Abstract
International trade is often viewed as environmentally unproblematic, even beneficial. This article challenges this view, using new trade data from the Food and Agriculture Organization to document inefficiencies in global food trade and to question the prioritization of economics over environment. It can be difficult to identify the effects of macro-level phenomena, such as trade agreements and climate change, on people’s lives at the micro-level. This article uses qualitative research conducted with farm women in the Canadian prairies to illustrate the intersection of policy, climate change, and their gendered effects in everyday life.
Introduction
It can be difficult to link far-reaching macro-level phenomena, such as climate change or international policies, to their concrete effects in everyday life. The environmental and gender implications of international trade agreements, for example, are often not immediately visible; therefore, these agreements are often treated as environmentally unproblematic and gender neutral. The purpose of this article is to highlight the broad links between neoliberal trade policy, climate change, and their gendered effects in everyday life.
I combine two case studies, one macro-level and one micro-level, to draw links between phenomena at each level. The first case study is an analysis of Canadian food trade statistics drawn from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) database. Examination of these trade flow statistics shows that although international trade agreements promote a discourse of environmental sustainability, the actual practice of trade prioritizes economic profit over environmental responsibility.
Trade agreements have tangible effects on the lives of Canadian family farmers, who must also cope with increased climate extremes as a result of anthropogenic (i.e. human-induced) climate change. In the second case study, I discuss the results of 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2011 with farm women in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan. All participants represented family owned and operated farms. Farm size in the study ranged from 920 acres to 12,000 acres with an average of 3553 acres; this is slightly larger than the average Saskatchewan farm size at 1668 acres, which is the largest in Canada. The participants’ income and main commodities were diverse, but representative of the general demographics of rural Saskatchewan. The purpose of the second case study was to explore how Canadian farm women are affected by, and respond to, major political, economic, and climatic events. The case study shows how vulnerability and adaptation to macro-level events can take gendered forms in everyday life.
Indeed, climate change experts have acknowledged that vulnerability to climate change is shaped by human and social factors, such as inequality based on gender, income, education, ability, race, or other factors (Adger, 2003; Field et al., 2012). Vulnerability is defined as the susceptibility of a person, household, community, or other system to the adverse effects of a climate event (Field et al., 2012). Vulnerability can be reduced through adaptation, which occurs when a system responds to climate events by making adjustments to moderate harm or even to exploit potential benefits from the event (Field et al., 2012). Like vulnerability, adaptation goes beyond physical infrastructure; it can include changes to social relations or social systems (Adger, 2003).
Both case studies are analyzed here using a feminist political economy (FPE) framework. FPE scholars (e.g. Bakker, 2007; Braedley and Luxton, 2010; Brodie, 2008; Brodie and Bakker, 2008; Katz, 2001) have documented the gendered effects of the neoliberal paradigm that currently guides international and Canadian policymaking institutions. This policy paradigm promotes such economic values as deregulation, privatization, and free trade (Harvey, 2005), and is accompanied by a strong ideological preference for private industry as a source of economic stability.
Economism is another feature of neoliberalism, although the former is certainly not a new concept and the term has been used variously in scholarly debates about the relationship between politics and economics (Ashley, 1983). Here, I follow Gasper’s (2004) definition of economism as the ideas that most of life should be understood, valued and managed in terms of economic calculation, and/or that there is a separate and foundational economic sphere, ‘the economy’, which must be run according to its own universal technical requirements, and whose growth is the essence of development. (p. xi)
Ashley (1983) stated that contemporary economism is marked by an ‘economization of the political sphere’ in which state practices are subsumed beneath the ‘privileged logic of economy’ (p. 489).
Economism is, in short, the privileging of economic concerns over political, social, and environmental concerns, or the related view that economically focused policies are in fact the best way to ensure political, social, and environmental stability. Feminist scholars have challenged this view by showing how the negative effects of such policies are disproportionately felt by less privileged social groups such as women, racialized groups, and the poor (Elson, 2003; Ewig, 2010; Razavi, 2009). However, little research has connected specific policies with both their environmental and gendered effects. Taken together, the two studies presented here illustrate the problematic nature of neoliberal economism for both environmental sustainability and human well-being.
