral forms of production – under the principles of equity, solidarity, inclusion, and
social and environmental sustainability. These can be seen as the environmental goals of
the food sovereignty movement.
Scholars point to the role of environmental NGOs in incorporating agroecology into the
food sovereignty framework. Clark (2017) makes clear that much of the environmental dis-
course institutionalized in the food sovereignty legal framework came from ecological
intellectuals and practitioners. The Colectivo Agroecológico, made up mostly of agrono-
mists and middle-class professionals, was very influential in crafting the discourse of
food sovereignty as agroecology (Clark 2017; Intriago et al. 2017). According to Intriago
et al, incorporating agroecology into the legal framework was ‘greeted with approval by
social movements, particularly peasant and indigenous organizations’ (2017, 325), yet
Clark (2017) calls into question how much it came from the people of the countryside.
This same trajectory from anti-neoliberalism to pro-agroecology took place in Ecuador
food sovereignty movement organizing, but pro-agroecology came more from NGO prac-
titioners than the peasants themselves. The redistributive goals of food sovereignty are the
ones that indigenous peasant movements continued to mobilize around, even after the
2008 Constitution and 2009 LORSA were institutionalized. Between 2008 and 2012, indi-
genous peasant movement organizations held a series of nation-wide marches about
water rights (El Comercio 2010). Their proposed Ley de Aguas bill would improve small-
holder access to irrigation resources by granting priority use rights and investing in infra-
structure to re-distribute water to rural communities (CONAIE 2008).
Not only are indigenous peasant movement organizations critical of the government
for not going far enough to enact constitutional principles into concrete redistributive

3
Federacion Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Indigenas, y Negras [National Federation of Peasant, Indigenous, and
Afro-Ecuadorian Organizations].
4
Ley Orgánica del Régimen de Soberianía Alimentaria [Organic Law of the Food Sovereignty Regime].
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 273

action, a substantial body of scholarship has also critiqued the Correa administration for its
failure to implement the food sovereignty framework (Becker 2013; Clark 2016; Giunta
2014; Henderson 2017a; Intriago et al. 2017; Martínez Valle 2017). According to Henderson
(2017a, 45), ‘rural policies contradict the peasant movement’s vision of food sovereignty
enshrined in the constitution.’
Scholars make this critique despite the fact that there has been a ‘return of the state’ to
the Ecuadorian countryside (Clark 2016). Changing course from the neoliberal retreat of
the state, the Ecuadorian government increased expenditures in agriculture programs
that protect peasant livelihoods. The Ministry of Agriculture (Magap) invested more
resources in the rural agrarian population than it had in decades. Magap was ‘anemically
underfunded’ during the neoliberal period; yet under Correa the budget more than tripled:
from $88 million in 2003 to $318 million by 2009 (Clark 2016, 196).
Policies and programs that support small-farm livelihoods include subsidized farm
inputs, technical assistance, marketing assistance, public procurement, and price floors
for basic commodities such as corn, rice, bananas and milk to protect producers and con-
sumers from volatile price fluctuations (El Diario 2008; El Universo 2008, 2013). Magap has
expanded their support of small-farming communities through hands-on programs such
as Hombro a Hombro and PRONERI5 that provide technical assistance in the fields to
improve yields and in the office to develop marketing strategies (Clark 2016; Giunta 2014).
Despite these programs, scholars remain critical of Correa for failing to implement ‘a vía
campesina model of rural development’ (Clark 2017, 351). This critique is largely targeted
at government policies that support peasant farmers to further integrate into global and/
or industrial agricultural commodity chains. Clark (2017) characterizes the Correa govern-
ment as neo-developmental because they have promoted conventional agricultural pro-
duction technologies and furthered ties between small producers and agribusiness firms.
Although PRONERI has improved the prices small farmers receive, that this program ‘inte-
grates small-scale producers into agro-industrial commodity chains and monocrop pro-
duction … is quite far from the principles of FS’ (Clark 2016, 198). Henderson (2017a, 45)
critiques the state’s conception of food sovereignty as focusing on increasing the pro-
ductivity and efficiency of small producers along capitalist lines rather than promoting sus-
tainable, diverse agro-ecological systems. While the government has budgeted over a
billion dollars into these production programs, ‘many of which are benefitting small-
holders and campesino organizations,’ investments in agro-ecological production are
scant compared conventional agriculture (Clark 2017, 359–360). Instead, enactment of
radical agro-ecological food sovereignty objectives in Ecuador has mostly come from
NGOs like Heifer International (Clark 2017, 360).
Giunta (2014, 1221) asserts that the Revolución Agraria should more accurately be
classified as reform than revolution because there is a ‘persistence of the logic of rural
industrialization and modernization.’ Rather than seeing industrial agriculture as a viable
option for peasants, she views them as two fundamentally opposed and competing para-
digms, pointing to the ongoing conflict between alternative development and develop-
mentalism – where one is food sovereignty and the other is based on the market,

