Liza
May Aquino
Rommel M. Dascil
PhD in Development ManagementDivine Word College of Laoag, Philippines
Fr. Damianus Abun, SVD (Professor and adviser)
Food sovereignty is the right of
peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically
sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and
agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at
the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and
corporations. (Via
Campesina 2007)
This paper is a
critique on the article “Food Sovereignty” by Raj Patel published in The
Journal of Peasant Studies in July 2009. While it affirms Patel’s notion that
the shift from food security to food sovereignty as a development discourse
touches greatly on human rights, democracy and egalitarianism, it also argues
that the peasants’
struggle for food sovereignty should, more importantly, be considered as a
relevant and practical agenda for development ethics. It examines why the moral
consideration of the current global food system may help sustain the privileged
position of peasants to resist the global, corporate-control of modern food
economy. Using the Catholic Social Teachings as a looking glass, it extends the
idea of food sovereignty one step farther, even as it illustrates how food
sovereignty informs and necessitates an ethical basis for challenging and
replacing conventional agrarian systems with sustainable and socially just alternatives
that promote human dignity and the integrity of creation.
Introduction
In
the field of development, what inspires the inclusion of development ethics in
discourse and practice is the multifarious and multifaceted economic, social
and political processes. These processes bring about both opportunities and
threats for humankind, hence the problematization of these processes’ capacity
to fulfill the ultimate ends of human beings (and the natural world). Some of the most urgent issues that humanity
faces today are the complex issues around the production, distribution, and
consumption of food. As these directly
relate to the global issues of human suffering due to poverty and hunger, and
the use and control of resources, they are by nature issues of ethics.
The
article “Food Sovereignty” by Raj Patel is an attempt to explain an alternative
approach to development concerning food.
It touches on the issues of current global food system through an
alternative point of view different from Food Security, which is the dominant neoliberal
economic development paradigm on food. As
it sorts out the contradictions inherent in Food Sovereignty as a new concept, Patel
(2009: 667) argues that
One way to balance these disparities is
through the explicit introduction of rights-based language. To talk of a right
to shape food policy is to contrast it with a privilege. The modern food system
has been architected by a handful of privileged people. Food sovereignty
insists that this is illegitimate, because the design of our social system is
not the privilege of the few, but the right of all. By summoning this language,
food sovereignty demands that such rights be respected, protected, and
fulfilled, as evinced through twin obligations of conduct and result
(Balakrishnan and Elson 2008). It offers a way of fencing off particular
entitlements, by setting up systems of duty and obligation.
Tied
with the continuously widening corporate-control of food production and
distribution through trade liberalization, this perspective is powerfully and
cleverly insulated by multinational institutions, like the World Trade
Organization (WTO). This neoliberal perspective can be traced back to the
modernization of agriculture and its globalization through the green revolution and its most recent
version, the gene revolution. It is boldly branded and promoted by
multinational institutions and agro-transnational corporations (agro-TNCs) as
the inevitable way towards food security.
The failure of the peasantry in the commodity market is merely a collateral
damage that can be corrected in the long run through greater integration of the
agricultural processes into the market.
Patel
(2009) believes that the legal developments in the international discourse on
food have paved the way for the formulation of three important concepts– right
to food, food security, and food sovereignty.
The right to food, and its parallel, the right to be free from hunger,
is fully and legally mandated by various international bodies.
The
term food security, on the other hand, has been used in discourse concerning
poverty and hunger since its adoption by FAO in 1974 to address a global food
crisis. It was defined as “availability at all times of adequate world food
supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption
and to offset fluctuations in production and prices” (UN 1975). In the 1996
World Food Summit, food security received a more complex definition:
Food security,
at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is
achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to
sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 1996).
This
definition was considered as the vision of food security in life with the World
Food Summit Plan of Action in 1996.
Again, in 2001, food security was redefined in the FAO document “The
State of Food Insecurity 2001” as a situation that exists when all
people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient,
safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life (FAO 2002).
While
food security is largely a definition of the goal of the right to food,
although it holds the state accountable in some ways, it does not necessarily
rest on specific set of policies (Patel 2009). This therefore allows the state
a wide margin of discretion in terms of implementation. These limitations have opened the two
UN-sanctioned policies on food to criticisms and alternative proposals. One
proposal that has strongly captured the attention of those involved in the food
discourse is the concept of food sovereignty. Following Via Campesina’s
concept, Patel (2009:670) argues that the
Claims
around food sovereignty address the need for social change such that the
capacity to shape food policy can be exercised at all appropriate levels. To
make those rights substantive requires more than a sophisticated series of
juridical sovereignties. To make the right to shape food policy meaningful is
to require that everyone be able substantively to engage with those policies.
But the prerequisites for this are a society in which the equality-distorting
effects of sexism, patriarchy, racism, and class power have been eradicated.
Activities that instantiate this kind of radical ‘moral universalism’ are the
necessary precursor to the formal ‘cosmopolitan federalism’ that the language
of rights summons. And it is by these activities that we shall know food sovereignty.
