Check out these websites for more information on the MST, Brazil, and other items of interest.
Bibliography: The MST and the Struggle for Agrarian Reform in Brazil
Adriance, Madeleine R. Terra Prometida: As Comunidades Eclesiais de Base e os Conflitos Rurais. São Paulo: Edições Paulinas, 1996.
Berger, Christa. Campos em Confronto: A Terra e o Texto. Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade/UFRGS, 1998.
Branford, Sue and Rocha, Jan. Cutting the Wire: The Story of the Landless Movement in Brazil. London: Latin American Bureau, 2002.
Caldart, Roseli Salete. Pedagogía do Movimento Sem Terra: Escola É Mais do que Escola, 2nd edition (Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000).
Carter, Miguel. “The Origins of Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST)": The Natalino Episode in Rio Grande do Sul (1981-84). A Case of Ideal Interest Mobilization. Working Paper Number CBS-43-03, Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford, 2003.
http://www.brazil.ox.ac.uk/carter43.pdf
Carter, Miguel. “The MST and Democracy in Brazil". Working Paper CBS-60-05, Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford, 2005.
http://www.brazil.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/Miguel%20Carter%2060.pdf
Carter, Miguel. Ideal Interest Mobilization: Explaining the Formation of Brazil’s Landless Social Movement. Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 2002.
Carvalho, Horácio Martins de. “A Emancipação do Movimento no Movimento de Emancipaçã Social Continuada (Resposta a Zander Navarro). Produzir para Viver: Os Caminhos da Produção Não Capitalista, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira, 2002.
Chaves, Christine de Alencar. A Marcha Nacional dos Sem-Terra: Um Estudo Sobre a Fabricação do Social. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2000.
Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT). Conflitos no Campo Brasil 2004. Goiânia: CPT, 2005.
Comparato, Bruno Konder. A Ação Polítiça do MST. São Paulo: Editora Expressão Popular, 2000.
Dallagnol, Wilson. As Romarias da Terra no Rio Grande do Sul: Um Povo a Caminho da “Terra Prometida". Canoas: Gráfica La Salle, 2002.
Dos Santos, Andrea Paula, Suzana Lopes Salgado Ribeiro and José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy. Vozes da Marcha pela Terra. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1998.
Fernandes, Bernardo Mançano. A Formação do MST no Brasil. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2000.
Flávio de Almeida, Lúcio and Sánchez, Félix Ruiz. “The Landless Workers’ Movement and Social Struggles Against Neoliberalism." Translated by Laurence Hallewell. Latin American Perspectives. 114, 27:5 (September 2000), pp.11-32.
Graziano, Xico. O Carma da Terra. São Paulo: A Girafa, 2004.
Hammond, John L. “Law and Disorder: The Brazilian Landless Farmworkers’ Movement." Bulletin of Latin American Research.18:4 (1999), pp. 469-489.
Kane, Liam. Popular Education and Social Change in Latin America. London: Latin America Bureau, 2001.
Kolling, Edgar Jorge, Paulo Ricardo Cerioli, osfs and Roseli Salete Caldart, eds. Educação do Campo: Identidade e Polítiças Públicas: Por uma Educação do Campo. Coleção Por Uma Educação do Campo No. 4. Brasilia: Articulação Nacional Por Uma Educação do Campo, 2002.
Le Breton, Binka. Todos Sabíam: A Morte Anunciada do Padre Josimo. São Paulo: CPT / Edições Loyola, 2000.
Leite, Sergio, et al., editors. Impactos dos Assentamentos: Um Estudo sobre o Meio Rural Brasileiro. Brasília : Núcleo de Estudos Agrários e Desenvolvimento Rural (NEAD), 2004.
Martins, José de Souza. O Sujeito Oculto: Ordem e Transgressão na Reforma Agrária. Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade/UFRGS, 2003.
Martins, José de Souza. Reforma Agrária: O Impossível Diálogo. São Paulo: Editora da Universidad de São Paulo, 2000.
Martins, José de Souza. “A Questão Agrária Brasileira e o Papel do MST," A Reforma Agraria e a Luta do MST , edited by João Pedro Stédile. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997.
Martins, José de Souza. O Poder do Atraso: Ensaios de Sociología da História Lenta. São Paulo: Editora HUCITEC, 1994.
Martins, José de Souza. Expropriação e Violência: A Questão Política no Campo, 3rd revised edition. São Paulo: HUCITEC, 1991
Martins, José de Souza. Os Camponeses e a Política no Brasil. 4th edition. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1990.
Martins, Mônica Dias. “The MST Challenge to Neoliberalism." Latin American Perspectives. 114, 27:5 (September 2000), pp.33-45.
Medeiros, Leonilde Sérvolo de. História dos Movimentos Sociais no Campo. Rio de Janeiro: FASE, 1989.
Meszaros, George. “No Ordinary Revolution: Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement." Race & Class. 42:2 (2000), pp.1-18.
Meszaros, George. “Taking the Land into their Hands: The Landless Workers’ Movement and the Brazilian State." Journal of Law and Society. 27:4 (December 2000), pp.517-41.
Morissawa, Mitsue. A História da Luta pela Terra e o MST. Sao Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2001.
Navarro, Zander. “Mobilização sem Emancipação – As Lutas Sociais dos Sem Terra no Brasil." Produzir para Viver: Os Caminhos da Produção Não Capitalista. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, editor. São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira, 2002.
Navarro, Zander. “O MST e a Canonização da Ação Coletiva (Reposta a Horacio Martins Carvalho)." Produzir para Viver: Os Caminhos da Produção Não Capitalista, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira, 2002b.
Navarro, Zander, editor. Política, Protesto e Cidadanía no Campo: As Lutas Sociais dos Colonos e Trabalhadores Rurais do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 1996.
Ondetti, Gabriel. “Opportunities, Ideas and Actions: The Brazilian Landless Movement, 1979-2001." Ph.D. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002.
Poletto, Ivo and Antônio Canuto, editors. Nas Pegadas do Povo da Terra: 25 Anos da Comissão Pastoral da Terra. Sao Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2002.
Petras, James and Veltmeyer, Henry. “Are Latin American Peasant Movements Still a Force for Change? Some New Paradigms Revisited." The Journal of Peasant Studies. 28:2 (January 2001), pp.83-118.
Quirk, Patrick W. Emotions and the Struggle of Brazil's Landless Social Movement (MST). Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K. Publishers, 2008.
Sparovek, Gerd. A Qualidade dos Assentamentos da Reforma Agrária Brasileira. Sao Paulo: Páginas & Letras Editora e Gráfica, 2003.
Stédile, João Pedro. A Questão Agrária no Brasil. 7th Edition. São Paulo: Editora Atual, 1999.
Stédile, João Pedro, editor. A Reforma Agrária e a Luta do MST. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997.
Stédile, João Pedro and Bernardo Mançano Fernandes. Brava Gente: A Trajetória do MST e a Luta pela Terra no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora da Fundação Perseu Abramo, 1999.
Stédile, João Pedro and Frei Sergio Görgen. A Luta Pela Terra no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Página Aberta, 1993.
Veltmeyer, Henry and Petras, James. “The Social Dynamics of Brazil’s Rural Landless Workers’ Movement: Ten Hypotheses on Successful Leadership." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. 39:1 (2002).
Wolford, Wendy. “Families, Fields, and Fighting for Land: The Spatial Dynamics of Contention in Rural Brazil," Mobilization 8:2 (2003), pp. 201-215.
Wright, Angus and Wolford, Wendy. To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil. Oakland: Food First Books, 2003.
Compilation by:
Dr. Miguel Carter
School of International Service
American University
Washington, DC
The Landless Voices website with its "Sights and Voices of Dispossession: The Fight for the Land and the Emerging Culture of the MST" is an archive that projects the images, voices and forces of the MST. It gathers resources on the emerging culture of the MSTin various media formats including music (streamed audio), dance, films (streamed video), theatre, photographs, murals, sculpture, paintings, literature, and children's compositions and drawings. It also includes studies, statements & references-over 100 resources providing further tools for research: photographs, films (streamed video), statements by intellectuals and artists, academic papers, conference, bibliography, maps, glossary and tables.
Throughout the MST's over two decade history, photographers-from world reknowned like Sebastiao Salgado, to indigenous MST photographers like Douglas Mancur and other-have captured the lives and struggles of Brazil's landless. Here are a few sources of MST images. Send additions to [ info@mstbrazil.org ].
A few sources of MST images:
• MST photos from www.mst.org.br divided into themes of encampments, settlements, children or the "sem terrinha", education, production, violence, national marches, occupation, the National Congress, the National Florestan Fernandes School, and the World Social Forums.
• Website of Brazilian Photographer Robson Oliveira, including a number of beautiful MST photos.
• A collection of Sebastiao Salgado's dramatic MST images.
• A collection of MST images by Photographer Rick Gerharter, taken during his 2007 participation in the MST's 5th National Congress. [ SEE: http://www.rickgerharterphotos.com/ ].
• The Friends of the MST (FMST) published its own set of MST images taken at the 5th National Congress in June, 2007. SEE: [5th National Congress] Photos by Friends of the MST (FMST).
• The BBC published a series of MST photos.
• Brazil's Folha de Sao Paulo also published a series of MST photos.
"On the Front Line: Human Rights Defenders in Brazil" documents and denounces the Brazilian government's slowness, incompetence, and inefficiency in dealing with the issue. The 51 cases presented in the report are, unfortunately, only a handful of the many that threaten the defense of human rights in Brazil. However, they serve to more than adequately illustrate the seriousness of the situation, and illustrate the historic pattern of violence against human rights defenders and the impunity the perpetrators enjoy. Many more cases of at-risk defenders could have been included in this report, which itself reflects the risks to which the defenders are continually exposed.
Report Available in English at the website of Justica Global:
http://www.global.org.br/docs/relatoriodefensores2005ingles.pdf
Also, in Portuguese:
http://www.global.org.br/docs/relatoriodefensores2005.pdf
-- World Bank documents describe their land reform project.
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ENGLISH Sources
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CONFERENCE
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AGRARIAN REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Porto Alegre, 7-10 March 2006
ISSUE PAPER FIVE
AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE CONTEXT OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, THE RIGHT TO FOOD AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY: LAND, TERRITORY AND DIGNITY
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In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad-based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant-based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.
We develop the human rights aspects of food sovereignty--and how food sovereignty implies agrarian reform--through an analysis of the right to adequate food, and of the right to land that rural social movements claim. We then analyze different agrarian reform polices in the light of food sovereignty, calling for a new redistributive land reform that defends and/or restores indigenous territories and respects and balances the needs of diverse rural peoples.
We highlight the issues raised by diversity by examining the perspective of indigenous peoples with regard to territory as a more inclusive and important concept than mere land, and the right to self-determination of peoples in their territories, and by looking at the situation in West Africa, where conflicting traditional practices and State-led agrarian polices can pit local, endogenous communities against colonists, colonists against the State, and farmers against cattlemen and nomadic pastoralists. In other words, while civil society organizations and social movements call for genuine redistributive agrarian reform in the context of food sovereignty policies, such programs must be designed through processes in which local communities take leadership, and which address the needs and demands of diverse constituencies, including but not limited to indigenous peoples, traditional fisherfolk, nomadic pastoralists, migrants, peasant and family farm cultivators, forest peoples, rural workers, and others. We end with a set of guidelines or recommendations to orient future agrarian reform policies in the context of food sovereignty.
Table of Contents
TOC \o "1-3" Introduction PAGEREF _Toc128818216 \h iii
A Rural World in Crisis PAGEREF _Toc128818217 \h iii
I. Chapter 1: Food Sovereignty: Framework for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development PAGEREF _Toc128818218 \h v
Fair Policies PAGEREF _Toc128818219 \h vi
Real Access to Productive Resources PAGEREF _Toc128818220 \h vi
a. Two Models of Agriculture PAGEREF _Toc128818221 \h vii
B. The Centrality of Agrarian Reform to Food Sovereignty PAGEREF _Toc128818222 \h viii
II. Chapter 2: The Human Rights Underpinning of Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform PAGEREF _Toc128818223 \h ix
III. Chapter 3: What Kind of Agrarian Reform under Food Sovereignty? PAGEREF _Toc128818224 \h xi
A. On Going Agrarian Reforms PAGEREF _Toc128818225 \h xi
The “Official” Reforms PAGEREF _Toc128818226 \h xi
State led Land Reforms PAGEREF _Toc128818227 \h xi
Land Reform from Below PAGEREF _Toc128818228 \h xiii
B. The Case for Re Distributive Land Reform PAGEREF _Toc128818229 \h xiii
Land reform and poverty PAGEREF _Toc128818230 \h xiv
Land reform and productivity PAGEREF _Toc128818231 \h xv
Land reform and economic development PAGEREF _Toc128818232 \h xv
Land reform and the environment PAGEREF _Toc128818233 \h xvii
IV. Chapter 4: Cultural Diversity and Agrarian Reform PAGEREF _Toc128818234 \h xviii
Indigenous People: Territory, Collective Rights, Autonomy and Self Determination PAGEREF _Toc128818235 \h xviii
Lessons from West Africa PAGEREF _Toc128818236 \h xx
Conclusions and Guidelines for the Future PAGEREF _Toc128818237 \h xxi
Bibliography PAGEREF _Toc128818238 \h xxiii
This paper was prepared by the International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), upon request of Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). The positions and opinions presented are those of the authors alone, and are not intended to represent the views of FAO.
Introduction
3. In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.
4. We develop the human rights aspects of food sovereignty and how food sovereignty implies agrarian reform—through an analysis of the right to adequate food, and of the right to land that rural social movements claim. We then analyze different agrarian reform polices in the light of food sovereignty, calling for a new redistributive land reform that defends and/or restores indigenous territories and respects and balances the needs of diverse rural peoples.
5. We highlight the issues raised by diversity by examining the perspective of indigenous peoples with regard to territory as a more inclusive and important concept than mere land, and the right to self determination of peoples in their territories, and by looking at the situation in West Africa, where conflicting traditional practices and State led agrarian polices can pit local, endogenous communities against colonists, colonists against the State, and farmers against cattlemen and nomadic pastoralists. In other words, while civil society organizations and social movements call for genuine redistributive agrarian reform in the context of food sovereignty policies, such programs must be designed through processes in which local communities take leadership, and which address the needs and demands of diverse constituencies, including but not limited to indigenous peoples, traditional fisherfolk, nomadic pastoralists, migrants, peasant and family farm cultivators, forest peoples, rural workers, and others. We end with a set of guidelines or recommendations to orient future agrarian reform policies in the context of food sovereignty. The task is urgent, as the situation is only getting worse in rural areas worldwide.
A Rural World in Crisis
6. At the start of the new millennium we find the rural world everywhere to be in a state of crisis. The historical origins of this crisis, in the nations of the South, can be found in colonial land grabs and the displacement of farming peoples from fertile lands with adequate rainfall, toward steep, rocky slopes, desert margins, and infertile rainforest soils, and the progressive incorporation of these displaced peoples into poorly paid seasonal labor forces for export agriculture. As a result of this legacy, only slightly modified in the post colonial period, the landless and near landless have long made up the poorest of the poor. In recent decades, neoliberal economic policies have typically made the conditions in rural areas even worse, as national governments, often with urging from international financial institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO), have:
Presided over a set of trade, macroeconomic and sectoral policies which have conspired to undercut the economic viability of peasant, small scale and family farmers, and cooperative/collective agriculture. These policies have included trade liberalization, and the subsequent flooding of local markets with dumped, cheap food imports, against which local farmers can scarcely compete; cutting of price supports and subsidies for food producers; privatization of credit, commercialization and technical assistance; excessive export promotion; patenting of crop genetic resources; and a bias in agricultural research toward expensive technologies like genetic engineering. Increasingly, smaller and poorer farmers find that credit is inadequate or too expensive to cover rising production costs, buyers are more scarce and monopsonist than ever, and prices are too low to cover credit and production costs. The net result has been a significant and continued deterioration in the access of the poor to land, as they are forced to sell off land they own, cannot afford land rentals or similar arrangements, or lose land by defaulting on credit.
Dragged their feet in implementing already existing land reform and land re distribution policies, and have by and large resisted sometimes using force efforts by civil society organizations, such as movements of the landless, to push the implementation of these policies.
Stood by as land and other resources (water, seeds, forests, oceans, etc.) have increasingly been commercialized and privatized, and watched passively as business interests both agricultural (i.e. plantations) and non agricultural (i.e. petroleum, tourism and mining) and large infrastructure projects (i.e. hydroelectric dams) have encroached on communal and public lands, and territories of indigenous peoples and local communities.
Done nothing as agricultural commodity chains on both the input (i.e. seeds) and output (i.e. grain trading) sides have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of very few transnational corporations, who by virtue of their near monopoly status are increasingly setting costs and prices unfavorable to farmers, putting all, especially the poorest, in an untenable cost price squeeze, thus further encouraging the abandonment of agriculture.
7. In fact, governments and multilateral institutions have essentially taken up only one policy initiative on a more or less global scale, which they have presented as a 'positive' step to redress land access issues. This initiative, or series of initiatives, consists of accelerating, building upon, and 'featuring' World Bank designed and supported policies to title lands, facilitate land markets, and increasingly, promote 'land bank' credit for land purchases by the poor. This is so called 'market assisted' or 'negotiated' land reform. Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that these policies are unlikely to significantly improve access by the poor to land, or give them more secure tenure. In fact there is good reason to believe they will actually worsen the situation in many places.
8. Thus it should come as no surprise that it is in rural areas where the worst poverty and hunger are still to be found. The expansion of agricultural production for export, controlled by wealthier producers, who own the best lands, continually displaces the poor to ever more marginal areas for farming. They are forced to fell forests located on poor soils, to farm thin, easily eroded soils on steep slopes, and to try to eke out a living on desert margins and in rainforests.
