Day 2
Cultivation Beyond Productivism
A Provocation on Scaling Regenerative Farming Systems and BIPOC Farmers Decolonising Agriculture
Keynote Address by Reginaldo Haslett - Marroquin
Panel Presentations
Click here to view Presentation abstracts and Presenter biographies
Who wants to be a good farmer? Accounting for a more-than-production counter culture of farming in rural Australia
Nicolette Larder
University of New England
Intersections in agriculture and conservation: Approaches to Food System Resilience in Niagara
Ursula Bero
University of Ottawa
Teikei: A Japanese concept of sharing the harvest - natures gifts should be shared with all
Hiroko Amemiya
Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Research in Societal Innovations
Conviviality through crop swapping
Heidi McLeod
Massey University
Thanks to Dirk Roep and A. R. Vasavi for acting as Discussants for this panel.
Click here to view Dirk's written response to all panelists.
Click here to view A.R. Vasavi's response to Nicolette Larder and Hiroko Amemiya.
To respond to the Presentations, leave a reply in the comments section below.
If you would like to include an audio or visual reply, email this to masseyperc@gmail.com before October 9.
This Stream is chaired by Alice Beban
Comments 14
Kia Ora tātou,
Thank you all for an excellent set of presentations. These papers highlight possibilities for doing things otherwise in ways that think deeply through the concept and practice of conviviality. All the papers show alternative models of food provisioning that are thriving and building new kinds of ecological and social relationships.
I invite all of the panelists, as well as other audience members to share thoughts and questions with each other in this forum.
To start things off, I have a few questions for you.
I was struck by the way you all in different ways articulated the challenges people face when they try to farm (and do food provisioning) differently. In Hiroko’s case study, you noted that Kaneko practised Teikei alone for many years before neighbours joined. During this time it seemed that networks with international workers/volunteers were important for him. Nicolette noted how isolated farmers can be, and how important virtual encounters and non-human relationships are. Ursula discussed how shared local norms and concerns over what the farm looks like to others are so important to the ways people farm, and this can make change difficult. And Heidi discussed how the crop swappers are operating in a broader environment in Taranaki which is firmly productivist and based on extractive industries. This made me wonder about what these challenges tell us about conviviality. What enables these people to keep practising alternative ways of farming when others around them are not? Is there something about particular people (like Kaneko or the bee keeper)? Is conviviality about broadening the notion of community to broader realms (of non-human, international, virtual) of others who are engaged in similar practices and philosophies?
Relatedly, if we understand conviviality in the sense of living together with difference and diversity, this suggests that conviviality also entails negotiation, tensions and ways of resolving conflicts that emerge when we live together with difference. I wondered how the farmers and swappers found ways to deal with tensions – both within the group/community of like-minded people and with others (like other productivist farmers, local government bureaucracies etc) – what kinds of practices emerged from these communities for dealing with different ideas, interests and visions?
I am also interested in your responses to the discussant questions:
Dirk Roep asks: “If resilient, inclusive and just food systems can only be non-market based, with food not traded as a commodity for an monetary exchange value, but as a common good, or if there are also other alternatives?”
And A. R. Vasavi invites you to reflect on the question of how these localised, place-based alternatives can combine together – “How can such alternatives, while retaining their local specificities address the depredations that dominant systems have imposed on them? For example, given the hegemony and widespread negative impact of neo-liberalism on land and agriculture, how can structures of community ownership, management, and distribution be aligned to meet the orientation of conviviality?”
Ia ora na
Thank you for your comment.
I will reply to you and to the discussants as soon as possible, anyway before the 9th of October.
I enyoyed very much their comments and the presentations of the other people.
Thanks again for the conference
Best regards
Hiroko
Thanks for the lead out questions Alice.
I really enjoyed listening to the other presentation in this stream and on a day when I have spent much too long doom scrolling COVID news to avoid marking end of semester exams, I feel lifted up to hear about the diverse activities of people in all corners of the world seeking to make a better world with and through the food system. Sincere thanks to Dirk and A.R. Vasavi’s generous and thoughtful comments and reflections on the presentations.