5
Programa Nacional de Negocios Rurales Inclusivos [National Program of Inclusive Rural Businesses] is part of CADERS [Pro-
jecto de Competitividad Agropecuaria y Desarollo Rural Sostenible; Agricultural Competitiveness and Sustainable Rural
Development Project], which is part the Plan Nacional de Buen Vivir [National Plan for Good Living]. CADERS’ objective
is to increase rural household income and promote food sovereignty.
274 R. SOPER

modernization, and exploitation of nature (Giunta 2014, 1221). Yet, it is this very dichot-
omy between two different and incompatible modes of production that previous scholars
have problematized as being a false dichotomy.
Indeed, some of the scholars who are critical of the implementation of food sovereignty
in Ecuador rely on problematic essentialist language. For example, Intriago et al. (2017, 320)
claim that agroecology is a form of resistance by indigenous and peasant groups that serves
as a symbol of struggle against agribusiness. Even though they admit that alternative agri-
culture was first influenced by European and North American professionals and volunteers
who brought knowledge about organic farming with them, and despite the fact that the
academic sector and technicians promoted agroecology through NGO-led initiatives,
they claim that ‘agroecology became a central demand and daily practice of peasant and
indigenous organizations, one that originated from their own thinking and adopted as a
form of a peasant resistance’ (Intriago et al. 2017, 317). They claim ‘there is a generalized con-
sensus among peasant farmers … that agroecology represents the best alternative’ (313).
Indigenous peoples of the Andean highlands, they assert, have practiced ‘long-standing
agrobiodiversity associated with ancestral knowledge’ (312). They critique the Correa
administration for facilitating the use of modern industrial agricultural technologies,
stating, ‘Rather than permitting the independence, liberty, and control of peasants over
their productive systems, it has promoted the strengthening of conventional agriculture
and agro-exportation by means of state support and subsidies on agro-toxins’ (320).
Yet these very state supports that Intriago et al. (2017) are so critical of are what the
indigenous peasants in my study want access to. Rather than resisting agribusiness or pos-
sessing ancestral agro-ecological knowledge, they want to be more favorably integrated
into the market, even if that means conventional production or global trade. The claim
that peasants fight for agroecology as a form of resistance against agribusiness neglects
to acknowledge that some peasants are agribusiness and instead resist against agroecol-
ogy. The following empirical case studies demonstrate that peasant communities who
have mobilized against neoliberal agricultural production and trade policies do not
necessarily practice nor wish to practice local agroecology. Resisting neoliberalism does
not mean limiting their farm inputs or market destination.

Case studies
To understand the practices and perspectives of indigenous peasant farmers in Ecuador, I
engaged in eight months of ethnographic field research during two trips in 2011 and 2013.
During that time, I lived with indigenous peasant farming communities in the rural high-
lands through family homestays. I shadowed the daily activities of indigenous peasants in
the fields and at markets. I conducted 85 semi-structured interviews with indigenous
peasant community members, in addition to 27 other respondents affiliated with producer
cooperatives or indigenous movement organizations.
I refer to my research subjects as indigenous peasants because they self-identify as
such. They belong to the historical ethno-class of campesino, or peasant. That means
their parents and grandparents were tenet laborers on haciendas through the huasipungo
system, working for Spanish landlords. Then, through land reform in the 1960s and 1970s,
they received ownership over their small plots of land when the huasipungo system was
dismantled and haciendas were divided up. Today, they live in rural communities with
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 275

communal land rights; they farm small plots of land; they dress distinctly from mestizo
Ecuadorians; and most of them continue to speak Kichwa.
In the following sections, I will describe the practices and perspectives of three different
communities.6 Production practices and market destination vary, yet none match up to the
ideal of sustainable production for local consumption. Broccoli farmers engage in input-
intensive and export-oriented production. Dairy farmers maximize the production of
milk by dedicating all of their land to monoculture cow pastures. Quinoa farmers practice
low-input, sustainable agriculture, yet they do so in order to access a certified organic Fair
Trade export market. Although the ideal of a localized agro-ecological food system does
not resonate with these indigenous peasant farmers, they do support food sovereignty
policies that redistribute resource to bolster the small-farm sector.