9. But the situation is often worse on the most favorable lands. The better soils of most countries have been concentrated into large holdings used for mechanized, pesticide, and chemical fertilizer intensive monocultural production for export. Many of our planet's best soils which had earlier been sustainably managed for millennia by pre colonial traditional agriculturalists are today being rapidly degraded, and in some cases abandoned completely, in the short term pursuit of export profits and competition. The productive capacity of these soils is dropping rapidly due to soil compaction, erosion, waterlogging, and fertility loss, together with growing resistance of pests to pesticides and the loss of biodiversity.
10. The products harvested from these more fertile lands flow overwhelmingly toward consumers in wealthy countries. Impoverished local majorities cannot afford to buy what is grown, and because they are not a significant market, national elites essentially see local people as a labor source a cost of production to be minimized by keeping wages down and busting unions. The overall result is a downward spiral of land degradation and deepening poverty in rural areas. Even urban problems have rural origins, as the poor must abandon the countryside in massive numbers, migrating to cities where only a lucky few make a living wage, while the majority languish in slums and shanty towns.
11. If present trends toward greater land concentration and the accompanying industrialization and export orientation of agriculture continue unabated, it will be impossible to achieve social or ecological sustainability. On the other hand, research shows the much greater positive potential that could be achieved by redistribution of land through genuine agrarian reform. Smaller scale farmers are more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to broad based regional development than do the larger corporate farmers who hold the best land. Peasant farmers with secure tenure can also be much better stewards of natural resources, protecting the long term productivity of their soils and conserving functional biodiversity on and around their farms.
12. However necessary it is, though, redistribution of land is not enough. We are witnessing a clash between two models of agriculture on a global scale. The dominant, agroindustrial model, is based on large scale monocultural production for export, and depends on massive government subsidies to the private sector and on environmentally destructive technologies, and generates increasing poverty and hunger through exclusion and dispossession of rural majorities. This model is currently favored by government policies and by trade negotiations. Social movements and civil society organizations worldwide advocate for policies that are supportive of the peasant and small farm model of agriculture, which is potentially more productive, more environmentally sound, and is a key proven ingredient in the kind of broad based and inclusive economic development that can truly attack the root cause of poverty and hunger. A different overall policy package food sovereignty would be needed to favor this second model of agriculture and food production. We begin with this concept.
I. Chapter 1: Food Sovereignty: Framework for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
13. Food sovereignty is the right claimed by rural social movements worldwide of all peoples,’ countries’ or state unions’ to be able to define their own agricultural and food policies, without policy imposition by multilateral agencies nor any dumping in their local markets by third countries. The concept of food sovereignty was developed by La Via Campesina, and brought to the public debate during the World Food Summit in 1996, and has since been endorsed by a broad range of civil society organizations around the world, and has become a major topic in the international agricultural debate, including within United Nations bodies (this section based on Via Campesina, 2002, 2003; Via Campesina et al., undated a,b; World Forum on Food Sovereignty, 2001; World Forum on Agrarian Reform, 2004; Rosset, 2003).
14. Food sovereignty includes:
Prioritizing local agricultural production in order to feed people, the access of peasants and landless people to land, water, seeds, and credit, and hence the need for genuine, comprehensive land reforms, for open access to seeds, and for safeguarding water as a public good to be equitabley and sustainably distributed.
The right of family farmers and peasants to produce food and the right of consumers to be able to decide what they consume, and how and by whom it is produced.
The right of Countries to protect themselves from low priced agricultural and food imports.
Agricultural prices must be linked to production costs with a proft margin allowing for life with dignity for food producers: this can be achieved if the Countries or Unions of States are entitled to impose taxes, quotas and bans on excessively cheap imports, if they commit themselves in favour of a sustainable farm production, and if they manage production on the internal market so as to avoid structural surpluses.
The people taking part in the formulation of agricultural policiess.
The recognition of women farmers’ rights, who play a major role in agricultural production and in food.
15. Governments must uphold the rights of all peoples to food sovereignty and security, and adopt and implement policies that promote sustainable, family based production rather than industry led, high input and export oriented production. This in turn demands that they put in place the following measures:
Fair Policies
Ensure adequate remunerative prices for all farmers and fishers;
Exercise the right to protect domestic markets from imports at low prices;
Regulate production on the internal market in order to avoid the creation of surpluses;
Abolish all direct and indirect export supports; and,
Phase out domestic production subsidies that promote unsustainable agriculture, inequitable land tenure patterns and destructive fishing practices; and support integrated agrarian reform programmes, including sustainable farming and fishing practices.
Develop local food economies based on local production and processing, and the development of local food outlets.
Real Access to Productive Resources
Recognise and enforce communities' legal and customary rights to make decisions concerning their local, traditional resources, even where no legal rights have previously been allocated;
Ensure equitable access to land via genuine and comprehensive land reform seeds, water, credit and other productive resources;
Grant common property rights to communities that depend on aquatic resources, and reject systems that attempt to privatise these public resources;
Prohibit all forms of patenting of life or any of its components, and the appropriation of knowledge associated with food and agriculture through intellectual property rights regimes and
Protect farmers', indigenous peoples’ and local community rights over plant genetic resources and associated knowledge including farmers' rights to exchange and reproduce seeds.
A. TWO MODELS OF AGRICULTURE
16. Today people of the world are confronted with two models of agriculture, rural development and food production. The dominant one is an agro export model based on the neo liberal logic of free trade, privatization and commodification of land, water, forests, fisheries, seeds, knowledge and life itself. It is guided by a drive for corporate profits and the boosting of production for export, and is responsible for the increasing concentration of landholdings, resources, and chains of production and distribution of food and other agricultural products in the hands of a few corporations. The prices of food crops and agricultural goods received by producers are constantly declining because of dumping and other factors, as are wages for farmers and workers. Consumer prices, however, continue to increase. The model is chemical intensive and is causing incalculable damage to the environment and the health of producers, workers and consumers alike.
17. The peasant and family farm based food sovereignty model, on the other hand, prioritizes local production of food for local and national markets, negates dumping, and uses sustainable production practices based on local knowledge. Evidence shows that this model is potentially more productive per unit area, more environmentally sound, and far more capable of providing rural families with a decent life with dignity, while providing rural and urban consumers with healthy, affordable and locally produced food. However, the dominant, neo liberal agro export model is pushing peasant and family farm agriculture towards extinction.
18. The agro export model is entrenched by the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the IMF, and the free trade regime imposed by the WTO. The promotion of individual private property through land cadastres and alienable titles has hastened the commercialization of land. Market based policies of access to land promoted by the World Bank and bilateral donors have led to heavy indebtedness among poor, small scale producers and resulted in the re concentration of land in the hands of traditional and modern elites. At the same time, the state has stepped back from the redistribution of land and has abdicated its obligation to deliver essential services such as health, education, social security, protection for workers, public food distribution systems and marketing support for small scale producers. Instead, governments have chosen to implement the neo liberal policies demanded by international financial institutions, bilateral donors and private investors, and have often used violent means including armed forces and militias to quell the resistance of peasants, workers and indigenous communities to the expropriation of their natural resources and territories.
19. Faced with the disaster that the dominant model is generating, we propose an alternative model of peoples’ food sovereignty based on the rights of women and men farmers, rural workers and fisher folk to produce food for their own local and national markets, with access to and control over their own territories including land and natural resources, and on peasant based agroecological farming and artisanal fishing practices for a sustainable, people based food and farming system, Food sovereignty assures the right of every person to affordable, safe, healthy, culturally appropriate, nutritious and locally produced food, and to a life with dignity. In a move towards peoples’ food sovereignty, we urgently demand effective implementation of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Articles 1, 2 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Human Rights, as well as Articles 55 and 56 of the U.N. Charter in order to make the human right to food a reality, and to protect and guarantee people’s access to natural resources. In order to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and territories, we demand that our governments approve, ratify and effectively implement the ILO Convention 169. The realization of human rights should go beyond the notion of individual rights and also ensure the collective rights of communities and peoples.
THE CENTRALITY OF AGRARIAN REFORM TO FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
20. Food sovereignty has various pillars, and all are necessary. Eliminating dumping and raising crop prices without redistribution of land and other productive resources will not, in most cases, solve problems of inequality, rural poverty and underdevelopment, as large landholders will capture the benefits of fairer prices. Nor will agrarian reform without fair crop and livestock prices be effective, as the beneficiaries will find a hard time making a living. A transition to more sustainable, ecological faming, fishing or forestry practices is meaningless if people to not have access to land, fishing areas and forests, yet getting that access while reproducing the expensive and destructive technology of the dominant model will dig them into an economic and ecological hole from which it will be difficult to escape.
21. Thus, we affirm that state led, redistributive agrarian reform is a key building block of the food sovereignty model and is a crucial measure for the realization of fundamental human rights such as the right to food, housing, work, environment, to participate in cultural life and to enjoy one’s own culture, and to participate in the conduct of public affairs, though alone it is not enough. Comprehensive food sovereignty policies provide the framework within which agrarian reform and rural development can be successful at eliminating poverty and providing all rural people with the possibility of a life with dignity, and agrarian reform is an integral component of such polices.
22. Contemporary agrarian reform programs must guarantee to peasants, rural workers, indigenous peoples, and racially and socially excluded communities, access to and control over land, water, seeds, forests, and fisheries, as well as means of production (financing and training), distribution and marketing. It must also guarantee indigenous peoples rights to their territories, including the recuperation of their territories when these have been taken from them, and their autonomy and self determination in those territories. It must also guarantee fisherfolk families access to and control over the management of their fishing grounds, and must balance the needs, rights and demands of diverse actors, including women, men and youth, peasant and family farm families, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, forest dwellers, migrants, rural workers, and others. Agrarian reform must guarantee security of land and resource tenure, free access to knowledge and technology, support the use of land for productive purposes, and avoid the re concentration of land. Agrarian reform must ensure to women full and equal opportunities and rights to land and natural resources and must compensate women for the historic discrimination and social disadvantages they have been subjected to. Youth should be provided with appropriate opportunities for a dignified future. The final declaration of the World Forum on Food Sovereignty, held in 2002, stated:
Food sovereignty implies the implementation of radical processes of comprehensive agrarian reform adapted to the conditions of each country and region, which will provide peasant and indigenous farmers with equal opportunities for women with equitable access to productive resources, primarily land, water and forests, as well as the means of production, financing, training and capacity building for management and interlocution.
Agrarian reform, above all, should be recognized as an obligation of national governments within the framework of human rights and as an efficient public policy to combat poverty. These agrarian reform processes must be controlled by peasant organizations and must guarantee both individual and collective rights of producers over shared lands, and be articulated within coherent agricultural and trade policies. We oppose the policies and programs for the commercialization of land promoted by the World Bank instead of true agrarian reforms by governments (World Forum on Food Sovereignty, 2002).
Chapter 2: The Human Rights Underpinning of Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform
The right to food is a human right that is protected by international law. It is the right to have regular, permanent and unobstructed access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and ensuring a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free from anxiety. Governments have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food…
While the Special Rapporteur believes that international cooperation is fundamental, the primary obligation to realize the right to food rests with national Governments. At this level, access to land is fundamental, and agrarian reform must be a key part of Government strategies aimed at reducing hunger. In many parts of the world, people are struggling to survive because they are landless or because their properties are so small that they cannot make a decent living. Agrarian reform must be just, fair and transparent… [and] more attention should be paid to the alternative models proposed by civil society, particularly the concept of food sovereignty. Access to land and agrarian reform, in particular, must be key elements of the right to food.
Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Right to Food, 2002.
23. In a detailed contribution to this paper, Monsalve (2005) lays out the human rights basis for food sovereignty and agrarian reform. In November of 2004, the FAO Council approved the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, based on Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 2 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and Articles 55 and 56 of the Charter of the United Nations, all which together make it clear that we have a human right to adequate food. Other international instruments that support this position include the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the four Geneva Conventions, and their two Additional Protocols. The guidelines, and these supporting instruments, provide a systematic underpinning for food sovereignty perspectives and for access to land (see FIAN, 2006 for a detailed interpretation of the Guidelines).
24. The FAO Guidelines (paragraph 16) “…aim to guarantee the availability of food in quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals; physical and economic accessibility for everyone, including vulnerable groups, to adequate food, free from unsafe substances and acceptable within a given culture; or the means of its procurement.” In order to achieve this, Mr. Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Right to Food (2002), argues in favor of:
…alternative potential policy options, including small scale farming, local production, agroecological methods and the concept of food sovereignty. The Special Rapporteur believes that these proposals must be given greater attention at the international level if the question of hunger in the world is to be seriously addressed. He advocates the concept of food sovereignty as defined by the NGO/CSO Forum on Food Sovereignty. The Forum defined the concept of food sovereignty with a focus on several key elements. These include promoting food production for domestic and local markets using agroecological peasant and family farming; ensuring fair prices; ensuring access to land and other vital resources; recognizing women’s role in food production; access to resources; promoting community control over productive resources; protecting seeds from patenting; encouraging a moratorium on genetically modified crops, given the risk of affecting genetic diversity; and increasing public investment to support the empowerment and productive activities of families and communities. If hunger and chronic malnutrition in the world are really to be addressed, and States are to meet the commitments they have made, this alternative model provides important guidance [italics added].
25. According to the UN Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights (1999), the ability of an individual to feed themself depends on the opportunity granted them by society in terms of “exploiting productive land or other natural food sources, or by means of food distribution, processing and marketing systems that function adequately and are capable of transporting food from where it is produced to wherever the need may be.” From this interpretation, it is clear that food production through one’s own access to land is part of the human right to adequate food. In fact, the States that are parties to the ICESCR are obligated to respect, protect and realize access to land for those who need it, and the Special Rapporteur (Ziegler, 2002) states explicitly that “agrarian reform must be a key part of Government strategies aimed at reducing hunger”. Monsalve (2006) provides a much more detailed legal and human rights basis for food sovereignty and agrarian reform, including issues of sustainability, land an public sector services, the application of these rights at the national level, the legal framework and legal recourse, and the relationship with civil and political rights. We put her full paper at the disposition of readers at:
HYPERLINK "http://www.acciontierra.org/display.php?article=391" http://www.acciontierra.org/display.php?article=391
26. In particular, she points out that these are “existing rights,” and that peoples have the right to fight for their existing rights under international law. This means that the repression of movements struggling for access to productive resources and their realization of the right to adequate food, is a fundamental violation of civil and political human rights.
Chapter 3: What Kind of Agrarian Reform under Food Sovereignty?
27. As described above, food sovereignty rests on the concepts of economic and social human rights, which include the right to adequate food. Food sovereignty argues, as does the Special Rapporteur, that there is a corollary right to land, and even, the “right to produce” for rural peoples (Ziegler, 2002, 2004), which can in most cases only be achieved via agrarian reform. But, what kind of agrarian reform? Not all agrarian reforms are redistributive in nature; that is, not all agrarian reforms alter the existing structures of land tenure and land holdings, and in particular, not all address inequality in land holdings. It is the belief of the authors of this paper that food sovereignty and the right to adequate food can only be achieved by agrarian reforms which are redistributive in nature, and/or based on the defense of, or restitution of, the territories of indigenous, farming, forest dwelling, pastoral and fishing peoples (Rosset, 1999, 2001a). In this section we review the variety of on going agrarian reforms in the world, in order to evaluate their efficacy, and then make the case for redistributive reforms.
ON GOING AGRARIAN REFORMS
The “Official” Reforms
28. The World Bank is taking the lead in promoting, and in some cases financing, comprehensive reforms of land tenure, including titling, cadasters and land registries, land market facilitation, market assisted or negotiated redistributive reforms, and credit, technical assistance and marketing support (Rosset, 2004; Deininger and Binswanger, 2001; Deininger, 2001, 2003; Bond, 2000). Here the Bank has followed the lead of its own development economists, who have found that severe inequality in land tenure retards economic growth, poverty alleviation, and efforts to use soils sustainably (Deininger, 2003; Deininger and Binswanger, 2001). In this policy environment other institutions, including governments, aid agencies, and other development banks, are following the lead of the World Bank and aggressively implementing some, or in some cases, all of these reforms (De Janvry et al., 2001; Burns, et al., 1996).
29. While one might applaud the fact that thanks to the World Bank it is no longer taboo to propose land reform as a key element in sustainable development (de Janvry et al., 2001; Rosset, 2002), the Bank's land policies are largely failing to address underlying causing of poverty and exclusion (Borras, 2003a; 2005; forthcoming). Land titling programs can lead to new land loss, as in Thailand (Leonard and Narintarakul Na Ayutthaya, forthcoming), and conflicts, as in Mexico (de Ita, forthcoming), and the cost of land banks makes their potential scope woefully inadequate when compared to the magnitude of landlessness, as in Guatemala (Garoz and Gauster, 2005), while ‘beneficiaries) are strapped with heavy debts for expensive land of dubious quality as in Guatemala and Brazil (Garoz and Gauster, 2005; Sauer, forthcoming). Furthermore, market based 'solutions' tend to depoliticize the problem of landlessness, which by it’s nature can only be resolved by structural changes of a kind that can only be addressed in the sphere of politics, rather than that of the market (Rosset, 2002, 2004). Finally, these ‘reforms’ are carried leaving the neoliberal policy environment, so inimical to family agriculture, and the ‘model,’ intact. We can hope for little positive change, then, from these efforts (Barraclough, 1999; Borras, forthcoming).
State led Land Reforms
30. “In every Latin American case where significant land redistribution benefiting the rural poor took place, the state played a decisive role,” wrote the late Solon Barraclough (1999:33). Unfortunately, he also wrote, in every case where reform was denied or deformed, the state also played a critical role.
31. Only two contemporary governments, in Latin America or elsewhere, can truly be said to have a sincere commitment to genuine land reform, including a transition of models geared to making family scale and cooperative agriculture more viable. These are Cuba and Venezuela (Rosset et al., forthcoming).
