Environment and Geography

This paper situates literature on food sovereignty and land reforms in relation to academic and popular writings about land issues in Canada. We argue that settler Canadian food sovereignty scholarship and activism has yet to sufficiently grapple with the implications of private property ownership in relation to ongoing processes of settler colonialism. We also argue that efforts to advance ecologically sustainable farming practices in Canada need to confront private property ownership in terms of its contribution to both capitalist and colonial violence.

In 2013, the Quebec government introduced a food sovereignty policy that would interpret the concept with a complete absence of its more radical connotations. This co-optation was driven, at least in part, by the defensive maneuvering of mainstream agricultural groups that were responding to the organizing efforts of Union Paysanne, Quebec’s member of La Vía Campesina. This chapter looks at Union Paysanne’s struggles to institutionalize food sovereignty without compromising the very tenets that give the concept importance. I argue that food sovereignty proponents would do well to simultaneously strive for institutional reforms, build alliances, and contribute to broader political education.

Agroecological models have the potential to contribute to both the fight against climate change and a shift away from the dominant food system. In this article, I discuss the challenges that ecological farmers in Canada are facing in terms of scaling out agricultural systems that will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. I draw on Gramscian theories to argue that alliance-building is required in order to advance a counter-hegemonic agroecology in Canada, with those alliances going beyond narrowly conceived class-based interests. I suggest that the challenges farmers are facing highlight the need for a just transition in agriculture, and that the social transformation that this would entail means that proponents of agroecology must consider the positionalities of environmentalists, scholars, farmers and farm workers, and Indigenous peoples across the country.

In this dissertation, I explore the overlap between climate change and food production, focusing on the concept of food sovereignty and the potential for ecological farming to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. I unveil how the concepts of food sovereignty and agroecology are (and are not) being taken up by Canadian farmers, farmers’ organizations and others who have a stake in climate change debates. Based on two years of scholar-activist-oriented research, including interviews with farmers and ethnographic engagements on farms and at events focused on agricultural politics and practices, I describe the opportunities and constraints for agroecological approaches to contribute to mitigating climate change, as well as the significant political, geographical and socio-cultural challenges that are generally inhibiting the actualization of food sovereignty in Canada. Focusing on the work of La Vía Campesina’s two member organizations in this country, the National Farmers Union (NFU) and Union Paysanne, I am concerned with the basic problem of how tensions between systemic and pragmatic changes are articulated through agroecology initiatives and food sovereignty advocacy. My essential claim is that a broad counterhegemonic movement will be required in order for there to be a significant shift in climate and food politics in Canada. Food sovereignty and agroecology have the potential to be incorporated into a system change agenda, I argue, but any serious effort to move them forward, and tackle climate change, will require confronting capitalism itself. I do not suggest that this will necessarily require overt anticapitalist campaigns, but rather that farmers and other food sovereignty proponents will do well to grapple with the structural constraints within capitalism, while finding ways to talk about and pursue radical change through ostensibly more prosaic initiatives. As part of the counterhegemonic shift I am pointing to, I also argue that farmers’ organizations will need to prioritize both strategic alliance-building with various groups, as well as political education activities that can help both farmers and non-farmers make progress on these fronts, disrupting apolitical approaches to climate and food issues.

Agroecology and food sovereignty have gained a significant foothold in the Global South; however, in the Global North, there are significant challenges hindering the adoption of these concepts. Drawing on participants’ insights following an Agroecology Field School and Research Summit held in Ontario, Canada in 2018, this paper presents the context for agroecology’s potential expansion in this country. We argue that three key dimensions must be addressed in order for the concept to be advanced: 1) Engagement in food system governance; 2) Building networks of solidarity between academics, activists, and food producers/harvesters; and 3) Realization of Indigenous food sovereignty.

