Title of document: "Getting into a bind": How trade and investment regime blocks the development of Agroecology and access to land
Authors: Nathalia Carrau and Martin Drago
Ministry/Government Agency/Organisation: Friends of the Earth
Year of publication: October 2016
Geographic focus: Worldwide
Summary: There are multiple unregistered impacts, which are made invisible or inadequately reported, that prove the agribusiness led agrifood system is deeply unfair in many ways and fails to deliver a solution for the inter connected global crises of hunger, poverty and environmental destruction – crises that urgently need to be addressed by international governance spaces. This paper argues that the current trade and investment framework promotes agribusiness and in fact aggravates its impacts because, it also blocks the development of agroecology and food sovereignty. The negative impacts of the prevailing trade and investment model, such as increasing hunger and poverty, are not measured or addressed because the hegemonic theoretical, conceptual and symbolic framework is dominated by the rationale of the capitalist system that gives value to food and farming based strictly on its economic profitability. This paper aims to contrast the logic and rationale behind investing in agribusiness vs investing in agroecology.