Brazil: towards an agrarian reform
20/03/2012
- Opinión
Another Minister has fallen, this time the Minister of Agrarian Development. And a replacement has already been named: Pepe Vargas (of the PT-RS), who was governor of Caixas do Sul for two terms and who maintains good relationships with the Movimento Sem Terra (Landless Workers Movement).
The hope is that President Dilma Rousseff has taken the first of three urgent steps to ensure that Brazil will not look bad in the photo of the "concert of nations", as the advisor Acacio would say. The other two steps are: a veto of the Forest Legislation proposed by the Senate and a new environmental and agrarian policy that would prepare the country to host the Rio+20 meeting in June.
The agrarian question in Brazil is the worst stain on the reputation of the nation. There has never been an agrarian reform. Or better, there was one unique agrarian reform, the model for which was the insistence on maintaining the large landowning class: when the Portuguese court divided our lands into hereditary capitanías.
Since 2008 Brazil has surpassed the United States to become the world champion in the consumption of toxic agrichemicals. According to the United Nations the greater part of toxic agrichemicals which are prohibited in other countries end up in Brazil. Here they are employed to increase the production of commodities.
It is enough to say that 50% of these chemical products are applied in the cultivation of soya, which is exported for animal fodder. What is worse: since 1997 the government grants a 60% discount in the ICMS for the importation of toxic agrichemicals. And we have to live with the effects... among rural workers in the countryside and in all of us who consume poisoned products.
Toxic agrichemicals do not only contaminate food. They also degrade the soil and prejudice biodiversity. They affect the quality of the air, of water and of the land. And all this because they have been granted a green light by three ministries, in which they are analyzed before coming to market: Health, Agriculture and Environment.
It is a fallacy to say that toxic agrichemicals contribute to food security. The increase in the consumption of these products does nothing to reduce hunger in the world, as is shown by statistics.
The National Agency for Sanitary Vigilance (ANVISA) is supposed to maintain some control over the quality of toxic agrichemicals and their effects. But when they are vetted, they do not always succeed in overcoming the pressures of the rural lobby over other organs of government, and in particular the Judiciary.
The world Conference on the Environment, in South Africa in 2002, released a communiqué which affirmed that world production of food increased in volume and in price (due to the use of toxic agrichemicals and transgenic seeds). This was at the cost of devastation of soils, contamination and loss of water, destruction of biodiversity, invasion of areas occupied by traditional communities (native peoples, tribes, small farmers, etc.). It is then quite clear that the so-called "green revolution" was a fiasco.
Today we are six thousand million mouths to feed in the planet. In 2050 we will be nine thousand million. If we do not take urgent measures, the sustainability of agricultural production will be seriously affected. In the face of this yellow light the document recommends: reducing the degradation of land; improving conservation; promoting the sustainable use of forests; and making information on the impact of climatic change more accessible.
With respect to the first and third of these recommendations Brazil is moving in the opposite direction: areas dedicated to extensive monoculture production are increased daily, with the destruction of biodiversity, which in turn favours the multiplication of pests and diseases. As these pests do not encounter natural enemies, the decision is taken to poison soils and water with toxic agrichemicals. And frequently this practice does not work. In the state of Ceará, a large plantation of pineapples failed, in spite of the use of 18 different "defensive agricultural measures".
One hopes that the Minister Pepe Vargas may succeed in establishing an interministerial connection to free Brazil from the condition of being an "open house" for the multinationals that propagate unsustainability and the degradation of our environmental heritage. And that he accelerate the accommodation of families without land who are now camped alongside superhighways, as well as the expropriation, for social motives, of unoccupied lands and those that employ slave labour.
Government is by nature the expression of popular will. And it should serve the popular will. That means the maintenance of a permanent dialogue with social movements involved in environmental and agricultural questions, Siamese twins that should never be separated.
- Frei Betto is a writer, author of "Conversation on faith and science" co-authored with Marcelo Gleiser, among other books.> http://www.freibetto.org/> twitter:@freibetto.
