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Reform farm policy for the public good; other news
(Friday, April 8, 2005 -- CropChoice news) -- 1. Reform farm policy for the public good 1. Reform farm policy for the public good By Jim French I am a farmer and a rancher, in a line of four generations of farmers and ranchers before me. Each day I consider the variables of weather, soil, money, time and, not in a little way, government policies and programs. Like most farms and ranches, mine is built with local, regional and global building blocks. People in agriculture know that shifting one element can change farming's whole pattern. A hailstorm here, a disease outbreak there, an adjustment in policy one year and a federal deficit the next -- each can greatly affect success or failure. For natural calamity, there's not much we can do but be prepared. But with policy, we can all shape the future to avoid disaster. Unfortunately we are failing. Consider how farms receive public support. Farmers get subsidies based on how many acres they farm and how many bushels they produce. Since there are no government limits on how many acres a farmer can plant, the American taxpayer funds a system that fuels the engine of commodity overproduction and farm expansion. More than 78 percent of U.S. production subsidies funnel to 8 percent of the nation's producers. A grossly inflated cap of $360,000 and loopholes allowing multiple payments let many huge operations and absentee owners receive over $1 million apiece in tax dollars each year. The lion's share of farm payments originally meant as a safety net for farmers now goes to those who least need the money. This system drives big operations to get even bigger. According to the latest agricultural census, more than 400,000 farms have gone out of business or been consolidated into larger operations since 1978. And when subsidy-driven surpluses of cotton, rice, wheat and corn flood world markets, more than small- and medium-sized U.S. farms suffer. Developing nations like Africa's Mali, Mozambique and Senegal have no tax-supported safety nets. Their cotton producers on small landholdings cannot compete against subsidized U.S. cotton that is sold below the cost of production. So families go out of business, move to overcrowded cities and further add to world poverty and hunger. Ironic, isn't it? The more we produce, the more we contribute to economic inequality both here and abroad. What can a lone farmer suggest? First, any change should be gradual but decisive. Taxpayers should begin by demanding that Congress cap individual farm payments at $250,000 and close loopholes that allow big farming corporations to circumvent the limit. This move already has the support of the Senate Agriculture Committee and President Bush. In the longer term, Congress should do more to stabilize farm numbers and encourage rural development. This can be done by reinforcing programs that encourage good stewardship, not big farms and big surpluses. One example is the Conservation Security Program. It links farm payments to practices that protect water, air and soil, enhance wildlife habitat, and encourage energy efficiency. If used as a template for future farm policy, the program could deliver big benefits. However, CSP is now seriously underfunded and only available in limited areas. Americans must decide: Do they want to pay tax dollars to fewer and fewer, bigger and bigger farmers? Or would they rather have programs that keep more farmers worldwide on the land, increase opportunities in rural communities and preserve the world's natural bounty for generations to come? ### Jim French's farm is in Reno County, Kan. He works on policy and conservation issues for the Kansas Rural Center. He wrote this essay for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.
2. 'Food Should Be Left Off the Free Trade Table' - José Bové French activist explains why his organization opposes WTO and genetically modified food At the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Bové attended a workshop with prominent Yale scholars and others in the university community to discuss the status of the global peasant movement and the core issues in his work. A full transcript follows. -
YaleGlobal, 6 April 2005 Jonathan Schell: José Bové is an internationally renowned leader of the movement - and here I'm not sure what phrase to use - the global movement against, I don't think globalization is the right term, but against neo-liberal globalization, perhaps. In fact, that's one of the questions I want to ask you is what name you prefer for this global movement. We'll get to that. He is the leader, and founder, really, of the Peasants Confederation in France (La Confederation Paysanne), which then enlarged itself to become the peasants' coordinated confederation for all of Europe. Now it's gone global as the Via Campesina. I understand that your role is mainly as an activist and leader of that group, but you are here in the United States, so we might ask you about that. He's known around the world, above all, for his activism, which has included the very notable event - the dismantling of the McDonald's in Millau - for destroying genetically modified food in a field in the village of Solomiac. Most recently, he joined with Greenpeace to intercept the cargo vessel of the Golden Lion, which was carrying 32 thousand tons of transgenic soya to the French port of Lorient. He has been jailed for these contributions to society four times so far, he says. He is also the author of a recent book which has just come out in France, and I hope it'll come out here soon. It's called or Pour La Désobéissance Civique, (In Defense of Civil Disobedience). So we are very thrilled and honored to have him here at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization to tell us about what he's been up to. José Bové: First thing I want to say is that I'm very happy to be here. For more than one year, I knew I would come here to Yale. I'll try to talk in English, but I have quite poor English - so if I make too many mistakes, I'll ask for translation. The first thing I can say is that I'm a farmer in southern France in a special area which is called Larzac, which has an altitude of 800 meters. And I work with sheep; I milk sheep. I've milked sheep for 30 years. This is a special place because this was my first struggle. One of my first struggles against the government and the French army wanted to take our land to make a military base. We had been struggling for ten years, ending in 1981; we won, and the French army gave us our land. Since then, we've done a lot of things. It became a laboratory on how we can share our land and how young farmers can come and begin farming there. So this is a quite interesting laboratory. And so, if we want young farmers to go on with farming, it's not the economic problem that is primary for us. The main issue is with the social movement here. People begin farming because they want to live in that area. It's the social issue which is the most important to them, instead of knowing if they have enough income to live. It is interesting to see the dynamics in the rural area. Now I'm working with Via Campesina, which is our international movement of farmers all over the world. This movement began in 1993 during the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. Of course, we began fighting in 1986 when the GATT negotiation began and they decided to include agriculture. This was really, for us, something completely new. This is not just for us farmers in Europe or the