{"id":6352,"date":"2024-11-14T09:51:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T01:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panap.net\/?p=6352"},"modified":"2024-11-14T09:51:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T01:51:52","slug":"engaging-consumers-in-agroecology-lessons-from-field-learning-sites","status":"publish","type":"panap_updates","link":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/updates\/engaging-consumers-in-agroecology-lessons-from-field-learning-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaging Consumers in Agroecology: Lessons from Field Learning Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumers are traditionally conceived as being\u00a0 at the end of a linear value chain that is the backbone of the industrial agri-food system. There their proverbial power lies. They engage with the food system using their wallets,\u00a0 but\u00a0 are\u00a0 otherwise unable to participate in issues outside what\u2019s considered their domain, which is often limited to the price of products, their availability and safety. And although what happens \u201cupstream\u201d such as resource use and labor practices are factors that shape these important aspects, they remain invisible or opaque\u00a0 to consumers\u00a0 downstream, who\u00a0 are nonetheless told that they can make changes within the system and encourage innovations through what they choose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Never mind that this power has a very narrow focus. The seemingly endless array of products coming from the current\u00a0 system are mostly variations of the four biggest commodities\u2014wheat, soy, rice, and corn\u2014and behind the tens of thousands of brands are the same giant food companies, growing in power and lacking in accountability. In this corporatized milieu consumer choice has become all about choosing from what industry wants consumers to choose from, i.e., what\u2019s most profitable, and staying in that lane. Even the rise of conscious consumerism, while well intentioned for inquiring into upstream practices and demanding industry to do better given the multiple environmental, social and economic crises it\u2019s implicated in, reinforces this constrained position of consumers as simply economic actors, limiting not only\u00a0 their ability to make truly transformative changes but especially <\/span>who<\/span><\/i> are\u00a0 able.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What then is the place of consumers in agroecology? Centering peasant farmers and indigenous peoples, agroecology has been gaining prominence as the viable and holistic alternative to the current food system, and its development over the decades has focused largely on the aspect of production, and rightly so. How can consumers contribute to its development and\u00a0 mainstreaming? To what extent can consumer demand for agroecological products facilitate the transition to food systems transformation?<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are lessons and insights from\u00a0 our learning exchange \u201cJust Eats: The Role of Consumers in Agroecology,\u201d shared by IPAM field learning sites and partners from Bolivia, the Philippines, Laos, and Pakistan based on their experience regularly engaging with consumers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shifting consumer identity\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Horrified that Filipino farmers are among the poorest of the basic sectors and periodically experience hunger, <\/span>Good Food Community<\/span><\/a> strives to create a local and alternative food network to meet the food and nutrition needs of farmers and consumers \u201cbased on solidarity, justice, and love\u2014not just on the market,\u201d shares its\u00a0 Charlene Tan. Good Food practices Pamayanihan, its local adaptation of community-supported agriculture (CSA), which promotes diverse organic production among small-scale farmers and invites consumers to become co-producers of the food production, with a stake and active role in it, and sharing in the risks, rewards, and responsibilities of food production.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Good Food Community brings urban consumers to Tuba, Benguet, where they meet and learn from the experience of Filipino small organic farmers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Good Food is based in Metro Manila, a megapolis in the major island of Luzon in the Philippines, and citydwellers rarely know anything about how the food gets on the plate. \u201cIn the city, corporations practically control your life, we don\u2019t feel our own chains. Consumption is alienating and stratifying, you get what you want based on what you can afford, how much you have. Pamayanihan is our agroecological practice as coproducers of our food system, believing we all have a responsibility towards each other to make sure we are fed and have wellbeing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Through the work of Good Food Community, urban consumers are able to participate in the consumer action against the entry of GMO Golden Rice and Bt Eggplant into the Philippines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Introducing the idea of co-production means recognizing the concept of interdependence in a world that favors individualism and competition. A farmshare subscription is the locus of solidarity for the community members, and\u00a0 allows Good Food to enter into purchase guarantee agreements with the farmers that provide them with a fair and stable income so they can focus on growing food sustainably while prioritizing freshness and flavor. Subscribers are assured of\u00a0 a weekly basket of nutrient-dense biodiverse seasonal produce, and the community subsidizes the communal kitchens in urban poor areas. Good Food\u2019s work centers on restoring the communal aspect of food\u2014which has been eroding as diets and lifestyles modernize and change\u2014through farm visits, collective gardening, community kitchens and community meal preps, Sunday markets, education and advocacy, among many others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing to the farms, seeing the faces behind the vegetables, being in dialogue with the farmers, eating the harvest, we realize what it takes to put food on the table. Agroecology includes consumers in the struggle for land and food justice. We learn that our health is tied to the farmer\u2019s health and soil health. We are nourished by our social practice,\u201d says Charlene.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Growing food literacy\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