Referring
to this phenomenon as a new power and social relations, Patel (2009) believes
that Food Sovereignty is a critical reaction to the neoliberal notion of food
security. Indeed, the concept offers an ethical question on what exactly does
the development discourse on food hope to achieve and with what means, and at
what or whose expense. It claims to be
a logical precondition for genuine food security, that is, long-term food
security, which depends on those who produces food, and on the adequate care
for the natural environment including human beings. Arguing that peasants and
small farmers are the stewards of productive resources, food sovereignty
upholds the following principles as the necessary foundation for achieving
genuine food security: (a) food is a basic human right, one which can only be
realized in a system where food sovereignty is guaranteed, and; (b) it is the
right of each nation to produce its basic food through agricultural systems
that respect cultural and productive diversity (Patel 2009; Desmarais 2007).
The
question now is why and how should the discourse of food sovereignty be
extended to the realm of ethics or morals?
Claim
Initially
based on Patel’s notion of Food Sovereignty as based on human rights, this
paper claims that the discourse and practice of food sovereignty is by its
nature a moral undertaking. While it is
true, as what Patel believes, that food sovereignty is about power and rights,
it is rather the moral question on sustainability that makes more explicit the
realities of human suffering brought about by the programs patterned through
the legal frameworks of right to food and food security. Indeed, Food Sovereignty is, above all, a
paradigm that promotes human dignity and the integrity of creation.
Since
the time of its launching at the World Food Summit in 1996, the concept of food
sovereignty has rapidly developed. As a
concept, it was introduced to the public by Via Campesina, a global peasant
resistant movement. As an important
global organization of peasants and advocates, Via Campesina strongly proposes
an integration of new and old agricultural paradigms that fully considers both
agricultural production and environmental preservation as an alternative way of
modern development (McMichael 2006). It
provides space for dialogue and action among peasant and farmers’ organizations
from all over the world and therefore bridges gaps in terms of institutional
capacity and strategy among actors (Smith 2002).
In
its own words, Via Campesina defines food sovereignty as “the right of each
nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic food,
respecting cultural and productive diversity” and “the right of peoples to
define their own agricultural and food policy” (Via Campesina 1996a; quoted in Desmarais 2007, 34). Critically challenging the neoliberal concept
of food production and distribution, and encouraging other like-minded individuals
and organizations, Via Campesina declared in 1996:
We, the Via
Campesina, a growing movement of farm workers, peasant, farm and indigenous
people’s organizations from all the regions of the world, know that food
security cannot be achieved without taking full account of those who produce
food. Any discussion that ignores our contribution will fail to eradicate
poverty and hunger. Food is a basic
human right. This right can only be realized in a system where Food Sovereignty
is guaranteed” (Via Campesina 1996b).
To
the Via Campesina, food sovereignty signifies the need to shift from the WTO’s technical concept of food security to the political concept of food
sovereignty, which includes cultural and productive diversity (Desmarais 2007).
Indeed, this change in semantics (from food security to food sovereignty) is geared toward allowing peasants around the
world to insert their local agenda into international discourse by making moral
claims on their dignity as human beings and the integrity of their environment.
Reason
Food sovereignty as a
precondition to genuine food security is premised on seven principles: food as
a basic human right, agrarian reform, environmental protection, food trade
reorganization, ending the globalization of hunger, social peace, and
democratic control (Patel 2009; Via Campesina 2007). In summary, these principles refer to
everyone’s access to sufficient (in quantity and quality), safe, nutritious and
culturally appropriate food that should be guaranteed by all nations; agrarian reform is a necessary and
fundamental ingredient of food sovereignty in as much as the ownership and
control of land by the peasants or tillers allow them to also control the basic
processes of food production; the sustainable care of natural resources, which
presupposes the practice of sustainable agriculture, means the right of farmers
against restrictive intellectual property rights, patenting of the natural
world and the use of agro-chemicals; food is primarily considered as a source
of nutrition before being considered an item of trade, and this means that local
food production and sufficiency should not be displaced by food imports; globalized hunger can only end with the end
of control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies, and
multilateral institutions that facilitate macro-economic policies; food and its
underlying processes must be not used as weapons of violence, oppression and
coercion against small farmers, peasants, and minority and indigenous groups;
and, small farmers must have direct input to policy and decision making at the
local and international levels (Via Campesina 2007).
Evidently,
there are very important moral issues that the discourse of food sovereignty
tackles – poverty and environmental degradation especially among small farming
communities. Food sovereignty argues that green and gene revolutions of liberal
agriculture systems have led to the disentanglement of peasant communities and
the environment from agricultural production. The disarticulation of
agriculture from ecosystems and local communities through the green and gene
revolution has negatively transformed the nature of agriculture. The
integration of productive input and food into the market system has allowed
greater control of agro-TNCs over the means of food production. With the ultimate goal of higher profit
through increased market, agro-TNCs have been
relentlessly
forging input dependence and standardizing the nature of agricultural
production, subjecting soaring farm animal populations to brutalizing
treatment, toxifying soils and water and externalizing environmental costs,
reshaping dietary aspirations, breaking locals bonds between production and
consumption, devalorizing labor and replacing it with technology and
progressively appropriating control and surplus value from farmers and farm
communities (Weis 2007, 162).