International trade is often seen as environmentally unproblematic, even beneficial. The World Trade Organization (WTO, 2012) has argued that the goals of environmental protection and sustainable development ‘go hand in hand with the WTO’s objective to reduce trade barriers’ (n.p.). In this view, trade liberalization promotes economic stability, from which environmental protection flows naturally. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis epitomizes this view, positing that although some environmental degradation is required for countries to industrialize, this degradation is temporary and ultimately leads to more ‘efficient’ and ‘developed’ economies with enough resources to ensure environmental protection (Grossman and Krueger, 1991). The EKC has been critiqued by scholars on both economic (e.g. Stern, 2004) and social grounds (e.g. McCarthy, 2004). For example, Sachs (1999) argued that ‘development’ in the global North has ultimately led to increased environmental degradation as wealth creates high expectations of mobility and consumption, and ‘growth’ becomes positively viewed as limitless production and consumption. Furthermore, the WTO has no specific agreement on the environment. WTO agreements address if and how countries can implement environmental regulations, and the WTO determines when such regulations are considered ‘disguised protectionism’ (WTO, 2012). Governments can cite portions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1 to defend environmental regulations; however, the default position is that such regulations can only be justified if they do not impede trade.
Economism is also evident in the case of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The NAFTA was accompanied by a side agreement on the environment, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), which is administered through an intergovernmental organization, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The NAAEC and CEC have been thought to demonstrate the ‘embedded ecologism’ of the agreement (Kirton, 2002), but the NAAEC was established mostly to assuage public demand for environmental protection (Carpentier, 2006; Kirton, 2002). Even then, it was created as a side agreement to avoid clause-by-clause environmental review of the main NAFTA (Carpentier, 2006).
Furthermore, NAAEC mechanisms for environmental accountability lack the same enforcement power as NAFTA’s economic rules (e.g. investor protection provisions in Chapter 11). The CEC provides detailed, in-depth analyses of trade-related environmental issues, but is not an enforcing body. It is also limited by funding and baseline data constraints (Carpentier, 2006). Although the WTO and NAFTA have shown some attention to environmental issues, their economic priorities are clear. The following case study shows that economism also guides the actual practice of international trade.
Macro level: Trade, environment, and the economic imperative
International trade is marked by seemingly superfluous shipments of goods wherein the same product is imported and exported, sometimes in large quantities, by the same country. Numerous examples of such ‘trade for trade’s sake’ are found by examining international food trade data (Fletcher, 2013). For example, the United Nations’ FAO data show that in 2010 Canada exported 2,775,969 tonnes of soybeans (FAO, 2010b). The same year, it imported 242,105 tonnes of soybeans (FAO, 2010b). In 2010, boneless beef was Canada’s seventh most valuable export, with over 325,341 tonnes exported (FAO, 2010a). Simultaneously, boneless beef was also Canada’s sixth most valuable import, at 127,111 tonnes (FAO, 2010a). Similar trade patterns were identified for pork in 2010 (i.e. Canada exported 688,555 tonnes of pork and imported 112,167 tonnes of pork) and maize in 2010 (i.e. Canada’s highest-quantity import at 1,583,156 tonnes with exports of 856,726 tonnes; FAO, 2010a).
Much of the aforementioned trade was between Canada and the United States, suggesting the geographic expanse and the lengthy shared border might be making the inter-country trade more efficient than coast to coast intra-country trade; however, many examples of ‘unnecessary’ trade exist between countries that are far from geographically convenient, albeit in smaller quantities. For example, from an environmental mitigation perspective, it appears absurd that in 2010 Canada exported 216 tonnes of breakfast cereal to Australia and imported 84 tonnes of breakfast cereal from Australia (FAO, 2010c). Furthermore, Canada exported 209,182 tonnes of soybeans to China and imported 2887 tonnes from China, while also receiving 1611 tonnes of processed soybean cakes from China (FAO, 2010c).
Because these food products are both exported and imported within the same commodity category, it is not plausible that they are exported for the purpose of substantial processing. Moreover, the same phenomenon exists for processed food products such as bread. In 2010, Canada was the world’s top bread exporter in terms of value, distributing 239,031 tonnes of bread worldwide to over 65 countries (FAO, 2010a), but it was also the top importer in terms of both value and quantity, importing 150,915 tonnes of bread from over 70 countries (FAO, 2010a). Some countries receiving Canadian bread may lack raw materials or domestic processing capacity to produce this product; however, 38 of the countries importing bread from Canada also exported bread to Canada. As such, this trade appears ‘unnecessary’ 2 in practical terms. Even if trade between Canada and the United States is excluded from the calculation, this means that 4364 tonnes of bread were unnecessarily shipped between Canada and other countries in 2010.
