Newsletters Nyéléni in English

The international Nyéléni newsletter is the voice of the international movement for Food Sovereignty. Its main goal is to strengthen the grassroots of the movement, by providing accessible material on key issues and creating a space – for individuals and organisations involved in the struggle – to exchange their experiences and share information.

On the front line

Newsletter no 39 - Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence

On the front line

These interviews were made with the special support of Real World Radio

1 – Food Sovereignty resists the rise of fascism because it allows us to organize life in a different way

“By organizing life in a different way — questioning how and what we eat, supporting small farmers, and sharing domestic chores so that they are not only in the hands of women —Food Sovereignty helps us to resist the rise of fascism,” said Miriam Nobre, agronomist and feminist activist with the World March of Women in Brazil.
Among the key threats facing Food Sovereignty, she highlighted: attacks on indigenous peoples and Afro-descendant communities whose territories are looted; persecution and physical violence against women considered “witches”; and criticism from neo-pentecostal religious figures against the community rituals that allow for knowledge to be passed down between generations, for instance, when sowing maize.

“Attempts by conservative sectors to return to the patriarchal family model are added to the dismantling of public policies that promote young people staying in the countryside, and the alliance between agribusiness, drug trafficking and militarization as constant threats to communities. We must fight for the right of young generations to be farmers and for them to be able to practice agroecology,” said Nobre.
Full piece here.

2 – The fight for Food Sovereignty: a battle against the fascist offensive

Peasant leader Carlos Marentes, a long-standing leader from La Vía Campesina International, tells Real World Radio about the challenges in the struggle for food sovereignty “in these political times of oligarchy and increasingly extreme conservatism, of States leaning to the far-right wing with terrible neofascist positions such as in the US.”

Marentes is member of the organization “Border Agricultural Workers Project” located at the border between US city of El Paso, Texas, and Mexican city Juárez, Chihuahua State. The organization is part of La Vía Campesina International.
The leader explained that his organization works to organize rural workers to fight for food sovereignty. Marentes considered that this struggle takes place in two ways: the work against “this war led by (US President ) Donald Trump and the most regressive sectors experienced in the different countries,” and the rebuilding of peasant economies and the economies of rural and indigenous communities so as to avoid the displacement of human beings.
Full piece here.

3 – Controversial Citizenship Law in India brings new wave of mobilizations against the far-right

A new Citizenship Law that discriminates against Muslims and the poorest sectors of society in India has given way to a wave of massive protests that challenge the far-right wing and that are key in the struggle for land rights.

“They don’t want Muslims, they don’t want tribal (communities), they don’t want Dalits (the “untouchables”, the poorest and most discriminated people in the Indian caste system), they don’t want the poor or working class. All this nationalism, controlling the power in a few hands, needs to be challenged,” said activist Roma Malik, from the organization All India Union of Forest Working People, in an interview with Real World Radio. “And I feel that the land struggle is the fundamental struggle, and women are at the forefront, they are already challenging the fascist government,” she stressed.

The leader believes that the struggle for food sovereignty carried out by peasant organizations must ensure that those who grow food have the right to land and ownership over the means of production.
Full piece here.

4 – Fascist/nationalist discourses are taking advantage of the crisis in the European countryside to promote neoliberal policies

Andoni García, a farmer from the Basque Country and member of the Coordination Committee of La Vía Campesina Europe (ECVC) warned in an interview with Real World Radio about the use of “nationalist sentiment” in right-wing political discourse as a feature of the rising conservatism and fascism on the continent.

Contrary to other European countries, “the Spanish government does not hide the fact that they are neoliberal or that they do not support public policies, but they take advantage of the feeling of abandonment and impotence in the countryside and the lack of responses to the crisis to co-opt farmers and build xenophobic discourse against migrants that come to Europe to work”, said García.

The ECVC also warns about the criminalization suffered by farmers (especially cattle farmers) by some animal welfare movements and announced that the conflicts between urban and rural areas will be addressed in the next assembly of LVC Europe, planned for April this year.

To resist the rise of fascism, García said that we must raise awareness of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and that the left wing parties must think about how to address peasant problems because they are not giving an adequate response.
Full piece here.

5 – The Right to say NO

Rural women across Southern African are resisting against the patriarchal advance of militia groups and dictatorial governments in some countries of the region, says activist Mercia Andrews, regional coordinator for the Rural Women’s Assembly.

“The Rural Women’s Assembly joins hands with farmers’ movements, with peasant movements, and we have joined campaigns that say we have the right to say NO: We have the right to determine the nature of development in these areas. We have the right to say NO to mining, NO to agroindustry. We have the right to say NO to the way in which forests are being cut down,” stressed Andrews.

The actions of the Rural Women’s Assembly focus on defending the commons, against the invasion of multinational corporations, and land/resource grabbing. The defense of food sovereignty and native seeds is at the center of their struggles and campaigns.
Full piece here.

Boxes

Newsletter no 39 - Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence

Box 1

Violence and capitalism

Violence and capitalism are no strangers to each other. Indeed, they are twins. The necessary conditions for the emergence of capitalism in the 15th to the 16th centuries were the violent expulsion of peasants from common lands in Europe and colonial plunder, genocide, and enslavement in the global South. This toxic brew resulted in what Marx called the “primitive accumulation” of wealth that produced capitalism.

Today, in what has been described as “accumulation by dispossession,” the drive for profit globally is witnessing the deployment of force to turn into commodities the commonly held lands and resources that have long resisted the process. Whether they are indigenous people in the Amazons, smallholders in Honduras, the Maasai people protecting their lands from government-sponsored land-grabbing in the Serengeti in Tanzania, or the millions of Adivasis or tribal people defending forest lands in India, the devastating combination of capitalist expansion and state action in support of it is displacing millions of people.

The prominent use of force does not only occur when capitalism expands and needs to throw out smallholders and indigenous people that are in the way. When people are able to use democratic institutions to achieve reforms peacefully, the capitalist and state elites often resort to extra-constitutional means to reverse the process and preserve their economic and political hegemony. The outcome is often a massacre, as in Indonesia in 1965-66, where efforts at land reform and peaceful parliamentary change provoked the elites, led by the military, to slaughter from 500,000 to one million people. In Chile, the military drowned the Popular Unity’s peaceful road to socialism in blood in the seventies, killing thousands of people. While the violence in Chile and Indonesia was terrible in both urban and rural areas, it was especially vicious in the countryside and, in Chile, especially so against the indigenous Mapuches, who were defending their communal lands.

Today, capitalist expansion, commodification, and the preservation of systems of capitalist political hegemony are combining to promote a new wave of global violence. In the Philippines, drug users are being used as a scapegoat for the country’s ills stemming from the marriage of neoliberal economics and extreme agrarian inequality, with some 27,000 of them having been subjected to extra-judicial execution in the three and a half years that the Duterte government has been in power. In India, Muslims have been singled out as the “enemies” of “Hindu civilization” by the BJP, which has wed neoliberal economics to Hindu nationalism, leading to mob violence against them, including gruesome cases of lynching.

