Feed the futureland: an actor-based approach to studying food security projects

Carrie Seay-Fleming ()
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Carrie Seay-Fleming: University of Colorado Boulder-Sociology

Agriculture and Human Values, 2023, vol. 40, issue 4, No 17, 1623-1637

Abstract: Abstract Critical development and food studies scholars argue that the current food security paradigm is emblematic of a ‘New Green Revolution’, characterized by agricultural intensification, increasing reliance on biotechnology, deepening global markets, and depeasantization. High-profile examples of this model are not hard to find. Less examined, however, are food-security programs that appear to work at cross-purposes with this model. Drawing on the case of Feed the Future in Guatemala, I show how USAID engages in activities that valorize ancestral crops, subsistence production, and agroecological practices. Rather than the result of macro-level planning—of either the New Green Revolution or a greener reform regime—I argue that nonconforming food security projects can be traced to individual actors and their interactions on the ground. I draw on an ‘interface approach’ (Long 1990), focusing on the lifeworlds of development workers, their interfaces with each other, and with the to-be-developed. Doing so reveals how food security projects are significantly shaped by the relationships and interests of development actors enmeshed in particular organizational and national settings. This research contributes a fresh perspective on the food security paradigm and its role within the ‘corporate food regime’.

Keywords: Food security; Development; Guatemala; Food regimes; Agrarian change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s10460-023-10460-4

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