The peasantries of the twenty-ﬁrst century: the ...at1140estudioscampesinos.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/8/9/...The peasantries of the twenty-ﬁrst century: the commoditisation debate

The peasantries of the twenty-first century: the commoditisation debate

revisited

Jan Douwe van der Ploeg

This article examines the re-emergence of the peasantry. It argues that farming isincreasingly being restructured in a peasant-like way. This restructuring is anactively constructed response to the agrarian crisis that has grown out of fivedecades of state-induced modernisation and is currently being accelerated by thefinancial crisis and the generalised economic depression. Through a process ofrestructuring that is both multi-dimensional and multi-level farmers arereconstituting themselves into peasants (although important features of operatingas peasants have never been completely absent), a process that is occurring asmuch in developed countries as in developing ones. At more or less the same timetheoretical concepts of the peasantry and the peasant way of farming are beingrediscovered and revisited. Earlier debates are highly relevant for understandingthe current situation of a generalised crisis and the responses that are beingtriggered among farmers. The rediscovery of the peasant as theoreticallymeaningful concept reflects the socio-material re-emergence of the peasantry,and helps to explain the particular features of this process. The article concludesby arguing that the reconstitution of the peasantry is strategic to future worldfood security.

Keywords: peasants; peasant agriculture; commoditisation; resistance; foodempires; world food problem

Introduction: from old to new forms

In this article I aim to discuss the major changes that are currently reshapingconsiderable parts of agriculture around the world. Two of the most importantprocesses at play in this are the re-grounding of farming1 on nature and thedevelopment of multi-functionality. These processes, which are occurring in bothdeveloping and developed countries, represent important reversals and imply arupture in the trend to modernise farming, which materialised as specialisation at thefarm enterprise level and led to a continual increase in the use of artificial growth-factors (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, industrial feed, substrate, newhybrid seeds, etc.) that increasingly disconnected farming from nature. Through

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper, especially one who highlighted some ofthe potential pitfalls in an earlier version of this text.1Throughout this text farming and farmers are used as generic concepts. Peasant farming andthe opposite forms, entrepreneurial and capitalist farming, are understood as specific andmutually exclusive modes of patterning, both materially and socially, the process ofagricultural production. When writing about peasants and entrepreneurs I am not referringto particular attributes (real or virtual) but simply to the actors who are involved in thesepatterns of farming. Being a peasant is defined by being involved in a peasant form ofproduction.

The Journal of Peasant Studies

Vol. 37, No. 1, January 2010, 1–30

ISSN 0306-6150 print/ISSN 1743-9361 online

� 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/03066150903498721

http://www.informaworld.com

these and other reversals, considerable parts of agriculture around the world are nowbeing re-patterned as peasant agriculture.

I will clarify this thesis by comparing the newly emerging peasant configurationsto the classical realities that are well documented, described, and analysed in the richtradition of peasant studies. My aim in so doing is not to argue that the peasantriesare ‘still there’ – as a remnant of the past. We are facing, instead, a re-emergence ofthe peasantry that is occurring through the reversals that will be analysed in thisarticle and as a response to the new food regime that has been established from the1990s onwards. Neither do I claim that there is a unilinear and straightforward linethat links the former peasantries to those of the present. There have been, instead,major interruptions and deviations. Following Shanin, I argue that the peasantryshould be understood as ‘a process’ (1973, 64); that the peasantry is constantly beingreshaped. Over the last fifty years peasantries have experienced massive and multi-faceted processes of agrarian modernisation (see Bernstein 1990, van der Ploeg2008). During this period it has become increasingly clear that this particular form ofmodernisation not only excludes the majority of farmers, but that, in the end, it alsotends to destroy those farmers who have followed the modernisation script andconverted themselves into agrarian entrepreneurs. It is currently clear, especially forthese producers, that further development along the lines of this script (continuedscale enlargement, specialisation, intensification based on increased input use,introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), internalisation ofregulatory schemes, etc.) is unattractive and often materially impossible. In thisrespect the most telling reversal is that at present (due to the financial and economiccrises) relatively small scale, peasant-like farms are generating incomes that are oftensuperior to those of far larger, entrepreneurial farms.2 But such apparent paradoxesare not restricted to this moment. They have been germinating for a long time andprovide a collective memory that increasingly orients farmers away from theentrepreneurial trajectory and into the re-creation of a peasant trajectory.

Table 1 synthesises the dialectics of continuity and change that link peasantfarming from earlier times to the current peasant configurations and whichsimultaneously differentiate the former from the latter. I will briefly discuss thesereversals and, wherever relevant, also pay attention to continuities and decisivedissimilarities. Throughout this discussion I will develop the thesis that (1) largeparts of the agricultural sectors in both developed and developing countries are

Table 1. Some of the major avenues through which peasantries are being reconstituted.

From To

(1) land ecological capital(2) subsistence self-provisioning(3) partial integration actively constructed distantiation(4) routine dynamic co-production(5) subordination multiple resistance(6) community extended networks and new marketplaces

2This is reflected in a range of comparative studies based on farm accountancy recordsproduced by co-operative agencies. Several of these studies are summarised and discussed invan der Ploeg (2003a, 206–25 and 2008, 146–9).

2 Jan Douwe van der Ploeg

increasingly being (re-)patterned as peasant agriculture3 and (2) that the peasantriesthemselves play an important role in this major shift.

Several decades ago, Harriss rightly asserted that ‘the process of commoditiza-tion . . . or the linking of rural household producers with capitalist production invarious ways . . . is perhaps the dominant process of change in contemporaryagrarian societies’ (1982, 22). We are now again witnessing a major process ofchange: a complex and sometimes contradictory re-adjustment of the balancebetween commodity and non-commodity relations, in which specific forms of de-commoditisation play a key role.

In the 1970s and 1980s there was an intense debate on the theoretical significanceand empirical impact of commodisation processes in agriculture. Although clearlycontrasting positions were developed, this debate has not been continued: it died off.This new ‘vacuum’ (Bernstein 2009, 63) is probably one of the main reasons thatexplain why the current process, through which the balance of commodity and non-commodity relations is being significantly reshuffled, has so far gone largelyunnoticed.

In describing the historically created reversals, I will frequently refer to previousdebates on the peasantry (and more specifically the commoditisation debate). I willdo so, first, to stress the continuity between old and new peasantries and, secondly, toshow that peasant studies has the potential to come to grips with the causes andoutcomes of the multiple processes that are currently reshuffling commodity andnon-commodity relations and contributing to the emergence of new forms of peasantagriculture.

Together, the different reversals summarised in Table 1 suggest the capability ofthe peasantry to adapt to new and often adverse conjunctures. They also suggest acapacity to realise, malgre tout, considerable development and growth. The indicatedreversals provide a number of potential sources for creating new and additionalgrowth (of total production, employment, income levels, and a range of positiveexternalities). Depending on the specificities of time and space, they can translateinto a wide variety of different trajectories and development opportunities. In the lastsection that discusses the food question, I will return to this strategic issue.

From land to ecological capital

The first important reversal concerns the land. The possession of land constitutedone of the main defining elements of the peasant. The longing for land inspiredmassive processes of migration and has also triggered many peasant movements,revolts, and wars. Land represented autonomy and the opportunity to create alivelihood through often hard and bodily struggles with a hostile environment,capricious cattle, climatic risks, oppressive authorities, malign priests, and adversemarkets. Having land was a major line of defence in a world characterised byhardship, poverty, exclusion, dependency relations, and deprivation (Bharadwaj1985, Schulman et al. 1989). This also applies to other elements (such as animals,

3By way of introduction, peasant agriculture might be defined as the ongoing struggle forautonomy and progress that materialises in the construction of a self-governed resource basethat allows for co-production. Co-production interacts with markets and allows for thepeasant household to survive and also helps to reproduce the resource base. At the end of thispaper I will return to this definition. An extended discussion can be found in van der Ploeg(2008).

The Journal of Peasant Studies 3

crops, water, irrigation structures, commons, buildings, a labour force, savings, andnetworks) that were tied together in a self-controlled resource base. Having land (tobe understood as a metaphor for having access to all the necessary natural and socialresources) and the possibility to pass these on to the next generation (Berry 1985)became the backbone of peasantries around the world. As Shanin said, ‘landholdingis a necessary (and on the whole sufficient) condition to enter the occupation [ofpeasant] and carries particular prestige . . . [yet] at the same time the supply of landon the market is either very limited and inflexible in terms of the market or evenaltogether absent’ (1973, 70).

