GUIA PARA SER EX IZQUIERDISTA

Emir Sader*

21 de enero de 2007

Sirve para aquellos que aceptaron las famosas «propuestas irrecusables» y asumieron cargos de jefe en grandes publicaciones de un medio monopolista o en alguna gran empresa privada, que exigen silencio o declaraciones adaptadas a los intereses de los «patrones» (olvidándose de que no existen «propuestas irrecusables» sino espinazos excesivamente flexibles).

No serían casos aislados, finalmente las redacciones de esos órganos de medios privados están llenas de ex comunistas, ex trotskistas y ex izquierdistas en general, «arrepentidos» o sencillamente «convertidos» y que se pasan toda la vida – como ciertos «intelectuales» de las universidades, que ganan a cambio amplios espacios en las grandes empresas – diciendo que ya no somos lo que éramos, «limpiándose» a ojos de la burguesía de sus «pecadillos de juventud».

Es indispensable la referencia a que «se es imbécil a los 20 si no se es radical, se es imbécil a los 40 si sigues siéndolo», o alguna alusión a lo de pasar «de incendiario a los 20 a bombero a los 40», dejando en el aire la afirmación de que se tuvo una juventud agitada antes de llegar a la edad de la razón.

Un buen comienzo puede ser decir que «el socialismo fracasó», que «está decepcionado con la izquierda», «que son todos iguales». Ya estará en condiciones de decir que «ya no hay ni derechas ni izquierdas», que algunos que se dicen de izquierdas en realidad son una «nueva derecha», son peores que la derecha y que por lo tanto es mejor ser equidistante. Del escepticismo se pasa fácilmente al cinismo de «votar a la derecha asumida» para derrotar a la «derecha disfrazada».

Otra modo es criticar vehementemente a Stalin, después de decir que fue igual que Hitler –«los dos totalitarismos»–, afirmar que apenas aplicó las ideas de Lenin, para decir finalmente que los orígenes del «totalitarismo» ya estaban en la obra de Marx. Decir que Weber tiene mayor capacidad explicativa que Marx, que Raymond Aron tenía razón frente a Sartre. Que el marxismo es reductor, que sólo tiene en contra la economía, que su reduccionismo es la base del «totalitarismo» soviético. Que no ha lugar para «subjetividad», que redujo todo a una contradicción capital–trabajo sin tener en cuenta las «nuevas subjetividades», advenidas de las contradicciones del género, de la etnia, del medio ambiente, etc.

No hablar de Fidel sin utilizar previamente «dictador» y llamarlo Castro en lugar de Fidel. Descalificar a Hugo Chávez como «populista» y a su vez como «nacionalista», dándole a todo esto una connotación de «fanatismo», «fundamentalismo». Concentrar la atención en América Latina sobre Bolivia y Venezuela como países «problemáticos», «inestables», sin mencionar siquiera a Colombia. Siempre que se hable de la ampliación de la democracia en el continente, añádase «excepto Cuba». No hablar nunca del bloqueo usamericano a Cuba, sino siempre de la «transición» –dejando siempre suponer que en algún momento transitarán hacia las «democracias» que andan por aquí.

Decir que América Latina «no existe», son países sin unidad interna –pronunciar ’cucarachos’ [1] de forma bien despectiva. Que nuestra política externa ha de tener miras más altas, relacionarse con las grandes potencias y tratar de ser una de ellas, en lugar de seguir conviviendo con países de la región y los del sur del mundo – Sudáfrica, India, China, etc.

Pronunciarse en contra de las cuotas en las universidades, diciendo que introducen el racismo en una sociedad organizada en torno a una «democracia social» ­–será bienvenida una citación de Gilberto Freire y el silencio sobre Florestan Fernandes–, que lo más importante es la igualdad ante la ley y la mejora gradual de la enseñanza básica y media para que todos tengan finalmente –a saber cuándo, pero es preciso ser paciente­– acceso a las universidades públicas. Decir, siempre, que el principal problema de Brasil y del mundo es la educación. Que hay trabajo, que existen posibilidades, pero que falta cualificación de la mano de obra. Que lo fundamental no son los derechos, sino las oportunidades –hablar de la sociedad usamericana como la más «abierta».

Descalificar siempre al Estado, como ineficaz, burocrático, corrupto y corruptor, en contraposición a la «economía privada», al «mercado», con su dinamismo, su capacidad de innovación tecnológica. Exaltar las privatizaciones de la telefonía –«antes nadie tenía teléfono, ahora cualquier pobre diablo en la calle va con un celular»– y la de la compañía Vale do Rio Doce, callar sobre el éxito de la Petrobras o afirmar que «imagina si se hubiera convertido en Petrobrax, ¡sería mucho mejor!».

Así pues, existen numerosos motivos para el que haya decidido dejar de ser de izquierdas –bastaría lo de «la caridad bien entendida empieza por uno mismo»– e intentar ganarse la vida de espaldas al mundo y para beneficio propio. El «mercado» retribuye generosamente a los que reniegan de los principios en los que un día creyeron.

Pero es mucho más fácil ser de izquierda.

No son necesarios pretextos, bastan las razones sobre lo que es este mundo y lo que puede ser otro mundo posible.

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* Traducido para Rebelión y Tlaxcala por JOSÉ LUIS DÍES LERMA

Emir Sader
Professor da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) e da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), é coordenador do Laboratório de Políticas Públicas da Uerj e autor, entre outros, de “A vingança da História".

Mil Voces Edición 43

Descargar (36:07 minutos, 16.54 MB)

Desde el otro mundo posible. Edición especial desde el estudio del Foro de Radios en Belén, Pará, Brasil, donde se viene desarrollando el Foro Social Mundial. Una actualización de lo que viene sucediendo en el Foro y una entrevista con Joao Pedro Stédile, dirigente del Movimiento de Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra (MST) de Brasil que participa en el FSM al tiempo que celebra sus 25 años de existencia.

Mil Voces Edición 42

Descargar (73:03 minutos, 33.44 MB)

Otro mundo posible, en construcción. Programa especial con todo lo que está sucediendo en la VI Edición del Foro Social Mundial, en Belén, Estado de Pará, Brasil. Otra comunicación es posible, la lucha por otro "desarrollo" los impactos de las plantaciones de árboles en el banquillo del FSM. En otros temas: la refundación de Bolivia y la amenaza de la fertilización marítima.

