Abstract: From food
aid to the promotion of non-traditional export crops (NTXs), the US Agency for
International Development’s (USAID) support for agricultural development
programs that are harmful to food sovereignty in Global South countries is well
documented. Less understood is when and why USAID promotes subsistence-oriented
agriculture, agrobiodiversity, and traditional crops. In this article, I
describe USAID’s efforts in Guatemala to bolster traditional milpa production
as a part of their Feed the Future initiative. I demonstrate how milpa agriculture
is promoted alongside non-traditional export crops—with the explicit admission
that market-oriented production is not sufficient to improve household food
security. While milpa promotion demonstrates cracks in the
dominant neoliberal approach to food security, there remain significant
differences between state programs and the ways Guatemalans envision food
sovereignty. The main difference is that food sovereignty movements
connect milpa practices to the formation of radical political
subjects and push for the kinds of structural changes that are missing in USAID
projects. Rather than a neoliberal attempt at cooptation, I argue that milpa promotion reflects
cracks emerging in the neoliberal market-based development approach, while also
representing a narrow misreading of milpa agriculture. This
empirical case study of ‘New Green Revolution’ agricultural development
programs in Guatemala contributes to a deeper theorization of hegemony,
counter-hegemony, and cooptation in critical agrarian studies.