The conventional,
corporate-controlled productive models have trapped farmers both in rich and
poor countries. With the introduction of high-yielding and genetically modified
seed varieties packaged with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and increased
level of mechanization, peasants in the rural communities of poor countries
were forced to enter into credit arrangements with banks and other credit
institutions. Many peasants went into debt, which resulted in the loss of their
lands; many others migrated to urban areas, while some committed suicides by
drinking chemical pesticides. For the
Via Campesina, the only way to reverse this scenario is through the adoption of
food sovereignty as a social policy (Patel 2009).
Based on the foregoing, food
sovereignty has the capacity to question the sustainability of the
market-oriented agriculture model emanates from a moral perspective. As it
offers an alternative which basically include community-based agrarian
resistance that aims to reframe development in radical ways, it reasserts the
significant roles of the peasants, and the importance of environmental
preservation and conservation in agricultural production, food sovereignty
revalorizes rural cultural-ecology and communal solidarity instead of
individual responsibility and competition.
Evidence
As
mentioned earlier, poverty and environmental degradation as a result of the
dominant economic paradigm directly justify the need for food sovereignty.
These two intertwined realities explicitly inform the need to consider the
concept of food sovereignty from the vantage point of ethics above all else.
In
the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit, the United Nations declared
that the rate of world poverty and hunger has decreased from 1.8 billion in
1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005, or from 46% to 27%, and that the world is on track
to meet the poverty reduction target by 2015 (United Nations 2010, 6-7). This MDG review, although encouraging at face
value, becomes quite suspicious and ironic considering the FAO report in 2002
that per capita agricultural productivity has increased since the second half
of the last century and that there has been more than enough food for every
human being on earth (FAO 2002).
If
the latest MDG report is right that there are still around 920 million poor,
hungry and malnourished people in the planet at the moment, how does this data
relate to the tenability of the contemporary global food economy? How does the supposedly sufficient food
production explain such disparity? Why does hunger persist in a world of
bounty?
Following
Jeremy Bentham’s notion of rights as an obligation that certain entities should
fulfill, Patel’s immediate answer to the problem is obviously state-centric:
Food sovereignty has its own geographies, one
determined by specific histories and contours of resistance. To demand a space
of food sovereignty is to demand specific arrangements to govern territory and
space. At the end of the day, the power of rights-talk is that rights imply a
particular burden on a specified entity – the state (Patel 2009:668).
This
is in a way supported by UNDP (2003) which points to several reasons for the
massive hunger: from marginal farmland, difficult environment conditions such
as drought, flooding, and other natural disasters, to inadequate or lack of
access to agricultural resources such land, water, and seed and livestock
varieties. One of solutions therefore to
the problem is technical, that is, to provide productive inputs for small
farmers. A very important point, however, is that some analysts find the locus
of the poverty and hunger problems in the current global political economy of
food, which is driven by transnational industrial agriculture and livestock
production. These analysts think that poverty and hunger is mainly due to the globalized
corporate control of resources, food production and distribution, which is
perpetuated by mainstream capital-intensive agricultural systems.
Indeed,
the limitation of Patel’s state-centric approach to the understanding of Food
Sovereignty calls for other ways through which the issue of human sufferings
such as hunger should be understood.
This paper therefore offers the wisdom of the Catholic Social Teachings,
which ultimately provide an ethical foundation upon which to illustrate the disparities
in terms of enforced dependence of the poor on the rich as a result of free
trade and free market imposed by transnational corporations that increasingly
control agro-inputs and distribution of agricultural goods. The Catholic Social Teachings strongly argue
against the strained incorporation of the poor and hungry peasants into the
global market relations, which are characterized by long-term price instability
and distorted competitions, which result in massive dislocation that further
deepens poverty and hunger.
Discussion
Discussion
The
conversion of Food Sovereignty as an ethical agenda is provoked by the reality
of human suffering and the possibility of redirecting the global food system
through more inclusive policy and practice. Through faith-based ethics, this
paper hopes to justify the need to make the issue of hunger and other forms of
suffering a moral issue. Specifically, by using the Social Doctrines of the
Catholic Church, it emphasizes the need to look at the global food system and
therefore the plight of the poor and marginalized peasants in the context of
social justice
Domination
and Exploitation
In the
last twenty-five years a hope has spread through the human race that economic
growth would bring about such a quantity of goods that it would be possible to
feed the hungry at least with the crumbs falling from the table, but this has
proved a vain hope in underdeveloped areas and in pockets of poverty in
wealthier areas, because of the rapid growth of population and of the labor
force, because of rural stagnation and the lack of agrarian reform, and because
of the massive migratory flow to the cities, where the industries, even though
endowed with huge sums of money, nevertheless provide so few jobs that not
infrequently one worker in four is left unemployed. These stifling oppressions
constantly give rise to great numbers of marginal persons, ill-fed, inhumanly
housed, illiterate and deprived of political power as well as of the suitable
means of acquiring responsibility and moral dignity (Justicia in Mundo #10)
When
poverty, hunger and displacement become part of the lives of the producers of
food in spite of the significant amount of global food surpluses, it is an
affront not only to the individual peasant but to human society as a whole. It
is a contradiction of modernity’s promise of freedom and human development, and
fundamentally it is an insult against our notion of human dignity and social
justice, and therefore ultimately, of our humanity. The dire situation of the
peasant since the globalization of agricultural modernization and introduction
of trade liberalization is characterized by capital-driven corporate domination
of the social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental spaces. A good number of biblical and doctrinal
references, such as the Catholic Social
Teachings, can help provide vivid descriptions of how the
peasant world looks like.
