Laying the foundations of a more conscious society? How vendors, consumers and organizers socially construct farmers’ markets in Bogotá, Colombia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21501/22161201.3726Keywords:
Sustainability, Peasantry, Alternative agri-food systems, Alternative food networks, Latin AmericaAbstract
This study examines how vendors, customers, and organizers socially construct agroecological farmers markets (FM) in Bogotá. Using a multi-method approach entailing structured and unstructured interviews, descriptive statistics, and ethnographic content analysis, the study shows how the actors situate FM in relation to debates on sustainability, rural development, and alternative agri-food systems in Colombia. The results demonstrate that vendors, customers, and organizers often hold largely similar perspectives on FM and their relations with the dominant food system. Specifically, they conceive of FM as an alternative to the dominant food system and experience them as spaces in which utilitarian relations are put aside in favour of alternative values and practices, which include care for other human and non-human beings and limited economic competition. Furthermore, FM simultaneously function as protective spaces for peasant knowledge and culture and connectors between rurality and urbanity. Finally, this study shows that FM cannot be fully understood within the sectoral scope of sustainable agriculture, or rural development; rather, they represent an attempt to lay the foundations of a more conscious society that vendors, customers, and organizers want to help come into being.
Downloads
References
Acevedo-Osorio, Á., Santoyo-Sánchez, J. S., Guzmán, P., & Jiménez-Reinales, N. (2018). La Agricultura FMiliar frente al modelo extractivista de desarrollo rural en Colombia. Gestión y Ambiente 21(2Supl), 144-154. http://dx.doi.org/10.15446/ga.v21n2supl.73925
Ardila, G., Andrade, G., Benavides, J., Carrizosa, J., García, J., Rodríguez, G., Rudas, G., & Ruiz, J. P. (2013). Desarrollo económico y adaptación al cambio climático(M. Cárdenas and M. Rodríguez,Eds.). FESCOL and Foro Nacional Ambiental.
Brown, C., & Miller, S. (2008). The impacts of local markets: A review of research on farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA). American Journal of Agricultural Economics 90(5), 1296–1302. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8276.2008.01220.x
Bryman, A. (2016). Social Research Methods. 5th ed. Oxford University Press.
Chaparro Africano, A., & Calle Collado, Á. (2017). Peasant economy sustainability in peasant markets, Colombia. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 41(2), 204-225.
Cruz, E. (2017). La rebelión de las ruanas: el paro nacional agrario en Colombia. Análisis, 49(90), 83-109. https://doi.org/10.15332/s0120-8454.2017.0090.04
Cruz, E. (2014). Dignidad en movimiento. El ascenso de la movilización social en Colombia (2010-2014). Confluenze. Rivista Di Studi Iberoamericani, 6(2), 241–275. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-0967/4765
Feagan, R., Morris, D., & Krug, K. (2004). Niagara region farmers’ markets: Local food systems and sustainability considerations. Local Environment, 9(3), 235–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354983042000219351
Feagan, R. (2007). The place of food: Mapping out the ‘local’ in local food systems. Progress in Human Geography, 31(1), 23–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132507073527
Feola, G. (2018). Contra la indiferencia: un llamado para la participación civil en el posconflicto en Colombia. Revista Ciudad Paz-ando, 11(1), 51-61. https://doi.org/10.14483/2422278X.12622
Feola, G. (2017). Adaptive institutions? Peasant institutions and natural models facing climatic and economic changes in the Colombian Andes. Journal of Rural Studies, 49, 117-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.10.007
Feola, G., Agudelo Vanegas, L. A., & Contesse Bamón, B. P. (2015). Colombian agriculture under multiple exposures: a review and research agenda. Climate and Development, 7(3), 278–292. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2014.934776
Feola, G., Suzunaga, J., Soler, J., & Wilson, A. (2020) Peri-urban agriculture as quiet sustainability: challenging the urban development discourse in Sogamoso, Colombia. Journal of Rural Studies, 80, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.04.032
Fonte, M. (2008). Knowledge, food and place. A way of producing, a way of knowing. Sociologia Ruralis, 48(3), 200-222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2008.00462.x
González Vélez, C. A., Montenegro Riveros, M., & García González, D. F. (2018). “Yo compro campesino”: una aproximación a las representaciones sociales de los consumidores de los mercados campesinos. Revista Colombiana de Sociología, 41(2), 61–81.
