Exploring the roles of protest, reform and ‘creation of alternatives’ in our current food and farming crises
My path into farming took an unusual route, studying social change at university and waking up to the climate crises through environmental activism. There were many roots calling me back to the land and to a livelihood of farming, but these were key motivations: wanting to be part of the practical solutions, and a growing awareness of how things can actually change in our complex world. From my work in food systems since this time, I notice that many new growers and landworkers have similar roots, especially in the small scale and regenerative farming worlds. Many young farmers feel incredibly motivated by this regenerative momentum, a renewed hope (often after environmental grief/realisation) and a dedication to being part of the solutions. The regenerative momentum and the framing of farming as solution has also sparked and activated many older farmers and given a new lease of life on many farms. Many existing farmers have had recent wake up calls, be it from food, energy, input crises, or from the first-hand experiences of climate change and ecological decline. Even the most conventional farming spaces are beginning to talk of regenerative and are acknowledging we can’t carry on as we are.
Farmers are rising up across the world from Europe to India to demand change, to resist and oppose the draconian economy that is draining farmers and lands, for an industrial commodity food system that does not even feed the world in the short term let alone keep the people and planet healthy into the long term. Farmers are pushed to breaking point, indebted, powerless and at the mercy of chemical companies, supermarkets and governments. Hence the recent backlashes in the UK when taxes were raised for farmers – the protest was not so much about the individual inheritance tax but it was the straw that broke the camels back and symbolised the governments disregard for UK farming, with the agricultural budget shrinking in real terms whilst costs skyrocket. This is not a leftist or right-wing issue, despite the media’s best efforts to polarise and politicise into narrow categories and sides. This is about food and land sovereignty, and about the currently unequal power balance in our global food system. This power imbalance, and the domination of those motivated by profit not values, is the root cause of both the farming and environmental crises. And the way through this is not to take sides or pit the farmers against the environmentalists (as the media and government try to do), but instead to realise common ground and use this moment to create real change, people power and food sovereignty once more. Food and land are far too important to leave to a global commodity market, and also too important for short term politics and polarised thinking. Food resilience and ecological regeneration needs to come from the farmers, landworkers and communities. We must use every tool we have to enable the new systems which allow this flourishing, whilst overturning the old defunct systems that do not serve farmers nor the environment. This writing explores what those tools may be, exploring the roles of reform, revolution, protest and ‘creating alternatives’ in a holistic theory of change.
This is a new moment and crossroads for both the environmental movement and the farming ‘industry.’ And there is much more common ground than the polarised media will make out. Farmers are essentially custodians of land and too many have been forced into a destructive industrial farming that is depleting soil and biodiversity. And so many want to change and are indeed leading on the changes, even amidst an economic paradigm that treats land as commodity, and does not support farmers to transition, or to even keep farming in traditional and sustainable ways. Farmers and environmentalists both want a healthy, thriving environment and for communities to flourish (and be fed quality food) within this. Given that industrial farming and monoculture land use are responsible for nearly one third of emissions and most biodiversity loss, and that most land (e.g. 70% in UK) is farmland, it is essential that farms and farmers are engaged and leading on the regenerative shift. Equally important is the need for many more farmers and landworkers to be taking up this call, requiring wider political, economic and land access shifts to enable these changes.
Reform vs revolution?
Given the scale, urgency and systemic nature of the challenges and solutions, my view is that this goes beyond simple reform or tweaks around the edges. Reformism has helped make things less worse, and had some significant wins in the farming and environmental movements. I’ve worked with both Greenpeace and the NFU, and gained deep insight into the hard work, persistence and at times great successes of reformist work. It is vital work that needs to continue. But on its own it is insufficient, we are heading rapidly towards food, climate and social tipping points, and many increasingly frequent micro crises and food shortages have already given a sense of the future. So often the debate on how we must act is boiled down to reform vs revolution, as if the toolbox for social change is this narrow, and as if the two are mutually exclusive. The history of social change, as evidenced in Rojava for example, is much more complex and requires a suite of tools
I was involved intensely for several years in the climate and environmental movement, engaging in a range of change work from direct action on the streets to planting thousands of trees. Meanwhile I studied social change theories, economics and ‘development’ at Bath University, and published a dissertation on ‘prefiguration– how we shape change by creating the new systems in the shell of the old. This is a form of ‘regenerative activism’ whereby we move beyond the focus of what we are against (oppositional action) and channel our energies into building what we are for (propositional activism). This has a rich history, especially in Latin America where people led movements have created more resilient communities in the face of global pressures and unjust systems forced upon them, such as in Cuba, Rojava, Bolivia, Mexico. Many of these movements have been led by ‘peasants’, landworkers and farmers. Having now immersed myself in both worlds, of the oppositional and propositional, it is clear that we need both modes of change work to be happening, and one is futile without the other. What has happened time and time again in history is that a revolution is ‘successful’ and takes power, but in the absence of real alternatives and new systems, the old power finds a way to co-opt and reinstate their power, as in the case of Arab spring uprisings, and in many cases of ‘Disaster Capitalism’ (Klein 2016) whereby the dominant system will take advantage of a tipping point to entrench their power and keep things the same.