It is unfortunate that large numbers of the middle classes have bought into the scapegoating rhetoric and ideology of right-wing forces. This middle-class—and even working class–support for right-wing racist forces is also becoming prominent in the global North, where it is being directed at migrants who are being scapegoated for the loss of jobs, inequality, and poverty created by corporate-driven globalization. There is the very serious danger that anti-migrant mass sentiment might be transformed by demagogues like Donald Trump, the Brexiteers, Marine Le Pen in France, and Viktor Orban in Hungary into movements like those of classical fascism that ravaged Europe in the 1930’s.

More than ever, the demands of justice and peace necessitate the creation of the broadest possible front against capitalist and fascist violence.

Box 2

Against consercativsm! We live to resist, we march to transform!

Conservatism is essential for the rise of the extreme right. Authoritarian governments around the world promote the ideal of the heteropatriarchal family to reinforce the sexual division of labor and the responsibility of women in the reproductive work of life. Far-right forces attack the right to abortion, pursue dissident sexualities, promote violence and harassment against women, and institutionalize racism. It is an anti-feminist agenda that, in some countries and territories, is associated with anti-western discourse. In others, it classifies as “disorder” the actions of women organized in grassroots movements. What these regimes have in common is that they exercise brutal violence against women who lead resistance processes.

Capitalism advances on women’s bodies, on their work and on nature, strengthening corporate power and expanding militarization. In many parts of the world, women are at the front line of resistance. They have demonstrated a great capacity for mobilization: the challenge is to expand permanent and popular organization. This requires confronting authoritarian capitalism and building processes capable of reorganizing the economy, putting the sustainability of life at the center. And to confront nationalism with internationalism and solidarity among peoples.

For women who are under attack today, building alliances is more important than ever. For neoliberalism is diverse, fragmenting identities and depoliticizing historical struggles. Feminism is not for the few, it is a project of equality, freedom and autonomy for all, which will only be possible with a systemic transformation, with sovereignty and self-determination of peoples. Women are recognized in the resistance that saves lives and guarantees a collective community. Therefore, the motto of the World March of Women in the 5th International Action, in this 2020, is Live to resist, we march to transform!

Box 3

Social networks: Promoting hate, maximising profit and social control

Fake news, data manipulation, hate speech, racism and misogyny. It is increasingly evident that the uses and abuses of the extreme right in digital social networks are part of their power strategy. Not only to win elections, but also to promote the normalization of violence that authoritarian capitalism needs to prevail in order to destroy democratic values.

Those uses and abuses take place in corporate infrastructure to which a significant part of the population is connected, such as Facebook. They are not public or democratic spaces. On the contrary, the algorithms and scopes are defined by a company that practices opacity and that is enriched by the collection and manipulation of data. The functioning of the system is not revealed, nor is it in dispute, and we users have to ‘accept’ the applicable terms and conditions, even though we know that Facebook does experiments, manipulating feelings, needs and opinions, and promoting extremism.

Data is converted into capital. And data is not there to be harvested, but instead is a product of people’s lives and relationships. Whether through phone apps or sensors in cities, coordinated mass surveillance between corporations and states is part of maximizing profits. And, as such, it is not isolated but systemic.

Racism and hatred of the poor and women do not multiply only as an idea, but are in daily life generating a social fascism. The virtual is nourished by the concrete lives of people who daily battle against living conditions with increasing precariousness and violence. The virtual has a material base, which drives and needs extractivism, energy and specific territories to store and process so much data.

The construction of counter-hegemony requires much more than a good communication strategy on social networks. It is a long-term challenge that involves expanding our anti-capitalist alliances with those who are fighting digitally, facing opacity and building free and non-proprietary technologies .

More info on this theme in the Nyéléni newsletter num 37 on The Digitalization of the food system.

Box 4

Peasant food production: a thorn in the side of the capitalist system

The challenges and potential of the struggle for food sovereignty against the global conservative wave

A substantial part of the battle against the capitalist system is fought in the countryside, specifically, around how food is produced. The rise of the extreme right wing in different parts of the world worsens the serious threats and human rights violations already suffered by rural workers.

In Brazil, a global leader in terms of violence against rural people, 1678 peasants were murdered between 1985 and 2003 according to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT); moreover, Global Witness warned that 2017 was the worst year on record: 207 peasants, community members, indigenous peoples and environmental activists were murdered.

In the past years, agribusiness became the main cause of conflicts in the countryside. Large agroindustrial transnational corporations, the weak role of States (due to lack of action or collusion) and corporate abuses in each country reinforced an already deadly machinery, reaffirming the control of capital over natural resources with the new global fascist wave.

“We will not achieve food sovereignty if we can’t recover control over our communities and territories, if we can’t take back control over food from the corporations,” warned peasant Carlos Marentes, a long-standing leader from La Vía Campesina (LVC) and a representative of the organization “Border Agricultural Workers Project” from North America. Neofascism can be seen in the alliance between agribusiness-drug trafficking-militarization, which threatens and loots communities, dismantles public policies and attempts to go back to the patriarchal family model to prevent women and children from being key actors of system change, stressed feminist agronomist Miriam Nobre (World March of Women Brazil).

In Southern Africa, in response to repressive regimes and traditional authorities which control territories and make decisions to the detriment of peoples´ livelihoods, Mercia Andrews (from the Rural Women´s Assembly) said: “It’s important that organizations, peasant movements, farmers movements resist this level of violation of their rights. The Rural Women´s Assembly in many cases joins hands with farmers movements, with peasant movements and we have joined campaigns that say we have the right to say NO.”

In Europe, the fascist movement promotes xenophobia and a “false protectionism”, warned Andoni García, from the Coordination Committee of La Vía Campesina Europe. “Food Sovereignty implies an end to the fascist movement because it speaks of rights, of public policies based on the right to protect local agriculture, peasant culture, and these ways of living, without them conflicting with individual and collective rights, in solidarity, rather than in conflict,” he added.

Roma Malik also made reference to this false protectionism, which often relates to exacerbated nationalism. She also highlighted how important it is for the struggle for food sovereignty in peasant organizations to be linked to the right to land. “Companies are coming in a big way, they are building dams, power stations, privatizing the rivers, cutting forests, killing the people, evicting people from their homelands. So, in a way, the struggle for land rights is a struggle against fascist governments also,” she said.

Meanwhile, Marentes added that food sovereignty is “one of the aims to face this war against poor people that is related to a more vicious, predatory system determined to ensure that multinational corporations control food production and the means of production, as well as nature.” The key is in the work to organize, to raise awareness to defend the right to life, to food, and protect natural resources.

To read the full interviews check the section “On the front line” of this newsletter at page 4

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 39 - Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence

A brief look at contemporary political trends

“Whether one calls them fascist, authoritarian populist, or counter-revolutionary, there is no doubt that angry movements contemptuous of liberal democratic ideas and practices and espousing the use of force to resolve deep-seated social conflicts are on the rise globally.” Walden Bello, Counter Revolution, the Global Rise of the Far Right, Page 3. Fernwood Publishing, 2019.