32. While Cuba’s original revolutionary land reform took place in the 1960s, Funes et al. (2001) show how a second ‘reform within the reform’ allowed Cuba to escape from a food crisis in the 1990s, in what might be the closest example to a true transition from an agroexport toward more food sovereignty like model of the kind called for by Via Campesina. Figure 1 summarizes key elements which made such a transition possible. The sine qua non factors were, first of all, access to land by the rural majority, shown on the inside of the schematic model. Cuba's ‘second’ land reform to break up state farms into smaller, cooperative and individual production units was possible because the earlier expropriation of landlords had already taken place. Second of all, the de facto protection from dumping provided by the trade embargo, provided a positive condition (albeit for a very negative reason), in that higher prices for farmers provided the economic viability and incentives needed for agriculture itself to survive the crisis. The other key factors were state support for the transition (shifts in credit, research, extension education, etc., to support the new model), a highly organized rural sector which made the rapid dissemination of change possible, and the existence of autoctonous, agroecological technology (from both accumulated peasant knowledge and from scientific institutions) to help break dependence on no longer available imported inputs (Funes et al., 2001).
33. The case of Venezuela is still very much up in the air. While the government of President Chavez has made clear it’s commitment to genuine agrarian reform, a number of factors, including the resistance of landlords and bureaucrats, the failure (so far) to address the dumping effects of massive food imports, and the relative lack of organization of the peasant into a an actor, or at least active subject to push land reform, have so far conspired to keep progress uneven at best (Wilpert, forthcoming).
Land Reform from Below
34. Barraclough noted that, “in every case where significant land reforms occurred, protests and demands by organized peasant producers and rural workers made crucial contributions to bringing them about” (1999:36). Today it is movements around the world who are engaged in a wave of land occupations that are putting the pressure on governments to respond. The mid to late 1980s and 1990s saw the appearance, and in some cases, the coming of age, of a new generation of well organized movements of landless peasants and rural workers. While the landless have always engaged in takeovers or 'recuperations' of idle lands, there has been a qualitative change in the organization and political savvy of contemporary groups. Landless movements are bringing land reform to national and international policy debates even as they seize, occupy, and plant idle lands often at a tremendous cost of lives lost and arbitrary arrests. These movements are growing rapidly around the world, from Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua, to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Thailand, India and countless other countries. Indeed, across most of the Third World, we are seeing the emergence of a new source of hope and dynamism, from these largely non violent poor people's movements who sidestep government inaction and take matters firmly into their own hands (Rosset, 2001a).
35. Brazil and the very successful Landless Workers' Movement (MST) are a case in point. While large landowners in Brazil on the average leave more than half of their land idle, 25 million peasants struggle to survive in temporary agricultural jobs. Founded in 1985, the MST organizes landless workers to occupy idle lands, using the “social function of land” clause in the Brazil constitution to legalize their claims, though they must defend themselves against the hired guards of the landowners and government security forces. Today more than 300,000 families which means more then one million people have won title to over 8 million hectares of land through MST led actions, a veritable reform from below (Langevin and Rosset, 1997; Mançano Fernandes, 2001; Wolford, 2001; Wright and Wolford, 2003).
THE CASE FOR RE DISTRIBUTIVE LAND REFORM
36. The redistribution of land can fulfill a number of functions in more sustainable development (Barraclough, 1999; Ziegler, 2002; Rosset, 1999). Dozens of land reform programs were carried out after WW II. In looking back at the successes and failures, we can distinguish between what might be called 'genuine' land reforms, and the more 'window dressing' or even 'fake' reforms (Lappé et al., 1998; Sobhan, 1993).
37. When a significant proportion of quality land was really distributed to a majority of the rural poor (or tenure for the majority was reformed in such a way that immiserating landlord tenant relationships were abolished), with trade, macroeconomic and sectoral policies favorable to successful family farming in place, and when the power of rural elites to distort and 'capture' policies was broken, the results have invariably been real, measurable poverty reduction and improvement in human welfare (Sobhan, 1993). The economic successes of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Cuba resulted from such reforms (Sachs, 1987; Ziegler, 2002; Boyce et al., 2005). In contrast, when 'reforms' gave only poor quality land to poor families and failed to support them with favorable policies, credits, prices and access to markets, or failed to alter the rural power structures that work against the poor, land reform failed to affect broad based changes (Sobhan, 1993; Lappé et al., 1998; Thiesenhusen, 1995; Barraclough, 1999).
38. The more successful reforms triggered relatively broad based economic development. By including the poor in economic development, they built domestic markets to support national economic activity (Sachs, 1987). The often tragic outcome of failed reforms was to condemn the 'beneficiaries' to marginalization from national economic life, as they frequently assumed heavy debts to pay for the poor quality land they received in remote locations without credit or access to markets and in policy environments hostile to small farmers (Sobhan, 1993, Thiesenhusen, 1995).
39. Today we have a new opportunity to learn the lessons of past reforms and apply them to the practical goals of development. Land reform is no longer a taboo subject in the discourse on development, thanks in part to the 1996 World Food Summit, and to the somewhat unfortunate initiatives of the World Bank. We are witnessing a worldwide upsurge in people taking matters into their own hands via land occupations, both spontaneous and organized, on both small and large scales. From the land crisis in Zimbabwe (Moyo and Yeros, 2005), to the massive land takeovers in Chiapas in the wake of the Zapatista rebellion (Rosset, 1995), and the MST in Brazil (Langevin and Rosset, 1999; Wolford, 2001), “land reform from below” is increasingly a reality even as policy makers dither. These grassroots movements, together with a wide array of civil society organizations, are increasingly challenging national governments and World Bank land reform policies, and putting forth alternatives. Here we look at the important roles redistributive land reform can play in the move toward more sustainable development.
Land reform and poverty
40. History shows that the re distribution of land to landless and land poor rural families can be a very effective way to improve rural welfare (Ziegler, 2002). Sobhan (1993) examined the outcome of virtually every land reform program carried out in the Third World since World War II. He is careful to distinguish between what he calls 'radical' re distribution (called 'genuine land reform' by Lappé et al., 1998), and 'non egalitarian' reforms (or 'fake land reform' in the Lappé et al.'s terminology). When quality land was really distributed to the poor, and the power of the rural oligarchy to distort and 'capture' policies broken, real, measurable poverty reduction and improvement in human welfare has invariably been the result. Japan, South Korean, Taiwan, Cuba and China are all good examples. In contrast, countries with reforms that gave only poor quality land to beneficiaries, and/or failed to alter the rural power structures that work against the poor, have failed to make a major dent in rural poverty (Sobhan, 1993; Lappé et al., 1998).
41. While Sobhan looked at national level statistics to derive his conclusions, Besley and Burgess (2002) recently looked at the history of land reform in 16 individual Indian states from 1958 to 1992. While these were by and large not radical reforms in Sobhan's sense, many did abolish tenancy and reduce the importance of intermediaries. The authors found a strong relationship between land reform and the reduction of poverty. Leite et al (2004) found that settlers in land reform settlements in Brazil earn more than they did before, and than do still landless families, they eat better, they have greater purchasing power, they have greater access to educational opportunities, and they are more likely to be able t unite their families in one place (rather than ‘lose” family members to migration). In fact land reform holds promise as a means to stem the rural urban migration that is causing Third World cities to grow beyond the capacity of urban economies to provide enough jobs. Even in Zimbabwe, where land reform was ended prematurely and is very incomplete, the evidence shows that beneficiaries are quite substantially better off than others (Deininger et al., 2000).
42. Another way of looking at it is in terms of the cost of creating a new job. Estimates of the cost of creating a job in the commercial sector of Brazil range from 2 to 20 times more than the cost of establishing an unemployed head of household on farm land, through agrarian reform. Land reform beneficiaries in Brazil have an annual income equivalent to 3.7 minimum wages, while still landless laborers average only 0.7 of the minimum. Infant mortality among families of beneficiaries has dropped to only half of the national average (Stédile, 1998).
43. This provides a powerful argument that land reform to create a small farm economy is not only good for local economic development, but is also more effective social policy than allowing business as usual to keep driving the poor out of rural areas and into burgeoning cities.
44. Sobhan (1993) argues that only land reform holds the potential to address chronic underemployment in most Third World countries. Because small farms use more labor and often less capital—to farm a given unit of area, a small farm model can absorb far more people into gainful activity and reverse the stream of out migration from rural areas.
Land reform and productivity
45. In the past there was a longstanding debate concerning the likely impacts of the redistribution of farm land to the poor, which almost inevitably leads on the average to smaller production units. One concern was that that, when freed from exploitative share cropping, rental or labor relationships, the poor would retain a greater proportion of their own production for their own consumption (not necessarily a bad thing), thus leading to a net decrease in food availability for other consumers. However, this argument has been put to rest by the evidence (Sobhan, 1993), and by the productivity gains that can be achieved by sifting to smaller scale, more intensive styles of production.
46. In Brazil, family farm agriculture produces 24% of the total national value of production of beef, 24% of milk, 58% of pork, and 40 % of poultry and eggs. It also generates 33% of cotton, 31% of rice, 72% of onions, 67% of green beans, 97% of tobacco, 84% of cassava, 49% of maize, 32% of soya, 46% of wheat, 58% of bananas, 27% of oranges, 47% of grapes, 25% of coffee, and 10% of sugar. In total, family farm agriculture accounts for 40% of the total national value of production, while occupying just 30.5% of the cultivated land area. They generate fully 76.9% of the national employment in agriculture, all while receiving only 25.3% of farm credit (Pengue, 2005).
47. In fact, data shows that small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms, and do so more efficiently (Rosset, 1999). This holds true whether we are talking about industrial countries or any country in the Third World. This is widely recognized by agricultural economists as the "inverse relationship between farm size and output" (Tomich et al., 1995; Rosset, 1999; etc.). A 1999 report (Rosset, 1999) examined the relationship between farm size and total output for fifteen countries in the Third World. In all cases relatively smaller farm sizes were much more productive per unit area 2 to 10 times more productive than larger ones. Thus re distributive land reform is not likely to run at cross purposes with productivity issues.
Land reform and economic development
Agrarian reform that is truly transformative and redistributive has proved to be fundamental in reducing poverty and hunger in many countries, and can be a key to generating economic growth that benefits the poorest.
Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the Right to Food, 2002
48. Surely more tons of grain is not the only goal of farm production; farm resources must also generate wealth for the overall improvement of rural life including better housing, education, health services, transportation, local economic diversification, and more recreational and cultural opportunities.
49. In the United States, the question was asked more than a half century ago: what does the growth of large scale, industrial agriculture mean for rural towns and communities? Walter Goldschmidt's classic 1940's study of California's San Joaquin Valley compared areas dominated by large corporate farms with those still characterized by smaller, family farms (see Goldschmidt, 1978).
50. In farming communities dominated by large corporate farms, nearby towns died off. Mechanization meant that fewer local people were employed, and absentee ownership meant that farm families themselves were no longer to be found. In these corporate farm towns, the income earned in agriculture was drained off into larger cities to support distant enterprises, while in towns surrounded by family farms, the income circulated among local business establishments, generating jobs and community prosperity. Where family farms predominated, there were more local businesses, paved streets and sidewalks, schools, parks, churches, clubs, and newspapers, better services, higher employment, and more civic participation. Studies conducted since Goldschmidt's original work confirm that his findings remain true today (see Fujimoto, 1977; MacCannell, 1988; Durrenberger and Thu, 1996).
51. The Amish and Mennonite farm communities found in the eastern United States provide a strong contrast to the virtual devastation described by Goldschmidt in corporate farm communities. Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, which is dominated by these small farmers who eschew much modern technology and often even bank credit, is the most productive farm county east of the Mississippi River. It has annual gross sales of agricultural products of $700 million, and receives an additional $250 million from tourists who appreciate the beauty of traditional small farm landscapes (D'Souza and Ikerd, 1996).
52. If we turn toward the Third World we find similar a similar situation. On the one hand there is the devastation caused by land concentration and the industrialization of agriculture, while on the other we find local benefits to be derived from a small farm economy in one case, created by 'land reform from below.'
53. Leite at al. (2004) describe how local town benefit from the commerce that is generated when estates belonging to absentee landlords are turned into productive family and cooperative farming enterprise through land reform driven from below. A study of one such municipality, Julho de Castilhos, found that while the MST settlement possessed only 0.7% of the land, it's members paid 5% of the taxes, making the settlement into the municipality's second largest rural tax payer (MST, 2001).
54. It is clear that local and regional economic development can benefit from a small farm economy, as can the life and prosperity of rural towns. But what of national economic development? History has shown us that a relatively equitable, small farmer based rural economy provides the basis for strong national economic development. This "farmer road to development" is part of the reason why, for example, the United States early on in its history developed more rapidly and evenly than did Latin America, with its inequitable land distribution characterized by huge haciendas and plantations interspersed with poverty stricken subsistence farmers (de Janvry, 1981). In the early decades of the United States, independent "yeoman" farmers formed a vibrant domestic market for manufactured products from urban areas, including farm implements, clothing and other necessities. This domestic demand fueled economic growth in the urban areas, and the combination gave rise to broad based growth (Sachs, 1987).
55. The post war experiences of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in the capitalist world, and China, Cuba and more recently, Vietnam, in the socialist world, also demonstrate how equitable land distribution fuels economic development. At the end of the Second World War, circumstances, including devastation and foreign occupation, conspired to create the conditions for 'radical' land reforms in the former countries while revolutions did the same in the latter breaking the economic stranglehold of the landholding class over rural economic life. Combined with trade protection to keep farm prices high, and targeted investment in rural areas, farm families rapidly achieved a high level of purchasing power, which guaranteed domestic markets for fledging industries (Rosset, 1999; Lappé et al., 1998; Sachs, 1987; IFAD, 2001).
56. The post war economic 'miracles' of the three capitalist countries were each fueled at the start by internal markets centered in rural areas, long before the advent of the much heralded 'export orientation' policies which much later on pushed those industries to compete in the global economy. This was a real triumph for 'bubble up' economics, in which re distribution of productive assets to the poorest strata of society created the economic basis for rapid, relatively inclusive development. While this analysis in no way is meant to suggest that all policies pursued by these countries were positive, or should be blindly replicated, their experience does stand in stark contrast to the failure of 'trickle down' economics to achieve much of anything in the same time period in areas of U.S. dominance, such as much of Latin America (Sachs, 1987). More generally, there is now a growing consensus among mainstream development economists, long called for by many in civil society, that inequality in asset distribution impedes economic growth (Solimano, 2000).
57. A key distinction that Sobhan (1993) makes is between 'transformative' agrarian reforms and others. In most redistributive reforms those who actually receive land are at least nominally better off than those who remain landless (unless and until policies inimical to small farm agriculture lead them to lose their land once again). However, certain agrarian reforms have been the key step in allowing entire nations to change development tracks. In these cases countires have 'jumped' from the excluding, downward spiral into poverty and environmental degradation, to the upward spiral of broad based improvements in living standards producing strong internal markets, which in turn lead to more dynamic and inclusive economic development the Japans, South Koreas, Chinas, Taiwans, and others. Sobhan shows by comparative analysis what the transformative reforms, those that led to real social transitions, had in common. In brief, the majority of the landless and land poor benefited, the majority of the arable land was affected, the stranglehold of entrenched power structures over rural life and economy was broken, and favorable, enabling economic policies were in place. A key feature of the more successful reforms is that farm families were seen as key actors to be mobilized in national economic development whereas in failed reforms they have typical been seen as indigents in need of charitable assistance.
Land reform and the environment
58. The benefits of small farm economies extend beyond the merely economic sphere. Whereas large, industrial style farms impose a scorched earth mentality on resource management no trees, no wildlife, endless monocultures small farmers can be very effective stewards of natural resources and the soil. To begin with, small farmers utilize a broad array of resources and have a vested interest in their sustainability. At the same time, their farming systems are diverse, incorporating and preserving significant functional biodiversity within the farm. By preserving biodiversity, open space and trees, and by reducing land degradation, small farms provide valuable ecosystem services to the larger society.
59. In the United States, small farmers devote 17% of their area to woodlands, compared to only 5% on large farms. Small farms maintain nearly twice as much of their land in "soil improving uses," including cover crops and green manures (D'Souza and Ikerd, 1996). In the Third World, peasant farmers show a tremendous ability to prevent and even reverse land degradation, including soil erosion (Templeton and Scherr, 1999). They can and/or do provide important services to society at large, including sustainable management of critical watersheds, thus preserving hydrological resources, and the in situ conservation and dynamic development and management of the basic crop and livestock genetic resources upon the which the future food security of humanity depends (Altieri et al., 1998).
60. Compared to the ecological wasteland of a modern export plantation, the small farm landscape contains a myriad of biodiversity. The forested areas from which wild foods, and leaf litter are extracted, the wood lot, the farm itself with intercropping, agroforestry, and large and small livestock, the fish pond, the backyard garden, allow for the preservation of hundreds if not thousands of wild and cultivated species. Simultaneously, the commitment of family members to maintaining soil fertility on the family farm means an active interest in long term sustainability not found on large farms owned by absentee investors. If we are truly concerned about rural ecosystems, then the preservation and promotion of small, family farm agriculture is a crucial step we must take.
61. The key point is that, when we look at agrarian reform and poverty, productivity, economic development, and the environment, it should be clear that it does not just benefit rural peoples. The call for agrarian reform in the context of food sovereignty is a call for reforms that will benefit all of society. But to insure that this is so, future agrarian reforms much take into cultural diversity in order to avoid mistakes of the past.
Chapter 4: Cultural Diversity and Agrarian Reform
62. History has taught us that narrow notions of land redistribution, villagization, titling, demarcation, etc., and individual rights, can lead to disasters for indigenous people, for women, for nomadic pastoralists, for peoples with diverse use rights, etc., and can place different groups of poor people in conflict with one another. The first point to be made is that women must absolutely receive the same rights of tenure, access and participation in management as men (Monsalve, forthcoming). The second is that we can learn a lot from the perspectives of indigenous peoples on the use of the concept of territory instead of just land, on the need to balance collective with individual rights, and on the principles of autonomy and self determination. Agrarian reform must take into account rights to territory and self determination, as well as avoid excessive emphasis on individual rather than collective rights. The third point is that agrarian reform cannot just address the needs on one group, sedentary farmers, for example, at the expense of others, like nomadic pastoralists or indigenous peoples, as many cases in Africa have taught us. Rather, future agrarian reforms must find creative ways to balance the needs, rights and demands of diverse actors, including women, men and young people, indigenous peoples, farmers, pastoralists, forest dwellers, migrants, colonists on the agricultural frontier (who are generally peoples displaced from export zones), rural workers, fisherfolk, and others. In this section, we take a brief look at two of these cases, that of indigenous peoples, and that of West Africa.