Brocano: input-intensive, export-oriented broccoli

The indigenous peasants in Brocano average one hectare of land per household. They
farm these small plots very intensively, with tractors, irrigation water, purchased seedlings
(germinated in greenhouses with imported hybrid seeds), chemical fertilizers, and pesti-
cides. In these respects, despite the traditional attire they wear and native language
they speak, they practice a global industrial model of agriculture. Their production is
not sustainable, nor are their markets local. Rather, they collectively sell their broccoli
harvest to an agribusiness firm which processes it into frozen broccoli florets and
exports it to North America and Asia.
Walking down the main road through the community, small rectangular grids of
uniform row crops of various shades of green extend in both directions. Although broccoli
is the main cash crop in Brocano, they do not grow it as a monoculture. Instead, they divide
their small plots into even smaller parcels, and rotate broccoli with other vegetables,
including cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, cilantro, radishes, beets, carrots, and onions.
These hortalizas are then sold to market intermediaries who truck the produce to large
cities.
Each of these crops takes only three to four months to grow. Thus, they get at least
three, sometimes up to four crop cycles per year. The quick production cycle came up
again and again when talking with residents. Brocano farmers value this about vegetables,
especially in comparison to the six to nine month cycles of staple foodcrops like barley,
wheat, corn and fava beans. After each harvest, they do not allot a descansa (rest
period) or barbecho (rotation of fallow land) to let the nutrients regenerate in the soil.
Rather, they let the land rest at most 15 days before they prepare the soil for planting
the next crop cycle. It depends on the family, Esteban tells me, some people do not
even wait a few weeks: ‘they hire the tractor for the very next day.’
To plant broccoli and other hortalizas, Brocano farmers do not save seeds from the last
harvest. Instead, they purchase seeds to plant carrots, beets and cilantro, and plantuas
(seedlings) for broccoli, onion, lettuce, cauliflower, and cabbage. Seedlings are purchased
in plastic containers stacked in crates from agricultural supply stores. Recently, the com-
munity has constructed a few greenhouses to germinate the hybrid seeds into plantulas
themselves. The hybrid broccoli seeds come in a cylinder container, imported from
6
The names of the communities, as well as the names of respondents within those communities are all pseudonyms.
276 R. SOPER

Brazil, with multiple languages printed on the label. These seeds are germinated with
chemicals and irrigation through a sprinkler system in the greenhouse before they are
sold to the surrounding community members. Seedlings are planted into the ground by
hand into neat and uniform elevated mounds. At the start of each cycle, farmers rent trac-
tors to prepare the soil. After the soil is upturned, farmers apply chicken manure that is not
from their own chickens, but purchased from agricultural supply stores.
Whether planting, fumigating, or harvesting, the fields are filled with mostly women.
They dress in the long skirts (anaco) and feathered bowler hats that have come to
signify indigenous identity. In addition, they also wear rubber boots and plastic yellow
and blue backpacks. These containers hold líqida, the chemicals they use to spray their
fields. Pesticides are applied three times throughout the production cycle. The last
round of spraying happens 15 days before cosecha (harvest). On any given day, a
handful of people throughout the community walk back and forth down every row of
their parcel, without any protective gear, spaying chemicals from the appendage
hanging down from their fumigation backpacks. One day, I shadowed an old man and
his wife during this process. He took out two bottles of liquida from the agrochemical
store, and mixed a few capfuls of each with water from the irrigation canal running along-
side the field. I backed away during this step, facing the other direction so I would not
inhale the fumes, but the smell of chemicals was so strong that it made me lightheaded
from a few yards away. ‘It is very important to fumigate with liquida,’ the old man told me,
‘otherwise the harvest will be full of worms.’
Brocano farmers consistently justify their use of harsh agrochemicals by pointing to
what the harvest would be like if they did not fumigate. Sofía tells me that fumigating is
tiresome on her arms. It makes her sick. She always gets a cold after fumigating, and
sometimes a fever. But if they do not do it, she says, the crops will not be good, will
not be marketable. The broccoli would take longer to grow and would not be as
dense. Most are aware of the negative consequences to human health, but continue
forward along the same path because they need to make a living for themselves and
their families. In response to the question In your opinion, is using chemicals a good
thing? Esteban says:
Listen, you have to understand, it’s a point of equilibrium. For me, as a farmer, it’s good. But for
health, it’s not good. As a farmer, because that is my income, my livelihood, that from which I
hope to make money, for me chemicals are good, from the side of a farmer. But on the other
hand, for my health, it’s not good.

