Food autonomy | Esther Vivas on the invisible work of women

Food sovereignty and biodiversity. Credit: Sourcewatch

Moderator’s Note: As part of our occasional series on
food autonomy, we are reposting this essay by alter-globalization activist, organizer,
and author, Esther Vivas. Ms. Vivas argues in this piece that without women the
world would go hungry. This operates at several levels including the unpaid and
largely invisible work of reproduction, which is to say reproduction of tradition,
customs, and all the other qualities that make for a whole way of life or ‘culture’. 

Vivas critically
unpacks at the impact of neoliberal policies on women and their productive and
reproductive labor. One especially significant issue is access to land since
women are traditionally the smallholder subsistence farmers of their regions.
The smallholders are often the first targets undermined by neoliberal policies
designed to promote modernized industrialized agriculture for the production of
cash crops for export. As the transition happens nations find themselves producing
for export but not for feeding themselves. This is one of the central
underlying causes of hunger and malnutrition in the world.

Vivas concludes
by looking at the impact of women in the transformation of La Via Campesina
itself, an organization that at its origins was male-dominated and lacked a
focus on women’s concerns. Vivas notes how: “Over time, Via Campesina has incorporated a feminist perspective,
working to achieve gender equality within their organizations, and building
alliances with feminist groups…”

This essay was
originally published in International Viewpoint (Feb 8, 2012).

Guatamalan maize farmer. Credit: Oxfamblogs

Without
women there is no food sovereignty

FEMINISM AT HEART OF LA VIA CAMPESINA
MOVEMENT

Esther Vivas | January 29, 2014 

Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially
organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades,
under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been
imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello,
2009). [1] 

This
article analyzes the impact of agro-industrial policies on women and the key
role that peasant women in the Global North and South play in the production
and distribution of food. It analyzes how the dominant agricultural model can
incorporate a feminist perspective and how the social movements that work
towards food sovereignty can incorporate a feminist perspective.

Campesinas
and invisible women

In
the countries of the Global South, women are the primary producers of food, the
ones in charge of working the earth, maintaining seed stores, harvesting fruit,
obtaining water and safeguarding the harvest. Between 60 to 80% of food
production in the Global South is done by women (50% worldwide) (FAO, 1996).
Women are the primary producers of basic grains such as rice, wheat, and corn
which feed the most impoverished populations in the South. Despite their key
role in agriculture and food however, women; together with their children; are
the ones most affected by hunger.

For
centuries, peasant women have been responsible for domestic chores, the care
and feeding of their families, the cultivation, exchange and commercialization
of household gardens; charged with reproduction, production and community—all
the while occupying an often invisible domestic and social sphere. The main
economic transactions in agriculture have traditionally been undertaken by men
in markets, with the purchase and sale of animals, and the commercialization of
large quantities of grains in the private and public sphere.

This
division of roles, assigning women as the caretakers of the house as well as
the health and education of their families, and granting men the “technical”
management of land and machinery, maintains the assigned gender roles that have
persisted in our societies through the centuries and into the present
(Oceransky Losana, 2006).

The
figures speak for themselves. According to data from the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 1996), in many African countries women
represent 70% of the field labor; are responsible for supplying 90% of the
domestic water supply and are responsible for between 60 and 80% of the
production of food consumed and sold by the family. They account for 100% of
the processing of foods, 80% of the activities of food storage and
transportation, and 90% of the labor involved in preparing the earth before
planting. These numbers demonstrate the crucial role that African women have in
the production of small-scale agriculture and the maintenance of their families’
subsistence.

In
many regions of the Global South however—in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa,
and South Asia—there is a notable “feminization” of salaried agricultural work,
especially in non-traditional export-oriented sectors (Fraser, 2009). Between
1994 and 2000, according to White and Leavy (2003), women made up 83% of new
employees in the non-traditional agro-export sector. In this way, for the first
time, many women have paid jobs with economic gains that give them more power
in decision-making and the possibility of participating in organizations
outside of the family (Fraser, 2009). However, this dynamic shift has been
accompanied by a marked gender division in job roles;: on plantations, women
perform the unskilled work such as gathering and boxing while men bring in the
harvest and plant.

