Viva La Via Campesina

Today I received an email from La Via Campesina, an " international movement of peasants, small and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers". This communication declares that La Via Campesina characterizes this current moment as "one of arrogance and authoritarianism on the part of the United States, the European Union and transnational corporations". It goes on to state that:

The increase of military presence and military bases in various parts of the world, “humanitarian” invasions and occupations which indicate war, the occupation of markets and territories, and the military presence to control energy resources, water, and natural biodiversity are all tactics derived from civilization’s crisis of capitalism and the logics of exploitation, racism, and patriarchy. These tactics also work to disguise the climate crisis in illegitimate negotiations.

Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA, the Tanzanian Network of Farmers' Groups) is a member of La Via Campesina, so I hope they attend the movement's 'Assembly of Social Movements' in Bolivia in April. Perhaps they will also represent their neighbours, such as Kenya, Uganda and others. Only a handful of African countries are presently represented. Kenya is not. But they need to be.

It's hard to think of any strategy that could be worse for Tanzania and other developing countries than a concerted move towards large scale farming. Yet most members of a group of several hundred 'researchers' recently agreed that "the domination of the agricultural sector by small scale farmers is a serious problem".

A serious problem for whom? For wealthy politicians, who own much of the country's best land? For the multinationals, who want to control the country's ability to feed itself? For those who want to see more African land dedicated to the production of biofuels that will allow people in wealthy countries to continue their wasteful lifestyles? For those who see Tanzanian land and people as 'assets', to be bought up to enable them to produce food for people in wealthy countries?

These 'researchers', who must spend their time reading tabloid newspapers and the outputs of right-wing, imperialist think-tanks, rightly point out that small-scale farmers lack capital and skills. But they conclude that they should therefore become the de facto slaves for those unscrupulous enough to take over much of the country's land, natural resources and productive capacity.

If people lack skills, and it's not just Tanzanian small farmers who lack skills, this is because of the continuing failure of the education system. Many people don't attend school at all, many attend for a few years and many leave with very little practical knowledge of any kind. But this is not a reason to send in the large scale commercial farmers, ready to "inject capital and technology". People need better education, whether they are small scale farmers or from any other walk of life.

If the infrastructure is failing people, the infrastructure needs to be improved. Foreign land grabbers and multinationals are not going to do that. But in order to market goods even to Tanzanians, the country needs proper transport networks, reliable and widespread electricity supplies, communication networks and the like.

If, as these people suggest, Tanzanian agriculture is scaled up, what will happen to the subsistence farmers? They probably make up the largest economic group in Tanzania. The researchers' answer is the 'outgrower' system. Farmers become 'outgrowers' for some factory or exporter, producing a crop, usually a monoculture, usually not a food crop, to be exported. The farmer gets a very small price, they middle person gets a large price and the destination country converts the primary good into some high value product, often sold back to Tanzania at extortionate prices.

The country's Prime Minister Pinda uses the examples of tea, sugar and sisal to demonstrate how successful the outgrower system has been. Perhaps Pinda doesn't go out much but I think he will find that the majority of tea, sugar and sisal workers and outgrowers earn a pittance. And these crops are not essential food crops. People need to feed themselves and their dependents and they need to produce enough food to ensure the country's food sovereignty, the right of peoples "to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces".

To avoid being tricked out of what's left of their natural resources and land, Tanzanians need to be aware of philosophies such as that of La Via Campesina. Most Tanzanians fit into one or other of the movement's categories. Because those Tanzanians who don't belong to any of those categories, rich businesspeople, politicians and the like, are ready to sell everything to the highest bidder. And, as usual, the money won't 'trickle down'.

La Via Campesina's objectives include the preservation of land (currently threatened by massive levels of land grabbing), water (threatened by all agricultural production for export, but especially biofuel and non-food crops), seeds (threatented by the attempts by genetically modified organism producers to control seed supplies) and other natural resources (threatened by natural resource exploitation which is almost entirely controlled by foreign multinationals). Other objectives include food sovereignty and sustainable agricultural production based on small and medium sized producers.

