Regional agrarian organisations and policy influence in South America and West Africa

This thesis comparatively examines two prominent contemporary regional agrarian organisations, the Confederation of Family Producers of MERCOSUR (COPROFAM) in South America, and the Network of Peasants and Agricultural Producer Organisations of West Africa (ROPPA). It interrogates their capacity to influence land, labour, and trade policies through their leaders' participation in multiscalar policy dialogues across each region with government officials, academic researchers, and international organisation staff. I identify and analyse their policy claims and negotiated outcomes in policy processes spanning the last three decades. Using a threefold analytical framework (subjective representation, intersubjective negotiation, objective reality) of policy spaces, I examine claims based on their capacity to aggregate diverse rural labouring classes' interests, across three territorial scales (regional, national, local). Agrarian organisations' policy discursive frames are traced throughout their representation and negotiation processes. I argue that regional policy processes on land, labour, and trade show contrasting capacities of agrarian organisations in their efforts to unite different class fractions and territorial constituencies around key discursive frames. Relative gains in each area reveal how regional policy influence is enabled by planks combining interests of diverse rural labouring class fractions (e.g. small-scale peasants, middle farmers, traditional communities) across various types of agrarian territories (e.g. dryland, tropical, temperate). Whether enshrined in regional norms (labour in South America, trade in West Africa) or only national laws (land in both regions), policy processes negotiated in tandem at three contiguous scales have allowed for the emergence of alternatives to global dominant policy discourse. The thesis concludes that COPROFAM and ROPPA's relative influence on land, labour, and trade policies points towards possible paths to expand gains for peasant family farmers and reclaim regional integration for articulated development strategies in the Global South

Public policies for the strengthening of family farming in the Global South

This special edition of Policy in Focus aims to follow up on discussions and debates instigated by the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF 2014) by drawing attention to specific cases as well as more general policy recommendations related to family farming in countries of the Global South. It is the product of a collaboration between the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP IPC-IG), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) of Brazil. [...