However, a movement may not be resourced (or may be actively blocked) to create the new systems adequately or at scale without a level of opposition to the status quo. For example in a case where farmers have very little power in a supply chain and are not fairly rewarded for the public goods (i.e. food production and land stewardship), there must be a level of uprising to rebalance power to enable the creation of new systems. When power is uneven and decisions are made without input from those who are affected by them, then people rise up. This has been evident in the Indian farmer uprisings and the more recent European farmer protests. The table below shows a summary of the core reasons behind the protests, of which there are of course many more in this landscape of complex entanglement and numerous motivations. But it gives a good overview pointing towards a backwards economic system that gives farmers the stick (punishment and regulation) whilst the carrot (subsidies) is unevenly distributed and inadequate, all amidst a backwards economy that does not value our food producers or land stewards. Many issues are also rooted in power, in unfair supply chains whereby the growers of the produce are not respected or rewarded for their work, often with little or no livelihood security or ability to re-invest in positive transitions on their lands.
A Global farmer rebellion
The breadth and depth of the protests is huge across Europe, and when the peasant uprisings of Latin America, La Via Campesina, and the huge protest activity in India is considered, this is a global movement to re-balance power in the food and farming worlds, across borders. We are in a global food system; reversing power and enacting local solutions does require a level of global action and solidarity with these protests, even if we exist in a different context or have differing motivations for protests. It is important the protests do not get co-opted by far-right fundamentalists as some media has liked to portray, when in reality many of the protests are for the reasons above, and rooted in unfair supply chains, insecurity and power imbalances. There will always be some that jump on this and use it to try and derail environmental agendas or promote their own agendas of land grabbing or resource extraction, but the real power does lie with the farmers, workers and people that eat, when they can come together across perceived boundaries.
Farming reform and protest in the UK?
As the map above suggests, the UK in 2023 was devoid of any major farming protests, and has generally shied away from any direct action. This has changed in recent times with numerous farmer protests across the country from the LWAs food justice marches to the Inheritance tax protests and tractor takeover’s of London at national action days. The UK farming sector faces a different context in some ways, with post-brexit farming subsidies still being unclear in a watered down Environmental Land Management Scheme, and support for farmers being rich in words from politicians but the budget being lower in real terms than it was pre-brexit, despite huge inflation, new challenges and high expectation on farmers to deliver more environmental good (as well as quality food). But many of the same global market issues face UK farmers; debt and financial stress from a backwards economy, unfairness in supply chains (supermarket dominance), cheap low-standard imports creating unfair competition, rising costs, devaluing of food and many more socio-economic factors. Voices such as the National Farmers Union, whom I greatly respect and have worked with, stated last year amidst the EU uprisings, that protest would put at risk the huge public support of farming so they would not be leading any action like this, and yet 9 months later the NFU fully endorsed and led on the inheritance tax protests, which may have demonstrated a shift in tactics, or more cynically that they are only willing to rise up when the wealthy members and leadership board are directly affected. Regardless, the NFU have a unique sector understanding of the huge issues farmers face and that many of these are decades old battles, and have only got worse over time despite best efforts of lobbying - which have of course made things less worse, but without always changing the root systemic causes.
Protest needs an adequate justification and clear objectives, strategy, demands and theory of change to be successful in the long term. And protest takes many forms, does not necessarily need to take the violent or disruptive version that people often associate through media portrayal. Protests can be direct, impactful, creative and supported by the general public, and even garner more public support, awareness and sympathy for the cause if done well. So the blanket dismissal of protest in the Uk based on public support baffles me, as a supportive public should understand the reasons for peaceful protest and back this, else their support is rather meaningless or empty words on a poll. Protest is often dismissed too easily when pitted against reform or lobbying, or situated as a threat to these efforts. In contrast, all changes through history have required both tactics, and a synergetic relationship between the two. So many rights we take for granted now have been hard won through both direct protest and relentless lobbying also.
Creating alternatives
Beyond the tactics of reform and revolution, there is another strategy that has been essential and successful throughout the history of social change. It is often forgotten or not given enough attention amidst the polarised battles of left-right, revolution-reform, farming-environment, rural-urban, producer-consumer. The ‘creation of alternatives’ is a prefigurative theory of change – building the new models in the shell of the old. This is crucial in a farming landscape where most farms are going out of business, land is being grabbed by corporates, and our food system is more vulnerable than ever, with estimated 50 harvests left based on the remaining top soil. We need to create new models, and make them so beautiful and functional and re-enlivening that they become the most obvious choice for everyone to support and get behind, in this way they displace the destructive models that have gotten us into these crises.
Prefiguring new food systems on the ground is already happening, and with remarkable success, as farmers shift to regenerative, which often means re-embracing traditional practices that their grandparents used, and also involves some of the new, some useful technologies, community support, new funding models and agroecological practices. This is an empowering approach, putting the sovereignty back into farmer hands and community custodianship. One practical way this can play out is in resilient regional food systems. Creating Producer Co-operatives for farmers to sell their produce more directly, with support from the co-op rather than an extractivist relationship to supermarkets. Community and Ecological Farming Land Trusts, similarly reverse power from the developers and land-grabbers (be it for phoney carbon offsets of sitting investments) and put the greatest asset (and responsibility) of all in the hands of those who care, and those who can steward with a set of principles and values. Reviving of local markets and rural economies also requires the mass training and re-enchantment of new farmers, growers and land custodians. Contrary to mainstream narratives, there are loads of people wishing to get back to the land, and yet a lack of viable training or support mechanisms for this. We can and are creating these new systems, patiently but purposefully, in the form of Community Supported Agriculture, Bioregional movements, Farm cluster groups and much more. As a collective, we still need to engage in the reform and revolution, but this third theory of change is more me the most impactful, hopeful, empowering and real.
To learn more about creating alternatives, and to take real action:
Join our movement for change!
River, Land, People
Comments