Poverty among Philippine farmers in prevalent: The latest Philippine poverty statistics for the basic sector (NSCB 2006) indicate that poverty incidence3 among farmers was 44% in 2006 – more than twice as high as poverty incidence among the “urban poor” and among “migrant and formal sector workers”. The distribution of land ownership in Philippine agriculture is characterized by sharp inequalities which are gradually tackled by a comprehensive land redistribution program.
The MASIPAG farmer network has been established in 1986 on a rice conference which discussed the negative impacts of the Green Revolution on Philippine rice farmers (MASIPAG 2009: 6f.). The Green revolution caused most rice farmers to convert their cultivation from traditional rice varieties to the chemically-dependent, genetically uniform high-yielding varieties of the International Rice Research Institute. Subsequently, many farmers became indebted and lost the self-determination in their agricultural management. Therefore, the MASIPAG network was founded “primarily to break the control of local and multinational fertilizer and pesticide companies, multi-lateral rice research institutes and distribution cartels over the rice industry” (MASIPAG 2007). Accordingly, MASIPAG aimed for giving the farmers control over agricultural diversity, agricultural production and associated knowledge (ib.). A normative framework to assess the MASIPAG network in terms of environmental justice should, therefore, address farmer empowerment as an objective of justice in its own.
How can the impact of the MASIPAG network in terms of intragenerational and intergenerational environmental justice, respectively, be adequately assessed? In the following, I argue that Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” (1971) connected with Sen’s “Capability Approach”
is a promising foundation for a normative framework of assessment.
With his contract theory, John Rawls develops certain principles of justice that should guide societal institutions (i.e., primarily the political constitution and the social and economic system) in the distribution of primary social goods (i.e., rights, liberties, opportunities to societal positions, income and wealth). To deduce and justify fair and generally agreeable principles of justice, Rawls introduces an original position characterized by impartiality (Rawls 1999: 118ff.): The contract partners decide on principles of justice from behind a “veil of ignorance”, neither knowing their specific place in society (e.g.
whether they are big landlords or poor tenant farmers) nor their natural assets nor their conception of a good life. Rawls argues that the contract partners would commonly agree on two principles of justice in this imaginary original position: (1) “Each person is to have an equal right of the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all” (ib. 266). (2) “Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity” (ib.).
3 Poverty incidence is conceptually defined as the number of poor people (in a specific basic sector) divided by the total number of people (in a specific basic sector), based on an annual per capita poverty threshold of 13.348 pesos in 2006 (NSCB 2006, NSCB 2009).
Paper 5: Reconciling intragenerational and intergenerational environmental justice in Philippine agriculture: The MASIPAG farmer network
157 Rawls’ principles of justice serve the assessment of institutions in terms of their realized impacts (ib. 48). His “difference principle”4 which regulates social and economic inequalities in income and wealth focuses on the situation of the least advantaged group within a society (ib. 81ff.). Rawls also recognizes that future people have legitimate claims towards the present generation and complements the difference principle by a “just savings principle” (ib.
251ff.). He arrives at the just savings principle through replacing the assumption that the contract partners in the original position are purely self-interested persons by the assumption that the contract partners are contemporaries who represent family lines and, therewith, care about the wellbeing of their descendants (ib. 255). Beside the solution presented by Rawls, the original position offers the potential to extend the community of justice to include representatives from the present and future generations (cf. Richards 1983, in De-Shalit 1995:
110). To address ecosystem services in the context of Rawls theory, access rights to ecosystem services must fall into Rawls’ list of primary social goods – that is, “a class of goods that are normally wanted as parts of rational plans of life which may include the most varied sorts of ends” (Rawls 1999: 230). I assume that people in the original position will commonly regard access rights to vital ecosystem services as primary social goods (cf. e.g.
Dobson 1998: 125, Visser’t Hooft 2007: 88). Food, fresh water and (to some extent) agrobiodiversity are such vital ecosystem services that should be included in Rawls’ category of primary goods as they are necessary means to satisfy the basic need for nutritious food and fresh water. As ecosystem-service access refers to tangible goods, it would fall under the difference principle that regulates social and economic inequalities.
