The development mirror: Making milpa an object of intervention

Abstract

From food aid to the promotion of non-traditional export crops (NTXs), the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) support for agricultural development programs that are harmful to food sovereignty in Global South countries is well documented. Less understood is when and why USAID promotes subsistence-oriented agriculture, agrobiodiversity, and traditional crops. In this article, I describe USAID’s efforts in Guatemala to bolster traditional milpa production as a part of their Feed the Future initiative. I demonstrate how milpa agriculture is promoted alongside non-traditional export crops—with the explicit admission that market-oriented production is not sufficient to improve household food security. While milpa promotion demonstrates cracks in the dominant neoliberal approach to food security, there remain significant differences between state programs and the ways Guatemalans envision food sovereignty. The main difference is that food sovereignty movements connect milpa practices to the formation of radical political subjects and push for the kinds of structural changes that are missing in USAID projects. Rather than a neoliberal attempt at cooptation, I argue that milpa promotion reflects cracks emerging in the neoliberal market-based development approach, while also representing a narrow misreading of milpa agriculture. This empirical case study of ‘New Green Revolution’ agricultural development programs in Guatemala contributes to a deeper theorization of hegemony, counter-hegemony, and cooptation in critical agrarian studies.