Centre for Agroecology, Water & Resilience University of Coventry Coventry, April 7th 2016
Ecological Economics for Agroecology: Panacea or process? Irene Sotiropoulou
[email protected]
Ecological economics: Basic agricultural implications
• Access to land & means of production • Production modes: structures/ways of using human effort & natural resources • Agricultural products & value chains • Links of agricultural production with the economy as a whole • Methods to calculate & internalise environmental costs • Reproduction of agricultural work and knowledge
Agroecology: Basic economic implications
• Sustainable use of resources for production (inputs) • Sustainable allocation of produce (at various levels) • How is produce valued? • Covering the basic needs of population • Effort to internalise environmental & social costs of production & consumption • Production of knowledge [≠ ? fundamental capitalist premises]
The context - capitalism & some academic problems
Capitalism as an unbound economic system • Devaluation of the most needed for natural & social reproduction= nature, labour, life • Primitive accumulation: inherently & continuously capitalist • State: favours aggressive economic action • Nature & humans as machines • Nature & poor people: made responsible for the ecological & economic question • Capitalism as closest to patriarchal utopia: a world without nature
The problem of economics • Very capitalist-specific → class, gender, race, age & culturally biased • Nature is a resource & means of production → degradation as starting point • Mainstream ecological economics: – tries to alleviate the problems of capitalist mode(s) of production – does not defy basic capitalist institutions
The problem of ecology • In societies where nature is not (only) a resource or means of production: there is no ecology • ? acceptance that natural destruction because of our economic structures is unavoidable? • Can capitalist structures mitigate the environmental problems they cause? • Class biases in environmental perceptions & approaches
The problem of agriculture • Indispensable technology→ survival-quality of life • Capitalist mode of production: – Scorn for agriculture & rural communities (+ marxist theory) – privatisation/enclosures & proletarianisation (no access to land & resources for subsistence) • Food production: – Industrial agriculture & cash crops – Financialisation of food • Labour-intensiveness → affected directly by political economic structures
What if… …we reversed the order?
Agriculture as indispensable technology • Food + clothes + shoes + tools + raw materials for producing crafts/industrial goods + housing + education + healthcare + arts + culture • A lot of historical experience & various types of know-how to learn from • Political Economy & Economic History of agriculture prevents from romanticism & idealisation
Ecology as indispensable for agriculture • Mistake & unsustainable: to see nature only as resource/means of production & separate from humans • Ecology as knowledge/discipline: huge amounts of information, research, knowledge, examples & experiments to be taught by
Economics as knowledge on sharing • Covering human needs through sharing: between nature & humans, among humans • Capitalism-favouring economics: supports how to be aggressive to nature & humans • Unequal & exploitative sharing → environmental & social reproduction crisis • Economics can be otherwise
Yes, but… the market…
Typical market-centred discourse
Or, the other way round
No profit → No nature → no humans no jobs → no food → no humans → no nature Discourse residue: profit - jobs - food
Nature
Humans
Profit
Food
Jobs
Nature
Humans
Produce sharing
Food
Work sharing
Ecological economics: Panacea, process or contested field? • There is no panacea, much less unidimensional • Process: social struggles → economic & ecological issues are part of them • Agroecology: aspect of social struggles in late capitalism • Economics: field of social struggle as every knowledge field • Ecological economics need to re-assess their agenda • Grassroots-traditional-indigenous practices persist not to balance capitalism but for the opposite reason
Selected bibliography Altieri, M.A. (2009): Agroecology, small farms and food sovereignty. Monthly Review, 61 (3):102-113. Delgado, F. (2011): Agroecology & sustainable endogenous development for Living-Well: 25 years of AGRUCO experiences (in Spanish). Cochabamba, Bolivia: AGRUCO. Ertürk, K.A. & Whittle, J. (2015): Climate change procrastination and asymmetric power. World Economics Review, 5: 40-53. Goerner, S. et al. (2009): Quantifying economic sustainability: Implications for free entreprise theory, policy and practice. Ecological Economics 69: 76-81. Pearson H.W. (1957): The economy has no surplus: Critique of a theory of development. In Arensberg C.M. et al.: Trade and market in early empires. Glencoe IL, Free Press: 320-341. Von Werlhof, C. (2007): No critique of capitalism without a critique of patriarchy, CNS-Capitalism Nature Socialism, 18 (1): 13-27. Weis, T. (2010): The Accelerating Biophysical Contradictions of Industrial Capitalist Agriculture. Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (3): 315–341.
