Much of agricultural policy is rooted in a view that considers
small farms as inefficient. Efficiency and productivity in agriculture,
it is argued, can only be delivered by consolidating land, using
advanced technology, investing in large-scale irrigation and massive
fertilization, and encouraging monoculture in big-scale farms.
After 50 years of applying these practices globally, however,
this dictum of conventional wisdom on agriculture is being questioned
more than ever before. Simply adding to the pile of food and promoting
monocultural crops will not end hunger or malnutrition. Efficiency and
quantity-based agricultural policy alone might solve acute hunger for a
while, but cannot eradicate chronic and hidden hunger forever, let alone
move towards sustainable resource use, food security, and social and
economic equity in a dramatically unequal world.The world is increasingly hungry and malnourished because small farmers are losing access to farmland. According to a new report by GRAIN, Hungry for Land, small farmers produce most of the world’s food but are now squeezed onto less than 25 percent of the world’s farmland: “The overwhelming majority of farming families today have less than two hectares to cultivate and that share is shrinking. Corporate and commercial farms, big biofuel operations and land speculators are pushing millions off their land.”
The report claims that small farmers could feed all nine billion people expected to be on the planet in 2050, provided they have the land, support, participation in decision making, financial, and technological power. But the current global food system is not set up to support them or designed to feed the most people, but rather to provide fuels and food for western markets.
Fortunately in recent years the important role of small farmers in relation to food security is finally being acknowledged in the US and Europe. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) celebrated the year of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming.
Even in the US – where global agroindustries dominate - the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has undertaken several initiatives to support local and regional food systems. “Know Your Farmers, Know Your Food Initiative” coordinates government policy, resources, and outreach efforts related to local and regional food systems.
Besides high nutritious value and reduced fossil fuel use, the “local food” movement from Oregon to Vermont is creating an exciting new laboratory for agricultural innovation. Small farming is even becoming profitable, with recent financial crises prompting many young Americans to return to rural life as they faced difficulty in finding jobs and housing in cities. The rural sector provides food.
In a sustainable world, the rural and urban sectors must support each other. With modernity and industrialization, urban areas experienced unprecedented growth, while rural communities, dependent on agriculture, were left behind. A large portion of the rural population migrated to cities, which overwhelmed the infrastructures of many cities. Especially in developing world rapid urbanization poses huge environmental challenges.
To reverse such a trend, governments and civil society should encourage rural life. Young farmers should be given subsidies to enable their return to the countryside. Although, it is difficult for most governments to oppose the logic of competitive markets skewed to favour the big agroindustries, it is clear that a food policy based on everyone – except the most powerful – becoming food importers is neither just, effective nor sustainable. It is time to break with failed practices and refocus agricultural policy towards supporting those who produce the majority of world’s food, the small-scale farmers.
from here
'Breaking with failed practices' in all areas is the call from The World Socialist Movement and SOYMB. In reality this means breaking with the capitalist system totally in order to bring democracy to the population of the world. SOYMB and Africa's Socialist Banner posts frequently on matters related to 'small', 'peasant' farmers, family farmers and land holders and the many associated problems with land grabbing, transnational corporations, environmental degradation, poverty and disenfranchisement. Food, being one of our most basic needs, is recognised within the capitalist system as an area ripe for exploitation for profit, at whatever cost to the environment, the producers and the consumers alike. A socialist system, on the other hand, will celebrate the achievement of sufficient, healthy food for all produced by farmers freed from the monetary yoke.
JS
4 comments:
The farms were enormous. We had decided long ago that divvying up the land into small, personal, but sustainable lots, had become a burdensome time sink. So, those who wanted to do farm work did that part of our necessary, collective labours to accomplish what we needed from agriculture and what we needed was food and drink. Still, sustainably produced, to be sure. The land was important. It had to be taken care of, like an old friend. As a result of going large, our productivity grew and our free time increased.
Drink?
Yes, the farmers were in charge of beer production, from the beginning of the cycle, to its end in bottles, for home or just available, fresh on tap from the various pubs which dotted our communities. Parties were spontaneous then. Wherever they occurred, there was always plenty of fresh beer to quaff and well tended marijuana to toke. The farmers' product was ours and the products of our labour time were theirs. Common ownership was understood by all.
We knew that we had to work. That was necessary and sometimes even, what we wanted most to do with our time. But, most of us relished our free time, away from necessary labour. In any event, every moment was lived in all its sensuous glory, even when we spent time doing what we all knew was necessary namely, producing food and drink. We were farmers. Of course, there were slackers, ones who didn't apply themselves to the tasks at hand. They were shunned and ridiculed for a time. Most of them came around to seeing that their lives could be more richly rewarded, if they just did what was needed. It was their choice as to what task or activity that might be. In other words, if they did what was needed, they would not be cast outside our association or made poorer, in any significant way, than their neighbours. The others, the ones who refused to apply themselves to the effective labour time required of them to remain in the community were eventually left to fend for themselves in the wild. Community pressure was too much for them. We did not condone stealing personal possessions from one another and that included stolen time. If someone refused take their tasks seriously enough to get them accomplished, with the best quality they could provide, we all knew it. By quality, I don't mean perfectly, but just doing the job as best an individual could. And if they didn't, we'd eventually make that person so uncomfortable that they would leave and perhaps, try their luck with another community, although, to be fair, this was unlikely to meet with much success as that community would have very similar standards. As I said, most everyone thought that their free-time was a core measure of fulfilment.
full: http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/wobbly-times-number-176.html
Another from the SPC archives is the Slave of the Farm
https://archive.org/details/SlaveOfTheFarm
The government could have anticipated that if a subsidy is given, farmers would take it up in 'droves', and a subsidy to farm workers is a transfer of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to some wealthy people.
The World Socialist Movement and SPGB envisage a world free of all wage slaves, farmers being just one section of those currently exploited by employers and the system of capitalism. Within a socialist system there will be free access for all from production for need, not profit. 'To each according to need from each according to ability.' No employers, no employees, no middlemen, no pecuniary interests.
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