Indigenous People: Territory, Collective Rights, Autonomy and Self Determination
63. In detailed contributions to this paper, Saúl Vicente (2006) and Jill K. Carino (2006) examine the perspectives of indigenous peoples on territory, collective rights, autonomy and self determination. They also lay out the basis for these in international law, especially Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the ICESCR, the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, resolutions of the UN Human Rights Commissions, and other instruments. We place their complete papers at the disposition of the reader at:
HYPERLINK "http://www.acciontierra.org/display.php?article=393" http://www.acciontierra.org/display.php?article=393
HYPERLINK "http://www.landaction.org/display.php?article=390" http://www.landaction.org/display.php?article=390
64. While many analysts of land issues tend to treat land the way that farmers often see it as a productive resource indigenous peoples’ tend see land as part of something greater, called territory. Territory includes the productive function of land, but also encompasses the concepts of homeland, culture, religion, spiritual sites, ancestors, the natural environment, other resources like water, forests, below ground minerals, etc. Agrarian reform directed at non indigenous farmers in many cases may reasonably seek to redistribute “any and all” arable land to the landless, irrespective of where the landless come from. For example, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil demands and occupies land all over the country, and the members of their land reform settlements sometimes come from states far away from the land the occupy. In contrast, indigenous peoples’ movements do not demand just any land, but rather their land, and they want control over their land and territories. Thus, closely linked to the concept of territory, are the demands by organizations and movements of indigenous people for autonomy and self determination (Carino, 2006).
65. Indigenous peoples traditionally view the land with a spirituality and sacredness not always comprehensible to others. For indigenous peoples, land is not merely a productive resource, a habitat or a political boundary. The land is more than that. It is the basis for the indigenous peoples’ social organization, economic system and cultural identifications (Vicente, 2006; Carino, 2006). Indigenous peoples view land as part of a wider territory or ancestral domain. The concept of territory or domain includes not only the productive function of land, but also the natural environment, water, forests, subsurface minerals, the air above, and other productive resources. At the same time, indigenous concepts of ancestral land encompass concepts of homeland, culture and religion. This is why indigenous peoples have long struggled, since time immemorial, to defend this precious resource and to protect and conserve it for future generations. It is the source of their livelihood, sustenance and survival, at the same time the essential element of their identity as distinct cultures and societies. Too often, this spiritual link between indigenous communities and their homelands is misunderstood and is frequently ignored in existing land related legislation and in many past agrarian reforms. (Stavenhagen, 2004). This broader concept of territory, in terms of the implied need for more comprehensive stewardship of land and other resources, and appreciation for the natural and cultural environment, is something from non indigenous people can learn a lot.
66. Many indigenous communities continue to practice traditional land use patterns ranging from individual, family or clan, to communal land use and ownership. For instance, among the indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region of the Philippines, it is common to find residential or home lots as individually owned, terraced rice paddies and tree lots as clan owned, and forest areas and pasturelands as communal property of the whole community or tribe. Boundaries of a community’s territory are clearly delineated, usually by distinct markers such as streams, ridges, rocks, or other natural markers. Adjacent indigenous communities agree upon these boundaries, usually through an indigenous socio political system and network of peace pacts. Selling of land to outsiders is not practiced traditionally in order to maintain the integrity of the people’s ancestral territory (Carino, 2006).
67. These concepts of collective rights and communal ownership are inherent in the self conception of indigenous peoples around the world. The right to the land is generally vested, not on the individual, but in the community, the tribe, the indigenous nation or ethno linguistic group. The land may be divided into plots, for productive purposes, and used individually or by a family. However, much of it, like forests and pastures, is classified for community use and the social and moral ownership belongs to the whole community (Stavenhagen 2004). The additional dimension to the concept of ancestral land, or land inherited from or passed on by the ancestors, is a historical attachment to a specific territory or homeland. Indigenous peoples are historically rooted in specific locations, their original homelands, the land of their ancestors. In many cases, ancestral lands constitute well defined geographical areas. Agrarian reform thus needs to address and consider these indigenous concepts of communal land ownership and collective land rights where they exist, and consider granting them were they do not.
68. The international legal instruments mentioned above substantiate the claims of indigenous peoples for autonomy and self determination within their territories (Vicente, 2006, provides a very detailed analysis of the legal framework). Indigenous have rights to self determination. and to own, control and manage their ancestral lands and territories, waters and other resources. Their lands and territories are at the core of existence – they say, “we are the land and the land is us; we have distinct spiritual and material relationship with our lands and territories and they are inextricably linked to our survival and to the preservation and further development of our knowledge systems and cultures, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem management” (Carino, 2006).
69. The right to self determination includes the right to free prior and informed consent to all development plans affecting them. Free and prior informed consent is an emerging right and international standard as asserted by indigenous peoples. It refers to the consensus by members of indigenous peoples and local communities, to be determined in accordance with their customary laws and practices, free from any external manipulation, interference or coercion, and obtained after fully disclosing the intent and scope of the proposed development/project, in a process and language understandable to the concerned. Agrarian reform programs in indigenous territories need to incorporate the demand of indigenous peoples that they be consulted and that they give their free prior informed consent for any development project or intervention in their ancestral domains (Carino, 2006).
Lessons from West Africa
70. In a detailed contribution to this paper, the West African Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers' Organizations (ROPPA, 2006) provide lessons on how ill conceived policies can pit different groups of the poor against one another. They show how land tenure and territorial situations differ from country to country, within countries, and even among different actors within the same area. On top of this underlying diversity, made more complicated by migration and by colonization of the agricultural frontier, are a series of often contradictory traditional and modern norms, laws and practices, as well as the intervention of new actors from the private sector, which combine to generate increasing insecurity of tenure, and conflict. In particular, traditional land rights practices have been weakened both by modern states and by the loss of legitimacy conferred by cases of corruption and land concentration by traditional leaders, while so called ‘modern’ norms are applied only partially, and are biased toward certain actors at the expense of others.
71. In areas still governed by traditional practices, peasant farmers are sometimes victims of land grabs by traditional leaders, while those leaders themselves can be victimized by private sector actors, and the states that serve them. The practices of States are notoriously biased, as in cases of land colonization and irrigation schemes, which on the one hand may displace indigenous peoples, while on the other still not give secure rights to poor settlers and colonists, while private sector companies are given every benefit and security of the law (ROPPA, 2006).
72. While women are given certain land rights under traditional practices, they are increasingly losing the access thus guaranteed them, as entire families find ever less land available to them due in part to the dynamics described above. Land titling typically excludes women from ownership, while women organized in peasant organizations are increasingly demanding equal land rights in terms of title or inheritance, and to land assigned by state led land reform or irrigation schemes (ROPPA, 2006).
73. The situation of conflicting norms and practices, the role of the private sector and of states, and the increase in migration driven by economic globalization and displacement, have exacerbated long standing conflicts and created new ones. Among these are conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary farmers, between settlers and colonists on the agricultural frontier and local, endogenous populations whose territories they are encroaching upon, and conflicts between farmers, pastoralists, colonists and settlers, on the one hand, with private sector companies on the other. These conflicts sometimes reach such large proportions that they threaten national security. Peasant organizations like ROPPA are calling for, and actively working to build, truly participatory conflict resolution processes that take into account, in a fair and balanced way, the needs, demands and rights of women and men, pastoralists, farmers, migrants, colonists and endogenous or indigenous populations, all before and above the land grabs of traditional or modern elites, and the private sector. They call a for food sovereignty kind of model, with agrarian reforms, to reinforce a model of food production and agriculture that is based on peasant agriculture (ROPPA, 2006).
74. The case of West Africa is not isolated, as agrarian conflict driven by contradictory norms and state and private sector practices, is driving rural violence, repression and out migration worldwide. Future agrarian reform programs absolutely must find ways, based on the genuine participation of diverse rural peoples and their organizations, to balance their different needs, and to place the needs of people over those of elites and the private sector.
Conclusions and Guidelines for the Future
75. Rather than following the World Bank's market based approach, policy makers and social movements should learn from the successes and failures of the post WW II period, from on going agrarian reforms, from the deteriorating situation that business as usual is generating in Africa and around the world, and from the demands and experiences of indigenous people and women.
76. We need an original and genuine, new agrarian reform, firmly backed by the right to adequate food, and based on the paradigm of food sovereignty with the supporting polices that implies.
77. A set of useful guideline for doing so might include the following (Rosset, 2001b):
Severe inequality in landholdings like the latifundia/minifundia pattern in many parts of Latin America is inefficient, environmentally and socially destructive, immoral, and impedes broad based development. A range of perspectives and concerns from economic and social human rights, to economic growth all lead to the conclusion that we must once and for all eliminate the latifundia (Rosset, 2001a; Repartir a Terra, 2001; Ziegler, 2002).
Internationally recognized legal instruments support calls for genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and the rights to territory and self determination (Monsalve, 2006; Vicente, 2006, Carino, 2006).
When families receive land they must not be saddled with heavy debt burdens. This can be accomplished by government expropriation of idle lands, with or without compensation for former owners (Sobhan, 1993; Borras, 2003b).
Secure tenure and/or access rights are critical to ensuring long term food security for families and communities. Without such security and/or rights it is also difficult for families and communities to invest in land improvement, means of production, and/or conservation measures (Lastarria Cornhiel et al., 1998).
Women must have the right to hold title to land. When titles are vested exclusively in male heads of household, domestic disputes or the premature death of a spouse inevitably lead to the destitution of women and children (Deere and Leon, 2001; Monsalve, forthcoming).
The land distributed must be of good quality, rather than ecologically fragile soils which should never be farmed, and it must be free of disputed claims by other poor people (Rosset, 2001a).
The rights of indigenous and other peoples to land, territory, forests, water and other common property resources must be guaranteed and protected, as must their right to manage them using customary law and tradition. Provision must be made for individual and/or collective rights, depending on each socio cultural situation. No one recipe can be applied everywhere (Vicente, 2006; Carino, 2006; Hall, 1998; Stavenhagen, 2004). More generally, the needs, demands and rights of diverse rural peoples—women, men, youth, peasants, pastoralists, forest dwellers, fisherfolk, migrants, rural workers, and others—must be balanced through creative new agrarian reform policies (ROPPA, 2006).
People need more than land if they are to be successful. There must also be a supportive policy environment and essential services like credit on reasonable terms, infrastructure, support for ecologically sound technologies, and access to markets and fair prices (Sobhan, 1993; Sachs, 1987; Adams, 2000; IFAD, 2001). Perhaps most critical is a step back from damaging free trade policies and dumping—which drive down farm prices and undercut the economic viability of farming—to be replaced by a food sovereignty perspective which places the highest priority on national production for national markets (World Forum on Food Sovereignty, 2001; Rosset, 2003).
Truly transformative reforms will also require investment in rural areas to assure such basic services as schools, health clinics, potable water, and basic infrastructure (Sobhan, 1993).
The power of rural elites to distort and capture policies, subsidies, and windfall profits in their favor must be effectively broken by the reforms (Sobhan, 1993).
The vast majority of the rural poor must be beneficiaries of the reform process (Sobhan, 1993).
Successful reforms are distinguished from failed ones by a motivation and perception that the new small family farms which are created are to be the centerpiece of economic development, as was the case in Japan, Taiwan, China, and Cuba. When land reform is seen as 'welfare' or as a charitable policy for the indigent, failure has been the inevitable result (Sobhan, 1993; Sachs, 1987; Rosset, 2001a).
In today's conservative, neoliberal political environment, strong grassroots poor people's movements are critical to pushing the reform process, stopping government foot dragging and, when necessary, taking matters into their own hands. Land occupations are one of the most effective, proven methods of pressuring governments to act (Wolford, 2001; Langevin and Rosset, 1997; Barraclough, 1999; Wright and Wolford, 2003).
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PBS Frontline/World presents "Cutting the Wire", a film documenting the occupation of a ranch outside of Sao Paulo by more than one thousand landless and poor activists organized by the Landless Workers' Movement (MST).
Rough Cut: Brazil: Cutting the Wire
Witnessing a Land Occupation
By Adam Raney & Chad Heeter
This short film is available online by visiting:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/12/brazil_cutting.html#
Now It Is Time: The MST and Grassroots Land Reform in Brazil
By: Angus Wright and Wendy Wolford
"Since the late 1970s, more than one million people in Brazil have transformed their lives. They have done so by organizing peaceful protests that have forced the Brazilian government to redistribute approximately 20 million acres of agricultural land to 350,000 families and to assist them further in creating new livelihoods. These people have vastly improved the quality of education and health care available to their families, achieving these gains by successfully challenging the institutions and some of the most powerful people of Brazil, a nation of 175 million people and one of the world's ten largest economies..."
Read the entire document by visiting:
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/49
In an interview with the online newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa, João Pedro Stedile, of the national MST leadership, speaks about the need to build a development model that prioritizes democratization of the land, the distribution of income, and an agriculture based on small and medium-size properties.
Today, it is no longer possible to speak about the classic model of Agrarian Reform, defended throughout the 20th century. This model has been finished off by the Brazilian elites, who adhered to neoliberalism, a model dominated by international finance capital.
For us in the MST, a new model of agrarian reform is understood as the need to change the production matrix in the
countryside, that is to say, of defeating the current model that prioritizes alliances between finance capital and the latifúndio. The complete interview is in this special issue of MST Informa.
MST WANTS A NEW AGRARIAN REFORM MODEL
One of the leaders of the movement, Stédile defends the need for the agrarian policy to prioritize income distribution
An interview with Tribuna da Imprensa reporter, Fernando Sampaio
The Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) considers classical agrarian reform finished off “by the Brazilian elite who adhered to neoliberalism, a model dominated in the short and medium term by international financial capital”, and it is proposing to the government a new type of agrarian reform.
According to João Pedro Stédile, member of the national leadership of the MST, the first step is the democratization of land ownership, a demand that could be met through limits on the size of rural estates. “We cannot accept that a company would own 100 thousand or one million hectares just because they have money”, he emphasizes.
Stedile claims that Brazil needs a new agricultural model, based on small and medium size properties. ”Before we do anything else we need to defeat neoliberalism by building a national development model that prioritizes income distribution”.
TRIBUNA DA IMPRENSA – Do you admit that the agrarian reform model defended by the MST is finished off? What should be done?
JOÃO PEDRO STÉDILE – During the 20th century, peasant movements in Latin America struggled for so-called classical agrarian reform, through the combination of land distribution and a project for developing national industry, thereby strengthening the internal market and income distribution. This model would remove peasants from poverty and promote a more just development. That was the case in all countries of the Northern Hemisphere, but the Brazilian elite adhered to neoliberalism, a model dominated by international finance capital. Agrarian reform is finished in this model.
This model was finished off by the Brazilian elite; we did not want it to happen. However, the agrarian issue is not solved and we have 150 thousand families in encampments and another four million landless families in the country. Keeping that in mind, the MST will struggle for a new agrarian reform, for the democratization of the land combined with the reorganization of production, prioritizing food for the internal market, without the current control of the transnational corporations. We also need an agrarian reform that adopts a new technological model, respects the environment, brings agro-industries structured in cooperatives to rural areas and gives access to schools and education.
What is the answer for Brazilian agriculture? What is the new agricultural model?
The country needs a new agricultural model, based on small and medium size rural properties. In order to do that we first need to defeat neoliberalism, building a new national development model, which prioritizes income, national industry, and puts top priority on the creation of work and jobs so that the people have income.
The first step for the new kind of agrarian reform is the democratization of the ownership of land, a demand that can be met by limiting the size of rural properties.
It is not acceptable for a company to own 100 thousand or 1 million hectares of land just because it has money. True farmers, even the capitalist ones, know that 1,000 hectares can make a lot of money. The organization of production, before anything else, must meet the needs of the internal market. Europe and the US are not the largest potential market for agricultural products, but rather the Brazilian poor. Here 60% of the population is malnourished.
In other words, we have 120 million Brazilians who want to consume, but do not have income. Nowadays transnational corporations come here and control production, marketing, pricing. That is wrong. As an alternative to control the production and processing of food, we have to take the small agro-industries to the countryside, generating jobs and income in the rural areas of the country.
We also need a new production system in the countryside, using environmentally correct techniques to produce healthy food without agro-chemicals. The agro-chemicals affect the health of the population, including the urban population, who may think that they have nothing to do with those issues. But they pay later for their lack of information in the form of a hospital bill.
Finally, we need to bring public services to rural areas, especially formal education and knowledge to educate the peasant citizen. A peasant without education can see only the land in front of him and does not understand the complexity of Brazilian society and class struggle. We are making an enormous effort to elevate their cultural level and political awareness.
We launched in our congress a national literacy campaign in the countryside, based on the Cuban method. “Yes, I can”. We have to have control over words and advance formal education. Those who are attending primary school have to move on to secondary school, and those who are attending secondary school have to attend the university. To accomplish this, we put out the call: to be an activist in the landless people’s movement, you must be studying.
How should we define the MST encampments in the country?
The encampments are put together by the families of poor rural workers, who receive the lowest wages in Brazilian society and feel that the land must belong to those who work the land, not those who turn land into an investment or produce to export. They are the poor who rent the land, day laborers, sharecroppers, and they want to have their own land to plant.
There are also poor families, who have been evicted from the countryside and moved to the outskirts of big cities, but wish to return and see the movement as an alternative to obtain land in order to improve their living conditions, to have a house, a garden to work the land, to have access to education, leisure and access to health services for their families.
Has the victory of agribusiness in the countryside compelled the MST to politicize and search for new demands?