In this overview of a COVID-19-related food system project underway from Toronto, we relate our research questions, methodologies, and initial findings. We focus here on two of the key questions we are asking: (1) How are food supply chains and food insecurity rates being affected within this pandemic context?, and (2) How are different actors—from newcomer urban gardeners and those involved with farmers’ markets to BIPOC groups—responding to food system-related constraints and opportunities during this time? Preliminary results from this public-facing project (www.feedingcity.org) show that the city’s food system is not highly resilient in the face of crisis, although many grassroots initiatives are compensating for this lack of resiliency—from the coordination of food security initiatives, to modified approaches to food production and marketing. Over the span of the project we are also exploring: (3) What experiences from other jurisdictions (nationally and globally) should be considered in informing local food system strategies?, and (4) What policy outcomes, and community and civil society responses, are needed to address identified challenges in both the near term and the longer term?

This article analyzes the potential for anti-capitalist politics to ‘translate’ among food sovereignty proponents in Canada. I argue that a crucial tool for advancing food sovereignty and agroecology in the country will be radical pedagogy—and specifically political education efforts that advance both critical analyses of capitalism and prefigurative (post-capitalist) socio-economic arrangements. I offer a vision of a ‘praxis-pedagogy triad’ that illustrates how instances of agroecological prefiguration may relate to critical theories of capitalist political economy and the agrarian question, as well as radical pedagogies that will help a counter-hegemonic food sovereignty translate in a capitalist context.

This article takes up the question of how food sovereignty, and accompanying agricultural models that will help combat climate change, may be institutionalized through policy processes. I draw on the theories of Antonio Gramsci and his successors to discuss how the interwoven nature of the state and civil society, conceptualized as the ‘integral state’, can help inform an analytical approach to food policy change. Based on research that analyzes the work of Canada’s two member organizations of La Vía Campesina, Union Paysanne and the National Farmers Union (NFU), I highlight the differences and parallels between food sovereignty struggles taking place in Quebec and those underway elsewhere in the country. I argue that although agricultural policy has the potential to be an important tool in transitioning toward a climate-friendly food system, proponents of food sovereignty would benefit from disengaging from traditional food policy advocacy efforts as these will only lead to incremental reforms. Instead, I suggest that a ‘prefigurative institutionalization’ has the potential to be transformative within and beyond the food system. The concept offers both a political strategy as well as an analytical framework for assessing movements’ efforts related to policy formation and governance.

It is a simple truth that the COVID-19 pandemic has been hugely disruptive to food systems It is essential to recognize, however, that certain social groups are disproportionately experiencing heightened levels of food insecurity, and societal and livelihood challenges Other groups have faced relatively minor inconveniences, primarily from disrupted food supply chains In Toronto, Canada, with a population of approximately 3 million, disparities in food system changes are playing out along overlapping racial and class-based lines, despite the fact that the city is often celebrated for being multicultural and diverse Due to its size and international connections, Toronto has been one of the most negatively affected areas of Canada, in terms of numbers of COVID-19 infections as well as socioeconomic consequences It is important to analyze, however, why and how the pandemic serves to exacerbate and make visible long-standing problems and inequalities in the food system to a far greater ...

La Vía Campesina is an international network of peasant farmers that, since 1996, has promoted the concept of food sovereignty. More recently, this collection of over 160 groups worldwide has been connecting this concept with climate justice issues. Drawing on interviews conducted during the 2012 People’s Summit that took place in Rio de Janeiro, and an analysis of the network’s documents, I consider its work in relation to its member organizations and a broader movement tackling the systemic issues that are driving a range of social, economic and ecological crises. I contend that, while many of Vía Campesina’s proposals will require the establishment of intricate processes and systems depending on the geographic, political and cultural context in question, the network is demonstrating that its radical critiques, proposals and decision-making processes may help contribute to a larger counter-hegemonic narrative as a force to counteract global

This article surveys the current state of agroecology in Canada, giving particular attention to agroecological practices, the related social movements, and the achievements of agroecological science. In each of these realms, we find that agroecology emerges as a response to the various social and ecological problems associated with the prevailing industrial model of agricultural production that has long been promoted in the country under settler colonialism. Although the prevalence and prominence of agroecology is growing in Canada, its presence is still small and the support for its development is limited. We provide recommendations to achieve a more meaningful integration of agroecology in Canadian food policy and practice.