Fwd: FW: [Food-news] Dispelling the Myth of Agribusiness in Brazil

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> *Editor's Note: This article from ZNet attempts

> to dispel some of

> the " propaganda " produced around the great

> benefits of agribusiness

> in Brazil. This perspective from the landless

> workers' movement

> (MST) insists that peasant agriculture offers

> far more benefits than

> agribusiness: growing polycultures as opposed to

> monocultures,

> providing more employment thereby redistributing

> income more

> effectively and strengthening local economies.

>

>

>

>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=48 & ItemID=9786

>

> *

>

>

> * The perverse nature of

> agribusiness for Brazilian

> society*

>

> *by MST

> <http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=book/print/276>;

> February

> 22, 2006*

>

> Dear friends of the MST,

>

> In this special edition, we will discuss

> AGRIBUSINESS. This

> discussion will be a bit lengthy, but only

> because we believe it

> necessary to explain our position and the

> reasons that cause us

> to be radically against this practice in the

> Brazilian countryside.

>

> *I - What is agribusiness?*

> The word agribusiness has a generic meaning,

> refering to all

> business activities with farm products. When

> a small farmer

> sells a product at the market, he is

> practicing agribusiness.

> When a market vendor sells fruits and

> vegetables, he is

> practicing agribusiness. That is the essence

> of the meaning of

> the term, used on an international level.

>

> However here in Brazil the expression was

> used by the ranchers,

> by university intellectuals, and above all

> by the press, to

> designate a characteristic of production in

> the countryside.

> They call those modern plantations that use

> vast expanses of

> land and are dedicated to monoculture

> " agribusiness " . That is,

> plantations that specialize in one product,

> with technology,

> mechanization, sometimes irrigation, little

> manual labor, and

> for this reason they speak with pride that

> they achieve high

> productivity. All based on low salaries,

> intense use of

> agro-toxins and GMO seeds. In the majority

> of cases, production

> is for export, in particular, sugar-cane,

> coffee, cotton, soy,

> oranges, cacao, besides cattle raising. This

> type of plantation

> is called agribusiness.

>

> But what's new? Nothing. If we study it

> carefully, it is the

> same type of production that was used in the

> colonial period,

> during the period of the agro-export model.

> What has changed is

> only that slave labor has been changed to

> wage work and the

> techniques have been modernized. And studies

> show that the wages

> are the lowest when compared with pay in

> industry, trade and on

> the big plantations in the developed

> countries. Many Brazilian

> studies affirm that it is not our climate

> and our farm know-how

> that give Brazilian ranchers the comparative

> advantages but

> rather the lack of respect for their

> employees and lack of

> control on the part of the government in

> relation to the

> agression against the environment without

> any sense of

> responsibility to future generations. There

> are, for example,

> numerous accusations by agronomists and

> scientists of the damage

> that the planting of soy causes in the

> pasture land of the

> Northeast region of Maranhão.

>

> *II. The false propaganda of agribusiness

> and its class alliance:*

>

> In the last few years the Brazilian media,

> mainly the large

> newspapers and TV stations, have done

> systematic propaganda in

> favor of the agribusiness model, as if it

> were the salvation of

> Brazil. They claim that it is responsible

> for the growth of our

> economy, for job creation, for modern

> agriculture and for the

> production of food.

>

> All these arguments used in their propaganda

> do not sustain a

> more rigorous analysis:

>

> /- Agribusiness is responsible for the

> economic growth of the

> GNP/: agricultural production, strictly

> speaking (farming and

> ranching) correspond to only 12% of all

> national production. So

> even if agriculture were double the value or

> volume of

> production, its influence in the total

> economy is very small.

> The ones who promote agribusiness usually

> mix agriculture with

> agro-industry, to say that its importance in

> the economy is

> growing by 37%. Even so, the importance and

> growth of

> agro-industry does not depend on the area

> cultivated but on the

> consumer market. If the people in the city

> have money to buy

> more food, agro-industry would grow in

> Brazil. However, its

> success depends on the value of the minimum

> wage and on income

> distribution in the urban centers.