United States, but for all the farmers of the world - something was really changing in 1986. This was the beginning of the worldwide coalition, and we decided in 1992 to make an international coalition. It is quite young - only 10 years old - but now, about 190 organizations from all over the world are inside Via Campesina. We represent 200 million farmers all over the world: in Asia, South America, North America, Europe, Africa. And we are gathering more and more. Of course, the first time people heard about us was in Seattle in 1999 for the big demonstration. Since then, Via Campesina has been quite well-known, especially in Rome, where the United Nations FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization] is based. So we are working a lot with them. Via Campesina's main issue is about globalization - about the fact that we don't believe that free trade is good for agriculture and food all over the world. And that's why we decided to invent a new concept, which is "food sovereignty." It means that each population should be able to eat from its own agriculture. The main issue for the farmers is to feed the population where they live: first of all, their own families, also the local market, and then the national market. Of course, that doesn't mean that we are against trade; trade is only a small part of agriculture - not the main part. We think that all the negotiations about the WTO since 1995 have lessened the possibility for the farmers to feed their own population. We are fighting very strongly. Since Seattle in 1999, we have said that we must take WTO out of agriculture and food. It makes no sense that agriculture and food are inside these negotiations. That doesn't mean that we are against the fact that we should organize the prices of the world, that we have to see how these markets are going. We believe that the most important thing is to protect local agriculture from dumping imports. So this is really the main issue for us. In the past 15 years of the movement on globalization and agriculture with the WTO, only 10 percent of world agricultural production is in the open market. We understand that all the big transnational corporations want it now to be 20 or 30 percent, but of course, farmers all over the world are resisting this because it makes no sense for their own population. Over 90 percent of food is produced where people live. So we don't understand - and nobody can explain to us - why we need to have free trade for food; that is going exactly in the wrong direction. So this is roughly our principal fight. After that, we talk within Via Campesina about agrarian reform, landless people, about what we call peasant agriculture. We also talk about the problems of seeds - the possibility for farmers to use their own seeds - and also the WTO rules on patents. We are fighting also to have seeds free of patents; that's why we are fighting specially against GMOs. Even if GMO had no ecological problems or health problems, we would also be against GMOs on this specific issue: the fact that farmers can't use their own seeds. So these are some of the examples of the troubles of Via Campesina. This is getting bigger and bigger. Last week with Jean Marc, we were in Sumatra, Indonesia. We had a meeting with all the farmers and fisher unions of all the countries that had been destroyed by the tsunami. The victims, many of them farmers and fishers, decided what they wanted to do and how they wanted to rebuild their houses, where they live and farm. This is very important because for the first time, Via Campesina showed that people are able to define their own issues in this type of situation. And the first thing they said, very clearly: "We don't don't want food importation; we have enough in our countries to feed our population. We don't want fishermen to come in from other countries to fish; we have to fish our own fish in our small boats. We don't need tourism." The Thai people were saying this very clearly: "Tourism is killing us." We have very clear examples of fisherman whose houses had been destroyed by the tsunami. Their houses were destroyed and they were not allowed to come back, but new hotels were built in place of their village. So they were very angry about this. It was very interesting to see that when people get together they were able to find new solutions regarding their livelihood. Jonathan Schell: Perfect summary of what you're up to. Let me begin. Using agriculture as an example. You know, if you're opposed to the neo-liberal system, how big a bite do you think you have to take out of it to make it right? How large of a reform? Does it have to be a whole new system? Does it have to be a fundamental reform, a superficial reform? What do you think? José Bové: Well, you asked me before about the term "globalization." The problem is that in French and in English, we don't have the same words. I remember in Seattle, we were talking about corporate globalization. That's very clear to everyone. Who wants that? In France it is more complicated, because we're not just talking about corporate globalization, we're talking about "mondialisation." And this is a positive word. Because we don't know about what kind of globalization we're talking about. Mondialisation could be anything: It could be culture; it could be all kinds of things - positive and negative. In France, we had to find a new word, and it should be a positive word. And the first time in the newspaper they called it "anti- mondialisation," against mondialisation. So we found a new word, and the Belgian people who came up the word "alter-mondialisation," which means another type of globalization. And when we talk about globalization now in France, it's very clear that it's corporate globalization. But when we talk about alter-mondialisation, it refers to different kind of issues. That's why the symbol of this is what we said at Porto Alegre at the World Social Forum: "Another world is possible." I don't say another world is possible. I'm like Marcos, the Mexican writer, who says, "Other worlds are possible." I think it is very important not to say that only one other kind of globalization is possible, but that for a lot different reasons, we have to make a world with more than one solution. For different populations we have different ways of life, and it's very dangerous to consider everybody in the same way - either good or bad. So I think it is important, first, that there is not only one good way and one bad way. We need to find different kinds of solutions for different kinds of problems. Second, it is dangerous for us to say that globalization is only economic globalization. And that all the international rules now are made only about this issue. It makes no sense that the international economic institutions - the Bretton Woods institutions - are more important now than the United Nations. This is getting to be a very big problem. The only international institution that can enforce justice is the WTO. Of course, it is not really democracy when you have an institution like the WTO, which is the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. We've learned a lot from Montesquieu in France about the separation of the powers in democracy. The WTO is the exact opposite of that. We have to have a lot of reflection about this. What are the good institutions? How do they work? How is it possible that only the economic institutions have their own justice and bring sentences against countries, but at the same time, the United Nations is unable to enforce sanctions when there are problems with human