Food, fuel and fury : democratising a sustainable economy through community based food networks in North East Brazil

Abstract

This research analyses political structures and discourses surrounding the complex relationship between food, fossil fuels, and economic redistribution. It highlights and explores two competing agricultural development discourses and their impacts in North-Eastern Brazil: the struggle for modernisation through market economy, technology, export oriented development and a resource extraction economy versus the collaboration of social movements to promote peasant farming, organic agriculture, collectivization of power and a level of autonomy of food production from market forces. The research highlights the differences in the approaches and critically assesses the long-term implications they have for economic, social and environmental development.