For several decades in Latin America, social movements have been promoting a ‘social solidarity economy’ (economia social solidaria), popularly known as EcoSol. They have sought to develop democratic self-management of enterprises, cooperative links among them and dignified livelihoods. In parallel, they have built closer relationships with consumers through short-supply chains, called circuitos cortos, thus avoiding profit-driven middlemen and providing fair prices. They advocate public policies which can facilitate collective capacities and opportunities for such initiatives. Their networks are linked globally and regionally, as in Latin America, together seeking ‘to strengthen the basis of an alternative to the current capitalist system’.
Over the past decade there have been greater synergies between EcoSol and agroecology movements. Through solidaristic relationships, collective marketing has been carried out by agroecological producers, conscientious consumers or both together. Various forms include: farmers’ markets, weekly food baskets, institutional purchases (especially school meals), community-based tourism, swaps of surplus products, etc. These circuitos cortos seek to enhance social reciprocity, producers’ income, access to healthy food, nutritional quality, nature conservation and sociocultural benefits.
When the Covid-19 pandemic intensified in early 2020, new hygiene requirements caused difficulties for such arrangements, especially farmers’ markets. Nevertheless many solidarity networks overcame the difficulties by creatively adapting or innovating circuitos cortos.
The AgroEcos project has facilitated and studied those efforts with agroecological producers’ cooperatives, meanwhile developing methods of participatory action research. Before the Covid pandemic, the project had posed this research question: How do agroecological initiatives develop collective capacities for circuitos cortos? This question gained greater significance during the pandemic. Agroecological initiatives have been adapting circuitos cortos along many lines: restructuring (or relocating) farmers’ markets, establishing online orders, engaging with solidaristic delivery systems, supplying vulnerable individuals as solidarity actions, swapping surplus products, gaining new action research
These efforts build an ‘economy of proximity’, based on proximate or common purposes. These include: democratic self-management, mutual aid, socioeconomic inclusion, respect for the environment, gender equality, etc. Those proximate purposes help to activate other forms of proximity, e.g. organizational, institutional, cultural and geographical.
Circuitos cortos depend on collective capacities to build and link the various forms of proximity. Those multiple proximities have been highlighted and promoted by Brazil’s Fórum de Economia Solidária da Baixada Santista (FESBS). This general strategy is exemplified by several agroecological initiatives in the AgroEcos project. Its acronym indicates that the initiatives have many echoes across space and time. This perspective can help agroecological initiatives and their networks to plan more effective strategies.
For more details, read our article,
Agroecology’s societal benefits depend on solidaristic relationships: some experiences from Brazil
Versão português:
Agroecologia tem benefícios sociais que dependem em relações solidárias, https://3d33eb12-f421-47a1-a45f-76acc45bd2d6.filesusr.com/ugd/5872ec_9199e824ded34a3c9c45ba797335e0db.pdf
Acknowledgements
For this case study, the FESBS has a partnership with the Instituto de Políticas Públicas e Relações Internacionais (IPPRI) at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Together they have carried out participatory action research for many years. This study contributes to the AgroEcos project, whose full title is ‘Research Partnership for an Agroecology-Based Solidarity Economy in Bolivia and Brazil’, led by the Open University, funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), https://projetoagroecos.wixsite.com/meusite
For an overview of three case studies in Brazil and Bolivia, see our trilingual Boletim no.2, November 2021