The
incorporation of women into salaried labor means a double burden of work for
women who continue to care for their families while at the same time working to
obtain income—principally in precarious jobs. Poorer labor conditions than
those of their male counterparts, along with inferior pay for the same jobs,
forces women to work more hours in order to receive the same income. In India,
for example, the average salary for day labor in the agricultural sector is 30%
less for women than men (World Bank, 2007). In Spain, women make 30% less, and
this difference can be as high as 40% (Oceransky Losana, 2006).

Impact of
neoliberal policies

The
application of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in the 80s and 90s in the
Global South on the part of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
further aggravated already difficult conditions for much of the population in
those countries and hit women especially hard.

The
shock measures imposed by the SAPs consisted of forcing Southern governments to
withdraw all subsidies for staples like bread, rice, milk and sugar. Drastic
reductions in public education, health, housing and infrastructure spending
were imposed. The forced devaluation of national currency (to cheapen exports)
diminished the purchasing capacity of local populations. Increased interest
rates to attract foreign capital generated a speculative spiral. These SAPs
added to the extreme poverty of many in the Global South (Vivas, 2008).

Structural
Adjustment Policies and privatization had major repercussions for women in
particular. As Juana Ferrer of the International Gender Commission of Via
Campesina illustrates:

In
the processes of privatization of public services, the most affected people
have been women. Women have been affected above all in the fields of health and
education where they have historically carried [the most] responsibility for
their families. ... In the measure [to which] we do not have access to
resources and public services it becomes more difficult to lead a worthwhile
life for women (La Via Campesina, 2006: 30).

The
collapse of the countryside in the Global South and the intensification of
migration to cities has led to a process of “de-peasantization” (Bello, 2009).
In many countries this process has not taken the form of a classic rural to
urban movement, in which ex-peasants go to the cities to work in factories as
part of the industrialization process. Rather, migration has been characterized
by a process of “urbanization disconnected from industrialization” in which
ex-peasants, pushed into the cities, are then fed back to the periphery
(favelas, slums), many living off the informal economy and comprising the “informal
proletariat” (Davis, 2006).

Women
are an essential component in these national and international migratory flows.
Migration leads to the dismantling and abandonment of families, land, and
processes of production, while increasing the burdens of family and community
on the women who stay behind. In Europe, the United States and Canada women who
do migrate take work that European and North American women have not performed
for years, thus reproducing an invisible spiral of oppression, as the Global
North externalizes its care, social and economic costs to communities of
migrant women origin.

The
inability to resolve the current health care crisis in Western countries has
resulted in the incorporation of large numbers of women into the labor market.
Additionally, the aging population of Western countries and the
non-responsiveness of the state to their needs has served as an alibi for the
importation of millions of “caretakers” from the Global South. As is noted by Ezquerra
(2010) “[This] diaspora fills the function of making the incompatibility
between the rise of the capitalist system and the maintenance of life in the
Centre invisible, and deepens the crisis of care and other crises in the South.
... The ‘international chain of care’ becomes a dramatic vicious cycle that
ensures survival of the patriarchal capitalist system” (Ezquerra, 2010:39).

Native American Women Farming, 1835. Credit: fineart

Access to
land

Access
to land is not a guaranteed right for many women. In numerous Southern
countries laws forbid this right, and in those countries where legal access
exists there are often traditions and practices that prevent women from
property ownership. As Fraser (2009) explains, “In Cambodia, for example,
although it is not illegal for women to own land, the cultural norm dictates
that they do not possess land; although they are responsible for farm
production and agriculture, women have no control over the sale of land or how
it is transmitted to children” (Fraser, 2009:34).

In
India, Chukki Nanjundaswamy of the peasant organization Karnataka State Farmers
Association [2]
notes that the situation of women with regards to land and health care access
is very difficult: “Socially Indian peasant women have almost no rights and are
considered an ‘addition’ to males. Rural women are the most untouchable of the
untouchables within the social caste system” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 16).

Access
to land for women in Africa today is even more precarious due to increased
deaths from AIDS. On the one hand, women are more likely to be infected, but
when one of their male relatives who holds title to the land dies, women have
great difficulty accessing control. In many communities, women have no right to
inherit, and therefore lose their land and other assets when they are widowed
(Jayne et al, 2006).

