From new idea to norm : how entrepreneurs try to establish a new agricultural norm in Brazil

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Student: Zarra de Laat, 5897602 University of Amsterdam Date: June 27, 2014

Supervisor: Julien Jeandesboz and Katja Biedenkopf Second reader: Rosa Sanchez Salgado

Wordcount: 8446

From New

Idea to

Norm

How entrepreneurs try to

establish a new agricultural

norm in Brazil

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1

Introduction

The World Championship football draws a lot of attention and the entire world is watching Brazil right now. All that is shown in newspapers and on television are smiling supporters, girls in bikinis on crowded beaches, shiny stadiums and every now and then a crying goalkeeper, it seems the only thing that is important now. But there is more in Brazil then just football. Actually, the issues in Brazil that will be discussed in this research are occurring in other places as well. That is because these problems are about something that matters to everyone, a basic need: food.

The world population is still growing and will be grown with one third in 2050 in comparison to 2009. Most of this growth will be in developing countries. Food production needs to be increased drastically (FAO, 2009). The question is how the production can be increased in such a way that both people and environment both benefit from it. Since the food crisis of 2008, since which prices are volatile and food security is decreasing, there’s no doubt about the need for reform and reinvestment in agriculture. But more important than

how much reform and reinvestment is needed, the focus is on how this should be done (De

Schutter, 2010:1). In the current large-scale corporate system of food production, the people that are most vulnerable to food insecurity are those working to produce the food. Not the farmers, but waged agricultural workers (De Schutter, 2009/2 :9).

Within the agricultural sector, there is a debate going on between proponents of the current intensive, corporate food system and advocates of a new way of agriculture. These generally accepted ways of thinking are called norms; in this research they are defined as ‘standards of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity’ (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:891). In this case, the actors with a given identity will be people in the agricultural sector and a certain way of organizing agriculture is the appropriate behavior according to which they are supposed to act.

According to some scientists, whom will be discussed, the current food system has failed and needs a drastic reform. One of them is UN special reporter Olivier de Schutter, who promotes a new way of thinking about agriculture, called agro-ecology (de Schutter, 2010). But how will someone like Olivier de Schutter, or another entrepreneur, achieve that his way of thinking gets adopted by other people? In this research the question that will be answered is "how do (norm) entrepreneurs try to establish a new agricultural norm in Brazil?’’.

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3 The focus to analyze this issue by doing a case study to Brazil is because there are several problems in the way agriculture is organized in Brazil, which causes inequalities and even slave labor. These issues will be discussed in the last section, where the entrepreneurs and their strategies will be analyzed according to a newly created model for entrepreneurial strategies as well. However first it will be argued that agricultural problems can be solved by agricultural reforms. After this, a model for entrepreneurial change will be created. Because the small-scale farmers, the hungry and the poor, and environmental and human rights advocates are most affected and involved in this debate, this research will focus on what they can do and do to change the current norm and implement the changes they desire. This research does not answer whether or not the applied strategies are successful or not, but this research provides an analysis of different entrepreneurs and their strategies, which can be used as basis for further research about their success.

Agricultural norms

Before the new agricultural ideas can be discussed, it is important to know from what point the change would take place. First the emergence of the current agricultural norm, a by corporations dominated agribusiness (McMichael, 2005:283), will be discussed.

In the industrial food regime, which emerged from the mid-20th century, agro-food

corporations replaced small farms; the production was centered in Europa and the US and developing countries were made dependent of surpluses the Western world created. The current system, institutionalized by the World Trade Organization (WTO), is based on subsidies for Northern agriculture and is causing overproduction in Western countries and, because of this, a lack of possibilities and low prices for farmers in Southern countries (McMichael, 2009). The shift of a food-system based on the nation state to one based on a world market was created during the Uruguay Round (1986-1994). This formed a basis for the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (1995) in which was arranged that the nation states could no longer have food self-sufficiency as a national strategy (McMichael, 2005:281). This basically created the agribusiness that is the current norm.

Corporate agribusiness

The main argument for the corporate agribusiness is that intensification of agriculture is the only way to produce enough food for the growing population, without exploiting the entire

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4 planet (Meelker, 2014:14). This claim is supported by the Humboldt Forum for Food and Agriculture (HFFA, 2013):

A more productive and resource-efficient agriculture can mitigate the problems […] because it enables humankind to have more of everything – more food, more feed, more non-food crops, more biodiversity and natural habitats – while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions which result form an expansion of the world’s acreage. (Noleppa and Hahn,

2013:vii)

Advantages of intensive agriculture range from environmental to economic concerns. Intensive agriculture should, for instance, have 31 per cent more yields then small scale farming, among others because of higher crop varieties, developed through technology and genomics. Secondly, in small scale farming, much more acreage is needed to reach the same productivity as in highly intensive agriculture. This causes loss of biodiversity and natural habitats and increases CO2 emissions. 600 million tons of CO2 emission is avoided, among others because of less acreage use in productive agriculture than in small scale farming (Noleppa and Hahn, 2013). Considering welfare the HFFA argues that productive agriculture increases European GDP, creates 267.000 jobs (this in 100.000 more than in small scale farming) and the high yields ensure enough trading products. Finally; intensive agriculture is also better manageable then small scale agriculture. Regions in which humidity and diseases are not well controllable, will have a higher yields gap between conventional and organic

agriculture1 (De Ponti et al., 2012). This means that especially the lower developed countries

in the south will have few yields and industrial modernization in underdeveloped countries has been and will be beneficial for their development:

The GR [Green Revolution] contributed to widespread poverty reduction, averted hunger for millions of people, and avoided the conversion of thousands of hectares of land into agricultural cultivation (Pingali, 2012:2)

This sounds promising, but there is another perspective of this intensive agriculture as well, which focusses more on human rights and overcoming inequalities instead of economic growth and manageable productions.