We do not believe in the victory of agribusiness or of neoliberalism. In the two elections of President Lula, the people voted against neoliberalism, a model that concentrates land, wealth, and incomes, that creates more poverty and unemployment, and that does not have the conditions to resolve society’s problems. Agribusiness politicized our movement, because the current struggle for agrarian reform involves the defeat of the economic model of neoliberalism and the construction of a project that resolves the problems of Brazil’s people, creating the conditions for a process of a new type of land redistribution.
The reform of labor laws is controversial. What is your position on this topic?
We are against the withdrawal of historic rights won through much struggle by the workers during the 20th century. We, together with the union, popular, and student movements, are in a big campaign against the social welfare reforms, against all reforms that withdraw rights, like Amendment 3. The government needs a project to create jobs, guarantee a dignified salary, places to live and to carry out agrarian reform. Their economic policy, based on the primary surplus, high interest and on debt repayment, harms the working class and the country’s sovereignty and enriches bankers and wealthy entrepreneurs. It strangles any possibility for investment in social policies and maintains the perverse concentration of income.
For the first time since the founding of the MST, in 1984, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was not invited to the movement’s national conference recently in Brasília. Why?
Lula is aware that our Congress has its own agenda and is not ruled by the government. It is this that the press does not understand. We have never invited any president of the Republic because it is an activity for our activists and for the internal discussion of our Movement. The authorities who participated did so by their own initiative as friends of the movement.
How do you sum up the MST’s 5th National Congress?
The Congress was a large gathering of activists from 24 states, a time for reflection and collective analysis about the state of agrarian reform and Brazilian society. It was also a time for mobilization, with a march to denounce how the Brazilian state, represented by the three Powers of the Republic, impedes agrarian reform. Furthermore, after two years of discussion in the encampments and settlements, we finalized our Agrarian Program which presents our proposal for Brazilian agriculture.
The minister of Agrarian Development, Guilherme Cassel, refutes your criticisms. He classified the discourse of the movement’s key arguments as “medieval” and outdated. How do you see this?
We do not want to lose time with secondary questions that do not help realize Agrarian Reform. We want to discuss with society, including with the government, a new model for agriculture that gives priority to family farming oriented to the internal market, to the poor of the country. This should begin with a massive process of agrarian reform beginning with the settlement of 150 thousand families who are now camped on the edge of highways.
We cannot pursue that model of agribusiness that hands over our lands to transnational businesses, expels people from the countryside, destroys the environment, imposes transgenics and agro-toxins. The new model for agricultural that we are calling for entails a development project based on the defense of popular sovereignty and on a new economic model, which has at its core a strong internal market, the distribution of income, a national industry that sustains the creation of jobs and income for the people.
The issue is that President Lula owes a debt to the MST and to the farmers of all of Brazil because his government has not carried out agrarian reform. On the contrary, the concentration of land has increased.
What is your opinion about income inequality in the country?
The inequality between the rich and the poor in the country is shameful and is the result of the choices made by the Brazilian elite in the past and in the present. According to studies by professor Márcio Pochmann, five thousand families control 40% of the national wealth, 10% of the rich population control 75%, while 90% of the Brazilian people have only 25% of the wealth.
Neoliberal economic policies, effective since the middle of the 1990s, increases that inequality. The Brazilian people actually spend, through their taxes, nearly 150 billion reais a year in the payment of public debt that are given to 20 thousand families of bankers and speculators. Even Vice-President José de Alencar denounced that absurd transfer.
In the countryside, because of choices made by the ruling classes, we have lost four historic opportunities to undertake what is called classical agrarian reform, combining the distribution of land with a national project of industrial development to develop an internal market.
The first was during the process of the abolition of slavery, when the black rural workers wanted to work in the coutryside, but were impeded by the Law of the Lands of 1850 (Lei de Terras de 1850). After that, in the implementation of the national project of industrialization, in the decade of the 30s. In the beginning of the 60s, with the rise of the mass movement around the proposals of João Goulart, especially agrarian reform.
Finally, during the Rights Now! Campaign, when there was a favorable climate in the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) to make a national development project. Starting then, the Brazilian elites left aside the national project and imposed neoliberalism on the country, which subordinates the Brazilian economy to international finance capital and increases social inequality and poverty.
How about violence in the countryside? How would you combat this?
Ending the deaths of rural workers depends on carrying out agrarian reform and on the strength of the social movements in the countryside, that when organized, has more strength to resist violence, as the last report of the Pastoral on the Land showed. The deaths and the impunity that allows gunmen and latifúndio owners responsible for the deaths to go free, show the intransigency of the ruling classes with the social problems of the Brazilian people and are always “resolved” by means of violence and death. The death of comrades is a consequence of our unjust structure of land ownership and of the backward mentality of the large latifúndio owners.
It also shows the anti-social character of the Brazilian state, which does not resolve the peoples’ problems. We have a Judiciary that protects the rich and is missing when it comes to the peoples’ rights. A Legislature that for 10 years has not approved a bill to expropriate without compensation the lands of farmers that use slave labor. An Executive that does not have the courage to comply with the Constitution, which specifies that all large estates that do not serve a social function should be expropriated.
Is Lula now an enemy of agrarian reform?
Our enemies are agribusiness, transnational corporations, the banks and the financial market. We also accuse the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary powers of impeding agrarian reform by protecting the latifúndio and supporting agribusiness. In relation to the government, we have already given them a proposal and we want to discuss a medium-range and long-range plan for Brazilian agriculture to combat poverty in the countryside and carry out agrarian reform. We are going to maintain our autonomy and criticize the economic policy, the support for agribusiness and for large corporations by means of loans from public banks and exemption from export taxes.
How do you see the Brazilian left?
The Brazilian left is going through a learning process and is understanding that social changes don’t happen because of the will of a president, a party, or a government, as much as they may be our friends whom we have helped to elect. The transformation of the country will come about with the mobilization of the Brazilian people around a national development project that changes the structure of Brazilian society and sustains economic growth with the creation of jobs, agrarian reform, investments in public services of education and health and the distribution of income and wealth.
The mass movements of the left have been at an ebb since 1989. In the 80s, the country went through a period when the mass movement was on the rise and succeeded in imposing democracy and pointed toward very profound changes in Brazilian society. In the 90s, the ebb involved a loss of strength in the union movement, which had its social base affected by neoliberal policies, which caused unemployment.
What is your analysis of the Lula government?
The people voted for Lula against neoliberalism. However, the alliances made to win the elections created a government made up of various forces that was weighted toward the neoliberal forces. There was no rise in the mass movement in society. Despite having a more progressive government, the correlation of forces was not changed in relation to the economic model. Our society is very complex and the forces of capital, allied with international capital, are very powerful. The changes in Brazil will come when the people are more conscious, more organized, and carry out huge mass mobilizations as we did against the military regime.
How do you analyze the series of scandals in the country?
The Brazilian state was built historically by means of patrimonialism, a corrupt system where favors were exchanged to favor a bureaucracy tied to businessmen. It’s nothing new. We need to get beyond the superficial and find the root of these deviations, which is the tight relationships between senators and deputies with businessmen, contractors, and with the financial market. It doesn’t help to carry out a political reform that does not change the system, which has the Vale do Rio Doce Corporation with 47 deputies, Aracruz with 16 deputies, the Itaú Bank with 27 and the Gerdau Group with 27.
The problem of Brazilian democracy is deeper than what appears in the newspapers and on television. Yes, we need political reform, but we need to put the powers and institutions at the service of the people by means of real participation and representation. The Constitution in Article 14 allows for plebiscites, referendums, and popular consulations to be carried out. Along with other social movements and groups like the Organization of Brazilian Lawyers and the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, we are in a campaign coordinated by Professor Fabio Comparato to defend democracy and the republic.
Two part Interview with Geraldo Fontes of the MST
The Landless Rural Workers' Movement
“Without depending on power or having to take power‿
Geraldo Fontes is a member of the national collective for the coordination of foreign relations for the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - Landless Rural Workers' Movement). He is responsible for maintaining international political relations. This interview was conducted and later edited by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine, with simultaneous translation by Ana Amorim, on September 2, 2004 in São Paulo, Brazil. The interview is in two parts. Part 1 -- Building the New Society Now. Part 2 – Agrarian Reform / Agribusiness.
To view interview and photos, go to http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/gf_mst_int.html
New Left Review 15, May-June 2002
JOÃO PEDRO STEDILE
LANDLESS BATTALIONS
The Sem Terra Movement of Brazil
A leader of Brazil’s Sem Terra explains the history and geography of the world’s largest movement of the rural poor. How to occupy land, mobilize support, resist the media and the state under a tropical brand of the Third Way.
In-depth and highly informative interview with the MST's Stedile. Available in both English and Spanish.
SEE: http://newleftreview.org/A2390
The Neoliberal Agrarian Model in Brazil
by João Pedro Stedile
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MONTHLY REVIEW
Volume 58, Number 8
February 2007
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http://www.monthlyreview.org/0207stedile.htm
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Introduction
Since Fernando Collor’s 1989 presidential victory, and most notably since Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s two terms in office (1995–98 and 1999–2002, respectively), economic policies have been enacted in Brazil that represent a subordinate alliance of the country’s dominant classes with international capital. Unfortunately, under President Lula these same sectors have remained in control, and economic policy caters to their interests.
The results are well-known. There has been denationalization, the Brazilian economy is even more dependent, and our best and most profitable companies have been handed over to transnationals. Banks have had fantastic profits—Brazil has offered the highest interest rates in the world. The role of government in the economy has been cut back. Policies have been enacted that privilege the transfer of wealth to the financial system through the state sector.
Under Lula’s government, the neoliberal model is now being applied to the agrarian sector. An alliance has been sealed between the major capitalist farmers and ranchers and the multinationals that control the international commodity trade, the seed trade, pesticide production, and agri-industry.
This neoliberal vision for agriculture gives priority to large holdings that make extensive use of agrochemicals and pesticides and that concentrate on monocultures of commodity crops for export. They use just 60 million hectares of the 360 million available for cultivation, and 85 percent of the area under exploitation is used for sugarcane, soybeans, and coffee. Looking for higher labor productivity, large producers drive workers away from the countryside and exploit the few remaining, who earn the lowest wages in Brazil (the equivalent of about $150 a month). The road to competitiveness for our wise agrarian capitalists is one of large estates for larger-scale production, combined with among the worst rates of compensation. Their production techniques attack the environment, destroy biodiversity, and compromise natural resources through the large-scale use of pesticides, with a heavy cost to society and future generations.
Consequences of the Neoliberal Agrarian Model
In 2005, almost three hundred thousand workers in the countryside lost their jobs and migrated to cities. Land holdings keep growing by absorbing smaller properties. In the past few years estates with over one thousand hectares have absorbed over thirty million new hectares. There are no indicators of a waning of rural poverty and social inequality. Ten transnational companies—Monsanto, Bunge (agribusiness and food), Cargill, ADM, BASF (chemicals), Bayer, Syngenta, Norvartis, Nestlé, and Danone—control virtually all agrarian production, pesticides, transgenic seeds, and foreign commodities trading.
In the 1970s, Brazil’s farm machinery sector sold almost 65,000 tractors a year; in 2005, with the concentration of land ownership, only 32,000 tractors were sold. Clearly, this model doesn’t help even Brazil’s industry.
An Alternative Proposal
Against such a model, we present an alternative based on family-run and campesino agriculture that has the support of rural social movements, church groups, environmentalists, the forty-five organizations in the National Forum for agrarian reform, and the widest array of representatives of rural workers and of the people in rural areas. This alternative model defends the organization and occupation of land of small and medium-sized farms; calls for aid for five million agricultural families in smallholdings; and urges the implementation of an agrarian reform that would guarantee land to four million landless families. It stands for intercropping and improved rotations as a way to better manage the soil and preserve the environment. It gives priority to the production of healthy food, without pesticides. It defends a type of agriculture that hires workers, creates jobs, and guarantees an income for rural workers. It stands for the use of environmentally friendly agricultural techniques that use conventional seed already adapted to our country, and it is against transgenics.
Measures Taken by the Lula Government in Relation to Campesino Agriculture and Agrarian Reform
The fight on the agricultural front never ends in Brazil: on the one hand, there is the international financial capital model that unites capitalist farmers and ranchers with multinationals; on the other, there are family farmers, campesinos, and their movements, united with urban workers. What exactly has the Lula government done with respect to the agricultural sector? Which of the opposing camps have fared better under his government’s policies?
According to the Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (MPA), the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB), the Movimento das Mulheres Camponesas (MMC), the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT), and the Associação Brasileira de Reforma Agrária (ABRA), which delivered a document to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in March 2006, the measures implemented by the Lula government can be divided between those that advanced campesino agriculture and those that impeded it.
The list of measures taken in support of campesino agriculture is impressive. There has been an expansion of employment and income insurance for farmers to protect them against natural disasters. Loans made available to small rural producers have nearly tripled. Subsidized electricity and home construction have greatly expanded in rural areas, and larger budgets for rural education programs have been enacted. The government has begun a biodiesel program that will open new markets for campesino agriculture by requiring that 2 percent of the volume of diesel fuel be produced from vegetable matter. More resources have been allocated for technical aid for rural settlements, though this is given through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), preventing a democratization of this program. Lula’s government has supported, albeit weakly, the cistern program, which provides family-sized water-capturing cisterns in the arid Northeast. In Roraima, the Raposa Do Sol has been demarcated a native historical area. Of great importance, federal forces have not repressed social movements in rural areas, although military police departments under the control of governors still repress them. (The federal police previously did repress aboriginal movements in several states.)
Unfortunately, however, the government has also supported numerous measures and positions that have impeded the development of campesino agriculture and have explicitly or implicitly advanced the interests of big farmers and financiers.
It is important to note that the overall macroeconomic policies, especially those related to international trade, of the Lula government favor agribusiness, providing a nurturing context for specific rural sector measures. For example, the government has wholeheartedly embraced neoliberal policies and supported international organizations such as the WTO and the World Bank. At the Montreal round of the WTO, the Brazilian government helped to block the initiative to make it mandatory worldwide for transgenic products to be labeled, thus defending the interests of multinational agribusiness companies.
Specific policies biased toward the big farm sector include: the continuation of the tax-exempt status for supplies used for export-oriented agribusiness (a hidden subsidy to the foreign commodity trade); legalization, through a presidential decree, of the use and trade of transgenic soy; ignoring any and all environmental research and the actual infringement of law through the smuggling of banned cotton and corn transgenic seeds; ignoring campesino and environmentalists’ demands in the drafting process of the biohazards law; lack of enforcement of the law ordering the food industry to carry warning labels on all products containing more than 1 percent of transgenics (although over 8 million tons of transgenic soybeans are sold in the domestic market every year, the warning labels are not used for any product); continuation of financial support through public banks for large agribusiness concerns, for a total sum that went from 20 to 42 billion reals per year (21 billion dollars by the latest harvest)—and for the ten largest transnational agricultural companies which, by themselves, got around 8 billion reals (4 billion dollars) from state banks; granting of credits through a federal development bank, the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Social (BNDES), for paper mills and eucalyptus foresting; and taking the initiative to pass a law opening national parks to logging interests.
The government has also served the interests of the rural elite by its inactions. It has failed to fulfill its promises to settle the landless families occupying large estates; implement an encompassing agrarian reform program; modernize the estate-productivity index used for nationalizations, last updated in 1975; pass a law to expropriate estates that use slave labor; stop the creation of the House and Senate Investigative Committee for land matters and to stop the final conclusions that define land occupations as a major felony; push for judicial punishment of rural massacres such as those in Corumbiara (1995), Carajás (1996), and Felisburgo (2004); stop the rise in violence in rural areas; remove older laws and statutes that block agrarian reform; demarcate native land belonging to several ethnic groups, especially the Xavantes, Guaranis, and Pataxós; control the advance of cultivation of soy and cotton in the Amazon and bush areas—a process which could have dire environmental consequences in the future; and create a wide network of cooperative agri-industries among campesinos.
Final Considerations
The Brazilian state with all its considerable resources still gives priority to policies that support the agribusiness model. Unfortunately, the Lula government is ambiguous in the sense that ministers for agrarian reform and the environment support the family model while ministers of economy, industry, trade, and agriculture support agribusiness. In this conflict, the interests of the campesinos are lost. Our analysis of the Lula government’s policies shows that Lula favored the agribusiness sector much more than family-owned agriculture. The general guidelines of his economic and agricultural policy have always given priority to the export-oriented agribusiness. And agrarian reform, the most important measure to alter the status quo, is in fact paralyzed or restricted to a few cases of token social compensation.
All material © copyright 2007 Monthly Review
[RADIO SPECIAL] Radio Program, Unamos Nuestras Voces, Hosts Conversation on MST
Unamos Nuestras Voces, a program of 93.3 FM Campus and Community Radio, recently hosted a conversation on the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) and the struggle for land in Brazil. Providing historical and theoretical context, a first-hand account of realities faced by MST families, and musical intermissions throughout, the conversation provides an excellent overview of the MST's struggle.
Available online in SPANISH ONLY!
To access the conversation online, visit http://www.cfru.ca/ and follow the instructions [BELOW]:
(1) Click on "Archive 1"
(2) Chose "Unamos Nuestras Voces" from the List
(3) Click on "Tuesday : 2006-10-24"
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Unamos Nuestras Voces is on each Tuesday at 6:00 PM
CFRU 93.3 FM
unamosnuestrasvoces@yahoo.com.ca
~~~
CFRU 93.3
Campus and Community Radio in Guelph
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada
~~~
[RADIO SPECIAL] Workers on the Food Chain - Workers & Farmers vs. Free Trade & Global Agribusiness
Excerpts from the Cornell Global Labor Institute Forum with
- Prawala Anand Tatte, Shetkari Sanghatana, India
- Alberto Gomez Flores, Union of Autonomous Regional Farmers' Organizations, Mexico
- Josie Riffaud, Confederation Paysanne, France
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Download or listen to this 28:03 minute program, go to:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=18969
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Details -
Farmers are leading the fight against free trade and corporate globalization. They are also campaigning against agri-businesses who are not only a main force behind free trade but who also increasingly have near monopoly power in markets for corn and other grains .These farmer leaders talk about global and national issues, specifically:
In India: Desperate conditions for farmers have led to tens of thousands of suicides in farming communities. Farmers also waged demonstrations of over 50,000 people last year against the WTO, and are fighting against corporations like Coca-Cola that deplete local water resources..