After broccoli and the other hortalizas are harvested, Brocano farmers save very little of it
for household consumption. Teresa estimates that 95% of the output is for sale, and only
5% is eaten inside the community. ‘Almost 100% of the harvest is to sell,’ Alma tells me.
Instead, what they eat is ‘rice, rice, rice.’ Even though Alma pokes fun at how much rice
they eat, she explains that their diet varies and still incorporates many traditional foods.
‘Sometimes we eat rice, sometimes we eat soup with carrot, onion, peas, broccoli,
cabbage, and chard. And we cook barley rice with milk, morocho (a type of corn) with
milk, and we make machica (barley powder with milk).’ Why don’t you grow barley
anymore?, I followed. ‘Because barley needs 6 or 7 months to mature before harvest,
whereas hortalizas only take three months,’ she responds, ‘Because we have irrigated
land and it gives us a more profitable option.’
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 277

Brocano farmers are committed to export. Alma tells me,

We campesinos are on the land, with the crops, day and night. For us, it is better, more profi-
table, to export. It is better that there is a lot of movement and trade. It is better not to be stuck
only in the national market, but rather the international market.

They supply the international market through their community enterprise, which sells col-
lectively to the agribusiness firm.7 In this light, it is clear that there is a disconnect between
the food sovereignty discourse of indigenous peasant farmers acting as stewards of the
land and the actual on-the-ground practices and perspectives of indigenous peasants
striving to make a profit and secure their livelihoods.

Lacava: monoculture dairy farming

In Lacava, community members dedicate their land to cow pastures. These indigenous
peasants have transitioned away from diversified foodcrops towards monoculture diary
farming because of the good market price of milk combined with the high production
costs and low returns of foodcrops. Diary farmers sell their milk through a community
enterprise to an agribusiness firm which processes yogurt, cheese and powdered milk
for regional supermarket chains.
As I sat with her in the front yard, next to a tarp of corn kernels drying in the sun, Gladís,
a 55-year-old mother of nine children, described what farming in the community was like
20 years ago: ‘There were less cows and more agriculture.’ Octavio, a 33-year-old father of
two young children, has four hectares of land – and all of it is pastures. He dedicates all his
land to cows because they are profitable: ‘For the profitability … at least for the time being.
Obviously, just like the price rose, equally it can fall.’
Farmers in Lacava explain the transition from foodcrops to dairy in terms of the cost of
production, including agrochemicals. ‘Other products are expensive to take care of,’
explains Gladís, ‘For example, planting potatoes, the fertilizer is expensive, the pesticides
are expensive.’ According to Sonia, ‘The inputs for fumigating are very expensive. Same
with tractors, and we don’t profit.’ Thus, prior to monoculture dairy pastures, Lacava
farmers grew traditional staple foods, like potatoes and fava beans, but they did so with
industrial inputs like tractors, fertilizers and pesticides.
Not only are inputs expensive, but the price of these staple crops in the national market
are very low.
Right now, the price of potatoes is so low and the chemicals that we have to buy are so
expensive. The fertilizer, the fungicides, all of it is expensive. The price we sell it for doesn’t
cover it all: not the cost of tractors, nothing. For that reason, the people have decided it is
better to dedicate ourselves to cows, cows, cows,

Hilario tells me. Fertilizer always costs $50 a quintal, whereas the price of a quintal of pota-
toes can drop to $1. ‘To buy one quintal of fertilizer, we would have to sell so many quintals
of potatoes, we wouldn’t make a profit; so I let it go. Now I don’t plant potatoes, now we
only dedicate ourselves to dairy farming,’ Victoria explains.
7
While other scholarship on peasants and broccoli in the central highlands of Ecuador (Cotopaxi) finds rural proletariat
wage-workers to be marginalized by agribusiness firms (Martínez Valle 2017), the peasants in my study (Chimborazo)
nevertheless wanted to further their global market ties and even expand to new non-traditional agricultural exports
like asparagus and artichokes.
278 R. SOPER

Despite being active in indigenous peasant movement food sovereignty organizing

around the Ley de Aguas, Lacava dairy farmers disagree that food grown in the country
should remain within its borders. Numerous community members told me of their goal
to one day export their milk abroad. ‘Of course, if we had the opportunity to export,
that is a dream to one day export product from here to other countries, because here
we have a large quantity of milk that we produce daily,’ says Octavio. Pulisa told me: ‘It
is our vision that all the milk we produce leaves for the exterior.’
Indigenous peasants in Lacava deviate from the food sovereignty ideal in several
regards. First, they have moved from staple food production to monoculture cash crop.
Second, they refer to the high cost of inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
demonstrating that peasant producers have long departed from the agro-ecological
model. And lastly, while they currently supply the domestic market – contributing to
national food self-sufficiency – they desire to export abroad. Yet, despite having a vision
that differs from the environment objectives of food sovereignty movement, they
marched in the Ley de Aguas protests to secure water rights for their community.