www.politicaydesarrollo.com.ar

La sequía tóxica: "Duelo al sol"
	Los animales mueren de sed, los arroyos desaparecen, los girasoles se inclinan abrumados, el sol parece ser de plomo y el cielo no promete lluvias sino más y más calor. En el paisaje asolado solo quedan indemnes los campos de soja. El yuyito que decía la señora presidenta: como si nada. Cosa de mandinga! Por Jorge Eduardo Rulli
La sequía ardía esta semana que termina, en los campos entrerrianos que visitamos, y no es una figura literaria. Las llamas en algunos lugares, nos encendían la cara que acercábamos a las ventanillas del auto. Los animales mueren de sed, los arroyos desaparecen, los girasoles se inclinan abrumados, el sol parece ser de plomo y el cielo no promete lluvias sino más y más calor. En el paisaje asolado solo quedan indemnes los campos de soja. El yuyito que decía la señora presidenta: como si nada. Cosa de mandinga! ¿Cuánto tiene que ver el monocultivo y los desmontes previos con esta sequía infernal? Vale preguntárselo. Las decisiones políticas que alguna vez se tomaron, han hipotecado este presente en que vivimos, y tal vez sus consecuencias comprometan a varias generaciones de argentinos que aun no nacieron. Hemos estado registrando en la cámara los casos más agudos que han dejado las fumigaciones, en una zona en que las víctimas abundan y en que los testimonios perturban el espíritu. Las declaraciones de Fabián Tomassi en Basavilbaso, refieren no solo a los males actuales que lo tienen postrado, sino también a una agricultura química extendida, que se continúa practicando no obstante ser absolutamente criminal. Regar venenos desde el aire o desde máquinas terrestres es un atentado a la vida, pero hacerlo como se hace ahora, con pilas de recetas en blanco previamente firmadas por los profesionales, haciendo mezclas de cuyos resultados potenciados no se tiene la menor idea y respetando tan solo la ley de meterle siempre más de lo indicado en los marbetes y darle a los yuyos o a la plaga con lo más pesado, es terriblemente sicótico y es, sin embargo, una práctica corriente y generalizada, que enferma gravemente a las poblaciones y por supuesto, también a quienes la practican. En Gilbert visitamos a la familia Portillo. Eran chacareros pobres a la antigua, o sea que tenían unas pocas hectáreas y las utilizaban para hacer algo de lechería, aves de corral y los cultivos forrajeros necesarios, también algo de huerta y de frutales que servían para el propio sustento o para vender en las zonas cercanas. Tuvieron la desgracia de que se les instalara un sojero como vecino. Cuando se les murieron los cultivos y las aves de corral, cuando los árboles dejaron de dar fruta y en el terreno no les crecía más nada, no tuvieron más opciones que trabajar de banderilleros en las fumigaciones y ayudar al sojero con el desmonte y el monocultivo. Dos de los niños han muerto y algunos de los adultos se encuentran muy afectados. Tuvieron que vender el campo y ahora el sojero, que lo ha comprado, lo ha incorporado al monocultivo y ha hecho desaparecer algunas de las pruebas del crimen, tal como el pozo de agua contaminada del cuál bebía la familia. Las complicidades, no son por otra parte, un hecho casual o extraordinario. El modelo agroexportador lo ha convertido en un modo de vida aceptado en buena parte del territorio. Nadie en el caserío que es Gilbert, podía no habernos visto, aun más todavía, estuvimos primero en el boliche tomando algo y anunciando nuestra presencia. No obstante, nadie se acercó ni se interesó por lo que hacíamos. Parece que en las zonas sojeras una soterrada cadena de complicidades trata de sancionar al que expone su desgracia, como si demostrarse enfermo como consecuencia de la riqueza ajena, fuera algo que avergüenza porque expone aquello de lo que no debe hablarse. Y lo que no debe decirse es que este modelo es un modelo en que las ganancias se amasan con la sangre y con el sufrimiento de miles y miles de víctimas inocentes. De Gilbert nos fuimos a Gualeguaychú para conversar con algunos de nuestros amigos entrañables, amigos que hiciéramos en la época previa a los grandes extravíos de la llamada crisis del campo, en los tiempos anteriores a las actuales polarizaciones, cuando todavía pensábamos que era posible desarrollar conciencia en la sociedad de Gualeguaychú, acerca de la necesidad de tener una retaguardia ética frente a la pastera. Esa pelea la perdimos, en buena medida la perdimos, gracias a todos aquellos que, escandalizados a destiempo de la oligarquía vacuna, dividieron a los argentinos en una injusta división entre el campo y la ciudad, mientras el Senador Urquía continuaba cobrando la diferencia entre las nuevas y viejas retensiones a nombre del Estado Argentino. Ahora lamentablemente, buena parte de la asamblea de Gualeguaychú, parece enamorada del corte mismo en Arroyo Verde, sin comprender que uno jamás debe confundir los objetivos con los métodos o con los instrumentos que se eligieron para obtener esos objetivos… y tampoco son capaces de tomar posición ante las similitudes de los monocultivos de eucaliptus y los de soja. Del otro lado en cambio, sí toman posición los ejecutores y propaladores de las políticas de la dependencia. La última y más grosera señal en este sentido, fue la declaración del INTI de que sus equipos técnicos no hallaron prueba alguna de contaminación por parte de la empresa Botnia. Debe ser esta papelera la única en el mundo que no contamina, aún más todavía, estos técnicos nuestros son tan funcionales que van más allá, de lo que las mismas empresas reconocen. Lamentable, y con esa pena por irse perdiendo gradualmente otra batalla contra las corporaciones, continuamos nuestro camino hacia Larroque. Larroque es un pueblo pequeño, cercano a Gualeguaychú, una zona de lomadas bajas y cursos de aguas numerosos. La soja ha terminado en la zona con la fauna que, como en el resto de Entre Ríos era abundante. Perdices, garzas moras, cigüeñas, zorrinos, comadrejas, vizcachas, caranchos, culebras y tortugas de tierra; en lagunas y bañados teros, garzas blancas, patos, chajaes, sapos y ranas, ha ido desapareciendo. Hoy la zona es un páramo. Pero ahora, íbamos detrás de los efectos sobre los seres humanos, para registrarlos, y en verdad, no esperábamos hallar lo que encontramos. María Carla Godoy tiene seis años, nació en Larroque, en un mes de abril del año 2002 o sea que, cuando comenzaron las siembras de soja y se realizaron las primeras fumigaciones de preemergencia con Glifosato, el embarazo de su mamá llevaba apenas tres meses, el momento en que el feto deviene más sensible a los impactos exteriores. Además, junto a la casa de sus padres el vecino tenía un depósito de agrotóxicos y ello, por supuesto, contraviniendo la ley. En la ruleta rusa de un modelo impiadoso, digamos que María Carla no tenía demasiadas chances. Cuando nació, los médicos le diagnosticaron Mielomelangoceli, hidrocefalia y Arnold Chiari, aclarando que era la consecuencia de la contaminación de su madre con agrotóxicos. Imaginé cuando su mamá nos lo contaba, que la mielomelangoceli tendría que ver con la parálisis de los miembros inferiores de la niña, tengo idea de qué es la hidrocefalia, pero no sabiendo que es la enfermedad de Arnodl Chiari, me atreví a preguntarle a la mamá de la nena sobre ello. Me cuenta entonces, que el bebé no podía llorar, que hacia solamente un ruido como cacareo, que por suerte con las operaciones lo superó… no pregunté más, estaba destrozado… cuando llegué a casa busqué en Internet. Allí encuentro que se conoce como malformación de Arnold Chiari, problemas neurológicos que se evidencian en el recién nacido. El texto científico dice: Aunque la causa exacta de una malformación de Chiari aún se desconoce, se cree que un problema durante el desarrollo fetal puede ocasionar la formación anormal del encéfalo. Este tipo de malformación puede ser provocado por la exposición a sustancias nocivas durante el desarrollo fetal. María Carla tiene seis años, no camina, no controla esfínteres, ha pasado por varias cirugías, lleva en su cabeza una válvula mecánica que le permite sortear los males con los que nació, varias veces por día debe ser sometida a sondajes… y sin embargo María Carla ríe, disfruta de la compañía de sus once hermanos y de sus amigas de la escuela. Nos cuenta su mamá que ahora le han comprado una pileta pelopincho y que con rifas que hacen en el barrio y con donaciones, van cubriendo los gastos que la enfermedad les ocasiona. María Carla, mientras tanto, esta contenta de que la visitemos y le tomemos fotos, quitándose el arnés, nos muestra de buen grado las horribles cicatrices de las operaciones, mientras uno de nuestros compañeros con la excusa de buscar cigarrillos, se aparta para esconder su llanto, ella orgullosa nos deja ver su libreta de la escuela, y suponemos por las calificaciones excelentes, que debe estar entre las mejores alumnas. Su rostro resplandece y su risa es cantarina. Tenemos el corazón desgarrado y la certeza de que estamos ante un modelo genocida, que la soja mata y es un crimen sembrarla y que respaldarla como hacen tantos y especialmente el INTA, es una infame complicidad con quienes han sembrado de pequeños cristos crucificados a sus arneses y a sus parálisis, como en el caso de María Carla, la geografía de la Republiqueta sojera. ¿Cómo puede haber tanta gente que sin conciencia responsable, coma milanesas de soja me pregunto, y se permita ignorar los horribles sufrimientos que amparan y que podrían conocer, tan solo con un mínimo interés por investigar los impactos del modelo? No bastan ahora las tardías tapas de Página 12 y de Crónica, no basta una mención a la pasada en el discurso presidencial, de un hecho que hace años es noticia internacional, me refiero a la lucha que llevaron contra las fumigaciones las madres del Barrio Ituzaingó anexo de la ciudad de Córdoba. No basta con conformar una Comisión para investigar o revelar un hecho puntual como ha hecho la Ministra de Salud, cuando todo el país está lleno de Barrios Ituzaingós, de víctimas inocentes, de cáncer y de seres que sufren impotencia sexual, de madres que abortan o que paren criaturas con malformaciones como consecuencia de la contaminación con agrotóxicos. Y que exprese con tanto énfasis el que no basta, no significa que no me alegre de que después de tanto tiempo nuestras denuncias alcances este rango. Reconozco, no obstante, la importancia y el enorme respaldo de haber estado presentes en el discurso de la Presidenta. Pero insisto, en que ello ya no basta. Y no me importa en lo más mínimo lo que piense Fidel al respecto y me importan menos los dos mil científicos cubanos del Instituto de Biotecnología que visitó la delegación argentina en la Habana, que en buena medida deben haber sido formados por Monsanto, y que se ofrecieron en acuerdos de colaboración y de intercambio para aportar a un modelo que es el nuevo colonialismo. No me importan tampoco las emociones cholulas referidas al pasado en los que hoy implementan los modelos de la agricultura química. Es la Biotecnología la que ha causado las penurias de Fabian, de la familia Portillo y de María Carla, no los manejos incorrectos o los excesos en la instrumentación, tal como nos dicen ahora, quebrantando lo que afirmaron durante años en los procesos al Terrorismo de Estado. Las consecuencias de este modelo están dolorosamente presentes por todas partes, hoy son tantas las víctimas que se ha conformado un movimiento de pueblos fumigados. Los impactos y externalidades del modelo de agricultura industrial, no le van a la zaga a los daños que consumó la dictadura, aun más todavía, es probable que este modelo de país sea tan solo la consecuencia o la etapa posterior de una estrategia de país sometido, que los genocidas y sus cómplices intelectuales alguna vez planificaron. Es muy probable entonces, que el modelo de la soja tenga asimismo alguna vez, sus propios tribunales y cuando llegue ese día seguramente una muchacha llamada María Carla Godoy tendrá un: Yo acuso, y una historia terrible que contarnos: la de su propia vida. Jorge Eduardo Rulli http://horizontesurblog.blogspot.com/ Más información www.politicaydesarrollo.com.ar

