A blog full of contrarian views

Vandana Shiva on farmers' protests

I live in the south of the Netherlands, a rural area surrounded by farms. When I cycle to work, I pass by beautiful fields with potatoes, corn, chickpeas, wheat, asparagus; a few places have goats too. Farmers are proud and hard-working people. The farmland have been in the family for generations. Each farmer knows the land is covered with his ancestors' sweat.

There is a particular farm close home whose owner is an old man (60 years old, or more, from what I can see). No matter how early in the morning I'm in that road on my way to work, and how cold a winter day is, he's always there working on something—most of the time by himself. If you interact with farmers around here, you quickly realize these guys and gals are warm-hearted people. But they cannot stand bullshitery in any of its forms.

What is going on in Europe at the moment seems familiar to me. Mexican farmers were destroyed in the 90s after the NAFTA (MEX-US-CANADA free trade agreement) was signed. “The free market will make us more competitive and benefit us all”, bullshit. Mexican farmers didn't have the technology (neither in the form of chemical fertilizers nor automation-wise) to compete with their northern counterparts. It destroyed their livelihood. It was (and still is), by design, an asymmetrical relationship. At the end of the 80s, around 80% of the food Mexicans consumed was grown in the country, at the end of the 90s, only 20%; now is even worse. Farmers sold their land and moved to the cities (or migrate to the north) to work on any shitty jobs they could find; big corporations bought some of that land for pennies on the dollar. Each time I think about it, my heart sinks.

The story in Europe today is different, but the goal is the same. As Vandana commented on the video shared above: “the governments created the problem and now are forcing the farmers to pay for it”. It is true. Since the 90s, governments have pushed for the use of chemical fertilizers to increase crop yields, which is a fallacy as the yield improvement is only marginal and temporary. They also encouraged high-scale and industrialized meat production, no matter the environmental costs. They did so by selecting to whom and for what they provide government subsidies. Now the farmers are forced to drastically reduce their emissions, or else. Again, it is an asymmetrical relation of power. Not surprisingly, the same people who have bullied other countries are now doing it to their own people.

My sense is that most Dutch citizens support farmers, but I might be biased because of where I live. Maybe people in the big cities don't give a shoot. They will if the food stands at their closest AH start to look empty, but then is a bit too late. We are so used to “things going well” that such a scenario is so hypothetical to even consider it.

I'm not a negationist, there are pressuring environmental issues that must be addressed. But I don't believe for a second that those in power want to fix the problem from its root causes. They blame the people and try to take their livelihood away while, behind the scenes, give more power and resources to big corporations. The same companies that have damaged the environment the most and have been profiteering from it all the way, they made money causing the crisis, and they will make even more money “fixing” it.

I support farmers. I care about them because their work is vital. The work I do as an engineer is irrelevant compared to theirs. Still, the market dictates I am entitled to a higher wage and a more comfortable lifestyle—although they are wealthier, as I don't own even a square meter of land here.

Growing food is hard. I do it at home and have too much to learn; no clear path to self-sufficiency for me. I've got building skills too, building and fixing things is not a problem, but that doesn't make me self-reliant either. When the shit hits the fan, I would rather be a friend of the farmers than a good (i.e., compliant) citizen for the puppets in the government.

#Society #Politics #Environment