The church locates the cause of peasants’
miseries in the increased faith by corporate institutions in modern economics,
which when “left to itself works rather to widen the differences in the world’s
level of life: rich people enjoy rapid growth and the poor develop slowly….some
produce a surplus of foodstuff, others cruelly lack them and see their imports
made uncertain” (Popularum Progresso
#8).
In
the context of the social and economic advances made in many countries,
pronounced imbalances are increasingly discernible: first, between agriculture
on the one hand and industry and services on the other; between the more and
the less developed regions within countries with differing economic resources
and development (Mater et Magistra
#48).
According
to Gaudium et Spes (#63), the world
is in a moment of history when the development of economic life could
potentially diminished social inequalities if the development were guided and
coordinated in a reasonable and human way; yet all too often, economic
development programs, too often, serves to intensify the inequalities and
promotes the decline of social status of the weak and in contempt for the poor.
While an enormous mass of people still lack the absolute necessities of life, a
few number of people live sumptuously and squander wealth. Both in developed
and developing countries, there are clear “manifestations of selfishness and a
flaunting of wealth which is as disconcerting as it is scandalous” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #14:1).
Indeed
luxury and misery are within each other’s vicinity, that is, while few enjoy
very great freedom of choice, many are deprived of almost all possibility of
acting on their own initiative and responsibility and often subsist in living
and working conditions unworthy of human beings (Gaudium et Spes #63). The contrast “between the economically more
advanced countries and other countries is becoming serious day by day, and the
very peace of the world can be jeopardized in consequence” (Gaudium et Spes #63), and this gives us
“a sign of a widespread sense that the unity of the world, that is, the unity
of the human race, is seriously compromised” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 14:2).
The
peasant world is ruled by a despotic economic domination and immense power that
is concentrated in the hands of the few who exercise a dictatorship through
complete control of financial regulations, hence “the life-blood whereby the
entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it
were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will” (Quadragesimo Anno #106). This accumulation of power – the characteristic
mark of contemporary economic life is a natural result of limitless free
competition which permits the survival of those who only are the strongest,
which often means, those who fight most relentlessly and pay less heed to the
dictates of conscience (Quadragesimo Anno
#107). The dominative financial and
social mechanisms, which are denounced by the church, are functioning almost
automatically in favor of more developed countries and the people manipulating
them, thus accentuating the situation of wealth for a few, and suffocating the
economies of the rest (Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis #16:1-3). Along the
manipulation of financial mechanisms and the unbridled ambition for economic
supremacy, conflicts have been generated that are characterized by
bitter fights to gain supremacy over the State in
order to use in economic struggles its resources and authority… [and] between
States themselves, not only because countries employ their power and shape
their policies to promote every economic advantage of their citizens, but also
because they seek to decide political controversies that arise among nations
through the use of their economic supremacy and strength…. Unbridled ambition
for domination has succeeded the desire to gain; the whole economic life has
become hard, cruel and relentless in a ghastly measure (Quadragesimo Anno
#108-11).
As
the developed countries export manufactured goods, which are rapidly increasing
in echnological capacity, content and market access, the raw materials from
less developed countries are continuously being subjected to price instability,
a state of affairs far removed from the progressively increasing value of
industrial products (Populorum Progresso
#57). The effects of free trade on poor countries are caused by economic
inequalities put in place by rich countries which undermine international
relations. Populorum Progresso (#58)
explains this further:
The rule of free trade, taken by itself, is no
longer able to govern international relations. Its advantages are certainly
evident when the parties involved are not affected by any excessive
inequalities of economic power: it is an incentive to progress and a reward for
effort. That is why industrially developed countries see in it a law of
justice. But the situation is no longer the same when economic conditions
differ too widely from country to country: prices which are freely set in the
market can produce unfair results. One must recognize that it is the
fundamental principle of liberalism, as the rule for commercial exchange, which
is questioned here.
These
inequalities are further exacerbated by the phenomenon of international debt
crisis. Less developed countries accepted offer of abundant capital from
international financial institutions with the hope of accelerating economic
development, but served instead as a counterproductive mechanism. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (#19) argued
that the instrument chosen to make huge contribution to development failed
because debtor-countries, in order to service their debts find themselves
obliged to export capital needed for improving the sectors for development.
This brings to mind case of improving the agricultural sector through foreign
aid which requires governments, in order for them to obtain new financing, to
implement structural adjustment policies (SAPs) that demand a decrease of
government subsidies to farmers and opening the market to free trade. This
mechanism has eventually placed the debtor-countries in a cycle of debt
servicing, new loans, and structural adjustments which has “turned into a break
upon development and indeed in some cases even aggravated underdevelopment” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #19:5).
