AUTONOMA - Konstantinos Christodoulidis - Agroecology, Market and Autonomy

Agroecology, market and autonomyK.Christodoulidis - [AUTONOMA] - 01/07/2016

This paper aims to explore the case study of a network of communities that combine the three

proponents of it's title: agroecology – an integrated approach to ecological farming

– market-networks that will circulate the quality goods of these agro-productive ecosystems and auton-

omy – the relation of such an endeavor with political characteristics.

It will discuss the content of these three subjects in separate chapters and provide the methodological approximation

to intertwine a theoretical study for the ecological, economic and political congregations that

stimulate the imaginary of autonomy with an empirical study of a market-network of insular commu-

nities with strategies of autonomization.

Agroecology, market and autonomy - K.Christodoulidis - [AUTONOMA]

Agroecology as a term refers to an integrated approach to farming and environmental

management practices for the emergence of regenerative, agro-productive ecosystems.

It is becoming increasingly prominent within the ecological discourse, as it conceptualizes agriculture, human

habitat and their interactions in terms of ecosystem flows and thus subtends concepts from

farming to urban metabolism

and from contemporary life sciences to timeless traditions.

The problem of agroproduction is an urban problem.

Throughout the history of urban civilization, cities have always been parasitic entities, depending on the country-

side for food and population1, and in it’s “pan-political condition”, “whose center is nowhere and it’s periphery

is everywhere,”ecological and food issues are obligingly connected to this humongous “civilized-human” food

web. In fact, the interactions of edible biomass within an ecosystem, or the sum of food chains in rural and urban food systems, are

as uneven and discontinuous as the other social geographies of the globalized urban civilization: development,

technology etc


In the light of the practices of agroecology, “sustainability”, as “the mid-point between things

that are degenerative and regenerative”, is losing ground to the more inclusive concept of

regeneration.

As it does not constitute a singular and concise tradition of thought, the numerous approximations of the subject of ecological ag-

riculture, and the more specific questions of a comparative study between them, shape, for this paper, the pluralistic content of the

term “agroecology”, which will here be briefly presented through two approaches:

• regenerative ecosystem design, by the examples of Natural Farming and Permaculture

• political agroecology, a term and a methodology that sprung from a number of researchers / practitioners

mostly operating in the US and Latin America, most notably Miguel Altieri.


Natural Farming is a holistic approach to farming by the Japanese farmer – philosopher

Masanobu Fukuoka.

no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides or herbicides, no weeding and no

pruning with the intention of guiding a given ecosystem into a state of maturity that mimics the “climax” ecosys-

tems’ high diversity, stability and productivity. Fukuoka-san’s yields, in his orchard and fields,

are said to compare favorably with the most productive Japanese farms and improve each year with minimum

labor, while his teachings are highly poetic and call to intuitive perspicacity as opposed to scientific reductionism:

Permaculture is a ecosystem design methodology coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren,

two innovative environmentalists-turned-farmers in Australia of the late 1980’s. On top of their scientific background, they combined

agriculture with forestry, observed traditional farming farming practices, Yeoman’s “keyline” water management system and their own ex-

perimentations with multilayered “edible forest gardening” and finally compiled a series of practices

into a system named after Permanent AgriCulture. Mollison later incorporated social, ethic characteristics, as

well as economic agendas like ethical investment and innovative financing for small communities.


In practice, both systems deal with a diverse but relatively similar

card-file of techniques: biodiversity and micro-biodiversity; water recycling; mulch and green manure; closing

material loops and nutrient cycles; optimizing climatological factors and benefiting from microclimate conditions; time-based plan-

ning such as crop succession, crop rotation, and the use of pioneering plants; reciprocal connections between species, such as com-

panion planting, biological nitrogen fixation, population control by predators, or controlled grazing; and so on.

In trying to sum up their more general purposes, they both try to

• Maximize reciprocal connections, complexity, diversity, resilience and other ecological virtues of natural ecosystems

• Eliminate the use of chemical aggregates and minimize external inputs (machinery, non local resources etc)

• Maximize yield and efficiency while minimizing used space and labor, while maximizing the more remote area of the farms acces-

sible to the wild

• Address their methods as counter-proposals to existing destructive farming practices, desertification, deforestation, and the repair

of ecological damage in terms of global ecology and politics

• Incorporate social and ethical dimensions


Regarding the second approach, “Political Agroecology”, or the politicization of a broader, multifaceted current

of agroecological research originating in the Americas, expressed by M. Altieri and fellow researchers,

Complementary views on the different “agroecologies”

controversies between a merely “scientistic or technocratic” approaches, as opposed to a