The bread example represents only one case study from the perspective of one country and one commodity. Examples of ‘unnecessary’ trade exist for numerous countries and commodities. Further detailed research is needed to calculate the total amount of ‘unnecessary’ food trade occurring worldwide. Nonetheless, the number of countries importing and exporting bread clearly indicates that Ricardian notions of ‘comparative advantage’ do not necessarily guide food trade.
There is a paucity of detailed scholarly research examining causal factors behind ‘unnecessary’ trade. A 2010 beef industry magazine article explained the simultaneous import and export of American beef as feeding domestic consumer preference for particular meat cuts, ensuring high prices (Beef Magazine, 2010). The industry literature also indicates that trade is used to obtain inexpensive inputs, like ground beef for the fast-food industry (Beef Magazine, 2010). From this perspective, simultaneously exported and imported products ensure market efficiencies, satisfy customer demand, and provide low-cost inputs for corporate food processors and retailers. These purposes are economically rational and efficient only in the absence of environmental cost accountability; thus, they constitute a form of economism.
Environmental damage caused by transport is often considered an externality and is not typically reflected in the price of goods, despite the fact that shipping is a significant source of environmentally damaging emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (CEC, 2011; Sierra Club et al., 2000). The CEC (2011) reports that for every million-tonne kilometer traveled, truck traffic emits 104.5 tonnes of CO2, train transport emits 39.3 tonnes of CO2, and shipping emits 28.2 tonnes of CO2 (p. 21). As such, thousands of tonnes of ‘unnecessary’ trading across thousands of kilometers will produce thousands of tonnes of emissions for economic profit brokered on absent environmental accountability. These emissions contribute to anthropogenic climate change, which in turn has dramatic effects on food systems and the everyday lives of food producers. The next case study examines the gendered effects of policy and climate change on Canadian farm families.
Micro level: Gender, agriculture, and climate change on the Canadian prairies
Natural scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007; Oreskes, 2004; Powell, 2011) and that greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2, which are released by the burning of fossil fuels for industrialized agriculture and transport, are a significant causal factor (Weis, 2010). The CEC (2011) expects global CO2 emissions to increase another 40% by 2030, leading to increased global warming. Climate change scenarios are complex and contextual, but the IPCC expects increased frequency and severity of extreme climate events across the globe (Field et al., 2012). As ‘global warming is superimposed on natural variability’, regular short-term variability becomes amplified into extreme climate events (Sauchyn, 2010: 32). These extreme events threaten the sustainability of food production and those whose livelihoods depend on it.
Vulnerability and prairie agriculture
The Canadian prairies have one of the most variable climates worldwide (Sauchyn, 2010), and climate scenarios predict more dramatic changes in the future. As average temperatures rise due to global warming, more severe and protracted droughts are expected for the prairie region (Bonsal and Regier, 2007; Sushama et al., 2010); however, the region will also experience more fluctuations between climate extremes due to the interaction of anthropogenic climate change with natural climate cycles (Sauchyn, 2010; Sauchyn and Kulshreshtha, 2008).
Indeed, in recent years, the prairie region has experienced rapid fluctuation between severe drought and flooding. In 2001 and 2002, the southern prairies experienced 1 of the 10 worst droughts in recorded history (Bonsal and Regier, 2007). Farmers sustained crop losses of $925 million in 2001 and $1.49 billion in 2002 (Wheaton et al., 2008). In 2009, the region was hit by the unusual combination of drought with colder than average temperatures (Environment Canada, 2012). This was followed almost immediately by record flooding in some areas of the region during 2010, 2011, and 2013. The flood of 2010, which affected large parts of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, resulted in government expenditures of $956,350,000 (Government of Canada, 2011). Media reports indicated that the 2013 flood affecting parts of southern Alberta required the evacuation of at least 100,000 people (Ogrodnik, 2013).
These extremes have tested the adaptive capacity of the region’s residents, particularly agricultural producers, as well as the government institutions providing assistance. Since their livelihoods are dependent on the natural environment, farmers are highly vulnerable to climate extremes. Drought and flooding can cause complete crop losses while above-average precipitation can increase the likelihood of crop diseases. When asked about the most pressing challenges they currently face as farm women, the majority of participants in my research reported an overarching uncertainty and lack of control caused by two main factors: (a) weather and (b) farm economics and policy.
In the case of the latter, farm families are stressed to compete in an increasingly productivist, corporatized agricultural environment. In recent years, large multinational corporations have begun to dominate many links of the agri-food chain, from seed inputs and processing (Kuyek, 2007; Qualman, 2001) to marketing and export. Participants spoke of the pressure to increase farm size in order to make a profit and compete with larger operations. Statistics from the Census of Agriculture indicate that, since 1996, the average Saskatchewan farm size has increased at a rate not seen since the post-World War II boom. Between 2006 and 2011, average farm size increased by 10 percent in the province of Alberta, 13 percent in Manitoba, and Saskatchewan experienced the largest increase in the country at 15 percent (Statistics Canada, 2012).