Copyright 2012 -- Frei Betto -- The reproduction of this article by any medium, either print or electronic, without authorization, is strictly forbidden. We invite all who are interested to subscribe to all the articles of Frei Betto; in such wise you will receive them directly in your email. Contact -- MHPAL -- Literary Agency (mhpal@terra.com.br)
The hope is that President Dilma Rousseff has taken the first of three urgent steps to ensure that Brazil will not look bad in the photo of the "concert of nations", as the advisor Acacio would say. The other two steps are: a veto of the Forest Legislation proposed by the Senate and a new environmental and agrarian policy that would prepare the country to host the Rio+20 meeting in June.
The agrarian question in Brazil is the worst stain on the reputation of the nation. There has never been an agrarian reform. Or better, there was one unique agrarian reform, the model for which was the insistence on maintaining the large landowning class: when the Portuguese court divided our lands into hereditary capitanías.
Since 2008 Brazil has surpassed the United States to become the world champion in the consumption of toxic agrichemicals. According to the United Nations the greater part of toxic agrichemicals which are prohibited in other countries end up in Brazil. Here they are employed to increase the production of commodities.
It is enough to say that 50% of these chemical products are applied in the cultivation of soya, which is exported for animal fodder. What is worse: since 1997 the government grants a 60% discount in the ICMS for the importation of toxic agrichemicals. And we have to live with the effects... among rural workers in the countryside and in all of us who consume poisoned products.
Toxic agrichemicals do not only contaminate food. They also degrade the soil and prejudice biodiversity. They affect the quality of the air, of water and of the land. And all this because they have been granted a green light by three ministries, in which they are analyzed before coming to market: Health, Agriculture and Environment.
It is a fallacy to say that toxic agrichemicals contribute to food security. The increase in the consumption of these products does nothing to reduce hunger in the world, as is shown by statistics.
The National Agency for Sanitary Vigilance (ANVISA) is supposed to maintain some control over the quality of toxic agrichemicals and their effects. But when they are vetted, they do not always succeed in overcoming the pressures of the rural lobby over other organs of government, and in particular the Judiciary.
The world Conference on the Environment, in South Africa in 2002, released a communiqué which affirmed that world production of food increased in volume and in price (due to the use of toxic agrichemicals and transgenic seeds). This was at the cost of devastation of soils, contamination and loss of water, destruction of biodiversity, invasion of areas occupied by traditional communities (native peoples, tribes, small farmers, etc.). It is then quite clear that the so-called "green revolution" was a fiasco.
Today we are six thousand million mouths to feed in the planet. In 2050 we will be nine thousand million. If we do not take urgent measures, the sustainability of agricultural production will be seriously affected. In the face of this yellow light the document recommends: reducing the degradation of land; improving conservation; promoting the sustainable use of forests; and making information on the impact of climatic change more accessible.
With respect to the first and third of these recommendations Brazil is moving in the opposite direction: areas dedicated to extensive monoculture production are increased daily, with the destruction of biodiversity, which in turn favours the multiplication of pests and diseases. As these pests do not encounter natural enemies, the decision is taken to poison soils and water with toxic agrichemicals. And frequently this practice does not work. In the state of Ceará, a large plantation of pineapples failed, in spite of the use of 18 different "defensive agricultural measures".
One hopes that the Minister Pepe Vargas may succeed in establishing an interministerial connection to free Brazil from the condition of being an "open house" for the multinationals that propagate unsustainability and the degradation of our environmental heritage. And that he accelerate the accommodation of families without land who are now camped alongside superhighways, as well as the expropriation, for social motives, of unoccupied lands and those that employ slave labour.
Government is by nature the expression of popular will. And it should serve the popular will. That means the maintenance of a permanent dialogue with social movements involved in environmental and agricultural questions, Siamese twins that should never be separated.
- Frei Betto is a writer, author of "Conversation on faith and science" co-authored with Marcelo Gleiser, among other books.> http://www.freibetto.org/> twitter:@freibetto.
Copyright 2012 -- Frei Betto -- The reproduction of this article by any medium, either print or electronic, without authorization, is strictly forbidden. We invite all who are interested to subscribe to all the articles of Frei Betto; in such wise you will receive them directly in your email. Contact -- MHPAL -- Literary Agency (mhpal@terra.com.br)
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