Agri-Food Markets towards Agroecology: Tensions and Compromises Faced by Small-Scale Farmers in Brazil and Chile

Abstract

One of the main dilemmas faced by small-scale farmers’ movements advocating for agroecology in Latin America lies in the trade-offs between the economic opportunities arising from the organic food market expansion, and the political principles at the core of their action. To provide insights on this issue, a survey was performed in Brazil and Chile. Between March 2016 and December 2018, data were collected through direct and participant observation, documentary analysis, and interviews conducted to peasant organizations’ leaders, technicians and policymakers. In Brazil, the research focused on the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (The Landless Movement); while in Chile, due to the absence of such a national social movement, it considered a wider set of actors, including the Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agropecuario (National Institute for Agricultural Development). The results show how social movements are navigating between the mainstreaming pressures of the conventional markets, dominated by the leading agri-food corporations, and the political efforts they have been doing to build civic food markets as alternatives to conventionalization patterns. Finally, we argue that social scientists should better explain the tensions and compromises the social movements go through in order to coordinate different and complementary marketing strategies.

1. Introduction

All over the world, issues relating to food quality, public health, and farmers’ social conditions are increasingly important to what kind of food arrives on the domestic table [1]. The abuse of pesticides has jeopardized food safety and industrial ultra-processing has caused a worrying growth of obesity and associated diseases (heart disease, hypertension and diabetes) [2]. Thus, features such as designation of origin, ecological footprint, toxicity, and animal welfare are weighed in the individual selection of the food to be consumed, as well as in the agenda of public policies, as now clearly stated in the European “Farm to Fork Strategy” [3,4,5]. These features underline the importance of transitioning towards sustainable food systems [6,7], which, in turn, opens new opportunities for peasants and rural social movements.

In Latin America, agroecology, food sovereignty and food security have become prominent in both academic debate and political initiatives to foster collective action among peasant movements [8]. In their broader struggle against the dominant agri-food regime [9,10], studies highlight how these actors have both denounced the effects of the corporate food regime on environment and public health [11] and built more autonomous survival strategies [12,13,14]. Among these strategies, an unexpected outcome of peasants’ collective action against the “food empires” [15] has been the construction of new food markets [8], in which these movements supporting agroecology exchange not just differentiated goods [16], but also new values and meanings for food, insofar as they draw attention to questions of equity, justice, social participation, and sustainability [17]. However, these new alternative food markets are not sufficient to absorb all the available agroecological production, whether or not certified organic. This forces peasants’ movements to sell their produce also on the shelves of the transnational retailer corporations. Since the different logics underpinning the alternative and conventional markets generate diverse effects on agroecology, the social movements—and the State—are still learning how to face the tensions and compromises resulting from their action.

This article discusses how the social actors directly involved in this debate in Brazil and Chile are trying to coordinate different marketing strategies so that they complement each other and, at the same time, keep the movement unified and coherent with the civic principles of the agroecology. The article is structured in five sections beyond the introduction. The next section outlines an analytical framework that highlights how peasant movements can foster the transition to sustainable food systems by means of new markets. The third section presents data and research methods. The fourth section identifies and analyzes the functioning of peasant markets in Brazil and Chile. The fifth section bears results and discussion. Finally, the last section presents the main conclusions.

2. The Analytical Framework

2.1. The Struggle of Social Movements against Corporate Food Regime Driven by the Concepts of Food and Nutrition Security, Food Sovereignty and Agroecology

In the wake of profound transformations of national economies up to the current global reach of capitalism, agri-food systems, from farm to table, have changed radically since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century [18]. According to the theory of “Food Regimes” [19], the contemporary period is defined as the “Corporate Food Regime”. This is the one best adapted to the project of neoliberal globalization, in which transnational conglomerates are hegemonic and pursue their strategies regardless of national borders. There is also a close correlation with financial capital which directly influences speculation on agricultural prices, the use of new technologies and the spoliation of small-scale farmers [11,20,21]. A most visible consequence of this process is the phenomenon of “supermarketization”, whereby the retail sector has taken control of the food supply over the past two decades, defining quality criteria, determining diets and appropriating most of the added value [22,23].

Despite providing global circulation of food at increasingly faster rates and larger scale, the operating dynamics of the corporate food regime have resulted in a deep socio-environmental crisis [1]. Global food markets are unfair, unsustainable, inefficient and only allow for the monetary value of food [16]. Faced with this scenario, many social movements [24], including the peasant ones, have emerged and aspire to build alternative food systems [20,25,26]. In Latin America, two concepts are pivotal to their struggles against the contemporary corporate food regime, Food and Nutrition Security (which the Portuguese acronym renders as SAN) and Food Sovereignty (shortened in Portuguese to SOBAL). All sorts of disputes have marked the elaboration of these concepts, but, in general, SAN is more related to the State actors’ view of the “food question” and draws attention to the quantity, quality and steadiness of access to food, as the fulfilment of the right to food proclaimed in 1948 by the universal charter of human rights [27]. In turn, SOBAL is advanced by Via Campesina and focuses mainly on countries and territories’ food autonomy, so as to lessen dependence on imports and vulnerability to price fluctuations on international markets. It also emphasizes the preservation of local culture, ecosystems and eating habits [28], emphasizing the strategic roles of indigenous and peasant agriculture [29].

Over the last decade, a debate has emerged among social movements and governments over the potential of agroecology for the development of peasant farming and to assure SAN and SOBAL. Agroecology is a much contested term with no easy definition, principally in Latin America where it has a strong political component [30]. Some scholars [7] have identified six primary domains of the agroecological field: (1) access to natural ecosystems; (2) knowledge and culture; (3) systems of exchange; (4) networks; (5) gender and equity; and (6) discourse. The synthesis proposed by Wezel et al. [31] offers three different ways of understanding agroecology, as (i) a scientific discipline comprising field approaches and the ecology of both agroecosystems and food systems; (ii) a social movement comprising environmentalism, rural development and sustainable agriculture; and (iii) a social practice, meaning plant and animal production techniques. This perspective [32] highlights how, as a science, agroecology is a theory critical of the industrial agriculture; as a social movement, it mobilizes a growing number of grassroots actors engaged in the defense of social justice, environmental health, food security and sovereignty, solidarity and ecological economy, gender equity, and more balanced relations between rural and urban worlds. Finally, as a social practice, agroecology is expressed in the most varied and creative ways of valuing ecological and social capital through the process of “repeasantization” [15].