Quiloa: fair trade organic quinoa

In Quiloa, quinoa is grown through sustainable production practices. Rather than maximiz-
ing production of the ancient grain, quinoa farmers grow it in rotation with staple food crops
like barley, wheat and fava beans. In addition, they dedicate part of their land to pastures to
feed their numerous farm animals. These animals then generate the manure they use to fer-
tilize their foodcrops. After harvest, quinoa farmers plant cover crops to replenish the soil
and let the land rest for two to three months before their next production cycle. This diver-
sified agropecurio (agriculture and livestock) system exemplifies the agro-ecological ideal
associated with peasant farming. At first glance, the indigenous peasant community
members of Quiloa appear to embody the local sustainable food sovereignty model.
However, the quinoa they grow is intended for the international market. They supply
export NGOs who then ship the quinoa to Europe and the United States. In order to
access this niche market, the quinoa must be certified organic. In this sense, their sustain-
able practices can be attributed to market forces. In fact, prior to the quinoa export project,
Quiloa farmers used pesticides on their fava beans and potatoes. They only stopped apply-
ing chemicals when the first export NGO approached their community with the opportu-
nity. Radiofónica brought seeds and taught them how to grow quinoa organically.
Previously, quinoa was only planted is very small quantities in household gardens, and
potatoes were grown on larger plots. Then, because Radiofónica offered such a high
price for quinoa, they replaced potatoes, and the quantity of quinoa produced by each
household increased tenfold.
Martín from Quiloa tells me that
Before, my parents planted barley and potatoes more. Then the quinoa project started. We
had quinoa before, but not a lot like we do now. Before, we planted it just to eat because
the price was so low and barley had a little better price. But then Radiofónica arrived with
their project and started buying quinoa for a good price.

Hernán elaborates on its importance: ‘Quinoa is like gold for us. It’s the only grain that has
a high price. Wheat, barley, potatoes, they don’t have a high price.’ ‘If you go to the market
with a sack of quinoa, you can sell it for 90–120 dollars. Barley, right now I’m not sure what
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 279

it goes for, 15 or 20 dollars, it’s not enough,’ says María. Guillermo explains that wheat and
barley prices are so low that selling it does not even cover the cost of production, but they
do profit from selling quinoa.
Fanny tells me that before, she used chemicals on potatoes, fava beans, and peas, but
not on barley or wheat because they did not need to. However, they did not fumigate
organically either, because they did not know how – not until the technical assistance
of Radiofónica. Engineers from Radiofónica came and taught them how to fumigate
bugs with natural products, and how to wait at least four years before planting the
same crop in the same plot of land.
Radiofónica came and taught us not to use chemicals in our agriculture because it is bad for
our health. Instead, we only use natural manure from our animals. They would come and check
our soil and not buy from us unless it was organic,

says Raúl. Paradoxically, the organic certification process led community members to ded-
icate less of their land to grow food to eat (because potatoes require fumigation) and more
towards food to sell. In addition, without herbicides, respondents complain about intensi-
fied labor demands associated with weeding.
Indigenous peasant farmers in Quiloa practice sustainable agriculture, but for non-local
ends. Their quinoa is shipped long distances in the international market to feed wealthy
consumers in the global North. In addition, they are trying to export staple crops like
barley and fava beans too, since the local market price is so low. When Radiofónica
decided to stop Fair Trade certification without consulting them, the producer cooperative
Coprobich decided to pursue Fair Trade markets on their own. Each member contributed
$40 toward the construction of a producer-owned and operated processing facility so they
could become their own middlemen and better integrate themselves into the global com-
modity chain.