>

> /- Agribusiness is responsible for the

> success of industry:/

> nothing could be more of a fantasy. At the

> end of the 1970's and

> beginning of the 1980's, at the peak of

> agriculture subordinated

> to industry and with easy credit to expand

> the industrialization

> of farming, around 65 thousand tractors of

> all types were sold

> per year. Thirty years have passed,

> agribusiness of the

> neoliberal model has been implemented and at

> the height of the

> so-called success of agribusiness in 2004,

> only 37 thousand

> tractors were sold. The industries had to

> sell another 35,000

> units outside the country to keep from

> failing. Worse yet:

> according to the data of the IBGE (Brazilian

> Institute for

> Geography and Statistics), in the last

> census the ranches with

> more than 2,000 hectares had only 35,000

> tractors. On the other

> hand, the small properties with fewer than

> 200 hectares had more

> than 500,000 tractors.

>

> /- Agribusiness took charge of Brazilian

> agriculture:/ if

> agribusiness is so great, why hasn't the

> cultivated area in

> Brazil grown? Since the 1980's, the total

> area cultivated for

> farming has not gone above 45 million

> hectares.

>

> /- Agribusiness is the activity that creates

> jobs in the

> countryside/: according to IBGE data, there

> are only 350,000

> wage workers in the ranches with more than

> 2,000 hectares. A lot

> fewer than the 900,000 wage workers employed

> on small

> properties. That is, the production mode of

> the agribusiness

> plantation, which is always modernizing,

> expels manual labor

> from the field instead of creating jobs for

> workers.

>

> /-Agribusiness distributes income in the

> countryside:/ slavery

> continues and profits are limited to the

> ranch owners.

>

> /- Agribusiness means development of the

> towns and local

> economies/: in all the regions in which

> agribusiness plantations

> exist, income is taken to the large cities.

> It may be because

> the largest part of the cost of production

> (machinery,

> fertilizers, seeds) comes from other cities

> and therefore on

> paying these costs the money returns there;

> or perhaps because

> the landowner rarely lives in the city in

> which the plantation

> is located. In general, he lives in the

> large cities and

> therefore the profits he gains with exports

> go to luxury

> consumption, on apartments, and so on. At

> least the " farm " for

> his employees is acquired in a local sale,

> being bought in

> general in more distant centers where prices

> are lower. For this

> reason, the cities dominated by

> agribusiness, instead of

> developing, suffer from an influx of people

> caused by the exodus

> from rural areas, which increases the

> poverty on the outskirts

> of these cities. A completely different

> scenario from the places

> where poly-culture predominates, the

> production of food and

> small farming that contributes to the wealth

> of the town and

> keeps it going.

>

> If this information is official and in fact

> the big ranches of

> agribusiness do not represent a solution for

> the agricultural

> and social problems in Brazil, why then is

> so much propaganda

> published? For an ideological reason. Brazil

> is experiencing a

> debate about the model for the economy and

> for farm production.

> The agribusiness plantations represent the

> part of the national

> bourgeoisie that has assets in agriculture

> and which has allied

> itself or rather subordinated itself to

> foreign capital

> represented by the interests of the large

> multinational

> corporations. These businesses not only

> participate in the

> profit obtained by international

> agricultural trade and by

> agro-industries, but they also maintain

> strong economic and

> ideological ties with the media. There is a

> triple alliance

> between the ranchers of agribusiness, the

> multinational

> corporations that control agriculture, and

> the media conglomerates.

>

> Only 10 multinationals have monopoly control

> over the principal

> agricultural activities in the country.

> These are: Bunge,

> Cargill, Monsanto, Nestlé, Danone, Basf,

> ADM, Bayer, Sygenta and

> Norvartis. Just look at their TV commercials

> to see their degree

> of involvement with the media.

>

> *III. The influences of agribusiness in the

> Lula government*

>

> The Lula government was elected in October

> 2002 with propaganda

> and commitments clearly opposed to the

> maintenance of the

> neoliberal economic policy, opposed to the

> priority given by the

> Cardoso government to agribusiness. All

> those who voted for Lula

> wanted changes. If not, they would have

> voted for José Serra.

