16/07/18 Good food?

We made a trip through Almolonga yesterday, an enclave of intensive vegetable farming production a few miles away from Xela. This trip reminded me of my visit to the Colectivo Orgánico Regional Occidental, in Quetzaltenango (Photo 1). For the members of this network, composed of a dozen organizations representing small scale producers and consumers, Almolonga represents all the problems of the neoliberal agricultural model - chemical input, export market, and unequal distribution of land and resources (Photo 2). Alternatively, they promote agroecological practices, solidarity economy and food sovereignty by bringing producers and consumers closer to each other. Among their initiatives are the monthly organic market, Día Orgánico, agroecology training programs, dissemination of information on agroecology among urban citizens, and facilitation of cooperation between consumers and producers. An example of such a cooperation is La Hojita in which 25 consumers are committed to weekly collect their basket with a dozen products for a fixed price delivered by a handful of farmers (Photo 3).

These initiatives not only promote alternative market and consumption patterns but they also raise awareness among urban consumers and rural producers. A closer look at this agroecological network reveals both contradictions and innovations. In contrast to other Latin American countries, where agroecology and food sovereignty movement were built by peasant social movements, in Guatemala, agroecology was first introduced by the State. Created in 2007, the National Program for Organic Agriculture and Agroecology was more about organic than agroecology as a way to expand certification of a few export crops such as coffee, sesame seeds, cardamom, macadamia. Seven Colectivos Orgánicos were designed as a top-down participatory platform to legitimize this certification program. Interestingly, the Colectivo Orgánico Regional Occidental is the only active to date. This is because the members already cooperated informally and saw this platform as an opportunity to strengthen their network. Despite several challenges, they have been able to keep their autonomy and, at the same time, to enjoy access to the state institutional infrastructure to develop their initiatives.

What does this story have to do with the ‘commons’? Colectivo Orgánico reminds us that the state can play a key role in commoning processes. It also sheds some light on what is more relevant in the analysis of the commons – who designs it or how is it shaped? In Xela, the members of the Colectivo Orgánico took over the state-designed platform and turned it into a co-production space of agroecological discourse and practice. This also raises some questions regarding power relations. How do different actors in this network - namely consumers, solidarity economy business, and producers - negotiate their views, knowledge and interests? To what extent can this sharing experience lead to a transformative process of an alternative economic and farming model in the region? A more nuanced perspective to the commons allows us to address these and other aspects of such commoning experiences.

Fabio de Castro