More recently, the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on food security and nutrition consolidated a list of 13 agroecological principles: recycling; input reduction; soil health; animal health; biodiversity; synergy; economic diversification; co-creation of knowledge; social values and diets; fairness; connectivity; land and natural resource governance; participation [33]. These principles are not so different from those 10 elements the FAO defined in its regional seminars on agroecology: diversity; co-creation of knowledge and transdisciplinary approaches for innovation; synergies; efficiency; recycling; balance; human and social value; culture and food traditions; land and natural resources governance; circular economy [34]. In both cases, however, we have very large definitions, embracing academic disciplines, social movements and social practices that frequently are not identified as agroecological, not even by its own members or practitioners. This obliges social scientists to recognize how each actor—let us say, “each social movement” because we do not want to embrace methodological individualism—has built its own understanding not only about how agroecology should look, but also about how its own practices and the practices of other actors fit this image. This paper has no intention of dealing with this problem, except for the interest it has in understanding how peasant movements perceive the link between the market they have built/accessed and the development of agroecology as they define it.

2.2. The Construction of New Markets Supporting Agroecology

Over the past two decades, social movements aiming at hindering the expansion of the corporate food regime have been engaged in initiatives for the construction of new food markets. Rather than defeating “the Market”, as a significant number of social movements opposing capitalism proclaim, the focus is now on building new circuits of commerce [35]. This change brought with it a reinterpretation of the markets that is coherent with the emergence of the new economic sociology, a discipline in which markets are not an impersonal mechanism of exchange, but political and cultural arenas where actors dispute not only the distribution of monetary value, but also the very recognition of their identities, values and lifestyles.

The best-known and most widely adopted reading of “the Market” is the one based on the utilitarian tradition [36,37]. This theoretical approach postulates that, in a competitive environment, the individual—calculating and rational—is able to process all the information available and to reach the most efficient outcome. According to some authors [3,38,39], such a perspective regards the market as an independent entity emancipated from all social relationships, and consumption is deemed to be the highest expression of human rationality. Yet, it has been said that “the monological reasoning that reduces all social life to a utilitarian and economic motivation, neglecting the complexity of other social, cultural, moral, aesthetic and environmental factors that are involved in social change, is increasingly challenged” ([40] p. 15). Schools of thought based on alternative epistemological foundations are making important contributions to rethink markets in other terms.

According to the economic sociology, markets can be defined as “[...] arenas for the negotiation of identities, agreements, institutional projects and patterns of political interaction that transcend the economic sphere proper” [41] (p. 389). Markets, as plural noun, are socially constructed institutions that are permanently in dispute over the control of economic resources, but which also involve the formation of habits, beliefs, expectations, formal rules, informal norms, physical infrastructures and technical devices [39,42,43]. Food markets, built through the collective action of social movements, are potentially spaces where struggles for the redistribution of resources and the recognition of new social values take place [17]. Accordingly, studies of peasant and family farming in different parts of the world, including Latin America [15,32,41,44,45], have found that the development of alternative food markets approaching farmers and consumers is not only about adding value to farmers’ products, but also—and even primarily—a strategy to get political support for agroecology, SAN and SOBAL.

The notion of “civic food networks” has been used to characterize markets that emerge from the engagement of civil society and emphasize new concepts of “citizenship and food democracy” [46]. These concepts “help examine whether pragmatic solutions could reduce social inequality and create food systems [and] […] implies that every citizen has an equitable contribution to make through participation” [47]. According to [48], these markets include a variety of actors that are involved in the local food system and that consider the food economy as a common good and a right. Thus, collective action to promote food democracy (especially with regard to access to healthy food) is at the forefront as an ethical principle. Some scholars emphasize how these alternative food networks have engendered important social innovations, such as participatory guarantee systems, which provide for the empowerment of family farmers, social inclusion and mutual support between farmers and consumers [5,49].

Latin American reality has shown, however, that alternative food networks [50] are ineffectual where there are critical disconnections between economic and social dimensions, chiefly as a result of persistent social inequality and income concentration [51]. Furthermore, besides the majority of Latin American populations being prevented from acquiring healthy food simply on account of their low income and low cultural capital [52], there is the aggravating factor of food deserts. That is, there are areas (both in urban and/or rural contexts) where access to food that makes up a healthy diet is prevented by the lack or by the physical distance of points of sale [53]. More recently, “the new reality of COVID-19 exacerbates the isolating nature of poverty and structural racism that has rendered countless distressed neighborhoods as Food Apartheid […] It calls for a community-centered and grassroots movement for food justice” [54]. These aspects have caused serious food and nutritional insecurity and public health problems.

3. Data and Methods

The investigation is based on a qualitative approach suggested by [55], who classified the types of markets according to the following variables: (i) type of family farmer; (ii) locus and/or spatial scope; (iii) nature of exchanges/business models; and (iv) forms of regulation (

Table 1. Typology of family farming markets.

	Type of Family Farmer	Locus and/or Spatial Scope	Nature of Exchanges/Business Models	Forms of Regulation	Marketing Channels
Proximity markets	Peasant; surplus producer	On the spot; direct sales; only local	Interpersonal + collaborative	Trust + friendship	- On-farm sales (farm shop, u-pick); - At home sales; - Roadside stand; - Direct delivery; - Farmers’ market; - Consumer groups.
Local and territorial markets	Family farmer; simple commodity producer	On the spot; local, regional and territorial	Diversified + complementarity	Reputation/ trust + origin + prices	- Regional agricultural fairs; - National agricultural fairs; - Sales networks; - Events; - Specialized shops; - Restaurants; - Collective market channels; - Sacolão (discount markets).
Conventional markets	Commodity producer	Placeless/unbound	Competitive	Contracts + prices	- Brokers; - Cooperative; - Agroindustry; - Private company; - Internet; - Supermarkets.
Public and institutional markets	Any kind of supplier	Multispatial	Tender, request for bids	Public contracts + legislation	- School feeding; - Fair Trade; - International agencies; - NGOs; - Hospitals, universities, Armed Forces; - Charities; - Government stocks.

Source: [55].

). We focus specially on four types of markets: (i) proximity markets; (ii) local and territorial markets; (iii) conventional markets; and (iv) public and institutional markets. Each of these markets is immersed in social and cultural relations that develop specific regulation and control mechanisms, i.e., institutions. In addition, each market generates circuits that can support or hinder the transition to agroecology.

In Brazil, we analyzed the marketing experience of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) in the southern part of the country. We chose this region and this movement because both have been pointed by several studies as representative of some of the most consolidated experiences of agroecology in Latin America [56,57]. For instance, MST’s cooperatives in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre are responsible for the largest production of organic rice in the subcontinent. Besides, this choice allowed us to benefit from previous contacts with local organizations, both because of our work as researchers and, in the case of the first author, former member of advisory services for rural settlements.