Land
is a very important asset—it allows for the production of food, serves as an
investment for the future; and as collateral it implies access to credit, etc.
The difficulties women have securing access to land is one more example of how
the capitalist and patriarchal agricultural system hits them especially hard.
Furthermore, when women do hold title to land, it is mostly lower value land or
extension properties.

Women
also face more difficulty in obtaining loans, services, and supplies. Globally,
it is estimated that women receive only 1% of total agricultural loans, and
even so, it is not clear who in the family exercises control over those loans
(Fraser, 2009).

These practices do not only exist in the Global South. In Europe, for example,
many women farmers work under complete legal uncertainty. Most of them work on
family farms where administrative rights are the exclusive property of the
owner of the farm—and women are not entitled to aid, planting, lactic share,
etc.

As
Elizabeth Vilalba Seivane, secretary of Labrego Galego in Galicia explains, the
problems of women in the field—in the South and the North—have much in common
despite some obvious differences, “European women are more focused on fighting
for our administrative rights on the farm, while elsewhere profound changes are
demanded that have to do with land reform or access to land and other basic
resources” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 26).

In the US, Debra Eschmeyer of the National Family Farm Coalition explains
practices that show this inequality: “For example, when a women farmer goes
alone to seek a loan from a bank it is far more complicated [than] if a male
farmer seeks a loan” (La Via Campesina, 2006: 14).

Nyleni Declaration 2007.

Agribusiness
vs. food sovereignty

Today,
the current agro-industrial model has proven unable to satisfy the dietary
needs of individuals, in addition to being destructive to the environment. We
are facing a food and agricultural system with a high concentration of
companies along the entire chain. It is monopolized by a handful of
multinational agribusinesses and backed by governments and international
institutions that have become accomplices, if not co-beneficiaries, in an
unsustainable food production system. This model is an imperialist tool aimed
at political, economic and social control over the Global South by the North’s
major economic powers like the United States and the European Union (Toussaint,
2008; Vivas, 2009).

As
Desmarais (2007) notes, the food system can be understood as a broad horizontal
chain that has been taking more and more away from production and consumption
in favor of the appropriation of various stages of production by agribusiness,
leading to the loss of peasant autonomy.

The
food crisis that erupted during 2007 and 2008, caused a strong increase in the
price of staple foods, [3]
highlighting the high volatility of agriculture and the food system. It also
introduced the figure of over one billion hungry people in the world—one person
in six, according to data from the FAO (2009).

The
problem is a not a lack of food, but rather the inability to access it. In
fact, grain production worldwide has tripled since the 60’s, while the global
population has only doubled (GRAIN, 2008). We can see that there is enough food
to feed the entire global population. However, for the millions of people in
developing countries who spend between 50% and 60% of their income on food (up
to 80% in the poorest countries), rising prices make it impossible to access.

There
are fundamental reasons that explain the deep food crisis. Neoliberal policies
applied indiscriminately over the past thirty years on a global scale forced
vulnerable markets to open up to the global economy. Payments of debt by the
South led to the privatization of formerly public goods and services (water,
agricultural protections). Add to this a model of agriculture and food
production in the service of capitalist logic, and you have the main
contributing factors to the situation that has dismantled a once-successful
model of peasant agriculture that had guaranteed people’s food security for
decades (Holt-Giménez and Patel, 2010). This has had a very negative impact on
people, particularly women, and the environment.

Food
Sovereignty is a powerful alternative to this destructive agricultural model.
This paradigm promotes “the right of peoples to define their own agricultural
policies and ... to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and
the domestic market” (VVAA, 2003: 1). Food sovereignty seeks to regain the
right to decide what, how and where to produce what we eat. It promotes the
idea that the land, water, and seeds are in peasants’ hands, and that we
deserve to control our food systems.

There
is an inherent feminist perspective incorporated in food sovereignty. As
pointed out by Yoon Guem Soon, a Korean peasant woman and representative of Via
Campesina in Asia: “Feminism is a process for getting a decent place for women
in society, to combat violence against women and to claim and reclaim our land
and save it from the hands of multinationals and large companies. Feminism is
the way for rural women to take an active and worthy role within society” (La
Via Campesina, 2006:12).