rights, environmental problems, labor problems, and so on. This means that now, we must reflect about how these institutions work, which are the most important, how to make new regulations among the international laws, human rights, trade, environment, work, and so on. We have to say very clearly that trade has to be under the human rights, environmental, and so on. It's impossible to simply make rules to open the market and then see what happens after - and say, "We don't care about it. What is most important for us is to open the market. This is going to be the best way for people to live." At this moment this is not true - and mostly for the farmers. We have more and more problems. The UN FAO reported the number of people dying from hunger as 852 million - it's still a very big problem. More than 60 percent of these people are farmers. This means that the more you open the doors of the countries, the more problems come in. So it's the wrong answer to the problem of hunger. When we talk about the problem of hunger, we have to change the rules and protect the people and the countries - especially the poor countries. I want to emphasize that at this moment, I think that Europe is worse than the United States with globalization. People, in general, think that Europe is not moving in the same direction as the United States; this is not true. During the last negotiation in Cancun, the European Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lemy, was, I think, worse than [US Trade Representative Robert B.] Zoellick regarding opening the markets. This is because in Europe, they want very strongly to open the markets for services. And they want to win this fight for services. And for this, they are willing to do very bad things. The European Union at this moment is very dangerous on these issues. Gustav Ranis: You say you're not against trade. I'm trying to understand how far you would take your argument. Historically, since the second World War, I think you're right in that poor people in poor countries haven't had much choice about who gets hurt. From my point of view, there's a gradual evolution towards greater voice in the WTO by countries like India and Brazil, who are being hurt in the negotiations - previously called G7 negotiations. What are the decisions that are being made? It's true that none of the early UN negotiations have been in keep, the only one is the WTO - they're in keep because they have money. But the UN doesn't have money. So everything goes to the WTO because they have money and are powerful - you say they have all powers, judicial powers as well as legislative powers and so on. I'm trying to understand where you would start. We talked about food and fisheries, but what about textiles? Where do you draw the line between trade you find acceptable and trade that you find unacceptable? I don't want to put you in the same box as Mao. Mao also wanted self-sufficiency in China, including meat and rice and steel, he wanted to have steel in the backyard. Most people agree this was a mistake, a very expensive mistake. China now as a communist country is trying to take advantage of some parts but not all - it's being very selective - of global trade. I can understand that agriculture is especially sensitive because of the security issue - we want to make sure we have enough to eat. But when you say that we should all be self-sufficient, that could be another way of saying that no matter what the efficiency level is, we should be self-sufficient. Most economists would say that's a high price to pay for self-sufficiency. I can see why you are worried about security: In case of war or crisis of some sort, you can't depend on imports, and you want to have some nest-egg to ensure that people can feed themselves. You went beyond that and said everybody should be self-sufficient with food, which means that if you take it to the extreme - You don't think Saudi Arabia should be self-sufficient with food, I'm sure? Or countries which have no capability of producing food. It's a gradation from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, which used to be a very good food producer and now has spoiled it all and importing food - terrible catastrophe. I'm just trying to get a sense of where you would draw the line. I'm sure you don't want everybody to be self-sufficient at the expense of efficiency completely. And what about other things in agriculture? José Bové: So maybe first thing, which I think is important to know - generally people don't know this - is the fact that 55 percent of the people working now on the earth are farmers. That means that the main issue in the world is agriculture - more than 55 percent. Most of these people are working only with their hands. You can see that at this moment there are 1.6 billion farmers in the world. And with all these, there are only 28 million tractors in the whole world. And of course this means that we have different kinds of issues with different kinds of agriculture. Very special countries can destroy all this. This is dangerous because it's not only political problems between the countries; it's also a very big social problem inside the countries. For example, this is the main problem with China - we know very clearly, and Chinese economists say this - between 300 and 400 million farmers are going to be put out of their farms in China. The second problem is we don't know what they are going to do. There is not going to be enough work in the factories because the factories are not as they were 50 years ago, so there is going to be a lot of unemployment. What are these people going to do and where are they going to go? And so on. This is really a very important problem. When we say that we need food sovereignty, it of course does not mean that all the countries have to be able to grow all they need for their own people. But we are talking about groups of countries; for example, in Europe we are not going to talk about France, Italy, and Spain; rather we are going to talk about food sovereignty in Europe. United States is a country, of course. Very small countries may sometimes be difficult, so several countries can work together. The problem is to be able to feed their population or to decide at what level they want to protect their own agriculture. Maybe it could be 100 percent; it could also be 70 percent. Some countries have to import because it's impossible for them to grow their agriculture. So the countries should be able to decide themselves at what level they want to protect their agriculture. And right now, it's not possible. We saw it in Asia and Africa, with the WTO rules, which impose importing at least 4 percent of their production. Even if they have enough, they have to open their doors to productions from outside - and we know that caused a lot of problems in a lot of countries, in Asia, for rice, for example. And this is still going on there. That's why they are having big fights in South Korea right now. That's why Indonesia is fighting after the Tsunami, saying, "We don't want to open our doors to food coming from outside. We because we have enough rice, and if we open our doors, all the prices will go down." So it's very important that countries or groups of countries be able to protect themselves from dumping. Often when we talk about trade, it looks like trade is very good and rules are good. But we know clearly that, for example, for food and for agriculture, the world price makes no sense. It's only, in general, the surplus of the production of the big countries - Europe and US for example. So it's