As for Chile, it was chosen because its recent political-economic trajectory diverges from that of other Latin American countries, particularly as a result of its ultra-liberal character [58,59]. However, it was not possible to identify a single social movement comparable to MST in size, complexity and experience. This is a consequence of the fragmentation of social movements in the wake of military repression and the spread of individualistic liberal values throughout Chilean society. For this reason, paradoxically, we have to focus on the initiatives to create new markets for family and peasant farmers led by the Chilean state, as represented by the Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agropecuario (INDAP) [60].

Data collection was based on direct and participant observation, documentary analysis, and 55 interviews in both countries between March 2016 and December 2018. The interviews were classified as: interviews with academics (EA); interviews with market agents (EM); interviews with technicians from formal organizations (ET); interviews with policymakers (EP). In Brazil, the interviews were conducted in Porto Alegre, Florianópolis, Brasília and São Paulo. In Chile, the interviews covered the south-central region, which ranges from Santiago to Temuco.

Table 2. Sources of primary data.

Group	Type of Members	No. of Members	Topics Covered in the Interviews
Academics (EA)	Professors and researchers	14	- Possible theoretical currents for the phenomenon addressed. - Interpretations about the research problem. - Theoretical-methodological orientations.
Market agents (EM)	Marketing channel workers	12	- Report on the constitution and operation of the marketing channel. - Description of the activity performed. - Main advances and limits. - Prospects for the economic companies.
Technicians (ET)	Technicians from social movements and support institutions.	14	- Description of the activity carried out and the organization to which it belongs. - Main actions to support the food markets. - Interpretation about transition to agroecology. - Prospects for the food markets’ development.
Policymakers (EP)	Leaders of social movement organizations.	15	- Presentation of the organization to which it belongs, and the role played. - Interpretation about transition to agroecology. - Prospects for the food markets’ development.

summarizes the groups of interviewees and the topics explored by our questions.

Secondary data were collected through the search and analysis of published reports, newspapers, social media propaganda and internal documents produced by MST and by INDAP, in the Chilean case. For the analysis and interpretation of the data, a quali-quantitative approach was used, in which the information collected was coded and subsequently interpreted by means of content analysis.

4. Results

4.1. The Social Construction of Markets for Small-Scale Farmers in Brazil and Chile

Established in 1984, the MST has become a prominent actor on the national and international political scene as a result of its contentious actions against unproductive latifundia and transnational agri-food companies [61]. MST has built alternatives for food production and marketing that have succeeded in including a numbers of farmers who were previously excluded from the agricultural modernization policies [62]. More recently, MST has started to advocate agroecology, together with the adoption of cooperation strategies, as the production model best suited to settlers’ reality [56,57,63].

Across the 24 states of the Brazilian federation there are currently about 350,000 families living on about 7.5 million hectares of land reform settlements. This amounts to nearly 1.5 million people. These families are organized into more than 100 cooperatives, 96 agroindustries and 1900 associations [64]. A complex organizational model called cooperation conglomerates was developed by the MST operation as a result of years of debates, experiments and adjustments [56]. In general, the MST organizes its members into brigades (ranging from 200 to 500 families) depending on the situation in each state. A brigade is organized into: (a) Base Centers, which on average comprise 10 families and are coordinated by a woman and a man; (b) Sectors (political organization; production, cooperation and environment; education; training; health; gender; communication; and culture); (c) Collective Management; and (d) Coordination of the Brigade [65]. This organization is established at the state level and reproduced at the national level by means of representatives. For this study, we were particularly interested in understanding how the “Production, cooperation and environment sector” develops its actions in regard to food markets. This sector includes five fields of action: 1. Food Processing; 2. Cooperation; 3. Agroecology; 4. Human Resources; and 5. Marketing. The Marketing field, in turn, is subdivided into five subfields: 5.1. Institutional Sales; 5.2. Sales on Conventional Market; 5.3. Armazéns do Campo (which translates into Countryside Stores and are MST retail outlets); 5.4. Farmers’ Markets and Consumer Groups; and 5.5. Exports [8].

In Chile, the food markets constituted by peasant movements are in incipient form, if non-existent. As one of the leaders of the Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales y Indígenas (National Association of Rural and Indigenous which the Spanish acronym renders as ANAMURI) reported in an interview, “in Chile there is nothing like MST. Here agricultural policies aimed to put an end to peasant organizations. […] If you want to study peasant markets in Chile, you must go elsewhere” (EP13). This view was corroborated by a leader of the Movimiento Unitario Campesino y Etnias de Chile (Peasant Unitary Movement and Ethnic Groups of Chile which the Spanish acronym renders as MUCECH), who referred us to INDAP to investigate the economic experience of agricultura familiar campesina (peasant family farming, shortened in Spanish to AFC). INDAP was created in November 1962, under the Ministry of Agriculture, and during more than 50 years of operation, it has developed a wide range of actions aimed at the productive and rural development of AFC. According to one of the directors of ANAMURI, “INDAP was the only instrument that withstood the dictatorship and that still supports peasant agriculture” (EP11). INDAP is currently organized into 15 regional directorates and 127 agencies and district offices spread across Chile, and these serve an AFC universe of approximately 260,000 families and about 1.2 million people [66].

INDAP has three main guidelines for marketing and adding value to AFC products. The first one is the promotion, differentiation, visibility and commercialization of short supply chains under the “Manos Campesinas” seal [67,68]. According to interviews with INDAP technicians, this seal was launched in 2015 and is conditioned by four attributes: peasant origin; healthy product; handicraft; and promoting local development. The second guideline refers to the creation and improvement of new businesses. In so doing, it seeks principally to implement actions aiming to overcome the main disadvantages of AFC in the creation of new markets, namely their interface with supermarkets, public procurement and wholesale markets. The third guideline aims at the development of goods (products or services) that enable AFC to raise its value added. This has resulted in actions to improve food quality, safety and productivity. Finally, all guidelines are accompanied by a specific Technical Advisory Program in business and marketing to improve the supply of products in view of market opportunities [67].

Considering this scenario and following the classification of family farming markets proposed by [55], we identify four types of food markets built through the actions of the MST in Brazil and INDAP in Chile. These are: (i) proximity markets; (ii) local and territorial markets; (iii) conventional markets and; (iv) public and institutional markets.

4.1.1. Proximity Markets

Proximity markets are based on interpersonal exchange relationships, and trust and reciprocity are key institutional mechanisms. Among their channels, farmers’ markets count as one of the first stages in the process of market integration for peasant and family farmers [11,15,55].