La Via
Campesina

Via
Campesina is the world’s foremost international movement of small farmers. It
promotes the right of all peoples to food sovereignty. Via Campesina was
established in 1993 at the dawn of the anti-globalization movement, and gradually
became one of the major organizations in the critique of neoliberal
globalization. Its ascent is an expression of peasant resistance to the
collapse of the rural world caused by neoliberal policies, and the
intensification of those policies as embodied in the World Trade Organization
(Antentas and Vivas, 2009a).Since its founding, Via Campesina has promoted a “female
peasant” identity that is politicized, linked to land, food production and the
defense of food sovereignty—built in opposition to the current agribusiness
model (Desmarais, 2007). Via Campesina embodies a new kind of “peasant
internationalism” (Bello, 2009), that can be viewed as a “peasant component” of
the new international resistance presented by the anti-globalization movement
(Antentas and Vivas, 2009).

In
1996, coinciding with the World Food Summit at the FAO in Rome, Via Campesina
highlighted food sovereignty as a political alternative to a profoundly unfair
and predatory food system. This does not imply a romantic return to the past,
but rather recovers knowledge and traditional practices and combines them with
new technologies and new knowledge (Desmarais, 2007). As noted by McMichael
(2006), there is a “mystification of the small” in a way that rethinks the
global food system to encourage democratic forms of food production and
distribution.

A feminist
perspective

Over
time, Via Campesina has incorporated a feminist perspective, working to achieve
gender equality within their organizations, and building alliances with
feminist groups, including the international World March of Women, among
others.

At
the heart of La Via Campesina, the struggle of women is situated at two levels:
defending their rights as women within organizations and society in general,
and the struggle as peasant women together with their colleagues against the
neoliberal model of agriculture (EHNE and La Via Campesina 2009).

Feminist
work in Via Campesina has taken important steps forward since its inception. In
the First International Conference in Mons (Belgium) in 1993, all the elected
coordinators were men. In the final declaration the situation of rural women
hardly received any mention. Although it identified the need to integrate women’s
needs in the work of Via Campesina, the conference failed to establish
mechanisms to ensure participation of women in successive meetings. Thus, at
the 2nd International Conference in Tlaxcala (Mexico) in 1996, the percentage
of women attending was 20% of the total: the same as at the 1st International
Conference. To address this issue, a special women’s committee was created
(later known as the Women’s Committee of La Via Campesina) and methods that
permitted better representation and participation were enacted.

This
move facilitated the incorporation of feminist analysis in Via Campesina. Thus,
when Via Campesina publicly presented the concept of food sovereignty at the
World Food Summit of FAO in Rome in 1996, women contributed their own demands.
These included the need to produce food locally, and they added the dimension
of “human health” to “sustainable agricultural practices,” demanding a drastic
reduction in harmful chemical inputs and advocating the active promotion of
organic agriculture. Women also insisted that food sovereignty could not be
accomplished without greater female participation in the definition of rural
policies (Desmarais, 2007).

For
Francisca Rodriguez of the peasant association ANAMURI in Chile: “Acknowledging
the reality and demands of rural women has been a challenge in all peasant
movements. ... The history of this acknowledgement has gone through various
stages of struggle for recognition from within, to break with the chauvinist
organizations ... over the past twenty years, rural women’s organizations have
gained [an] identity ... we have reconstructed as women in a half-labored rural
locale,” (Mugarik Gabe, 2006:254).

The
work of the Women’s Commission helped promote exchanges between women from
different countries, including women-specific meetings to coincide with
international summits. Between 1996 and 2000, the Commission’s work focused
mainly on Latin America—through training, exchange and discussion—and rural
women increased their participation in all levels and activities of La Via
Campesina.

As
Annette Desmarais noted, “In most countries, agricultural and rural
organizations are dominated by men. The women of La Via Campesina refuse to
accept these subordinate positions. While acknowledging the long and difficult
road ahead, women accept the challenge with enthusiasm, and vow to carry out a
major role in shaping the Via Campesina as a movement committed to gender
equality” (Desmarais, 2007:265).