1

De Ponti et al. (2012) is focused on organic agriculture, which is not exactly the same as regular small scale agriculture; that is not necessarily organic.

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5 Agricultural reforms

Subsidies and overproduction, common in the current system, cause North-South inequalities. These are called interdependence of reforms, because the possibilities for reforms in less developed countries to secure their own food are dependent from reforms in the Western world (De Schutter, 2014). Due to these inequalities, land grabbing takes place; wealthy countries are taking land in developing countries for their offshore food production (Ching, 2009). In Brazil this expresses itself in fraudulent appropriation of land by private actors, which creates a lot of landless farmers (de Schutter, 2009). They often end up in slave-like working conditions in rural areas (de Schutter, 2009:11, FairFood.org). This shows that there are not only inequalities between countries, also within countries relations are distorted.

Since the liberalization of trade in the 1990’s, the international division of labor has deepened (de Schutter, 2009:18). Farmers are displaced and end up in casual labor because of the global corporate agribusiness (McMichael 2005:270). This led, in combination with an emphasis on monetized transactions instead of cooperative labor, indigenous culture or seed saving, to a decrease in the world’s rural population and peasant cultures of 25 per

cent in the second half of the 20th century (Ibid:279). Agriculture has become an

unrewarding profession due to price regimes (Ibid:289). This leads not only to a decrease of the rural population, but a big amount of the poor in developing countries are small-farmers (Chmielewska and Souza, 2010:).

Advocates of agricultural reforms claim that a focus on small scale farming can solve the dependency, inequality and displacement problems. To start with; a focus on decentralizing agriculture towards small-scale or family farming, instead of maintaining the global corporate agribusiness, will help farmers to become self-sufficient at a local level and put a focus on social and ecological aspects of farming instead of just economic growth and productivity (Ching, 2009; McMichael, 2011). Secondly; a refocus towards local farmer’s needs and reforming agreements between large scale farms and corporations should help to overcome inequalities within and between countries (de Schutter, 2014). Land distribution for instance, could be more equal instead of fraudulent privatization of land by private actors or incorporation by large landowners (de Schutter, 2009). A refocus on local farming can also increase a farmer’s self-reliance and overcome dependency of corporates by decreasing corporate monopolies on the control of seed, agro-chemical and animal

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6 pharmaceutical markets. The two most important claims made by advocates of intensive agriculture – about decreased greenhouse gas emissions and increased yields – are countered as well by advocates of small scale farming. Both counter arguments are linked to the livestock industry, which highlights the problem in that specific sector of agriculture. The first argument is that intensive agriculture is not absolutely necessary for a sufficient food

production, since when meat demand is decreased, organic production2 would be sufficient

to feed the world (De Ponti et al., 2012). Besides, research has shown that yields can and do increase drastically using agro-ecological methods (Jules Pretty et al. in: de Schutter, 2010; Ching 2009). The impact of the industrial meat industry gets emphasized again in the second argument about greenhouse gas emissions, since the livestock industry is one of the biggest polluters and main actors in agriculture. Livestock- and feed crop production occupy 70 per cent of total agriculture and is responsible for 18 per cent of CO2 emissions. Focusing on small scale production methods would decrease both emissions and social inequalities (De Schutter, 2014). Considering the problems arising from the corporate intensive agriculture a revision towards a new way of thinking about agriculture is necessary to overcome inequalities and dependency and the yield and emission problems linked specifically to the meat industry. As mentioned, the reforms focus on decentralizations towards small-scale agriculture. New techniques and values reform towards small-scale farming include, will be discussed when analyzing the entrepreneurs whom promote the reforms.

Norm change

In defining norm-change and norm- and policy entrepreneurs, a distinction will be made between what entrepreneurs do, how they do this and when they should do this. Norm- and policy entrepreneurs will be compared and one analytical model will be constructed out of these two entrepreneurships. A combination of terms used in policy- and norm-change will form the model, because the two theories together make a thorough and complete analysis possible.

Definitions

A general definition of norms is: ‘a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity’ (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:891). This very closely relates to how ‘institutions’ is

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7 used and defined in sociological articles. However, ‘institutions’ include the structure en interrelation of behavioral rules, whereas ‘norms’ emphasize the single ‘standards of behavior’ (Ibid.). Slavery for example is an institution, consisting of among others the norms racial superiority and imperialism. The two terms are regularly used for the same thing, but investigating norms can really offer a closer look inside institutions.

Norms are also a part of the term ‘regime’, which is used by Michael and Friedmann when they talk about food systems. A general definition of regimes is ‘the rules, organizations, basic norms and principals involved in the global governance of an individual issue area’ (O’Neill, 2009:13). This means that regimes, like institutions, are beyond the scope of this research and the focus will be narrowed down to single norms.