In the Brazilian case, according to MST leaders (EP3 and EP6), farmers from the land reform settlements maintain a huge number of farmers’ markets throughout the country, but mainly in the north-eastern region, and are increasingly focused on agroecological products. In the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre, approximately 50 settled families of farmers are involved in 15 weekly farmers’ markets. This is coordinated by the “Fruit and Vegetable Steering Group of the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre”, which mediates between family farmers trading their produce and other interested parties. Among these, there are land reform associations and cooperatives in Rio Grande do Sul, and other public and private institutions. The steering group conducts participatory management and plans production and commercial processes. In the words of a leader of MST in the state, it involves “sophisticated collective management” (EP8) of practical issues related to farmers’ markets.

In the Chilean case, farmers’ markets are the main short supply chain for AFC. As one of the coordinators of ANAMURI reports, however, “few farmers trade in these farmers’ markets” (EP11). Most of the Chilean open-air markets are instead held by intermediaries who purchase food from wholesale centers, which are mainly supplied by small-scale producers [69]. Regarding the open-air markets held by farmers, it is possible to observe the existence of two modalities: those created with the support of technical-productive programs of INDAP, as a way to promote marketing; and those that arise spontaneously, from the interaction between social actors such as farmers and consumers [68].

Table 3. Farmer markets in Brazil and Chile.

1. City/Country: Santiago, Chile.	1. City/Country: Porto Alegre, Brazil
2. Year of creation: 2010.	2. Year of creation: 2016.
3. Synopsis: Created by two social entrepreneurs, the Ecoferia de la Reina developed into the Association of Organic Producers and Ecological Alternatives. It currently gathers 33 retailers and trades a wide variety of products: fresh foods, handicrafts, natural cosmetics, minimally processed foods, items for urban agriculture, books and imported industrialized products. In addition, it has a snack bar that serves natural products and always presents some musical performance.	3. Synopsis: The farmers’ market for “Organic and Colonial Products” held at Shopping Iguatemi gathers several groups of family farmers. Among these are some from land reform settlements in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. It was devised by the mall as a commercial strategy to supply organic food and offer clients a new attraction. It has ten stalls and is held on the premises of the mall every Tuesday, between 10 am and 4 pm. In addition to organic fruits and vegetables, the public can also find here natural products, such as juices, ginger nectar, breads, cakes and whole grain cookies.
4. Key actors: entrepreneurs, peasant family farmers and consumers.	4. Key actors: Management team of Shopping Iguatemi, peasant family farmers and consumers.
5. Institutional arrangements: To sell organic food or its derivatives in the Ecoferia de La Reina, retailers must comply with the certification criteria of Law 20.089, which establishes the National Certification System for Organic Products. In addition, as an association, members of the Ecoferia de La Reina must comply with the association’s Norms of Conduct.	5. Institutional arrangements: Being located in a private commercial environment, retailers must comply with the shopping center’s corporate policies. Retailers from land reform settlements must also meet with directives set by the Fruits and Vegetables Steering Group of the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre. Some of the foods sold on the market carry the “clean food” seal conferred by the Cooperative for the Provision of Technical Services (Coptec) and intended to promote food produced without pesticides.

summarizes two experiences of proximity markets in Brazil and Chile.

In Brazil, consumption groups are another important form of proximity market. These are led by consumer movements seeking out healthy foods that are produced in a socially and ecologically responsible manner, and also embrace forms of politicized consumption [70]. Over the research period, we were unable to identify any Chilean consumer group linked to peasant organizations. These initiatives reconnect production and consumption consistent with sustainable standards; activate local markets tied to territorial identities; and revalorize the circulation of distinctive quality products, for example, ecologically-based ones [5,71]. Interviews with leaders of MST evince how each region seeks to constitute a distinctive relationship with consumption groups (EP5 and EP6). In Rio Grande do Sul, the Farmers’ Market Steering Group helps to plan the supply of consumption groups, in parallel with farmers’ markets across the Porto Alegre metropolitan region (ET4 and ET7).

The experience of the Grupo de Integração Agroecológica (Agroecological Integration Group, shortened to GIA by the Portuguese acronym) is a particularly noteworthy example of social innovation [49]. Created in 2012, the group delivers food baskets gathered together by the Postgraduate Program in Rural Development at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. GIA is part of a broader movement that brings together similar initiatives both in Brazil, through the Consumer Groups National Network, and in other countries through organizations such as “Community Supported Agriculture—CSA” in the United Kingdom and the USA, the “Association pour le Maintien d’une Agriculture Paysanne—AMAP” in France, and the “Gruppo di Acquisto Solidale—GAS” in Italy. GIA is invested in more than just facilitating the logistics of distribution and consumption of agroecological foods using information and communication technologies. It also attaches great value to the discussion of issues related to food markets and to the active participation of consumers in direct contact with food producers, so transcending the notion of consumption as a mere economic act [4,5].

In short, proximity markets are characterized by the deepening of social relations based on friendship, solidarity and trust. Furthermore, within these proximity markets, there is a strong ethical component to action [46,48], such that these markets are a bastion against the utilitarian logic of the corporate food regime. Even so, these civic markets often are sites of tension. For example, in the Brazilian case, the farmers’ market held in a mall in Porto Alegre involves commercial and aesthetic justifications [17]. Consumers who frequent such markets may be motivated by the so-called “ego-trip”—the search for personal health and well-being—and/or are occasional consumers as a result of the ease and convenience of purchase in shopping malls [72]. Such accidental convergence can bring about important changes in these markets. In these proximity markets, the consumer-retailer relationship is also expressed by the sharing of production experiences, life experiences, expectations of new foods and the ways of preparing them [49,71]. Thus, what would be just a commercial and impersonal transaction also generates new meanings for food, evidencing the role of consumers as active and reflective agents [4,73].

4.1.2. Local and Territorial Markets

Local and territorial markets represent a kind of hybrid model between proximity and conventional markets, insofar as they maintain institutional arrangements based on trust and reciprocity, but coexist with economic dynamics that are both governed by the law of supply and demand, and value the price system and competition. In these markets, exchanges are monetized and mediated by economic agents who are interested in monetary gain from the expansion of the market for distinctive food products [55].

In Brazil, one of the organizations’ strategies involved land reform settlement for developing local and territorial markets’ calls for participation in the fairs that take place across different regions of the country at different times of the year. During the course of field research (ET1 and ET2), attention was drawn to the like of the Expointer in Esteio, RS; the Land Reform National Fairs in São Paulo, SP, Belo Horizonte, MG and Rio de Janeiro, RJ; and the Economic Solidarity Fair in Santa Maria, RS. Such events are sites where important volumes of food produced by land reform settlers are traded, and also are important sites of dialogue with civil society [49,71].