If Pinda and his colleagues are concerned about the country's low agricultural output, there are many initiatives that can be employed. As mentioned, improved education and infrastructure. But also, an improvement in the economic circumstances of the majority of people. The country is relatively rich in resources, but they are being effectively stolen by foreigners. There's (so far) no shortage of wealth in the country, distribution is the serious problem.

Most Tanzanians are just about getting by, right now. If agriculture is scaled up, by whatever means, the majority will lose the little access they have to food and other vital goods. Tanzanians need to feed Tanzanians. They don't need to be exploited by commercial and political interests. And the same applies to Kenyans and other Africans.

The final word must go to La Via Campesina:

The current industrialized agribusiness model has been deliberately planned for the complete vertical integration and to dominate all agriculture activities. This model exploits workers and concentrates economic and political power. La Via Campesina advocates a decentralized model where production, processing, distribution and consumption are controlled by the people the communities themselves and not by transnational corporations.

Widespread Environmental Contamination and Loss of Biodiversity Are 'Externalities' to the GM Industry

The Kenyan government has been persuaded that it can 'revive' the country's cotton industry by introducing genetically modified GM cotton varieties. The first thing that springs to mind is the principle reason for the death of cotton industries in Kenya and every other developing country in the world: subsidies for American cotton farmers. It is not possible for poor countries to produce cotton at a price that can compete with the heavily subsidized American cotton, which is why most country's cotton industries failed many years ago.

Of course, these American subsidies are illegal and they are completely antithetical to the country's constant bleating about the importance of free trade. But double standards have never mattered to rich countries and they never will.

There may well be theoretical benefits to GM organisms, such as cotton, it's hard to know. The GM industry has been pumping out inaccurate and misleading data on trials for so long that they probably don't even know what is true and what isn't by now, and probably don't care much, either.

But the problems that will arise if farmers buy into the thirty pieces of GM silver are more obvious, for those who can be bothered about them. The GM producer in question, Monsanto, which has an unrivalled corporate social responsibility record, claims that farmers will save on pesticide costs because they have to spray less frequently. Unfortunately, they will be obliged to pay more for seeds, spray using expensive pesticides produced by Monsanto and the land they spray will be denuded of all species, from the microscopic up. Expensive Monsanto herbicides will do the same for any plant species.

This is a mere externality to Monsanto and probably to the Kenyan government. The fact that the land and water surrounding land planted with this cotton will be contaminated, probably irreversibly, is also an externality and those promoting the introduction of GM cotton even have the cheek (or ignorance) to claim that it will have a positive impact on the environment and the health of those working on cotton plantations.

In addition to the problem of having to buy seed every year from Monsanto, because it's not possible or even permissible to collect seed at the end of the season, it will be difficult for the farmers to get out of the grip of Monsanto, if and when they wish to. Their land and the land around will be contaminated with the GM cotton for generations and even these contaminated crops could be deemed to the be intellectual property of those generous people at Monsanto.

Many of the claims put about by GM hawkers are yet to be backed up by evidence but even they make little effort now to deny that GM crops are unlikely to be of any benefit to small farmers. The vast majority of farmers in Kenya and other developing countries are subsistence farmers who aim to grow enough food to live on and sometimes grow some cash crops to supplement their income. Although various cash crops have long been foisted on small farmers, many have felt the sting of becoming locked into producing things like tea, sisal, coffee, sugar and biofuels, for example, only to find that yields and prices never match up to what they were promised.

Small farmers who buy into GM crops need to ask themselves if they can afford to become locked into yet another non-food crop that will never be truly economical and may leave them worse off than before. Large scale farmers may not experience the same worries, but whole communities in Kenya and other countries need to consider what the potential effects of widespread contaminated land and water may be. They also need to consider the consequences of most of their food production being owned by a multinational that is not even bound by the country's laws.

It's worthwhile for Kenyans to bear in mind that cotton industries in developing countries did not decline because of pests and other problems but because a more powerful country controls the market. This is not likely to change quickly and the Americans are not going to give up the level of control that they have cheated so hard to obtain. Similar remarks apply to other GM crops. GM is not a technology for the poor, it is a technology for the powerful, like many technologies. But of course, it's of less use to the powerful unless the poor believe that they too need GM technology.