Unsettling Private Property in the Global North: Seeking a Food System Transformation

While agroecology has been central in many smallholder farmer movements in the Global South, this approach to agriculture has not gained widespread adoption in the Global North. Agroecology offers an alternative to industrial agricultural systems, which have become the standard in the Global North. Characterized by confined animal feeding operations and the intensive cultivation of single-variety crops, industrial agricultural systems have succeeded at supplying large volumes of food to global markets. At the same time, industrial agricultural systems contribute to biodiversity loss, soil depletion, water scarcity, and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, agroecology focuses on building strong connections between plants, animals, and watersheds, emphasizing the need for governance structures that support just and resilient food systems.

Recently, a global consortium of researchers investigated why agroecology has yet to offer a large-scale alternative to industrial agricultural models in the Global North. In a series of articles published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, the Journal of Peasant Studies, and Sage Journals, the consortium members argue that the centrality of private property in the Global North is limiting attempts to develop agroecological systems that are integrated across landscapes. 

Private property, or the ‘ownership model,’ is the basis for legal, social, and economic systems in the Global North. The ownership model divides land into sections with clearly marked boundaries; it grants rights to individuals who hold the title for each section. Within the boundaries of a section, the owner has the right to determine how the land is used and, by extension, to exclude others from access to the property. In this framework, land ownership becomes the basis of freedom and economic prosperity. Though much of the Global North sees land ownership as natural, it has not always been this way. 

In the 18th and 19th centuries, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland began converting land owned by all village members into privately owned parcels of land. Governments argued that private property would allow for more efficient and profitable farms. This transformation is known as the Enclosure Movement. Around the same time, English and French colonists rapidly expanded across land that would become Canada and the United States. Supported by European property laws and Catholic church doctrines, European nations defined inhabited land as ‘empty.’ They transformed these landscapes into private parcels of land, which the colonists granted to European settlers. In this process, settlers displaced Indigenous peoples, and Indigenous connections with the land were fractured. 

Agroecological practices are rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing that recognize the connectivity of food systems across large landscapes and watersheds. Indigenous land-care practices require close attention to the relationships between ecosystems, collaboration between human communities, and constant adaptation. In contrast, private property regimes create artificial borders that fragment the social and ecological interconnections across landscapes and watersheds.

In the Global North, some farmers are modeling their food production on agroecological principles. These farmers, however, are anomalies in a broader landscape characterized by industrial agricultural systems. While there is growing interest amongst young and aspiring farmers in agroecological practices, the realities of rapidly rising farmland prices often prohibit land access for these farmers. In this context, private property regimes limit the possibility of connections between farmers and the coordination of landscape-scale agroecological systems. The consortium of researchers recognizes these realities and contends that the transformative potential of agrecological systems remains limited without the reform of private property regimes. Reforms to private property, they qualify, must be matched with political and economic support at all levels of government for alternative agricultural models, such as agroecology.

In the Global North, however, the reform of property relations tends to be politically unpalatable to landowners. Since many people in the Global North view their property as their most significant asset, it can induce fear to challenge property norms and suggest unfamiliar alternatives. Therefore, food systems reform efforts often choose to operate, implicitly or explicitly, through the dominant logic of private property to achieve their objectives. For example, people can protect farmland from development through a conservation easement. Easements create restrictions around certain rights, including the right to develop, while maintaining the right of the farm owner to use the land as they wish, so long as they limit use to agriculture. While easements minimize land fragmentation and protect agricultural land, they do little to offer alternatives to dominant land ownership models. The consortium of researchers argues that an equitable transformation of the food system depends on a simultaneous cultural and legal reimagination of relationships between communities and land in places where private property seems to be a given. Two case studies from Canada and Scotland help to illustrate the tensions and possibilities in property reform and reimagination processes. 

In 2012, the federal Conservative government in Canada unexpectedly eliminated the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA). Created in the 1930s during a prolonged drought, the government designed PFRA to support farmers in conserving soil, preventing erosion, and managing pastureland. Under the PFRA, the Community Pasture Program held 2.3 million acres of public land. The program then leased this land to ranchers, made it available to hunters and birders, and offered for recreation and scientific studies. The dissolution of CPP fell in line with a broader pattern of land policies in Canada that reinforced the centrality of private property ownership. In response to this dissolution, a coalition of ranchers, ecologists, and Indigenous groups mobilized to argue for the value of a ‘multifunctional’ land use paradigm. A multifunctional land use paradigm prioritizes diverse and simultaneous social, ecological, and economic uses in a common land area. In this way, multifunctional land use is consistent with agroecological principles. While this counter-movement did not stop the dissolution of CPP, it demonstrated broad public support for alternative land ownership paradigms. 

In the second case study, a series of land reform acts in Scotland between 2003 and 2016 aimed to support the transfer of privately owned rural land into community ownership. Among other entitlements, these land reform acts gave community entities the right of first refusal to buy land they wished to develop sustainably.

The Scottish government recognized that relatively few landholding estates owned much Scottish land. In 2014, researchers estimated that 1125 estates controlled about 70% of privately owned rural land in Scotland. Set against the history of the Enclosure Movement, the Scottish land reform acts demonstrate significant legal and governmental disruption of entrenched private property norms. Land reform acts can potentially encourage agroecological systems by supporting land access for new farmers and encouraging agricultural collaborations between communities and across landscapes. Despite these acts, however, land tenure reform in Scotland has yet to result in a revitalized agroecological food movement. The researchers note two reasons for this: (1) while the Scottish government has mobilized around land tenure reform, these legal mechanisms have not been substantively integrated with food policy that supports alternative agricultural systems, and (2) a community-based agroecological vision in Scotland is lacking. 

These case studies demonstrate that the reform of property relations results in different agricultural outcomes depending on whether governments reinforce private property paradigms or create space for different conceptions of property altogether. In Canada, reforms to land tenure have happened through dominant private property logic. For example, when the CPP program dissolved, the proposed alternative was to place rangeland under conservation easements and sell parcels to private buyers. At the same time, the example of land reform laws in Scotland suggests that dominant property rights systems are less ‘settled’ than they may initially appear. The Scottish land reform agenda shows that the use of legislative tools and governance mechanisms can combine to open a space for new community-based conceptions of property while still maintaining some sense of private ownership. 

Enduring food systems transformation calls for a joint cultural and legal reimagination of the relationship between land, property, and forms of food production. Private property regimes continue to prevail in the Global North, but governments can leverage existing legal frameworks toward new ends. These legal maneuverings, however, must be matched with community-led visions that are willing to conceptualize land outside the frame of private property.