A norm can be and usually is subjective, although shared by a group of people;

there’s a normative value about appropriateness related to it. Because of this value, norms are not an unchangeable narrative, but they can evolve and change over time, as illustrated by the slavery example, which is currently considered inappropriate (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). Changing the norm from a corporate agriculture into an reform of agriculture towards small-scale farming, should thus somehow be possible. And an investigation of how this can be established should start at the beginning of the so called norm ‘life cycle’ (1998:895). Norm emergence and entrepreneurs

The norm ‘life cycle’ exists of three stages, norm emergence, norm acceptance or norm

cascade, and finally internalization. The focus will be on stage one, norm emergence,

because entrepreneurs are central in this stage. A closer look to this stage is given through supplementing the strategies entrepreneurs use to establish a new norm with policy-change theories. The stage exists of an attempt to make a critical mass embrace new norms, in which entrepreneurs play an important role. In the second stage more actors accept the new norm and socialization of potential norm followers takes place. Finally, internalization means that the new norm is taken for granted and internalized by actors.

What do entrepreneurs do?

In norm emergence norm-entrepreneurs are an important actor, since they are responsible for the persuasion of the critical mass. Their main task is to call attention to or create issues and try to convince current norm leaders or states to become norm followers of the norm they pursue. (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:896-899). For policy entrepreneurs the creation

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8 of ideas is more focused on policy: They should define problems, which means that they highlight problems in the current policy and try to gain support from actors that are involved or are victims of the current policy (Mintrom and Norman, 2009:651). So in some aspects policy entrepreneurs are slightly different than norm entrepreneurs, as is also illustrated by the next quote, but their similarity is that they both pursue a major, structural change (Mintrom and Norman, 2009:650).

“"Public entrepreneurship" is the process of introducing innovation--the generation, translation, and implementation of new ideas-into the public sector. […] These [policy

entrepreneurs] are public entrepreneurs who, from outside the formal positions of

government, introduce, translate, and help implement new ideas into public practice.”

(Roberts and King, 1991:147)

Considering the definitions of norms and institutions, one could say that the goal of norm-entrepreneurs is to change norms -ideas about desirable behavior in a community- and policy-entrepreneurs can better be linked to institutions – as illustrated by the fact that it’s not only about changing ideas but as well about their implementation in public practice (Roberts and King, 1991:147). The model for policy change can supplement the model for norm change, because it provides some concretization after a norm change has been put in motion. But there are significant differences as well.

As mentioned before, there are three stages in the norm lifecycle, which are very similar to the stages in establishing policy change. However when the change considers policies, the stages are more focused on the implementation of a new law (Roberts and King, 1991:150). Instead of three, there are four stages: creation, design, implementation and

institutionalization. The first and the last stage can be compared to norm emergence and internalization (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:897&904). However design and implementation are really focused on stating a formal new bill and implement it in existing

policies, whereas norm acceptance is more about the acceptance of a new idea and the socialization of potential followers (Roberts and King, 1991:150 and Finnemore and Sikking, 1998:895). Policy entrepreneurs mainly have an active role in the first three stages:

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‘[…]individuals who participate in the first three stages: they develop a new idea, translate it into a more formal statement (such as a proposal, bill, or law), and then help to implement it into public practice as a new program.’ Roberts and King (1992:151)

So in comparison to norm change in which norm-entrepreneurs have their major function in norm-emergence, policy-entrepreneurs are considered to have a greater role up until implementation of their idea into public practice.

For the analysis of entrepreneurs in Brazil the first stage of both policy- as norm change will be the main focus, since the creation of new ideas or a formal statement still has to be investigated before an analysis of the next steps -design, implementation and acceptance- can be made.

How do entrepreneurs do what they do?

The first aspect that thing that policy entrepreneurs should do, is prepare the society on upcoming changes, or softening up (Kingdon, 1984:128/129. This can be seen as an attempt to warm up the policy community and the larger public for new ideas. The softening up process exists of three targets: first educating the general public, a second target is a specialized public directly linked to the particular issue. In the analysis it turns out that this is not only to mentally prepare a group for change, but also to prepare people in such a way that the upcoming change is practically feasible. Because in the case of agriculture, the changes require a drastic change. The third group on which entrepreneurs need to focus is the policy community itself – at least in the case of policy-entrepreneurs, norm-entrepreneurs just need to address the first two targets. So before a new idea can be promoted and strategies can be put in motion, entrepreneurs need to ‘pave the way’ to prepare people on upcoming changes (Ibid:128).

In addition to the softening up, there are different strategies for norm entrepreneurs to draw attention to a new norm. One of them is framing; by using different words or narratives, a new way of talking and thinking about certain issues can be established. Framing can also take place through public manifestations in which a cause is promoted (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:897).

A strategy to both call attention to an issue as well as to put a change in motion is creating networks or organizational platforms, which happens for several reasons. The first reason to create a network to is because it creates a lot of expertise, which is needed to

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10 change the behavior of actors (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:899). Secondly a network is needed to promote the idea to and reach people entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to reach themselves (Mintrom and Norman, 2009:651). A third reason is that a network can help to get the idea media attention (Roberts and King, 1991:166). A network can, for instance, be a non-governmental organization (NGO), a transnational advocacy network (TAN) or entrepreneurs can join a standing international organization (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:899).

Another way to promote a new norm is to be explicitly inappropriate, since norms are rules for appropriate behavior. Organized civil disobedience or public, provoking actions can be considered as inappropriate; this not only draws attention, but also sends out the idea promoted and a public action can even be used to frame and issue (Ibid:897).

A final strategy to implement a change, is when an entrepreneur ‘leads by example’, which means he/she turns the idea into action (Mintrom and Norman, 2009:653).

When do entrepreneurs do what they do?