Building on the success of regional and national land reform fairs, the national secretariat of MST attaches great importance to the establishment of its own outlets to sell the products of land reform settlements in large urban centers. According to [74], social movements in the countryside have increasingly acknowledged the importance of the consumer as a political actor and an ally. The coordinator of the production sector (EP5) comments that “people were amazed by what they saw at our fairs and asked: ok, and now where do I buy it after the fair is over?” Thus, since 2016, the Armazéns do Campo strategy seeks to establish MST retail outlets as vehicles to advertise land reform and provide another channel of dialogue with civil society through the provision of healthy food.

There are Armazéns do Campo outlets in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and prospects to open new ones in other cities such as Salvador and Brasília (ET10). According to a leader of the National Secretariat and coordinator of the initiative (EP6), this has four objectives: the first is to provide civil society with access to the products of the land reform; the second is to establish partnerships that strengthen family farmers, settlers and cooperatives; the third is to offer organic food and, finally, to present the cultural dimension of food. For this last reason, Armazéns do Campo outlets also seek to be a physical site of “militancy” by including in their programs musical performances, book launches, debates, conversation circles, or simply a place where to take a break, taste items from the cafeteria’s provisions and access reading material on the land issue.

In Chile, INDAP holds the Expo Mundo Rural fair, an institutional fair created in 1998 and held annually in different cities. The editions of Expo Mundo Rural aim to offer an assortment of attractions to the urban consuming public so as to acquaint it with, and persuade it to value the AFC—both its products and its farmers. The event has become a brand that associates “product, producer and territory” and seeks to value food quality [50]. Expo Mundo Rural has moved INDAP to develop actions to market the distinctive quality of products from family and peasant farming and to enable the creation of Manos Campesinas as a distinctive seal for rural products and services [68].

Through the work of INDAP, the supply of AFC products is reaching new levels of sophistication and development thanks to food processing programs (flavors from the countryside), agrotourism networks and the supply to supermarkets by means of production partnerships [66,75]. This is exemplified by the policy that, in 2017, established the Mundo Rural store chain. Here, public policy favors short supply chains [76] that bring consumers closer to quality food, to peasant specialties that are obtained from conscientious production, embody distinctive identities of origin, foster local development and help to recover gastronomic traditions [68]. In this regard, it is important to draw attention to artisanal foods, free of pesticides and are “environmentally friendly”, which create a space for organic agriculture and agroecology and enable the transition to sustainable food systems.

Table 4. The Land Reform Store in Brazil and the Tienda Mundo Rural in Chile.

1. City/Country: Santiago, Chile.	1. City/Country: Porto Alegre, Brazil.
2. Year of creation: 2017.	2. Year of creation: 2002.
3. Synopsis: The Mundo Rural chain store is an initiative of INDAP’s National Marketing Program. Each store is managed by a Peasant Associative Enterprise. The program grants financial support for the entire initial investment and the operational costs of the first year of activities. Each store undergoes an incubation period of approximately 3 years, after which it is supposed to be economically viable and capable of operating autonomously.	3. Synopsis: The Land Reform Store was created long before the Armazéns do Campo strategy. It is characterized as selling organic food, free of pesticides and free of transgenics. Its products come from MST land reform settlements, as well as from partnered associations of family farmers. Its main objective is to provide a permanent physical space for dialogue and establish relationships with urban consumers, as well as expand the distribution of produce from MST settlements in the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
4. Key actors: INDAP, AFC Chilean organizations and consumers.	4. Key actors: Municipal government of Porto Alegre, organization of the land reform settlers of Rio Grande do Sul, and consumers.
5. Institutional arrangements: Each Mundo Rural store must comply with the norms established by INDAP, especially regarding the quality attributes required to obtain the Manos Campesinas seal.	5. Institutional arrangements: The Land Reform Store is part of the strategies designed by the MST Marketing division and linked to its Production, Cooperation and Environment sector.

summarizes two experiences of local and territorial markets in Brazil and Chile.

According to our interviewees (EM4 and EM5), the origins of the Mundo Rural store are to be found in a project by one particular AFC organization, the National Confederation of the Peasant-Worker of Chile (which the Spanish acronym shortens to UOC). The program structure suggests that each store should be managed by a Peasant Associative Enterprise. According to interviews with INDAP technicians, this entails public funding of the entire initial investment and for the first year of operation. Each store also goes through an incubation period of approximately three years, the time estimated as necessary to become economically viable and operate autonomously (ET11 and ET12). In 2017, there were six Mundo Rural stores, three in Santiago, one in Concepción, one in Valdivia, and one in Chillán. These stores are located at strategic sites where there is a large flow of people, and they have two key functions: selling and promoting AFC products. According to the interviews conducted, each store operates individually, but the aim is to expand the processes of cooperation (EM4).

When confronted with competition from conventional markets, a retail outlet such as Armazéns do Campo in Brazil or Tienda Mundo Rural in Chile requires a managerial rationality, with its attendant valuation of efficiency and the optimization of economic results to guarantee economic viability. This is something that is fundamentally at odds with both the logic of family and peasant farming [15] and the very political dimension of associated social movement [77]. Interviews carried out with technicians in the enterprises (EA13, ET6, ET10) reveal that MST political leaders and the land reform settlers often find it hard to understand the requirements their retail outlets must meet, especially regarding scale, regularity of supply and quality [23]. One of the technicians interviewed reports that “sometimes, I am responsible for employing predatory capitalism, as I select the most efficient, most capitalized and most disciplined farmers to be our suppliers” (ET9).

Another growing type of marketing channel is e-commerce by means of digital platforms. In the Brazilian case, the MST has sought to build alternatives in this regard. According to interviews with a director of the National Secretariat of MST, the aim is to use these technologies to establish a direct relationship between producers and consumers (EP6), and so they are designing a digital marketing platform for land reform settlements. In the Chilean case, as a result of the Tiendas Mundo Rural project, INDAP is developing e-commerce for products from the AFC. ICTs have been revolutionizing forms of consumption by age groups and diverse identities, serving a more informed consumer who is open to new possibilities. INDAP contributes with support and training in forms of communication, marketing, and organization of the enterprises, which ultimately tends to impact local economies [78].

E-commerce can revolutionize the way family and peasant farming relate to endpoint consumers [79]. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) favor the creation of new business models, giving rise to multiple applications such as searches on the internet, content generators, virtual social networks and virtual e-commerce stores that affect the efficiency, savings and immediacy of economic activities. However, this use of ICTs by the AFC generates resistance, which is often associated with the low levels of education among farmers, as well as with their limited financial capacity to purchase electronic equipment [67]. Again, the advocacy of healthy eating associated with agroecology can help to reconnect production and consumption and signify the very interpretation of eating as a “political act” [70,74]. Thus, the differentiated forms of food markets constituted by MST enables innovative development trajectories [80].

