Agriculture
Living in Epoch-Defining Times: Food, Agriculture and the New World Order https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/living-in-epoch-defining-times-food-agriculture-and-the-new-world-order/ Colin Todhunter Jan 7 2022
This is the future that big agritech and agribusiness envisage: a future of ‘data-driven’ and ‘climate-friendly’ agriculture that they say is essential if we are to feed a growing global population. the aim is for a relative handful of corporations to gain full control of the entire global food system. what is envisaged will lead to the further trashing of rural economies, communities and cultures.
Organic agriculture and Agroecology are not necessarily one and the same. Whereas organic agriculture can still be part of the prevailing globalised food regime dominated by giant agrifood conglomerates, agroecology uses organic practices but is ideally rooted in the principles of localisation, food sovereignty and self-reliance. The FAO recognises that agroecology contributes to improved food self-reliance, the revitalisation of smallholder agriculture and enhanced employment opportunities. It has argued that organic agriculture could produce enough food on a global per capita basis for the current world population but with reduced environmental impact than conventional agriculture.
Global agribusiness and agritech firms continue to marginalise organic, capture public bodies and push for their chemical-intensive, high-tech approaches. Although organic farming and natural farming methods like agroecology offer genuine solutions for many of the world’s pressing problems (health, environment, employment, rural development, etc), these approaches challenge corporate interests and threaten their bottom line.
In India, Walmart and Amazon could end up dominating the e-retail sector... The government is facilitating the dominance of giant corporations, not least through digital or e-commerce platforms. E-commerce companies not only control data about consumption but also control data on production, logistics, who needs what, when they need it, who should produce it, who should move it and when it should be moved...These platforms have the capacity to shape the entire physical economy.
10,000 FPOs Scheme will Bring a Revolutionary Change in Agri Sector: 22 April, 2022 https://krishijagran.com/agriculture-world/10-000-fpos-scheme-will-bring-a-revolutionary-change-in-agri-sector-narendra-tomar/
Narendra Tomar : The role of Cluster-Based Business Organisations (CBBOs) must be to strengthen Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) so that farmers seek them out. A FPO is not just a company, it is a collective for the benefit of farmers. He said that earlier around 7,000 Farmer Producer Organizations were made but they could not last and a new scheme of FPOs was launched by the Prime Minister with an outlay of Rs. 6865 crore. At a time when the country is observing Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, the government is making every effort for the prosperity of farmers.
the Government created a dedicated Central Sector Scheme “Formation & Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), and the same was launched by PM Modi on 29 Feb 2020 at Chitrakoot (UP) for implementation. The scheme is based on the produce cluster approach to enhance production, productivity, market access, promote diversification, value addition, processing and export and also to create agri-based employment opportunities with the aim to economically empower farmers.
To strengthen the financial base of FPOs and entail them to avail collateral-free loan, there is a provision for matching equity grant of max Rs. 2000/- per member with ceiling of Rs, 15 lakh per FPO and Credit Guarantee facility upto bankable project loan of Rs. 2.00 crore respectively.
Time to revitalise Gram Swaraj PVS Suryakumar Mar 31, 2022 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/time-to-revitalise-gram-swaraj/article65277370.ece why go for a pilot Gram Swaraj? Individual farmer-oriented approaches have not delivered enough. Our administrative system is divided into several line departments but the recipient is one — the farmer. The optimal approach is considering the village as a unit for planning, by adapting the area approach.
Livelihoods must then be planned so that village(s) can specialise and have enough marketable surplus for produce aggregation. The infrastructure required must then be created to match actual requirements. Support from line departments is usually straitjacketed and cannot handle the area planning approach.
Hence, empowered project management units can only implement Gram Swaraj initially. When this idea gets grounded, the line departments can be re-engineered. The ‘One District One Product’ scheme essentially emphasises on specialisation, for economies of scale to work, right from production to marketing. The idea is to further refine it to the village level.
Digital control: how Big Tech moves into food and farming (and what it means) by GRAIN https://grain.org/en/article/6595-digital-control-how-big-tech-moves-into-food-and-farming-and-what-it-means | 21 Jan 2021
What does this mean for small farmers and local food systems? -- integration between the companies that supply products to farmers (pesticides, tractors, drones, etc) and those that control the flow of data and have access to food consumers.
- getting farmers to use their mobile phone apps to supply them with data - big e-platform corporations taking control of food distribution.
Together, they favour the use of chemical inputs and costly machinery, as well as the production of commodities for corporate buyers not local markets. They encourage centralisation, concentration and uniformity, and are prone to abusing their power and monopolisation.
The advice small farmers will get from such digital networks, via text messages on their cell phones, will be far from revolutionary. And, if these farmers are practicing agroecology and mixed cropping, any advice they receive will be completely useless. But good advice to farmers is not really the end game here anyway. For the corporations investing in digital agriculture, the objective is to integrate millions of small farmers into a vast, centrally controlled digital network. Once integrated, they are heavily encouraged- if not obligated- to buy their products (inputs, machinery, and financial services) and to supply them with agricultural commodities that they can then sell onwards.
PEOPLE VS. AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATIONS: THE BATTLE OVER GLOBAL FOOD AND AGRICULTURE GOVERNANCE
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/brief-un-food-systems-summit.pdf
how the 2021 Food Systems Summit became the most uneventful UN event.
People Vs. Agribusiness Corporations calls out a number of powerful actors — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, some Western governments, the World Bank, and others — who actively prevent the much needed transition as they continue to peddle corporate industrial agriculture.
The United Nations were created by states. In today’s globalized and interconnected world, when governments capitulate to corporate influence, civil society organizations, with cross border and multisectoral alliances, are the central force that defends the universalist values and principles on which this institution was built.
Podcasts
UN Food Systems Summit Resistance: exploring resistance to the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit and mapping out sustainable, bottom-up approaches to food sovereignty.
Part One, Nnimmo Bassey and Kristen Lyons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/resistance-to-the-un-food-systems-summit-part-1/id1535716797?i=1000535184143
“The major issues are many, of course, and we do realize that a majority of those who go to bed hungry every day in the Global South are actually farmers. So the question is, how does this happen? How can farmers go to bed hungry?” Nnimmo Bassey
Part Two, Elizabeth Mpofu, Alejandro Argumedo, and Anuradha Mittal https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/un-food-systems-summit-resistance-two-elizabeth-mpofu-alejandro-argumedo-anuradha-mittal
“Farmers and civil society organizations were not consulted when the summit was being organized and it is not inclusive, but only focusing on the big agribusiness players… that is why the boycott has been so intensive.” Elizabeth Mpofu
“It's not grounded in people's rights, but in corporate rights. And it doesn't look actually for system change, but for maintaining this system, in a way that extends the control of the corporate power.” Alejandro Argumedo