“transdisciplinary, systems-based, participatory and action-oriented

approach” with a political / social prism

Same with regenerative ecosystem design, in the heart of the agroecology strategy is the idea

that an agroecosystem should mimic the functioning of local ecosystems thus exhibiting tight nutrient cycling, complex structure, and

enhanced biodiversity. However, what is considered crucial in this specific tradition of thought is the combination of practical

knowledge with small placeholders and grassroots social movements, which

connects agroecology with a historicity of resistance, equitable distribution

of resources and self-determination of marginalized communities

demanding justice through food sovereignty


In this context, it is no wonder why this current of political agroecologists, teasing out the political dimensions of the

parties involved in socio-ecological transactions, push their agenda to transform not only farms and communities but also how to deal

with the economic structures that govern the corporate food regime.

Latin America and the European South. Even thought the rampaging economic crisis has

rendered farmers caught, along with the majority of the population, in a regime of systematic impoverish-

ment, the category of “Resource-poor farmers” is not common and is still very different

from post-colonial conditions. In fact, in this situation, the farmers that are eligible and interested for an

agroecological transition are most likely brought together by means of cultural and political interest - of

course, on top of increasing economic exigencies.


Agri-food movements are defined as large groups of people working together to achieve sustainability and commu-

nity food security, and the researchers explore how agroecology’s engagement with such movements has the potential to be

mutually beneficial.

Participatory, action based research (PAR), as the means to collaborate with local com-

munities and reshaping material flows, but also flows of economies and information that support

amelioration of local farming practices


MarketDeLanda's remarks on Markets and Anti-markets

Braudel shows with a wealth of empirical data that as far back as the thirteenth century one can distinguish two completely

different forms of economic institution: non-capitalist markets and capitalist antimarkets.

DeLanda incorporates ideas of another historian, Jan de Vries:

• “the peasant model” - self sufficiency

• ”specialization model” - urban markets

• Jane Jacobs’ “Volatile trade” and “Import - substitution dynamics” occur

when a city, typically part of a trading network, begins to replace imports by its own manufactured products and sets

a whole series of self reinforcing, positive feedback loops into motion. To replace imports, a city must develop

skills and procedures using its own human resources and local creativity.


When an ecological farmer tries to sell he participates in a network of people and things, meanings and images,

trends and values that are equally, if not more capitalized, than agriculture. For him, entering the conventional mar-

ket, more often than not, raises a series of problems like competition with immense agribusiness, devaluation

of the fruits of his labor, expensive certifications and legal prerequisites etc.

Instead of selling to strangers, he also has the possibility of trying to sell to his personal contacts. Also, to

collaborate with others like him, in order to circulate their edible biomass to more such people, as well as complement one

another and enriching their products' palette.

With more people joining the project, there emerge the needs of more elaborate coordination and the potentialities of new level of

dynamics: a more organized distribution network, the peer tutoring and inter-

play of cultivation practices, an ecological and political contextual-

ization through a manifesto, content development (from farming practices to recipes and from photos

to articles), a name and logo, a blog, online tools for networked communication etc.


So, this line of thought leads to two complementary schemes:

• To circulate quality food to a local community-in-development, without intermedi-

aries and with fair prices

• To export quality food to markets with a high buying potential, that will value the quality and the characteristics of the

project through mediations, so as to generate profits for reinvestment and the expan-

sion of such practices.

As outlined above, in a contemporary, Western country, this case study is expected to be crewed with people of

rural and urban backgrounds. So, in this hybrid potential, any transaction towards the conventional

market is conceivable as an export. Symmetrically, any skill or localization of production that supports the food and supply chains is essen-

tially an “import – substitution dynamics” at work, while money are “ goods” imported from outside markets, in which they abound.


The maturity of such a market - network would provide a firmer grounding for long term investments, by which

agroecology is so apt to operate, as is the aforementioned PAR approach: Stability permits more experi-

mentation, deliberate customization of research and multiple iterations of

feed-back cycles. Furthermore, collaboration poses challenges that make evident the terms, conditions and the

possibility of each member to commit to a common vision in a pragmatic way. If a given team “passes the test”, then

collectivization of cultivation practices is radicalized in common land ownership. Land ownership

permits investments of another level and a timescale far greater and far more appropriate for agroecological practices. A prominent

example is trees - like carob trees, guavas, avocados – the majority of which bear fruit in a period longer than

5 years.