Another
disconcerting phenomenon that the neoliberal economic paradigm has introduced
is the concept of super-development, which is typified by high
consumerism. With the unacceptable
miseries of the underdevelopment, proponents of liberal economic development
defines what is good and happiness in the context of excessive availability,
multiplication and continual replacement of material goods, which easily makes
people to become slaves of possession and immediate gratification. The church calls this the civilization of
consumption or consumerism, which refers to the blind submission to pure
consumerism characterize by crass materialism and radical dissatisfaction
promoted and motivated by the flood of publicity and tempting offers of
products (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis
#28:2-3). This is used both in
consumption and marketing of productive input to satisfy consumption demands.
The
domination of neoliberal economics imposed on the agricultural sector by
transnational institutions as discussed above directly reflects not only the
greed and corruption in corporate and government structures but also the
inadequacy of governments in bringing about genuine development. The promise of abundance through modern
agriculture technology and financial mechanism has produced an unquenchable
thirst for riches and temporal possessions. Again, Quadragesimo Anno admonishes that this thirst for material goods,
which is conditioned by the present economic development paradigm, has led to
the breaking of God’s law and trampling of the rights of neighbors:
Since the instability of economic life, and
especially of its structure, exacts of those engaged in it most intense and
unceasing effort, some have become so hardened to the stings of conscience as
to hold that they are allowed, in any manner whatsoever, to increase their
profits and use means, fair or foul, to protect their hard-won wealth against
sudden changes of fortune. The easy gains that a market unrestricted by any law
opens to everybody attracts large numbers to buying and selling goods, and
they, their one aim being to make quick profits with the least expenditure of
work, raise or lower prices by their uncontrolled business dealings so rapidly
according to their own caprice and greed that they nullify the wisest forecasts
of producers. (Quadragesimo Anno #132).
Indeed,
the neoliberal economic policies the control modern life led to the “scandal of
glaring inequalities not merely in the enjoyment of possessions but even more
in the exercise of power” (Quadragesimo
Anno #9). And the above scandalous corporate scenario is ultimately
reflective of the degradation of the legitimacy of the state. It has reduced the role of the state as
supreme arbiter for justice and common good to a level of slavery to human
passion and greed that result in economic imperialism and oppression of many
people (Quadragesimo Anno 109). The state, weakened by the forces of
neoliberal economics has allowed the introduction of the modern agriculture to
rural areas, which has led not only to economic displacement but to also
cultural displacement that arose when
The conflict between traditional civilizations and
the new elements of industrial civilization break down structures which do not
adapt themselves to new conditions. Their framework, sometimes rigid, was the
indispensable prop to personal and family life; older people remain attached to
it, the young escape from it, as from a useless barrier, to turn eagerly to new
forms of life in society. The conflict of the generations is made more serious
by a tragic dilemma: whether to retain ancestral institutions and convictions
and renounce progress, or to admit techniques and civilizations from outside
and reject along with the traditions of the past all their human richness. In
effect, the moral, spiritual and religious supports of the past too often give
way without securing in return any guarantee of a place in the new world
(Quadragesimo Anno #10).
After
subduing nature through reason and scientific positivism, human beings now
faces another form of alienation – their imprisonment within their own
rationality and slavery to the scientific:
The
human sciences are today enjoying a significant flowering. On the one hand they
are subjecting to critical and radical examination the hitherto accepted
knowledge about man, on the grounds that this knowledge seems either too
empirical or too theoretical. On the other hand, methodological necessity and
ideological presuppositions too often lead the human sciences to isolate, in
the various situations, certain aspects of man, and yet to give these an
explanation which claims to be complete or at least an interpretation which is
meant to be all-embracing from a purely quantitative or phenomenological point
of view. This scientific reduction betrays a dangerous presupposition. To give
a privileged position in this way to such an aspect of analysis is to mutilate
man and, under the pretext of a scientific procedure, to make it impossible to
understand man in his totality” (Octogesima Adveniens #38).
In
agrarian context, the intensive mechanisms to make agriculture better and to
address world hunger have resulted in the introduction of deadly chemicals in
the environment. These chemicals do not
only threaten the natural world but also the social world. “All too soon, and
often in an unforeseeable way… man is not only subjected to alienation [by what
he/she produces] but rather it turns man against himself” (Redemptor Hominis #15).
While
the horizon of man is thus being modified according to the images that are
chosen for him, another transformation is making itself felt, one which is the
dramatic and unexpected consequence of human activity. Man is suddenly becoming
aware that by an ill- considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it
and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation. Not only is the
material environment becoming a permanent menace -- pollution and refuse, new illness
and absolute destructive capacity-but the human framework is no longer under
man's control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow which may well be
intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire
human family (Octogesimo Adveniens #21).
The
growing demand for resources and energy, in order to support the high rate of
consumerism in the developed countries, result in the exploitation of the whole
of material world and in irreparable damage to the essential elements of life
on earth and the in the destruction of the whole of humanity (Justicia in Mundo #11). This state of
destruction demands therefore an awareness of the limitations of the planet
which should prompt us to rationally and honestly plan beyond considering the
natural environment for immediate consumption (Redemptor Hominis #15). With
the furious development and ascendancy of technology in production processes,
development planning must be framed by a proportional development of morals and
ethics and “the first reason for disquiet concerns the essential and
fundamental question: does this progress, which has man for its author and
promoter, make life on earth more human in every aspect of life? Does it make it more worthy of man?” (Redemptor Hominis 15). In speaking about
the world, the church stated that the “modern underdevelopment is not only
economic but also cultural, political and simply human….[and] the result of a
too narrow idea of development” (Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis #15:5-6).