For participants, increased farm size was often an adaptive response to an ever more competitive agricultural environment. Larger farms require more inputs and larger, more expensive machinery; accordingly, farm debt levels have risen steadily over the past three decades to a total of $8,938,016 for Saskatchewan farmers in 2010 (Statistics Canada, 2011b). Farm women had concerns about growing input costs coupled with low prices for their commodities (i.e. the ‘cost-price squeeze’). They linked this ‘squeeze’ to their lack of control over marketing and grain handling, as well as the rising cost of inputs to expand the farm and stay ‘productive’.
The ‘cost-price squeeze’ has been a problem for prairie farmers since the early days of agricultural settlement and was a major reason for the agrarian protest movements of the early 1900s (Fowke, [1957] 1973; McCrorie, 1964). However, in recent years, the phenomenon has taken a new form. Many participants attributed their lack of control to the growing power of large corporations in the agriculture sector, which were perceived as taking an unnecessarily high rate of profit for inputs, as well as government policy, which was seen as promoting large industrialized farms while eliminating useful supports for family-run operations. Such policy changes have been facilitated by international trade agreements, which expand markets for agri-corporations while requiring national governments to restrict supports for domestic producers, as these supports are thought to distort trade relations. In their 2006 study, Roppel et al. identified seven key agricultural support programs cut since the onset of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988.
Most farm women reported a generally negative view of current trade regimes. When free trade was viewed positively, participants tended to report it as an individualized phenomenon benefiting farmers nearest the Canada–United States border. Most felt they had not benefited from increased trade. This reflects the view of the National Farmers Union (NFU), a Canadian organization of family farmers, which recently reported that although agri-food imports and exports have risen substantially since 1970, producer incomes have remained stagnant (NFU, 2012). Additional reasons for participants’ negative views of trade were varied and included perceptions that the United States disproportionately benefited from trade with Canada, the undermining of local food systems, the disadvantaging of low-income nations in trade agreements, and the dismantling of domestic producer supports to comply with trade regulations.
Together, these political and economic challenges create financial difficulties that increase farmers’ vulnerability to other stressors, such as climate extremes, which the participants identified as a second major cause of their uncertainty and lack of control. In this way, the effects of political-economic and climatic stressors are closely intertwined for farmers. The concepts of vulnerability and adaptation, although originating in the climate change literature, can be usefully extended and applied to political-economic events as well.
Adaptation: Gender, stress, and farm sustainability
Farmers are vulnerable to the vagaries of global markets and global climate change but also exercise agency through adaptation. My research showed that adaptation to macro-level stressors, both economic and climate-related, take gendered forms on the family farm. The flexibility of farm women’s labor is an important mechanism for adapting to both political-economic and climate challenges. Past literature on farm women has shown that their work is structured by a patriarchal ideology that positions farm men as the primary farmers; as such, farm women’s contributions have historically been marginalized or invisible (e.g. Alston, 1998; Kubik and Moore, 2002; Sachs, 1983).
Indeed, farm women in the study consistently reported acting as ‘helpers’, ‘hired hands’, or ‘go-fors’ on the farm, roles which require constant flexibility and availability but are not usually seen as central to the farm’s operation (Faye, 2006). Most women participating in the research reported increasing demands on their farm labor as farms grow larger. Furthermore, many combine this work with paid labor off the farm. Almost half of farm women in Canada now participate in off-farm waged employment (Statistics Canada, 2011a), which can help provide a stable income, offer personal fulfillment, and provide health and pension benefits for farm families.
Although many participants reported high levels of satisfaction with their off-farm work, it is often used simultaneously as an adaptive strategy. Farm women reported taking off-farm jobs to cope with drought or flood damage. In this way, farm women’s labor acts as an adaptive mechanism to sustain the farm household in the face of economic or climatic stressors. When asked about any differences between farm women’s and men’s labor, many participants discussed the multiplicity and multitasking involved in their roles. This was seen as stressful, particularly as current conditions demand an increased extension of their labor in multiple arenas, on- and off-farm.