One main theme I note from the discussion is the limits of the small stories presenters have told. That is, the limits of small things (crop swaps and small scale farming etc.) to address big things (the impacts of neoliberalism on land and life, inequalities in the food system, the pervasiveness of capitalist systems of exchange, big pharma etc.). This is a common theme of critique made of urban homesteading, community garden and other ‘small’ actions. These critiques are for sure important (I am thinking here of Chris Mayes’ critique of the blindness of alternative food politics in Australia to ongoing Indigenous land dispossession). I have long wrestled with where food politics should happen and if growing a potato is a political act or not. Ultimately, I am falling down on the side of theorists on post-capitalist politics (J.K. Gibson-Graham) and practice theory (Shove) who refuse to dismiss the mundane, small, and quotidian as powerful sites of sustainability and political action. So then I would argue that the stories we have told here of crop swappers, small scale farmers, farmers who share the harvest, commercial producers who aim for just enough are in fact already part of a new system that will address the multiple erosions that rural and agrarian life-worlds are facing. They are already addressing the depredations that dominant systems have imposed on them. Keen to hear the thoughts of others on this idea!
In response to Dirk’s question on that market orientation of these actors: some are non-market based but in others they are market based (all the producers I talked with are commercial farmers engaged in capitalist markets and systems of exchange). I find the notion of ‘alternative capitalist’ useful here )capitalist enterprises with alternative ethics or enterprise models).
Thanks Nicolette, I too feel an affinity with GG’s postcapitalist politics and get frustrated with the ‘small’ critique. I think drawing attention to the proliferation of contextually specific practices rather than the ability to make things scalable is more useful. I was really taken with your discussion of conviviality as something you might think more about working with, and what it might offer us conceptually that care doesn’t (or are they complementary?). I use the concept of care in my own work (and we have been talking a lot about what an ethics of care looks like / could look like in our university, as I’m sure you have in Australia also), but I get stuck on the ways in which care as practice still presumes a subject and object of care – ie the act of ‘caring for’ something/one contains within it a hierarchical relation. I’ve been working with ideas of ‘caring with’ etc from Puig de la bellacasa and others, but I wonder how conviviality starts from a different place that doesn’t assume any kind of hierarchy at the core of the relationship.
Hi Alice. Yes I too have worked with the ‘caring with’ rather than ‘caring for’ specifically in the paper that I have coming out in Rural Studies based on some of the empirical work I presented here as a way around the hierarchical nature of caring for.
I haven’t written about my ‘problem’ with care yet but let me know if you would like to co-write something about it! I just got a bit caught on Puig de la Bellacasa’s concept of care because from my reading she doesn’t resolve the normative moralism that underlies much of the current writing on care in the agri-food world. She talks about the risky ground of care because of, what she says, is the:
‘…the ambition to control and judge what/who/how we care for. This controlling aim echoes what happens with purposes of collecting knowledge practices under normative epistemologies that tend to erase the specificities of knowing practices. How do we keep thinking with care from falling in a too much, into a devouring will for controlled accurateness, to be all right?’ (p. 90 in her book)
I think I mentioned in my presentation that this become more problematic when talking with my colleague Sarah Ruth Sippel who has done lots of work with financial actors in Australian agriculture (I note you too have done work in this space). We just couldn’t resolve which kind of care counted because both the farmers I talked to and the financial farmers Sarah talked with ‘cared’, just about different things. Conviviality seems to have some moral elements pre-embedded i.e. non-violence, friendliness and so on. I think that it might fit better with producers I talked with when thinking about the role of non-human actors in the act of production i.e. they are working together but nature is not necessarily ‘caring’. Thanks for these thoughts Alice – I feel encouraged to go on with this line of thought!
I have been drawn to Bram Buscher’s thinking about limits and ethics of exclusion and pondering the ways that might illuminate my thinking about care or conviviality. Alice and I have been involved in discussion about the ethics of care, and the caring for vs the caring with seems an unstable space, ethically/politically you want to ‘care with’, but practically that often mutates to ‘caring for’. So, am working my way through limits and exclusions, as routes to maintaining sanity and survival when the demands of care and maintaining conviviality spill over.