Facing down, resisting and living under extreme authoritarian, violent regimes are not new to most of us: the histories of many societies/nations are scarred by periods when political leaders used a combination of personal charisma, religious fervour, economic insecurity, fear of “others,” and promises to restore (usually imagined) glorious legacies, to impose political regimes that privilege particular classes, faiths and social groups while clamping down on the fundamental rights, freedoms and dignity of others. At numerous moments in colonial, apartheid, fascist, military, dictatorial and even democratic regimes, we have witnessed how the toxic synergy of interests driven by class, culture, religion and ideology can produce oppression, extreme violence and terror.

More recently, we have seen the rise of authoritarian regimes that seem to be consequences of the structural crises created by neoliberal capitalism and paradoxically, of the response by left forces and progressive peoples’ movements against the onslaught of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism and corporate-led globalisation not only failed in delivering social and economic well-being for the majority, but also destroyed the environment, weakened workers’ and small-scale food producers’ rights, undermined working class organisations, entrenched inequality, and increased hunger and malnutrition. Lower and middle classes saw their savings devalue and debts increase because of financial deregulation and prioritization of corporate over public interests. People mobilized to demand change, but two important trends enabled right wing forces to hijack these demands: 1) left political forces in many countries made uneasy alliances with ruling powers to gain footholds in the political system; 2) right wing forces used their resources to build the Post-truth era, where reality is deliberately distorted to influence public opinion and social behaviours, and strengthen the power of national-global elites.

Allied with ruling forces, left political forces were unable to show how their own programmes and visions for change were different. This left political and ideological fields open to capture by right wing forces who harnessed the anxiety, disillusionment, anger and desperation of the millions of people battered by the recurring financial-economic crises that have become hallmarks of global capitalism and corporate globalisation.

Although right wing forces presented themselves as deeply critical of the prevailing system, they shifted the blame for economic and social crises away from neoliberalism, towards particular sectors of society, naming them by economic class, social grouping and religion. This helped them to gather support from a wide swathe of classes and social groups–including the middle and wealthy classes–and build movements around prejudice and hate, while leaving the capitalist economic system unchanged. Although each regime is a product of particular historical conditions in its region, the above characteristics appear in varying degrees and nuances across them.

Despite rhetoric about addressing worsening social-economic conditions, these regimes remain committed to capitalism and neoliberalism. Since assuming political power, the conditions of rural and urban working classes have not improved, and the promised savings, incomes and jobs have not materialized. But, corporations and elites close to the ruling regimes have continued to win contracts for resource extraction, large infrastructure projects, industrial agriculture and property development.

Many right wing forces came to power through elections and claim democratic mandates to enact policies and laws that serve their agendas. However, they are opposed to liberal democracy, where all citizens, regardless of class, culture or religion enjoy the same rights, liberties and equality before law, and where robust oppositions provide checks and balances. Threats of political opposition from parties and social organisations are neutralized by dissolving some parties and making opportunistic alliances with others, and persecuting dissenters in the media and/or legally. Democratic procedures are used to build majoritarian societies where those identified as minorities face increasing disenfranchisement, marginalization and insecurity.

The reinvention of truth and facts – through the construction of narratives that present fictitious realities – are crucial strategies for the new regimes. These include: the decline of the nation and need for strong leaders to return it to greatness; racial, religious and gender superiority; threats to national security, identity and sovereignty; improvement in economic-social conditions, etc. These narratives are crucial for fascist regimes to be able to consolidate power, and are presented to the public through mainstream news, social media, text books, films, entertainment and public service programmes. They provide rationales for criminalizing and unleashing violence on those who are presented as enemies/threats (particular communities, migrants, rights activists, lawyers, journalists, movement leaders, etc.), and keep the populace in a state of uncertainty and anxiety, justifying the need for a “strong hand” to hold the nation together.

Authoritarian/fascist regimes threaten food sovereignty by their opposition to peoples’ rights, equality, diversity, local autonomy, cooperation and solidarity. They support the appropriation and control of lands, water, seeds, natural wealth, public resources and food systems by transnational capital. They rob local communities of their agency, and suppress voices and actions attempting to build peoples’ democracies from the ground up.

More info on the situation in Asia here.

Newsletter no 39 – Editorial

Newsletter no 39 - Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence

Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence

Illustration: Rosanna Morris, rosannamorris.com

In every region of the world, we are seeing the rise and consolidation of social, political and cultural forces that are racist, xenophobic, misogynist, male chauvinist, homo-lesbo-transphobic, anti-pacifist, antidemocratic and totalitarian. Variously called fascist, authoritarian populist, dictatorships and even democracies, these forces are identifiable by their opposition to pluralism, racial, religious and cultural diversity, social equality, gender autonomy, and secularism. They sway and control public opinion through discourses that are made up of bits of information cleverly stitched together to portray their own versions of reality. They demonize inconvenient truths as “fake news” and make up their own facts based not on objective reality, but on the ideological values of their respective movements.

All political regimes are authoritarian in varying degrees. However, the authoritarian/fascist regimes that have risen over the past decade are notably dangerous because of the support they have from astonishingly large cross sections of their populations and transnational capital, giving them the power to polarize and fracture societies, and reverse important, hard won gains in human rights, civil liberties, and secular, democratic governance.

In this edition of the Nyéléni newsletter, we examine the implications of these political-social configurations for the food sovereignty movement. We especially highlight how food sovereignty is itself a strategy of resistance against the dangerous wave of extreme authoritarianism sweeping the world.

Friends of the Earth International and Focus on the Global South

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Food sovereignty in an era of authoritarian and fascist resurgence, no 39

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Voices from the field

Newsletter no 38 - Peasant seeds, the heart of the struggle for food sovereignty

Voice from the field 1

A local seed house spearheads the struggle for Food Sovereignty in Palestine

Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Palestine

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a local seed house has been reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as commons and public goods since the early 2000s.

The local seed house is probably one of the most significant contributions in helping Palestinian farmers and consumers achieve food sovereignty. Established in Hebron, in 2003, by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the house is the first and only of its kind in Palestine. The house saves, protects, preserves, stores and reproduces 45 varieties of local vegetable and field crop seeds from 12 plant families, many of which risked extinction. Among them are corn, barley, wheat, cauliflower, turnip, cowpeas, eggplant, squash, okra, bitter gourd and snake cucumber seeds. All of these seeds come directly from Palestinian farmers and undergo a two-year verification process before being stored and made available to other farmers.

The house is equipped with four units: an entry unit, a test laboratory, a drying unit and a storage unit where seeds are stored for a maximum of five years. To protect this enormous genetic heritage from catastrophic events, samples of these seeds are also stored for the long term at sub-zero temperatures. After documenting the seeds’ performance in the field, such as germination percentage, seedling growth and flowering, UAWC provides these seeds for free to Palestinian peasants for at least two seasons annually.

This contributes to increasing the farmers’ revenues. In addition, these seeds help farmers fight against the effects of water grabbing by the Israeli occupation, as well as global warming, since they are drought-resistant and require no irrigation. As opposed to the hybrid seed varieties sold by Israeli and multinational companies like Bayer-Monsanto, the local seeds are fertilized with animal manure and require no chemical pesticides or glyphosate-based weed killers.