4.1.3. Conventional Markets

In conventional markets, prices and competition are the institutional mechanisms, and these are regulated by complex contracts and property rights. Family and peasant farmers who adhere to this market modality are generally very vulnerable to market power of other economic agents [5,16,55].

In the Brazilian case, settlers and their cooperatives have to resort on business agents such as supermarkets, mini-markets, retail outlets and the different types of intermediaries who collect the produce from the settlements. This aspect is related to MST’s own production strategy. The Cooperative for Agricultural Production (CPA) in each settlement—or the Central Cooperatives gathering the CPAs in each state of the federation—is granted autonomy in the establishment of commercial relations according to the specific local realities and objectives (EP5). According to the MST strategy, each CPA establishes an agricultural product as its “flagship” product. This usually is the main product marketed and the one that generates the most revenue, and serves as a guide in the organization of production processes more generally. Milk, chicken, rice and beans assume this leading role in the southern states of Brazil.

In view of this strategy, the relationship with large food companies and supermarket chains becomes both a necessity and a choice for MST. A member of the national secretariat points out that “it is necessary to submit to the conventional market because the produce of land reform must be distributed. So, it is necessary to have commercial representation and similar systems, as in the case of milk produced by Cooperoeste (an MST’s cooperative) to compete in the market” (EP3). Furthermore, for some MST leaders, access to these marketing channels is the only way to really democratize and expand workers’ access to healthy foods, so overcoming the danger of limiting the consumption of organic foods to the elites in niche markets. However, dealing with supermarkets requires incorporation of a commercial and industrial logic that is based on efficiency and maximization of economic returns [35]. This is generally not consistent with the sustainability of food systems [33,34,81].

Another important market, not only for land reform settlements, but also for Brazilian family and peasant farmers more generally, is the sale of raw materials to intermediaries, usually agribusiness companies. According to an interview with one leader, “the sale of raw materials (e.g., cassava, milk, beans, etc.) to middlemen of the regional agroindustries are frequent and I would say that it is the best sales experience we have in the land reform settlements” (EP6). This statement demonstrates the power of rural oligopsonies [82] and underlines how commercial agriculture is still problematic in the world of family and peasant farmers [83], including the MST, despite the degree of organization it brings to markets.

Table 5. The cooperatives that supply conventional markets in Brazil and Chile.

1. City/Country: Peumo, Chile	1. City/Country: Nova Santa Rita, Brazil.
2. Year of creation: 1969.	2. Year of creation: 1995.
3. Synopsis: The Cooperativa Campesina Intercomunal Peumo Ltda. (COOPEUMO) is a cooperative providing services to its members which include: facilitated access to finance for agricultural production, housing, social support etc.; sale at fair prices of agricultural inputs, building materials, fuels etc.; on-farm technical assistance; advice on commercial decision-making; accounting services; training; advisory services; marketing support; and other social benefits. It was created in 1969, under the Eduardo Frei Montalva government, as an outcome of agrarian reform policies, and outlived the military regime. It currently has 360 members and works for the purpose of bringing together small farmers for qualified integration into the domestic and foreign markets.	3. Synopsis: The Nova Santa Rita Agricultural Production Cooperative (COOPAN) was founded on 30 June 1995, by a group of families who believed in the collective organization of production, agro-industrialization and marketing of the products of their labor. Currently, it produces organic rice, pigs and dairy products. The production of organic rice started in 1999, on land reform settlements in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre and was coordinated by COCEARGS (the Central Cooperative of Settlements in Rio Grande do Sul). The grain harvest for 2016–2017 was estimated at about 27,000 tons, on a growing area of more than 5000 hectares. Cultivation is carried out by 616 families, in 22 settlements and 16 municipalities.
4. Key actors: Farmers who are beneficiaries of land reform and INDAP.	4. Key actors: INCRA and economic organizations of land reform settlers.
5. Institutional arrangements: COOPEUMO offers distinct institutional mechanisms for marketed products and services. In the case of plums for export, COOPEUMO develops quality standards for natural and dehydrated plums, for forms of transport and storage, traceability and branding.	5. Institutional arrangements: Organic rice currently undergoes a double certification process, by an accredited organic certification agency (Instituto do Mercado Ecológico—IMO), guaranteeing certification by audit, and via a Participatory Conformity Assessment Body linked to COCEARGS guaranteeing participatory certification.

summarizes two experiences of conventional markets in Brazil and Chile.

In the Chilean case, INDAP pursues a Productive Partnerships Program which aims to integrate family and peasant farmers into markets through different business modalities. Data based on the 2007 Chilean Agricultural Census indicates that only 17% of peasant and family farmers maintains relationships with conventional markets (exports, agroindustry and contract agriculture), so justifying the implementation of the program. The limited interaction of the AFC with conventional markets is due, among other factors, to the low volume of production and high transaction costs [68]. Thus, associationism, integration into value chains, and production partnerships are proposed to change the situation. However, the search for economies of scale, the liberalization of markets, the concentration of industry, and the phenomenon of “supermarketization” have created even stronger barriers to entry for AFC [22,23]. Against this background, the Productive Partnerships Program provides technical assistance to align AFC products with market requirements regarding health, tax, storage conditions, etc. Along with financing to improve production and marketing infrastructures, it also helps to develop specific actions related to marketing, such as negotiation, distribution, and incentivization of production [78].

In Brazil, MST strategies for exports are of recent formation and are generally associated with particular interactions with government and international organizations, the latter being partly mediated by Via Campesina, as will be discussed in the next section. Regarding exports to conventional markets, commercial agreements over organic rice have been reached with both the United States (EA3) and China (EP4). As one of the interviewees (EP4) observes, “in the case of China, what calls for special attention are the volumes requested, volumes that often require us to expand the productive capacity of our cooperatives”. In other words, due to the massive scale of production and distribution required, export strategies take on the dynamics of conventional markets, pushing movements toward conventionalization and the corporate food regime [11,35,77].

As for Chile, an ultraliberal trajectory has led the country to sign numerous international free trade agreements. Thus, in addition to programs aimed at improving the integration of AFC production into domestic markets, Chile has also made significant efforts to integrate it into international markets. In INDAP, these efforts started in the 2000s, by means of an increased budget for improving aspects critical to successful export competitiveness, with particular emphasis on management skills and the specialization of production chains [78]. This has enhanced non-traditional agricultural export commodities such as fruit, wine and forestry products [84].