Modernisation converted land into a commodity, symbolically as well asmaterially, creating a rupture with the past. Land became the main collateral for thecredit operations that peasants were supposed to engage in, at the risk of losing theirland. Scale enlargement became important: more land had to be bought (or rented).Land ceased to be a bastion of autonomy and increasingly became a link in longerchains that tied the farmer to exogenous and often more powerful interests andprojects. Land also increasingly lost its role as part of the resource base that allowedfor agricultural production; land was reduced to being a mere ‘parking lot’ whereindustrialised farming is located. The many agronomic interrelations betweenfarming and the land were increasingly eliminated through many processes, rangingfrom increases in chemical fertilisation (that suppress the natural capacity of soilbiology to deliver nitrogen), to a growing global trade in animal feed and fodder(that materially disconnected animal husbandry from any direct link with the land).Farming tended to be reduced to a mere conversion of commodities (that mightoriginate from anywhere) into other commodities (that might be destined for anylocation). Being ‘rooted’ in the land stopped being the main decisive feature ofagricultural production. ‘Living from the land’, as peasants often define their owncondition, was no longer a conditio sine qua non. At the same time land also lost itsvalue as an emancipatory tool. Migration to the cities became seen as the best way ofimproving one’s condition.4 In synthesis: land seemingly lost its importance andrelevance.5

In this respect, the beginning of the twenty-first century represents a clearrupture: land is back again as major issue. This is evident in the way that land is onceagain becoming the object of peasants’ struggles (Martinez-Alier 1995, 140) and of‘land-grabbing’ (van der Ploeg 2006, 425–37, Borras 2009, 9). More than either ofthese, it is also evident in the way in which land is now being considered as ecologicalcapital. Farming is again being understood, and practised, as co-production: theinteraction and mutual transformation of human actors and living nature. Farmingis not only based on ‘economic exchanges’, but also on ‘ecological exchange’ (Toledo1992). The interaction with nature is not unimportant, nor marginal. A non-commoditised exchange with nature allows the building of an important lineof defence: the more that farming is grounded on ecological capital the lowerthe monetary costs of production will be. Ecological capital, if cared for, alsoallows for patterns of growth that are independent of the main markets forfactors of production and non-factor inputs: herds are enlarged and improved

4This shows the importance of cultural repertoires (Davidson 1984).5It should be noted here that modernisation has been a differentiated process and as a result,the declining relevance of land was only a partial process. Considerable parts of agricultureremained strongly ‘land based’ (Goodman and Watts 1994, 5).


through on-farm breeding and selection; fields are well-cultivated and made morefertile; new experiences are translated into expanded knowledge, etc. Finally, a welldeveloped ecological capital allows for the construction of new networks – animportant aspect that is discussed further on.

In synthesis: peasant farming moved from a situation in which the centrality ofland was self-evident (albeit politically highly contested) towards a situation in whichit is becoming central again, i.e. as ecological capital.6 While in this respect thecentrality represents a major continuity, there is also a major dissimilarity since whatwas once a taken-for-granted-reality now emerges as the outcome of purposeful andknowledgeable behaviour. In the past peasants were obliged to use their land asecological capital. There simply was no alternative. Today there are many,sometimes seductive alternatives. In the new context, using (and further developing)the land as ecological capital is increasingly a choice that reflects agency andpreference. The new peasants are not obliged to do so; they opt for it, even if it oftenimplies a tough struggle with the socio-technical regimes in which they operate.Through revitalising and further unfolding of their ecological capital they both useand enlarge their autonomy.

This major change, which has been theoretically elaborated in agro-ecology(Altieri 1990, Sevilla Guzman 2007),7 is one of the main ways in which thepeasantries of the twenty-first century are reconstituting themselves.

At the theoretical level, understanding the land as ecological capital helps avoidany ‘parallelism [. . .] between agro-rural and industrial-urban spheres’ (Goodmanand Watts 1994, 38). It also helps to differentiate the new peasants from agrarianentrepreneurs. Today’s peasants tend to ground farming, as much as possible, onecological capital, whereas agrarian entrepreneurs primarily develop their farmingactivities by extending commodity flows. Entrepreneurial farming replaces naturalgrowth factors (e.g. soil biology, manure, varieties and breeds adapted to local eco-systems, and multiple cropping as a means to suppress pests and plant diseases) byartificial growth factors obtained from the market. When ‘living nature’ enters theprocess of production it does so as a commodity.8 It is acquired through markettransactions and its use is governed by the logic of the market. In contrast toagrarian entrepreneurs, the peasants of the twenty-first century put ecological capitalcentre stage and actively unfold, strengthen, and use it. They reground farming onnature, as Caporal and Costabeber (2007) describe for Brazil. This choice does notimply a decline in production. On the contrary, it often augments productivity,efficiency, income levels, and sustainability.

Combined with these material differences, there is a major politico-economicdifference. The centrality of ecological capital requires, and also contributes to,relative autonomy which, in turn, transforms many features of the farms of newpeasants and the networks in which they engage. One important aspect of this is thereconstruction of local knowledge (and the associated networks) as opposed to therigid and generic blueprints imposed upon farming by the Fordist-like regimes whichagrarian entrepreneurs are locked into.

6It is important to note here that this is absolutely not limited to organic farming, althoughorganic farming plays a vanguard role.7Martinez-Alier (1995, 143) noted that ‘peasant studies . . . has been oblivious of ecology’; this,it seems, continues to be the case.8This coincides with new imperial strategies to appropriate and commoditise all nature,especially water and seeds.


From subsistence to self-provisioning

Although the second reversal highlighted in Table 1, the change towards self-provisioning, is closely associated with the first one, it merits a separate discussion.Earlier debates frequently viewed the peasant condition in the narrow terms ofsubsistence, i.e. self-sufficiency in food (e.g. Galeski 1972). The classical peasanthousehold primarily produced to satisfy its own nutritional needs and only thesurplus was marketed. Today, however, the concept of self-provisioning embracesthe provisioning of all the resources required for the unit of production (as opposedto the unit of consumption). In the past the supply of non-agrarian resources (i.e.industrial and financial resources) was very limited, as was access to the relevantmarkets. Hence, it was taken for granted that farm units provided themselves withthe objects of labour and instruments that they needed. This was either done directlyor through socially regulated exchange.

Harriet Friedmann (1980, 158) defined commoditisation as the ‘penetration intoreproduction of commodity relations’. Accordingly, ‘commoditisation is a process ofdeepening commodity relations within the cycle of reproduction. Commoditisationoccurs to the extent that each household . . . comes to depend increasingly oncommodity relations for reproduction’. Friedmann also indicates that ‘reproduction[might] resist commoditisation’ (1980, 163; see also Haubert 2007). In such casesresistance materialises as self-provisioning. Resistance to commoditisation occurs ‘ifaccess to land, labour, credit, and product markets is mediated through direct, non-monetary ties to other households or other classes [. . .]; then commodity relations arelimited in their ability to penetrate the cycle of reproduction’. This is a characteristicof peasant production (Friedmann 1980, 158, 163).

In peasants’ daily lives self-provisioning and resistance are closely tied together.From the late 1980s onwards self-provisioning again gained significance in reshapingconsiderable parts of the agricultural landscape. This was largely a response to thedecline of the previous mercantile industrial regime and the rise of the ‘imperial’ or‘corporate food regime’ (van der Ploeg 2008, 256, McMichael 2009, 148) – a changethat led to a considerable sharpening of the ‘squeeze on agriculture’. Faced with thissqueeze many farmers responded by developing self-provisioning. In practice thisbrings about an often considerable cost-reduction, but in a way which isdiametrically opposed to the entrepreneurial script (in which cost-reduction is afunction of scale increase). Self-provisioning (i.e. reducing dependency on externalresources while simultaneously enlarging and improving the stock of internalresources, including ecological capital)9 is radically different: it reduces monetarycosts while overall levels of production are maintained or even slightly improved.European farmers often describe this strategy as ‘farming economically’ (Kinsellaet al. 2002, van der Ploeg 2000); in developing countries it is often referred to as ‘lowexternal input agriculture’ (Reijntjes et al. 1992). Self-provisioning augments andsustains autonomy as a central feature of both farm and farming, while scale-enlargement (as a mechanism to reduce production costs) involves enlarging and

9An interesting aspect is that this shift is irrelevant from a neo-classical point of view (neo-classical approaches even help to obscure such strategic differences). It requires a Chayanovianpoint of view to understand the theoretical meaning and practical significance of shifts such asthis.


tightening the web of dependency relations in which the farm and its productionprocesses are embedded.

Comparative research in seven European countries10 showed that 60 percent ofprofessional farmers are actively engaged in cost-reduction through greater self-provisioning, which contributed at least 5.7 billion Euros per year to the agrarianincomes realised in these countries. In a similar vein Tony Weis (2007, 184) refers to‘the move to lower-input techniques’ in the South. Nicaragua in the early 1990s is aninteresting example of this (Vernooy et al. 1991, 238) as is the current situation inCuba (Funes et al. 2002) and Chiapas (Toledo 2000). The ‘Campesino a Campesino’movement in Central America is another illustration (Holt-Gimenez 2006). Thesecases all highlight the strong relations between multi-level resistance and the furtherunfolding of self-provisioning.

