Interview: Raj Patel on agroecology, reparative approaches, and land reform

some of the most exciting food systems, for example in Cuba, happen not because the government decides this is what it's going to be, but because peasants rise up and make the government bend to the people's will.

I do think that it's important for us to re-localize our food systems, but to do it in a way that recognizes the interdependencies of our diet and of the world in which we find ourselves.

Agroecology is a way of understanding how to grow things, but also understanding that agriculture doesn't just happen in fields. Agriculture is the product of a range of operations of social power, and that's really hard for people to get their heads around.

cheap food has been bought at the expense of the planet and of workers for far too long.

A potential dividend of a shift towards agroecology is a recognition not only of the imperial character of American farming even today and the need to engage in reparations for the destruction of agriculture south of the border, but also a recognition of the deep knowledge and work that is required to make agriculture possible.

Understanding how food systems are not just about the theft of labor, but also about the nourishing of communities offers a way of breaking open a purely workerist approach to understanding how transformation might happen.

We still need to live in some sort of recognition that humans can't hive themselves off into cities and pretend that nature happens outside the city, and inside the city is some fantastically controlled biome over which humans have dominion. That's not the way that the planet or ecology works.

what's interesting is not the choice between local or international, but more about how much of this is driven by the grassroots and driven by workers’ organizations and organizations that understand the vital importance of a connection to the land.