In
October 2000, just before the 3rd International Conference of La Via Campesina
in Bangalore (India), the 1st International Assembly of Women Farmers was
organized. This allowed for greater participation of women in the organization.
The Assembly adopted three major goals: 1) to ensure the participation of 50%
of women at all levels of decisions and activities of La Via Campesina, 2) to
maintain and strengthen the Women’s Commission, and 3) to ensure that
documents, training events and speeches of Via Campesina did not have sexist
content or sexist language (Desmarais, 2007).

Banner celebrating 4th Women's Assembly of La Via Campesina. Credit: La Via Campesina

Members at the conference agreed to change the institutional structure to
ensure gender equity. As Paul Nicholson of La Via Campesina notes: “[In
Bangalore] it was determined that equality of man and woman in spaces and
positions of representation in our organization opened a whole internal process
of reflection on the role of women in the struggle for women peasants’ rights.
... The gender perspective is being addressed now in a serious way, not only in
the context of parity in responsibilities, but also a profound debate about the
roots and tentacles of patriarchy and violence against women in the rural
world.” (Food Sovereignty, Biodiversity and Cultures 2010: 8).

This
strategy forced the member organizations of Via Campesina at national and
regional levels to rethink their work in a gender perspective and to
incorporate new measures to strengthen the role of women (Desmarais, 2007).
Josie Riffaud of the Confédération Paysanne in France, states that: “the
decision was critical of [lack of gender] parity in the Via Campesina, as allowed
in my organization, the Confédération Paysanne. We also apply this measure.”
(La Via Campesina, 2006: 15).

As
part of the 4th International Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in June 2004;
the 2nd International Assembly of Women Farmers brought together more than a
hundred women from 47 countries on all continents. The main lines of action
that emerged from the meeting were to take action against physical and sexual
violence against women; both domestically and internationally; demand equal
rights and invest in education. As its final statement states: “We demand our
right to a dignified life, respect for our sexual and reproductive rights; and
the immediate implementation of measures to eradicate all forms of physical,
sexual, verbal and psychological violence. ... We urge states to implement
measures to ensure our economic autonomy, access to land, health, education and
equal social status.” (2nd International Assembly of Women Farmers, 2004).

In
October 2006, the World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina was highlighted
in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Participants included women from agricultural
organizations in Asia, North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America; with
the objective of analyzing and discussing the meaning of equality in the field
from a feminist perspective, and a plan of action to achieve it. As one of the
presentations—Sergia Galván’s Women’s Health Collective of the Dominican
Republic—pointed out, the women of La Via Campesina had three challenges ahead:
1) to advance the theoretical discussion to incorporate the feminist peasant
perspective in mainstream feminist analysis, 2) continue work on autonomy as a
vital reference for the consolidation of the movement of rural women, and 3) to
overcome the feeling of guilt in the struggle for higher positions of power
over men (La Via Campesina, 2006).

The
World Congress of Women of La Via Campesina emphasized the need to further
strengthen the articulation of women of La Via Campesina, and created
mechanisms for a greater exchange of information and specific plans for
struggle. Among the concrete proposals were the articulation of a global
campaign to combat violence perpetrated against women, to extend the discussion
to all organizations that are part of Via Campesina, and to work to recognize
the rights of rural women in demanding equality inaccess to land, credit,
markets and administrative rights (La Via Campesina, 2006).

At the 5th International Conference in Maputo, Mozambique, in October 2008, La
Via Campesina hosted the 3rd International Assembly of Women. The assembly
approved the launch of a campaign targeting all forms of violence faced by
women in society (physical, economic, social, sexist, cultural, and access to
power) which are also present in rural communities and their organizations.

Work
that aims at achieving greater gender equality is not easy. Despite the formal
equality, women face obstacles when traveling or attending meetings and
gatherings. As Annette Desmarais (2007:282) noted, “There are many reasons why
women do not participate at this level. Perhaps the most important is the
persistence of ideologies and cultural practices that perpetuate unequal gender
relations and unfairness. For example, the division of labor by gender means
that rural women have less access to the most precious resource, time, to
participate as leaders in agricultural organizations. Being involved in
reproductive, productive and community work makes it much less likely [for
women] to have time for training sessions and learning as leaders.”