Discussion
Findings in all three communities illustrate that these indigenous peasants are not fore-
most concerned with environmental sustainability or local trade. Quiloa farmers practice
more agroecology than the chemical-intensive Brocano farmers or monoculture Lacava
farmers, but the impetus to do so was top-down, in order to meet the demand of northern
consumers.8 Thus, none of the three community case studies currently practice sustain-
able production for local consumption. More notably, none of the three communities
wish to; all want to export. The desires put forth by the small farmers in this study
might differ from the food sovereignty movement’s call for local agroecology, but they
mirror peasant movement demands for government protection of small-farm livelihoods
and embrace the Ecuadorian government’s implementation of food sovereignty through
programs and policies that facilitate micro-enterprise and small-farm incorporation into
export commodity chains.
One explanation for these communities’ approaches to food sovereignty may be that
they have benefited from Correa’s policies and programs. Although influence by Magap
was not one of my considerations when selecting case communities, it turned out that
8
Just like cocao producers in Henderson (2017b, 79), they practice agroecology to better situate themselves in export
markets.
280 R. SOPER

each had been directly impacted for the better. Price floors for milk helped dairy farmers;
in addition to investing in the quinoa processing facility, Magap supports Coprobich
through the PRONERI program, paying the salary of an agricultural engineer to help estab-
lish relationships with Fair Trade buyers in Europe and the United States; and Brocano’s
broccoli cooperative is also supported by a PRONERI engineer who offers technical assist-
ance and marketing advice to the community enterprise. However, each community
already specialized in their chemical-intensive, monoculture, or export-oriented crops
prior to assistance from the Correa administration. In that sense, while Magap programs
assisted these communities in their efforts to better integrate themselves into the
market, they were not responsible for introducing peasants to global industrial agriculture.
Considering other contexts, like Central America, where peasants are practicing less
farming because of out-migration and remittances (Edelman 2008), it is important to
know the perspectives and experiences of those peasants who remain in agriculture. It
is clear, like Clark (2016) says, that the state is the elephant in the room. It has played a
key role in protecting the peasant sector and making agrarian livelihoods a viable
option. The Correa administration made on-the-ground change that benefited peasant
livelihoods through price floors for milk and technical assistance in marketing broccoli,
processing quinoa, and exporting cacao (Henderson 2017a). Henderson (2017a) found
that cacao-producing peasants on the Ecuadorian coast liked Correa’s food sovereignty
policy; they appreciated the assistance in marketing their goods. Not only that, he
found that these peasants did not feel represented by the national peasant movement
FENOCIN because of its emphasis on access to land to grow staple food crops for self-con-
sumption and sale in local market (Henderson 2017b). FENOCIN’s agenda does not res-
onate with coastal peasants who instead want access to labor-saving technology, credit,
inputs and technical assistance to improve market competitiveness.
While Henderson (2017b) argues that FENOCIN better represents Andean highland pea-
sants, I argue that the contemporary food sovereignty agenda of indigenous peasant fed-
erations in Ecuador does not represent the highland indigenous peasants in my study
either. Similar to Henderson’s (2017a) cocao producers, my quinoa, dairy and broccoli pro-
ducers also wanted better market prices rather than more land. Even though they were
smallholders, more land would necessitate more labor than they had available to them
through family kinship ties. Rather than more land redistribution, what the peasants in
both Henderson’s (2017a) and my study want is to intensify the production of the land
they already possess to increase output and be better situated in the markets they
supply. If the peasants used their land to produce mostly for subsistence rather than com-
mercial production, then they would need to generate more income through wage labor.
Yet, Martínez Valle’s (2017) work on rural semi-proletarian agribusiness plantation and pro-
cessing plant workers in the Ecuadorian highlands argues that the food sovereignty
agenda does not represent their interests either.
Henderson (2017b) argues that the food sovereignty agenda does not reflect the inter-
ests of coastal peasants, while Martínez Valle (2017) argues that food sovereignty policy
does not respond to needs of rural semi-proletarian peasants in the central highlands.
Both of these critiques imply that food sovereignty best represents small-scale family
farming peasants in the highlands; but in my fieldwork with small-scale family farming pea-
sants in the highlands, I find that food sovereignty proposals for local agroecology do not
reflect their interests either. In this light, who is food sovereignty meant to represent?
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 281