In Mexico: Campesinos led the fight against the WTO in 2003 and continue to fight government policies which force farmers off the land and contribute greatly to high immigration to the US.
In France: Direct action of young people invading a genetically modified corn field and destroying it, followed by police violence.The farmers and allies ultimately won their law suit.
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To Download or listen to this 28:03 minute program, go to:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=18969
New from GRAIN
27 June 2007
No to the agrofuels craze!
GRAIN has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as we like to call them, agrofuels - over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world. In the process of gathering material from colleagues and social movements around the world, we have discovered that the stampede into agrofuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, much more than we realised earlier. Precious ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities are being thrown off their land. [SEE LINK BELOW]:
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Worse lies ahead: the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha (an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be manufactured), the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares available for biofuels, and lobbyists in Europe are speaking of almost 400 million hectares being available for biofuels in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.
We believe that the prefix bio, which comes from the Greek word for ‘life’, is entirely inappropriate for such anti-life devastation. So, following the lead of non-governmental organisations and social movements in Latin America, we do not talk about biofuels and green energy. Agrofuels is a much better term, we believe, to express what is really happening: agribusiness producing fuel from plants as another commodity to in a wasteful, destructive and unjust global economy.
In a special issue of Seedling, launched today, we zoom in on the situation in different parts of the world: Latin America, Asia and Africa. We analyse what is happening and talk to the people involved. The conclusion is pretty much the same across the board: the push for agrofuels amounts to nothing less than the re-introduction and re-enforcement of the old colonial plantation economy, redesigned to function under the rules of the modern neoliberal, globalised world. Indigenous farming systems, local communities and the biodiversity they manage have to give way to provide for the increased fuel needs of the modern world.
One of the main justifications for the large-scale cultivation of agrofuels is the need to combat climate change, but the figures make a mockery of this claim. According to the US government, global energy consumption is set to increase 71 per cent from 2003 to 2030, and most of that will come from burning more oil, coal and natural gas. By the end of this period, all renewable energy (including agrofuels) will only make up 9 per cent of global energy consumption. It is a dangerous self-delusion to argue that agrofuels can play a significant role in combating global warming.
As is spelt out in this special edition, the wide-scale cultivation of agrofuels will actually make things worse in many parts of the world, notably South-east Asia and the Amazon basin where the drying of peat lands and the felling of tropical forest will release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than will be saved by using agrofuels.
One of the main causes of global warming is agro-industrial farming itself, and the global food system associated with it. Although it is scarcely ever mentioned, farming is responsible for 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Within farming, the largest single cause is the use of chemical fertilisers, which introduce a huge amount of nitrogen into the soil, and nitrous oxide into the air. Changing land use (mainly deforestation and thus linked to the expansion of crop monoculture) is responsible for another 18 per cent. And a large part of global transport, which is responsible for a further 14 per cent of emissions, stems from the way in which the agro-industrial complex moves large quantities of food from one continent to anther.
It is abundantly clear that we can only halt climate change by challenging the absurdity and the waste of the globalised food system as organised by the transnational corporations. Far from contributing to the solution, biofuels will only make a bad situation worse. GRAIN believes it is time to declare unambiguously ‘No to the agrofuels craze!’
GRAIN's special issue of Seedling with over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world, plus other resources on agrofuels are available from this page:
http://www.grain.org/go/agrofuels.
SPECIAL ISSUE OF SEEDLING (JULY 2007)
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=68
Download the entire Seedling issue in PDF format, or you can download individual articles below. (Note: Articles are only currently available in PDF format - we hope to have HTML versions of these articles in mid-July).
SEEDLING EDITORIAL
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=476
INTRODUCTORY ARTICLE
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=477
An introductory article that, among other things, looks at the mind-boggling numbers that are being bandied around: the Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha; the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares that could be cultivated with agrofuel crops; and an agrofuel lobby is speaking of 379 million hectares being available in 15 African countries.
CORPORATE POWER AND THE EXPANSION OF AGRIBUSINESS
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=478
A detailed look at the way agrofuels is restructuring agribusiness, with the emergence of new powerful corporate alliances across the globe. Agrofuels are deepening the alliances between transnational capital and local landed elites, with profound consequences for struggles over land and local food production.
AGROFUELS IN AFRICA
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=481
Foreign diplomats and businessmen are pouring in to secure reliable supply chains of agrofuels. Not only the old colonial powers but new emerging countries, particularly Brazil and China, are scouring the region for investment deals. There is talk of Southern Africa becoming ‘the Middle East of agrofuels’. A report from Uganda where popular movements have forced the government to suspend two big agrofuel projects.
AGROFUELS IN ASIA
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=479
In no other region in the world is the absurdity of the frenzied rush into agrofuels more blatant than in South-east Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. With funding under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, peat lands are being destroyed (with the emission of billions of tonnes of carbon) to plant palms to produce oil for biodiesel. A report from Indonesia where the population is protesting over the surge in cooking oil prices because so much palm oil is being exported.
AGROFUELS IN LATIN AMERICA
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=482
A mosaic of interviews with leaders of social and popular movements, who analyse what is happening on their countries and describe their strategies for confronting agrofuels. A look at the emergence of large-scale biodiesel production in Latin America (particularly in the Amazon, where soya cultivation for the production of soya oil for biodiesel is intensifying forest destruction).
FURTHER READING
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=483
The volume of recent articles, papers and other materials on agrofuels can be overwhelming. Below we list some that we found particularly useful when preparing this Seedling.
[REPORT] Human Rights in Brazil 2006: A Report by the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights **AVAILABLE ONLINE**
To access the full report, go to: http://www.social.org.br/relatorio2006ingles.htm
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PREFACE
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The Network for Social Justice and Human Rights is publishing its annual report on Human Rights in Brazil 2006. This report is fully trustworthy and has a broad reach, covering the following issues:
- Human Rights in Rural Areas
- Human Rights in Urban Areas
- Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights
- International Policies and Human Rights
Each section deals with collective rights, and also touches on specific cases of human rights violations that are unfortunately very current in Brazil. In the chapter “Violence in the Countryside,�? for example, the report studies the context in which Sister Dorothy was killed as a consequence of her work to defend peasant rights and environmental protection.
Along with the annual report of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) and the annual report of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), to cite two organizations that are very close to the heart of grassroots movements, this Report on Human Rights in Brazil offers a precise service of information and commitment, an effective tool for social activism. It takes sides, because the report denounces human rights violations from a grassroots perspective, and shows the challenges that face us today.
Fortunately there is growing consciousness in our society about the range of human rights, which include the right to life with dignity and with equality. But these rights have been systematically violated within a structure of neoliberal economic policies that privileges a minority of people and marginalizes the majority of humanity.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created recently, in 1948. We woke up rather late for the importance to defend basic rights, and at that time only primary rights were considered in the Declaration, omitting, for example, the right to food.
Human rights, of persons and of peoples, are not negotiable. The promotion of human rights is an indispensable condition for peace in our world. And peace has always been the fruit of justice. The Social Network for Justice and Human Rights is providing an essential service for us to promote social change in Brazil, and to build the dream of another world, which is possible.
To the colleagues of this undertaking, our gratitude. May the report’s message be spread far. It is extremely relevant at this political moment in Brazil— a time that should be the social, economic, and cultural “era�? of the Brazilian people. The grassroots movements, whose turn it is now to speak, are demanding respect for all human rights.
November 6, 2006
Pedro Casaldáliga
Bishop Emeritus of São Félix do Araguaia
Landless Workers Movement: The Difficult Construction of a New World
Raúl Zibechi | September 26, 2006
Translated from: Movimiento de los trabajadores sin tierra: la difícil construcción de un mundo nuevo.
Available at: http://www.ircamericas.org/esp/3527
Translated by: Nick Henry
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Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC)
Go To: http://americas.irc-online.org
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“Breaking down the fences of the large estates was not as difficult as fighting the technological packages of the transnationals,? Huli recounts as he sits in his kitchen and pours hot water into the mate we share while his son romps around the house. He says the campesinos of Brazil's Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST, for the Portuguese initials) dreamed for years of reclaiming their land, believing that it would solve all their problems: food for their children, a dignified life of hard work on the farm, education, health, and housing. However, the reality would prove much more difficult, for surprises they had never imagined lay ahead.
Huli Zang is part of one of the 376 families that make up the Filhos de Sepé (Sons of Sepé) settlement, a 6,000-hectare (23-square mile) municipality in Viamao, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The settlement, established in February of 1999, is divided into four sectors where the land is organized into what the landless call an agrovila (agricultural village): the houses are grouped together in one area rather than on each campesino's parcel of land.
This arrangement ensures the houses, built solidly out of wood or brick, have access to electricity and potable water, with the byproduct that daily life for the campesinos is much like that of the average city-dweller. Huli's house has a gas stove as well as a wood stove, a refrigerator, television, and computer. There is a route connecting the housing area to the nearest town, Viamao, as well as the individual parcels, each one an average of 17 hectares.
The settlement sits next to a 2,500-hectare (10-square mile) wildlife refuge called Bañado dos Pachecos, home to thousands of species of birds, fish, and mammals. The area is irrigated by the surrounding marshland, which makes it suitable only for cultivating rice, although next to each house settlers have enough space to grow vegetables and fruit trees, and nearly everyone raises chickens and a milk cow or two. This allows some degree of self-sufficiency as far as food is concerned.
Within the settlement MST operates one of its Training Centers, which can house 120 people with its array of bedrooms, communal bathrooms, meeting rooms, Internet computer labs, and dining hall. During the month of August, some 80 activists from half a dozen countries participated in a seminar delivered each year by the Latin American Coordinating Agency of Campesino Organizations (CLOC). The 1,800-person village also has a school where 230 children attend.
Land and Rice -
Before resettling to their current location, the landless campesinos lived for nearly four years alongside Brazil's highways in hovels made of black canvas, enduring extreme cold during the winter and suffocating temperatures in the summer. Negotiations with authorities gave them access to the land they live on now, which is the biggest settlement in the state. A testament to the settlers' will to create a new world for themselves, and not just have a strip of land to cultivate, is the fact that they decided to create an agrovila . Several settlements have built housing on each individual parcel of land, a choice that creates almost insurmountable political and social problems. Not only is it almost impossible to deliver water and electricity to all the inhabitants (due to large distances between houses), but community living is almost out of the question, thus heightening the campesinos' individualism and blocking any attempt to create a different type of society.
Any visitor that manages to arrive at an agrovila, with its simple, picturesque homes, sown plots of land, colorful flower arrangements, and domestic animals grazing and cackling in the sun, sees a bucolic setting, where everything runs smoothly. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Filhos de Sepé settlement faces its share of problems, mostly derived from the global crisis of the small farmer competing with the powerful expansion of agribusiness pushed by large multinational corporations.
One of the initial problems precipitates from the very choice to create an agrovila. Frequently, individual parcels end up far away from the housing areas, sometimes as much as 10-13 kilometers (6-8 miles). “This causes some families to quit farming altogether and instead lease their land to other settlements,? says Huli, who doesn't shy away from questions. In order to address this problem facing the agrovila, over the last few years MST has implemented a new design for the settlements. Units consisting of 15 to 20 families are grouped together and the land is lined up in triangles with the vertex of each coming together in a central area. This way the homes are all near each other and the parcels of land are relatively close to the residential area. This of course reduces the density of the settlements from an average of 100 families to what has been termed a “housing nucleus,? which does not exceed a total of 20 families.
But perhaps the gravest problem is their dependence on multinationals that impose a style of farming based on the heavy use of agricultural toxins. “Monsanto brings us technology packages, herbicides and pesticides, in other words poison, and then they supply the rice. Over the course of time, we went from depending on the landholding elite to depending on the multinationals that own the technology. We can only conclude that in spite of our efforts, we have not moved forward, that we struggled for years to be in a new state of dependence, and all the while we are poisoning our own families and the people who consume the rice we produce,? say Huli.
A Struggle Without End
In order to escape these constraints, the settlers have opted for agroecology. In the settlement, 1,600 hectares (6 square miles) are farmed “conventionally? (that is to say, with pesticides), but after an intense internal debate, the community decided to have a small nucleus of families cultivate organic rice. Last year, 29 families cultivated 120 hectares (almost half a square mile) without chemicals and formed the Association of Rice and Fish Producers. Because they operate where there is an abundance of water, they have been able to produce fish, diversifying their production. That year, they produced 6,000 bags of organic rice and the production was sold for school lunches in the city of Viamao, governed by the Workers' Party. This year, 35 families are participating, and they are hoping to grow 150 hectares and produce 10,000 bags....[CONTINUES BELOW]
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Sepé Tiraju
On February 7, 1756 the Guaraní Indian Sepé Tiraju was killed in combat by Spanish and Portuguese troops in the city of Sao Gabriel (in the southern part of Rio Grande do Sul). The 1750 Treaty of Madrid, signed by the two countries, decreed that all Indians belonging to the Guaraní Reductions (seven towns laid out by Jesuits and built by the indigenous people) must abandon their homes and move to the banks of the Uruguay River, territory that today belongs to Argentina.
A Portuguese-Spanish army of 3,500 soldiers armed with cannons, the best equipped for their day, confronted the Indians armed with spears and arrows. Three days after the death of Sepé, on February 10, nearly 1,500 Indians were dead. In spite of the abolishment of the treaty in 1761, it had accomplished its goal: the Guaraní Reductions—described by Voltaire as “a triumph of humanity? for their successful cooperative living, artistic endeavors such as music, publication of books, and development of astronomy and meteorology—were destroyed. This year, the landless and other social movements commemorated the 250-year anniversary of the fall of Sepé in combat as part of a retrieval of the most notable experiences of different worlds existing on the same continent.
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They have discovered that growing organic rice is not only profitable, but its productivity per acre is exactly double that of rice farmed with chemicals. They have recovered and implemented an old campesino tradition of preparing the land with ducks. “Ducks eat up all the herbs, clean the land much better than an agrochemical toxin could, and in addition they leave it fertilized with their waste. We leave the ducks there over a period of months and they do all the prep work. Later, when it is time to sow the rice, we remove them and either sell them or eat them,? Huli relates with a huge smile. Farming organically gives them their own seeds and supplies, so to produce they don't depend on markets, and in addition they are improving the health of both the producers and the consumers.
Now, however, they face the problem of certification. In Brazil there are only three businesses that can certify organic origin, and they are all linked to multinationals. “Once more we are bumping into the same enemy,? Huli continues. But what angers them the most is that the “certifier? will only visit the settlement once a year, charges them thousands of dollars, and does not inspect the cultivation process, a fact that allows any “organic? producer to use chemicals while still receiving the organic label. To address this unexpected problem, the movement is addressing the possibility of creating a “community certification? team, which would allow them to bypass dealing with the multinationals.
In addition, the settlers complain that the state and federal governments do not provide credits for agroecological production. In short, they face a whole chain of problems, and each time they overcome one, they run into a new problem that is ultimately the same: the control of large multinationals over agricultural technologies that allows them to exploit the campesinos. The development and control of new technologies by multinationals has made possible a new type of oppression. While the campesinos no longer lack the means of production, control over work schedules, and labor methods, the multinationals' dominance is of an “immaterial? sort, seated in the control over knowledge and the market in order to maximize profit accumulation. Huli explains how the price of rice continues to fall, so that 1,600 hectares of rice is not even enough for the settled campesinos to survive off the land.
Before leaving the settlement, we ask him what sources of income the Filhos de Sepé campesinos have. There are three: family vegetable gardens, rice, and work in neighboring municipalities, where the women are employed as cleaners and the men as construction workers. “What percentage of your income comes from these types of work?? we ask. Huli cannot avoid a look of sadness: “Unfortunately, the bulk of it comes from cleaning and construction. That's the way it is.?
The struggle for land turns out to be much more complicated than anyone could have imagined. Perhaps the biggest triumph of the landless is that the campesinos have remained on their settlement rather than adding themselves to the burgeoning belt of poverty seen in Brazil's big cities. The rest is a struggle that is permanent, interminable. It is more complicated than the struggle for land, since capital has shown its capacity to transform itself to control the mechanisms of domination, in this case less palpable, almost invisible. This will take persistent training and learning, which have become indispensable tools in the struggle.
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Translated for the IRC Americas Program by Nick Henry.
Raúl Zibechi, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, is a professor and researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de America Latina and adviser to several grassroots organizations. He is a monthly contributor to the IRC Americas Program (www.americaspolicy.org).
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For More Information:
Luix Costa, “Conmemoración de las Reducciones guaraníticas?, 19 de febrero de 2006, www.sinpermiso.info.
MST, “O que levar em conta para a organizaçao do assentamento?, Cuaderno de Cooperación Agrícola No. 10, Concrab, San Pablo, 2001.
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Published by the Americas Program at the International Relations Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org). ©Creative Commons - some rights reserved.
Recommended citation:
Raúl Zibechi, "Landless Workers Movement: The Difficult Construction of a New World" (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, September 26, 2006).
Web location:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3547
Production Information:
Author(s): Raúl Zibechi
Translator(s): Nick Henry
Editor(s): Laura Carlsen, IRC
Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz, IRC
Syngenta Seeds Report
Terra de Direitos
August 30, 2006
1. Introduction
Syngenta is a multinational agribusiness corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Syngenta was the first global group to focus exclusively on agribusiness products. According to Syngenta’s Web site (www.syngentaseeds.com), the company has over 19,000 employees. In 2005, Syngenta’s revenue was over US$ 8.1 billion.