>

> However once the elections had passed, the

> Lula government

> revealed itself as ambiguous, that despite

> promising changes,

> based itself on party and class alliances

> that still defend

> neoliberalism, remaining hostage to

> international finance

> capital. In economic policy, administered by

> the Finance

> Ministry and by the Central Bank, the old

> line was maintained

> with those responsible clearly identified

> with the losing party.

> For the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in

> charge of exports,

> (but which should be in charge of taking

> care of the internal

> market), and for the Ministry of

> Agriculture, ministers were

> nominated who were identified with the

> agribusiness model.

> Minister Luiz Fernando Furlan is a member of

> Sadia and Minister

> Roberto Rodrigues owns ranches in Ribeirão

> Preto and in the

> south of Maranhão, dedicated to agribusiness

> of soy, sugarcane,

> and oranges.

>

> In the policy of the agricultural public

> sector, the government

> did not succeed in reversing the picture of

> abstention by the

> State. For rural credit, there was an effort

> by the government

> to create farm insurance, which would be of

> particular interest

> to small farmers. There was an effort to

> increase the funds for

> credit aimed at family farming, through

> PRONAF, that jumped from

> $R2 billion to $R5 billion. But this did not

> mean changes in the

> structure of land. Public funds being

> allocated by the Bank of

> Brazil and by the BNDES for the ranches that

> dedicate themselves

> to export were not reduced. The Bank of

> Brazil itself published

> propaganda in the newspapers and magazines

> showing that it

> conceded a volume of credit more than $R5

> billion to those 10

> multinational corporations that control

> agriculture and for some

> few multinational cellulose businesses. That

> is, fewer than 15

> businesses received the same amount of funds

> that were destined

> to 4 million family farmers.

>

> In this way, although the government made

> some commitments to

> Land Reform and to strengthen rural

> agriculture, in practice the

> strongest Ministries clearly gave priority

> to agribusiness,

> monoculture, and the export of grains.

>

> *IV. The strength of agribusiness in our

> society: *

>

> In 2003, technicians and students of the

> Ministry of Agrarian

> Development, of INCRA (National Institute

> for Colonization and

> Land Reform) and of IPEA (Institute for

> Applied Economic

> Research) of government agencies and also

> those tied to various

> universities prepared the National Plan for

> Land Reform. The

> latest statistical data collected by the

> IBGE in the farming

> census of 1996 and in the INCRA register of

> 2003 was used. Based

> on these, Professor Ariovaldo Umbelino

> Oliveira of the

> University of São Paulo organized the

> following table of

> comparisons:

>

> 1. Animal production

>

> Indicators Small / family Medium sized

> Property Large

> property / agribusiness

> Large animals 46% 37% 17%

> Medium-sized animals 86% 13% 1%

> Small animals and poultry 85% 14% 1%

>

> 2. Total agricultural production - products

> for export

>

> Indicators Small / family Medium sized

> Property Large

> property / agribusiness

> Cotton 55% 30% 15%

> Cacao 75% 24% 1%

> Sugar-cane 20% 47% 33%

> Oranges 51% 38% 11%

> Soy 34% 44% 22%

> Coffee 70% 28% 2%

>

> 3. Products for the internal market and

> food:

>

> Indicators Small / family Medium sized

> Property Large

> property / agribusiness

> Tree cotton 76% 20% 4%

> Rice 39% 43% 18%

> Bananas 85% 14% 18%

> English potatoes 74% 21% 5%

> Beans 78% 17% 5%

> Tobacco 99% 1% zero%

> Papaya 60% 35% 5%

> Manioc 92% 8% zero%

> Corn 55% 35% 10%

> Tomatoes 76% 19% 5%

> Wheat 61% 35% 4%

> Grapes 97% 3% zero%

>

> *V. About the renegotiation of the debts of

> the latifundio

> owners in the Northeast:*

> Those who have always had privileges do

> everything to keep

> things as they are. This week, they want

> their debts to be

> rolled over to be paid from the national

> treasury. The

> latifundio owners of the Northeast ask for

> $R7 billion from the

> public coffers. With this money, only 30,000

> medium and large

> ranchers will benefit. The four million

> Northeastern rural

> workers will not benefit.