It is important to stress that we are not dealing here with mere technical andeconomic substitutions (substituting external for internal resources) but that suchshifts also have a symbolic value and often are expressions of rebellion. They expressthe feeling among farmers that their own craftsmanship is superior to the artefactsand recipes offered by agribusiness. In both developing and developed countries, self-provisioning represents an active distantiation from the dominant socio-technicalregime. Simultaneously it re-patterns farms into a more peasant-like way byenlarging the self-controlled resource base and allowing more fine-tuning of co-production. In short, it enlarges ‘the capacity of the peasantry to reproduce itselfunder any conditions’ (Harrison 1977, 324).

For a long time self-provisioning has been considered – both in practice and intheory – as a second-best option. Peasants were supposed to be too poor (and/or too‘traditional’ or ‘backward’) to acquire the modern technologies. They were, toparaphrase Garnsey (1976, 221), ‘peasant[s] of obligation’ who could not afford thepackages that offered considerable leaps in productivity. This may have been partlytrue – although the real benefits associated with these packages often failed to live upto the initial promises (Hayami 1978, Niazi 2004, Sherwood 2009), showing thepeasants’ reluctance or refusal to be far from irrational. Be that as it may, the optionfor self-provisioning is now often a purposeful and knowledgeable choice, the moresince it intertwines with the construction of autonomy and the need for fine-tuningthe labour and production process. Clearly, the option of self-provisioning alsointroduces new weaknesses: when self-provisioning is done by necessity, it becomesdifficult to go beyond the limits of the family (for example, when extra labour isrequired) and of locally available resources. Theoretically, self-provisioning shouldbe considered as one of the major ‘circuits of reproduction’ (Friedmann 1978). ‘Aspart of the productive process’ it implies a non-commoditised ‘renewal of theelements of production and the relations among them’ (Friedmann 1978, 73).Feminist studies made an important contribution here by stressing that ‘completecommoditization (and de-familialization) of unpaid care is neither possible . . . nornecessarily desirable’ (Razavi 2009, 207).

A second and again highly important circuit of reproduction is part-timeengagement in the labour market (often referred to as pluriactivity; Schneider

10Research undertaken as part of the IMPACT project, which covered Ireland, the UK, theNetherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. The research included a survey of more thanthree thousand farmers. For full details see Oostindie et al. (2002) and van der Ploeg et al.(2002).


1999).11 Available data show that on 80 percent of European farms the man or thewife derives an additional income from outside the farm and this often accounts formore than one third of the total family income. The IMPACT research programmeshowed that, across the seven countries, pluriactivity implied an income transfer of22.9 billion Euros/year to the agricultural sectors. In the South of Brazil (RioGrande do Sul) some 44 percent of farming households are reported to be engaged inpluriactivity; and households engaged in pluriactivity realise higher total incomesthan those solely dependent on farming (Schneider et al. 2006).

For some farming families pluriactivity offers the possibility to combine the bestof two worlds (Kinsella et al. 2000), for others it is a means for ‘getting started’(Hedley 1982, 78), and for yet another group it allows them to continue farming in arelatively autonomous way. Pluriactivity can also have consequences that go farbeyond the boundaries of single farm units. Francks (1995, 699–709) discusses howpluriactivity and multifunctionality in Italy and Japan were an important ‘factor indetermining the development paths of both nations’, especially in the construction ofan industrial sector composed of small-scale firms. Brox (2006) demonstrated how inNorway, pluriactivity strengthened democratic relations.

The field of peasant studies has traditionally viewed pluriactivity as typical forpeasants in third world countries. In itself that is correct. However, it is far frombeing limited to developing countries. In many parts of Europe agriculture could notbe continued (i.e. reproduced) without extensive involvement in this circuit ofreproduction.

In recent years European farmers have actively begun to reshape pluriactivity byreallocating parts of their ‘plural activities’ into the heart of their farms. Currentlythis is known as ‘multifunctionality’. From an analytical point of view, thedevelopment of different expressions of multifunctionality (e.g. energy production,agro-tourism, on-farm processing, direct selling, management of nature andlandscape, care-farms, etc.) composes yet another circuit of reproduction: it allowsthe peasants of the twenty-first century to reproduce their existence in new andoriginal ways that are often very resilient.12 More than half (51 percent) of theprofessional farmers in the European research programme were actively involved infinding new ways to capture more value added from their agricultural produce(through high quality production, on-farm processing, direct selling, etc.) and/or inadding new, non-agricultural activities to their farms (energy production, agro-tourism, nature management, etc.) in order to obtain additional income in andthrough the farm. Altogether this renders an additional net value added of 5.9 billionEuros per year for the seven countries. Multifunctionality is also being developed inAsian and Latin American countries (Bonnal et al. 2003, Gerritsen and Morales2007, Halweil 2002, Kop et al. 2006, Pelegrini and Gazolla 2008, Zhigang and Song2007, 209). There are clear sets of conditions that are required for these approaches

11Strictly speaking it could be argued that relying on engagement in labour markets toreproduce the farm could be viewed as the very antithesis of non-commoditised renewal. Ithink such reasoning is incorrect: while savings obtained through pluriactivity (includingtrans-border migration) may have a commodity history, they nonetheless enter the farm unit asnon-commodities. Their use is no longer dictated by the logic of the market but by localrepertoires and needs.12This is because multifunctionality generally involves more than making a mere addition. Itinvolves using one and the same set of resources to provide an enlarged set of products andservices (see Saccomandi 1998). In this way, synergy is created.


to emerge. These include the existence of democratic conditions and a well developedmiddle class with enough purchasing power and some clear rural roots.

In practice, the indicated circuits of reproduction13 (that are located outside ofthe agricultural markets) are sometimes juxtaposed and sometimes overlapping.Overall, 83 percent of all professional farmers in seven European countries wereengaged in one or more circuits. Together this rendered 34.5 billion Euros per year tothe overall income of these countries’ agricultural sectors. This figure should becompared to the 57.8 billion Euros which constitutes the income derived fromfarming sensu stricto.14 This confirms the extent to which the continuity of Europeanfarming is built on peasant-like engagement in multiple circuits of reproduction. Thisis especially true under the current neo-liberal conditions that have resulted fromglobalisation and de-regulation. Just as subsistence once formed the ‘necessary basefor peasant commodity production’ (Bryceson 1980), the multiple circuits ofreproduction discussed here emerge as necessary foundations for agriculturalproduction tout court. There is still a lack of systematic and nation-wide data on therelevance of these multiple circuits of reproduction in the South. However, detailedempirical enquiries at the regional level (including, for example, Missoes, RioGrande do Sul, Brazil) indicate that the combination of old and new forms provide abase that ‘helps many peasants to avoid becoming even more impoverished, whilstallowing some the prospect of accumulation’ (Niederle and Grisa 2008, 65).

New analytical tools, especially the ones developed in neo-institutionaleconomics, allow for a more refined analysis of self-provisioning (Saccomandi1998, Ventura 2001). Such analyses show that a high level of integration intoupstream markets implies much higher transaction costs than partial integration. ‘Tomake or buy’ is not a neutral choice. It is related with autonomy and transactioncosts. The more markets are governed by food empires, the more pressing such achoice becomes.

From partial integration to actively constructed distantiation

In both the developing and the developed worlds, farming engages with a range of(often interconnected) markets. However, the patterns of these relations may differconsiderably. Ellis (1993, 4) tried to specify a theoretically significant line ofdemarcation between farmers in developed countries and peasants in the developingworld by arguing that ‘peasants are only partially integrated into incompletemarkets’, whereas ‘their nearest relation, the commercial farm [. . .] is wholly

13These circuits of reproduction were widespread in pre-WW2 European agriculture, asdescribed for rural England by Donajgrodzki (1989, 433–4): ‘the type of farming conductedwas such as to minimise the need for capital investment and cash . . . the work of the farm wasgenerally organised around the necessity to produce butter and cheese; . . . the family incomewas supplemented by taking summer visitors [and] it was essential that at least one member ofthe family had another job’. Donajgrodzki characterised these multifunctional, pluriactive,and self-provisioning farmers as ‘peasants’ and noted that this peasantry ‘was weathering thedepression better than big farming’ (1989, 425). During WW2 and the epoch of modernisationthat followed these circuits of reproduction were broken down. Facing the new conditionsimposed through globalisation and liberalisation they are now being actively re-constructed.14These data refer to 1999. Since then the income derived from farming as such (i.e. theproduction of agrarian commodities) has decreased considerably, while the savings andincomes generated through self-provisioning, pluriactivity, and multifunctionality havecontinued to increase.


integrated into fully working markets’. This widely shared view implies that ‘peasantpopulations occupy the margins of the modern world economy’ (1993, 3). Or, asShanin (1974, 195) stated 20 years before, ‘Contemporary peasant economies arelocated within the so-called developing societies’.15 The differentiation that Ellismakes can usefully be turned around to study the commonalities between the Northand the South. One can argue that it is not only developing countries that lackcompetitive, undistorted markets but that in reality these also do not exist indeveloped areas, such as Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia. None of thesecountries have food or agricultural markets that are governed by an invisible hand,emerging from the encounter of anonymous forces of supply and demand. Therehave been (and still are) many (sometimes well hidden and/or camouflaged) forms of‘distortive’ agrarian policy intervention. But even more important (especially in thecurrent epoch) is the omnipresence of food empires: monopolistic networks that tendto control the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food (vander Ploeg 2008). These networks increasingly govern the different agricultural andfood markets and represent a new ‘visible hand’. An important feature of the modusoperandi of these food empires is that they actively interlink spaces of poverty withspaces of wealth, with the former producing a range of high value products (fruits,vegetables, flowers, milk, pork, meat, chicken) – often under brutal socio-economicconditions and with shameless ecological destruction – that are transported to, andconsumed within, the latter. These relatively new global patterns not only allow foran exceptional accumulation of wealth, they also subordinate farmers in both sets ofspaces to the same pressures exerted by the food empires.