impossible for farmers from a country to live if they sell these products at a world price. This price makes no sense. So we need to have clear rules to make trade. If we had clear rules and a way to define the price of this production, it could be fair. But we have to do this before we open the doors of the countries. And afterward, the countries could decide what the level of importation would be - this is not a problem for me. Gustav Ranis: The second part of my question is where you draw the line? Do you want the same thing for textiles, for example, or for steel - where do you draw the line? José Bové: When I say agriculture, the main issue is that most of the people on earth are working with agriculture. The second problem about textile or other industries: Something quite new is happening - competition. A lot of factories in Europe and United States delocalize their production in southern countries only to have lower costs of production for labor. This doesn't change a lot about what comes back to the southern countries, because most of this money goes back to the big transnational corporations. If we look at all the money which is going all over the earth with globalization, we see that more than two-thirds of this money goes only to the transnational corporations - or it's money from one transnational to another one. Only one-third is really going to the people or to the countries. This is a really big problem. For the first time, we see this also with agriculture: delocalization, for example, of chicken production from France to Brazil - with the same company. It's a better situation for them because soya is cheaper; the workers are cheaper. And when they send the chicken back to Europe, Brazil doesn't have the same WTO conditions as France. So it's better for them. With this kind of delocalization, the company is growing more and more. I don't think that we have to fight against delocalization. But what kind of rules should we have to give the profit to the people? For the moment, there is no benefit for the workers. Law Student: I have a slightly esoteric question. When I was younger, I read a book written back in the 40s or 50s by two American sociologists. It described the transformation of village life in the interwar years - between the first and second world wars. It was a study of the economic and social changes that were occurring in the mostly agricultural community. One of the most important lessons from the book for me was that when you look at the impact of the social and economic forces on a community that was going through a lot of change, on the one hand, there was the imposition of external forces, which caused change that was not necessarily beneficial or desired at all. On the other hand, there was a real willingness - especially from young people in the village - to take advantage of these changes. One of the ways they took advantage of these changes was by moving to cities - and away from the village. That's a process that seems against this process of delocalization that you describe. I'm curious: If we're so focused on preserving a certain way of life, a traditional agricultural way of life - particularly in developed countries - aren't we in some ways just helping a minority of these people living in these communities? A good number of people actually accept these economic changes and many of them take advantage of these economic forces by getting better educations or getting higher-paying jobs - taking advantage of opportunities in the cities which don't exist in rural communities. José Bové: Well, I think the situation that you are describing in France - that moment in at the beginning of the 50s after the second world war - was a special moment because we had a lot of people in very small farms. At the same time was the beginning of a new kind of industry for building cars and so on. The French industry needed a lot of arms to work. And there was very clearly a plan to move the people out of the farms to go to the cities. So of course, it was quite rare. And at the same time, industry needed a lot of arms, so people went out, and people thought it would be better for them, and of course, it was a new kind of life. The social oppression of the villages was not so strong in the cities, so for a lot of people going to the city was a kind of liberation from the social oppression, oppression of the church, and so on. In the little villages, it was not possible to live...everybody looks at you, of course. So if you want to know to do. Of course, people are seeing TV and cinema, and they wanted to live differently. So this explains everything. But in the same moment, now it's 20 or 30 years after. A lot of people want to come back. In a lot of villages, people want to build their houses and want to come back to live there. It's very difficult to live in the cities; there's not a lot of employment in the cities, so people want to come back to the villages. People think it's better, if they don't have any income, to live in the villages rather than in the city. This is quite a new thing that is happening. We have a new kind of farmers coming in, young farmers who never went to agricultural schools. Now, some French departments believe that. At the same time, we have more and more problem with the villages; the trains don't stop anymore, the post offices are closing, the schools are also. The situation is getting worse and worse. The problem is that with all these people coming back when services are closed, it is very difficult to organize life in the villages. That's why in this moment, we have a lot of fights against the closing of public services: schools, post offices, and small hospitals. There is a movement saying to the people saying that these hospitals make no sense, they are too small, there's not enough people coming in every day, so we have to build bigger hospitals - maybe about 40 or 50 kilometers away. This is crazy, because when you close a hospital, when you close a maternity ward, we know that people leave. We have a lot of fights about this now because the people understand that if things keep thinning out it may become impossible to stay in the villages. James Scott: I guess I wanted to - and this will end in a question - support your line of argument in two ways. One, it seems to me that, with respect to efficiency, for any economic activity, one can also ask what kind of people is this economic activity producing? If you think of the product as people, then it seems to me that - and we link this to democracy. Then, the fact that a person or a household manages their own enterprise - whether they're an artisan or a small farmer or a small fisherman - who in a sense are independent operators who use their own skills, who have small property, who manage that property, who make these decisions. These are people who live relatively autonomous and independent lives. This is the Jeffersonian citizen who is capable of being a successful citizen in a democracy because they have to manage their farm, their property. They're independent, they're able to stand up against officials because they have the self-confidence that comes from managing their small property. If we contrast that with the fact that most people spend their working lives, most of their waking day, in hierarchical institutions in which they take orders, in which they have relatively little say, and we ask what kinds of people those institutions are producing, then it seems to me we would want to maximize the number of people who are working in independent, small property