“We used to have to buy seeds from Israeli companies at high costs,” said Mahmoud Abu Kharatabel, a long-time farmer and member of UAWC. “But today, because of UAWC’s seed bank, many of us are able to plant with between 90 and 95 percent local seeds,” he said with pride.

The local seed house works with key farmers like Abu Kharatabel through a three-step process. Once the farmers receive the seeds, plant them and harvest, they divide the newly produced seeds into three groups. The first group is intended for their needs in the current season. The second group has to be stored and planted again in the upcoming season. And the third group is returned to the local bank in order to benefit other farmers and keep building seed sovereignty in Palestine.

“When farmers have their own seeds and can reproduce them, it means they can choose what to plant and when to plant,” explained Do’aZayed, UAWC’s seed bank coordinator. “And that’s why we established this local seed house.” She then summarized: “Seed sovereignty is the first step to achieving food sovereignty”.

Voice from the field 2

Safeguarding also means being able to experiment

Niagui Community, Senegal

Mangroves grow along several kilometres of the bank of the river Casamance. Mariama Sonko shows us the wooden structures where the Diola farmers in the Ziguinchor region raise oysters on strings[1], one of the ways in which they preserve their way of life and food sovereignty. This is the Niagui community in Senegal, on the Atlantic coast of Africa. We are in the savanna, covered with trees, bushes and swamps.

The Niagui people are very involved in their food sovereignty, and have seeds which allow them to sow their own food. Mariama Sonko is a member of the community who is carrying on the tradition of taking care of the seeds. She shows us rows of clay pots of various sizes along the adobe walls of a house in one community neighbourhood: “The clay regulates the temperature, which is essential for preserving the seeds. We make special pots, and by keeping them in those we can exchange them more easily. We women make the pots and lids and write different phrases on the sides, to help us think about the seeds and how important they are”.

Mariama Sonko clarifies that the idea is not to promote seed banks, “because the most important thing is to preserve ‘active’ seeds for the long term, that is the seeds which are in the fields all the time and are exchanged between each harvest at sowing time. The rice variety “brikissa” is the one most sown in the region, and is exchanged all the time; it takes about 50 days to sow”. She continues with great pride: “it was one of those women that in the city they call ‘illiterate’ who started to rebuild the traditional varieties. She understood that the conventional commercial ‘improved’ varieties were eroding our traditional seeds, which are much more resistant and adaptable to humidity and the vagaries of the climate. It is we women who pass on our knowledge, how to safeguard our seeds, from generation to generation. It comes from believing in ourselves.

Conventional seeds do not allow people to observe, calculate or experiment, because they come with precise instructions which leave us no options. We are talking about around twenty varieties of rice, and also sorghum, maize and millet. We don’t want to centralise the safeguarding work. We encourage autonomy, because conditions are changing, the soil is becoming less fertile, there’s a lack of rain and there’s demand for seeds. We are keeping up our practices, but conditions are changing”.

[1] In the mangroves, farmers grow oysters on strings woven on to frames.

Boxes

Newsletter no 38 - Peasant seeds, the heart of the struggle for food sovereignty

Box 1

Adopt a seed, action for life

On 16th October 2018, La Vía Campesina relaunched the Global Campaign “Peasant Seeds, a Heritage of Peoples in the Service of Humanity” and called for action to “Adopt a Seed” in this context. How to get involved?

We want every peasant or community to commit to adopting a seed variety, from any culture. Choose the one which sparks the most interest, because of its identity or territory, or its part in the affirmation of peasant life and culture. Each participant must become a guardian of that seed, guaranteeing its propagation. The idea is to create a wide network of peasant seeds, to recover seeds and extend production, towards Peoples’ Food Sovereignty.

As a result of this action we want to see thousands of communities improving biodiversity, recovering seed varieties, and thus guaranteeing Food Sovereignty and productive capacity. This is an action for life, to stop multinationals appropriating peasant seeds and reducing our autonomy and biodiversity, without peasant seeds, peasant farming becomes hostage to the multinationals!

You can start with your community and invite more people – the key is to take the first step! We would like to know about your community and the seed variety recovered. Write to us at lvcweb@viacampesina.org

Our Peasant Seeds

Peasant seeds are of immense value. They mean we have autonomy over our resources and decision making, because if we have seeds, we decide when and how to plant them. Seeds are the link which ensures the continuation of peasant farming and production of healthy food for workers and consumers. We shall only achieve Food Sovereignty if seeds are protected by peasants, communities and the peoples of the world. By extending this action we guarantee the right to quality food for the countryside and the city!

Box 2

Struggle for seed rights: Emerging threats to the Seed Treaty

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Seed Treaty) was adopted in 2001 and entered into force 15 years ago. It is the only global multilateral governance mandatory instrument that recognizes farmers’ collective rights to their seeds. The treaty facilitates and regulates the access to the seeds -the common heritage of humanity- stored in public gene banks connected to the Multilateral System and guarantees their availability for future generations.
The Treaty, though it is an unbalanced and unstable compromise, reflects power relations and worldviews of: (1) seed industry requiring facilitated access to peasant seeds while promising to share monetary and non-monetary benefits; and (2) peasant farmers demanding guarantee for their collective rights to save, use and exchange seeds and for future generations. The industry not only has failed by far to uphold the promise to share benefits, it is also strengthening plant variety protection laws that violate farmers’ rights. Thus, in 2013 Contracting Parties decided to set up a working group to improve the functioning of the Multilateral System and a mandatory Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) to access to the PGRFA (plant genetic resources for food and agriculture).

New emerging threats

Recent technological revolution in genomics made the sequence of genetic information of seeds very easy and affordable for everyone. Advanced biotechnology today is able to create new seeds just using the digital sequence information (DSI) acquired by physical seeds. This new technology disrupts the link between material (germplasm) and its derived outcomes (Dematerialization). The creation of new population or varieties using only DSI, which will be then patented, will increase the cases of biopiracy and will significantly limit farmers’ rights on their seeds. It is the easiest way to accelerate the erosion of biodiversity and threatens our future.

The Multilateral System of the Treaty is now inadequate in response to genetic technology at the disposal of the industry. Its scope is not well defined and it is not clear now if DSI have to be considered under the rules of the SMTA or if PGRFA as defined in the text of the Treaty does not include DSI. If there will be no quick decisions or at least discussions on the issue, industry will freely access to genetic sequences information as much as it can, profiting this lack of regulations.

DSI poses new challenges also to social movements, who need to devise newer strategies to counter this new form of capture. For now, it is clear that the biggest beneficiary of “common heritage of humanity” in gene banks is the seed industry. Most developed countries are complicit in this new threat as they work hand in glove with the industry to appropriate existing plant genetic resources for agriculture and food through patents. However, an efficient Multilateral System and an effective SMTA would benefit peasants that want to dynamically manage their biodiversity.

La Via Campesina and allies have rejected and denounced the industry‘s new attempts to push synthetic biology and genomics to circumvent Seed Treaty regulation and contravene article 9 of the Seed Treaty on right of farmers to save, use, exchange and sell their seeds. Not only in the Treaty, but also in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in its Protocols and in the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, we strongly denounce this strategy of the industry, which now appears clear to developing countries and other organizations.

