Abstract: The Covid-19 disease is quickly developing into a deep, global and enduring politico-economic crisis that involves a rapid disarticulation of the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. The badly balanced world market and the high degree of financialization of both primary agricultural production and food chains are decisive factors in this. The crisis highlights that the real economy is far too dependent on the financial economy. Financial capital operates as a paralyzing force. In this situation food sovereignty, peasant agriculture, territorial markets and agroecology emerge as indispensable ingredients for a recovery.
To cite this article: Jan Douwe van der Ploeg (2020): From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: the food system in times of Covid-19, The Journal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2020.1794843
Grassroots Voices Forum: “Pandemic and Critical Agrarian Studies”
The Journal of Peasant Studies is launching a rolling forum with experiences from the frontlines of the current crisis: ‘Grassroots Voices: pandemics and critical agrarian studies’ – in collaboration with the Transnational Institute (TNI – www.tni.org). As the pandemic unfolds, many of the fatal flaws of capitalism are being laid bare. It is a moment when new alliances are being formed and new militant organizing is springing up, as are new forms of authoritarianism and repression. This is a moment of potentially great rupture – but in what direction and for who is up for grabs. The Grassroots Voices section seeks to document what is happening from the grassroots perspective. Migrant workers, domestic laborers, peasant farmers, small-scale fishers, informal food vendors, and rural-urban migrants all have had their lives upended. We expect this conjuncture to affect potentially radical changes in long-term trends towards authoritarian governance, industry consolidation, marginalization of migrant workers, land grabs and financialization, as well as creating a surge of left organizing, food worker strikes, mutual aid networks, and new grassroots alliances. What is the experience on the ground? These experiences, of course, are conditioned by the historical changes that came before, by rising populism, and the history of movement organizing. We hope to put these new experiences in historical context, track them longitudinally, and highlight emerging strategies.
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Juan Liu
Dr Juan Liu is an associate professor of political ecology and agrarian studies at the College of Humanities and Development Studies, China Agricultural University (COHD-CAU) and a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). Her research interests include energy transitions, migration and the left-behind population, land politics, and political economy/ecology of agriculture, food and environment, etc.