So much for the illusion of complete markets. The other side of the equationconcerns being ‘only partially integrated’. Peasants from the developing world are,indeed, only partially integrated within different markets on the input side of theirfarms16 – but this is also the case for European farmers. The available, empiricalenquiries into degrees of commoditisation (Benvenuti and van der Ploeg 1985,Benvenuti et al. 1988, van der Ploeg 1990a, 1990b, Salazar 1996, Leeuwis 1989,Steenhuijsen Piters 1995, Vondeling 1948, Zuiderwijk 1998, Wiskerke 1992, 1997,Hebinck 1990, Paz 2004) allow for several comparisons. These indicate a number ofkey points.

(1) Within regions that are homogeneous in terms of ecological, institutional,economic, and technological conditions there are wide variations in the degree ofcommoditisation – this applies to single markets for factors of production andinputs as well as to integral indices that summarise the incorporation in allrelevant upstream markets.

(2) There is also considerable variation between countries and regions – the mostremarkable fact probably is that single and overall degrees of commoditisation

15This implies that peasant agriculture, as practised throughout Europe, became terraincognita within the realm of peasant studies. It also implied that peasant agriculture inEurope became a practice without a theory, since neo-classical economics is unable totheoretically represent its nature, logics, and dynamics (see Haubert 2007).16Mango (2002, 178–85) describes how African ‘farmers distance themselves [through a rangeof] networks and struggles’. Schrauwers (1998, 113) observes how in Indonesia, ‘peasantproduction depends on both commodified inputs (such as fertilizers), as well as upon themaximization of ‘‘traditional’’ (that is ‘‘free’’, non-commodified) inputs’. Systematic data areprovided in Hebinck (1990).


are significantly lower in European agriculture than is the case in developingcountries (with the main exception of China).

(3) There is also considerable variation through time – it is especially noteworthythat sharp reductions in market integration occur in times of agrarian crisis, e.g.1880 and 1930 (Vondeling 1948, Wiskerke 1992).

(4) Over recent decades there has been a divergence in the trajectories pursued byfarming segments: commoditisation has continued to increase in the entrepre-neurial segments, while in the peasant segments it has decreased.

(5) Reshuffling the degree and modality of commoditisation (as is currentlyoccurring in the peasant segment through regrounding farming on ecologicalcapital and developing self-provisioning) creates the possibility to activelydistantiate agricultural production from the ‘logic of the market’.17 Farming canthen be oriented towards objectives (e.g. continuity) that go beyond theimmediacies of the market.

(6) The less commoditised parts of agriculture that are able to distantiate decision-making from the ‘logic of the market’ are the ones that are best placed to face thecurrent crisis (see Crabtree 2002, 156 for Peru; van der Ploeg 2003b for Italy; andvan der Ploeg 2008, 144–9 for the Netherlands); this is in line with historicalprecedents (see e.g. Donajgrodzki 1989, 440 and Small 2007, 45).

If ‘the chief unifying and distinguishing characteristic of the peasantry is partialintegration into markets’ (Friedmann 1980, 166), then from an analytical point ofview, a considerable proportion of European farmers should be viewed aspeasants.18 Their mode of farming is probably patterned in a far more peasant-like way than that of most peasants in developing countries.

There are many different mechanisms that farmers can use to govern, adapt, andchange the balance of commodity and non-commodity relations. Augmenting self-provisioning in, and of, the farm, and building upon ecological capital have alreadybeen discussed. A wide range of social and material resources can be decom-moditised, especially when co-operation and reciprocity extend the process beyondsingle farm households.19 The apparent exception is ‘iron’ (or more generally,sophisticated equipment that is necessarily produced elsewhere). This seems to be theAchilles-heel in any strategy aiming at low levels of commoditisation (and it appearsto support the wide-spread notion that highly capitalised agriculture is, per

17Friedmann (1980, 165) observed that: ‘In simple commodity production [of theentrepreneurial type] survival of the enterprise requires adaptation to changes in relativefactor prices . . . while in peasant production, such changes are often unnecessary and evenimpossible’.18This is not to deny the huge differences that exist between the peasantries of developingcountries and those of, for example, Europe. Although poverty is far from absent in Europeanagriculture (de Hoog and Vinkers 2000, MPAF 2003) and richness not unknown in farmingsectors of developing countries (re. ‘the nouveau riche peasantry’ described by Mishra 1982),the relative well being and security of European farmers and the high level of ‘capitalisation’lead many observers to intuitively refute the notion of a European peasantry. However, ‘theemployment of machinery, the specialisation of production, competition in the market, or theexpansion of production, while possibly contributing to social change, do not in themselvesalone signal the transformation of one form of production into another’ (Mann and Dickinson1978, 468).19This is the case with networks for seed exchange, study groups, mutual help, etc. For atheoretical discussion see Sabourin (2007).


definition, more commoditised).20 However this problem can be mediated in anumber of different ways. First, the way in which heavy equipment is acquired is veryimportant. If the farmer’s own savings (from previous cycles and/or gained through,for example, pluriactivity or temporary migration)21 are used the equipment isindeed bought as commodity, but is subsequently used in the process of production asa non-commodity. It has already been paid for and there is no need to valorise itthrough the process of production.22 If, however, loans are used, the machineryenters the farm and functions as commodity: it has to be used in such a way that theloan and interests can be (re)paid. It is the biography or ‘social life of things’ thatmatters here (Appadurai 1986). A second import mechanism resides in buyingsecond-hand machinery and in developing the skills to do the necessary maintenanceand repairs on the farm itself. This can considerably lower costs. Third, co-operationand reciprocity can play an important role. Sharing specific and expensive machineryamong groups of farmers brings down the monetary costs per farm (and throughreciprocity they might be lowered further) thereby significantly reducing thepenetration of commodity relations into the core of peasant agriculture.23 Hence,‘use-value repeatedly takes precedence over exchange-value in the peasant’sconsideration’ (Shanin 1973, 70), which in turn makes partial integration intomarkets into a distinctive feature. While the theoretical significance of partialintegration has been highly contested over the years, it remains of great practicalsignificance in that it is crucial for the reproduction of farming: without it, continuitywould be materially impossible.24 That is why farmers are now actively distantiatingthemselves from upstream markets (rather than this occurring as a result of reducedand involuntary access).

The remarkable difference between developing countries and Europeanagriculture in the overall degree of commoditisation might be explained by the

20However, the presence of sophisticated equipment does not necessarily imply that theseartefacts function as commodities within the labour process – or that they function as capitalsensu stricto – they are not used to produce surplus-value in order to invest again as capital;they are used, instead, to improve both the labour process and labour conditions. This alsoapplied in Latin American agriculture in the 1960s: from an analytical point of view theminifundia of the time made far higher capital investments per hectare than the large, capitalistlatifundia (CIDA 1966, Feder 1973). These were mostly labour investments (in terraces,irrigation structures, improved land, cattle, fruit trees, etc.). The embodied ‘capital’ was theresult of previous labour or ‘objectified’ labour – as is the case today in many peasant likefarms throughout Europe.21In such cases the equipment is the fruit of invested labour and does not involve capitalexploiting current and future labour.22Other major investments, such as new buildings, irrigation structures, or land improvements,might be mediated through other means, such as community support. For example in thecentre and the east of the Netherlands many farm buildings are built with the unpaidassistance of neighbours, colleagues, and friends, which is provided on the understanding ofreciprocity.23Ironically, it is the farms that do not dispose of self-owned (and self-controlled)machinery that have to enter into a tight web of commodity relations, since they have tocontract external firms that provide machine-services for each and every mechanical operation(in Latin American countries such firms often belong to former large land-owners). Thus,having machinery is definitely not a departure from a peasant form of production (as issometimes assumed in ‘capitalisation’ theories), but is more a proud expression of beingautonomous.24This applies not only to single farms but also to agricultural sectors as a whole. Dutchagriculture, for instance, faces permanent ‘negative profits’.


existence, in the latter, of far more ‘space’ (Halamska 2004, 249). There was, untilrecently, reasonable legal and institutional protection (including agrarian policies);transaction costs were lower; price-cost relations were not extremely unfavourablefor primary production; and a relative stability in output markets allowed forforward planning. Such space is ‘not given once and for all. It [is] in constant flux,mutable and [can] be either reduced or expanded’ (2004, 249). This depends on ‘thewill of the political centre’ (2004, 249) as well as on the political strength of thepeasantry itself.

