Compeerist economic structures solve ag climate impacts and food scarcity

Hannes, Professor of Geography at the University of West Georgia. “Contending With the Limits of Our Natural World.” From Capital to Commons: Exploring the Promise of a World Beyond Capitalism. University of Bristol. Pp 121-124. /LJS

In this section we will limit ourselves to what is undoubtedly the most critical amalgamation of renewable resources: agriculture. Today agricultural systems, especially in the Minority World but increasingly in the Majority World as well, are firmly in the grip of profit-oriented big-capital in pursuit of ever-greater efficiencies, that is, the drive to achieve the biggest bang for your buck. In practical terms this equates to the industrialization of agriculture, where economies of scale are pursued to create ever-larger, more mechanized farms with an emphasis on expansive monocrops and concentrated animal feeding operations. It is these strategies that also lead to the unsustainable, damaging impacts on the undergirding ecosystems due to the heavy and often indiscriminate reliance on limited ground water, fossil fuels, artificial fertilizers, pesticides/herbicides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). An alternative, compeerist-aligned form of agriculture, therefore, has two interrelated aims. One is to achieve a more equitable, community-centred, and, ultimately, use-value oriented governance arrangement for our agricultural means of production. The other, and seen as a direct consequence of the former, is the establishment of a more generative (and hence symbiotic) relationship to the land and its natural systems (Piques and Rizos, 2017; Giotitsas, 2019). Relevant techniques employed to achieve this second imperative include the use of organic fertilizer, integrated pest management, limited soil tillage, intercropping, and concerted soil maintenance and recovery. As such it is a form of agriculture that participates in the circular economies in nature via the nutrient, energy, and water cycles already in place. At the same time, and supplementing the focus on localized commons governance and stewardship, there remains an emphasis on the power of the digitized general intellect to assist in the execution of such agriculture. Given the obvious similarities here with the basic impetus of the DG-ML model, then, we can denote this approach ‘design global, farm local’ (DG-FL). Feeding the world The first issue to be resolved in the pursuit of a DG-FL arrangement is whether it could actually provide enough food to meet the needs of a global population expected to reach over 10 billion people in this century. The biggest focus when considering this question tends to fall on analyses of yields and productivity. Those in support of the current industrial agricultural system argue that it produces the highest possible yields with ever-diminishing labour needs; any shift from these gains, it is argued, would cause a serious reduction in food supply, rising prices, and hence hunger. The pushback to such arguments, however, emphasizes the fact that smallholder, non-industrialized agriculture is, in fact, a major source of our current food supply and that there remains much still untapped potential in this more sustainable farming approach. Homing in on the question of potential, the first point to be made here is that feeding humanity is not just about yields, but about creating broad socio-economic arrangements that support and foster much more efficient agricultural production and consumption, measured in terms of overall resource and ecosystem use and impact. A widely circulated and esteemed study by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, for instance, found that organic forms of food production, which are often performed at smaller scales, could meet the needs of the world with the caveat that food waste, meat consumption, and non-food crop commitments would need to be significantly reduced (Muller et al, 2017). In essence, existing agricultural land needs to be reorganized to achieve use-value, that is, the aim should be feeding people, not animals or combustion engines (via bio-fuels). A DG-FL approach to agriculture could go a long way in bringing about such a needed shift. Most obviously, growing food within a reasonable distance to where it is consumed would significantly help in reducing food waste, most of which is linked to getting agricultural goods to distant users/ consumers. Indeed, it is estimated that about a third of the world’s produced food ends up as waste, representing a massive squandering of energy and land (Hawken, 2021). Additionally, a localization and democratization of agriculture could re-establish a connection between farmer/farm and user (challenging deeply entrenched alienation), which, in turn, could foster a greater demand for more resilient and humane forms of production and consumption, even if they are more labour intensive, and hence pricier. Relatedly, rediscovering the rewards of local food, such as eating fruits and vegetables that actually taste like something, could boost overall supply through the expansion of personal and prosumer food production in yards, rooftops, and community gardens. Turning to yields, there is ample research indicating that organic agriculture is not only more productive than assumed, but that it could still significantly increase its productive capacity with the right technologically enabled interventions (Badgley et al, 2007; Rodale 2018). It is here that the design global component of the DG-FL model also becomes relevant, as a vibrant digital commons could become an invaluable source of agriculturally focused knowledge/data/design/code that could boost sustainable production while reducing labour demands. We will consider this potential in more detail shortly when we delve into the directly related challenge of making commons-oriented farms more economically viable. Yet before moving on, we must briefly also address what is undoubtedly the most controversial of all yield boosting technologies: GMOs. To begin, it is important to note that a 100 per cent adoption of organic or even small-scale production is not always required within a generative, compeerist-aligned farming arrangement. In some cases, as in the production of grains, non-organic inputs and monocropping may be justified if these are holistically monitored and supplemented with restorative techniques to ensure any affected ecological systems are not overly stressed. The same logic then applies to the use of genetically modified organisms, which are generally rejected in organic production. While there is much disagreement on the risks associated with this technology, there is mounting evidence that GMOs could significantly boost the yields of smaller farms engaging in otherwise generative agricultural methods (Rotman, 2020). The fundamental constraint on this potential today is that GMO technology is primarily controlled by capital, which has focused on the development of seeds intended to play a particular function within a broader industrial agricultural system geared towards profit. As such, plants are designed for their compatibility with synthetic inputs, their ability to be transported long distances, their outer appearance, and their infertility (a classic case of imposed scarcity that makes the purchase of seeds necessary). However, in the spirit of abstract hacktivism, GMO research could very well be turned towards other aims instead, for instance making plants more resilient, productive, and nutritious without the need of additional, non-organic inputs. Importantly, many of these benefits can be achieved without using genetic material from non-related species, that is, cisgenic as opposed to transgenic modification, thus posing a much smaller chance of unwanted mutations and other risks. Proponents of cisgenic GMOs argue, therefore, that less regulation in this form of modification is called for. In their view, a loosening of government restrictions could boost a much broader range of collaborative, commonsbased research, leading to much bigger yields in regions currently suffering from paltry agricultural production (Benkler, 2006b; Rotman, 2020). Further bolstering this potential is the development of gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, that are becoming more precise, easy to use, and cheap. Still, despite the latent promise here, compeerism refrains from prescribing the degree to which any technology should be adopted. In the end, compeerists pursuing a post-capitalist path to food security will need to weigh the pros and cons of GMOs for themselves, based on their respective contexts and priorities.