ways - as long as they are reasonably efficient - because we would be encouraging the production of democratic citizens. And, that's another important reason to try to make more efficient and try to save the peasantry that exists in the third world. We also know that if we think about the environment and the land, the fact is, we simply know as a matter of statistical fact, that farmers who can expect to pass their land on to their descendants take better care of that land than large corporations who are speculating in land and who have a bottom line to worry about. So if we're interested in environmental values over the long run, then we would also want to encourage small household farms - or maybe large-household farms - that we're at least passing on this land often within the family, not speculating on land. On the other hand, I'm sympathetic to Gus's point about different kinds of commodities and trade. So it seems to me that because there was cheap land, all of the (what we call) "white settler colonies" - America, Argentina, to some extent Brazil, Australia, and so on - because they had land that they could throw the native peoples off and take over at no cost really, they specialized historically in the major grains: maize, wheat, and so on. They now control world trade in soybeans, maize, grain. I think it's possible to restore this world; one has to live with this fact. However, for things that need to be produced closer to the point where they're consumed - lettuce, raspberries, all kinds of perishable goods that are a large part of people's diet - those are the best subjects, those are the best commodities in which local food sovereignty seem to me to make the most sense. José Bové: Maybe I doubt that you say the specialization of some countries on some kind of condition. I'm not sure if this can be changed. For example, what we see in Argentina with the soya bean. This is killing all agriculture in Argentina. And at the same time, in Europe, they are saying, "Why do we need to import all of these soybeans? This is a crazy thing." At this time in Europe, we import more than 80 percent of our vegetable proteins to feed the animals. This makes no sense. Why did this happen? Because when Europe decided to make the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] policy in 1958, the United States said ok, we'll let you do this, but all the soybeans have to come to Europe with zero percent tax. Soy is always going to be tax-free so we can sell our soya. This is still going on. That's a crazy thing. That's why we've made such industrial production of pigs and chicken all around the ports. We can change this in Europe. We can make more vegetable proteins because we make too much corn, too much wheat. We have 5 million hectares of excess with cereals. With these 5 million hectares, we could make vegetable proteins. This could be a political decision in Europe. Same thing in Brazil: Instead of making so much soya, we could use agriculture to feed the population. More than 60 million people now don't eat correctly in Brazil. So this is a change of the policy. Of course, with Australia or New Zealand, the population is so little, so they export most of their agriculture. Each time I come here, what is incredible in the United States is to see that there are more people in prison than in the farms. What kind of society is this? Maybe in one century, people say "Look at this. What was that moment? It was incredible!" Laura Wexler: You spoke about sufficiency in terms of the farmer, I'm interested in what your organization thinks about the migrant laborer, the workers - who are not farmers - who work on the farms. What do you think about their situation as you go forth in this campaign? José Bové: Of course, our organization works also with the workers that work on the big enterprises, especially for sugar and fruit. They work with us; we have the same problem also in Europe, because we see that most times in this kind of enterprise there are more and more migrants involved - and illegal migrants. And of course, their situation is getting worse and worse. And they have a lot of problems in the south of Europe, in Spain, for example, which is one the main places for production of vegetables in greenhouses (which are not green houses, they are plastic houses). Thousands and thousands of hectares of them. This is really one of the biggest problems now. We have this, of course, in South America, Asia - so it's a difficult situation for them. That's why we are trying to work with the United Nations human rights commission to write the rights of the farmers and workers. And we want to impose the rights at the international level to be able to say "These rights exist, so now you have to go along with this." It's very long work. The people in Indonesia were the first to begin to do this. The second step is agrarian reform: giving land to landless people. Because very often people who are in these work conditions are former farmers or small farmers who have put out of their land by big enterprise. In Indonesia last week, we saw a very old occupation which was begun in the 60s, and during the military dictatorship. Now this place for 30 years has been liberated. There were 500 families on 500 hectares, and most of the production is organic production and rice production. It was very interesting to see how they put out the industrial way of agriculture because most of the place was for rubber production. We saw thousands and thousands of hectares of this kind of industrial production. But when enterprises are finished taking the oil palm, they don't plant new trees. In these kind of countries, hundreds of thousands of hectares can't be used anymore for people. Jonathan Schell: I want to thank you for a wonderful discussion. I know I learned 100 percent more than I knew before about this subject. It's been a great pleasure to have you. Rights:
3. Hunger Grows for Locally Grown Food: Restaurants, grocery stores discovering a tasty advantage By Diane Conners Barry Eastman's moderately priced restaurant spent $160,000
purchasing local food last year When customers enter Rudy's Tacos in Waterloo, Iowa, there's no doubt
they're about to eat locally grown food in their tacos, burritos, and
enchiladas. At the diner's entrance a large, colorful poster with photos of farmers
reads, "Buy Fresh Buy Local" and "Meet Rudy's Farmers." And at the
tables, owner Barry Eastman posts information about how much he spends
buying local farm products - $166,000 last year, including 100 percent
of his chicken, pork, beef, cheese, sour cream, and tomatoes. The
120-seat restaurant draws customers from blue collar Waterloo, home to a
John Deere tractor plant, and from the nearby college town Cedar Falls. Hundreds of miles east of Rudy's, customers of the independently owned
Atkins Farms Country Market in Amherst, Mass., also know they will find
fresh local produce and other "native" products, as the
30,000-square-foot store calls them. There, the price cards in the
produce aisle highlight local products with the "Be A Local Hero - Buy
Locally Grown" logo, which consumers in western Massachusetts now
connect with supporting local farms and finding good, fresh food. Across the country, restaurants and retail grocers are meeting consumer
demand - and drawing more customers - by serving or selling everything
from juicy tomatoes to flavorful meats bought from local farms. Small,
independent retail grocers like the Atkins market use local food to help
them stand out from the big box stores that can threaten their survival.