We recall the Contracting Parties of the Treaty and other decision-making spaces to intervene and consider private intellectual property regimes’ obligations as part of economic rights, while respecting the effective implementation of farmers’ rights that belong to the sphere of human rights.

There are two broad ways to prevent the appropriation of all agricultural diversity and control of the food chain by a few transnational corporations: (1) ensure preeminence of peasants’ rights over the rights of breeders and patent holders and (2) uphold the right of peoples to define for themselves what they need to guarantee their food sovereignty.

Negotiations in the last Governing Body of the Treaty showed that the block of industrialized countries don’t want to discuss the issue, but just to postpone it, threating the multilateralism that characterize the UN System – especially USA that was chairing the session and biased the procedures for discussion. Now there will be the possibility to discuss this issue in the CBD, and La Via Campesina and its allies will put a lot of pressure to defend the rights of small scale family farmers and of future generations.

Box 3

Peasants Rights and our struggle for seeds

The Article 19 of the UNDROP [[UNDROP – UN Declaration for the Rights of Peasants and Other People working in Rural Areas was formally adopted by the UN General Assembly in December, 2018.]] recognize the right of peasants and other people working in rural areas to maintain, control, protect and develop their own seeds and traditional knowledge.

In accordance to the same Article, peasants and other people working in rural areas have the rights: (1) to the protection of traditional knowledge; (2) to equitably participate in sharing the benefits arising from the utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA); (3) to participate in the making of decisions on matters relating to the conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA; (4) to save, use, exchange and sell their farm-saved seed or propagating material.

In addition, UNDROP calls upon the States to ensure that seeds of sufficient quality and quantity are available to peasants at the most suitable time for planting and at an affordable price. Peasants need to have autonomy over their own seeds or other locally available seeds of crops and species that they wish to grow.

According to the Declaration, States are responsible to take appropriate measures to support peasant seed systems and promote the use of peasant seeds and agro-biodiversity, ensuring that agricultural research and development integrates the needs of peasants and other people working in rural areas. This means that peasants must be included in the definition of priorities and the undertaking of research and development; their experience has to be taken into account.

Finally, UNDROP recalls States to ensure that seed policies, plant variety protection and other intellectual property laws, certification schemes and seed marketing laws, respect and take into account the rights, needs and realities of peasants and other people working in rural areas.

Box 4

Outlawing our seeds in Latin America

Latin American governments are looking to standardise seeds in law. Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela have proposed and discussed seed laws. Many of these are being resisted by communities, organisations and peoples. These laws religiously follow the guidelines laid down by the big seed transnationals: Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva-Agriscience, ChemChina (Syngenta) and Vilmorin&Cie-Limograin.
United Nations agencies such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Conference on Trade and Development and the World Intellectual Property Organization are large bodies which promote these regulations, draw up model laws and teach governments how to implement them.

Marketing laws define the criteria which must be met for seeds to come on to the market. They can only be marketed if they are of a variety which meets three important requirements: they must be “distinct”, “uniform” and “stable”. Intellectual property laws are regulations which recognise that a person or entity, or a seed company, is the exclusive owner of a seed with particular characteristics, and has the legal right to stop other people or entities using, producing, exchanging or selling it. There are two main “intellectual property” systems for seeds: patents, and Plant Variety Protection, which confers rights on whoever “obtains” a variety, even if it goes back thousands of years in its present form. Trade and investment agreements are tools used by companies to force governments to adopt and promote corporate rights over seeds.

These laws seek to outlaw the way peasants’ and indigenous people’s local systems use, exchange, produce and improve local varieties. They allow companies to define national policies on seeds, research, and agriculture. This creates a certification and oversight system controlled by private corporations. It forces communities and peoples to accept standards set by the transnationals, and to be scrutinised by private bodies if they wish to continue to exchange “legal” seeds. It delays, minimises or eliminates any concern for preserving agricultural diversity. It aims to standardise seed use and exchange traditions, which date back thousands of years. It imposes industrial standards on agriculture, facilitating seed privatisation. It seeks to qualify and classify all seeds, even local and native ones, so that corporate ownership of seeds is respected. In this way, whoever produces seeds will be monitored, no matter what seed they produce or how they exchange it.

Poem

The mission of the seed

A seed of life came in the arms of the north wind,
Born of a large and fleshy fruit,
Of gigantic buds of dreams and struggle!
Burned women, murdered women,
Women resisting, women conquering their rights.
Seeds multiply, resurrecting utopia in each step,
Returning to the land of this immense world.

Today, the seeds are you and me,
Ready, waiting to fall into our mother’s lap – earth,
Listen … you’re begging for it!
Every patch of soil is a mouth crying out for justice!
Who can stand the silence of unproductive land?
A living cemetery of hope, sowing hatred and exclusion.

The seeds are you and me
And the plow – our organization – has already made grooves in the ground,
Let us sleep upon the earth,
Let her tell us the secret of the mission
We will feel the rain: another partner joining the fight
Let the dream and commitment grow within us!
And when it’s too big and we can no longer hold it in,
We will burst and be seeds no more!

We will be militants, that as plants grow and find
A great red sun shining on high – the new society!
And we will feel its kiss on our mouth.
Then we will be plants no more but become fruits!
And we will feed ourselves with our struggle, with our conquests,
We ourselves and those we love
And until the day we will die, as ripe fruits ….
And these fruits will fall like tears, touching the earth, and become seeds.
And so eternally …

Until the day when there is no more the cursed hoe or sickle of domination,
Threatening the buds of the earth.
On that day, you will hear a great sigh of relief, followed by a birth:
We will eat,
We will celebrate
We will dance with our harps and guitars!
And we will sing with the voice of the heart!
Because our eyes, full of tenderness, will finally be able to see,
The seed – our mission – transformed into harvest!

(Original poem in spanish by Daniel Salvado)

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 38 - Peasant seeds, the heart of the struggle for food sovereignty

In the spotlight 1 

Global Campaign “Peasant seeds a heritage of peoples in the service of humanity”, a way to promote Food Sovereignty

Peasants’ seeds are a heritage of peoples in the service of humanity. Seed is life, the basis of global food production, essential for peasants to produce healthy and culturally appropriate food and crucial for consumers and citizens who seek to find healthy and diversified food. Seed is part of peasant culture and is our heritage, allowing us to resist, maintain our ancestral wisdom and defend our peasant identity.

However, under the pretext of “improving” seed productivity, agribusiness has created a neo-liberal seed system that has homogenized, impoverished and monopolized seeds, causing the loss of three-quarters of seed diversity and annihilating a diversity that it took people — thanks to the work of peasants — 10000 years to generate.