4.1.4. Public and Institutional Markets

Public and institutional markets are defined as spaces of exchange that are mediated by an institution acting in the public interest. This may be the state, some international organization and/or a non-governmental organization [55]. Public and institutional markets are subject to a high degree of regulation and formal control, which act within frameworks of redistribution and centralization [38]. Since they clearly result from social and political constructions, their institutional arrangements require open and democratic governance. As a rule, they also find expression in public policies created and/or adapted to meet societal demands or the principles of fair trade.

In Brazil, public and institutional markets are strategically important to MST. In this context, it is worth noting that, during the period 2003–2016, peasant and family farmers enjoyed special attention as the state introduced several public policies aimed at family farming [85]. Among these, two programs stand out: the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), aimed at promoting access to food and strengthening family farming, and the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) which was re-designed to provide students in public schools with meals issued from family farmers. A member of the national secretariat of MST reports that “since 2011, the institutional market has helped in the distribution of production” (EP3).

Nevertheless, the political and economic crises during the period 2014–2016 deeply affected public policies to secure institutional markets, one of the interviewees regretfully regarding as a tragedy “the 2016 coup and the municipal elections (EP6)”. Even before this “institutional breakdown”, public resources devoted to social policies (including various forms of fostering peasant and family farming) were already being curtailed. In the end, most of the government structures and public policies focused on the productive integration of different social strata, including those aimed at family farming, were either fully dismantled or closed [86]. One of the directors interviewed summarizes the issue in the following terms: “We went from a situation where there were more than 20 PNAE contracts with large city municipal governments to one of only two or three small contracts” (EP5). Indeed, the consummation of the 2016 coup [87] was the abolition of the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) and the dismantling of public policies in support of family farming.

In Chile, policies involving public procurement are very recent, starting only in 2017 (ET10 and ET11). It is worth noting here, the role played by REAF in facilitating exchanges of information between MERCOSUR member countries about their different experience of innovation in public policies for family farming wherein Brazil has proved to be a common point of reference [88]. In addition to public purchase of local products from AFC, policies set by the Chilean government and carried out in coordination with INDAP and the National Board of School Assistance and Scholarships (JUNAEB) include efforts to provide the population, especially children and youths, with food and nutritional security. The School Feeding Program (PAE) seeks to tackle a level of child obesity that is particularly worrying since the country’s indicators are the worst in Latin America [52,66]. The PAE set as its goal that at least 15% of JUNAEB’s purchases should be provided by AFC groups recognized by INDAP [89].

Table 6. Organizations that supply institutional markets in Brazil (The production of organic rice supplies all types of markets available to peasant family farmers associated with MST. Thus, in this case, the same experience of COOPAN is repeated here for comparison purposes) and Chile.

1. City/Country: Curicó, Chile	1. City/Country: Nova Santa Rita, Brazil.
2. Year of creation: 1997.	2. Year of creation: 1995.
3. Synopsis: Sociedade Vitivinícola Sagrada Família S. A., is a winery trading under the brand Vinos Lautaro. Advised by INDAP, 16 winegrowers who benefited from the Chilean land reform created the company as a way to add value to their products. In the wake of an offer by the Belgian concern OXFAM-Wereldwinkels, the company developed a business model that promoted ecological and sustainable production, under fair trade rules, so obtaining Fair Trade accreditation for export. The company is currently composed of 23 small winegrowers and their families, who own around 200 hectares of vineyard. They grow different types of grape, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and carmenére for red wine production, and sauvignon blanc and chardonnay for white wine production.	3. Synopsis: The Nova Santa Rita Agricultural Production Cooperative (COOPAN) was founded on 30 June 1995, by a group of families who believed in the collective organization of production, agro-industrialization and marketing of the products of their labor. Currently, it produces organic rice, pigs and dairy products. The production of organic rice started in 1999, on land reform settlements in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre and was coordinated by COCEARGS (the Central Cooperative of Settlements in Rio Grande do Sul). The grain harvest for 2016–2017 was estimated at about 27,000 tons, on a growing area of more than 5000 hectares. Cultivation is carried out by 616 families, in 22 settlements and 16 municipalities.
4. Key actors: Farmers who are beneficiaries of land reform, INDAP and OXFAM.	4. Key actors: INCRA and economic organizations of land reform settlers.
5. Institutional arrangements: Participation in this market requires adoption of standards and principles set by the World Fair Trade Organization, which entitle the bearer to a Fair Trade seal certifying commitment of production in line with fair trade principles.	5. Institutional arrangements: Organic rice currently undergoes a double certification process, by an accredited organic certification agency (Instituto do Mercado Ecológico—IMO), guaranteeing certification by audit; and via a Participatory Conformity Assessment Body linked to COCEARGS guaranteeing participatory certification.

summarizes two experiences of public and institutional markets in Brazil and Chile.

A second type of institutional market is the one that promotes fair trade. Fair trade is a global movement that advocates “a trading partnership based on dialogue, transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade” (World Fair Trade Organization—WFTO). In Brazil, we could not identify any MST export that was accredited by the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO). However, exports mediated by international organizations such as FAO and Via Campesina are noteworthy. Interviews with representatives of COCEARGS (EP4 and EP8) reveal that there has been a partnership with FAO to supply Venezuela with organic seeds from Bionatur (an MST’s cooperative). In addition, there had been direct negotiations with the Venezuelan government for the supply of rice, milk flour, powdered milk, black beans, coffee, sugar, meat, lentils, peas and oats from MST cooperatives. This also involved partnerships with third parties to export pasta and soy oil. Beside Venezuela, interviewees highlighted ongoing negotiations with El Salvador to export rice, powdered milk and coffee, and with China to export honey, juices and coffee, as well as various fruit crops, mainly apples, bananas, oranges, mangoes and papayas.

In Chile, because of its institutional path entrenched into a liberal approach to the economy, fair trade is more advanced than public markets. In this context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in partnership with INDAP and other Chilean agricultural institutions, has developed ProChile, a program aimed at exporting AFC products that emphasize territorial development, inclusion of indigenous peoples, gender and generational equity, focus on associative organizations, fair trade and social and sustainable marketing circuits favoring Latin American markets [90].

There are significant differences between Brazilian and Chilean institutional market exports. In Brazil, part of MST export is mediated by Via Campesina. The latter’s commitment to strengthening food sovereignty and agroecology by means of political relationship of solidarity generates this market opportunity. In Chile, the central aim of the Fair Trade initiative is to create a niche in the European market for distinctive Chilean products, i.e., AFC wine production. In any case, the strengthening of institutional markets has proved to be an important way to guarantee food and nutritional security for disadvantaged populations, as well as the generation of work opportunities and income for peasant and family farmers. Over the past two decades, public policy has played a fundamental role in structuring economic alternatives for family farming [85]. A new generation of such policy could enable the construction of new food networks for the products of family farming, land reform settlements, and traditional communities. This could provide for more democratic access to healthy food.