I have been a follower and admirer of Food First since I first learned of the organization 20 years ago. So getting an article published by them is a real milestone in my career.

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOSAFETY: A HOLISTIC VIEW

Concerns about the negative impacts of modern biotechnology are scientifically valid and thus do not deserve to be dismissed as ignorance or fear of the unknown. It is quite rare to find spaces, like GenØk, in which the subject of biosafety can be discussed with solid scientific foundations and free of industry pressure. Misgivings about GM foods and products do not constitute opposition to all biotechnology, as the industry claims. What institutions like GenØk advocate is a very cautious and precautionary approach to modern biotechnologies so as to harness the benefits and adequately assess and minimize the risks.

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GenØk "provides a more holistic perspective on the issue (of modern biotechnology) than other institutions and sets the core gene ecology science in context with some of the underlying technical, economic and social drivers influencing biotechnology and biotechnology regulation", says Peter Johan Schei, leader of Norway's delegation in international biosafety negotiations and GenØk board member. "This is a very ambitious and challenging task, yet one highly needed in a global discourse which often is highly fragmented and where the motives behind argumentation are not always fully obvious."

REFERENCES:

Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety http://www.cbd.int/biosafety/

Convention on Biological Diversity http://www.cbd.int/

GenØk http://english.genok.org/

Lim Li Lin, "Progress After Tough Talks on Liability Regime for GMOs," South-North Development Monitor, May 23, 2008, http://www.biosafety-info.net/ article.php?aid=520.

Lim Li Ching and Terje Traavik, eds. Biosafety First: Holistic Approaches to Risk and Uncertainty in Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Organisms, Tapir Academic Press, 2007. Includes collaborations from Lim Li Lin, Jack Heinemann, Arpad Pusztai, Susan Bardocz, David Quist, Tewolde Egziabher and Anne Ingeborg Myhr.

RALLT. Network for a GMO-Free Latin America http://rallt.org/

Smith, Jeffrey, "Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods," Yes! Books, 2007.

Union of Concerned Scientists. "Gone to Seed: Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply". 2004. http://www.ucsusa.org/food_ and_agriculture/science_and_ impacts/impacts_genetic_ engineering/gone-to-seed.html


RELATED POSTINGS:

Biotechnology
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Biotech
Food First
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Food%20First
GenØk
http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/search/label/Genok

From the Food First web site:

The Limits of Microcredit— A Bangladesh Case

Posted January 29th, 2009 by admin

By Jason Cons and Kasia Paprocki of the Goldin Institute

Winter 2008 -- Volume 14 -- Number 4

Since its emergence in the 1970s, microcredit has grown in popularity as a tool for development. Today, microcredit organizations have assets well in excess of $22 billion USD and serve more than 113 million clients.1 Microcredit has enormous potential as a tool for poverty alleviation. Yet as this strategy moves into the development mainstream there is an urgent need to reflect on its role in market-led development initiatives and its limitations, as well as its historic successes. There is significant risk in microcredit’s often uncritical adoption. This risk is compounded by the systematic failure of many microfinance institutions (MFIs) to engage the communities where they work in the process of designing and evaluating
microcredit programs. As with many development programs, the voices of communities and individuals who are the supposed beneficiaries of microlending are conspicuously absent from the projects that seek to determine their futures. As debates over the pros and cons of microcredit rage and donor support encourages rapid adoption, it is crucial to evaluate the impact of microcredit from the perspective of those who have the most to gain and lose — the recipients.

This Backgrounder outlines the results of a study on the impact of microcredit on recipient livelihoods in rural Bangladesh.