Exodus from Poverty and Hunger
Having thoroughly looked at the
present social alienations, the church declares that there remains a human
aspiration, in which “Women and men… crave a life that is full, autonomous, and
worthy of their nature as human beings; they long to harness for their own
welfare the immense resources of the modern world” (Gaudium et Spes # 9). The church hereby offers a way of building
another world that is founded on the “conviction that humanity is able and has
the duty to… establish a political, social, and economic order at the service
of humanity, to assert and develop the dignity proper to individuals and to
societies” (Gaudium et Spes # 9).
The Book of Exodus, which is a
history of the liberation of the poor, tells the story of a people whose society
is founded on liberation from oppression and domination, and the communion of
the liberated people in active solidarity. The importance of this historical
narrative lies in its pointing out of a people’s intimate experience of the
domination of central power, and the emphasis on tradition, as expressed in the
ten commandments, and the tribal laws, as the loci of a new ethical and social
awareness that served as the basis for a new social formation (Exodus 20:1-2).
It
is a fundamental principle of faith that “In the design of God, every man [and
woman] is called upon to develop and fulfill himself [or herself], for every
life is a vocation. At birth, everyone is granted, in germ, a set of aptitudes
and qualities for him to bring to fruition” (Populorum Progresso #15).
The point of this principle is that the human being is “necessarily the
foundation, cause, and end of all social institutions” (Mater et Magistra #219). It is the principle that brings to bear a
paradigm of human development toward a just and human society. Through its
biblical teachings and encyclicals, the church recommends a path for social
renewal – first, the recognition of the sin of social injustice; second, an
education on justice, and; third, the practice of justice. This path is
embedded in the gospel message and mission of the church:
Listening to the cry of those who suffer violence
and are oppressed by unjust systems and structures, and hearing the appeal of a
world that by its perversity contradicts the plan of its Creator, we have
shared our awareness of the Church's vocation to be present in the heart of the
world by proclaiming the Good News to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, and
joy to the afflicted. The hopes and forces which are moving the world in its
very foundations are not foreign to the dynamism of the Gospel, which through
the power of the Holy Spirit frees people from personal sin and from its
consequences in social life (Justicia in Mundo #5).
The
church recognizes that the varying degrees of alienation brought about by the
globalization and the “the unequal distribution which places decisions
concerning three quarters of income, investment and trade in the hands of one
third of the human race”(Justicia in
Mundo #12) are the primary causes of features of social injustice. With
this also comes the recognition of “the insufficiency of a merely economic
progress, and the new recognition of the material limits of the biosphere--all
this makes us aware new modes of understanding human dignity”( Justicia in Mundo #12).
As
the paradigm of liberal economic development continues to evolve and being
co-opted by international institutions and transnational corporations, the
church warns that “In the face of international systems of domination, the
bringing about of justice depends more and more on the determined will for
development” (Justicia in Mundo
#13). This will has to be constituted
within the political system that works for “a development of economic growth
and participation; an increase in wealth implying social progress by the entire
community…overcomes regional imbalance and… constitutes a right which is to be
applied both in the economic and in the social and political field” (Justicia in Mundo #18).
While
the world undertakes rapid globalization, we see various faces of injustice
that reflect the problems which every sector and function of society needs to
address. With the upsurge of new development agenda and policies, the church in
particular needs to prepare for new forms of vigilance and undertake activities
that are directed above all to different forms of oppression especially in
sectors of society where there are voiceless victims of injustice (Justicia in Mundo #20). To undertake actions against injustice, the
church recommends an education for social justice that requires
a renewal of heart, a renewal based on the
recognition of sin in its individual and social manifestations. It will also
inculcate a truly and entirely human way of life in justice, love and
simplicity. It will likewise awaken a critical sense, which will lead us to
reflect on the society in which we live and on its values; it will make people
ready to renounce these values when they cease to promote justice for all
people. In the developing countries, the principal aim of this education for
justice consists in an attempt to awaken consciences to a knowledge of the
concrete situation and in a call to secure a total improvement; by these means
the transformation of the world has already begun” (Justicia in Mundo #51).
In
the process of education, people are decidedly made more human, and they become
no longer the object of manipulation by political, economic or cultural forces
but they rather become capable of working on their own destiny that brings
about truly human communities (Justicia
in Mundo #52). Since this process of education involves every person of
every age, it can be called a “continuing education” – one that is undertaken
“through action, participation and vital contact with the reality of injustice”
(Justicia in Mundo #53). This brings to fore the importance of
considering the cultural self-determination that has been severely trampled in
the process of globalization. Gaudium et Spes makes a clear point in
saying that culture, if it were to develop toward becoming truly human, needs
an
adequate freedom of development… and a legitimate
possibility of autonomy according to its own principles. Quite rightly it
demands respect and enjoys certain inviolability, provided, of course, that the
rights of the individual and the community, both particular and universal, are
safeguarded within the limits of the common good. It is not for the public
authority to determine how human culture should develop, but to build up the
environment and to provide assistance favorable to such development, without
overlooking minorities. This is the reason why one must avoid at all costs the
distortion of culture and its exploitation by political or economical forces
[italics mine] (Gaudium et Spes #59).
