During the last RTF gathering in April I offered a collective brainstorming on our
agricultural vision(s). This article tries to capture the some thoughts that emerged from the
workshop. It avoids the term “peasant agriculture” since I believe that the term is subject
to debate for its conservative tendencies.
First of all, some general points: As concepts, we thought that “food autonomy” and / or
“production autonomy” are quite useful. However it seemed obvious that a diversity of
concepts is needed which in turn need to be pragmatically adjusted to the local conditions.
They cannot be copied one by one. Lastly it was stressed that our vision is utterly
dependent on collective access to land. And that vice versa, those who practice this vision
should have access to land.
In short, our agricultural practices should ideally entail the following elements:
- Enriching soil fertility as the very basis of our practice.
- Increasing bio-diversity within various production- and cropping systems.
- Minimising external inputs and creating circular flows of resources and nutrients
which are decentrally available and accessible through low-tech means. - Establishing seed autonomy in cooperation with existing networks as well as our own.
- Decentred, local / regional production and distribution.
- Furthering multifunctionality in agriculture through social and cultural aspects.
- Creating craftsmanship and workshops for local manufacturing incl. the processing of
agricultural products. - Using appropriate technology which is easy to use, understand and repair. If desired
and possible focus on human or animal-powered technology. - Building energetic autonomy through the intelligent use of excess biomass as truly
renewable resources (wood, vegetable oil, biogas) and other renewable energy sources
(sun, wind etc.). - Preserving, creating and sustainably using wilderness areas
An extended section of our brainstorming focussed on the broader social and economic
aspects of our vision:
37 - Establishing non-market-based, autonomous structures for production and
distribution. - Strengthening cooperation against competition.
- Trusting and exchanging within our distribution networks instead of relying on
state-based organic certification schemes. - Exchanging agricultural goods among collectives in different regions via relations we
create through tours and travelling. - Organising an emancipative village economy.
Two questions remained open: - Do we only want to engage in subsistence and sell our surpluses or rather engage in
some sort of division of labour that makes real sense? - If we want to organise non-commercial, needs-based production: How do we regulate
demand? How do we communicate what within the network?
As for social and economic factors at the farm level we noted: - Collective farming with working groups and decentralised, consensus-oriented
decision-making. - Intergenerational living on our farms.
- Self-determination of “work” and “leisure” avoiding the usual work treadmill on
farms. - formulating a critique of (self-) exploitative work, e.g. on family farms, and finding
new forms of organising “work”. - creating more motivation for becoming farmers and finding fulfilling work in the
countryside. - Overcoming individualism and private property through a re-establishment of
common ownership in land, buildings and other means of production (also formally). - Questioning gender roles and challenging the strong patriarchal and sexist
conditions in rural areas. - In order to do this: Analyse critically the (pre-)agricultural history which avoids
romanticising the “traditional peasant world”.
- Jan
