Food regimes, food empires, food sovereignty and food movements

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between food regimes, food empires and food movements, proposing a new reading of the agrarian question and territorial development. The peasantry has always acted in the production of food as a condition of maintaining its existence. Constantly threatened by large landowners, governments, national and multinational corporations, peasants organize themselves in movements or other institutions to resist the expropriation processes. The peasant movements of Latin America are the most active in the world. One of the reasons for its high level of organization is its history. Formed in territories dominated by settlers, enslaved, subordinates, they fought for independence and freedom. Although in the last decades, agribusiness has become territorial over the ruins of peasant communities, the perseverance of the peasantry promotes persistent resistance in the continuous struggle for land and agrarian reform.

Knowing the realities of the peasant movements in Latin America makes it possible to understand the reason for their existence, not for the development of capitalist agriculture, but by the continuous process the formation of family agriculture that distinguishes more and more conventional agriculture. Since the 1970s, the peasantry has built an agroecological path against agribusiness that increasingly develops commodities with pesticides to produce ultra-processed foods. These realities are permanently in our daily lives, just pay attention to the types of food that are on our tables for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Few people understand the importance of the peasantry in our daily lives. They are just as important as doctors because they also take care of our health, and because they produce most of the food we eat.