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	bgr microcredit winter 2008.pdf	806.84 KB

On 18–19 December in Washington DC, Rocky Mountain Institute and Brookings brought together representatives of the top plans aimed at taking the U.S. off oil, as well as top energy and policy experts from around the world. RMI's convening power was on full display, and while the organizations represented were diverse — ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the National Petroleum Council — there was a willingness to discuss and collaborate on potential solutions. According to Lionel Bony, Director of RMI's Office of the Chief Scientist, "What impressed me the most about the Summit was that organizations and people with very different backgrounds were willing to come together and try to find common ground. Oil dependence is a huge issue for the country, so it's critical to have collaboration between all the groups working towards getting the U.S. off oil." Collaboration was indeed key to the Summit, where participants agreed that a focus on transportation efficiency and diversification of our fuel supply are fundamental solutions to U.S. oil addiction. This narrowed focus allowed participants to prioritize important barriers that could be addressed with policy recommendations and have an impact by 2020. The variety of policies identified would require the government to establish a clear long-term vision, enable the infrastructure and vehicle transition to alternative fuels, and reduce America's vulnerability to oil prices. The next phase of RMI's Oil Solutions Initiative is a "Goals and Enablers" memo that is currently being drafted by the Summit participants. A release of the full Summit report accompanied by a press roundtable is also being planned for early March 2009. "We've addressed individual parts of the issue of oil dependence in the past, but now we have the opportunity to truly address the issue holistically, and to implement solutions that address security, economic growth, and environmental concerns as well," said Kristine Chan-Lizardo, Director of RMI's MOVE practice. Chan-Lizardo will continue to lead the combined RMI and Brookings project and serves as the point person for Summit participants. Information about participants and the plans they represent are available here. Please consider supporting this important work by clicking here. Sincerely, Rocky Mountain Institute

Otra comunicación es posible

28/01/2009

En el marco del Foro Social Mundial se realiza una nueva instancia del Foro de Radios, emprendimiento colectivo de comunicación comunitaria.

Radios comunitarias y proyectos de comunicación de todo el mundo realizan el esfuerzo colectivo de comunicación denominado “Foro de Radios” que realiza una transmisión en vivo desde el estudio de Radio en la FACOM (Facultad de Comunicación) de la Universidad Federal de Pará (UfFPA). RadioMundoReal es uno de los colectivos que aporta a este proceso, retransmitiendo la señal generada y aportando contenidos.

Para escuchar la transmisión en vivo:
Foro de Radios Transmision en Vivo desde Belén

Por más información:
www.foroderadios.org

Surprise ending in Madrid! No consensus on a G8-driven partnership against hunger...for now

Surprise ending in Madrid! No consensus on a G8-driven partnership against hunger...for now

High Level Meeting on Food Security, Madrid 26-27 January 2009

Final declaration of farmers and civil society organisations

As representatives of peasant farmers and other small scale food producers, together with organisations that support them(*), we want to express the following:

1. We gathered in Madrid with low expectations. We were extremely unhappy with the process and the contents of this conference. Although WE are the ones who produce most of the world’s food, we had not been offered a serious space to give our opinion on what should be done, either in the preparatory process or in the conference programme itself.

2. As a consequence, the meeting was not focussed on the crucial question of how to solve the dramatic food crisis that we are facing, but rather on a discussion by donors about how to spend their money. Without serious questioning the real structural causes behind the food crisis, any discussion about more or less aid money targets symptoms rather than addressing the real issues.

3. This explains the simplistic `more of the same' recipes to solve the crisis presented in Madrid: more fertilizer, more hybrid seeds and more agrochemicals for small farmers. This approach has already been a total failure in the past, and has been the source of elimination and suffering of millions of small producers, environmental destruction and climate change.

4. It is also clear that none of the actors here were prepared to deal with the crucial and conflictual issue of how local food producers are being denied access to land and territories , which constitutes the single most important threat to local food production. Many of the communally held land territories are now under threat from privatisation and land grabbing by transnational corporations to plant agrofuels or other commodities for the international markets. We need fundamental agrarian and aquatic reforms to keep land in the hands of local communities to be able to produce food.

5. But several factors combined to squash the organizers’ hope of ending the conference with the triumphal proclamation of an ethereal Global Partnership for Agricultural and Food Security crafted by the G8 with agribusiness corporations panting to take up residence. One factor was the fact that many developing country governments rejected a proposal on which no one had bothered to consult them. Another was the strong stand taken by FAO to keep global governance of food and agriculture centred in the Rome-based UN agencies. And our participation – both within the conference and in actions outside – helped to remind delegates that there can be no successful approach to the food crisis that does not build on the alternatives that millions of small food producers are developing day by day.

6. The solution to the food crisis exists, and is being fought for in many communities. It is called food sovereignty. An approach oriented towards peasant-based agriculture and artisanal fisheries, prioritizing local markets and sustainable production methods and based on the right to food and the right of peoples to define their own agricultural policies. To be able to achieve this, we need to:

• Reinstate the right of governments to intervene and regulate in the food and agricultural sector. The right to food, as already accepted by the UN, should be the central cornerstone on the basis of which the solutions to the food crisis are to be constructed.
• Dominate the disastrous volatility of food prices in domestic markets. National governments should take full control over the import and export of food in order to stabilize local markets.
• Reject Green Revolution models. Industrialized agriculture and fisheries are no solution.
• Set up policies to actively support peasant-based food production and artisanal fishing, local markets and the implementation of agrarian and aquatic reform.
• Stop corporate land grabbing for industrial agrofuels and commodity production.

7. We need one single space in the UN system that acts in total independence of the international financial and trade institutions, with a clear mandate from governments, decisive participation by peasant, fisher-folk and other small scale food producers, and a transparent and democratic process of decision making. This has to be the unique space where food and agriculture issues are discussed, where policies and rules are set..

8. We see the proposed Global Partnership as just another move to give the big corporations and their foundations a formal place at the table, despite all the rhetoric about the 'inclusiveness' of this initiative. Furthermore it legitimates the participation of WTO, World Bank and IFM and other neoliberalism-promoting institutions in the solution of the very problems they have caused. This undermines any possibility for civil society or governments from the Global South to play any significant role. We do not need this Global Partnership or any other structure outside the UN system.

The battle was won in Madrid, but we have no illusions that the promoters of the Global Partnership have given up the fight, and we will continue to engage them.

(*) These include Via Campesina, COAG, and many NGOs. The organisations present at the Madrid meeting presented a detailed statement with our assessment and proposals “Accelerating into disaster – When banks manage the food crisis”. It can be downloaded from the website of the IPC, which has facilitated our participation in this conference: www.foodsovereignty.org (The statement is also available in English, French and Spanish on www.viacampesina.org)

On the Question of One-Sided Boycotts

January 21st, 2009

Read a letter exchange between Robert Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, and Naomi on the question of one-sided boycotts.

Robert Pollin:
I strongly oppose Naomi Klein’s proposal to begin boycotts and divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to the approach used against South Africa in the apartheid era [“Lookout,” Jan. 26]. Klein anticipates four objections to her proposal and offers responses. But her list ignores the most important and obvious objection: it is entirely one-sided both in blaming Israel for the horrible cycle of violence in the region and in meting out punishment.

******

Naomi Klein Replies:

Robert Pollin believes that the biggest problem with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) strategy is that it targets only one side in the conflict. For Pollin, this is a conflict between equally guilty parties deserving of equal punishment. It is not. Israel is the party that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, annexed more of their land in 1967 and continues to occupy the land today. Occupiers and occupied people do not share the same responsibilities, which is why the duties and responsibilities of an occupying power are laid out in the Geneva Conventions—laws Israel violates with impunity.

Even if I were to accept Pollin’s argument that any sanction should punish both sides equally, we face a rather large problem. How does Professor Pollin propose that we punish Gazans more than they are being punished already? In case he has failed to notice, there is already a fierce campaign of boycotts and sanctions under way, and it is completely one-sided. I am referring, of course, to Israel’s brutal eighteen-month siege of Gaza, launched to teach Gazans a lesson for voting for Hamas in US-backed elections. As a direct result of this siege, Gazans have been deprived of lifesaving medicines, cooking fuel and paper—not to mention food. This is far more than a mere boycott; it’s “collective punishment,” as described by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By contrast, the kind of legal boycott being called for by the BDS campaign would deprive Tel Aviv of some international concerts and, if it really got going, would cost Israel some foreign investment. It would not starve and sicken an entire people. In this context of actual one-sided punishment inflicted on Palestinians, sanctioned by the so-called civilized world, to complain of one-sided boycotts against Israel is, frankly, obscene.