Thanks for this pointer to Buscher’s work Sita and your thoughts on limits and exclusions to care – I will definitely follow up this reading and please send on anything you have written on this as I am interested to read.
Thank you to everyone participating in this discussion. I really enjoyed every presentation on this panel and was also a bit surprised to see just how close they were thematically. I will comment on individual presentations a bit later but wanted to begin by responding to Alice’s discussion questions. She asks:
“Is there something about particular people (like Kaneko or the bee keeper)? Is conviviality about broadening the notion of community to broader realms (of non-human, international, virtual) of others who are engaged in similar practices and philosophies?”
-Yes (I do believe Conviviality is about the ‘broadening the notion of community to broader realms’).
However, this ‘broadening’ must not be limited when trying to define ‘good farming’. Food systems must be planned to allow space for heterogeneity. Diversity in local agricultural practices, I argue, is what can strengthen the resilience of a community.
“And A. R. Vasavi invites you to reflect on the question of how these localised, place-based alternatives can combine together – “How can such alternatives, while retaining their local specificities address the depredations that dominant systems have imposed on them? For example, given the hegemony and widespread negative impact of neo-liberalism on land and agriculture, how can structures of community ownership, management, and distribution be aligned to meet the orientation of conviviality?”
-Community ownership structures, I believe are in line with conviviality. They offer a an avenue for self-determination and resiliency in times of crisis . Community supported agriculture programs form reflexive networks which respond to local demands, and not to those of the market.
-Nicolette, I agree. It is incredibly reassuring to find myself in a group from around the world that truly has similar questions in mind.
Also, I definitely agree, it is hard to sometimes measure the impact of the small things, so to speak. For my own M.A. research on ‘helping bees’, one thing that an experienced beekeeper complained about was hobbyists. He was frustrated that beekeeping was becoming ‘hip’ because hobbyists basically do not know what they are doing and increase the viral load (Varroa mites) on the bees of other larger beekeepers in the area (by being il-informed).
There is a large ‘however’, though. I do believe there is much good that comes from the initiation of these novel relationships (by hobbyists, who ultimately learn the difficulty of the craft and either learn it or leave) . I do think growing a potato is political but only if it is done on purpose. What new beekeepers do on purpose is ‘learn about bees’. They may have done it wrong but they did it consciously and with purpose. Were they not to try, no one would have learned anything and nothing would have changed (in people’s minds). The ecological blowback is a different question entirely…
…I think the farmer I spoke with did convince me though, that small has the power to change things ‘at large.’ Crop diversification can be a larger up front investment but it also provides something to fall back on if one crop fails (unlike the situation in monocultural production).
All that to say that I certainly agree with your sentiment and your words:
“So then I would argue that the stories we have told here of crop swappers, small scale farmers, farmers who share the harvest, commercial producers who aim for just enough are in fact already part of a new system that will address the multiple erosions that rural and agrarian life-worlds are facing. They are already addressing the depredations that dominant systems have imposed on them. Keen to hear the thoughts of others on this idea!”
Thank you for sharing your presentation and your meaningful comments.
Hi Alice,
Have enjoyed the keynote and all the presentations in our stream. Reginaldo’s keynote was inspirational, and I like the imagery of energy from the smallest cell through to humans. I also appreciated his explanation of indigeneity and regenerative indigenous practices – this helps me to appreciate how colonisation processes and ideologies continue to infiltrate current iterations of practices and systems. In Aotearoa New Zealand, through our rich indigenous Māori cultural heritage we have so many ways of considering and honouring the environment and food, and we are tasked with helping each other move our tables closer together!