With the proposed extensions, Rawls’ theory can provide a philosophical foundation to assess the MASIPAG network in terms of environmental justice: It would assess how MASIPAG impacts on inequalities in the distribution of access to vital ecosystem services, considering both today’s rural poor and future people. Still, Rawls’ theory neglects two aspects of relevance for the MASIPAG case. The first aspect is the context-specific value of regulating and cultural ecosystem services for the farmers’ wellbeing: These ecosystem services enable a secure supply with sufficient, safe and nutritious food. For instance, enhanced biological control, instead of pesticide and herbicide use, allows for pollution-free crop yields, and practical knowledge in plant breeding improves the performance of the farmer’s rice selections. The second aspect is the intrinsic value of freedoms: MASIPAG farmers aim for freedom to decide on their agricultural management and for independence from fertilizer and pesticide companies, rice research institutes and the rice industry.
The “Capability Approach” (CA) by the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen recognizes these aspects – by highlighting the context-specific relation between primary goods and human wellbeing, and the intrinsic value of freedoms (Sen 1982: 367f., Sen 1999: 36). The notion “basic capabilities” describes a person’s ability to do certain basic things (Sen 1982:
367). Capabilities are alternative combinations of feasible “functionings” - that is doings and beings constitutive for human wellbeing, including „such elementary things as being adequately nourished, being in good health, avoiding escapable morbidity and premature
4 The difference principle says that social and economics inequalities should be to the greatest expected benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls 1999: 65ff.).
Paper 5: Reconciling intragenerational and intergenerational environmental justice in Philippine agriculture: The MASIPAG farmer network
158 mortality, etc., to more complex achievements such as being happy, having self-respect, taking part in the life of the community“ (Sen 1992: 39).
The main elements of the CA are illustrated in Figure 1 with regard to the situation of Philippine peasant rice farmers. Resources (such as leased or owned agricultural land, fresh water access and machinery) are converted into a capability set which describes “those ways of life (bundles of functionings) that are feasible for the person” (Leßmann 2011: 43).
Individual conversion factors (personal features such as the physical condition and skills in farming methods) and the social context (e.g. agrarian reform legislation and exposure to climate change) influence which capabilities an individual farmer can achieve with certain resources. The individual farmer makes a choice between different bundles of functionings (e.g. between conventional and MASIPAG farming methods). The result of this choice manifests in achieved functionings (including the farmer’s achievement of food security, health and livelihood).
Figure 1: The situation of Philippine (MASIPAG) rice farmers within the context of the Capability Approach (based on Leßmann 2011: 53)
The bold expressions in Figure 1 indicate how the MASIPAG network (potentially) impacts on the achieved functionings of its farmer members: The MASIPAG network is part of the social context of an individual Philippine rice farmer and provides for its members training facilities in plant breeding, access to a communal seed bank and communal support. If a farmer decides to become a member of MASIPAG, he receives access to the communal seed bank (resources), attains knowledge and skills in seed selection, plant breeding and organic agriculture (individual conversion factors) – and, therewith, gains freedoms regarding his agricultural management (i.e., the choice between the MASIPAG and the conventional way of farming). The choice in favor of the MASIPAG way of farming implies changes in the
Paper 5: Reconciling intragenerational and intergenerational environmental justice in Philippine agriculture: The MASIPAG farmer network
159 provision of ecosystem services (among others in on-farm diversity, biological and erosion control, communal labor, cf. Table 3). Enhanced ecosystem-service provision substantially impacts on, or even determines, the achieved functionings: Enhanced regulating ecosystem services improve the resilience of crop yields (food security), higher on-farm diversity promotes a more diverse diet (health outcomes), and practical knowledge in plant breeding makes the farmer independent from purchase of seeds (livelihood). In addition, enhanced ecosystem-service provision (potentially) influences the future resource availability (such as the soil fertility of the farmland and the available varieties of rice seeds).
To assess the impact of MASIPAG in terms of intragenerational (resp. intergenerational) environmental justice, I construct a normative framework that connects Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” with Sen’s CA. This normative framework focuses on inequalities in the basic capabilities which are determined by access rights to ecosystem-services: The MASIPAG network is assessed to be intragenerationally (resp. intergenerationally) just if it improves the situation of present (resp. future) Philippine rice farmers regarding these basic capabilities.