Three companies, Monsanto-Bayer, Syngenta-ChemChina and Dupont-Dow, control more than 50% of the world’s commercial seeds — increasingly genetically modified seeds to resist herbicides and produce insecticides. Under the impetus of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund), and through free trade agreements and laws protecting seed and breeders’ rights, such as UPOV (Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) model laws, this seed system only allows the circulation of its own seeds, criminalizing the saving, exchange, utilization, donation and sale of local farmer seeds. The situation is such that peasants have lost control over local seeds, are criminalised for the use and exchange of their seeds heritage, and often subjected to raids and seizure of their seeds. Biodiversity is endangered by the use of chemical fertilizers, hybrid seeds and genetically modified organisms — including the consequences of the new breeding techniques — developed by multinational companies. Citizens have difficulty accessing healthy, diversified and culturally appropriate food.

La Via Campesina and its allies are fighting to change the situation. As part of its Global Campaign “Peasant Seeds a heritage of peoples in the service of humanity”, launched in Rome in 2001, La Via Campesina and its member organizations have carried out training, education, mutual support and seeds exchange. The peasant movements continue to fight for national laws and international treaties to guarantee the rights of farmers to save, use, exchange, sell and protect their seeds against biopiracy and genetic contamination, we write books on the history of seeds, carry out studies and mapping. La Via Campesina’s network of agroecology schools around the world, also organize peasants’ seed exchange fairs. Thereby, the global campaign promotes the recovery of traditional systems for the conservation, maintenance and exchange of local seeds and the inalienable collective rights of peasants over their seeds.

On October 16, 2018, on the occasion of the World Day of Action for Food Sovereignty of Peoples and Against Multinationals, La Via Campesina stepped up this campaign by calling for coordinated the action called “Adopt a Seed” (For more information check Box 1 of this edition). The movement is calling on every peasant, peasant family or community to engage in the adoption of a variety of plant, to become the guardian of this seed, ensuring its propagation, reproduction and distribution and to engage in the collective defence of their rights to use, exchange, sell and protect them. So far, in Brazil, Palestine, Paraguay, India, Thailand, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Indonesia, Canada and several other countries — through direct actions and seed fairs — peasants have engaged in conserving native varieties and teaching others about agroecology.

Without seeds, there is no agriculture; without agriculture, there is no food; and without food, there are no peoples!

In the spotlight 2

The call for action to “adopt a seed” reaches across the world

Peasants’ seeds are a heritage of peoples in the service of humanity. This is what the International Peasants’ Movement believes, as well as being the name of the campaign launched by La Via Campesina (LVC) to protect and preserve peasants’ seeds. Under the auspices of this campaign, LVC has launched the call for action to “Adopt a seed” several times and in several regions of the world, calling for peasants and their families to exchange and propagate peasants’ seeds.

On the World Day of Action for Food Sovereignty, on 16 October 2018, LVC launched an appeal to its member organisations and alliances and to all peasant families, to get involved in the “adopt a seed” action (for more read Box 1). The first event took place in Brazil with the Small Farmers Movement (MPA), one of its member organisations.

The world exchange was held between 29 August and 4 September 2018, when a delegation from LVC travelled 1,700 km across Brazil, visiting peasant families. The delegates, from Korea, Costa Rica, Palestine, Switzerland and Zimbabwe, represented organisations already involved in conserving seeds in their own countries. During this international exchange, the LVC delegates looked carefully at the MPA’s experience in the states of Sergipe and Bahia in northeast Brazil. They also visited the “seed houses” established to stock peasant communities’ seeds. These are overseen by the “seed central office” which stocks all the seeds in the area and also serves as a place for training and farming production. Information was given and discussions were held on seed laws as well as agroecological practices and representations of rural art and culture.

As well as being the International Day of Action for People’s Food Sovereignty, 16 October 2019 was also the date when an international peasants’ seeds exchange took place in Palestine. This was organised by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and La Via Campesina. Farmers from all four corners of the globe came to take part in the exchange: Honduras, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, South Africa, Colombia, the Netherlands, Mozambique, Germany and the United States. The UAWC has a wealth of experience in preserving peasants’ seeds, having established its first seed house 17 years ago in Hebron. The house has enabled several seed varieties to be saved from extinction, and has stood up to Israeli occupation which imposed hybrid seeds sold by Bayer-Monsanto. All the seeds from the UAWC bank come from peasants and undergo a two-year verification process in an internal laboratory before being redistributed to the peasants (for more read Voice from the Field 1).

LVC’s next international seed exchange will take place in Korea in 2020. Seed exchange fairs are organised in several regions of the world by members of the movement and alliances. The “adopt a seed” action is one of solidarity, resistance and mysticism which should be replicated throughout the world in order to preserve peasants’ seeds, which are the ground rock of our agriculture and our lives.

Newsletter no 38 – Editorial

Newsletter no 38 - Peasant seeds, the heart of the struggle for food sovereignty

Peasant seeds – the heart of the struggle for food sovereignty

In 2018 the United Nations (UN) adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, recognising at the highest level of international governance the strategic role played by the peasants of the world. The Declaration complements the measures and policies required for the UN Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028), and for the implementation of Article 9 of the ITPGRFA (International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture). It highlights the role of peasant seeds in achieving Food Sovereignty, and in developing agrarian policies which favour peasant farmers.

These policy instruments make it clear that it is vital to guarantee the right of peoples to “Maintain, control, protect and develop their own seeds and traditional knowledge”. One of the specific actions launched by La Via Campesina 20 years ago was the Global Campaign for “Peasant Seeds, a Heritage of Peoples in the Service of Humanity”, which seeks to move beyond the rural environment and involve and bring together other grassroots sectors in this affirmation of their way of life.

In this edition of the newsletter we are inviting you to return to the debate on Peasant seeds – the heart of the struggle for Food Sovereignty, which guarantee full Peasant Rights. We are sharing a series of articles which seek to raise awareness and improve organisation for Peasant Seeds in all territories, and providing information about how to join the “Adopt a Seed” action. You will also find testimonies of the actions of resistance people are engaged in to keep peasant seeds in the hands of those who feed populations in a fair and healthy way.
La Vía Campesina and GRAIN

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Voices from the field

Newsletter no 37 - The digitalization of the food system

Voice from the field 1

Dematerialization of seeds

Alimata Traoré, President of the Convergence of Rural Women for Food Sovereignty (COFERSA), Mali

“What if there were a power cut after putting all our seeds into a computer, what then?” This is how the women of my organization, COFERSA, reacted when I explained to them what governments discussed at the seventh session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in Kigali in October 2017.

We, the peasant communities, work with living beings in our fields. This is how we preserve biodiversity. My community has selected a variety of sorghum that is drought resistant if grown using a farming technique called zaï [Zaï is a West African traditional farming technique whereby pits are dug into micro-basins using a pick-axe with a small handle (known as daba), and then the seeds are sown. This particular type of cultivating allows for the concentration of water and manure in arid and semi-arid zones.]. And now, a company would become its owner because it masters IT? Until recently, researchers or companies had to come to our villages to ask us for seeds, in order to further develop them and then sell them. Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic sequencing have changed this: breeders in the industry no longer need access to material seeds. They now analyze the digitized representation of genetic sequences on their computer screens.

When we talk about the “dematerialization” of genetic resources, we refer to the sequencing of the genome of living organisms, the massive gathering of peasant knowledge about the characteristics of these organisms, and then the digitizing and storing of this information in huge electronic databases. Companies then file patents on these genetic sequences, which allow them to force us to pay licensing fees if the same sequence is found in our seeds. “Dematerialization” is therefore the new way of capturing the wealth that has been created by peasant communities over the centuries, bypassing international texts that recognize our rights.