After paving the way for an upcoming change, entrepreneurs need to find the right moment to promote their idea. These opportunities for action are called policy windows or windows

of opportunity (Kingdon, 1984:166). Windows open very infrequently and when they do, this

is because of a political change, a change in the national mood or when a new problem arises and captures attention of the right people (Ibid.:168). The windows create opportunities for advocates to push their ideas forward or attach their solutions to certain problems. If entrepreneurs do not take the chance of an open opportunity, they must await another moment, for the launch of their ideas, since they cannot be launched into nothing.

Applying the right strategies when a policy window opens might not be enough to create a successful norm-change; there are several qualities that contribute to an entrepreneur’s success. These qualities can be seen as an aid for the strategies to be successfully applied. Important qualities that entrepreneurs should have are a claim to a

hearing, negotiating skills or political connections and persistency (Kingdon, 1984:180). The

first quality can be that an entrepreneur has specific expertise himself. As mentioned before, an entrepreneur can also create networks, which is a strategy which can be linked to this quality, to gain expertise (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998:896-899). His own expertise is not a

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11 condition it is just advantageous for success. Another way to have a claim to a hearing is when he has the ability to speak for others or an authoritative decision making position (Kingdon, 1984:180). The second quality can also be helpful for certain strategies, such as bringing ideas to people who otherwise wouldn’t be reached, creating networks and building coalitions. And finally persistency means that an entrepreneur needs a willingness to invest a great deal of his or her resources, since a change can be very time-, money- or effort consuming.

Creating the model

Now that the what, when and how is answered, they can be put together in a model which can be used to analyze what entrepreneurs do in Brazil. The model will, regarding the content, be quite similar to the model Roberts and King (1991:168; Figure 1) created about policy-entrepreneurs, but this new model includes several other theories about entrepreneurship and will have a broader focus.

For instance; Roberts and King discuss every group that should be addressed by entrepreneurs individually. They mention bureaucratic insiders, elite groups, lobby groups and officials, whereas this model summarizes it in ‘creating networks and coalitions’ and ‘reaching people’; since in every case it will off course be different what people are important to reach and this specific policy focus won’t be always necessary.

First off all is discussed what entrepreneurs do. Their main goal turned out to be the creation of new ideas and issues, persuading people and implementing the ideas, where it considers policy-entrepreneurs. How entrepreneurs should do what they do can be summarized into the following strategies: softening up, framing, creating networks

Figure 2

Creative/ Intellectual Activities 1. Generate Ideas o Invent new policy ideas

o Apply models and ideas from other policy domains 2. Define Problem and Select Solution

o Define performance gap

o Identify preferred solution alternative 3. Disseminate Ideas

Strategic Category Activities

1. Formulate grand strategy and vision 2. Evolve political strategy

3. Develop heuristics for action Mobilization and Execution Activities 1. Establish demonstration projects

2. Cultivate bureaucratic insiders and advocates 3. Collaborate with high profile individuals/elite groups 4. Enlist elected officials

5. Form lobby groups and coordinate efforts 6. Cultivate media attention and support Administrative and Evaluative Activities 1. Facilitate program administration 2. Participate in program evaluation

Roberts and King (1991:168)

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12 and coalitions and initiating actions. Finally when entrepreneurs should act is decided by the opening of policy windows; which are defined by political changes, changes in national mood or arising new problems to which they can attach their ideas.

The discussed qualities of entrepreneurs can help developing certain strategies and improving how ideas can be developed, networks can be created; media and influential people can be reached and so on and so forth. The qualities are added in the model as well, to create a complete model, however they will not be specifically addressed in the analysis. With above discussed theories, goals and strategies about both policy- and norm-entrepreneurs together, the following model can be created and will be used for this analysis (Figure 2). The analysis will be in order of the designed model and firstly investigate who are entrepreneurs, who have new ideas and try to persuade people? After that the focus will be on how the persuasion is done; are there signs of education, creating networks or public actions? And finally the presence of policy windows will be analyzed.

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1. What

 Creating Ideas & issues

 Persuasion

 Formal statement

 Implementation

2. How

 Softening Up

o Educating large public o Educating specific public o Educating Policy Community

 Framing

 Creating Networks/Coalitions o Expertise

o Reaching People o Media Attention

 Initiating Action/Civil Disobedience/Public Action

3. When  Policy Window o Political Change o National Mood o Arising Problems 4. Qualities  Claim to a hearing o Expertise

o Ability to speak for others

o Authoritative decision making position

 Negotiating Skills/ Political Connections

 Persistency

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Brazil

The first next step is to create an overview of actors that are promoting their ideas for agricultural reform and thus will be the entrepreneurs of this analysis. It is beyond the scope of this research to discuss every change that has already been made or every reform settlement that has been implemented, mostly, by the Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (INCRA - National Institute for Rural Settlement and Agrarian Reform). The focus is on what entrepreneurs do to promote their ideas for change, independent from policy changes made top-down. Not all initiatives or organizations will, nor can be included, but an idea of existing organizations and grassroots initiatives will be given to analyze the strategies of these entrepreneurs. There are approximately 65 smaller involved in the struggle for land reform (US Aid, 2011).

But why are there so many organizations involved in a struggle for reform? Some general ideas of benefits of agricultural reform as reaction to the current norm are already discussed. The specifics about Brazil however were not yet included. A few major problems that illustrate the need for change will be explained, starting with a quote from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which summarizes the core problem: ‘Commercial, large-scale, mechanised and capital-intensive farming has replaced small

farmers, who have decreased by 1,000,000 in the last decade […]. Socially, the development of modern agriculture in the "Cerrado" has not improved its already uneven social inequality, and also it has brought ecological costs such as landscape fragmentation, loss of biodiversity, biological invasion, soil erosion, water pollution, changes in burning regimes, land degradation and heavy use of chemicals.’ (César, Carvalho, 2006:18)

There are ten big companies that dominate the agriculture and beef processing in Brazil; they have a major power on the domestic market (Dias & Mendonca, 2013, Stedile, 2007). This contributes to a very unequal land distribution: 1 per cent of large-scale rural establishments cover more than 40 percent of the land used in agriculture (de Schutter,

2009:15, César, Carvalho, 2006:7).

