Against agribusiness, in defence of family farming

The current economic model, sustained by agribusiness and dominated by financial capital, wants to transform food, seeds and all natural resources into commodities, in order to satisfy and protect the interests, profits and greed of big multinational companies.

To achieve this aim, financial groups seek to dominate land, water and biodiversity resources through privatization of this common patrimony. These are the same groups that destroy forests and land with the expansion of monocultures and increase the exploitation of the labour force, violating workers' rights and thereby contributing to unemployment, poverty and violence.

Thus, agribusiness promotes wealth accumulation in the hands of the privileged few, especially those in charge of banks and transnational corporations, while the general population faces increasing poverty and social unrest. It is necessary and urgent to resist this oppressive and destructive logic. Therefore:

I – We denounce the current agriculture model which:

1. favours the interests of transnational corporations which, in collaboration with big land owners, seek to dominate agriculture and profit excessively from food and seed production and commercialization;

2. prioritizes monoculture in vast expanses of land, adversely affecting the environment through land erosion and excessive use of agrochemicals;

3. promotes eucalyptus and pine monocultures, which eliminate biodiversity and cause pollution of native ecosystems, unemployment and social disintegration in the rural, indigenous and quilombo communities;

4. promotes the expansion of sugarcane monoculture and ethanol production for the international market, leading to high food prices and land concentration in the hands of international capital;

5. expands the use of transgenic crops, which destroy biodiversity, eliminate native seeds, damage both farmers' and consumers' health and place the seed market under the political and economic control of transnational corporations;

6. promotes the deforestation of our native biomes, in particular the Amazon and Cerrado forests, through cattle farming, eucalyptus, soy and sugarcane monocultures and timber and mineral extraction;

II- We are against:

The transnational corporations, agribusinesses, deputies, congressmen and parties that defend big economic interests and approve projects that can only aggravate the current situation;

7. the law allowing the concession of public forests which leads to the privatization of biodiversity and the draft law nº 6.424/05 submitted by senator Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB-PA), which reduces the size of the Amazon legal reserve from 80% to 50%;

8. the Provisional Measure nº 422/08 which legalizes areas invaded by big agribusinesses in the Amazon and allows land concessions of up to 1500 hectares, while the Constitution sets 50 hectares as the maximum limit;

9. the Provisionary Measure that allows employment of up to three months to be unregistered. We condemn the impunity regarding slave and child labour and the disrespect to labour and social security legislation;
10. the Constitutional Amendment Project nº 49/06 submitted by senator Sérgio Zambiasi (PTB-RS), which seeks to reduce the width of the border zone protected from foreign investment and which will enormously favour transnational companies;

11. the project for the diversion of the São Francisco River, which will only benefit big agriculture and water businesses which produce commodities for the international market and not for the population of the semiarid northeast;
12. the privatization of water resources and the creation of monopolies dominated by transnational corporations such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Suez;

13. the current energy model based on big hydroelectric plants throughout Brazil and the Amazon region in particular, which hands the energy sovereignty of the country to transnational corporations and electro-intensive industries;

III – We defend:

We are mobilizing a will struggle to change this state of affairs. We therefore want:

1. to build a new agriculture model based on family farming, agrarian reform, wealth redistribution and people's possibility of residing in the rural areas;

2. to combat the concentration of land and natural resources through the dismantling of latifundia and the definition of a maximum limit for the expansion of rural properties;

3. to guarantee that agriculture is controlled by the Brazilian people and secures the food sovereignty of the country through small farmers cooperatives producing healthy food;

4. to diversify agricultural production with respect to the environment through a sound agroecological model;

5. to preserve the environment, biodiversity and water resources with particular attention to the Guarani aquifer;

6. to completely halt the devastation of the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes and preserve natural resources through sustainable use in favour of the people. We defend the collective right of sustainable use of the Babaçu forests;

7. to preserve, multiply and improve native crops from all the different biomes and guarantee access to them for all small farmers;

8. to fight for the immediate approval and implementation of a law determining the expropriation of all rural properties using slave labour and the imposition of heavy fines for land owners that disrespect the labour and social security legislation;

9. to demand the implementation of the proposed National Water Agency, to oversee works and investments in all municipalities of the semiarid region, in order to solve the problem of sufficient water supply for the local population;

10. to prevent water resources from becoming a mere commodity and guarantee that water be managed as a public good, accessible to the whole population;
11. to implement a new energy model that ensures energy sovereignty and prioritizes social development for all, though the rational use of energy from small hydroelectric plants and the sustainable production of agrofuels from small farmers and their cooperatives;

12. the Federal Government to authorize Incra (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform) to resume the territorial demarcation of all areas belonging historically to quilombo communities;

13. the immediate demarcation of all indigenous areas and the expulsion of all illegal farmers that have invaded these territories and in particular the reserve Raposa Serra do Sol and the Guarani indigenous territory in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The Lula government must honour its promise for Agrarian Reform and comply with its political program of 2002, which promised the immediate settlement of landless families camped in makeshift homes and the construction of at least 100.000 houses per year in order to reduce the rural exodus. Our struggle is for a fair society based on equality and democracy where wealth is distributed equally to all.

VIA CAMPESINA
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