Biofuels

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15594398
• Author: Blanca Olivia Acuña Rodarte,Yolanda Cristina Massieu Trigo
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 67–82

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15594398

© 2015 Latin American Perspectives

67

Biofuels

Socio-environmental Violence in Rural Mexico

by

Yolanda Cristina Massieu Trigo and Blanca Olivia Acuña Rodarte

Translated by

Luis Alberto Hernández

The production of biofuels in Mexico is a fledging project. Lack of planning, the obsta-

cles presented by PEMEX, and the resistance of small farmers have limited their produc-

tion. Even at this stage, however, some of its effects are increasingly clear: its

socio-environmental violence affects the natural resources of peasants and indigenous

communities. In addition, Mexico’s trade relationship with the United States, character-

ized by strong dependency, has affected its food sovereignty in that corn imports have

become more expensive because of the increase in U.S. production of corn-derived

ethanol.

La producción de agrocombustibles en México es un proyecto incipiente. La falta de

planeación, los obstáculos por parte de PEMEX, así como la resistencia por parte de los

campesinos han limitado su producción. Sin embargo, aún en esta fase incipiente se per-

ciben claramente algunos de sus efectos, los cuales consideramos como violencia socio-

ambiental, ya que en principio atentan contra los recursos naturales de territorios

campesinos e indígenas. Por otro lado, la relación comercial de México con Estados Unidos,

caracterizada por una fuerte dependencia, ha incidido en la soberanía alimentaria del

primero, ya que las importaciones de maíz se han encarecido debido al incremento de la

producción de etanol a partir de este cereal en la nación vecina.

Keywords: Biofuels, Socio-environmental violence, Accumulation, Dispossession, Food

sovereignty

In the global struggle over oil, a new strategy to create alternative sources of

energy has arisen in the main oil-importing countries. Biofuels are part of this

strategy. This article analyzes the process by which Mexico has entered this

new area of accumulation, which is characterized by predatory social and envi-

ronmental practices that especially affect small farmers. The production of bio-

fuels is a fledging project in Mexico. Although incentives are offered for the

production of “green fuels,” in practice few of the projects have been success-

ful. A law for the promotion and development of biofuels was passed in

February 2008, and there are business groups interested in biofuel production,

Yolanda Cristina Massieu Trigo and Blanca Olivia Acuña Rodarte are professors and researchers

in the Department of Social Relations and the Postgraduate Program in Rural Development of the

Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana–Xochimilco. Luis Alberto Hernández is a translator in the

Philadelphia area.

594398LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X15594398Latin American PerspectivesMassieu and Acuña / Biofuels

research-article2015

68 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

but delays in implementation of the law and a boycott of biofuels on the part of

PEMEX have resulted in several failures. In this article we shall examine this

new alternative in the context of the new forms of accumulation built upon

dispossession and socio-environmental violence.

BIOFUELS: NEW AGRO-FOOD REGIME, NEW TERRITORIALITY

Various writers have interpreted the expansion of capital as a process char-

acterized by violence. In Marx’s (1973) writings, primitive accumulation, the

starting point of the capitalist regime, is seen as an unfinished process brought

about through dispossession by violence (conquest, slavery, plunder, and mur-

der). Other writers, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt, working

from a traditional or a new interpretation of the Marxist framework, placed the

mechanisms of plunder, dispossession, and violence in the context of the debate

over capitalist accumulation. Luxemburg (1967) said that the natural econ-

omy—that of peasants with communal ownership of the land—was in ongoing

resistance to capitalist dispossession. Arendt argued that the need for capitalist

expansion led to a permanent primitive accumulation characterized by plun-

dering of other regions—geographical expansion dominated by the use of vio-

lence. Projects such as neo-extractivist development, the construction of dams,

the cultivation of transgenic crops, the expansion of the housing sector, and the

production of biofuels fit into an accumulation phase characterized by the vio-

lent dispossession of peasants. This process not only transforms the landscape

but uses its resources in an indiscriminate, intensive, predatory, and violent

manner.

David Harvey (2004) argues that the current stage of capitalism is character-

ized by predatory accumulation. Although he stresses financial capital, he also

points to new mechanisms of accumulation by dispossession such as intellec-

tual property, patenting and licensing of genetic materials, and the pillage of

natural resources. The momentum given to biofuel production by the devel-

oped countries in recent years follows from the renewed spatiality of capital in

the context of globalization. It depends upon the transfer of technology and

financial resources and its social and environmental costs. The various capitals

involved have influenced the reorganization of land, positioning themselves in

a hegemonic way as new actors in the struggle over the agricultural spaces of

disadvantaged nations. The geospatialization of the “green” energy strategy of

Europe, the United States, and even countries like Colombia and Brazil has

brought about a new phase of land concentration and a scenario of renewed

conflict. The intense demand for land caused by the crops associated with bio-

fuels has disrupted social reproduction, creating new kinds of socio-environ-

mental violence.

In speaking of socio-environmental violence, we agree with Joseph Nevins’s

(2003: 677) observation that violence should be understood not only in terms of

physical brutality but also in terms of indirect action and social structures that

cause harm. The modality of predatory accumulation in which we have framed

biofuels would fit this definition. Nevins speaks of “environmental violence,”

but we call it “socio-environmental” to highlight its social component.