The corporation is the world’s largest producer of agrochemicals (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides), what Syngenta refers to as “crop protection�? products. Sales of agrochemicals represent 80% of Syngenta’s sales. As public awareness over the danger of agrochemicals has increased, Syngenta has diversified and increasingly focuses on commercial seed production, especially genetically-modified (GMO) seeds. Syngenta is the third largest commercial seed producer in the world, with sales from vegetable, field crop, flower and GMO seeds representing 20% of the corporation’s profits. According to Corporate Watch, “GM crops are a key part of Syngenta’s future and it has a strong interest in seeing them grown in the UK and Europe. Syngenta is one of the leaders in the field of GM crops, and GM crops form an integral part of its future plans.�?
2. Syngenta’s Creation – the Merging of the Chemical and Agricultural Capital
To understand Syngenta’s development as a multinational agribusiness giant, it is necessary to understand how the commercialization of biotechnology is the result of the merging of chemical and agricultural capital - a process that has occurred since the second World War. Syngenta is a product of this process. Because documenting all of the industrial and agribusiness companies that have conglomerated to form Syngenta is beyond the scope of this report, this document highlights the major companies and their products (for more information on the corporate mergers, acquisitions and partnerships that have formed Syngenta, see http://www.syngenta.com/en/about_syngenta/timeline.aspx)
Syngenta’s Roots in the Chemical Industry and the Military Industrial Complex
In his article, “Agribusiness, Biotechnology and War: Ending Destructive Technologies,�? Brian Tokar states, “When we examine how our food is grown today, it becomes clear that most of the chemical “tools�? taken for granted by modern agribusiness are products of warfare…Virtually all of the leading companies that brought us chemical fertilizers and pesticides made their greatest fortunes during wartime…The handful of companies that over the past decade have used biotechnology in an attempt to radically reshape food production have their roots in wartime, have profited tremendously from war throughout their histories, and have long collaborated with military establishments to make the world a more dangerous place.�?
Syngenta’s oldest predecessor was J.R. Geigy Ltd., which was founded in Switzerland in 1758, and commenced to produce industrial chemicals including paints, dyes and other products. Giegy’s rise to fame and fortune began in 1939, when researcher Paul Müller discovered the insecticidal efficacy of Dicloro Difenil Tricloroetano (DDT). DDT was invented in the search to prevent moths from feeding on wool, and its toxic effect on other insects was soon discovered. According to Tokar, during World War II, U.S. army soldiers in Europe were suffering from typhus due to lice exposure, and soldiers in the South Pacific were suffering from malaria, “So the Army looked to Geigy’s new product as the answer, and soon, two million pounds of DDT were being produced every month.
Another chemical company in which Syngenta has roots is Industrial Chemical Industries (ICI), founded in Britain in 1926 with the merger of Brunner Mond Ltd, British Dyestuffs Coronation Ltd., United Alkali Co. Ltd., and Nobel Industries Ltd., an explosives company founded by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. ICI would supply the Allied Forces during WWII with both explosives and chemicals for chemical warfare. In 1940, ICI discovered the selective properties of alphanapthylacetic acid, leading to the synthesis of the herbicides MCPA and 2,4-D. According to Tokar, the herbicide Agent Orange, derived from ICI’s 2,4-D, would later be used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to obliterate dense jungles.
When World War II ended, the companies producing chemicals for the military industrial complex searched for new markets and uses for their products. Agriculture was their answer. According to Tokar, “Throughout the 1940s, scientists discovered the usefulness of DDT for combating a wide variety of agricultural pests quickly and with long-lasting effect…DDT became the most widely applied chemical in human history and its commercial success led to a massive increase in the production and use of chemical insecticides of all types. Revenues from insecticide production in the U.S. rose from $10 million in 1940 to $100 million in 1950 to over $1 billion today.�? The chemical industry’s need to find new markets for its chemicals coincided with the rise of industrial agriculture after WWII.
With the decimation of Europe and Japan, parts of the world faced a shortage of food. U.S. agribusiness companies were poised to profit from this food shortage; thus the process of agricultural industrialization, based on mechanization and monoculture, began in earnest. Additionally, the U.S.’ new status as the global superpower allowed it to implement policies (such as massive subsidies) to benefit agribusiness companies. Industrial capital jumped on the industrial agribusiness bandwagon asserting that agrotoxins were a necessary component of industrial agriculture. Thus the relationship between agricultural capital and industrial capital began. This relationship was strengthened with the Green Revolution, which promoted industrial agriculture and the use of agrotoxins in the 1960s.
In 1970 Geigy and Ciba merged to form Ciba-Giegy, a massive corporation with operations in over 50 countries. In 1994 Zeneca Group PLC was established after ICI demerged its pharmaceutical, pesticide and specialty chemicals. Zeneca merged with Astra AB of Sweden in 1998, becoming AstraZeneca. In 1996, Sandoz, another Swiss company formed in 1876, merged with Ciba-Giegy to form Novartis, the largest corporate merger in history to that date. In 2000, Novartis merged with AstraZeneca’s agribusiness to form Syngenta, the first global group to focus exclusively on agribusiness.
3. Capital Conglomeration and Improved PR with Biotechnology
“It is not easy to believe that Ciba-Geigy is unaware of the correlations between death, disease, and their business. Are they primarily concerned with balancing their profits against their high-powered public ethical and legal images, or is there even something else perhaps more sinister that drives Ciba-Geigy's mindset? How good can a world leader in the death business be, after all?�?
The creation of the biotechnology multinational Syngenta is partly the result of the nature of capital to conglomerate and strengthen in order to survive and spread. However, the creation of the biotechnology industry is also agribusiness capital’s answer to the poor public relations (and drops in profits) generated from the disastrous effects of the massive use of agrotoxins. Just as agrotoxins was the avenue for the chemical industry to reinvent itself after WWII, biotechnology is agribusiness’ way to reinvent itself in light of increased public awareness about the dangers of agrotoxins.
During the 1960s and 70s, as the public became enlightened to the disastrous effects of agrotoxins, Ciba-Giegy, ICI and other chemical companies began to search for a way to reinvent themselves and their public image. According to Tokar, “The tremendous public outcry around the toxic effects of DDT and other pesticides during the 1960s and early 1970s was a crucial factor in the decision by Monsanto and other agrochemical giants to begin shifting their research efforts toward the brand new technology of gene manipulation. The first successful splicing of foreign (transgenic) DNA into the chromosomes of a living cell was demonstrated in 1973. By the late 1980s, Monsanto, Ciba-Geigy (now Syngenta and Novartis), and others were heavily invested in the genetic engineering of basic food crops.�?
Biotechnology has allowed agribusiness capital to diversify and reinvent itself, as well as improve its public image. Corporations that have grown and profited from producing deadly chemicals now tout themselves as the pioneers of sustainable agriculture, with the intent to feed the world.
Syngenta’s Attempt to Co-opt “Development�? and “Sustainable Agriculture�?
According to Corporate Watch, Syngenta is “the most successful biotechnology company at co-opting the sustainable development agenda (through the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Development), and aligning itself with GM crops with perceived consumer benefits. Syngenta has been doing its best to make its name and business activities appear to be inextricably linked to the concept of ‘sustainable development.’�?
On its Web site Syngenta states: “Syngenta is publicly committed to sustainable agriculture. Alongside its own activities in this area, the company also finances the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. This non-profit organization supports sustainable food security projects in a number of countries.�? The Syngenta Foundation Web site states that the organization, “devotes its resources to promoting economically and ecologically sustainable agriculture throughout the world. Our work focuses on poverty-oriented agricultural research and development.�?
The Syngenta Foundation is run by Andrew Bennett, who, until head-hunted by Syngenta was the head of environment at the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID). In 2002, Bennett was able to gaining a place on the governing body of the Consultative Group on the International Agricultural Research centres (CGIAR). CGIAR operates international agricultural research centres and seed banks whose mission statement is: ‘To contribute to food security and poverty eradication in developing countries through research, partnerships, capacity building, and policy support, promoting sustainable agricultural development based on the environmentally sound management of natural resources.’ Yet GM Watch asserts CGIAR’s mission is more to promote the interests of Agribusiness, stating, “Industrial countries account for more than two-thirds of CGIAR financing and this is reflected in its governance structure which is fundamentally controlled by four rich industrialised countries.�?
Golden Rice
Syngenta’s invention and marketing of its GMO “Golden Rice�? seeds best exemplifies the multinational corporation’s attempt to reinvent itself as a company bent on humanitarian efforts. By inserting two genes from daffodil and one gene from a bacterium, Dr. Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany managed to engineer a rice seed enhanced with beta-carotene. In August 1999, they unveiled their research and named it "Golden Rice." Shortly afterwards, they signed a deal with AstraZeneca (which later merged with Novartis to become Syngenta), which agreed to waive technological fees to enable the development of the rice for "humanitarian" purposes. As the Spanish organization Grain points out, “by a stroke of a pen, AstraZeneca was able to acquire exclusive commercial control over a technology that was developed with public funding and purportedly pursued for a humanitarian cause. The deal with AstraZeneca not only surrendered a decade of publicly-funded research to commercial control, but – more importantly – it strengthened the North’s patent hegemony worldwide. The small handful of transgenic rice grains produced in Potrykus’ laboratory provided a much-needed public relations boost for the biotech industry at a time when genetic engineering was under siege in Europe, Japan, Brazil and other developing countries.
“Syngenta has been actively involved in the promotion of "Golden Rice" in rice-growing countries, and has used its development and "gift" of Golden Rice in its promotion and publicity work to flag up its humanitarian concerns and philanthropic instincts. Through Golden Rice the biotech lobby is selling the idea that GMO crops will solve problems of malnutrition…the malnutrition agenda is drawing in support from every major agricultural biotech company, CGIAR, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and its main funder, the Rockefeller Foundation.�?
However, Grain points out that the root causes of malnutrition amongst rice eating populations cannot be solved with one grain. Malnutrition reflects “an overall impact of multiple causative factors similar to those of other developing countries where rice is not a major staple. Various deficiencies including zinc, vitamin C and D, folate, riboflavin, selenium and calcium occur in the context of poverty, environmental degradation, lack of public health systems and sanitation, lack of proper education and social disparity. Poverty and lack of purchasing power is identified as a major cause of malnutrition. These are underlying issues that can never be addressed by Golden Rice.�? Additionally, research has shown that in order to obtain the required supply of Vitamin A from golden rice, “a child would have to consume absurd quantities of rice each day (9 kg of cooked rice). Moreover the required dose of vitamin A can easily be fulfilled by consuming a few carrots, yams and other vitamin A enriched substitutes. Further, since vitamin A is fat soluble and requires fats and proteins in the body to metabolize it, a malnourished child would not receive the intended benefit from consuming [Golden Rice]. This crucial point was completely ignored by the scientists in Syngenta.�?
Terminator Technology (GURTS) and its Threat to Small Farmers – the True Syngenta
Tecnología GURT e Ameaças á Agricultores Pequenos:
Syngenta is a world leader in the development for commercial use of crops incorporating Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs). GURTs will enable biotech companies to retain control and ownership over their products even after they have been sold to farmers. The best known of these technologies, often known as 'Terminator' technology, is used to make crops generate sterile seed, forcing farmers to return to the biotech corporation to buy new seed every year. This technology holds major implications for small farmers’ sovereignty all over the planet, as it will undermine small farmers’ independence and force them to become dependent on agribusiness multinationals.
While the ban on testing and commercialization of GURTs was upheld at the March, 2006 Meeting of Parties on Biosecurity and Biodiveristy in Curitiba, Brazil, according to a recent report by Genetics Forum, if this ban is withdrawn, “Syngenta will have the single largest interest in GURTs of all the global GM companies. Out of a total of 60 GURTs patents identified to date, Syngenta own 25, or 42 per cent. In the light of the evidence in this report, the four authors have serious concerns about the potential impact Syngenta's work on 'Terminator' and 'Traitor' technologies could have on poor farmers in the South if commercialised.�?
If commercialized, GURTs will lock farmers across the world into a cycle that stops them saving seed and forces them to buy new patented seed and/or switching chemicals from biotech companies every year. Despite the promises of both of Syngenta’s predecessor companies, AstraZeneca and Novartis, not to develop technologies that would prevent farmers from growing second-generation seed, Syngenta has continued to patent and develop GURTs.
4. Syngenta’s Major Products
BT Maize – Bt Milho:
Perhaps Sygnenta’s most important GMO seed product is Bt maize (corn). From the 1980s onwards, the focus for the companies that merged to form Novartis, which eventually became Syngenta, was engineering Bt toxin insect resistance into crops. The outcome of this research was Bt Maximiser/Knockout insect resistant maize, which continues to be Syngenta’s most important own-brand GMO product. Syngenta also produces YieldGard® insect protection (Bt 11). Bt Maximizer/Knockout maize was given approval for commercial growing in the US in 1995, and Syngenta received import approval from the European Union in February of 1997 and June of 1998, respectively.
Other GMO seed varietals – Outras Variedades de Sementes OGMs:
In addition to Bt maize, Syngenta has developed a number of other GMO seeds that work in tandem with pesticides developed by other companies, including Monstano’s Roundup Ready®, and Bayer’s LibertyLink®. All NK Brand Roundup Ready® soybean varieties have been approved for import into the EU since 1996 and are free to move in all grain channels.
Agrotoxic Chemicals:
Syngenta owns more than 120 pesticide active ingredients and has over 20 top selling brands of pesticides. According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), the corporation has a 20% share of the pesticide market, and 17% of the herbicide market. Many brands of GMO seeds, of Syngenta and other companies, have been developed to work in tandem with Syngenta’s pesticides. Some of its top pesticides include:
• Glysophate: The active ingredient in Sygenta’s Roundup and Touchdown pesticides. Monstano’s Roundup Ready soy was developed to resist this pesticide.
• Gramaxone (active ingredient paraquat)—Swallowing as little as one teaspoonful of paraquat can be fatal. Paraquat is extremely hazardous to mammals by all routes of exposure.
• AAtrex/Gesaprim (atrazine)—Atrazine is a known endocrine disruptor, which interferes with hormone function, and is also a possible human carcinogen.
• Bravo (chlorothalonil)—Chlorothalonil is listed by EPA as a probable human carcinogen.
• Topik (clodinafop)—According to EPA, clodinafop is a probable human carcinogen.
5. Corporate Crimes
According to PANNA, “Syngenta and the companies that merged to form it are responsible for illegal chemical dumping, disastrous chemical spills and explosions, testing pesticides on people, and harassing and misleading farmers.�? In addition to crimes committed through chemical poisoning, with its entry into the GMO seed market, Syngenta has begun to commit crimes of genetic contamination through the illegal planting and sale of GMO seeds. Following are some, but certainly not all, of crimes committed by Syngenta and its predecessors:
The largest case of genetic contamination in the world:
Syngenta is responsible for the largest case of genetic contamination in the world. Syngenta's Bt-10 genetically-modified corn, which was approved for only animal feeds, was mixed with US grain meant for human consumption between 2001 and 2004.
On Tuesday 22nd of March 2005 Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for Syngenta, announced that farmers in four U.S. states planted 37,000 acres (15.000 ha) with the experimental Bt10 corn variety from 2001 through 2004. She refused to specify which states. While most of the corn produced from the Bt10 seeds, engineered to act as a pesticide, likely went into animal feed, some of it may have entered the human food supply, Hull said.
According to GE Free Cymru, Syngenta refused to give any figures relating to the amount of contaminated grain exported, and it refused to identify the countries involved. At least twelve contaminated cargoes were stopped at Japanese ports, and two in Ireland. It is a fair assumption that other contaminated cargoes were imported, without being identified, through ports in other EC countries, and also in South Korea.
Syngenta acknowledged the contamination to the public only after the story was published on the Web site of Nature magazine. According to Dr. Brian John of GE Free Cymru, Syngenta knew about the contamination of Bt11 by the illegal variety called Bt10 several months before the story was broken by Nature magazine. For at least four months Syngenta and the US regulatory authorities, including the USDA and USEPA, connived to keep the contamination incident under wraps, while contaminated grain continued to be distributed on the world market. John maintains Syngenta at first failed to reveal that Bt10 contains antibiotic resistance marker genes, but then had to admit it under pressure from independent scientists. The corporation also failed to point out that BT10 was clearly an "experimental GM variety" which never entered the US approvals process, probably because it was found to be defective or genetically unstable.
Upon the public’s learning of the contamination, Syngenta initially tried to downplay the amount of contamination that had occurred. Syngenta stated that "several hundred tonnes" of contaminated maize had found its way into the food chain. This was a lie, and following revelations by GM Free Cymru and other bodies, the corporation had to admit that the real figure was around 150,000 tonnes. GE Free Cymru maintains the real figure was around 185,000 tonnes.
Syngenta has also admitted that one of the Bt10 breeding lines "was commercialized in a very small amount" -- which would have been illegal even in the USA, since consent for Bt10 lines was never requested or given.
Illegal planting of GMO soy in Brazil:
In March 2006 it was discovered that Syngenta had illegally planted 12 hectares of GMO soy in the Brazilian state of Paraná. The planting was illegal because it occurred at an experimental site of the company that is situated within the protective boundary zone of the Iguaçu Falls National Park, which was declared the Patrimony of Humanity by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1986. While Syngenta had a license to practice experimental planting of seeds at the site, it was forbidden to plant GMO seeds at the site. In response to the crime, the Brazilian federal environmental agency IBAMA fined Syngenta R$ 1,000,000, or about US$ 461,000 – a fine Syngenta had not paid at the time of writing of this report.
Illegal Planting of GMO maize in New Zealand:
In the "Corngate" scandal in New Zealand in 2000, illegally imported GMO maize seed was planted on 178 ha of land. Later, when this leaked out, Syngenta refused to allow access to the GeneScan laboratory which carried out the testing.
Cattle Deaths in Hesse, Germany:
The corporation is the developer and owner of another maize variety called Bt176 which was implicated in the deaths of 12 cattle in Hesse, Germany, in 2001-2002. Bt176 is unstable and non-uniform, which means that it is illegal under EU law. When news of that scandal broke, the investigations relating to the animal deaths were short-lived and profoundly unsatisfactory, involving the mysterious disappearance of animal tissue samples that should have been examined. Syngenta gave the farmer partial compensation in 2002 but refused to provide more support in making a full investigation into the case and to recognize the GM maize as being the cause of his problems.