Currently, though, farmers in both the North and the South are facing the sameset of conditions created by globalised and liberalised food and agrarian marketsthat are governed by a small number of food empires. Thus deprivation, insecurity,poverty, and subordination are introduced everywhere and the struggle forautonomy and space (which together constitute the core of the peasant condition)will become a global phenomenon.

From fixed regularities and routines to co-production

In his 1993 article Shanin makes a wry observation that at first sight may seem to beanecdotal but which is, essentially, an elegant way of describing the concept of co-production. He first refers to the practice of gathering in order to subsequently statethat ‘it is growing which is central to peasant economy’. He continues by observingthat ‘nature operates in [peasant] agriculture as a powerful corrective to input/outputrelations. Agriculture means utilitarian interventions against nature without,however, fully bending it [. . .] and with no ability to predict fully the outcome’(Shanin 1973, 69). This represents a remarkable contrast to the modernisationparadigm which basically sees agriculture as an application of physical and economiclaws, which feed into the design of new resources that embody a new and optimiseduse of these laws.

In stark contrast to this view of modernisation is the agro-ecological approach,which basically views agriculture as co-production between man and living nature.Growing (as a co-activity of humans and nature) is seen as central. Co-productionrepresents the ongoing combination, interaction, and mutual transformation ofsocial and material resources which constantly differentiates and transformsagriculture (Altieri 1990, Toledo 1992). New constellations emerge, containingremoulded resources and new resource combinations. Hence, the nature embodied infarming is not static but is continually being constructed, reconstructed, anddifferentiated – through long and complex historical processes, which buildparticular characteristics into resources, giving rise to particular regularities thatcharacterise the behaviour of the resources. These regularities are neither fixed noruniversal: at particular conjunctures in time they might be modified into other,possibly even contrasting, regularities (Sonneveld 2004, Groot et al. 2006).

In theoretical terms this implies that the characteristics and behaviour of naturalresources cannot be understood outside the pattern of land use (or style of farming)within which they are combined and through which they are reproduced, developedand particularised into distinct entities that fit optimally with the other entities thatform a complete package within any given land use pattern. Co-production feedsback on the resources on which it is built. Farming is not simply based on ecologicalcapital, but also entails feedback effects through which ecological capital is unfoldedand improved in different ways. Co-production is intrinsically dynamic; it moves


through ongoing, albeit variable flows of novelties (Wiskerke and van der Ploeg2004) that result from ‘peasant innovativeness’ (Osti 1991, Richards 1985) and whichcarry the promise to improve productivity and efficiency in a steady and sturdy way.

There are decisive interrelations between ecological capital, self-provisioning,and distantiation on the one hand and the dynamics of co-production on the other.Developing and extending these features leads to a more comprehensive overview ofthe process of production and clearer insight in the role of different growth factors –thus providing more control over the relevant whole. In turn this latter feature allowsfor small experiments, well-grounded observations, and ongoing adjustments (or‘fine-tuning’) that translate into ongoing endogenous growth. This is particularly thecase in peasant agriculture. However, it is equally possible that such growth patterns(that mostly materialise as an ongoing intensification based on an increased quantityand quality of labour) might be interrupted. This can occur when the required spaceis lacking and/or when the fruits of such growth are only reaped by outsiders.

The notion of co-production has theoretical implications that go far beyond thedomain of agronomy. The centrality of co-production implies that farming, andespecially peasant agriculture, cannot be conceptually located in a Cartesian space,in which all the co-ordinates are precisely known and where the specific vectors thatlink past, present, and future can be calculated with mathematical precision. Peasantagriculture is not a derivate of assumed laws: it is constructed, moulded, andremoulded through practice. Thus it reflects, time and again, the specificity of thesocial and historical conditions that characterise the different practices (Harriss1992). This of course does not exclude the possibility of certain regularities emerging.The well known inverse relationship (under which small peasant units produce moreper unit of land than far larger entrepreneurial or capitalist units) and the law ofdiminishing returns (implying that intensification meets clear limits beyond whichagrarian involution will emerge)25 are clear examples of this. However, suchregularities should not be understood as deterministic laws. There is no suggestionthat they will also occur under changing conditions. If, for instance, new technologiesare designed that incorporate considerable productivity increases but which are onlyapplicable in large scale units, then the previous regularity might very well fade awayand give rise to a new one. In the Netherlands this inverse relation could clearly beobserved until the beginning of the 1960s. Then, new technologies were designed thatexplicitly aimed at a combination of scale enlargement and intensification (the latterbeing highly dependent on greatly increased input levels). Thus the ‘inverse relation’was inverted. The patterns of regularities that are observable since should not in anyway be interpreted as suggesting that the peasant pole in Dutch agriculture isproductively inferior. Rather it reflects the overall dynamics, tendencies, andorientation of the dominant socio-technical regime. When the politico-economicarrangements upon which entrepreneurial farming is grounded began to erode (dueto liberalisation), peasant agriculture re-emerged again as a far more resilient andeconomically effective alternative. The relevance of social and historical conditions(in interpreting productive trends) also applies to another element of the debateabout the inverse relation. When there is a redistributive land reform, it would benaıve to assume that a previously existing inverse relation will translate (almost

25In theoretical agronomy this law of diminishing returns is now understood as a special casethat only applies if the limiting growth factors (of whatever nature) cannot be corrected. Oncea solution is found, constant or even increasing returns will occur (de Wit 1992).


automatically, just as in a Cartesian theatre) into a substantive overall increase inproduction (as in McReynolds 2002). The redistributive reform as such represents animportant change (if not overhaul) of the previous conditions. It is the exact nature ofthe new conditions that determine whether or not the reform lives up to its promise(Thiessenhuisen 1995) or allows for a ‘modernization from below’ (Petras andVeltmeyer 2001, 99).

With some exceptions (notably Bray 1983, Saldanha 1990, Veldwisch and Spoor2008) previous peasant studies have often been the victim of badly understood‘laws’.26 Such laws were used to reify the backwardness that characterised specifichistorical and social situations, and this was transposed into the future to show theshortcomings of peasant agriculture in developing agriculture and meeting widersocietal needs. However, with the emerging multi-disciplinary insights (from, forexample, agronomy and rural sociology) and new approaches, such as politicalecology and agroecology, peasant studies might be able to go beyond this historicallycreated impasse and put the dynamics of peasant agriculture centre stage. In thisrespect, approaches that focus on the farm labour process (Veldwisch and Spoor2008) and its efficiency (Paz 2006) offer promising ways forward. Resource-useefficiency will also become a strategic issue linking concerns about sustainability withthe need to feed a rapidly growing world population. In this context peasantagriculture shows considerable and possibly decisive advantages, due to it beinggrounded on ecological capital, self-provisioning, distantiation, and patterningfarming as co-production. A range of empirical studies shows that decisivedifferences in efficiency are, indeed, emerging as a result of these features (asdemonstrated for energy use by Ventura 1995; water use: van den Dries 2002; dairyproduction: de Groot et al. 2006). Other studies show how peasant farming escapesfrom the ‘law-like’ nature of overall processes of marginalisation (e.g. Milone 2009).

From subordination to multiple resistance

The first editorial of the Journal of Peasant Studies referred to peasants as ‘the mostunderprivileged’, although it also referred to their ‘long [. . .] history of struggleagainst such conditions’ (Byres et al. 1973, 1). In the same issue Hobsbawn (1973, 3)discussed the ‘general subalternity of the peasant world’ claiming that ‘peasantness’was defined by ‘subalternity, poverty, exploitation and oppression’ (1973, 7). WhileHobsbawn is highly sceptical about the possibilities of ‘general peasant move-ment[s]’, not least because of peasants’ ‘sense of [..] weakness and inferiority’ (1973,11–12), he also recognises that ‘to be subaltern is not to be powerless’. Even ‘themost submissive peasantry is capable [. . .] of resisting and where appropriate, ofcounterattack’ (1973, 13). This raises the key questions of how and under whatconditions resistance occurs.