This
idea is affirmed by another radical encyclical Popularum Progresso, which states that every country, rich or poor,
“possesses a civilization handed down by their ancestors: institutions called
for by life in this world, and higher manifestations of the life of the spirit,
manifestations of an artistic, intellectual and religious character” (Popularum Progresso #40). The reason for
this is that when a country possesses “true human values, it would be grave
error to sacrifice them. A people that would act in this way would thereby lose
the best of its patrimony; in order to live, it would be sacrificing its
reasons for living” (Popularum Progresso
#40). This also calls to mind Christ’s famous teaching “What profit would a man
show if he were to gain the whole world and destroy himself in the process”
(Matthew 16:26).
Development through Social Justice
Paradigm
Social
Justice, not free enterprise, should be the guiding principle of the economic
world. It has been abundantly proven
that free enterprise or free market, although within certain limits just and
productive of good results, has done more damage than good to many especially
the peasants.
For from this source, as from a poisoned spring,
have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.
Therefore, it is most necessary that economic life be again subjected to and
governed by a true and effective directing principle. This function is one that
the economic dictatorship which has recently displaced free competition can
still less perform, since it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that,
to benefit people, needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot
curb and rule itself. Loftier and nobler principles--social justice and social
charity--must, therefore, be sought whereby this dictatorship may be governed
firmly and fully (Quadragesimo Anno #88).
Free
enterprise or the “imperialism of money” (Popularum
Progresso #26) as Pope Pius XI called it, can be curbed if institutions of
social life are penetrated by social justice that establishes a juridical and
social order which will in turn shape economic life (Quadragesimo Anno 88). This proposal of reconstituting the whole of
society in justice echoes part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
Let us, then, be children no longer, tossed here and
there carried about by every wind of doctrine that originates in human trickery
and skill in proposing error. Rather, let us profess the truth in love and grow
to whole maturity of Christ the head. Through him the whole body grows, and
with the proper functioning of the body joined firmly together by its
supporting ligament, builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:14-16).
Popularum Progresso also warns that
“individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never
assure successful development” and so therefore the “risk of increasing still
more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the
poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed” must be
avoided (Popularum Progresso
#33). This goes to say that free trade
is not capable of promoting international relations because it works only in
situations when parties involved are not affected by any excessive inequalities
of economic power, even if (or especially that) this power is considered by
developed countries as the law of justice (Popularum
Progresso #58). Indeed the wisdom of Leo XIII applies here: “if the
positions of the contracting parties are too unequal, the consent of the
parties does not suffice to guarantee the justice of their contract, and the
rule of free agreement remains subservient to the demands of the natural law” (Popularum Progresso #59), which means
that “Freedom of trade is fair only if it is subject to the demands of social
justice” (Popularum Progresso #58). This notion of social justice resonates the
narrative of the Last Judgment, which
climaxed in Jesus’ portrayal of his wish to be identified with the poor “I
assure, as often as you neglected to do it to the least of ones, you neglected
to me” (Matthew 25:45). It also brings
to mind the concept of divine justice in Mary’s
Canticle: “He has deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the
lowly to high places” (Luke 1:52). With centrality of the poor (the Lord’s
least) in social justice, economic reforms must be undertaken intensively.
These reforms must focused on
the reform of the international trade system, which
is mortgaged to protectionism and increasing bilateralism; the reform of the
world monetary and financial system, today recognized as inadequate; the
question of technological exchanges and their proper use; the need for a review
of the structure of the existing International Organizations, in the framework
of an international juridical order (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 43:2).
The
reform of the international trade system is of primal importance as there are
frequent discriminations against the products of new industries of the
developing countries and an international division of labor whereby low-cost
products made in countries without effective labor laws are sold in other parts
of the world at considerable profit (Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis #43:3). And as mentioned earlier, the world monetary and
financial system is marked by an excessive fluctuation of exchange rates and
interest rates, which worsens the debt situation of the some poor countries;
and lastly, many inappropriate and inadequate forms of technology are
transferred or enforced in poorer countries to the detriment of people and the
environment (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis
#43:4-5).
Just Distribution of Goods
In
its discussion on the construction of social order, Pope Pius argues that not
every kind of distribution of wealth and property among people is such that it
can all adequately attain the end intended by God (Quadragesimo Anno #59).
Wealth therefore which is constantly augmented by social and economic
progress, must be distributed among the various individuals and classes of
society, that the common good of all be promoted. In other words the good of the whole
community must be safeguarded, and this way one class is forbidden to exclude
the other from a share of profit (Quadragesimo
Anno #59). Each class then must
receive its due share and the distribution of created goods must be brought
into conformity with the common good and social justice, for every sincere
observer is conscious that the vast differences between the few who hold
excessive wealth and the many that live in destitution constitute a great evil
in society (Quadragesimo Anno #60).