Guarín, A. (2013). The value of domestic supply chains: Producers, wholesalers, and urban consumers in Colombia. Development Policy Review, 31(5), 511–530. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12023
Guzman, J. I. (2017). Mercados Campesinos: food sovereignty construction and peasant autonomy in Bogota, Colombia [Master's thesis, University of Texas]. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/62919
Hajer, M. (2002). Discourse analysis and the study of policy making. European Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2002.49
Hinrichs, C. C. (2000). Embeddedness and local food systems: Notes on two types of direct agricultural market. Journal of Rural Studies, 16(3), 295–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(99)00063-7
Hinrichs, C. C., Gillespie, G.W., & Feenstra, G. W. (2004). Social learning and innovation at retail farmers' markets. Rural Sociology, 69(1), 31-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1526/003601104322919892
Hubeau, M., Marchand, F., & Van Huylenbroeck G. (2017). Sustainability Experiments in the Agri-Food System: Uncovering the Factors of New Governance and Collaboration Success. Sustainability, 9(6), 1027. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061027
Hunt, A. R. (2007). Consumer interactions and influences on farmers’ market vendors. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 22(1), 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170507001597
Jiménez Martín, A. C., Moreno Rubio, S., & Puello-Socarrás, J. F. (2017). Poder(es) en movimiento(s). Procesos y dinámicas (re) constituyentes en Colombia durante el siglo XXI. Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Joassart-Marcelli, P., & Bosco, G. J. (2014). Alternative Food Projects, Localization and Neoliberal Urban Development: Farmers’ Markets in Southern California. Metropoles, 15. https://doi.org/10.4000/metropoles.4970
Kirwan, J. (2004). Alternative strategies in the UK agro‐food system: interrogating the alterity of farmers' markets. Sociologia Ruralis, 44(4), 395-415.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2004.00283.x
León-Sicard, T., De Prager, M. S., & Acevedo Osorio, A. (2017). Toward a history of agroecology in Colombia. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 41(3-4), 296–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2017.1285843
Leslie, I. S. (2017). Improving farmers markets and challenging neoliberalism in Argentina. Agriculture and Human Values 34, 729–742. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-017-9774-z
Little, R., Maye, D., & Ilbery, B. (2010). Collective purchase: moving local and organic foods beyond the niche market. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 42(8), 1797-1813. https://doi.org/10.1068/a4262
López-Posada, J. C., & Pachón-Ariza, F. A. (2017). Identificación de ventajas y desventajas de los canales de comercialización en las economías campesinas de dos municipios de Meta y Cundinamarca, Colombia. Revista de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, 8(1), 35-47. https://doi.org/10.19053/20278306.v8.n1.2017.7369
Machado, A. (2010). Lessons on rural development, challenges and approaches Lecciones del desarrollo rural, desafíos y enfoques. Agronomía Colombiana, 28(3), 437–443.
Marín-Usuga, M. R., Casamitjana Causa, M., & Loaiza-Usuga, J. C. (2016). Agricultural Modernization Policies and Rural Development in Colombia (1996-2008). Revista EIA, 13(25), 99–117. https://revistas.eia.edu.co/index.php/Reveiaenglish/article/view/1049Milestad, R., Westberg, L., Geber, U., Björklund, J. (2010). Enhancing Adaptive Capacity in Food Systems: Learning at Farmers’ Markets in Sweden. Ecology and Society, 15(3). http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss3/art29/
Quitían Ayala, L. L. (2020). Sustentabilidad de los mercados en circuitos cortos de comercialización y su contribución a los sistemas alimentarios [Master’s Thesis, Universidad Javeriana]. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353225180_Sustentabilidad_de_los_mercados_en_circuitos_cortos_de_comercializacion_y_su_contribucion_a_los_sistemas_alimentarios
Reina-Usuga, L., de Haro-Giménez, T., & Parra-López, C. (2020). Food governance in Territorial Short Food Supply Chains: Different narratives and strategies from Colombia and Spain. Journal of Rural Studies, 75, 237-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.02.005
Reina-Usuga, L. (2018). Sustainability and food governance: Contribution of territorial short food supply chains in two case studies of Colombia and Spain [Doctoral dissertation, University of Córdoba]. https://helvia.uco.es/handle/10396/17586
Roldán Rueda, N., Gracia, M. A., & Mier y Teran, M. (2018). Los mercados locales alternativos en México y Colombia: resistencias y transformaciones en torno a procesos de certificación. Cuadernos de Desarrollo Rural, 15(82), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.cdr15-82.mlam
Romagnoli, F., Molina, J., & Parrado, Á. (2018). How to improve smallholder market access: Evaluation of mercados campesinos in Colombia. Agronomia Colombiana, 36(1), 79–87. https://doi.org/10.15446/agron.colomb.v36n1.67970
Sage, C. (2003). Social embeddedness and relations of regard: alternative ‘good food’ networks in south-west Ireland. Journal of Rural Studies, 19(2003), 47-60.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(02)00044-X
Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico de la Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá (2016). Mejoramiento de la eficiencia del sistema de abastecimiento y seguridad alimentaria de Bogotá. Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, Bogotá. http://www.desarrolloeconomico.gov.co/sites/default/files/planeacion/1020_seguridad_alimentaria.pdf (accessed 2020/02/11)
Secretaría Distrital de Planeación (2016) Estratificación socioeconómica [website]. Retrieved from: http://www.sdp.gov.co/gestion-estudios-estrategicos/estratificacion/estratificacion-por-localidad Sharp, J. S., & Smith, M. B. (2003). Social capital and farming at the rural-urban interface: The importance of nonfarmer and farmer relations. Agricultural Systems, 76(3), 913–927. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-2927(02)00083-5
Smithers, J., Lamarche, J., & Joseph, A. E. (2008). Unpacking the terms of engagement with local food at the Farmers’ Market: Insights from Ontario. Journal of Rural Studies, 24(3), 337–350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2007.12.009
Sonnino, R., & Marsden, T. (2006). Beyond the divide: rethinking relationships between alternative and conventional food networks in Europe. Journal of Economic Geography, 6, 181-199. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbi006Suarez, A., Arias-Arévalo, P. A., & Martinez-Mera, E. (2018). Environmental sustainability in post-conflict countries: insights for rural Colombia. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 20(3), 997-1015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-9925-9
Ulloa, A., & Coronado, S. (Eds.). (2016). Extractivismos y posconflicto en Colombia: retos para la paz territorial. Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Van der Ploeg, J. D. (2008). The New peasantries: struggles for autonomy and sustainability in an era of Empire and Globalization. Routledge.
Young, C., Karpyn, A., Uy, N., Wich, K., & Glyn, J. (2011). Farmers' markets in low income communities: impact of community environment, food programs and public policy. Community Development, 42(2), 208-220. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2010.551663
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
La revista y los textos individuales que en esta se divulgan están protegidos por las leyes de copyright y por los términos y condiciones de la Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-No Comercial-Sin Derivar 4.0 Internacional.
