What is left after the pandemic? Solidarity and Reciprocity from Kayambi agroecological producers during COVID-19

Abstract

In many places worldwide, government-imposed lockdowns during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in harshening food insecurity for urban residents. The lockdowns had contrasting effects in the rural areas of the Cayambe canton, north of Ecuador. This article shows the different forms of solidarity and reciprocity that emerged amongst consumers and producers from Kayambi communities during the pandemic. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork amongst agroecological producers in 2020 and 2021, I describe their challenges in guaranteeing food security and their strategies for generating new local markets for agroecological production. At first, like peasants in other parts of the world, producers in Cayambe faced challenges in distributing food in mainstream distribution channels, a worldwide phenomenon of food surplus accumulation (de Wit 2020). Later, a shift towards increasing agrobiodiversity and decentralizing agroecological markets became the primary strategy of Kayambis. In dialogue with Altieri and Nicholls (2020), I expand on the relevance of agroecology to reconstructing agriculture in the post-covid. I show that when capitalist structures fail to guarantee peoples’ food security, other economic principles become more evident in daily life practices.