Fraudulent appropriation of land by private actors takes place, creating a lot of landless farmers (de Schutter, 2009), who end up in slave-like working conditions in rural areas (de Schutter, 2009:11, FairFood.org).

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15 Furthermore, currently there is a debate going on in Brazil about how to manage this coexistence of large-scale industrial farming and small-scale family farming. However, this discussion is incomplete, since it lacks environmental and social dimensions (de Schutter, 2009:16). There are some new strategies and measures, such as the Zero Hunger strategy to overcome malnutrition and poverty, in which ‘strengthening family-farming’ is one of the

four dimensions of the program (Chmielewska and Souza 2010:3). A measures to reduce slave

like labor, a constitutional amendment to punish users of slave labor, was adapted in 2012 (Freedom House, 2014).

Entrepreneurs and analysis

There are different entrepreneurs active in the case of land reform in Brazil; there are international entrepreneurs who created basic ideas for agricultural reform, then there are workers- and peasant movements, advisory services, NGO’s, local initiatives, and religious groups. But how do their actions fit in the model for entrepreneurs. What do they actually do and are their actions complete or are there gaps according to the model? The strategies will be analyzed per different kind of organization. An overview of entrepreneurs involved is shown in table 1, in which the different strategies the entrepreneurs use are summarized.

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Table 1 - Entrepreneurs and Strategies

Strategies  Organizati ons So fe tn in g up : Ed u ca ti n g La rge P u b li c So fe tn in g up : Ed u ca ti n g Sp ec if ic P u b li c So fe tn in g u p : Ed u ca ti n g P ol ic y C om m u n it y Cre at in g Ne two rk fo r Ex p ert ise Cre at in g Ne two rk to re ac h pe op le M ed ia A tt en ti on Fra m in g In it ia ti n g A ct io n / p u tt in g i d ea in to p ra ct ic e Ci vi l di so be d ie n ce / P u b li c A ct io n Vía Campesina x X Olivier de Schutter x X Workers MST x x x x x X CONTAG x x x Peasant MPA x x x x X MCP X x x Advisory ASPTA x x x x X Regional ASSEMA x X Campesino a Campesino x x x x Church CRS X x CPT x X

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17 One of the main advocates of agricultural changes is Olivier de Schutter, special reporter on the right to food of the United Nations. He promotes agro-ecology, which focusses on ecological systems incorporated in agriculture and includes local knowledge in farming. Productivity is raised because of on-farm fertility, which is also beneficial for farmers’ dependency. It is labor intensive, so rural poverty gets reduced (de Schutter, 2010). Olivier de Schutter writes reports, does research and speeches on conferences. He can also transmit

communications to people responsible for the violation on the right to food3. His

investigations and messages reach important, influential people, but only those ‘at the top’, part of the UN or already interested or involved in the topic. In terms of softening up one could say that he is educating a specific public. Among his tasks is to submit proposals to reach Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1, which is ‘eradicate extreme hunger and poverty’. Furthermore he needs to realize the adaptation of measures to realize the right to

food and he needs to examine ways to overcome obstacles of this realization4. With these

strategies he educates the policy community.

A second entrepreneur is Vía Campesina, the international farmers’ movement, which developed the idea of food-sovereignty. They give the following characteristics of food sovereignty:

‘’[…] farmer-based production systems […], the right of peoples to define their own

agriculture and food policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade […], to determine the extent to which they want to be self reliant, and to restrict the dumping of products in their markets. […] it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples […].’’ (Vía Campesina, 2001, in: McMichael,

2005:291).

The Vía Campesina brings together millions of small farmers, rural workers, landless people and peasant movements from all over the world. The goal is to implement the idea of food sovereignty through these networks. Because of their struggles, the Vía Campesina is

considered one of the main actors now and is heard by the FAO and the United Nations5.

3 http://www.srfood.org/ 4 http://www.srfood.org/en/special-rapporteur 5_{http://viacampesina.org/es/index.php/organizaciainmenu-44}

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18 In terms of strategies; the Vía Campesina is focused on creating networks. They spread their idea through collaborations with local farmer movements, mainly to reach, educate and involve farmers. They support public actions of the movements they cooperate with and appear on conferences, which can be seen as educating a specific public.

The difference between these two discussed entrepreneurs is that De Schutter has an influential position and he can promote his idea mainly because of his qualities as entrepreneur. He has expertise, an authoritative position and political connections. Vía Campesina on the other hand, needs to fight for its success, create networks and support public gatherings to reach people and to make impression on decision making institutions. So one could say that De Schutter is more an top-down entrepreneur who tries to change and propose policies, whereas Vía Campesina has a bottom-up approach and tries in cooperation with farmer movements to get the idea of food sovereignty implemented in both agricultural practices and influential organizations. In terms of policy- and norm-entrepreneurs, de Schutter could be called a policy entrepreneur who mainly focusses on establishing change within the policy community and Vía Campesina has the characteristics of a norm-entrepreneur, who tries to establish food-sovereignty as new ‘standard of appropriate behavior’ for farmers.