Similarly, Mr. Eastman's focus on local products distinguishes Rudy's
from the chain eateries that serve mass-produced food. "There are so many chains coming at us," Mr. Eastman said. "They are not
going to stop. This will differentiate us from the chains. I just think
it gives us a competitive edge." This new twist in the farm economy is fine with growers, too. They are
very happy to sell locally; that market offers a safe haven from the
storm of devastatingly low bulk commodities prices that are sinking so
many farms. They know that locally sold products bring top prices. A Budding Love Affair Increasingly, local food campaigns organized by nonprofit groups, state
agriculture departments, and consumer and chef groups are nurturing the
budding love affair between local retailers and local farmers. Using a
wide range of publicity techniques, from posters to dedicated special
events, they raise consumer awareness about the availability and quality
of food that's "thousands of miles fresher" because it comes from nearby
and is not shipped long distances and stored for weeks. For example, the Practical Farmers of Iowa and the University of
Northern Iowa coordinate the Buy Fresh Buy Local campaign that Rudy's
participates in. The farm organization and the university are among a
number of groups in 10 states that joined together in 2003 with the
national nonprofit FoodRoutes Network to share resources and lessons
learned in their individual Buy Fresh Buy Local campaigns. One of the oldest such efforts is Community Involved in Sustaining
Agriculture. Its Be a Local Hero - Buy Locally Grown campaign began in
1999 in western Massachusetts, where the Atkins grocery is located. The
trend is gaining ground rapidly; Supermarket News, a leading publication
for food retailers, reported last year that states from California to
Maine and North Carolina to New York are pumping marketing dollars into
promotion of locally grown foods. In Michigan, the state agriculture department teamed up in 2003 with the
nonprofit Michigan Integrated Food and Farming Systems to launch its
Select Michigan campaign, which introduced local foods into chain stores
in the Grand Rapids and Detroit areas. The nonprofit Michigan Land Use
Institute launched a campaign to promote local farm food in the Traverse
City region last year; this year the Institute is expanding the program
to also promote grocers and restaurants that are buying from local
farmers. Signs of Success Michigan is seeing some strong signs of success with its program. Retail
grocery chains that participated in the Select Michigan campaign
reported increases of 10 to 12 percent in the volume of Michigan apples
sold instate in 2004. They even saw increases in potato sales - 3.1
percent at one chain and 27.4 percent at another - in a year when the
low-carbohydrate diet craze made potatoes taboo. Moreover, when
organizers held special in-store tastings of Michigan products,
consumers often replaced what was already in their shopping carts with
the local products. The tastings kept produce department employees busy,
according to Christine Lietzau, the program manager. "They have to restock the display two or three times during a two-hour
promotion," she said. Similarly, local strawberries outsold the California berries displayed
right next to them at a Massachusetts grocery, even though the local
ones cost $1 more, said Mark Lattanzi, a Be a Local Hero project
director. "What I hear from produce managers is that their customers are asking
for local produce," Mr. Lattanzi said. "If it's summertime and the corn
isn't there, they are asking, 'When is the corn going to be here?' They
have to stock it because their customers want it. They'd be foolish not
to." The enthusiasm for local foods can get downright personal, according to
Pauline Lannon, president of the Atkins grocery that is a part of Mr.
