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Over 6,000 individuals and 500 organizations have participated in consultas on the land law with Ecuador’s government.
Social movements have long waited for meaningful and concrete progress toward La Revolución Agraria y la Soberanía Alimentaria in Ecuador. What these movements are specifically seeking is the approval of the Ley de Tierras Rurales y Territorios Ancestrales (Land Law) — a policy reform that would radically transform land tenure and property rights in Ecuador. The new land law would replace the 1994 Agrarian Development Law, a neoliberal policy that liberalized land markets and favored large-scale export-oriented agricultural production that compromised the stability of small-scale farmers and autonomy of Indigenous communities.
This new land law is rooted in the concept of food sovereignty — a theory/practice and movement that advocates for small-scale farming and agroecology, national land reform policies, and for a new international trade regime, all with an overriding commitment to social justice, including ethnic, racial, and gender equity.Food sovereignty was proposed as an alternative concept to food security in 1996 at the World Food Summit by La Via Campesina, a transnational organization consisting of peasants, small and medium-scale farmers, rural women, farm workers, and Indigenous organizations. Food sovereignty goes beyond food security or the right to food, instead focusing on democratizing access to and control over land and water resources.
In Latin America, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have formally incorporated the concept of food sovereignty into their national constitutions and national policy. In the 2008 Ecuadorean Constitution, food sovereignty is defined as a right, a strategy, and an obligation of the state to ensure that everyone can achieve self-sufficiency of healthy and culturally appropriate food. The state also regulates the use of and access to land to prohibit both its (re)concentration (latifundios and minifundios), and the privatization of water resources.Food sovereignty in Ecuador is also central to attaining Sumak Kawsay — a Kichwa Indigenous cosmovision that offers an alternative model to neoliberal development.
However, the practice of food sovereignty in Ecuador remains elusive and contentious. Since the 2008 Constitution, movements have waited for the promise of La Revolucion Agraria to be fulfilled. While the government has implemented programs and projects that redistribute land (Plan Tierras) and aid in the transition to agroecology (Hombro a Hombro), it has not been to the extent that movements believe would bring about a radical change in land tenure and property rights.The New Land Law
Nearly one-third of the population of Ecuador lives in rural areas, with about 70 percent of the rural population employed in either agriculture, livestock or hunting. Rural areas also have the highest incidence of chronic malnutrition and poverty. The concentration of land is incredibly unequal where land holdings larger than 500 hectares represent less than 1 percent of all properties, yet account for 18 percent of land ownership in the Highlands and in the Coast, and 12 percent in the Amazon. These landowners produce bananas, cacao, sugar cane, and African palm for export, and are also the main beneficiaries of Ecuador’s new trade agreement with the European Union.
On the other hand, small and medium-scale farmers represent 84.5 percent of all farms but control only 20 percent of land. These farmers produce a variety of grains, vegetables and protein for internal consumption.
Social movements argue the new land law should specifically address the problem of rural inequality by defining latifundios so as to limit the amount of land an individual — both national and foreigner — can own. This would regulate the use and sale of lands to avert the re-concentration of land and land grabbing, as well as the exploration of oil and mining in Indigenous and ancestral territories.Food sovereignty in Ecuador is also central to attaining Sumak Kawsay — a Kichwa Indigenous cosmovision that offers an alternative model to neoliberal development.
The issue in defining latifundios is in determining what a latifundio looks like in the Coast, Highlands or Amazon of Ecuador. How much is too much land? The answer is far from straightforward due to the heterogeneity in the productive, social, and cultural activities linked to land use across the country.
Movements are similarly concerned about how the state will acquire land to later redistribute it to landless farmers. According to the proposed law, the government can acquire land that is not serving its social or environmental function - that is, regulating whether land is used efficiently, generating employment, or conserving the environment. Although movements praise the idea of the environmental function of land, they argue the law is unclear in how land will be redistributed equitably— in other words, they are concerned about what land, to whom, and at what price.Lastly, movements demand the land law not only protect existing communal land rights, but also expedite the process of attaining and securing communal land rights. Regardless of land use, for most individuals and communities formal recognition of land provides a sense of security where one can work on their land without the fear of being displaced. One can also gain access to credits, subsidies, and other types of support mechanisms with land titles. Although these issues have been taken into consideration by the National Assembly - the law remains to be approved.
The Writing of the New Land Law
Social movements have played a small, but key role in advancing food sovereignty related policies in Ecuador. Specifically, movements pushed for the creation of Conferencia Plurinacional e Intercultural de Soberanía Alimentaria (COPISA), a state institution responsible for writing nine laws that expand and address a range of issues - from the redistribution of land and the granting of territorial rights to the conservation of mangrove fisheries and artisanal fishing.
In 2012, COPISA and the Red Agraria — a coalition of civil-society organizations — introduced a proposal for a new land law into the National Assembly by strategically using a constitutional provision called iniciativa popular. The proposal was drafted with a variety of civil society organizations that represented small and medium-scale farmers, labor unions, women and fisherfolk — including the participation of national level movements like CONAIE, FENOCIN, CNC-Eloy Alfaro and FEI. The proposal was reviewed but never passed into law. Rather, the Committee for Food Sovereignty decided to incorporate select articles of the COPISA proposal into one of their own draft versions of a land law - the one that is currently under review.The draft land law has endured several revisions, particularly with the series of consultas the Committee for Food Sovereignty hosted this past year. The consultas are part of Pre-legislative Consultation - a process whereby historically excluded communities - Indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorean, and Montubios (an ethnic minority group from the coast) - are consulted on whether they agree or disagree with specific aspects of the law.
Pre-legislative Consultation adheres to the International Labor Organization Convention (ILO) 169 — ratified by Ecuador in 1998 — that binds governments to “consult” peoples or communities when there is a given legislation or administrative measure that may affect them directly (Article 6, part a).Over 6,000 individuals and 500 organizations have participated in the consultas and public forums hosted by the Committee for Food Sovereignty. The final draft of the law — which in theory should compile the recommendations of the consultas — is scheduled to be ready for a vote in September. Will the law reflect the demands of movements? Only time will tell.
What Now?
Although the government has attempted to be inclusive and participatory in the policy-making process, movements question whether their engagement will produce positive results or rather end in co-optation by the government. This is particularly true for CONAIE — or at least its leadership — which has adopted a more adversarial relationship with President Rafael Correa and his administration, and has subsequently boycotted the land law’s consultas.
More so, with the unfolding of the Indigenous Uprising and National Strike — how and what will social movements and the government concede to legislate land reform and food sovereignty in Ecuador remains unclear.
Karla Peña is a doctoral student in Development Sociology at Cornell University. Her work focuses on agrarian change and state-society relations in Ecuador.
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