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Regenerative

Agriculture:

A Historical Context

@MDFinanceSD

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What is Regenerative Agriculture?

“Rooted in Indigenous wisdom, regenerative farming is an alternative decision-making framework that offers a set of principles and practices to grow food in harmony with nature and heal the land from degradation. The regenerative principles include farming and ranching with an understanding of the land’s natural resource availability, building and prioritizing soil health, reducing and eventually eliminating the use of harmful chemicals, integrating animals onto agricultural land, and nurturing strong relationships with communities.”

—DEFINITION FROM THE NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

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So how did we get here?

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Part 1:

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Primitive Accumulation

Colonization—the Root of Modern Capitalism

The accumulation of wealth, land, natural resources, and even HUMAN BODIES through violence and espionage—THIS IS THE HISTORY OF CAPITAL IN THE WEST.
Indigenous communities were exterminated through violence and disease in order to steal lands
Europeans imposed intensive farming methods that slowly destroyed the land..
Africans were enslaved and brought to the continents of Abya Yala* in order to work the land.
Commodities produced in Abya Yala flowed to Europe

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*Abya Yala: just one Indigenous name (Kuna people) for the continents currently known as the Americas.

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The Dust Bowl, 1930s

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-Easily the most well-known example of industrial/destructive agriculture.

-The wonton use of tilling drained the prairies that ancestrally were grazing lands for bison and occasional farming grounds for Great Plains Indigenous communities.

-The principal crops grown by Ancestral farmers were maize (corn), beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, goosefoot, tobacco, gourds, and plums, were also grown.

-Dr. Rozanne Dunbar-Ortiz illustrates these differences beautiful, bringing up European explorer accounts of giant orchards and immaculate gardens. This chisme reached the European countries very quickly during the first years of contact.

-In order to reverse these effects, intensive federal programming was enacted, but the practice of industrial agriculture remains with us today!

-Super racist/predatory policies against Black and Indigenous landholders though private financiers, the USDA, and acts of terrorism by White communities to steal land in the South.

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Industrial Agriculture

The Green Revolution and Neoliberalism

Glyphosate, which has its roots in World War chemical warfare technologies.
GMO technologies that create monocrops and eliminate crop diversity
International Monetary Fund (IMF), Free Trade Agreements, and Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)
Western subsidies in a very specific set of crops for commodity markets (corn, soy, wheat, cotton, rice)

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-So what’s next after these foundations?

-The current context of agriculture is known as industrial agriculture and it is important to remember is a continuation of the former stage that dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands and created MASSIVE wealth through enslaved labor.

-There is a tech aspect to this system. Maximizing yields with chemicals developed through warfare and GMOs meant to be monocrops and highly controlled by private companies like Monsanto.

-But there is also a political element through global institutions like the IMF. Established after WW2, these institutions were used to impose the wills of the West through capital on Indigenous communities throughout the world, but particularly in the Global South.

-One good example of this is NAFTA and its effects in Mexico. Indigenous farmers, who traditionally cultivated dozens of varieties of corn in Mexico, were suddenly not able to sustain their place in the markets because of the dumping of corn from the USA. The reaction to this was the Zapatista movement in Southern Mexico!

-Policies imposed by the North have diverted the traditional farming practices of campesinos that has existed for generations to commercial agricultural practices in an attempt to increase agricultural efficiency and strengthen food security. (this is a quote from Walden Bello)

-The ultimate goal was to attract the private sector into the agriculture economy so that agriculture productivity increases through industrialized mode of agriculture instead of ancestral Indigenous agriculture. (Good case studies: Malawi, Philippines, and Mexico)

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Zapatistas

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Indigenous Methods

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Regeneration and restoration

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Part 2:

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The Case for Sovereignty

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Land/Territory

Food

Knowledge

Diversity

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Garifuna Territory in Honduras

A Modern Case Study

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Vallecito, Colon, Honduras

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Vallecito, a collective land

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Food processing

Crop production

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Integrated Pest �Management (IPM)

Water conservation

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Great Resources!

A starter list

“The Food Wars”, by Walden Bello

“An Indigenous People's History of the Americas,” Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

“Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and Promise of Agroecology,” Vandana Shiva

“Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health,” Devon A Mihesuah

“Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement,” Monica M. White

“Kiss the Ground” Documentary on Netflix

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