Other entrepreneurs basically promote agricultural reforms related to these ideas an can be divided according to the same distinction between norm- and policy-entrepreneurs who focus either on the farmers or on the policy community. First two worker movements will be analyzed, followed by peasant movements, advisory service, regional initiatives and finally the church.

The Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) is part of Vía Campesina and has the most aggressive strategy of all movements discussed. The movement promotes land reforms and fights against injustice and social inequalities in rural areas. They are convinced that only by mobilization and demonstration changes will be achieved and that a change will never come from the government: “We had only occasional programs to create settlements […]’’, says João Pedro Stedile of the MST (Carvalho and Faria,

2014)6. Together with the long list of occupations and demonstrations on their website, this

quote shows that public action and organized disobedience is the movement’s main

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strategy.7 Among these actions is the occupation of land, the occupation of INCRA offices,

blockades of a railway, a call for reform at the 30th FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and mobilization against the police in solidarity with Vía Campesina activists. These actions are mainly communicating their idea for change and they frame the problem, since the actions put emphasis on the movement’s perception of it. However they state a change does not come from the government, they created a Program for Agrarian Reform in which

they also address the state and the new policies that should be needed8. Furthermore they

offer schooling and exchange programs and provide research possibilities9. By initiating

these programs, MST attracts new expertise and educates a specific public, since only people already familiar with this topic and somehow related to it, will know about and be interested in these programs. MST works together with Grassroots, which provides legal support, training and assistance in sustainable agriculture (Grassrootsonline.org). This can be seen as networking for expertise. Another goal of networking, reaching people, is realized by establishing a partnership with WikiLeaks, which will expand the people that are reached drastically, since WikiLeaks has 5 million followers worldwide (Kúbik Mano, 2014).

Another workers organization is the Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na

Agricultura (National Confederation of Agricultural Workers, CONTAG). They exist of four thousand unions and several federations of rural and agricultural workers, so networking and creating coalitions is basically what creates their existence. They have their own journal that is distributed to all federations and unions involved, which is educating a specific public; but in their communication they also try to reach the government and the media10 . They are also involved in governmental negotiations11. The Trade Union Movement of Rural Workers

(MSTTR), which is part of CONTAG, designed the Alternative Project for Sustainable Rural

Development and Outreach (PADRSS)12, which is a new policy that focusses on equal

opportunities for, among other things, access to land, health, education and security. With this proposal, they try to convince the policy community to make policy changes, by

suggesting how these changes could be made. Their goal with this project is to create a more

just, egalitarian en democratic society; they promote land reform and protect the interests

7 http://www.mstbrazil.org/category/tags-news/agrarian-reform/mst-occupations-demonstrations 8 http://www.mstbrazil.org/resource/msts-proposal-peoples-agrarian-reform 9_{http://www.mstbrazil.org/get-involved/fmst-work-study-and-travel-brazil} 10 http://www.contag.org.br/index.php?modulo=portal&acao=interna&codpag=230&ap=1&nw=1 11 http://www.contag.org.br/index.php?modulo=portal&acao=interna&codpag=227&nw=1 12_{http://www.contag.org.br/index.php?modulo=portal&acao=interna&codpag=391&ap=1&nw=1}

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20

of rural workers13. The main political strategy to implement the PADRSS is to organize mass actions, such as the National Rural Youth Festival, The March of the Daisies, which was led by women, and the Day of Struggle for Land Reform, with which they also reach the large

public14.

What can be concluded is that both workers organizations have public action as main strategy. However the MST is uses civil disobedience to address the problem, whereas CONTAG tries to convince both a large public and the policy community of their solution, so they both use a different framing. They both use networking as a strategy, but MST mostly uses it to reach people that otherwise wouldn’t be reached and CONTAG tries to include the people -farmers- to whom the PADRSS is applicable. Again a difference in approach can be noticed, however they can be both considered policy-entrepreneurs, since they try to establish a structural, concrete change in the way agriculture is organized and aim at changing policies. MST tries, in addition to pursuing policy-changes, to reach a broad public by their networks and their actions to get them familiar with agrarian reform, this makes them norm-entrepreneurs as well. CONTAG however mainly focuses on establishing policy-changes through addressing the policy community.

Besides workers organizations, there are some peasant movements, such as the Movement of Small Farmers (Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores, MPA), which is part of Vía Campesina, and the Popular Peasant Movement (Movimento Campones Popular, MCP). They both pursue the idea of food sovereignty and agro-ecology and are formed by peasant families. MCP brings the ideas of agro-ecology and healthy food in practice through the families that are part of the movement. This is an example for other farmers and the start of a change, since they realize the change they want to see. They have projects like the Creole Seed Project, and the Peasant Housing Project, which is created in cooperation with the

government15. MCP directly turns the idea of food sovereignty into action through the

farmers that are part of the movement and cooperates with the policy community to implement new projects.

13 http://www.contag.org.br/index.php?modulo=portal&acao=interna&codpag=227&nw=1 14 http://www.contag.org.br/index.php?modulo=portal&acao=interna&codpag=254&nw=1 15_{http://www.mcpbrasil.org.br/o-mcp/about-us-sobre-nosotros}

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21 The MPA is very comparable to the MCP, but this movement is part of Vía Campesina. They are organized and have projects like the MCP and also immediately implement their ideas in practice. They fight for housing and participate in a creole seed project by organizing festivals, with which they frame their cause and reach a broad public, and facilitating research, which reaches a specific public. MCP created the Peasant Plan (Plano Campones) as a plan from the agricultural field to society. The plan contradicts the

current system of agri-business and carries out their values.16 This can be seen as educating

the policy community. Furthermore they initiate and supports grassroots initiatives, such as a Popular Food Market -which has as goal to create a partnership with urban consumers, to reach people- and an education and training center, to develop alternative methods for

small scale farmers17, which can be seen a networking for expertise.