While demand for food grown naturally and without chemicals is increasing in Pakistan, \u201cthere is no certainty in terms of what is in the market,\u201d says Nasira Habib of <\/span>Khoj – Society for People\u2019s Education<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Organica Pakistan<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cThe food cannot be traced to its origin, there is no direct access to the farm\u201d so that one can be sure. She adds that conventional consumers only have a vague idea of what \u2018organic\u2019 is and do not know the many important dimensions of the term, such as its connection to food safety and security, environmental sustainability, and even physical and mental wellbeing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Organic gardening is an integral part of educating the public about their food, which needs to start at a young age, basing it on the principles of relevance and learning by doing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To close this gap it is essential for consumers to learn to grow their own food as well, and learn from it firsthand the multiple beneficial impacts associated with biodiverse organic production. Urban food gardens make these benefits available to people in more urbanized areas while connecting them to a broader movement and communities of practice to counter the alienation and disconnection with food, the soil, nature, and community that is manifest in the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Khoj – Society for People\u2019s Education provides children and students from marginalized rural communities with a holistic, hands-on approach to learning about their food system by being in nature, growing their own food, and cultivating healthy soil.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Khoj hopes to create one thousand food gardens in Pakistan, and has been able to grow 70 so far. Nasira has seen how home-garden consumers now have access to a wide variety of nutritious native fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 These \u201cgardens of abundance\u201d as she calls them have facilitated food exchanges among the home growers who find themselves with surplus harvests. \u201cThey can form a network of home food growers and together\u00a0 learn to celebrate food and become part of a community.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The food gardens also become a way for the Pakistanis to learn about <\/span>the importance of soil to\u00a0 food, and therefore to life<\/span><\/a>, as well as the harms and hazards of chemical agriculture. \u201cThere is a relationship between soil health and human health, and consumer education is urgently needed. As an educationist, Nasira has been tireless at sharing knowledge and skills through print and online publications, as well as research, using\u00a0 her own home food garden as a living laboratory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Creating alternative markets<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Food provisioning outside corporate value chains is essential to engaging consumer support for agroecology. Such spaces are usually small in scale, characterized by direct farmer-consumer trading\u00a0 or shorter supply chains, and rooted in specific territories. Moreover, they are spaces where relationships between the food producers and consumers are built and strengthened, allowing for trust, a sense of fairness, and mutuality to deepen over time. Such values are hospitable to creating support for agroecological food practices, where benefits can be immediately felt by the proximate communities such as cleaner air, better access to safe food, clean water, more equitable access to food, farmer autonomy, and a fairer share of the economic benefits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Opening up local or territorial markets is critical to the development of organic agriculture, promoting diversity, resilience and interdependent relationships between food producers and consumers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Laos is\u00a0 an agricultural country where more than 80% of the population work as small-scale farmers, and according to Thongdam Phongphichith, co-director of\u00a0 <\/span>Sustainable Agriculture and Environment Development Association<\/span><\/a> (SAEDA), developing\u00a0 local markets is critical to the development of organic agriculture. In these local markets, farmers and communities set their own local organic standards to guarantee safe diverse food, and the creation of such standards rely on a strong trusting relationship between the farmers and the consumers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Laryer Law is a 27-year-old farmer who is among the model organic farmers trained by SAEDA. She plans to expand her organic land cultivation to be able to meet the increasing demand of customers looking for safe food to eat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAEDA\u2019s program Commercial Organic Farming and its Institutionalisation (COFI), held across five districts in the province of