From Anna Lappe's Take a Bite Out of Climate Change blog:

The Attack on Organic Agriculture–or the more things change, the more they stay the same

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

As the new year turned, and Obama’s transition team developed their plan for the agriculture team, George McGovern and Marshall Matz, both now on the board of the World Food Program, weighed in with an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, parroting many of the claims about industrial ag and its pseudo-benefits we’ve been hearing (and debunking) for years.

read their op-ed here and my response below. While my letter to the editor didn’t make it into print, one by George Naylor from the National Family Farming Coalition did.

Dear Editors:
Thank you for your coverage of the Agriculture Secretary nominee (“Agriculture’s next big challenge” January 4, 2009), but the authors mislead your readers about the real costs of the “commercial agriculture” they claim the new Secretary should celebrate.

Industrial agriculture will lessen–not improve–our ability to feed ourselves and foster sustainable rural communities, especially in the face of a climate unstable future. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, is proving to foster more resilient crops and to sequester greater levels of carbon in the soil.

The authors also claim that industrial agriculture is “key in our becoming less dependent on foreign oil,” while in reality this system of farming does the opposite: Because industrial agriculture is addicted to manmade fertilizers, which require significant natural gas to produce, we are increasingly dependent on imports from countries with natural gas reserves. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, releases us from our foreign oil dependence in the food sector by eliminating our addiction to petroleum-based chemicals and manmade fertilizer.

Finally, the authors perpetuate the myth that organic agriculture cannot feed the world, when new research, including a multi-year study from the University of Michigan, has shown that shifting toward organic agriculture can actually increase yields overall, while creating auxiliary benefits like cleaner water and safer fields for our farm workers and farmers.

Sincerely,
Anna Lappé
Oakland, California

Combatiendo el feudalismo digital

Descargar (12:02 minutos, 6.05 MB)

Efectos de la privatización del conocimiento

Antes de viajar al Foro Social Mundial, que se realizará del 27 de enero al 1 de febrero en Belem Do Pará, Brasil, Federico Heinz de la Fundación Vía Libre, conversó con Radio Mundo Real sobre la presentación que allí realizará del libro "Genes, bytes y emisiones", un trabajo que nos presenta un mundo donde millones de dólares se gastan en proteger la propiedad privada, pero poco se destina a garantizar la vitalidad de los bienes comunes.

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El predominio verde del agronegocio

prensa Enero 21s, 2009

Ambiente, Derechos Humanos y una crítica relación sociedad/Estado
URUGUAY, HOY COMO AYER*

En los últimos años en Uruguay “se ha registrado un marcado incremento de la forestación artificial, una expansión de la superficie agrícola, y existe una intensificación productiva creciente en el agro e incipiente en otros sectores. Estas tendencias ejercen presión sobre los recursos naturales” [1]. En 2008 los señalamientos sobre los impactos ambientales del modelo de desarrollo han trascendido al ambientalismo e incluyen como principales impactos la expansión de los monocultivos (soja y árboles), la falta de control sobre el uso de la tierra y la “extranjerización” de la misma, tendencias que configuran un escenario potencialmente negativo de no tomarse las medidas de control necesarias.

En 2008 Uruguay sufrió el avance de los cultivos de soja transgénica, la profundización del modelo celulósico y la pretendida revisión de un debate ya laudado en Uruguay (la generación de energía nuclear en el país), que encuentra nuevos bríos al ser impulsado desde los más altos niveles del Gobierno progresista del presidente Tabaré Vázquez [2]. Estas discusiones hicieron dudar una vez más acerca de los fundamentos participativos y democráticos de las políticas ambientales en el país, algo que por otra parte también fue señalado en el II Congreso del Pueblo [3], una instancia que concentró a lo largo de un año (concluyendo sus instancias centrales en septiembre último) al más vasto espectro de organizaciones sociales que se hayan congregado en torno a una tarea común en la era post dictadura.

Teología de la soja y del eucalipto

En mayo de 2008 se editó La nueva colonización. La soja transgénica y sus impactos en Uruguay [4], en el que se analizan los impactos ambientales, sociales y económicos del crecimiento avasallante de este cultivo en el país. En el mismo se señala que el avance de la soja, con 461.900 hectáreas sembradas en la zafra 2007/08 (mientras que en la zafra 1999/2000 la superficie se encontraba apenas por debajo de las 9.000 hectáreas) “determina que hoy en día este cultivo represente más de la mitad del área agrícola nacional”.

Dicho trabajo demuestra que la “sojización” se encuentra intrínsecamente ligada al accionar de “capitales extranjeros que han propiciado la emergencia de nuevos actores (…) también presentes en los países vecinos, [quienes] administran grandes sumas de capital realizando casi únicamente agricultura extensiva en extensas superficies de tierra arrendada, contribuyendo así al generalizado proceso de concentración y extranjerización de la producción y la tierra”.

Es de destacar que dicha expansión del cultivo de soja transgénica, así como otros aspectos del agronegocio, se vio acelerada en 2008 debido a las medidas adoptadas por el Gobierno de la República Argentina, que gravaban sensiblemente los saldos de exportación de dicho cultivo. El crecimiento exponencial de la soja con carácter de monocultivo ha hecho que este agronegocio, especialmente en 2008, abandone sus regiones “tradicionales” del litoral oeste del país, para alcanzar zonas especialmente sensibles en la producción de alimentos básicos para el mercado interno [5].

En julio de 2008 caducó la moratoria de 18 meses dispuesta oficialmente para la aprobación de nuevos eventos transgénicos, plazo que en sus inicios implicaba la revisión de las variedades genéticamente modificadas ya aprobadas, lo que a la postre no ocurrió, iniciándose lo que oficialmente se catalogó como “coexistencia” entre agricultura tradicional y transgénica.

Tras conocerse la decisión del Gobierno de tolerar dicha “coexistencia”, la Asociación de Productores Orgánicos del Uruguay, la Red de Acción en Plaguicidas y sus Alternativas de América Latina y REDES-Amigos de la Tierra Uruguay señalaron que la misma “amenaza la biodiversidad por los altos riesgos de contaminación genética, y avala definitivamente el ingreso a Uruguay de esas variedades modificadas en beneficio de grandes empresas del exterior, lo que aumenta la extranjerización de la tierra y expulsa a los pobladores del campo”. Asimismo, el organismo oficial que resolvió sobre el tema descartó implantar la obligatoriedad del etiquetado de productos alimenticios nacionales y extranjeros que contengan organismos genéticamente modificados.

Otro formato del agronegocio que ha querido asimilarse a un sinónimo de modernidad es la expansión forestal y celulósica. La atracción de inversiones extranjeras para estos sectores ha adquirido en los últimos años un rango de “política de Estado”, en tanto existe una legislación de promoción vigente desde 1988 que atrae a nuevas empresas que evalúan diversos proyectos para radicarse en el Uruguay. Durante 2008 este modelo se consolidó con el funcionamiento a pleno de la planta de celulosa de la empresa finlandesa Botnia, el comienzo de la construcción de la planta de la española ENCE en el departamento de Colonia, la decisión de la empresa portuguesa Portucel de radicarse en el país y la fuerte adquisición de tierras para forestar por parte de la sueco-finlandesa Stora-Enso.

