France, Alternative Libertaire AL (September) - Agriculture:
The industrialization puts livestock in crisis (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Demonstrations, roadblocks, ras-le-bol general... The breeders have come out of their
farms to demonstrate a real distress: "we can not live our profession"! Indeed,
industrialization leaves in its wake shattered lives and firm bankruptcies. ---- We
expected this new crisis. The end of milk quotas validated by Europe came into force early
this year. The consequences are not long in coming: increased production and falling
prices. According to the ministry, more than 20,000 farmers would be on the brink of
bankruptcy! This is the direct consequence of a policy that increasingly liberalized
sectors and pushes to go to export even though the intra-EU trade balance is in deficit.
---- The rescue plan proposed by the Ministry and the FNSEA is only back to better jump
into the abyss. Outside the provisional measures that are regularly mobilized during the
various crises, the proposed solution is to wipe the slate to boost investment in a race.
Pushing farmers to adopt ever more important production tools, specialized and dependent
on world prices. Debt is a problem, it is not a viable path for breeders.
This crisis will at least have the merit of highlighting that the first agricultural union
is led by an industrialist. While the movement, driven by the base, was at its peak, the
direction of the FNSEA, Xavier Beulin in mind at all done to stop the mobilization and
obtain the lifting of roadblocks. The anger of farmers and breeders is palpable and a bad
wind blows in the union. The measurements obtained are not satisfactory and do not solve
anything.
For land reform
By liberalizing the state left the keys in the recovery of production in the industry. In
the short term, there is a need to ensure decent sales prices to producers and halt the
agriculture restructuring plan is set up by eliminating small and medium farms that fail
to follow the race. It does not ask us to clear matters of substance. What is agricultural
production? What kind of agriculture do we want? There is a need to reorient the
development of farms into more efficient and producer of added value for the peasants
systems. Shift production to consumption close to target food autonomy and diversification
of systems.
It is a genuine agrarian reform need to boost both in terms of distribution and access to
land as modes of productions. This is the only viable way to keep agriculture rich and
able to provide quality food.
Georges Claas farmer
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Agriculture-L-industrialisation