My reflections on your questions Alice, are that people who are involved in the food system in the ways explored through today’s presentations are motivated in a large part by values. Their commitment to regeneration, reciprocity, social justice is what motivates them. I’m not sure whether conviviality is about broadening the realms of community, because I feel that perhaps conviviality is created in the smaller interrelationships, and arises out of the tensions and exclusions that create the opportunity for something else to exist – like a growth that creates a little blip on the neoliberal capitalist highway. In addition, and responding to Dirk’s comment, some of the small-scale farmers I worked with in our research project (but yes, not the crop swappers) were in fact operating in a market exchange. However, they are doing so in a way that gives effect to their regenerative values – and yes Reginaldo, I’m confident they are regenerative because they are regenerating in a number of ways! Primarily they are delivering environmental gains (carbon sequestration, increased biodiversity within and above the soil, diversity of crop production, and a number of social improvements in some cases). Thinking about A R Vasavi’s question, makes my think of the collective opportunities that small-scale, localised and place-based activities can participate in, such as Ursula’s Small Scale Farm Food Hub. I appreciate that initiatives like hubs, collectives, CSAs create a way to provide marketplaces that can operate alongside other ‘mainstream’ market options, thereby creating income potential for growers. Through collaboration and co-operation scale can increase, and more momentum and impact may be possible; and potentially a network or meshwork approach (Pavlovich, Henderson & Barling, 2020) can begin to alter the neoliberal capitalist highway – and if I can extend the metaphor further – new lanes can be added to the highway, or more off ramps created. I have a hope that the change can come from within, and Ursula’s comment or quote about the Small Scale Farm Food Hub fitting into the other system, fits my vision. So while much commentary so far in the conference has been about the ability or potential to delimit, exclude or disrupt capitalism, which is a valuable ideal, I’ve had to temper my thinking about this to question whether change can be brought about in different ways. Therefore taking on board Kaneko’s dedication to travelling the organic road alone for such a long time, reminds me that it takes time for people’s attitudes to change and for values to be awakened. I think we can all see examples of how market demand has slowly shifted in regard to new behaviours such as recycling, buying locally, or choosing free range eggs for example. These are small steps, and sometimes we go sideways and slip back a bit, however two things potentially occur – consumers demand more transparency, accountability, quality, fairness etc. or the market seizes the opportunity to front-foot a shift in consumer perceptions and can sometimes moves quickly delivering us greenwashed products. I liked the incorporation of the concept of care in Nicolette’s presentation, and can see applicability of that in my own research and study. I also appreciate the positive outlook of the idea of care, and what that can bring to our food systems.
Right – I think that’s enough from me for today!
Hi Heidi, I’m continuing on our discussion a bit from the other page here. I really enjoyed your presentation, and it was cool to learn about the Crop Swap initiative. In response to Dirk’s question, but also Nicolette’s point about small things addressing big things, I’m interested in the difference and tensions between ‘hobby’ and ‘serious’ farming. Hobby farming and backyard gardening always seem to be looked down upon by farmers who earn their living through market-oriented production. In my own research I’ve also explored the different degrees of radicality of alternative farmers – whether they pursue (and maybe realise) regenerative values through market exchange as you say or whether they pursue (and probably cannot fully realise under current conditions) a non-market based system. What interests me is how we can break down the view that ‘serious’ farming has to be market-oriented, something which has to be overcome if non-market systems can ever become dominant. What do you think in relation to your work on Crop Swap and the Farming to Flourish project?
Hello, I just wanted to respond to the above point:
“What interests me is how we can break down the view that ‘serious’ farming has to be market-oriented, something which has to be overcome if non-market systems can ever become dominant. What do you think in relation to your work on Crop Swap and the Farming to Flourish project?”
-I like this question! I think the shifting of the relationship from buyer-seller to ‘people who all benefit from the harvest’ ( as discussed by Hiroko Amemiya) is extremely relevant. I think it is the change in relationship that is key; the interactions within community . In Hiroko’s example of the farmer that supports ten families, I think the ‘seriousness’ of the farming begins when others begin to view it as an answer to their own needs.
Similarly, in the case of the food hub farmer Renee, her endeavour is not just a ‘serious’ farming operation because it makes money. It also comes from the organization’s ability to meet local needs meaningfully.
This, in turn can change the available means people have for dealing with crisis such as food shortage locally.
The focus on the strengthening and growing of human interactions and knowledge systems again, is truly key. The Crop Swap, seed swaps I have attended and just food hubs in general really promote an exchange of knowledge that can facilitate new modes of interacting with food (such as buying organic or growing food for yourself in a community garden).
I like the idea of more lanes and more off-ramps!