5. Discussion of Results: Tensions and Compromises

Brazil and Chile represent two disproportionate and very different countries in terms of territorial size, population, cultures, ecosystems, and general economic structure and outlooks. Additionally, they differ by the productive specialization of agricultural sector and even for the spread of collective actions of small-scale farmers’ movements. Comparing such disparate realities was itself a major challenge for this study. However, according to the considered theoretical construct [55], the comparison was focused on four types of food markets—proximity markets; local and territorial markets, conventional markets; and public and institutional markets, which are dependent on the institutional trajectories of each country.

The first results of the study are related to the higher degree of organization of the MST marketing strategies in comparison with those of Chilean peasant organizations. The MST, thanks to 37 years of experience, has managed to organize its agrarian reform settlements by creating associations and cooperatives, which generated a demand for more qualified organization. It is worth noting that, in Brazil, the MST was a relatively late adopter of the concept of agroecology, when compared to environmental movements [91]. It was only with the constitution of the Brazilian section of Via Campesina in the late 1990s that environmental guidelines entered more effectively into its collective action repertoire. Thus, the struggles with environmental themes such as the confrontation on a global scale to the private appropriation of natural resources, technologies and traditional knowledge about the resources of nature, gained centrality with the flag of agroecology [63] and tensioned government actions related to SAN.

Over time, the MST has developed a definition of “political agroecology” strongly connected with the Via Campesina’s SOBAL perspective. This makes their market initiatives a permanent object of tensions, given that some of them generate contradictory effects in relation to the idea of transition to agroecology. The most controversial issue is the sale to conventional markets, which is the object of strong internal conflicts between the movement’s political leaders. So far, the understanding that these markets are a “necessary evil” prevails, because they guarantee the scale and reach that the local and territorial markets do not have yet, because they are concentrated in middle and upper class neighborhoods. Indeed, many leaders argue that ensuring food democracy, in which one of the central components is access to quality food by the poorest population, currently depends on the use of these conventional markets. This does not mean, however, that MST works to strengthen this link with transnational retail chains or agro-industrial processing companies. On the contrary, the current strategy is to expand short supply chains through partnerships with urban social movements that work with the poorest population. At the same time, the expectation remains that the State, through public procurement programs, will once again act as a central actor in the promotion of agroecology, SOBAL and food democracy.

In the Chilean case, even if it does not have the same magnitude of the Brazilian public food acquisition policies, the leading role in building food markets has been performed by the State itself, via INDAP, and not by the organizations of family and peasant farmers. The paradox of state protagonist in a markedly neoliberal country is due to the Chilean institutional trajectory after the military dictatorship [60]. It is worth remembering that the implantation of a terrorist state resulted in the destruction of the Chilean social fabric and, therefore, the annulment of action capacity of social movements, including the peasants’ movements. The organizations of family and peasant farmers came in tow with INDAP, despite having specific experiences, especially related to the proximity markets. The INDAP’s marketing experiences are limited by the limited scale and far from reaching the poorest social strata of the population.

From the point of view of promoting agroecology, one of the main difficulties of the initiatives led by INDAP is the limited diffusion of participatory guarantee systems. While MST agroecological products certified by participatory guarantee systems circulate in all markets, including the conventional ones, in Chile, the predominance of the techno-scientific perspective of third party audit considerably limits the development of alternative circuits and the engagement of family and peasant farmers. Thus, the Chilean initiatives led by INDAP are still far from agroecological movements’ demands in terms of food sovereignty and democracy. In addition, some Chilean movements such as the Movimiento Agroecológico Latinoamericano (MAELA) and the Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (ANAMURI) do not have capacity to solicit the State moving faster in direction of agroecology. Besides, no matter how enthusiastic the idea of INDAP can be, it is a department of a Ministry with other priorities.

6. Conclusions

The investigated social movements are convinced that there is a potential for the growth of agroecology in both countries. They also know that not all modalities of markets strengthen sustainable food systems and meet the principles of agroecology, SOBAL and SAN. As we were able to verify in different initiatives, local markets are characterized by the deepening of social relationships that are based on friendship, solidarity and trust. In turn, territorial markets represent a hybrid between interpersonal and competitive. In both types, there is a strong ethical component in economic action [46,48], so that these markets represent the main modalities for a resistance to the utilitarian logic of the corporate food regime [11]. Public and institutional markets, on the other hand, require open and democratic governance mechanisms, as they are the result of effective social and political constructions. The problem is that such markets are highly dependent on government coalition, which can enhance or repress economic insertion and social recognition of family, peasant and agroecological agriculture. This was evident from the institutional rupture in Brazil in 2016.

Conventional markets emerge as a survival strategy for the Brazilian case and as a competitive insertion strategy for the Chilean case. According to interviews with INDAP technicians, “Chile has an institutional matrix of productive specialization and exports. The discourse that the country is an agri-food power is in its DNA” (ET11 and ET12). Family farmers and peasants who are part of this conventional market modality, as a rule, are under a high degree of vulnerability in the face of power asymmetries among economic agents, especially in the face of the phenomenon of “supermarketization” [22]. Paradoxically, because they are the main source of supply for urbanized societies, ethical and aesthetic criticisms of conventional markets [17] open spaces for foods with differentiated qualities, such as agroecology, and can massify access to healthy foods due to the incidence of “food deserts” and “food apartheid” [54].

This diversity and coexistence of markets implies a permanent conflict between different social and economic logics and complex hybridizations. Each market requires a different posture with regard to organizational dynamics, the relationship with consumers, the volume of capital, the mobilization of physical structures, knowledge and institutional devices. The interviews carried out with the leaders of the peasant movements indicate that it is not just a dispute about a business market per se, as proclaimed by the utilitarian tradition [36]. It is about the social construction of markets that guarantee the multidimensional viability (social, economic, environmental and cultural) of business models, at the same time that it is articulated with the political principles of social movements. Ultimately, this means that the centrality of agroecology, SOBAL and SAN can contribute to the re-embeddedness of different types of food markets.

The increasingly more pressing challenge is how to coordinate different marketing strategies so that they complement each other that allow to resist the pressures of the corporate food regime and propose strategies adapted to the different realities of peasant and family farming. The present investigation is not free of shortcomings that should be addressed in future studies. It would be useful to measure the economic relevance of each marketing opportunity in terms of its production value, revenues and job creation. In addition, a better understanding of the organizational setup of business conducted by collectives of family farming is needed. Furthermore, theoretical and methodological investigations should be undertaken to examine the business models that are most economically, socially and environmentally viable.