Where are these peasants who produce mostly for subsistence and local market trade with
their low-input practices, who want access to more land to continue producing in this way?
My guess is if they do exist, once they get more land, they will then want government
resources like technical assistance and price supports to better integrate themselves
into viable market channels; they might even start growing specialized export crops;
and once they progress to this level, they will not have a rural agrarian social movement
to represent them since they will no longer fit the vision of food sovereignty.
Issues of representation in transnational social movements are complex. Represen-
tation tends to be ‘sweepingly assumed rather than systematically problematized and
empirically examined’ (Borras, Edelman, and Kay 2008, 180). Borras, Edelman, and Kay
(2008) explain that representation is important because it is from movement’s claims to
represent a group of people that they justify their issue-framing and demand-making
initiatives, yet it is common for transnational movements to claim to be ‘representative’
of the ‘voice of the rural poor’ from a given country, even when the national organization
networked into the movement is far from being representative of the diverse rural poor
within that country.
Because of these complexities at various levels across transnational agrarian move-
ments, Edelman and Borras (2016) astutely point out that there are heterogeneous,
diverse, and even competing strategies within Vía Campesina, depending on region.
While they are primarily referring to regional differences by continent (Africa, Asia, Latin
America), many of these issues, especially related to type of peasant (landless vs
middle) can be seen between coastal and highland regions and even within the small
region of the central highlands of Ecuador. Class differences within the peasantry
explain the diverse and opposing political strategies pursued by peasant organizations
(Edelman and Borras 2016). And because of that, as Schiavoni (2017, 13) notes, ‘there is
no singular, unified vision or project for food sovereignty, but rather multiple, overlapping,
and often competing efforts.’ The Ecuadorian case makes this abundantly clear.
The parallel anti-neoliberal globalization forces in Ecuador – Correa’s administration on
the one hand and Vía Campesina’s food sovereignty on the other – are at odds with each
other, according to Clark (2017). He notes that there are ‘Deep paradigmatic differences in
Ecuador between the NGOs and social movement leaders who pushed for the vision in the
2008 constitution and the bureaucrats and politicians tasked with implementing this para-
digm’ (361). The Vía Campesina approach failed, he says, because of the decline of Vía
Campesina-inspired indigenous peasant movement organizations in Ecuador due to the
return of the state in rural development. Henderson (2017a, 47) makes a similar point:
that Correa’s own notions of the term food sovereignty and the policies that support it
have gained consensus among much of the rural poor who view the government as on
their side: ‘Correa’s project reached down to rural communities, garnering widespread
support for both his presidency and his own definitions of food sovereignty which are
far removed from those proposed by the national peasant movement’ (36). Henderson
(2017a) acknowledges that national movement leaders failed to construct their
demands for food sovereignty based on dialogue with their bases. In this regard,
Correa’s policies have received support from peasants themselves ‘despite the protesta-
tions of their national leadership’ (46) who instead demand radical change.
With these representation issues in mind, it is important to assert Clark’s (2017, 350)
assessment that the radical food sovereignty vision in Ecuador has failed in part due to
282 R. SOPER

its adoption of a peasant essentialist discourse. The radical approach represents the voice
of academics and NGOs ‘rather than a political vision that reflects the struggles of most
contemporary campesinos or petty commodity producers’ (361). This vision ‘does not
take into account that rural social movement struggles are often fought with the end
goal of becoming a viable petty commodity producer rather than ‘opting-out’ of capital-
ism’ (Clark 2017, 350).
Food sovereignty supposedly failed in Ecuador because the government assisted pea-
sants to agro-industrialize. However, this can be seen as contributing towards livelihoods
goals, even if not ecological ones. In response to protests against the neoliberal retreat of
the state, the state returned to the agrarian countryside. That the state promoted agro-
industry over agroecology should not take away from the fact that government programs
re-invested in the small-farm sector and improved peasant livelihoods. Clark notes that ‘If
food sovereignty were to be defined as … increased resources to smallholders, regardless
of whether they are based on agro-ecological or conventional production methods, them
the government’s programmes have been moderately successful and have represented a
break with neoliberal policies’ (2017, 360). My question is: Why is food sovereignty not
defined as such? Why cannot peasant livelihood goals be promoted independent of
environmental goals? Their actions might have veered from the stated discourse, but
perhaps the discourse is the problem.
Scholars praise the degree of institutionalization of the food sovereignty framework
(Giunta 2014). Yet, the institutionalized food sovereignty framework departs from the
actual interests and on-the-ground realities of indigenous peasant producers. Rather
than being critical of the implementation, perhaps food sovereignty scholars should be
more critical of the framework. Schiavoni (2017, 4) notes that it is important to uncover
the contradictions and messiness involved in implementing food sovereignty and under-
stand the convergences and divergences between visions and realities. Not only must we
understand reality as a barrier to implementing vision, we must also understand reality as a
critique of the vision. In that sense, rather than aiming to overcome the barriers to
implementation, I think we need to refocus our attention to the original discourse and
be critical of the essentialism inherent in the guiding principles of food sovereignty.