I agree – it is about both developing alternative forms of capitalist exchange and working within the system – adding more lanes (that lead in different directions?) – and continuing to make visible and proliferate non-capitalist relations – more off-ramps. And most importantly, more cycleways 🙂
Answer to Alice Beban, Dirk Roep and A.R. Vasavi from Hiroko Amemiya
Thank you very much to all of you for these stimulating questions which allowed me to explain the fundamental spirit of Teikei in Japan in the light of conviviality.
1-a. What enables Kaneko to keep practising alternative ways of farming when others around them are not?
When Kaneko inherited the family farm, he did not want to continue with conventional farming. He chose to practice a chemical-free agriculture that respects the microcosmic life in the earth. His wish was to lead a life in osmosis with nature by practicing healthy agriculture. Kaneko, like Fukuoka who previously advocated no-till farming, made this decision out of conviction. It is not a choice of alternative farming method but a choice of life.
1-b. Is conviviality about broadening the notion of community to broader realms (of non-human, international, virtual) of others who are engaged in similar practices and philosophies?
This question touches on three areas that I will take one after the other.
Let’s start with the area related to non-humans. In Japan, it is believed that kami (deities) reside everywhere in nature. They represent a power beyond humanity and relativize man’s place in nature. Farmers seek their protection to obtain a good harvest. There are kamis who protect the earth. The souls of the ancestors can become kamis protectors of their descendants. Kaneko is very attached to his ancestral land and worships their kamis daily, which are present but invisible. As the kami reside in nature, the land should never be contaminated by the use of chemical inputs. Many tales from the oral tradition illustrate the collaboration between men and animals. The latter embody natural powers as semi-divine beings that come to help farmers in difficulty. We can say that in Japan, the non-human being is part of the daily (imaginary) life of the people.
Concerning the international elements. It is interesting to notice the behavior of Kaneko who lives in a traditional village because his way of managing the human relations within the village makes it possible to detect the complexity of the mentality of the Japanese, inhabitants of the islands. Japan is an island country which escaped colonization thanks to its geographical situation. Foreign countries beyond the seas are a source of inspiration and dreams, whereas life in a village leaves little freedom to the individual. Kaneko respected the tradition of the village and did not try to argue his choice of a healthy agriculture. He wanted to demonstrate its relevance through the quality of his products and through relationships with consumers who would appreciate his way of farming. Kaneko found such cooperating consumers not in his village but among the city dwellers of Tokyo, to create a Teikei network of short circuits. Similarly, when Kaneko encountered difficulties in pursuing his healthy farming, he went to France to recharge his batteries. The comforting conviviality for him was outside his village or outside Japan, which proves the importance of an international dimension for conviviality. People in an island country tend to live among themselves without caring about the outside world. It is not easy to convince people who live exclusively on their traditional daily concerns of something new. Kaneko waited for the awareness of his fellow farmers as he continued his journey. It took him twenty-six years for others to decide to leave conventional agriculture.
In the virtual realm, Kaneko’s farm shows what can be achieved with the introduction of communication technologies. The fruits of a small farmer’s labor can be shared with the world beyond language difficulties. If Kaneko receives trainees from all over the world, it is partly due to the virtual mode of communication. Social networks should be a common good that could, if used properly, contribute to the global democratization of knowledge.
3. Relatedly, if we understand conviviality in the sense of living together with difference and diversity, this suggests that conviviality also entails negotiation, tensions and ways of resolving conflicts that emerge when we live together with difference. I wondered how the farmers and swappers found ways to deal with tensions – both within the group/community of like-minded people and with others (like other productivist farmers, local government bureaucracies etc) – what kinds of practices emerged from these communities for dealing with different ideas, interests and visions?
In the Convivialist Manifesto (2013, France), four principles are clearly defined: the principle of common humanity; the principle of common sociality; the principle of individuation; and the principle of controlled opposition. What does the principle of controlled opposition mean? It is the democratic way of managing a discussion while respecting opposing views. There will always be rivalries and it is natural that people oppose each other. But the framework of common sociality must not be endangered in any way, otherwise this rivalry will lead to destruction. The blossoming of each person and the evolution of society depend on their ability to regulate themselves while respecting each other. A good society will be the one where each one finds his place without sacrificing himself nor massacring the others.