Hasta el momento no se han analizado ni evaluado cuáles serían los potenciales impactos de la ampliación de la forestación en el país para proveer de materia prima a grandes plantas industriales de producción de celulosa. En determinadas circunstancias este proceso se está llevando a cabo en desmedro de otros derechos, con el objeto de facilitar la concreción de estas inversiones, como por ejemplo asegurando procesos de confidencialidad ante pedidos concretos de información por parte de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, aprobando excepciones a la legislación vigente a favor de estas empresas, o también firmándose convenios público–privado entre empresas y dependencias estatales como el Instituto Nacional de Colonización [6].

El modelo forestal en Uruguay se caracteriza por estar altamente concentrado en manos de poderosas empresas multinacionales. El 90 por ciento de las tierras forestadas pertenece a solamente 15 empresas, de las cuales las tres mayores controlan más de 550.000 hectáreas. En particular ENCE posee en el Uruguay cerca de 180.000 hectáreas.

Entre los principales impactos ya constatados por el avance de la forestación están los que repercuten sobre el ecosistema de pradera, documentados en un informe del propio Ministerio de Ganadería, Agricultura y Pesca (MGAP) de 2007, y la destrucción del monte nativo. El 19 de agosto último el MGAP anunció la suspensión temporal de todos los trámites de ENCE ante la Dirección Forestal, por haberse constatado la tala ilegal de cerca de 80 hectáreas de monte indígena en el departamento de Paysandú para plantar eucaliptos. El propio ministro de Agricultura Ernesto Agazzi calificó el suceso como un “desastre ecológico”, mientras que para la empresa el hecho se debió a un “error de planos” [7].

¿Nuclear? No, gracias

Junto a esto, y a pesar de la oposición ciudadana, el país asistió a la reapertura de un debate sobre la conveniencia del uso y producción de energía atómica. Un empuje similar tuvo lugar a comienzos de los 90, llegando incluso a instalarse en Uruguay algunos consorcios -canadienses y europeos- para encargarse de los estudios de factibilidad. Pero aquellos intentos no contaron con aprobación parlamentaria y naufragaron… o hibernaron hasta comienzos de 2006. En ese año se empezó a hacer referencia tímidamente desde el Gobierno a que se estaba empezando a considerar la generación de energía de origen nuclear, pero fue en el viaje que el presidente Vázquez realizó a Israel en agosto de este año cuando las intenciones del Gobierno con respecto a la energía atómica comenzaron a materializarse con mayor claridad. Durante su visita a las instalaciones del Instituto Científico Weizmann, el jefe del Ejecutivo hizo referencia a la posibilidad de emplazar una central nuclear en el país, y comunicó que al llegar a Montevideo conversaría con los dirigentes de los partidos de la oposición sobre el tema y organizaría un simposio para dar información sobre el mismo. Como había sucedido cuando el debate nuclear se había planteado años atrás, desde los principales partidos opositores al Frente Amplio, el Partido Nacional y el Partido Colorado, la idea de instalar una planta nuclear fue bien recibida, y se insistió sobre la necesidad de derogar el artículo 27 de la ley Nº 16.832 (que prohíbe a texto expreso el uso de energía de origen nuclear en Uruguay).

Otra vez, el tema nuclear vuelve a estar presente sobre la mesa. No obstante, como sucedió anteriormente, los actores sociales no se han quedado callados frente al mismo; en el Segundo Congreso del Pueblo se entendió que “es necesario priorizar otro tipo de alternativas antes de discutir la opción, sin que ello necesariamente implique descartarla”. Agregaron que “entre los principales puntos críticos a considerar en el debate nuclear se incluye la cuestión ambiental, de desarrollo sustentable, costos, y tiempos de construcción”. A su vez se insistió en la necesidad de que se continuaran las incipientes iniciativas de emprendimientos de generación de energía mediante fuentes renovables, alentando a que esto se convirtiera en una política de Estado. Hoy, como ayer, el debate nuclear vuelve a estar presente. Ha cambiado el esquema político que muestra amplios consensos en la esfera partidaria; se trata de un nuevo escenario, para el mismo problema.

Accelerating into disaster – when banks manage the food crisis

Accelerating into disaster – when banks manage the food crisis

Civil society declaration to the High Level Meeting on Food Security (Madrid, 26-27 January 2009)

Against the dramatic background of a profound global food and general economic crisis the Spanish government organizes the “High Level Ministerial Meeting on Food Security for All” on the 26-27th of January 2009 in Madrid. The emergency of today is rooted in decades of neo-liberal policies that dismantled the international institutional architecture for food and agriculture and undermined the capacity of national governments to protect their food producers and consumers. The central cause of the current food crisis is the relentless promotion of the interests of large industrial corporations and the international trade that they control, to the detriment of food production at the local and national levels and the needs and interests of local food producers and communities. At the World Food Summit in 1996, when there were an estimated 830 million hungry people, governments pledged to halve the number by 2015. Today, in the midst of a terrible food crisis, the figure of hungry people has risen to well beyond 1 billion.

Stop land grabbing for agrofuel and industrial food production
In this context the World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are pushing for more trade liberalisation, more support for agribusiness and increased sales of fertilizers and genetically modified seeds. As the vicious food price crisis deepens, transnational companies are moving into southern countries on a huge scale and starting to capture millions of hectares of land in order to bring agricultural production further under their control for industrial agrofuel and food production for the international market. Millions of peasants will be pushed out of food production, adding to the hungry in the rural areas and the slums of the big cities. The few that remain will work under full control of the transnational companies as workers or contract farmers. This is the very model that the World Bank and the AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) initiative are trying to impose with the funds they have designated to resolve the food crisis.

The solution exists: food sovereignty
Contrary to the impression that is given by confused officials, a solution to the crisis exists and is easy to implement if there is sufficient political will. Peasant based agriculture and livestock raising and artisanal fisheries can easily provide enough food once these small-scale food producers can get access to land and aquatic resources and can produce for stable local and domestic markets. This model produces far more food per hectare than the corporate model, enables people to produce their own food and guarantees stable supply.

In June 2008 during the High Level Conference on the food and climate crisis, organized by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), many concrete proposals were made by peoples’ organisations and other non-governmental organisations in a declaration “No More Failures-as-Usual” that was supported by over 800 organisations.

The declaration called on governments to:

• Reinstate the right of governments to intervene and regulate in the food and agricultural sector in order achieve food sovereignty.
• Reject Green Revolution models. Industrialized agriculture and fisheries are no solution. This view was clearly supported by the broad based international assessment.
  
• Prioritize the participation small scale farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk in the formulation of policies,
• Make food sovereignty and the right to food prevail over trade agreements and other international policies.
• Restructure United Nations (UN) agencies involved in food and agriculture to make them more effective.

Governments at the Madrid Meeting have yet to take these demands into account.

No effective response so far
Since the earlier food crisis in the 1970s, many initiatives have been taken to tackle the food crisis. In the seventies, a so-called World Food Council was set up to tackle the crisis. The Council never functioned and was in the end abolished in the nineties. In 2002 the International Alliance Against Hunger was adopted by the FAO World Food Summit: Five Years Later but it is totally ineffective.

At the moment France and other G8 countries and Spain are proposing a “Global Partnership”. This initiative will generate more fragmentation and provide more of the same wrong recipes. For the first time in the UN, this ‘partnership’ would give Transnational Companies (TNCs) and the big foundations such as the Bill Gates Foundations an official seat at the table.

Last year, a UN-High Level Task Force was set up to coordinate actions of the UN agencies, the Bretton Woods Institutions and the WTO, and a Common Framework for Action (CFA) was developed. Although increased coordination between UN agencies is desperately needed, the Task Force is mainly driven by the G8 donor countries and Multilateral Institutions like the World Bank, the WTO and the IMF. The CFA was written by the international bureaucracy without any serious consultation of governments and civil society.

