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Public opposition to free trade agreements, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), that serve to increase inequality and concentrate corporate power has reached a loud crescendo. We got to this point through years of effort by thousands of civil society groups around the world, reaching out to educate people on the likely impacts of the very specific rules embedded in those documents, as well as defining alternatives for our economies, environments and food systems. That debate was never simply about trade; it was about decisions on the kinds of economies and societies we choose to accept.
And it’s not over yet. As public pressure continues this year, whether through vibrant events like Rock Against the TPP ! or organized pressure on specific members of Congress, there is a concerted demand by progressive civil society organizations and leaders to halt current trade agreements and to insist on a different process, different rules, and a different vision of what comes next. We need trade policy that serves to reduce inequality, build local economies and enhance environmental sustainability.
Those alternatives must be grounded in the kinds of economies and societies we want. I witnessed some elements of an alternative approach to food systems last week at the Second International Conference on Rural Economies and Agroecology in the Americas, held in Texcoco, Mexico. The conference was convened by Mexican organizations including Mexican farmers’ organization ANEC (National Association of Producers’ Enterprises del Campo), Semillas de Vida, and the Agroecology Program at Chapingo Autonomous University (in Texcoco), which is celebrating its 25-year anniversary. Renowned Indian author and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva was a keynote speaker at the event.
IATP was a co-sponsor with those organizations of the first conference, held last year in Mexico City. That meeting highlighted the scientific evidence in favor of agroecology and the “dialogue of knowledges” inherent in a process that brings together farmers’ knowledge of what works in their specific situations with new information on ways to produce that works with nature to enhance food production, farmers’ livelihoods and ecosystems.
This year, the focus embodied that dialogue of knowledges even more directly. About a third of the 500 or so participants were farmers from different parts of Mexico. Many students from the Chapingo Agroecology program also participated, not only learning from the expert presenters, but raising questions and asserting their own ideas. Food and farming leaders from Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala and Venezuela presented lessons from their own experiences. Mexican researcher Miguel Angel Damian Huato summarized one discussion with the observation that agroecology is based on technologies generated and regenerated in different times, combining traditional knowledge with newer techniques.
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