We the peasants of Africa are not backward, nor against technology. We use it when it serves to strengthen our struggles, but we demand that our rights be respected and protected. Those who can use all these computer technologies and databases are large multinational companies. It’s not for us. Because of this, we oppose patents on genetic information. And we fight for the protection of our peasant seed systems, which allow us to play our role as guardians and guarantors of the biodiversity and life. No machine or software can ever replace our peasant knowledge.

Voice from the field 2

I Campesino: Digital, rural, self-determined

FarmHack.org community reflections on digitization in the USA alternative agriculture movement

Even in this hyper connected world, we, young and youngish farmers in the US agroecology scene, spend most of our time outside, connected more of the time to the ecosystem than to the internet. It is a straddle, between subsistence and the marketplace, between the wild, feral and domesticated ecologies, sometimes farming or caring for children or running equipment while holding the smart phone in our teeth! Many farms in the USA rely on smartphones for record keeping, for marketing, for managing orders and customers, as web-shops and market portals – to stay in daily touch with our networks of collaborators and a customer base increasingly accustomed to direct relationships with their growers.

In the US, we have some convergent social movements, which have shaped the culture and practices of our open source agricultural tools ecosystem. These include a co-incidence with a boom in open internet infrastructure, including Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Craiglist, Napster, Tor-Drupal and more. As a generation brought up since grade school with computers, we are quite adept at finding information with keywords online, from videos on Google’s YouTube to historical documents protected in the commons at www.archive.org.

We are also quite adept at building our own infrastructure where there is none, of which FarmHack.org is a prime example. FarmHack.org was born in 2008 from a community of farmers that convened at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and worked together to build a platform to host a farm tool sharing service, through a very simple website, in-person meet-ups, and a diffuse international community of practitioners working together online. FarmHack.org has sought to become the open-source platform through which farmers can share their innovative approaches to addressing existing equipment gaps[[Small and medium scale vegetable growers in particular find that there are ‘equipment gaps’ as we work to re-build diversity in cropping systems and regions which had become concentrated and simplified.]] with their fellow smallholder farmers [See article on FarmHack and Atelier Paysan in Nyéléni Newsletter no 36, Agroecology: real innovation from and for the people]. Today, the young farmers’ movement, the open source software movement, and the “right to repair” movements [Farmers who buy tractors from the big agricultural machinery companies are often not allowed to repair them. A clause in the purchasing contract requires that only accredited mechanics … are allowed to repair the machines. The “right to repair” movement challenges that, and asserts farmers’ rights to repair their own machinery.] converge in FarmHack and Gathering for Open Ag Tech (GOAT) communities. This is not only happening in the US, in Quebecois Canada there are strong collaborations going on as well.

Agribusiness’ vision of agriculture without farmers is “precision agriculture.” Both the agro-input companies and the farm machinery corporations (e.g. John Deere) have been investing massively in big data and information and communication technology in recent years. “Precision agriculture” entails a model of extreme mechanization in agricultural production, enabled by the convergence of powerful new digital technologies and algorithmic processing of big data. In this “vision,” technology and data are used to further consolidate corporate control over the food system, and monopolies. Farm machinery companies – just as agricultural input companies – are nowadays big data companies. They equip their machines with sensors and chips that collect and analyze all kinds of data, all the time – weather records, soil moisture, pests, crop history etc. These are turned into big datasets that are run through machine-learning algorithms that then inform automated farming machineries.

In reply, we propose a strong community vision for “decision agriculture,” which puts forward our autonomy and rights. In addition to building our own tools/hardware, which we can control (e.g. bike-based farm equipment, do-it-yourself tractor mounted equipment “à la Atelier” etc.), we develop our own open source software and apps (e.g. an adaptive management software called “farmOS”). We have also started to use drones, sensors (e.g. for monitoring greenhouses, fencing, etc.), big data and tech-enabled observation to improve our farming systems and adapt them to local conditions and changing climate. Many of these practices share thinking and approaches with Citizen Science communities such as Publiclab.org, and work helping communities hold their elected officials accountable to environmental justice using low cost monitoring tools. Publiclab has emphasis areas in do-it-yourself soil testing (for contamination) and carbon monitoring (using spectrometry). Our strategies focus on communicating and sharing locally relevant agricultural knowledge across cultural, geographic and language boundaries.

We are at an interesting crossroads where the cost and accessibility of digital tools is being turned on its head. The next generation of open source micro-controllers and internet connected devices and associated batteries and motors is far lower cost and more accessible and scalable for small-scale producers, and may even already have economic advantages over large-scale proprietary systems. Low cost climate control, simple automation, animal monitoring, and on-farm value added processes are but some sample use cases with interesting potential for small-scale farmers.

Low cost communications tools are also crucial for sharing and improving practical knowledge related to the complexities of regenerative agriculture, and form the foundation for valuing ecosystem functions. Even simple hardware designs and on-farm and local manufacturing of hardware are made more effective with peer to peer communications tools to exchange and adapt designs for local conditions. We are even exploring peer to peer networks that can create functional farmer communications networks external to the internet.

Boxes

Newsletter no 37 - The digitalization of the food system

Box 1

The Internet of cows

It sounds like a joke, but it is one more aspect of the invasion of digital technologies into agriculture and food, whose ultimate aim is an agriculture without farmers – industrialized from seed to plate or glass of milk, and controlled by large agribusiness companies, machinery and computing.

Companies like IBM, Microsoft and Huawei offer technology packages for what they call the “Internet of cows.” These are digital devices (collars and / or chips) that are placed in each cow to measure their pulse, temperature, peak fertility and other health conditions related to the digestive system. The data is transmitted over the internet to a cloud owned by the companies themselves, which stores them in Big Data systems, analyzes them with artificial intelligence and sends the information that the program deems pertinent to the computer or telephone of the agricultural company, farm owner. There are also interactive chips that can direct the cattle for milking when it is time, connected to an automated milking system previously installed to suit the cow in question. Each device is associated with a particular cow.

For a decade there have been satellite systems for monitoring livestock in certain areas. The difference now is that the data collection is much broader, the data is about each animal, and all the information goes into a cloud owned by those companies, or according to the contracts shared clouds with Bayer-Monsanto or agricultural machinery companies such as John Deere.

There is also the internet of pigs and sheep, which are similarly structured. The idea is not that the process ends at each farm, but that the monitoring follows each animal, including on the hoof livestock transactions, through the use of blockchain and crypto currencies, to the slaughterhouse, certification chains that include processing, sale tracking retail and even as far as the refrigerator.

Both IBM and Microsoft have advanced digital systems that cover all the agricultural production of a farm. The package offered by Microsoft, called “Farmbeats”, offers a system of permanent monitoring of the condition of soils, humidity and water, condition of the crops (if they need irrigation, if there are diseases, pests, etc.), climatic data, up to date weather data (wind direction, rains, etc.), to provide indications when and where to sow, apply irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides, when to harvest etc – all from the Microsoft cloud.