Although support for small farmers is mentioned in the text, the interests of the multilateral institutions and the G8 countries dominate. The text clearly pushes for more trade liberalisation and the World Bank wants to use this mechanism to channel big funding to agribusinesses for a second green revolution, particularly in Africa. The FAO and other UN agencies, that have a mandate and the expertise to implement effective programs, are isolated and marginalized.

Where is the political will to address the crisis in a serious way?
The show in Madrid orchestrated by Jeffrey Sachs and the Spanish government that includes some “panels with Civil Society” presents itself as a total sham. By way of preparation for the meeting, the Spanish government presented a proposal for a "Global Partnership", in which "the voices of the poor shall be enhanced, heard and taken into account in the whole process", but the way the Madrid meeting is set up hardly reflects this commitment. One or two peasant representatives may perhaps speak a few minutes from the floor while transnational companies such as Monsanto and the Bill Gates Foundation, the WTO, World Bank and the IMF sit on the podium! In the midst of the present financial crisis when banks go bankrupt one after the other primarily due to excessive gambling, it is absurd to ask banks and financial institutions to solve the food crisis. The principle of “one dollar – one vote” that the World Bank and the donor countries are trying to introduce has to be rejected.

No serious effort has been made to bring representatives of peasant farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people and urban organisations that represent affected people to the table. Once again, the main stakeholders in the debate on the food crisis have been completely sidelined. Only some hand picked NGOs are asked to give their opinion. This event just serves to push through initiatives that lack any legitimacy and will again be totally ineffective or may even make things even worse!

Policies based on food sovereignty are desperately needed
National governments have to take up their responsibility and urgently implement the following measures:

• Bring the disastrous volatility of food prices in domestic markets to a standstill. National governments should take full control over the import and export of food in order to stabilize local markets.
• Set up policies to actively support peasant-based food production and artisanal fishing, local markets and the implementation of agrarian and aquatic reform. Peasant-based production, based on agroecology, has proved to be more effective: it produces more food per hectare and gives work (and access to food) to many more people.
• Stop corporate land grabbing for industrial agro-fuels and food production.

The UN agencies have to support the initiatives of national governments and forbid the WTO, World Bank and the IMF from interfering in national policies regarding food and agriculture. The WTO, WB and IMF should therefore be excluded from implementation of the proposals of the UN Task Force.

No more new structures and initiatives!
We protest vigorously against this circus of the ongoing creation of new structures and spaces. They are bound to fail again and again as they undermine existing bodies yet continue to implement the same bad policies. The space where the issue of food is discussed at the international level used to be concentrated in one agency, the FAO. This space has been fragmented, since the last food crisis, into many different institutions that all have their say over food and agriculture: FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Program (WFP), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), WTO, WB, IMF, etc. On top of this, exactly those who bear the heaviest responsibility for this crisis (WTO, WB and IMF) will dominate the new structures.

One single space in the UN system needed
Until now UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, WFP) as well as the CGIAR have dramatically failed to address the crisis in an effective way due to lack of funding, inefficient functioning and lack of focus on support for peasant and fisher based domestic food production. This has to change. The global governance of agriculture and food has to be dramatically improved. We need one single space in the UN system that acts in total independence of the WTO, the WB and the IMF, with a clear mandate from governments, a decisive participation of peasant, fisherfolk and other Civil Society Organisations and a transparent and democratic process of decision making. This has to be the unique space where food and agriculture issues are discussed, where policies and rules are set and where all financial resources are controlled. Donor countries should show the same commitment to the financial crisis as to the food crisis and commit the necessary funding to the UN agencies to really tackle the issue. Of the US$24billion promised at the Rome Conference in June 2008, only a small part has been provided.

Funding to solve the food crisis is important. But we don't want this money to be spent on providing more high tech seeds, more chemical fertilizer and more of the same old recipes that have already failed in the past, as is happening now. We want support for a true re-orientation of the global food system towards food sovereignty.

This statement was facilitated by members of the IPC, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty. The IPC is a facilitating network in which key international social movements and organisations collaborate around the issue of food sovereignty. For more info: www.foodsovereignty.org.

FOR THE LIST OF SIGNATORIES, ACCESS:
http://farmlandgrab.blogspot.com/2009/01/accelerating-into-disaster-when-banks.html

To bee or not to bee

Finally the authorities around the world are taking action on colony collapse disorder (CCD) – the term coined for the catastrophic collapse in the number of bees that has occurred in recent years, especially in the USA. In December the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced a €100,000 grant to a consortium of European scientific institutions to investigate the problem. Earlier in the year the US Department of Agriculture had provided US$4m in funding to the University of Georgia for similar research.

There is now a consensus that the problem has become very serious. The bee population in commercially managed hives in the USA is estimated to have declined by 32 per cent in 2006 and 36 per cent in 2007. “Nature works in cycles but we’ve been constantly losing more and more bees”, said Ed Levi, secretary of the Apiary Inspectors of America. “We used to think that the problem would just go away but today I think it’s the canary in the mine.” The bees are mainly affected by two types of infestation: a tracheal mite and the varoa mite that attacks their intestines.While as yet no scientist has come up with an explanation, it is almost certain that the collapse is linked in one way or another to the rapid expansion in industrial farming. The natural diet of bees is pollen and honey – a mixture rich in enzymes, antioxidants and other nutrients. However, partly because of the decline in natural foraging areas, beekeepers in industrialised countries are increasingly supplementing this natural food with a mixture of artificial supplements, protein and glucose/fructose syrup. It is now believed that this diet may have weakened the bees’ immune system. Pesticides used on crops have also been affecting bees. For instance, the insecticide imidacloprid disrupts the bees’ homing behaviour. For more than a decade French beekeepers have been calling for a complete ban on the insecticide, saying that it is causing “mad bee disease”.

There are also other factors. Beekeeping in the USA has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Many beekeepers make much more money renting out bees to pollinate food crops than they ever made selling honey. Juggernauts stacked with hundreds of hives travel huge distances, carrying the bees from one monoculture crop to another. The bees are stressed by the journey and have difficulty finding their bearings in alien ecosystems. Mortality rates are high. There is also growing concern that the bees may have been harmed by feeding on GM maize, which now accounts for more than half of the maize in US fields.

It is possible that CCD has multiple causes, with different factors combining to weaken the bees. As The Ecologist pointed out 18 months ago, “The single coherent thread that connects all the various theories of CCD is a massive failure of these creatures’ immune systems. It is entirely possible that CCD is the inevitable result of an overwhelming, ongoing assault on their immune systems.” If this is indeed the case, it will be a difficult problem to solve. It is likely that, at best, the scientific studies currently under way will come up with a technical fix of one kind or another. This will not solve the underlying problem.

Albert Einstein once famously declared: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” As yet, bees are reported to be alive and well in areas of the world with little industrial farming. Yet there is good reason for all of us to feel extremely concerned.

SOURCE: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=585

Another Crack in the Iceberg

Documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen traveled to Washington for the inauguration with her mother Aishah Rahman, a playwright and professor at Brown University. From the March on Washington to the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, in her work and politics, has followed the arc of American history. Richen talks to her mother about the significance of this inauguration and the Martin Luther King holiday, the March on Washington, and the power of protest politics. She says the feeling in America today is like that of South Africa after apartheid. People are breathing collectively and there is hope.

