Master's Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10294/2901

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Browsing Master's Theses by Subject "Agriculture--Saskatchewan"

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    Alternative Land Tenure: A Path Towards Food Sovereignty in Saskatchewan?
    (Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2013-03) Beingessner, Naomi Ellen; Desmarais, Annette; Eaton, Emily; Magnan, Andre; Stewart, Michelle; McLaughlin, Darrell
    In the past few years, a global food crisis has fuelled corporate investment and speculation in land and the attendant dispossession of smallholders and ecological damage, while doing little to alleviate hunger or secure livings for rural dwellers. This phenomenon is most evident in the Global South, but it is happening in Canada too. The dominant industrial agricultural model in Saskatchewan, with roots in the foundation of colonial capitalist agriculture and private ownership of land on the prairies, has resulted in a decades-long “farm crisis” as smaller farmers are forced off the land and agribusinesses consolidate and dominate production. A radically different vision of access to and control over land, as the basis of a new food system, is necessary in striving for socially and ecologically just agriculture. In this thesis, the concept of food sovereignty is used as a theoretical framework because it challenges the hegemony of global industrial agriculture and offers an alternative vision for land tenure and agrarian reform based on principles of social justice. Using data from in-depth qualitative interviews as well as critical discourse analysis of primary documents, this thesis explores alternative land tenure models proposed and practised by farmers involved in a progressive agrarian organization and participants in alternative agricultural land-ownership models in Saskatchewan. Analyzing key themes from the qualitative data using food sovereignty's principles of agrarian reform, this thesis illuminates the ideology behind the dominant global industrial agriculture system, provides historical, global, and Saskatchewan-specific context for issues of access to land, and suggests an approach that unites resistance and expands possibilities for alternatives, based on the social justice principles of food sovereignty.
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    Reconciling the Divide: An Analysis of Farmers’ Land Strategies Within the Corporate-Environmental Food Regime
    (Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2013-02) Rud, Helen Marie; Jaffe, JoAnn; Magnan, Andre; Conway, John; Eaton, Emily
    After twenty-five years of contested change following the collapse of the mercantile-industrial food regime, a corporate-environmental food regime appears to be consolidating. The new food regime consists of two distinct yet complimentary paradigms: the Ecologically Integrated paradigm, and the Life Sciences Integrated paradigm. Through the use of in-depth interviews with organic and conventional farmers living in southern Saskatchewan, this thesis examines how the management strategies utilized by Saskatchewan farmers fit within the larger world food regime in relation to farmers’ self-described identities. This study also explores the heterogeneity of management strategies, and the consistency of these strategies with the ideologies held by the farmers. Giddens’ theory of structuration, Gramci’s theory of hegemonic discourse, and the idea of the reflexive producer are used to explain how farmers make decisions concerning agricultural strategies and how these decisions impact the larger social structure. An analysis of the interviews suggests that producers exist within the emerging food regime on a continuum between the Ecologically Integrated paradigm (alternative producers) and the Life Sciences Integrated paradigm (conventional producers). Most producers frequently utilize production strategies based on their access to markets and specific groups of consumers, and on their personal eco-strategies. These farmers often identify as “conventional” or “alternative” producers, while having beliefs or using agricultural methods that are associated with the opposing paradigm. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of community in the transfer of local knowledge, including potential alternative farming methods. This study also illustrates that Saskatchewan farmers face additional barriers in the potential for resistance against conventional agriculture due to the history of agriculture in western Canada, the lack of local processors, and the corporatization of land ownership.