To solve the issue of rural connectivity, a key element of the system, but which is lacking in rural areas, Microsoft uses the “white spaces of TV”, which are disused television bands. This allows a router to be installed in each farm, connecting sensors, drones, chips, phones and computers to the Internet within a radius of a few kilometers and sending the information to the company’s cloud.

The largest agribusiness companies such as Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and BASF have digital divisions with projects of this kind and since 2012 they have collaboration agreements or joint ventures with the largest machinery companies (John Deere, AGCO, CNH, Kubota) for big systems data, clouds for storage and computing, and drone companies. For example, PrecisionHawk, Raven, Sentera and Agribotix are new companies created in collaboration between multinationals manufacturers of agrotoxic seeds and machinery.

Again, as with transgenics, companies claim that this is necessary to feed a growing world population, to increase production, save water and be “sustainable.” In reality, it is about agriculture without farmers, aimed at replacing small farms with large companies, where from the seed to the plate, the control is carried out by a chain of transnationals that leave no decision to the farmers.

Each farm also provides a large amount of data that companies appropriate, building maps over entire regions, which allows them to visualize and negotiate projects far beyond each farm, passing over farmers and peasants.
They are projects that move forward, but it does not mean that they work. The true knowledge about fields and animals, which is what gives food and sustenance to most of the planet, come from the peasant way of life itself. These technology packages are new forms of attack against her.

* ETC Group’s contribution, more information on this in the ETC Group report, Blocking the Chain. Industrial food chain concentration, Big Data platforms and food sovereignty solutions, 2018.

Box 2

Digital green grabbing in Brazil

The Cerrado region in Brazil, one of the most biodiverse in the planet, has been witnessing the rampant expansion of agribusiness, especially in the region called MATOPIBA [MATOPIBA is the acronym for a land area of 73,173,485 hectares across the States of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia.], which has been called “ideal” for soy plantations by agribusiness due to its terrain comprised of plateaus and lowlands.

Since some areas of the MATOPIBA region (especially the lowlands) still have a cover of native Cerrado vegetation, industrial farmers and agribusiness companies are now staking a claim to those lands, in order to comply with Brazilian legislation. The Brazilian Forest Code (Law 12651/2012) requires landowners to keep at least 20% of their land in the Cerrado biome –the so-called “legal reserves”. Because the plateaus have been almost completely deforested for the establishment of soy plantations, agribusiness companies are expanding their farms to the lowlands, where the local villages are situated.

Land grabbers use the Rural Environmental Registry (Cadastro Ambiental Rural, CAR) as an instrument to formalize their land claims. The CAR is an online system, in which anybody can register environmental and land use information; no proof of property is required. Although according to the legislation CAR does not have any value as a property title, agribusiness companies are attempting to utilize it as proof of their land occupation and use. This is the case of the “legal reserves areas'” – most of them covered with native vegetation; that are registered as part of their property, although those lands are traditionally used by the local communities.

Communities who try to register their lands in the CAR often find out that they have already been registered by plantation owners. Despite the flaws of the CAR, unfortunately several initiatives have promoted this system, such as a project coordinated by the UNDP and Conservation International with the objective of encouraging “sustainable” soy production in the Cerrado.

Box 3

Digitalization of fisheries

In the last few decades, the collection of ocean data has developed hugely and for a range of reasons. These include tracking cargo shipments, creating digital seafloor maps, and monitoring fish stocks, resulting in the development of quota allocations and the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) system. However, the concern is around what kinds of political-economic agenda the collection of big data will mobilise and what the consequences for small-scale fishing communities around the world may be. The widespread increase in the use of data and the digitalization of the ocean space needs to be considered in light of historical political-economic shifts concerning use and control of ocean-space and in particular within the narrative of the “Blue Economy”.

Data and fisheries

The use of data in fisheries emerged simultaneously with discussions around the optimal use of national fish stocks based on a discourse of environmental sustainability and economic efficiency. The production of this data resulted in the development of the TAC system which is determined by fisheries scientists through annual surveys which collect data on the population sizes of commercial fish species. The collection of these data has been increasingly digitalized through on-board GPS devices and the automatic storage of information on computers. The ability to record catches in real-time means that the TAC and remaining quotas or catches that exceed the quota can be detected immediately. Although this knowledge adds to the global understanding of species populations and distributions in the ocean, the quantitative and scientific nature of this data undermines the traditional knowledge of local fishers which allow them to protect the sustainability of ocean ecosystems.

Quota-based management systems and catch share models such as Individual Transferrable Quotas (ITQs) were made possible through the digitalization of fish stock data. These types of management systems are supported by environmental organisations that advocate for the implementation of these models for the advancement of conservation efforts in the oceans. However, they are often contentious as they are a result of privatization of public resources and are associated with inequitable allocation of fisheries resources.

Data and the Blue Economy

The increasing role of data in ocean management is being emphasised as part of the growing pressure on the ocean and ocean resources to act as a new economic frontier to solve a myriad of crises in our food, energy, and climate systems. The expansion of big data turns the ocean into a financial asset to be exploited for economic profitability rather than a point of access for variable and nutritious food and ecosystem to be respected and nurtured. The market-based agenda of the blue economy focuses on private sector involvement in ocean-based extractive developments. According to the blue economy discourse, emerging ocean-based industries have high growth, innovation, and job creation potential, and can contribute to energy security, climate change management, and food security. However, these discourses are also associated with dispossession and the appropriation of ocean resources and spaces.

A variety of developments have been facilitating the increased gathering of data for ocean management in growing the blue economy. Satellite data has been growing exponentially and is set to double by 2020. With increased spatial and spectral resolution, more data per instrument will be recorded with fewer limitations to observation. Drones and unmanned airborne vehicles are allowing for cheaper and easier data collection. In order for big data to contribute to growing a rich information ecosystem, advanced application programming interfaces are being developed to allow for quick and cheap processing of the huge amounts of data that are being collected.

Impacts

Fishers have a deep-seated knowledge of fish species populations, breeding cycles, migration patterns, and fishing techniques which they use to protect fish stocks. The quantitative and scientific nature of the calculation of the TAC overlooks this knowledge, reducing information to scientific data rather than holistically combining this with existing traditional knowledge. The vision of nutrition has become technical in nature and food is increasingly viewed as a commodity rather than part of the commons. This reductionist, fragmented and individualist view of food lacks a human rights perspective.

Digitalization widens the gap between producers and consumers; it results in an increasingly automated and delocalized process of food production, and dispossesses fishers of their knowledge and access to ocean resources. This shifts the power from physical food production systems and fishing activities in favour of often-unknown financial actors with access to and control over these technologies. It concentrates political and economic power in the hands of remote actors who engage in the immaterial realm of information and financial means, reaffirming class struggles and oppressive inequality. Additionally, all of this big data feeds into policy decisions such as determining the use of ocean space with technical tools such as Marine Spatial Planning. These data are being mobilised to support a certain type of political-economic agenda and, if this includes the increasingly dominant discourse of Blue Economy, the consequences for small-scale fishers with marginal political power across the world may be devastating.