It is a struggle against the tide, and despite some concrete victories, we face
a long fight in our organizations; and, more generally, socially.

Weaving
Alliances

La
Via Campesina has established alliances with various organizations and social
movements at the international, regional, and national levels. One of the most
significant alliances has been with the World March of Women, a leading
feminist global network that has called for joint actions and meetings, and has
collaborated in activities: the International Forum for Food Sovereignty held
in Mali in 2007, among others.

The original meeting between the two networks was under the anti-globalization
movement, and its purpose was to agree on counter-summits and activities within
the World Social Forum. The incorporation of a feminist perspective within Via
Campesina generated more solidarity, and this has built over time. At the Forum
for Food Sovereignty in 2007 in Sélingué, Mali a meeting was convened by
leading international social movements such as Via Campesina, the World March
of Women, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, and others to advance strategies
within a wide range of social movements (farmers, fishers, consumers) to
promote food sovereignty.

Women
were a major catalyst in this meeting, as organizers and participants. The
Nyéléni Forum in Sélingué was named in honor of the legend of a Malian peasant
woman who struggled to assert herself as a woman in a hostile environment.
Delegates from Africa, America, Europe, Asia and Oceania attended the meeting
and identified the capitalist and patriarchal system as primarily responsible
for the violations of women’s rights, while reaffirming their commitment to
transform it.

The
World March of Women has taken up food sovereignty as an inalienable human right,
especially for women. Miriam Nobre, coordinator of the international secretary
of the World March of Women, participated in October 2006 at the World Congress
of Women of La Via Campesina in the global feminist movement. The 7th
International Meeting of the World March of Women in Vigo, Spain in October
2008, held a forum and exhibition for food sovereignty, showing the links
between the feminist struggle and those of peasant women.

The
success of this collaboration is embodied in the dual membership of women who
are active members in the World March of Women, and La Via Campesina. These
experiences encourage closer ties and collaboration between both networks, and
strengthens the feminist struggle of rural women that is part of the broader
struggle against capitalism and patriarchy.

Conclusion

The
current global food system has failed to ensure the food security of
communities. Currently more than a billion people worldwide suffer from hunger.
The global food system has had a profoundly negative environmental impact;
promoting an intensive agro-industrial model that has contributed to climate
change and collapsing agro-biodiversity. This system has been particularly
detrimental to women.

Developing alternatives to this agricultural model requires incorporating a
gender perspective. The food sovereignty alternative to the dominant
agro-industrial model has to have a feminist position to break with patriarchal
and capitalist logic.

La Via Campesina, the largest international movement for food sovereignty, is
moving in this direction: creating alliances with other social
movements—especially feminist organizations and networks such as the World
March of Women—to promote networking and solidarity among women in North and
South, urban and rural areas, and between them and their companions. As Via
Campesina says: “Globalize the struggle. Globalize hope.”

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the peoples’ food sovereignty WTO out of agriculture and food! in: http://www.viacampesina.org/main_sp...

White H. y Leavy S. (2003) Labour markets in Africa:
What do models need to explain? Brighton. Institute for Development Studies y
University of Sussex.

Esther Vivas is a member of the Centre for Studies on
Social Movements (CEMS) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. She is author of the book “En
pie contra la deuda externa” (Stand Up against external debt), El Viejo Topo,
2008, and co-coordinator of the books also in Spanish “Supermarkets, No Thanks”
and “Where is Fair Trade headed?” among other publications, and a contributor
to the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org.
She is also a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.

NOTES

[1] For
a more detailed analysis of the historical evolution of the global food system
see McMichael (2000).

[2] All
women farmers mentioned in this article are part of member organizations of La
Via Campesina

[3]
According to the index of food prices by FAO, recorded between 2005 and 2006,
an increase of 12% the following year, in 2007, an increase of 24% be¬tween
January and July 2008, a rise about 50%. Cereals and other staple foods were
those that suffered the largest increases (Vivas, 2009)