The latest posting in the superb Global Noize music blog:

Post Rock Ambient Traveler

On this week's edition of our weekly internet radio program, Six Degrees Traveler, we spin two hours of lovely tracks that all loosely fit into a "post rock", ambient mode. In case you're wondering, Wikipedia defines the term "post rock" as "a genre of alternative rock characterized by the use of musical instruments commonly associated with rock music, but using rhythms, harmonies, melodies, timbre, and chord progressions that are not found in rock tradition. It is the use of 'rock instrumentation' for non-rock purposes. Practitioners of the genre's style typically produce instrumental music."

The show was inspired by a recent trip to a coffee shop located by my wife's work place, which always plays wonderful, eclectic music. A few weeks ago they were spinning a gorgeous piece that sounded like a cross between Popol Vuh and one of my all time faves, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I love being blind sided by hearing great new music that I'm not familiar with- It's a phenomenon that I wish happened more often. The guy working the espresso machine was happy to clue me in and tell me that we were listening to K.C. Accidental, a mostly instrumental band that was a precursor to the more rock oriented, Broken Social Scene. I quickly gobbled up the duo's two great EPs and their haunting, elegiac music inspired me to piece together two hours of like minded sounds. I find that this is music that is unabashedly "pretty" without ever succumbing to the easy pitfalls of saccharine cheesiness. Hopefully you'll agree.

Check out the full playlist at http://sixdegreesrecords.com/radio/playlist.php?week=01_21_09

And here is the rest of it. -Read the full Post-

Ortorexia Nerviosa

Ortorexia Nerviosa

Diego Griffon

La Ortorexia Nerviosa es un término acuñado por Steven Bratman, para calificar como trastorno alimenticio la obsesión por comer comida considerada sana.

Los síntomas y consecuencias de la ortorexia nerviosa pueden incluir obsesión con la alimentación saludable, desnutrición, y la muerte por inanición. Este comportamiento es similar al de las personas que sufren anorexia o bulimia nerviosa, sin embargo, los anoréxicos y bulímicos se preocupan por la cantidad de comida que consumen, mientras que los ortoréxicos se obsesionan con la calidad de la misma.

Seedling editorial

Seedling editorial

Editorial

Once again genetic modification features strongly in this edition of Seedling. Such is the pace of change in global farming today that it seems that every quarter we have something urgent and new to say about genetic modification, often bringing to the discussion information that is not readily available elsewhere. Our first article deals with contamination. We have known for some time that, despite the reassurances of the biotechnology companies, genetically modified crops invariably contaminate other, non-GMO crops planted nearby. Indeed, it seems clear that this has been part of the companies’ strategy for spreading their crops in a region. But it is becoming equally clear – and this certainly was not part of the companies’ agenda – that many peasant communities are developing strategies for dealing with the contamination. In particular, indigenous communities in Mexico, after lengthy discussions, are taking action. At times, their moves are surprising: for instance, they have decided that contaminated maize should not be destroyed but treated as if it is sick, and gradually cured, even if it takes a hundred years to get it healthy again.

Not everywhere have communities been able to organise effective opposition to GMOs. As we show in our article on the 12 years of GMOs in Argentina, one of the tragedies of the soya boom in that country is the destruction of age-old peasant communities, as soya plantations have taken over the land. Nowhere else in the world has such a large area of land been devoted to a single GM crop. Although financial investors and big farmers are still making large profits, the land is dying. New superweeds, resistant to the glyphosate herbicide, are emerging. And, predictably enough, the companies have come up with a new technical fix: a new form of GM soya that is resistant to another herbicide – dicamba. How long will it be before weeds develop resistance to this too?
Meanwhile, fresh threats from genetic engineering emerge. One new technology is based on minichromosomes. Our article explains, in terms accessible to the non-expert, the science behind this new technology. It is interesting to note that, although the biotech companies present this new technology as safe and effective for – yet again – saving the world from hunger and environmental degradation, their patent applications tell a different story: their main goal is pharming (the production of drugs and chemicals through engineered crops). Although the risk of contamination from pollen may decrease with this technology, a new threat will emerge: contamination through bacteria. This raises the spectrum of new forms of contamination, not only between species, but also – and very alarmingly – between kingdoms.

Thankfully, thousands of communities are carrying on with their old way of life, based on very different principles. One such community, called Mangabal, lies deep in the Amazon forest, beside the Tapajós river. Like many others in the Brazilian Amazon, it was formed more than a hundred years ago when north-eastern migrants of European origin were lured to the Amazon basin to tap rubber. The men “solved” the gender imbalance by kidnapping young women from neighbouring indigenous groups. The women brought indigenous knowledge into the rubber-tapping communities, teaching the men how to create living seed banks of cassava. Similar communities are to be found in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where slaves were allowed by their owners to establish “Creole gardens” in the forest so that they could cultivate their own food. These gardens, which were integrated into the forest around them, also became living seed banks, with the breeding of new species and the conservation of medicinal plants. Some of these gardens still exist today and are being rediscovered by the authorities. The farming principles that lie behind this cultivation in both the Amazonian and Caribbean communities are diversity and sustainability – the qualities that modern farming, particularly with GMOs, is destroying.

One of our most popular publications last year was a Briefing on land grabbing – the way governments and corporations, alerted by last year’s food crisis, are scouring the world in search of arable land where they can grow food to ship back to their own countries. For those of you who missed the report, we include a summary and details about how you can find the report on our website. We also have a summary of our latest Briefing on a new form of rice – Nerica – that is being strongly promoted in Africa.

Fighting GMO contamination around the world

GRAIN

Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs have warned that they would contaminate other crops. This has happened, just as predicted. In this article we look at how communities in different parts of the world that have experienced contamination are developing strategies to fight against it.

[Three videos accompany this article which can be viewed here: http://www.grain.org/videos/?id=195]

When GM crops are planted they contaminate other crops with transgenic material. In places where GM crops are grown on a large scale, it has already become almost impossible to find crops of the same species that are free of GM material. And the contamination spreads even to areas where GM crops are not officially permitted. [1] The GM Contamination Register, managed by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International, has documented more than 216 cases of GM contamination in 57 countries over the past 10 years, including 39 cases in 2007. [2]

Monsanto and the other biotech corporations have always known that their GM crops would contaminate other crops. Indeed, it was part of their strategy to force the world into accepting GMOs. But around the world people are refusing to lie down and accept genetic modification as a fact of life; instead they are struggling against it, even in places subject to contamination. In fact, some communities experiencing contamination are developing sophisticated forms of resistance to GM crops. These usually begin with short-term strategies to decontaminate their local seeds, but often seek over the long term to strengthen their traditional food and agricultural systems.

We look at the experiences of communities in different parts of the world in dealing with GM contamination to see what insights they can offer others faced with similar situations. Each situation is unique, and gives rise to different processes. Common to all of them is the primary importance of collective action – of communities working at the grassroots to identify their own solutions and not depending on courts or governments, which, without strong social pressure, tend to side with industry.
The experience of communities in Mexico

For the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Guatemala, maize is the basis of life. In the creation story of the Maya, maize was the only material into which the gods were able to breathe life, and they used it to make the flesh of the first four people on Earth. For other peoples of Mexico, maize is itself a goddess. The plant has been the fundamental food of Mexicans for centuries, and thousands of varieties provide an amazing range of nutrients, flavours, consistencies, recipes, and medicinal uses.
In January 2002, researchers at the University of California in Berkeley announced their discovery that local varieties of maize in the highlands of Oaxaca state had been contaminated. Other communities of small farmers carried out tests on their own crops and were shocked to find that they too had been contaminated. For these people, it was a deep blow to their culture. They could not sit back: something had to be done.

READ THE REST: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=575