For a long time, resistance has been conceptualised as occurring outside labourand production processes. This applies especially to those forms of resistance thatoccur as overt struggle: strikes, demonstrations, road blocks, occupations, and go-slows. The same applies to covert resistance, the hidden and camouflaged resistancedescribed by James Scott (1985). Overt struggles and covert sabotage occur on the

26It is ironical, in this respect, that Lenin (1961) sharply criticised the law of diminishingreturns; nonetheless, the ‘Leninists’ of today (e.g. Sender and Johnston 2004) persist in arguingthe case for ‘scale economies’.


margins of the labour and production processes. The latter are not altered; they are,at most, interrupted or hindered. Neither are such alterations aimed for; theobjective of overt struggles mostly is an improvement of the exchange relationswithin which the labour and production process are embedded. However, from the1960s onwards new forms of resistance have been developed that are located withinspaces of production. These have been theoretically elaborated in the Italianoperaismo tradition (Holloway 2002). Such forms of resistance are actively used toalter the techno-institutional structures of labour and production processes.Routines, rhythms, patterns of co-operation, sequences, machines, their tuning,and the mix of materials used are all altered so as to improve labour and productionprocesses and align them with the interests, prospects, and experiences of theworkers involved.

The central point here is that this third form of resistance – direct intervention in,and alteration of, labour and production processes – is widespread in today’sagriculture. It is present in the unfolding of organic farming, just as it is the maindriver of the many forms of endogenous rural development that we are witnessing inEurope and in the new forms of production that are being developed in thecampamentos created by the Brazilian Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) and in theinlands of Chiapas (Veltmeyer 1997, Toledo 2000). Resistance, or ‘everyday politics’(Kerkvliet 1993, 460) is encountered in a wide range of heterogeneous andincreasingly interlinked practices through which the peasantry constitutes itself asdistinctively different from entrepreneurial and capitalist agriculture. Resistanceresides in the fields, in the ways in which good manure is made, noble cows are bred,beautiful farms are constructed, and fresh milk is delivered. As ancient and irrelevantas such practices may seem when considered in isolation, in the current context theyare becoming vehicles through which resistance is expressed and organised.Resistance resides in ‘villagers [having] ideas significantly at odds with the elite-dominated order about how land should be used and by whom’ (Kerkvliet 1993, 460)and translates into peasant strategies to counter state-imposed reforms (Borras1997). Resistance is expressed in the creation of new peasant units of production infields that would otherwise lie barren or be used for large scale production of exportcrops (van der Ploeg 2008). Resistance resides in the multitude of alterations (oractively constructed responses) that have been continued and/or created anew inorder to confront the modes of ordering that currently dominate our societies.

An important feature of these new forms of resistance is that they entail searchesfor, and constructions of, local solutions to global problems. Blueprints areavoided.27 This results in a rich repertoire with the heterogeneity of the manyresponses becoming one of the propelling forces that induce new learning processes.

This pattern reflects the new relations that prevail in many parts of the world:direct confrontations are increasingly difficult and counterproductive, yet at thesame time global solutions are deeply distrusted. Hence, these new responses follow adifferent road:

Resistance is no longer a form of reaction but a form of production and action [. . .].Resistance is no longer one of factory workers; it is a completely new resistance basedon innovativeness [. . .] and on autonomous co-operation between producing [and

27This contrasts strongly with the previous epoch of modernisation in which essentially localproblems were countered with global solutions.


consuming] subjects. It is the capacity to develop new, constitutive potentialities that gobeyond reigning forms of domination (Negri 2006, 54).

This is a good description of the multitude of responses involved. Resistance of thethird kind is widespread, takes multiple forms, and is often inspiring, in that it re-links people, activities, and prospects. It provides a constant flux of often unexpectedexpressions that repeatedly transcend the limitations imposed by the dominantmodes of ordering. Each and every form is an expression of critique and rebellion, adeviation that articulates superiority. Individually these expressions are innocent andharmless: taken together they become powerful and have the potential to change thepanorama. Bove observes that ‘if you add together the various initiatives – AOC,organic farming, changes in farm culture, sustainable farming – you begin to get astrong feel of a new farmers’ movement which, I believe, will eventually marginaliseindustrial agriculture’ (Bove and Dufour 2001, 142, italics added). Specificexpressions of peasant struggle (like particular parts of organic production) havebeen embraced, if not appropriated, by powerful actors as Wal-Mart, Dole, andStarbucks. This shows the importance of these sometimes disparate networkssystematically working together to present a common front and foster new and self-strengthening networks.28

From community to extended networks

In 1973 Shanin noted that ‘the term market may mean two different things’. On theone hand the market is ‘the place where people meet off-and-on at predefined timesto exchange goods by bargaining’ (Shanin 1973, 73). These market places were andare loosely (and sometimes strongly) embedded in villages and rural communities.29

Together they form an archipelago of dispersed but interconnected markets that aresometimes hierarchically ordered through middlemen and large traders. At the sametime they are also articulating, through a variety of mechanisms, with agro-exportsectors that directly link parts of local production to international markets. On theother hand, there are market relations, i.e. the ‘institutionalised system of organisingthe economy by a more or less free interplay of supply, demand and prices of goods’(Shanin 1973, 74). Shanin observed that ‘these two [market places and marketrelations] represent not just two distinctive concepts but also two social realitieswhich more or less contradict each other’ (1973, 74).

Since the 1970s food and agrarian markets have undergone a deep transforma-tion. While most food products are still consumed within a radius of 15 kilometresfrom the place where they are produced – and only 15 percent of food products crossnational boundaries (EC 2006) – local market places are now strongly subordinatedto, and indirectly controlled through, the world market and the food empiresoperating within it. Due to globalisation and liberalisation, the world market hasbecome a mode of ordering that regulates and co-ordinates most flows of agrarianand food products – wherever they are located. The neo-liberal conditions that have

28Hobsbawn (1973, 9) argued that every peasant movement is ‘a conglomerate of local andregional movements whose unity is momentary and fragile’. This evidently also applies tocontemporary movements.29Until the 1960s there was a somewhat comparable situation in Europe. Italy for instance hadits ‘zone bianche’ in which the local price for dairy products was negotiated and established byurban labour unions and rural farmers’ unions.


reigned since the end of the 1980s have also allowed for the emergence of foodempires that create market relations which differ markedly from those thatpreviously existed (Weis 2007). Food empires are a relatively new phenomenon.The unprecedented mobility of capital (a key aspect of the liberalised world market)allowed for a series of accelerated take-overs (in the food industry and indistribution) and the creation of many new food empires: Ahold, Parmalat, andVion are exemplary cases. Alongside the rise of new food empires, already wellestablished enterprises such as Nestle, Unilever, and Monsanto continued theirexpansion and strengthened their imperial position. Food empires are essentiallynetworks that increasingly control the interrelations between the production,processing, distribution, and consumption of food. They do not necessarily directlycontrol the material practices of production and processing, but do exercise strategiccontrol over the entry-points, points of conversion, and exit points which they havemade into mandatory and obligatory points of passage. This control over relationsand flows allows food empires to exert considerable monopoly power. It is becomingdifficult, if not often impossible, for farmers (cooperatives and small and mediumenterprises) to sell food ingredients independently from the circuits controlled by thedifferent food empires or for consumers to buy food from outside these circuits.Food empires increasingly represent a ‘visible hand’ that governs a range of markets,by exerting control over important linkages within, and especially between, differentmarkets.

Food empires are constructed (and expanded) through massive credit-operations,implying the need to generate a sufficiently large cash flow to pay redemption andinterest rates (and to co-finance further expansion). Thus, a strong need to ‘squeezeout’ as much value as possible is systematically built into the mechanisms that linkthe production and consumption of food. There is a permanent downward pressureon the prices received by primary producers and, simultaneously, an upwardpressure on food prices paid by consumers, which allows for an impressiveaccumulation of wealth inside these empires.

Simultaneously over recent decades we have been witnessing the emergence ofnew markets that have been constructed as a response to, and alternative (even if it isa limited one) for, the global markets controlled by food empires. These are new‘peasant marketplaces’30 that offer a range of qualities that are difficult for foodempires to meet (at least in a non-virtual way): short links and distances betweenplaces of production and consumption, freshness, shared quality definitions, andoften direct social contacts, since peasant marketplaces are meeting points whereproducers of food and consumers meet face to face and interact. The importantpoint is that these new circuits (or food networks) embody values that are shared byproducers and consumers and these values trigger and sustain the qualitiesmentioned above. In this respect these new circuits represent a new kind ofcommunity. They are, to quote Hobsbawn (1973, 7), ‘little worlds [that] may indeedvary considerably in size, population and complexity’ and which ‘form part of amuch wider world’ (1973, 8). However, these new networks are no longer strictlyrural (as was the case in the past) – instead, they link the rural and the urban, asBarros Nock (1998, 318–19) has documented among Mexican fruit-growers and

30I borrow here the term that is much in vogue throughout the world: boerenmarkten,Bauernmarkten, farmers’ markets, mercati contadini, etc. (see e.g. Knickel and Hof 2002,Valentini 2006).


