Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Keywords
Agrobiodiversity, Agroecological knowledge, Food sovereignty, Plantation labor, Plantationocene
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2023.00126
Abstract
Coffee agroecosystems represent the economic base for thousands of small growers and agricultural workers, as well as a significant proportion of many regional economies in Latin America. Every year, the production of coffee in this region attracts a great number of laborers and their families, particularly during the harvest season. Despite being essential workers in the food system, agricultural workers continue to be one of the most marginalized actors in the coffee production chain. Even with an environment of precarity, agricultural workers exercise their autonomy and food sovereignty—the process by which agricultural workers, in this case, define their food system and procure culturally appropriate foods. We examine the relationship between agrobiodiversity, knowledge, and food sovereignty in the context of plantation agriculture. Through walking interviews and participant observation with groups of farmworkers in one shade-grown coffee plantation, which is socioeconomically reflective of plantation structures in the region, we discuss how farmworkers practice their autonomy and food sovereignty through plant foraging, collective cooking, knowledge sharing, and gardening. Our results reveal extensive farmworker knowledge of and uses for associated agrobiodiversity within coffee plantations—a dimension often overlooked in agrobiodiversity studies. We place examples of practicing food sovereignty, including foraging and agrobiodiversity conservation, in conversation with challenges associated with the working conditions and precarity of migrant farmworkers: urbanization, increased migration to the United States, the increased use of herbicides, and possible effects of climate change and generational knowledge gaps on plant diversity and availability. We argue that food—deeply tied to place—and agrobiodiversity is an avenue to maintain autonomy, identity, and sovereignty amid unjust conditions of the plantation system. Finally, we suggest that complex agroecological knowledge held by migrants promotes and conserves agrobiodiversity in coffee landscapes.
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Elementa: Science of Anthropocene, v. 13, no. 1
Scholar Commons Citation
Jiménez-Soto, Estelí; Cowal, Sanya; and Lopez, April, "Food Sovereignty Among Migrant Farmworkers: The Role of Agrobiodiversity for Autonomy and Resistance in A Mexican Coffee Plantation" (2025). School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications. 2435.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/geo_facpub/2435
Supplementary material