Lattanzi's project. Her store hosts a special tasting event every
August; about 25 local vendors share their wares with about 600
customers. "The interest our customers have in this event is really heart-warming,"
she said. "They love coming in and meeting the people who produce their
food." Some Tasty Statistics There are plenty of statistics and studies confirming that consumers
want to buy and eat locally grown foods. For example: Both university studies showed that consumers prefer local products
because of their freshness, quality, taste, and the support they give to
local farmers and the local economy. A Good Deal for Everyone Mr. Eastman, at Rudy's Tacos, has also found those qualities to be
important. In fact, the quality of the products is so high that he said
it's economically sensible to buy from local farmers even if the initial
cost is sometimes higher, and even though he doesn't charge four-star
restaurant prices. Lunch at Rudy's is $5 or $6 dollars; just about any
meal there is less than $10. For example, the price of the local organic chicken Mr. Eastman buys is
60 cents a pound more than the commercial chickens he could buy - $1.63
a pound compared to $1.03 a pound. Yet, the organic birds, his first
attempt at buying local, yield so much more meat per bird that they
significantly reduce his labor costs. "When you figure in the labor it takes to peel the meat off the bone and
break it down, it worked out to be about the same cost," he said. "And
the quality of the chicken - I was like, 'Wow - I could make my
restaurant a much better place just by going local.'" He's pleased, too, by customer response. "One woman just went crazy over the chicken because she remembered
chicken from when she was a kid on the farm," he said. "She hadn't
tasted chicken like that for 20 years. There are a lot of people who
don't know what chicken is supposed to taste like." At the time, Mr. Eastman couldn't buy a free-range chicken through a
wholesale distributor. But even though he might be able to buy them now,
Mr. Eastman says he intends to continue purchasing locally. He likes the
relationships he's developed with his farmers, and the opportunity to
support other local businesses. "Once I started working with these farmers, I developed a pretty cool
relationship with them, and I recognized they are a small business just
like I am," he said. If he can spend more than $100,000 locally, he said, just think of the
difference in the community if 10 businesses did that. "It would be $1
million that stays right here." "I've heard it is a bit odd that a blue collar restaurant like mine is
doing local food," he said. "Usually it is the high-end places. A
Mexican place in Iowa? If I can do it, who can't?" Diane Conners, a veteran journalist and former farmers market master,
coordinates the Michigan Land Use Institute's entrepreneurial
agriculture program. Reach her at diane@mlui.org
.
4. Iraqi seed-saving under attack 23 Mar 2005 New American rules are being seen as a major attack on the traditional
practice of seed-saving and seed-sharing by Iraqi farmers. Iraq was the birthplace of wheat farming, but agriculture has crashed
there in the last decade. Order 81, put in place by US official Paul Bremer, refers to
seed-saving and patents. It is legally binding unless repealed by a
future Iraqi Government. If seeds can be proven to be "new, distinct, uniform and stable", then
they are protected. Seed companies can charge royalties for the seeds, and perhaps most
importantly, Iraqi farmers are forbidden to save them. NGO’s fear that American companies will supply Iraqi farmers with free
seeds for a season or two, and then lock them into a system where they
will have to pay for new seeds every year. They say the law also opens the door for GE seeds to be sold in Iraq. A movement is growing to pressure the new Iraqi Government to repeal
Order 81. Opponents of Order 81 want to see community-controlled seed
banks set up in Iraq. Order 81
http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf
GM Watch: "Order 81: Crime against humanity"
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4998 The Ecologist: "Order 81"
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Order-81-Iraq1feb05.htm
5. CAFTA And Its Parallels With History Randy Stevenson The Boston Tea Party was a reaction to the Tea Act of 1773 that was
passed by Parliament to rescue the British East India Company from
impending failure. The Tea Act essentially eliminated all taxes on
tea except the three pence Townshend tax. It allowed the Company to
sell American colonists tea at a lower price than that of the
colonial smugglers (independent importers). As a result, the British
East India Company would be saved from bankruptcy, the colonial
smugglers would be out of business, and the principle of
parliamentary taxation would be upheld. The British East India Company lobbied the British Crown for
advantageous tax and trade legislation. Modern day versions of the
multinational are lobbying congress for similar trade advantages.
CAFTA could give multinationals that set up new businesses in other
CAFTA countries a "patent" or temporary monopoly by removing import
duties immediately but phasing out export duties over 17-20 years. By
that time domestic competition would be out of business. Cheap goods that we could import because of CAFTA would come at a
cost. Not only would production (the source of wealth) move out of
the country, but every act of Congress would be subject to review by
an international arbitration tribunal that could declare laws passed
by the US Congress "illegal." Such declarations would not be
appealable to a higher governmental body. Resulting rulings could not
be brought to the Supreme Court. Trade penalties could be imposed
until Congress changed the offending law. CAFTA is not a trade agreement, it is an import agreement. There is
no free lunch. CAFTA asks us to sell our collective soul for a few
cheap imports. In the 1770's Colonialists in America rejected the opportunity to buy
cheap tea by giving away their national sovereignty. We should follow
their brave example and reject CAFTA.
6. Oil Prices One More Blow to Agriculture by Paul Beingessner As if the current fuel prices weren't enough to scare the pants off
farmers, a prediction last week by the investment banking company
Goldman Sachs should have all of us shaking in our rubber boots. Goldman
Sachs suggested that conditions are ripe for a super spike in oil prices
over the next few years. This spike could see crude oil prices increase
from the current mid-50 dollar a barrel range to something around $105. Present day record prices for diesel fuel are bad enough. They prompted
a neighbour to comment to me last week that we are likely now to see the
end of cultivation. A doubling of these prices would make that a
certainty. This, of course, wouldn't be seen as all bad by some folks.