This approach integrates entrepreneurial aspects, such as the creation of a legal entity, management of sales

and costs, logistics, marketing strategies, etc, but may be far from being an actual enterprise in

terms of goals, decision making structures and – more importantly, the imaginary

constitution of it's self reflection. The course of such an experimental institution is not known in ad-

vance, but it is safe to assume that it depends by it's political and operational consistencies - for

example, collective decisions should be taken by consensus, yet effectively and in due time.

In fact, these machinations are deemed to at once revolutionize and jeopardize such a hybrid entity


AutonomySelf-organization of production is paramount to the project of autonomy, as is economic

and alimentary self-sufficiency. However useful and compatible agroecology and under-

ground market networks can be to a politically comprehensive project of autonomy,

there is nothing “inherently” revolutionary in either of them.

Public:

• trans-personal / communal

• hyper-personal / civilian

First and foremost, in the sociopolitical dimension of any community, lies the question of the collective subject. If com-

munities are “solidified subjects” someplace within the continuum between the personal and the public, they solidify in their capacity

to regulate their system of opening and closing, their intended scale, their strategy

to survive and expand.


What lies beneath the concept of agri-food movements, is the political idea that an autonomous

economy differs from a black economy of accumulation of wealth (tax evasion,

creative finance etc) by means of explicit political criteria, that are successfully collectivized, and prac-

tices that remain consistent to these criteria.

The disappointment expressed in regard to the massive, impersonal domain of the public realm- immobilization, conformism and rela-

tivism - shape a dynamic of mediated intervention to a bigger scale, is very different when

it is expressed from the scope of autonomous action than from the scope of reforms

implied by national and international organizations.

The co-existence of the very practical exigencies of productivity to the farm and efficient communication within

the group, from the one hand and the contextualization of radical criticism and the regulation of

acts of communication in a political – social dialogue, are a combination that raises a series of practical and con-

ceptual complexities.


A hybrid project, with ecological - political agenda, the issue of livelihood, self-or-

ganization of labor, the use of entrepreneurial aptitudes in the form of snatch – that

is, supposedly separated from their corporate birthright - is prone to rise conflicts, and in a way, it is born out and reproduced

by conflicts. For example, the limiting effect of excluding waged labor is very different for a politically

ambitious youngster and to a seasoned farmer with a family of three, even if

both agree that it is “wrong”

Obviously, in the bottom line, such small scale projects of autonomy are not expected to reconcile all the conflicts

that arose, nor that they will undergo the radical communalization (of labor, of land ownership etc) that they may have imagined as the

“natural” evolution of their project. However, the sheer negotiation between creative/utopian

and strategic/pragmatic perspectives deem already meaningful in the prevailing social ambiance

– and are far removed from a platter for political idealism, to the degree they lead to

genuine questions :


• What are the options for socially accessible, ecologically sound and econom-

ically just, quality food? To say that urban food is condemned to grow from what is made available

by public funding, private capital and globalized seeds, agricultural

aggregates and heavy machinery is not enough.

• What options are there for disengaging from the prevalent economic sphere, of

the nexus of devaluation of labor, unemployment and consumerism? Working

more for less, or being available, yet disposable, or selling smiles and “hirability” to irrelevant potential employers should not be enough

either.

• Or, is it, that autonomy is to be answerable to a generalized civilian interest, that

civilians are accused of loosing grasp of?

“Those who claim to have solutions are proven wrong almost immediately”

The Invisible Committee


The collectivization of farmers and artisans and the establishment of an underground market-network provides a combina-

tion to support homesteads of producers and consumers and thus to oppose food, economic and polit-

ical regimes in a pragmatic way. That being said, the will for radicalization of such an

endeavor, or the lack there of, discloses the distance between the reality and the vision for a network of insular commu-

nities with high degrees of self-sufficiency, collectivization and cultural-political vitality. Nevertheless, the only way for such communities to

exist and to flourish, so as to become relevant in the contemporary geography of the West, is to implement them – ideally,

by the thousands. At once actual places and relational space – networks, these minuscule units of ecologi-

cal and cultural production and processing are not to be integrated in a singular, hierarchical

hyperstructure but to preserve their diversity as part of their political and cultural heritage. For the time being, their

scale alone means that they constitute merely symbolic contributions to a cultural political parley – however, their symbol-

ism draws it strength from the fact that their contents are primarily actual (not merely discursive or imaginary).

Regarding their relationship with the urban civilization, of which they are less an alternative than one of it's internal

variations, a network of insular communities of ecological production and trade are not interpret-

ed as being absent from a wide sociopolitical struggle for change or insurrection: they may not be it's spear's tip, but they are it's shaft.

Presentations & Public Speaking

AUTONOMA - Konstantinos Christodoulidis - Agroecology, Market and Autonomy