4. Dirk Roep asks: “If resilient, inclusive and just food systems can only be non-market based, with food not traded as a commodity for an monetary exchange value, but as a common good, or if there are also other alternatives?”
No matter where we live, we need to eat every day. So why not use food as a tool to transform society? We are capable of boycotting a polluted food. We are able to stop eating meat. To preserve the earth, which is our first common good, we can start with food. Kaneko has shown what is possible even on a small scale. Healthy food is essential to defend our offspring. If we can share good farm products without treating them as commodities, we will see a new community emerge based on the spirit of collaboration, not competition. Other alternatives will follow.
5. And A. R. Vasavi invites you to reflect on the question of how these localised, place-based alternatives can combine together – “How can such alternatives, while retaining their local specificities address the depredations that dominant systems have imposed on them? For example, given the hegemony and widespread negative impact of neo-liberalism on land and agriculture, how can structures of community ownership, management, and distribution be aligned to meet the orientation of conviviality?”
In Japan, the Teikei system was forged in the 1970s by initiatives of young urban mothers who came together guided by their strong maternal instincts in the face of food security anxiety. Their affection for their children led them to overcome many obstacles in order to obtain healthy food for their children. As for Kaneko, he was able to make his colleagues come to him to follow his model. It takes an iron will, perseverance and a leader to engage in the fight against the market economy.
Hopefully, political figures will show the necessary will to transform society. Many citizens are ready to mobilize for the future of children, to demand food education and organic meals in the canteen. Well launched, this mobilization can transform the links between the city and the countryside. It would be a first step to restore the conception of nature. Agricultural land will regain its real value as a common good, without being overexploited or subject to speculation. Kaneko has been preaching for a long time that arable land should be returned to the public domain. The contribution of farmers who fertilize the land without chemical inputs should be valued, a contribution detached from any speculative calculation. In the same way, those who abandon agricultural land or deteriorate it through the intensive use of chemical inputs should be taxed to contribute to its restoration. It should be remembered that one fifth of CO2 emissions come from intensive, industrial agriculture.
Today, more than 80% of the French population lives in cities. The city of Rennes (230 thousand inhabitants) in Brittany, where I live, has committed itself to ensure the production of more healthy vegetables in the vicinity. The Lady Mayor has declared to preserve 300 ha of arable land to install market gardeners who will provide organic vegetables to the city’s canteens. Brittany is however the first agricultural region in France and has promoted intensive agriculture since the second half of the 1960s. The intensive breeding of pigs and chickens has caused the pollution of the water table and the intensive use of pesticides has polluted the rivers and caused the birth of a very harmful green algae on the sea shores.
Of course, evolution is slow, but let’s listen to the advice of Pyotr A Kropotkin, who was an inspiration for the Teikei: “No competition! Competition is always harmful to the species. Unite! Practice mutual aid! It is in a wider extension of mutual aid that we see the best guarantee of a higher evolution of our species”. (Mutual aid, A factor of evolution)
Thank you also for the keynote presentation by Reginaldo. I was struck by your discussion of the colonialist appropriation of regenerative agriculture. You note that the act of naming indigenous practices as regenerative takes only those things that can be included as valuable in a western sense and ignores others; and further, you make the point that you can’t make things regenerative just by saying they are regenerative. This made me wonder (as a scholar who uses the term ‘regenerative agriculture’) – is ‘regenerative’ just another buzzword, like sustainable, that is subject to being watered down and appropriated for greenwashing in a way that makes it unusable?
Your point about ‘bringing BIPOC along’ also really stuck with me. You noted that it is not about ‘bringing BIPOC along’ but about recognising that BIPOC already have a table, and others can have a seat at that table and learn from them and share. You noted that there are innovative elements of extractive agriculture that offer new ideas for regeneration. This is such an important and generous point. I wondered though – How can these different systems really be brought together? Are there contradictions at the heart of these that limit the extent to which they can be productively brought together? I would be interested to hear about examples of where you think the bringing together of non-indigenous agricultural innovations for regenerative agriculture with indigenous systems has been practiced in a way that is not appropriation or greenwashing.
Thank you for your excellent presentation!