It would have some soil conservation types and the chemical companies
jumping for joy at the increased use of herbicides that will replace
cultivation. Folks worried about greater use of agri-chemicals won't
likely be as thrilled. Nor will organic farmers who rely more on
cultivation. A spike in oil prices to $105 per barrel would have a devastating impact
on Canadian agriculture, and agriculture around the world for that
matter. Not only would costs for direct fuel consumption by farmers
increase, but so would transportation costs, fertilizer (since natural
gas costs would also tend to wander upwards) and the cost of everything
a farmer purchases from equipment and parts to interest on bank loans. Interest rate increases would inevitably follow large oil price
increases because the latter would result in an increase in the cost of
living (inflation) and inflation would be controlled by national
governments by jacking up interest rates. The effects on agriculture in Canada, particularly on export grains,
would be startling. Trucking costs to get these grains to inland
elevators would increase dramatically. Having seen many prairie branch
lines destroyed over the last two decades, farmers would now reap the
staggering costs. Rail transportation costs also would rise. Ocean
freight would likely double again. Asian importing countries would find
that closer suppliers, like Australia, have a large cost advantage. If there is a bright side, it is that there would be some opportunities
for supplying the Canadian market, as there might be some substitution
of local for imported foods. Unfortunately, Canada's population is too
small to be much of a solution. The net result would be a massive transfer of public and private monies
to the huge oil companies. Some of the public monies would be in the
form of subsidies to agriculture. Agriculture is in an awful mess, and
the federal and provincial governments have to make huge payments to
farmers just to salvage the sector. Large oil price increases would
simply mean governments would have to support farmers to an ever-greater
degree. Farmers, of course, would pass the money on to the oil companies. Oil companies are reaping such windfall profits right now that they are
literally having trouble finding places to invest it all. One analyst
suggested that within a few years the major oil companies would be
larger than the entire Standard and Poor's 500 Index of stocks. The simple fact is that the world, and in our case Canada, is being held
to ransom by the oil giants. Oil prices are little related to the cost
of production when they soar to the heights they are reaching today.
Speculation and corporate concentration drive the market. If any good
comes out of this it might be that we awaken to the problems
uncontrolled globalization is causing. However, opposition to any action
on this will come from those oil-producing provinces that stand to make
and are making substantial royalty revenues from high oil prices. A friend laughed sarcastically the other day as he said, "We have to be
crazy. We're one of the few countries in the world that doesn't regulate
domestic oil prices." He's right, of course. And while high oil prices
will drive down consumption, and that is a good thing for the health of
the planet, in absence of any plan to deal with the effects on
agriculture and the economy, it is just one more reason why agriculture
is becoming a terminal disease. (c) Paul Beingessner (306) 868-4734 phone 868-2009 fax
beingessner@sasktel.net
7. Sen. Harkin questions USDA's commitment to enforcing the Packer and Stockyards Act FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the face of a rapidly concentrating livestock
industry, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today requested a full account of how
thoroughly and effectively the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is carrying
out its responsibilities under the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. This
legislation was passed to protect producers from unfair, anti-competitive
and deceptive practices in the livestock and poultry markets. In a letter
to USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong, Harkin specifically called for an
investigation into how aggressively and accurately USDA's Grain Inspection
and Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is examining and reporting
anti-competitive and unfair market practices. GIPSA is the agency within
USDA responsible for enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act. Harkin
is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition
and Forestry. "In Iowa and across the country, many of our family-sized livestock
producers are disappearing as large, corporate, vertically integrated
operations grow," Harkin said. "This trend is very disturbing and the lack
of attention given to this issue by USDA is unacceptable. Serious questions
persist about USDA's commitment to enforcing the provisions of the Packers
and Stockyards Act. That is why I am asking Ms. Fong to take a very close
look at what USDA is doing to protect producers and root out unfair,
anti-competitive actions in livestock markets." Harkin's letter to the USDA Inspector General focuses on a number of major
concerns with GIPSA's enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act,
including: "More than 80 years has passed since passage of the Packers and Stockyards
Act, yet we are still having constantly to urge USDA to enforce the law,"
Harkin said. "It is time for USDA to step up to the plate and actively and
aggressively investigate anti-competitive behavior to ensure that all
livestock producers have an open and fair marketplace." Senator Harkin has worked for many years to increase competition and
fairness in livestock and poultry markets. Last October, he released a
Democratic staff report detailing the detrimental affects that an overly
consolidated and unfair market system in the livestock industry poses to
independent producers. This report can be obtained by going to Senator
Harkin's website at www.harkin.senate.gov
8. U.S. Growers Again Sell Rice to Iraq By LIBBY QUAID WASHINGTON -- After trying for more than a year, American rice
growers are finally selling rice to Iraq. Iraq purchased 60,000 metric tons of U.S. rice, the Agriculture
Department said Thursday. Based on average price in the region, the
sale could be worth $10 million to $19 million, depending on the type
of rice and other factors. "Not only is the size of the sale significant, but it also marks the
return of American rice to the Iraqi market," Agriculture Secretary
Mike Johanns said. Growers hope "that this is the first of many more export sales to this
key market," said Lee Adams, chairman of the USA rice federation. Iraq was once the No. 1 market for U.S. rice, buying 345 metric tons
annually before the 1991 Gulf War. Johanns noted that Iraq was also a
top market for corn, wheat, feed ingredients and wood. U.S. rice growers had been upset at losing sales to other countries,
especially when Iraq bought rice from Vietnam, which did not belong to
the U.S.-led coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein. Several farm-state lawmakers reprimanded the White House last year,
while the coalition was still in charge. "We wouldn't let it go. I took every opportunity I could to be
obnoxious," said Republican Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, whose Missouri
district has rice growers. Emerson said she worries about U.S. rice farmers losing sales to Cuba,
which has been a growing market. "Having the Iraqi market pick up some of that slack is critical.
Hopefully, it's just the beginning," she said. | |
