CRPR Seminar - Dr Elise Wach, Research Advisor, Institute of Development Studies

In the UK, access to land has been identified as a top barrier to transitioning to more ecological food production, preventing the entry of first generation farmers wishing to practice agroecology. Globally, the agroecology and food sovereignty movements have long advocated the need for more people to have access to land, to support land-based livelihoods and allow for ecological practices which are more labour- and knowledge-intensive than industrial approaches. Yet the demand for land has been evolving. Initially, movements focused on gaining access within the existing property system. More recently, there has been a re-consideration of the governance of land itself, including a movement towards ‘commoning’ or the collective governance of resources, though inconsistencies and uncertainties abound.
To understand why this is happening and what the potentials are, this talk guides us through a case study of the Scottish Highlands, where the imposition of private, individualised property ownership led to a violent transition from agroecological food systems to capitalist productivism, with devastating ecological and social consequences. It then discusses the potentials and limitations of ‘alternative’ land governance frameworks and the emerging and contested framings of Land Justice in the UK.