Boaventura Monjane (CASAS’ member) has written this chapter in the book “Just Economics? Business Perspectives on Corporate Accountability and Democratizing the Economy”.

Abstract: This chapter examines the proactive roles of agrarian social movements involved in food production and trade in Southern Africa in addressing corporate accountability for human and environmental rights violations, with a particular focus on Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. It highlights how these movements and networks, in particular La Via Campesina Southern and East Africa and the Rural Women’s Assembly, not only seek justice and reparations for human rights abuses and ecological harm by agribusiness corporations, but are also committed to building transformative economic alternatives that prioritize local, ecologically sustainable practices. I argue that, while corporate power and impunity dominate the food and agriculture sector by controlling value chains and market mechanisms, emerging regional networks of small-scale food producers and traders are making a significant impact in counterbalancing this power. These movements and networks are creating alternative economic systems that not only challenge agribusiness power, but also reclaim accountability from corporate hegemony in the food and agriculture sector across the region.

Read the chapter: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003789055-16

CASAS

The Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the Global South (CASAS) is a community of Scholar-Activists working in critical agrarian studies.