Conclusion
Since Ecuador was one of the first countries to incorporate the concept of food sover-
eignty into its national constitution, it is argued to ‘hold important lessons for food sover-
eignty movements and national governments elsewhere’ (Wittman, Desmarais, and Wiebe
2010, 9). The lesson I learned from my research on food sovereignty in Ecuador is that the
on-the-ground realities of peasant farmers need to be taken into consideration when
creating the food sovereignty platform, rather than using peasant agriculture as a mar-
tyred trope. Food sovereignty scholars and activists hold peasants up on a pedestal as
embodying all of the positive characteristics of a sustainable food system, but they
should not be viewed as romanticized cultural heirlooms.
McMichael has said that food sovereignty ‘offers a palpable rejoinder to those who
fetishize agro-exporting as the solution to global hunger’ (2014, 951). Yet, it could also
be argued that it is actually the post-development scholars who fetishize peasants to fit
their own critiques of the corporate food regime. I agree with Bernstein’s critique of Vía
 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES 283

Campesina: a movement to represent peasant voice should represent the interests of

actual, living, breathing peasants and not an idealized notion of what peasants once
were or what they can one day be. It should represent peasant realities rather than
ideal types.
Vía Campesina boldly claims to ‘represent almost half of the world population’ (2009,
57). They are also regarded as a ‘pro-peasant movement’ (Martinez-Alier 2011, 146) but
it is unclear if they are pro-existing peasants or pro-idealized peasants. Vía Campesina
cannot be for peasants and for peasant agriculture as an ideal type and false binary to capi-
talist agriculture at the same time. Peasant movements have historically been about
staying agrarian, about the ability to reproduce oneself in the countryside, not about agr-
onomy or localization. Therefore, peasantness should not be defined in terms of which
agricultural inputs they use and which markets they supply.
Altieri and Toledo (2011) contend that traditional peasant agriculture is the root of the
agro-ecological proposal. According to them, the Andean region is characterized by ‘the
huge presence of a peasantry of deep historical roots, a pre-hispanic agricultural legacy,
and an active level of political resistance by indigenous movements’ (602). That might
be so, but they do not necessarily continue to practice that legacy today and do not
necessarily want to go back to it. They are peasants whether or not they produce organi-
cally or with pesticides, whether they sell in local or export markets. And in mobilizing
against neoliberalism, they are not necessarily pro-agroecology. Peasant agriculture
should not be conflated with local agroecology. By claiming that re-peasantization takes
place through agroecology, it leads to peasant essentialism that is not fair to the millions
of peasants who are not (nor do they want to start) growing sustainable food for local
markets. It ignores the peasants who want access to resources to better situate themselves
within global industrial commodity chains, who do not, as Van der Ploeg (2014) insists,
want to return to traditional techniques.
Food sovereignty discourse can be positioned within the larger post-development
umbrella in that it resists capitalist modernization and calls for a way of life that is local
and sustainable, but in doing so, thereby glorifies poverty. Corbridge (1998) critiqued
post-developmentalism by pointing out its ‘unhelpful binaries,’ ‘wobbly romanticism’
(139), and ‘essentialised accounts of the West and the Rest’ which depict non-western
people as, among other virtues, ‘in tune with Nature’ (144). Corbridge (1998) also proble-
matized the false dichotomy between scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge
systems, especially when new technologies are labor-saving. Applied to peasant agricul-
ture, this might mean tractors, herbicides, and harvesting machinery. Re-peasantization
scholars encourage peasants to move backwards to their traditional roots, away from
labor-saving technology, and this objective builds off post-development assumptions
about the rural poor.
Food sovereignty proposes peasant agriculture as the way forward; this entails main-
taining or recapturing agroecology and local trade. In this regard, peasants are urged to
stave off the pressure to modernize. But just because peasants start using pesticides or
supplying export markets does not mean they are not peasants anymore. Critical food
sovereignty scholars like Edelman (2014) and Burnett and Murphy (2014) have already
addressed the issue of international trade. In addition to smallholder exports, I take on
the contradictions of sustainable production. Just because peasants are anti-neoliberal
does not make them pro-agroecology.
284 R. SOPER

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Rachel Soper is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Channel Islands.
She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Her work is pub-
lished in Agriculture and Human Values and Current Perspectives in Social Theory.