Participants spoke about the stress of balancing increased farm and off-farm responsibilities with caregiving and household labor. The farm women in the study performed the majority of domestic labor at 89%, with the remainder performed by spouses or children. They also performed the majority (76%) of yard and garden work in the farmyard. As such, the farm women interviewed did a combined total of 82.5% of domestic work; according to Statistics Canada’s national surveys, this is 20% higher than the national average for Canadian women in general (Milan et al., 2011). Furthermore, almost all participants reported being (or having been) the primary caregiver for children in their household.
Indeed, many farm households remain structured by a rigid gender ideology that positions women as centrally responsible for social reproduction. This ideology becomes particularly pronounced in times of financial or climate-related stress. When asked about their responses to major stressors on the farm, most participants in the study reported acting as support-givers or assistants, particularly for male spouses who were often positioned as the ‘main farmer’. One farm woman described the increased demand on her farm labor in times of crisis: My husband … when he’s in a state … the first thing he says is, ‘you’re gonna have to’. ‘Because I’ve gotta go here, and there’s a problem here, so you’re gonna have to’. If his time is consumed extra, then he’s looking around for who’s going to catch us up.
Farm women also provided emotional labor to family members, particularly farm men, during times of crisis. Because farm men tended to be positioned as the ‘main farmers’, participants saw farm men as absorbing the majority of production-related stress, with farm women positioned as supporters offering both emotional and farm work support. Participants frequently used terms such as ‘buffer’, ‘mediator’, and ‘counsellor’ to describe their role. One farm woman stated, ‘I’m sure that most women have to play the role of nurturer … a person who tries to kind of build up the other partner’.
These results parallel Australian research (Alston, 2006), which found that drought both reinforced and challenged entrenched gender roles. Extreme weather events markedly reinforced conventional gendered roles, with most Saskatchewan farm women emphasizing their caregiving and support roles in the coping process. However, at the same time, many participants discussed the greater psychological vulnerability of farm men. The notion of men as vulnerable poses a challenge to hegemonic ideologies of masculinity in this rural context, in which men are often seen as stoic ‘providers’ for the farm family.
This case study showed that a gendered division of labor on Saskatchewan family farms shapes adaptation to macro-level stressors, both political-economic and climatic. Psychological stress emerged as an important theme in the research, with farm women taking responsibility for giving care and support in times of crisis. The current suite of disaster-support programs in Canada are market-based or financial in nature; crop insurance and disaster payments, for example, are the most common forms of institutional assistance. Although financial supports are very important for producers, it is only by viewing adaptation through a gender lens that the need for other types of support becomes clear. As future climate extremes occur, institutional support for psychological and mental well-being in rural areas will become ever more important. The responsibility of caring for distressed farm families and communities should not rest disproportionately on the shoulders of women. Formal but culturally appropriate support for mental health and well-being should be a focus for future policies aimed at enhancing adaptive capacity in rural agricultural regions.
Conclusion
This article has drawn together two case studies on seemingly disparate phenomena, international trade and farm women, to illustrate the intersection of macro-level economic policy, the environment, and gender (see Figure 1). Despite claims about the environmental benefits of trade, the emphasis on profit over environmental sustainability is apparent in both the governance and actual practice of trade. Environmental issues remain peripheral and non-enforceable within international trade institutions and agreements such as the WTO and NAFTA. As individual citizens are encouraged to limit their personal consumption of fossil fuels, one case study presented here suggests that thousands (and potentially millions) of tonnes of emissions are produced by the ‘unnecessary’ movement of goods across the globe for profit. As a key driver of climate change, such emissions can be directly linked to the environmental challenges affecting current and future food production.
Relationship between trade, climate change, and gender.
At the same time, international trade agreements are part of a broader neoliberal policy paradigm that has left Canadian agricultural producers susceptible to international market conditions. Trade agreements have required governments to eliminate domestic support programs for agricultural producers because these programs are seen to violate the principles of ‘free’ trade. This policy paradigm, along with the increased presence of multinational corporations in Canadian agriculture, has pushed the rapid expansion of farm size in the prairies. High levels of debt combined with growing input costs can exacerbate the financial vulnerability of family farmers, who are facing the challenges of an increasingly unstable climate.
Environmental damage caused by excess industrial transport increases the risk of climate extremes that threaten food production and sustainability. The second case study in this article has shown that as farm families adapt to extreme events such as flood and drought, their strategies are shaped by gender roles; thus, future climate adaptation policies must be created with attention to gendered dynamics at the social level. This suggests the need to view climate change in a holistic manner that attends to the intersections between political-economic trends, environment, and gendered forms of vulnerability and adaptation in everyday life.
Footnotes
Funding
This work was supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) [grant number 767-2010-1713].