This concept of distribution is called for in the midst of the immense number
of property-less wage-earners on the one hand, and the superabundant riches of
the fortunate few on the other, which makes the earthly goods that are
abundantly produced far from rightly distributed and equitably shared (Quadragesimo Anno #62). Gaudium
et Spes gives the rationale for this distribution:
God
destined the earth and all it contains for all people and nations so that all
created things would be shared fairly by all humankind under the guidance of
justice tempered by charity. No matter how property is structured in different
countries, adapted to their lawful institutions according to various and
changing circumstances, we must never lose sight of this universal destination
of earthly goods. In their use of things people should regard the external
goods they lawfully possess as not just their own but common to others as well,
in the sense that they can benefit others as well as themselves. Therefore
everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth's goods for
themselves and their family (Gaudium et Spes #69:1).
The
distribution of goods should go directly toward providing employment and income
for the people of today and the future.
Whether individuals, groups or public authorities make the decisions
concerning this distribution and the planning of the economy, they are bound to
keep these objectives in mind. They must realize their serious obligation of
seeing to it that the provision is made for the necessities of a decent life on
the part of the individuals and the whole community. They must look out for the
future and establish a proper balance between needs of present-day consumption,
both individual and collective, and the necessity of distributing goods on
behalf of the coming generation. They should also bear in mind the urgent needs
of underdeveloped countries and regions (Gaudium
et Spes #70). More poignantly, Popularum Progresso calls on the duty of
just distribution because “When so many people are hungry, when so many
families suffer from destitution… all public or private squandering of
wealth…becomes an intolerable scandal. We are conscious of our duty to denounce
it” (Popularum Progresso #P53).
Technology is for human development
Another
important part of the proposal of the church for genuine (human and just)
development concerns technology. With
the alienations brought about by modern agricultural technologies, the idea of
progress that is derived from the positivistic and empirical philosophies of
the enlightenment is “seriously called into doubt… A naïve mechanistic optimism
has been replaced by a well-founded anxiety for the fate of humanity (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #27:2).
Alongside this, the economic development paradigm, in which modern technology
is used as instrument, for the accumulation of goods and services is no longer
enough for the realization of human happiness.
Nor, in consequence, does the availability of the many real
benefits provided in recent times by science and technology, including the
computer sciences, bring freedom from every form of slavery. On the contrary, the experience of recent
years shows that unless all the considerable body of resources and potential at
man's disposal is guided by a moral understanding and by an orientation towards
the true good of the human race, it easily turns against man to oppress him
(Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #28).
Indeed,
technological progress must be fostered, along with a spirit of initiative, for
the purpose of production, but the fundamental purpose of this productivity
must not be the mere multiplication of products, nor profit or domination.
Rather it must be at the service of all people and their humanity, and viewed
in terms of their material needs and demands of their intellectual, moral,
spiritual and religious lives (Gaudium et
Spes #64).
Pacem in Terris
highlights the much needed synthesis between material and spiritual values as
it calls on the fact technological capacity and expertise “although necessary,
are not sufficient to elevate the relationships of society to an order that is
genuinely human: an order whose foundation is truth, whose measure and
objective is justice, whose driving force is Love, and whose method of
attainment if freedom” (Pacem in Terris
#149). It therefore proposes a development that is undertaken within the moral
order: “the exercise or vindication of a right, as the fulfillment of a duty or
the performance of a service, as a positive answer to the providential design
of God directed to our salvation” (Pacem
in Terris #150). It further urges the necessity for human beings, in the
intimacy of their own consciences, to live and act in their temporal lives
towards the creation of a synthesis between scientific, technical and
professional elements and spiritual values (Pacem
in Terris #150).
Conclusion
Give us
today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin
against us. (Matthew
6:11-12; Luke 11:3-4).
While
Patel focuses on a rights-based understanding of Food Sovereignty, this paper
takes the concept a step farther to the realm of faith-based ethics. Indeed, in
this rapidly globalizing world, more and more people turn to faith for meaning,
hope and guidance in the midst of miseries and alienations brought about
neoliberal development models. As a
relatively new mode of looking at the reality of global food politics, food
sovereignty is a timely and necessary historical project through which the
faith-based ethics can be fulfilled.
Food
sovereignty and faith-based ethics, when fulfilled in the praxis of peasant
resistance against the neoliberal ideology of development, form two sides of
the same coin. These principles work on the same goal of empowering
peasants towards liberation from oppressive and alienating corporate-controlled
agrarian system. While the Catholic Social Teachings provide the moral
backdrop for the attainment of food sovereignty, the principles of food
sovereignty facilitate the realization of the cultural-social-political values
within which the teachings are fulfilled. Indeed, food sovereignty is a
practical historical project that completes the praxis and observance the Catholic
Social Teachings.
Social
change, such as the fulfillment of food sovereignty, is a continuing process.
Framed as a moral agenda through Catholic Social Teachings, food sovereignty offers
a viable and sustainable route to the
creation of a just and humane world. Guided by Catholic Social Teachings, those
in the center and peripheries of development discourse and practice should
continue to assert the dignity of the poor and oppressed, and the integrity of
the environment, and hopefully help emancipate all those who suffer from excessive
neoliberal politico-economic domination.
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