Morgan et al. (2006, 135–43) have recorded for the ‘alternative world of food inCalifornia’. Public procurement (Morgan and Sonnino 2008) can enable a furtherextension and institutional embedding of such new networks. This occurs not just inthe big cities of the North, but also in the South. For example in Brazil the PPA(programme for food acquisition) provides direct links between peasant agricultureand the Fome Zero programme tapping into (and stabilising) a newly emergingmarket (Schneider et al. 2004) through the requirement that at least 30 percent of theprocured food is purchased from peasant producers.

From a theoretical point of view it is interesting to note the strong link betweenthe emergence of new peasantries and the construction of new food networks and theembedded marketplaces. A key factor in this is that they contribute to theconstruction of relative autonomy. This is partially related to the re-integration ofskills and competences (such as the arts of processing and marketing) that have beenexternalised to (if not actively expropriated by) middlemen, agro-industries,supermarkets, and, later, the large food empires. It is also related to the fact thatfarmers can escape, in this way, from the asphyxiating effects of the squeeze imposedby these empires.

The reach of this particular reversal, i.e. the rise of new food networks, is not tobe underestimated. The European research programme (discussed above) estimatedthe contribution of direct marketing in seven countries to be worth 2.5 billion Eurosper year. It is important to note that this additional Net Value Added (NVA) comeson top of the NVA generated by organic production, certified quality production,and on farm processing (4.0 billion Euros). Here, the strategic, politico-economicimportance of these essentially new lines of defence comes to the fore: they generateextra NVA and thus defend farming tout court. Expressed differently, the ratio of NetValue Added to the Gross Value of Production (NVA/GVP) is actively changed infavour of the primary producers. It is not only the processes of labour andproduction that are actively reconstituted – the social wealth produced isredistributed in new and more equitable ways. Similar interrelations and effectshave been reported in Brazil (Pelegrini and Gazolla 2008). Other observers, such asMurray (2002, 219), are ‘highly sceptical about niche markets, novelty tastes and theneed for economies of scope, [for] the potential for peasant participation in exportmarkets is likely to be further reduced’. That might be true (though with exceptions,such as Fair Trade). The point is that the new marketplaces are materialising atregional and local levels, as socially embedded networks that directly link andregulate the production and consumption of food. That is a major and strategicdifference when compared with ‘export markets’.

Rebalancing commodity and non-commodity relations

If the different reversals are taken together, it turns out that the peasantry isreconstituting itself through a complex, but consistent, reshuffling of the balance ofcommodity and non-commodity relations. Farm units are actively pursuing de-commoditisation on the upstream side, while a seemingly opposite tendency isobservable on the downstream side, where the range of deliverable commodities isenlarged with non-commodities, such as hospitality, nature, landscape, localprovisioning and care, being turned into commodities. However, the paradox isonly on the surface. The changes on the output side of the farms are intended toresist (and/or to partially escape) the control that the food empires exert over the


main commodity circuits, and are congruous with increased self-provisioning on theinput side that aims to reconfigure relations with food empires. Both tendencies aredriven by peasant resistance and both aim for greater autonomy and improved co-production. There is an important internal consistency as well: the more the farm isdistantiated from the large upstream markets (and the imperial control rooted inthem), the larger the room for manoeuvre to construct the new alternatives on thedownstream side.

Synthesis: why new peasants should still (or again) be considered as peasants31

The discussion so far allows for some general statements about peasant householdsthat are inductively derived through empirical generalisations. These are summarisedbelow.32

(1) ‘Numerically, the size of the peasantry has increased rapidly [. . .] both inabsolute number and as share of the economically active population inagriculture.’33

(2) Worldwide, peasant agriculture continues to be characterised by poverty,although there are many specific locations in time and space where peasants aremaking material progress and improving their wellbeing. Despite this, manyparts of peasant agriculture are currently becoming reservoirs of despair.Through newly introduced imperial relations the available labour force and localresources, such as land and water are increasingly separated from each other andfalling idle.34 At the same time, considerable parts of peasant agriculture operateas ‘a refuge sector’ (de Janvry et al. 1989), offering a last resort to thedispossessed.

(3) The presence of the peasantry is not limited to the South and/or to generalisedconditions of poverty. From an analytical point of view, peasant agriculture ispresent as much in developed countries as in developing countries as I haveargued throughout this paper (see also van der Ploeg 2008).

(4) When the most salient features of peasant agriculture of the twenty-first centuryare compared to those of previous times, one cannot but conclude that peasantfarming has secured its continuity and its omnipresence through majoradaptations that follow the avenues summarised in Table 1. This reaffirms thatthe peasantry is ‘a process within the broader framework of society yet with a

31The word ‘still’ is added, as will be clear, for rhetorical reasons only. Following Palerm(1980), the actual presence of the peasantry should be explained by reference to currentconditions.32In the following ‘general statements’ I use, in as far as possible, quotes from previous debateson the peasantry. I do so, not out of nostalgia, but to highlight the relevance of peasantstudies, provided that it comes to grips with the major changes that occurred in more recentyears.33This is a quote from de Janvry et al. (1989, 399), who reviewed the period between 1960 and1980. The interesting point is that this trend has continued. In 1970 the world’s agriculturalpopulation stood at 2.0 billion, while by 2010 it will have grown to 2.6 billion. Phrasing itdifferently, agriculture directly supports the livelihoods of more than three billion people (dataderived from Borras 2009, 6–8). This absolute increase is also discussed in Long and Roberts(2005).34This very much reflects the classical tragedy of tierra sin brazos and brazos sin tierra (landthat is not properly worked and man without land).


structure, consistency and momentum of its own: emerging [. . .], disintegratingand re-emerging at times’.35 Hence, ‘the campesino of today is usually not thecampesino of even 15 years ago’ (Edelman 2008, 83). Today’s peasantries areactively responding to the processes that otherwise would destroy, by-pass, and/or entrap them. Through these responses, which often are multi-dimensional andmulti-level, considerable parts of the world’s agriculture are becoming morepeasant-like:36 autonomy is being systematically (and materially) built into theresource-base, into the many networks in which farming is embedded, and intothe process of production itself.

By doing so, the peasantries of the twenty-first century are creating an importantnew frontier that separates them from entrepreneurial farming.37 This frontierembodies two interlinked forms of resistance. First, there is a persistent and multi-facetted resistance to the commoditisation of the resource base. This is matched by astrong and richly-chequered resistance to the control that food empires exert over themain commodity markets through which food and services are distributed.38 This iscontributing to a diversification and expansion of downstream commodity relations.

It is tempting to ask whether these new forms of peasant production have any‘theoretical content’ (Bernstein 1979, 421) that can inform the historical debatesabout the peasantry. This implies extending the analysis beyond the relations that areinternal to the peasant household and its unit of production and to take into accountthe ‘relations of production, appropriation, distribution and utilisation of the socialproduct as a whole’ (1979, 422). These include ‘relations between various units ofproduction, between various classes and the relations of the process of socialreproduction’ (1979, 422). It is imperative to understand that peasants, theirlivelihoods, and their processes of production are constituted through the structureand dynamics of the wider social formation in which they are embedded. Only in thisway can we understand different manifestations of the peasantry as historically andsocially specific concepts.

I propose that peasantries, especially those of the twenty-first century, should beconceptualised and understood in terms of resistance – not in an ontological waythat obscures any specificity, but in a relational perspective (Borras 2009, 13).Resistance takes multiple forms that link rural livelihoods with external contexts –just as these contexts, characterised by dependency-relations, marginalisation, and

35This quote is from Shanin (1973, 64); the italics are mine. See also Neves and Moraes Silva(2008), who apply a similar reasoning to the Brazilian peasantry. Das (2007, 358) analyses theflows that go ‘from dispossession to repeasantization and back again’, while Morton (2007)refers to ‘the constitution, transformation and recomposition of peasantries within thecontemporary dynamics of neo-liberalism’. Donajgrodzki describes the differences in ruralEngland between the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century as anongoing process of ‘reshaping’ (1989, 440).36Toledo (1992) has proposed the ‘degree of peasantness’ as an analytical tool forunderstanding heterogeneity.37Shanin (1974, 189) refers to entrepreneurial farms as being ‘increasingly dependent on the‘upstream’ supplies and the ‘downstream’ demand. This leads the farmer to ‘resemble a specialisedassembly-line worker or a technician-entrepreneur rather more than his peasant predecessors’.38As argued before, it cannot be excluded that interesting new markets developed by newpeasants, will be taken over by agrarian entrepreneurs and/or food empires. Precisely at thisinterface many fierce struggles are taking place.


deprivation, trigger the ‘nature and logic’ of different rural livelihoods. Specificaspects of peasant resistance include:

(1) the construction of autonomy in order to resist subordination, dependency anddeprivation;

(2) the creation, reproduction, and development of a self-controlled resource basethat allows for co-production;

(3) the multiple interactions with down-stream markets that aim to secure survivaland which facilitate reproduction of the resource-base.

