(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #251 - Campaigns:
Capitalism in the assault of the rural (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation]
Under the flower fields, pollution. Rural areas have nothing to envy to the city for the
havoc that the dominant economic interests will occur: massive use of pesticides, large
unnecessary projects reign of the car... The situation is grim but resistance exist. ----
The peaks of pollution of the big cities are one of the national media, bike paths and
public transportation are part of the urban landscape and some city centers are closed to
cars. But the ecology of cities struggling to emerge. Yet the ravages of capitalism do not
save the campaign. ---- If only 25% of the French population lives in a town of less than
2,000 inhabitants, 39% live in rural areas say or peri-urban, or 22.8 million people.
These overall figures hide the variety of the rural environment: the small town under the
influence of a big city big increasingly isolated village. However, the findings are often
the same.
If we analyze the environmental vote in elections, it achieves high scores in city
centers, it decreases as one moves away: a little less strong in the periphery, much less
campaign. Indeed, the themes addressed by political ecologists are mostly urban, and
sometimes caricatured vis-à-vis the rural world. Thus the places where the "green" vote is
strong in the country correspond to host fleeing neo-rural land in the city.
Intensive farming
The result is a somewhat fantasy image, pitting "polluters farmers" to "Parisian bobos".
Claims and actions of the main agricultural union, the FNSEA, do not help to decipher a
yet more nuanced situation. This union brings together 320,000 members, 60% of farmers.
However, membership is usually indirect and result from the institutional influence of the
FNSEA. For example, the union Unaf beekeeping has long adhered to the FNSEA, in order to
participate in European working groups.
However the most practiced form of agriculture is intensive and takes little account of
environmental problems. Especially the use of phytosanitary products that seems to
threaten biodiversity. The latest arrivals, neonicotinoids, pose big problems pollinating
insects, including honey bees. Winter 2014-2015 was catastrophic for beekeepers: nearly
60% of estimated losses in some departments. The removal of hedgerows and wetlands
involved the difficulties encountered by the bees, harvest their dwindling sources of
pollen and nectar. If one can easily see the effects on bees because they are raised for
honey production, the impact on other pollinators and biodiversity in general are more
difficult to estimate. It seems that the entire food chain is affected. In addition,
pesticides accumulate in soils, waterways and groundwater.
Concreting galloping
But intensive agriculture has other through. Thus, when the cities have pollution peaks
related to traffic, industrial activity and aviation, campaigns also have air pollution by
fine particles. The main reason is the application of fertilizers and manure. Finally
agricultural machinery, but also fertilizers and pesticides are very greedy oil and
contribute to global warming.
The first affected by this pollution is the farmers themselves. The latter are more
affected than the rest of the French population by several cancers including skin cancers,
prostate and lips, but also by an increased frequency of miscarriages.
Two hundred and twenty hectares per day. A department every seven years. These alarming
figures show the agricultural area that disappear in France. The main cause is the
expansion of urban areas: the construction of commercial and industrial areas, accompanied
by giant car parks; subdividing; the implementation of transport infrastructure off the
cities (airports, train stations...) tourist attractions (like the giant golf
Montcombroux-les-Mines, in Allier or Project Center Parcs Roybon); roads last. The
possible exploitation of shale gas may boost the process.
Two other reasons, intrinsically linked, may beings invoked: the abandonment of
unprofitable land and the difficulty to resume some operations.
In 2010, more than 14 000 farms have disappeared. The price of a farm, land, livestock,
tools, often well beyond the amount that a young farmer can move forward. Resulting
solutions is based tenancy (the farmer does not own the land he tills) or grouping into
large farms, thereby promoting the rich farmers.
Faced with these dangers, the associative network links Earth [ 1 ] aims to defend the use
of agricultural land and find cooperative solutions to the funding of young farmers.
Job, car, dodo
In villages and small provincial towns, there is no alternative to the systematic use of
the car. Indeed away from towns and major roads, rail transport is reduced to a trickle.
The situation is not improving: SNCF would project to close a dozen local service lines in
the next ten years.
Carpooling is not a solution between small towns and villages of the trips offer is almost
nonexistent. Bicycle use is only recreational, the roads are not equipped to make night
driving safely. Apart from a few regions with SNCF lines per bus, this transport is
limited to school transport.
pockets of resistance
In short, it is impossible to live without a car campaign. This is a problem because the
need to travel is great: shops left the small towns, public services are scarce, and
associations are often located in larger towns nearby. The villages become dormitories,
despite trips imposed by the remoteness of the workplace, because real estate is cheaper.
Given these ecological and social challenges, policy response is nonexistent. Unions like
the Peasant Confederation, but also the movement of Cuma (cooperatives) are the peasantry
resistors homes. The libertarian movement is historically marked by revolutionary
movements from the countryside. Do not Desert this field and this legacy!
Eric (commission ecology)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Campagnes-Le-capitalisme-a-l