>

> In the whole country, the debts prior to

> 1995 for rural products

> related to agribusiness totaled $R26

> billion. They were

> renegotiated in 1995, when all the medium

> and large debtors with

> $R200 thousand had their payment schedules

> lengthened and rates

> lowered. Those who had debts over $R200

> thousand entered into

> the Special Program for Asset Restructuring,

> created by Law 9.318.

>

> In 1998, when the period arrived for

> ruralists to begin payment

> of the debt, the federal government

> authorized two more years of

> non-payment and new interest rates, besides

> benefitting the

> ranchers who were in PESA. It put off the

> payment of at least

> 32.5% of the initial parcel until October 31

> 2001 and the

> remainder of the loan was incorporated into

> the debt balance to

> be paid in annual payments until 2025.

> Insolvency rose to 90%.

> But amongst the small producers and

> settlers, late payments are

> lower than 2%.

> With this money it would be possible to

> solve the problems of

> the rural poor. However, with the Brazilian

> people paying the

> debts of the ranchers and without anything

> to produce for the

> nation, agribusiness comes out ahead one

> more time. The Chamber

> of Deputies and the Senate already approved

> the renegotiation

> for the Northeast latifundio owners, but we

> hope that President

> Lula vetoes this maneuver.

>

> *VI. The debate amongst academics and in the

> newspapers: *

>

> The power of the influence of agribusiness

> is so great that it

> affects even intellectuals and journalists

> who reproduce the

> ideological struggle in the universities and

> in the press. It's

> common to see articles and reports singing

> the praises of

> agribusiness. Some intellectuals, including

> from the left,

> defend the idea that small farms should also

> enter into

> agribusiness. Syndicalists already made a

> poor copy of this

> idea, even calling it " small agribusiness " .

> They do not perceive

> that in fact there is a struggle between two

> ways of organizing

> farm production in our society. The

> agribusiness way, which we

> have described above, and the other way,

> peasant agriculture,

> based in small family farm establishments

> that produce several

> food products, give work to millions of

> people, in the family

> and outside it, that produce and develop the

> local and internal

> market.

>

> Some argue that it is possible for the two

> models to live

> together. This is just a shameful way to

> defend agribusiness.

> It's clear that there will always be larger

> production units

> dedicated to export. But it's necessary to

> identify the type of

> priority and farm policy that the government

> and society defend.

>

> Is our society going to use land and

> agriculture to produce

> food, to distribute income, and to keep men

> and women working

> the land or are we going to hand over the

> lands to the large

> plantations that are going to expel the

> population, to gain a

> lot of money and to make exports the top

> priority?

>

> This is the real debate. There are two

> agricultural projects for

> Brazil. For this reason, the representatives

> of agribusiness

> attack Land Reform so much. There is no

> apparent reason because

> if agribusiness has productive ranches, they

> are exempt from

> expropriation. So why does agribusiness

> attack Land Reform, and

> even use the ministers of Agriculture and

> Finance to do this?

>

> For two reasons: first, because they know

> that Land Reform

> strengthens the model of land occupation and

> farm production, In

> second place, because they also are owners

> of unproductive

> latifundios, which instead of being shared

> in order to have a

> social function, create jobs, distribute

> income and improve the

> living standards of our people, are

> maintained as a type of

> reserve for speculation or future expansion

> of their plantations.

>

> However, it is not possible to make the two

> models compatible.

> They can live together for a long time, but

> from the point of

> view proposed for our society, it is

> necessary to choose: either

> to defend of agribusiness or peasant

> agriculture -- the

> permanence of men and women in the

> countryside and food

> sovereignity. To define oneself by the mode

> of agribusiness

> production is to accept also the neoliberal

> economic model

> dominated by the banks, by finance capital,

> and by the

> multinational corporations.

>

> As the popular saying goes, you cannot

> " light one for God and

> the other for the devil "

>

> Sincerely,

>

> National Secretariat of the MST

>

>

> --

>

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