Resistance and the goal of constructing autonomy are core elements thatinfluence how peasants pattern their forms of production. They materialise in themany attempts to gain self-control over the resource-base; to actively distantiate theproduction unit from the main input and factor markets; and, consequently, toachieve relatively low levels of intermediate consumption and indebtedness. Theselatter strategies are major lines of defence in markets that are controlled by foodempires. Distantiation from a fully fledged, simple commodity production (where allresources, apart from labour, are mobilised through and governed by the markets)clearly represents a form of resistance. This resistance is definitely not ‘a negativeformulation’ (Friedmann 1980, 166). Rather, it creates the autonomy needed todefend oneself as a peasant in a hostile world and the potential to earn a decentliving. It helps to create ‘the freedom from’ that was specified by Slicher van Bath(1978), but also creates ‘the freedom to’ organise the labour and productionprocesses in ways that correspond to the needs, interest, prospects, and possibilitiesof the peasant family (Boelens 2008).

Resistance and the search for autonomy are also evident in the types of cattle thatare bred,39 the varieties that are sown,40 the cropping patterns that are designed,41

the technology that is chosen,42 the grasslands that are created,43 and the knowledgeand skills that are developed. They are also present in the ongoing search fornovelties that will improve the technical efficiency of the farm or its input/outputrelations. The same also applies to the search for, and construction of, newmarketplaces that circumvent the draining power of food empires – these are alsoexpressions of resistance and the struggle for autonomy.

Resistance and struggle are not one-off operations, nor are they limited to a fewmoments of overt hostility. Autonomy needs to be continually defended against thesqueeze and the regulatory schemes that negatively impact on the farming labourprocess. The dominating regimes continually and systematically threaten andoppress the different peasantries. Their specific effects enter rural livelihoods throughmany pores, provoking a permanent, many-facetted, and multi-level resistance that

39Preference is given to breeds that require little or no industrial feed and fodder, are adaptedto local conditions (i.e. do not require many veterinarian interventions), have an extendedlongevity, and which are, preferably, ‘dual purpose’. Holstein cattle, for instance, are theantithesis of this.40For instance, GMOs and crops that require high nitrogen inputs are avoided.41Multiple cropping is often preferred since it reduces vulnerability to pests and diseases, andoften contributes to increasing soil fertility. It can also reduce ‘market-induced risks’ (see Adey2007, for a recent empirical study).42Preferably skill-oriented technologies instead of mechanical technologies (Bray 1983).43In this respect see Sonneveld (2004).


manifests in the sturdy, often bodily struggles in the fields, barnyards, milkingparlours, dairies, and marketplaces – just as it sometimes explodes in and as overtstruggles.

This text provides some quantitative data on the magnitude and impact of thenew forms that are emerging out of the many sided struggle for autonomy. Thisdemonstrates that we are not dealing here with isolated outbreaks of resistance. Thestruggle for autonomy is a far reaching, massive, and grassroots driven transforma-tion that is taking place, to quote Chayanov (1966, 257), ‘literally before our eyes’.While resistance and the struggle for autonomy usually occur through ‘quite,mundane and subtle expressions and acts that are rarely organised and direct’(Kerkvliet 2009, 232), their impact is far-reaching. The reconstitution of thepeasantry that is resulting from these ‘expressions and acts’ is not limited to distantperipheries, but as the data shows is also widespread in Europe. The data alsohighlight the point that the peasant struggles for autonomy support food productionand that the newly created and heterogeneous circuits of reproduction are sustainingagriculture. Food production can no longer be reproduced through the food andagrarian markets alone: prices are too low, costs are too high, regulatory schemes aretoo asphyxiating, markets too turbulent, and banks too restrictive. Food productionis becoming increasingly dependent on the newly created circuits of reproduction.Thus, alongside overt struggles for more space, resistance of the third kind isbecoming decisive for one of the big challenges the world is facing – that of feedingthe world, not only now but also in 2050.44

Can the new peasantries feed the world?

This discussion on the main reversals that, together, are producing and sustainingthe peasantries of the twenty-first century raises the important issue of the role ofpeasant agriculture in feeding the world. This discussion also has important politicalimplications, highlighting the importance of the peasantry as a, if not the main,countervailing power to global agriculture’s dangerous tendency for ‘feeding theempire’ (Friedmann 2004). This applies even more when the issue of bio-fuels istaken into account.

The (re-)discovery of land as ecological capital and the material struggles in thefields to re-create and unfold it hold the prospect of a substantial improvement andenlargement of the stock of natural resources. This is in stark contrast to mostscientific analyses (Koning et al. 2008) which view this stock as given, limited, andonly ‘expandable’ through very high levels of investment. There is a furtherimportant feature here: entrepreneurial and corporate farming often result in amarginalisation, and sometimes even a crude mining, of ecological capital, whereaspeasant farming (especially when the space is available) tends to develop it.

Entrepreneurial and capitalist farming tend to limit themselves to fertile deltas,where the ecological, infrastructural, and social conditions meet the assumptions andrequirements of modernised farming. This marginalises other areas, which come tolay barren. Peasant agriculture can revitalise these uncompetitive areas and makethem productive once again. This process has been described for the Apenninemountains (Milone 2009); the Valley of the Thousand Hills, Zuid Bokkenveld, and

44The year 2050 is a critical point of reference as this is the point at which it is predicted thatthe world population will reach its highest level (9 billion people).


the Mbongolwane Wetlands in South Africa (Adey 2007); and for the North FrisianWoodlands (van der Ploeg 2008). This revitalisation is done through time and placespecific combinations of unfolding ecological capital, self-provisioning, distantiation,fine-tuning of co-production, and the creation of new marketplaces and networks.Through such mechanisms peasant agriculture extends the agrarian frontier farbeyond the self-imposed limits of entrepreneurial and capitalist farming, a featurethat is of crucial importance when thinking about food security.

In synthesis peasant agriculture represents an important foundation forpersistence, i.e. the capacity to continue over long periods. Ecological capitalsupplies the main natural resources, co-production allows for steady but ongoingimprovements in technical efficiency (the ratio between total production and theresources used), and self-provisioning implies that all the technical and social meansrequired to convert natural resources into production are available. Through suchmechanisms food production can be sustained over long periods and steadilyenlarged. Following this pattern the capacity to respond to increased demand forfood is an endogenous quality: growth is not necessarily triggered by externalinterventions.

The nature and logic of peasant production are at the core of this pattern.Capitalist agriculture does not recognise the importance of value added, but isprimarily oriented towards profits and profitability – which are often increased byreducing or containing total production (and the total amount of value added).45 Inentrepreneurial farming value added is important, but is more often realised throughthe take-over of other units of production than produced from within the resourcebase of an existing unit. This explains the seemingly contradictory situation ofrapidly expanding entrepreneurial farms combined with an overall stagnation ofproduction in the agrarian sector as a whole. In peasant agriculture the longing forbetter incomes translates, both at the level of the single households and at the level ofthe sector as a whole, into increased production. When all the relevant conditions arethe same, peasant farming produces more food in a given area than entrepreneurialfarming. Reliable comparisons of this have been made in Emilia Romagna (Italy). In1971 peasant agriculture produced a total Gross Value of Production (GVP) thatwas 15 percent above that of entrepreneurial agriculture. In 1979 this difference hadgrown to 36 percent. And in 1999, the GVP of peasant agriculture was 56 percenthigher than that realised through entrepreneurial farming (van der Ploeg 2008, 122–5).46 The same point has recently been made with regards to Brazil (Sabourin 2007,28). In short: peasant farming not only allows for, but also needs persistence andongoing agricultural growth. And it needs it badly.

Whether peasant farming will be able to realise this depends, above all, on itsresilience, i.e. its capacity to provide a buffer against shocks and stresses in the shortand medium term. I argue that such resilience is increasingly grounded in the lastthree reversals presented in Table 1. Multiple resistance plays a central role:combined with distantiation it reduces short-term vulnerability to turbulence inupstream markets and any abrupt tightening of the squeeze on agriculture. When

45As illustrated in the well-known CIDA studies of the 1960s and early 1970s. See Feder (1973)for a synthesis.46It is tempting to analyse the impressive development of Chinese agriculture as yet anotherexample of the potentials entailed in peasant farming. Some support for such a thesis iscontained in Gulati and Fan (2007).


combined with the creation of new, extended networks it reduces dependency ondownstream markets controlled by food empires. Together these factors makepeasant farms more resistant to and better equipped to survive the externally inducedcrises that are likely to de-activate (if not destroy) capitalist and entrepreneurialfarms.

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Jan Douwe van der Ploeg was head of department and Professor of Rural Sociology inWageningen University between 1992 and 2004. He has worked on and led researchprogrammes in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. He was also involved in the creation ofterritorial co-operatives in the Netherlands, an initiative that has helped Dutch peasantfarmers face the challenge of marginalisation. He is currently Professor of Transition Studiesin Wageningen and Professor of Rural Sociology in China Agricultural University.Email: [email protected]


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