Illegal Imports of GMOs:
Northup King, a seed company owned by Syngenta, agreed to pay US$165,200 for illegally importing genetically engineered corn from Chile into the U.S., and illegally producing the Bt pesticide in eight unregistered facilities.
Creation of U.S. Superfund sites:
Government designated “Superfund�? sites are uncontrolled or abandoned sites where hazardous waste is located in the United States. As of January 2002, Syngenta subsidiaries, including Stauffer Chemical Company, were responsible for at least 18 Superfund sites, three of which, according to the EPA, are “extremely hazardous.�?
For example, for over 20 years, a Ciba Geigy production plant in Toms River, New Jersey, dumped four million gallons a day of carcinogenic/teratogenic chemical waste into the Atlantic Ocean, 2,500 feet offshore from a popular beach. In 1992, Ciba agreed to stop the dumping and to pay US$61.35 million in fines/cleanup costs for illegal dumping of toxic waste on or near the site.
Rhine Chemical Spill disaster:
This industrial accident has been described as “one of the world’s most serious chemical disasters.�? During a 1986 fire at a Sandoz chemical plant, near Basel, Switzerland, up to 30 tons of at least 35 different chemicals (pesticides, dyes and heavy metals) including insecticides and tons of mercury washed into the Rhine. The spill devastated the river’s ecosystem, killing more than 500,000 fish and eliminating several species. The river was considered ‘biologically dead’ for 300 km downstream. Sandoz moved all production to Brazil by 1989 after another near-spill on the Rhine.
Illegal toxic shipments:
Ciba-Geigy admitted to the “mistake�? of shipping 405,000 liters of DDT to Tanzania between 1988 and 1990, a violation of the FAO Code of Conduct on the Distribution of Pesticides and a violation of the company’s own policy guidelines.
Racist Testing of Toxic Chemicals:
In India in 1975, Hindustan Ciba-Geigy Ltd. sprayed Nuvacron (common name: monocrotophos), a World Health Organization class IB pesticide described as "highly hazardous," on more than 40 Indian volunteers between the ages of 13 and 57. Over a period of four days, Ciba-Geigy used a plane loaded with the pesticide solution to spray the group. In 1976, Ciba-Geigy tested the carcinogen chlordimeform on six Egyptian children.
Explosion at pesticide plant, Pakistan:
In 1994, an explosion and fire at Ciba-Geigy’s chemical plant in Karachi, Pakistan, burned for over three hours before it was brought under control. The company stated that it lost 85 tons of pesticides in the fire, some of which drifted in a several-kilometer radius and sent firefighters and plant workers to the hospital.
Thousands of Japanese suffered from Subacute-myelo-optico-neuropathy (SMON)
According to Holley Knaus, “One of history’s most horrifying cases of corporate negligence involved Ciba Geigy and its drug clioquinol. Ciba started marketing clioquinol in 1934 to fight amoebic dysentery. By the time the company entered the lucrative Japanese market in 1953, it was pushing clioquinol worldwide for all forms of dysentery. Ciba was permitted to market the drug in Japan for all types of abdominal trouble, with no limitation as to dosage or length of treatment. Ciba promoted the drug throughout the 1950s and 1960s as being safe and effective, even for children, and as having no adverse permanent side effects.
By 1970, 10,000 Japanese citizens, and hundreds of others worldwide, were afflicted with a little-known but devastating disease called subacute-myelo-optico- neuropathy (SMON). SMON victims suffered a tingling in the feet that eventually turned into total loss of sensation and then paralysis of the feet and legs. Others suffered from blindness and serious optic disorders. Almost 90 percent experienced sensory disturbances in the lower back and limbs.
Ciba failed to respond to any of these warnings with serious investigations into the effects of the drug, instead continuing to market it in Japan as well as throughout Europe and in Indonesia, Australia, India and the United States. The Japanese were particularly devastated by SMON because it had been administered to great numbers of people in large doses over long periods of time. In Japan, SMON victims filed over 5,000 lawsuits against the company. By 1981, Ciba Geigy had paid out over $490 million to Japanese SMON victims. 30,000 Japanese were affected and 1,000 died before the drug was banned there.
Marketing of Products Despite Knowledge of Health Risks
Despite confidential warnings from its own researchers, Ciba- Geigy continued to market two dangerous drugs, phenylbutazone and oxyphenbutazone, which are known to cause life-threatening blood disorders. In fact, in an internal document leaked in 1983, Ciba-Geigy admitted that the drug had already caused some 700 deaths. At the time only 72 deaths had been reported. It was only in April 1985, after worldwide protest against the two drugs, that the company withdrew oxyphenbutazone and severely restricted the use of phenylbutazone.
In January 1986, Ciba-Geigy Ltd. in Japan was ordered to stop operations for 20 days, after the company was found to have submitted false data to obtain permission to market 46 of its products.
Supported and Profited from Apartheid in South Africa
Through Syngenta’s predecessor ICI, which had as a subsidiary African Explosives and Chemical Industries, the company played a role in supporting the Apartheid regime in South Africa. According to a document sourced from the Web site of the African National Congress, in 1978 the chairman of ICI admitted that AECI was manufacturing an ingredient used in riot control gas, which was used against those protesting apartheid. The chairman defended the corporation’s production of the gas by claiming that "the use of CS gas is a relatively safe and humane method of riot control". The ANC claimed in the document, “We know that AECI is even more deeply involved in making explosives and chemicals for the apartheid regime.�?
Additionally, one of Ciba-Giegy’s U.S. subsidiaries, Stauffer Chemical Company, refused to sign the Sullivan Principles, a list of principles designed for companies operating in South Africa to promote the employment of non-whites during Apartheid. The Multinational Monitor stated in 1985, “Although the list of nonsignatories is incomplete, 28 of the Fortune 500 companies doing business in South Africa have not signed the principles, according to the Eighth Report On the Signatory Companies To the Sullivan Principles. This list of nonsignatories includes: Stauffer Chemical Co…�?
Racism
As many of the above examples exemplify, Syngenta has a long history of racism. While it has ceased marketing many toxic products in Europe and the United States, it has continued to market and sell chemicals in developing countries where public awareness of these chemicals is lower, and government bodies are more easily manipulated to allow the commercialization of products. The Third World Network writes that Ciba-Giegy continued to test the pesticide chlordimeform on people in the Global South, when it already knew the carcinogenic nature of the chemical. “The pesticide's hazardous nature was discovered in experiments carried out by Ciba-Geigy in 1976-78, 10 years after it was introduced for commercial use…In 1976 after withdrawing the pesticide from the market, Ciba Geigy sprayed Galecron on six Egyptian volunteers between the ages of 10 and 18, all of whom wore no protective clothing for the experiment. These youngsters later suffered diarrhea, dizziness, head and stomachaches, and other symptoms of chlordimeform poisoning. Company publicity in Europe warns parents to keep their children away from Galecron.
Ciba-Geigy has long been concerned about the health effects of its pesticide on its own workers. The company spent some $4.5 million improving safeguards at its factory to prevent its Swiss employees from coming into contact with the chemical. Yet Ciba- Geigy confidential reports show that levels of the chemical in field workers from Latin America and Egypt regularly exceed the maximum permitted for the company's own employees. The field workers suffer dizziness, headaches and diarrhea, the reports said.�?
Agrofuels - Towards a reality check in nine key areas
~~~
Executive Summary
2 July 2007
The rush for ‘biofuels’ is already causing serious damage. Far from being sustainable, the spread of what are more accurately called ‘agrofuels’ – liquid fuels produced from biomass grown in large-scale monocultures – is compromising biodiversity and fuelling human rights violations. As the industry expands, it is encouraging intensified, industrial agriculture, providing a new promotional vehicle for GM crops, and posing a serious threat to food sovereignty. The argument that these ‘biofuels’ will mitigate climate change is unproven – indeed, the destruction of rainforests, peatlands and other ecosystems to make way for agrofuel plantations may well accelerate global warming.
This document focuses on particular types of ‘biofuel’ which we prefer to call agrofuel because of the intensive, industrial way it is produced, generally as monocultures, often covering thousands of hectares, most often in the global South.
Climate change: A primary concern is the potential for agrofuels to accelerate climate change, rather than combat it. Production involves considerable emission of greenhouse gases from soils, carbon sink destruction and fossil fuel inputs and is already causing significant deforestation and destruction of biodiversity. The clearance of Indonesia’s peat forests to plant oil palm plantations has caused massive outputs of CO2. Once forest removal reaches a certain ‘tipping point’, a process of self destruction may begin, particularly in the Amazon. Because so much remains unknown, a precautionary approach to developing agrofuels is necessary.
The GM industry, having encountered widespread resistance to GM crops for food, has plans to gain acceptance for them as agrofuel crops. These crops would need to be planted as large-scale monocultures in order to be competitive. Yet, monocultures of GM crops (mainly soya and maize) as animal feed have had negative impacts, e.g.: in Argentina and Paraguay. Since animal feed and agrofuels can often be produced from the same biomass this could stimulate further expansion of GM crops. In addition, the GM industry is looking at ways to engineer crops so they can be made to break down more easily into fuel.
Second generation agrofuels: Industry promises future technologies that will yield cheap abundant agrofuels from all plant material and plant waste. GM technologies are being promoted to streamline processes and reduce costs. Research is being carried out into GM microbes that could improve breakdown and fermentation processes and methods to streamline cellulose and reduce lignin or even change its nature. Synthetic biology is a new approach that involves using genetic information to build completely new organisms with unknown impacts.
Agrofuels and biodiversity: Precious little biodiversity remains in Europe and many species are endangered. Extensive, low input farming is the most favourable system for wildlife. However, agrofuel production increases the pressure to convert such regions into intensive production of agrofuels, with crops such as oilseed rape and beet which are particularly unfavourable to wildlife. If setaside land were brought into agrofuel production, the impacts on biodiversity would be severe, as would impacts on water reserves through increased irrigation. In the global South, critical ecosystems are destroyed to plant crops used for agrofuels. Examples include sugarcane and soya in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. At the same time countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Cameroon, Colombia and Ecuador are experiencing accelerating biodiversity loss due to oil palm plantations, often preceded by logging. In India and Africa the planting of jatropha trees for agrodiesel will threaten remaining forests.
Promoters of agrofuel expansion claim that yields must be increased by using more fertiliser and irrigation. Irrigation depletes lakes, rivers and aquifers while fertilisers cause an increased burden of nitrates in soil and water, with impacts such as eutrophication – a major threat to fish stocks. Herbicide tolerant GE crops facilitate the use of aerial spraying of herbicides with serious effects on biodiversity and small-scale farming. Indirect impacts of biofuels are already becoming apparent as US farmers switch from soya cultivation to corn for ethanol. This provides an incentive for extending soya cultivation in Latin America, where the soya boom had been faltering. As with other intensive crops, biofuel production displaces other activities to new areas, whether smallscale agriculture or large-scale cattle ranching.
Certification of agrofuels is likely to have a similar impact, displacing uncertified production to more marginal areas where it may do more damage. Agrofuels could bring about increased pressure for the release of GE trees. The impacts on forest biodiversity are extremely difficult to predict precisely because of the complexity and longevity of trees. Ironically, this may mean pressure to experiment with GE trees in situ with all the risks of contamination that implies.
Agrofuels and food security: Agriculture already faces huge challenges. Food production could experience serious competition from energy crops. World food reserves are falling while the demand for grains and oilseeds has outstripped supply for the last seven years. Prices have risen sharply. In the case of maize, this is due to increasing amounts of US corn being used for ethanol rather than food. As ever, it is the poor and marginalized who suffer the worst impacts. The EU and the US are setting targets for agrofuel use in transport, but will not be able to produce the feedstock themselves. Producing soya for animal feed is already causing serious problems in Latin America, while oil palm plantations have proved extremely destructive in both Latin America and Asia. Now these countries are gearing up to respond to the demand for agrofuels, further increasing the pressure on food production.
‘Manufacturers of inputs such as agrotoxic chemicals (i.e. fertilizers and pesticides) expect an increased demand as a result of the attempt to increase yields. Small farmers will find it hard to compete with big producers. Some will turn from food to energy crop production and others will leave their land. This will result in a loss of local knowledge and local varieties, which in turn will diminish agricultural biodiversity.’
Agrofuels and jobs: A number of sources are asserting that agrofuels can regenerate rural economies and provide jobs. However, this depends on who controls development. To benefit local communities, agrofuel production would need to be part of a diverse farming system. But development is focused on large centralized monocultures for economies of scale and a consistent product. The impact of monocultures such as sugar cane in Brazil, is a clear example of the lack of benefit for the poor and marginalized. This is reinforced by experiences from other countries, including Paraguay and Argentina, Ecuador and Indonesia and South Africa, where communities have reacted to government agrofuel strategies. In Europe, the EC has claimed that agrofuels can provide opportunities for farmers as well as creating jobs and rural regeneration. However EU sources are highly contradictory, especially regarding the number of jobs that will actually be created, not simply replaced or displaced.’
Human rights violations have already resulted from soya, sugarcane and palm monocultures in Latin America and Asia, and these are likely to intensify through the production of agrofuels. Impacts on health arise from deforestation and pesticide spraying. Another major issue involves historical and intense land conflicts, due to monoculture expansion. Production of agrofuel crops may involve violent evictions and murders. Examples are given here from Colombia and Paraguay.
Rapid changes in land use, ecology and demography are leading to increased incidences of infectious diseases. Deforestation is increasingly recognised as playing a major role in bringing people and diseases into close contact. The impact of pesticides on health is illustrated by two examples: Paraquat in Asia and glyphosate in Latin America, both of which cause serious health impacts.
Certification: Concern about the possible negative impact of agrofuels has led to demands for sustainability certification. There are a number of different initiatives, some of which have already joined forces. The EU itself, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK are all developing initiatives. Industry is also developing standards. Some advocate mandatory certification, others voluntary. There are many issues to be addressed in devising credible systems. One of the major problems is that certification does not prevent expansion of production. Another issue relates to monitoring and compliance. None of those currently being developed have included Southern stakeholder groups affected by monoculture expansion for agrofuels from the outset. The WTO is often cited as a legal barrier to certification systems.
Resistance to monocultures, including agrofuel production, is spreading. Groups in Africa, Asia and Latin America are mobilising and demanding to be heard. Examples range from land occupations, through court cases, to national and regional campaigns. Coalitions are building against particular crops. A number of networks have produced statements of their positions directed at the EU and the UN. They insist that small farmers, local communities, the poor and the marginalised will continue to be the ones to suffer.
Download PDF (639 Kb) @ http://www.tni.org/reports/ctw/agrofuels.pdf?
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landless_Workers%27_Movement#Constitutional_Authority
Brazil has one of the largest wealth gaps thoughout Latin America and the world. Approximately half of all the country's farmland is owned by 1% of the population. [BBC article- Brazil Landless Visit President--Jersey Devil 01:31, 22 May 2005 (UTC)] The Brazilian constitution challenges notions of private property rights by assigning to all land a social function. [Article 5, Section
XXIII.] The constitution requires the Brazilian government "to expropriate for the purpose of agrarian reform, rural property that is not performing its social function." [Article 184.]
According to Article 186 of the constitution, the social function is performed when rural propery simulatneously meets . . . the following requirements: (1) rational and adequate use; (2) adequate use of available natural resources and presearvation of the environment; (3) complaince with the provisions which regulate labor relations; and (4) exploitation which favors the well-being of the owners and workers."
The MST identifies unproductive rural land that it does not believe is meeting its social function and occupies it to remind the federal government of its constitutional responsibility. Upon occupation, a legal process commences to expropriate the land and grant title to the landless workers. The MST is represented in these activies by public interest legal counsel, including such organizations as Terra de Direitos, a non-profit legal practice co-founded by Darci Frigo, the
2001 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award Laureate. The landowners generally petition the court to evict the families.
Sometimes the Court's require the families to leave. Other times, Courts refuse the landowners' request and allow the families to stayand engage in subsistence farming until the federal agency responsible for agrarian reform, INCRA, is able to determine if the occupied property is, indeed, unproductive.
For example, in August of 1999, Chief Judge Rui overruled the decision of a trial court granting a landowner's petition to evict the MST off his property. The Court reasoned: Before applying a law, the judge must consider the social aspects of the case: the laws repercussions, its legitimacy and the clash of intersts in tension. The [MST] are landless workers [that] want to plant a product that feeds and enriches Brazil in this world so globalized and hungry. But Brazil turns its back. The
executive deflects money to the banks. The Legislature . . . wants to make laws to forgive the debts of the large farmers. The press accuses the MST of violence. The landless, in spite of all this, have hope . .. that they can plant and harvest with their hands. For this they pray and sing. The Federal Constituion and Article 5 . . . offers interpretive space in favor of the MST. The pressure of the MST is legitimate. [I]n the terms of paragraph 23 of Article 5 of the Federal
Constition [that land shall attend it social function], I suspended [the eviction.] (Decision #70000092288, Portanova, Porto Aglegre) The expropriation process can take years and is sometimes accompanied by violence as fazendeiros hire gunmen to intimidate, and not infrequently kill, members of the MST.
The National Radio Project ran a feature on its program "Making Contact" on March 23, 2005. The interview is titled "Land for Those Who Work It."
Brazil has the second most unequal distribution of land in the world. Inside the borders of the South American bread basket are deep-seated social struggles over this most coveted resource. For the past quarter century, the country's landless have shown they do not accept the ownership model dating back to colonial times. On this edition Associate Producer Pauline Bartolone guides us through the daily lives of those seeking agrarian reform in southern Brazil.
The piece features: Marcos Tiaraju, landless movement activist; Sergio Gorgen, Franciscan priest and Deputy of the State Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul; Christiane Campos, 33 year old mother and national communications coordinator for Brazil's landless worker movement; Marinisa Riva, alternative pharmacy employee; Clarisa Cabazin, Bread of the Land bakery employee; Jose Mariano Matias, gardener; Giovanni Portello, MST agroecologist; Hilario Welter, gardener.