Xiengkhouang, helps improve the income of smallholder farmers through organic farming and then connects them to fair markets for their agroecological produce. Under agroecology, consumers are also considered a form of social support for farmer resilience and empowerment. Local markets extend beyond the transactional and into the transformational aspect of the farmer-consumer relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building a consumer movement<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have eaten anything that is processed or natural, it has to do with relationships that exist,\u201d says Mar\u00eda Julia Jim\u00e9nez of <\/span>Movimiento Agroecol\u00f3gico Boliviano<\/span><\/a> (Bolivian Agroecology Movement or MAB). \u201cAgriculture is a system, and there\u2019s cause and effect in the relationships within it, so it is important to bring back systemic thought.\u201d This means\u00a0 including consumers as vital to the interdependent interactions within the food system versus the antiquated idea of consumers placed merely at the end of a linear chain, disconnected from the rest of its many aspects. \u201cBy studying these relationships over the structures of the food system, we are able to understand complex situations in easier ways and from a holistic point of view.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Food fairs promoting agroecology and marketing its products are important spaces that socialize the experience of consumers engaging with agroecology and facilitate learning about the different actions undertaken at the individual, household, and community levels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is a paradigm shift, given the dominance of the current food system, but a systemic approach is already being practiced by many communities. In Bolivia this systemic\u00a0 approach has allowed MAB and its partner Colectivo de Consumidores Conscientes (CCC or Conscious Consumers Collective) to actively engage consumers in movement building for the food system. \u201cWe are fighting the same fight.\u201d Mar\u00eda Julia emphasizes that such\u00a0 alliance between farmers and consumers is possible only\u00a0 when they are able to connect directly with each other\u00a0 versus the long supply chains that are very effective in alienating stakeholders not only from each other but from their own agency within the food system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Among the victories of the consumer movement in Bolivia\u00a0 is the inclusion of the people\u2019s right to healthy food and water in the Constitution, the consumers\u2019 right to have control over organic food, as well the right to a clean and healthy environment, where the people can take legal actions against attempts to breach or destroy these entitlements. The notion of food sovereignty has been enshrined in their Constitution where the <\/span>people have the right to produce, distribute and consume nutritious, culturally appropriate food in a way that is ecologically sustainable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Through the work of Movimiento Agroecologico Boliviano, a National Committee of Agroecological Consumers was established early this year, highlighting the need to articulate and promote the people\u2019s right to safe and healthy food in the absence of public policies that protect consumers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe need to create a new norm for healthy eating,\u201d says <\/span>Rita Saavedra of CCC, who joined Mar\u00eda Julia in the learning exchange. This new norm not only looks into the nutrient profiles of foods, although that is still important, but must also connect personal and public health goals with agroecology, given how pesticides and genetically modified organisms have acute and chronic health impacts on producers and consumers. For instance, there is growing evidence that the neurodegenerative disease Parkinson\u2019s\u00a0 is linked to agrochemicals, and the bioaccumulation of pesticides up the food chain can result in dreaded health issues. MAB and CCC are mobilizing producers and consumers to fight the lifting of taxes on agrotoxins and the entry and use of transgenics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers are diverse too. We believe that agroecology can meet the diverse needs of different kinds of consumers,\u201d Rita says. MAB successfully established the National Committee of Agroecological Consumers earlier this year in La Paz, Bolivia. \u201cFeeding the people is political, and so it requires participation from the State. This means that consumers need to be very vigilant about enforcing our rights and, in the absence of public policies that protect the consumers,\u00a0 amplifying the issues that face our food system.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Consumers are traditionally conceived as being\u00a0 at the end of a linear value chain that is the backbone of the industrial agri-food system. There their proverbial power lies. They engage with the food system using their wallets,\u00a0 but\u00a0 are\u00a0 otherwise unable to participate in issues outside what\u2019s considered their domain, which is often limited to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6354,"template":"","update_categories":[110],"class_list":["post-6352","panap_updates","type-panap_updates","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","update_categories-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates\/6352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/panap_updates"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panap_updates\/6352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"update_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panap.net\/beta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/update_categories?post=6352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}