What can be concluded from the strategies of the peasant movements is that they are very complete. The involved peasants, implement the values of the movement in their own work, they create networks for expertise and to carry out their ideas, develop projects and plans aimed at both people involved and the policy community. This makes them both norm- as well as policy-entrepreneurs; they try to establish agro-ecology and food-sovereignty as new norm with farmers and they try to establish a policy change by organizing projects with the government and proposing new policies.

The Advisory Service for Projects in Alternative Agriculture association (Assessoria e Serviços a Projetos em Agricultura Alternativa, ASPTA) strives to implement three programs they developed for family farming with an agro-ecological approach. Two programs are aimed at implementing agro-ecological methods in farmers’ communities in two different areas. ASPTA works in cooperation with other movements. These programs are aimed at educating a specific public and establish a direct change in agricultural practices as well. The cooperation can be seen both as networking to reach people and as networking for expertise. The third program focusses on urban agro-ecology; people are supported to use small pieces of land for urban farming. ASPTA works for this program in cooperation with

residents, to reach people and to include local knowledge18. To bring the idea of

16 http://www.mpabrasil.org.br/plano-campones#regiao-menu-principal 17 http://www.mpabrasil.org.br/producao#regiao-menu-principal 18_{http://aspta.org.br/programas/}

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22 ecology to urban areas can be seen as attempt to reach more people and to educate a larger public. Beside these programs they create networks and space for collective education and coordinated actions that are both focused on influencing the design and implementation of

public policy19. This shows they also try to soften up the policy community, as can also be

seen when one looks at the organizations they cooperate with, which are inter alia the European Union and several Brazilian ministries. ASPTA has its own magazine, the Agricultures Magazin (Revista Agriculturas), the magazine tries to give an insight in agro-ecological projects, developed by families and organizations in Brazil. The articles are made

by and for people directly involved and is partly meant as education material20. The

magazine is thus used as education of a specific public as increasing expertise. So ASPTA mainly tries to soften up all levels of society, both in urban areas as farmers and the policy community. Furthermore they try to bring their idea of agro-ecology into practice by educating farmers. ASPTA both has characteristics of a norm- and a policy-entrepreneur, since they try to implement a new standard of behavior in the way of farming and they address the policy community and try to influence policy-making.

An example of a local initiative is The Association of Settlement Areas in the State of Maranhão (Associação em Áreas de Assentamento no Estado do Maranhão, ASSEMA). The association supports local farmers and indigenous people to make a living, using organic farming methods, after land reform has taken place. They provide technical support and promote women participation and help these communities to organize so they can call

attention the inequality they have been dealing with21. Their actions can be seen as

education of a specific group. They also bring their idea of organic agriculture into practice. Not only are there local initiatives, there are also movements that cover Latin America as a whole, such as the Campesino a Campesino movement (Farmer tot Farmer). The invented and promoted agricultural innovations to increase yields for small-scale farmers, using an agro-ecological method. This was a reaction to the environmental damage and dependency created by the Green Revolution. They transferred the knowledge farmer-to-farmer, but it was also picked up by NGO’s. Their farmer-to-farmer method is an 19_{http://aspta.org.br/quem-somos/} 20 http://aspta.org.br/revista-agriculturas/ 21 http://www.grassrootsonline.org/where-we-work/brazil/association-settlement-areas-state-maranh%C3%A3o-assema

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23 innovative way of networking, that both reaches a lot of people as gathers different kinds of expertise. By their method they try to get their agricultural method adapted by farmers and

thus establish a small-scale change22 (Holt-Gímenez, 2009).

These two entrepreneurs are norm-entrepreneurs, since they work with farmers and try to make them adapt a new standard of appropriate behavior. The new techniques and ideas are spread and developed within the farmers community and the new norm gets established when more farmers accept it.

The last kind of entrepreneur is the church. Both an international -Catholic Relief Services (CRS)- as well as a national -Comissão Pastoral da Terra/Pastoral Land Commission (CPT)- organization will be discussed. They support the poorest farmers, implementing agricultural and environmental programs by establishing local partnerships and combating slave labor. CPT cooperates with other congregations and pastorals and both national and international social movements. CPT publishes a magazine, Jornal Pastoral de Terra, they also publish reports about different topics, such as Conflitos no Campo Brasil (Conflicts in the Field of

Brazil) and organizes congresses23. These strategies can mainly be put under educating a

specific public.

CRS, as being part of the catholic church, has a huge network and can reach a lot of people that are not familiar with agriculture. In Latin America they focus on collaboration

between farmers and local governments to decrease dependency and slave labor24. This

means they try to educate both a specific community as well as the policy community. They

summon people to join their cause and offer different ways to participate25. This also

reaches a large public, since there are really easy ways to participate and, as mentioned, the catholic church has a lot of followers.

The religious organizations mainly try to draw attention to agricultural problems on various levels and they assist the weakest, but their main strategy is softening up as many people as possible. This makes them both norm-entrepreneurs, since their main goal is to make people aware of problems and possible solutions and thus establish a new way of thinking, instead of implementing it in public practice.

22_{http://p2pfoundation.net/Campesino_a_Campesino} 23 http://www.cptnacional.org.br/ 24 http://crs.org/agriculture/, 25_{http://crs.org/act/}

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24 Windows

There is no rigid prescription about when an entrepreneur should act, since policy windows are very ambiguous concepts. As can be noticed in the analysis, most entrepreneurs are always active, however they sometimes do link their public actions to specific days, such as

actions on the International Day of Peasant Struggle26 and MST’s presence at the 30th FAO

Regional Conference for Latin America. One could argue that the World Championship in Brazil is an opportunity to call attention to agriculture, since there currently is a lot of media attention for Brazil. However João Pedro Stedile of the MST argues that it is better not to use the Championship:

We do not need to carry out the struggle for better living conditions during the period of the tournament. During the World Cup, we run the risk of people in general not supporting and not joining mobilizations. We all want to see the World Cup and, in addition to that, we run the risk of reducing the mobilizations to the level of denouncing the expenses of the stadiums. (Carvalho and Faria, 2014)

This illustrates that the appearance of and whether or to use a window in this case is not self-evident.

Conclusion

The question "how do (norm) entrepreneurs try to establish a new agricultural norm in Brazil?’’ has been answered according to a model that was created based on a combination of strategies of norm- and policy-entrepreneurs. Norm-entrepreneurs mainly call attention to or create issues and try to establish them as new standard of appropriate behavior, whereas policy-entrepreneurs really try to establish a structural change, which they also try to implement in public practice. They use different strategies that turned out to be either focused on people directly involved in agriculture or the policy community. This distinction illustrates as well the distinction between policy- and norm-entrepreneurs. Policy-entrepreneurs mainly focus on the policy, whereas norm-Policy-entrepreneurs basically try to involve people to whom the new norm is applicable, which is the agricultural community in

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25 this case, or try to reach a large public, with which they try to convince the critical mass. The analyzed distinction between entrepreneurs is made visually in table 2.

Table 2 - Distinction between entrepreneurs

Strategies  Organisati ons So fe tn in g up : Ed u ca ti n g La rge P u b li c So fe tn in g up : Ed u ca ti n g Sp ec if ic P u b li c So fe tn in g up : Ed u ca ti n g P ol ic y C om m u n it y Cre at in g Ne two rk fo r Ex p ert ise Cre at in g Ne two rk to re ac h pe op le M ed ia A tt en ti on Fra m in g In it ia ti n g A ct io n / p u tt in g i d ea in to p ra ct ic e Ci vi l di so be d ie n ce / P u b li c A ct io n Norm Vía Campesina x x Campesino a Campesino x x x x ASSEMA x x Church x x Norm & Policy MST x x x x x x ASPTA x x x x x MPA x x x x x MCP x x x Policy Olivier de Schutter x x CONTAG x x x

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26 The strategies that focus on the agricultural community and civil society are ‘educating a large public’, ‘educating a specific public’ and ‘creating networks to reach people’. Another strategy is taking action, which is divided in implementing a new idea in agricultural practice, in the model called ‘initiating action’ and demonstrations or ‘public disobedience’. These strategies can be found by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that can, besides norm-entrepreneurs, also be considered policy-entrepreneurs. The first of the norm-entrepreneurs is Vía Campesina, who developed the idea of food sovereignty, this idea promoted and implemented as standard of appropriate behavior in agricultural practice by ASSEMA and Campesino a Campesino. The church mainly tries to convince people of the need for agricultural reform.

Actors that also try to implement a new agricultural idea as new norm are ASPTA, MPA and MCP. However these actors also try to ‘educate the policy community’ by working either in cooperation with the government or publishing proposals for reform.

MST also educates the policy community by publishing a program for reform, but is considered a norm entrepreneur as well, because of their ‘civil disobedience’ with which they address a large public and try to convince the critical mass.

Policy entrepreneurs, CONTAG and De Schutter, are not implementing their idea into

practice, but mainly try to educate the policy community by writing proposals. However CONTAG also organizes actions, but they are mainly meant to frame their cause and educate people and are of a different kind then the civil disobedience action of MST.

None of the actors has as specific strategy to get media attention, however public actions do get attention. Framing is something that is always done, since every entrepreneur promotes the case from his or her own perspective. In some strategies it is mentioned explicitly, but one can assume that they all do it. However analyzing framing requires more research, including discourse analyses of documents the different entrepreneurs publish and how exactly they call attention to their cause in the actions they organize.

It can be concluded that different strategies are used dependent to what goals an entrepreneur pursues. None of the entrepreneurs use all strategies, but they adapt their approach according to the people they want to reach. To what extend their strategies are

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27 successful can be investigated with this research as starting point. This is part of the second and third stage of the ‘norm life-cycle’, norm acceptance and internalization.

Discussion and recommendation

Further research for whether or not the entrepreneurs are or will be successful, will have to include the very difficult power relations between government and corporation. Large scale farmers have their own lobby in the parliament and constructions to cover up land grabbing as ‘contract farming’ are being made (de Castro, 2014). The corporate relations are really difficult and intertwined. The Brazilian meat sector for example exists of various sectors and subsystems (Dias and Mendonca, 2013:9). There is a constant debate in Brazil whether or not the call for reform will ever be successful; if and how corporate and small-scale farming can ever coexist, or that there will always be tensions, or one party might even lose (de Castro, 2014).

Furthermore, the analysis of entrepreneurs is just a summary of all initiatives and organizations. Not even all the strategies and actions of the organizations discussed are analyzed, since there is simply too much to analyze in this research. A deeper analysis about how organizations actually frame, whom they specifically address at what moment could help analyzing the possible successes.

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32 Literature