"Land and Life" is ACA's quarterly newsletter which analyzes current conditions in Colombia's agrarian struggles.

Edition #2, October 2006: Food Sovereignty, Confronting the Voraciousness of Capital

With the desire to continue generating spaces of reflection on different subjects that are part of the challenges that the agrarian sector faces in our country, we present this bulletin, in which we make an analysis of the significance of food sovereignty, a subject that generates so much controversy at the moment.

It’s evident in our country that struggles throughout history have allowed rural communities to be able to stay on their on land, struggles that have been implicit in the defense of food sovereignty, since this is one of the fundamental necessities for any human community.

When it comes to dealing with the issue of food sovereignty, Colombian law only goes as far as supporting Food Security, which is demonstrated in the text of the National Constituent Assembly in 1991: “the level of guarantee that all of the population should have, of timely and permanent availability and accessibility of foodstuffs that covers all of the nutritional requirements, trying to reduce external dependency and taking into consideration the conservation and equilibrium of the ecosystem for the benefit of future generations.” Here foodstuffs are only recognized as something necessary for the positive development of the population.

However, this definition does not clarify how foodstuffs would be obtained, in whose hands they would be kept, and what their quality would be, along with who would own and manage native seeds. It’s necessary to consider that when farmers lose ownership over these seeds and cannot produce, whoever has them would have all of the power to manage them at their whim. Even George Bush makes this point, “It is important for our nation to grow foodstuffs, [and] feed our people. Can you all imagine a country that isn’t capable of growing enough crops to feed it? It would be a country exposed to international pressures, a vulnerable nation, and for that reason when we talk about agriculture, in reality we are talking about a question of national security.”

Beyond Food Security

In final analysis, food security depends on a policy of food sovereignty: however, according to the way it is spelled out in the 1991 National Constituent Assembly, both terms tend to be confused with each other. Just because foodstuffs are offered in the big supermarket chains, which are owned by the big multinationals, doesn’t mean that all of the population is guaranteed to have access to them. In the Assembly’s declaration it’s not clear how these foodstuffs will be made accessible, and this is important more than anything because this is a time when the population’s buying power is declining every day and more taxes are being imposed on goods that are basic necessities. Here we understand food sovereignty as a right of peoples, communities, and nations to define their own agricultural and food policies in accordance with their own ecological, social, and cultural contexts. This obviously implies a right to food and the availability of foodstuffs, but it goes beyond this and is rooted in a democratic vision, where communities and peoples decide and collectively construct ways to maintain and protect themselves in harmony with their own life goals.

For this reason when we speak of food sovereignty we are going beyond a simple proposal of food security. With the consolidation of a model of development that is being implemented in Colombia, hunger becomes a strategic way of guaranteeing the consumption of foreign products that are being imposed at all costs. It is possible that thanks to the reality of hunger brought on Colombians by these policies, at some moment we may just settle for the idea that it is sufficient enough to guarantee food security.

But security for whom? For what? Security in the middle of the loss of our sovereignty? Security without the ability to decide what we do and what we produce? Security to perpetuate a system and control communities? In order to be able to guarantee the consolidation of this model of development, the Colombian state continues to implement strategic plans that lead to the deterioration of communities, such as Plan Colombia and Plan Patriota, which have been used, for example, to increase fumigations for the eradication of illicit crops, and according to the Colombian State, to advance “every day in the legitimate occupation and pacification of the Colombian territory, as a necessary condition for the final defeat of terrorism.” But what is not being taken into account is that the State is not implementing contingency plans that will guarantee the substitution of crops by campesinos, and more than anything, it does not guarantee that basic foodstuffs will not be affected. Also, this strategy is sterilizing soils that are fertile for agricultural production, where the planting of products such as corn, wheat, and potato, among others, start to disappear, so that it becomes necessary to import them.

In this way, little by little we specialize in the consumption of the leftovers of the great powers. We are also receiving products that are genetically treated, the so-called genetically modified (GM) products. Genetically modified crops are products of biotechnology, and are the result of a technological process where an original organism is inserted with genes from another species in order to give it properties alien to its natural makeup, such as resistance to cold, to certain diseases, etc. New properties such as vitamins or vaccines against diseases that could attack them are also added, making them more resistant. It appears that there are many advantages to the use of biotechnology for the production of large quantities of food, with properties that will increase their quality. But serious objections have also been raised about the possible severe consequences for human health, issues that haven’t been given much serious attention by either the government, the multinationals, nor the scientific community, which is often at the service of these same multinationals.

On the contrary, above all in the underdeveloped countries, governments have been pushing this type of production. Colombia’s Ministry of Agriculture is a good example of this, which affirmed the following in an interview given to the newspaper El Spectator: “Colombia should involve itself in this process. The myths about genetically modified organisms need to be overcome. There is no existing scientific evidence that demonstrates that genetically modified crops cause health problems in human beings.”

It’s true that no proof exists; but it’s also true that scientific investigations, which could shed some light on this issue, have not been developed at the same pace as production and markets for these genetically modified products. Scientific investigations into this topic have even been torpedoed on different occasions with GM multinationals making use of their excessive power. And this creates a problematic ethical issue for this model, since it seems more urgent and important to open up possibilities for markets and profitability for trans-nationals marketing genetically modified crops than to secure the common good and health of the people.

Apart from dodging the shady ethical issues around responsibility for the health of the people with the blind introduction of genetically modified products, what is not being taken into account are the pressures that the developed capitalist countries and their multinationals are applying so that the introduction of these “new products” are accepted. This would lead to an increase in food dependency, particularly on genetically modified products produced by these same agrochemical multinationals. These companies, after bringing about the failure of global agriculture, now argue their genetically modified “will save humankind from hunger.”

To understand how we are being pushed to dependency you only have to see how the multinational, Monsanto, controls 80% of the market of genetically modified plants, followed by Aventis with 7%, Signet (before Novartis) with 5%, BASF with 5%, and DuPont with 3%. These businesses also produce 60% of the pesticides and 23% of commercial seeds.

Evidence of Food dependency

Aside from everything previously mentioned, the following statistics show the high levels of dependency that we have today as well as the country’s continuing loss of productive capacity. We can say that this process began with the rise in imports that has been sustained since the implementation of economic opening in the country, which, at first glance, seemed to have the purpose of reducing the possibilities for production and raising agricultural product imports. This policy, despite evident and disastrous results, will now be consolidated with the Free Trade Agreement (FTA – agreement with the United States) coming into effect. The importation of foodstuffs passed 800 thousand tons in 1991 to 7 million tons in 1998, which reflects an annual increase of 21%. This means that the country lost approximately $10 billons; during this same period a million hectares were left uncultivated.

Between 1990 and 1998, the consumption of foreign corn, barley, wheat, and soy topped 17,879,000 tons and that of all agricultural products during the same period topped more than 26 million tons. At the same time, between 1990 and 2000 it can be observed that the production of wheat per capita fell by 69%, by 13% for rice, by 87% for barley, by 13% for corn, and by 12% for potato. This demonstrates how the population has been losing its food sovereignty little by little since the opening of the economy. The worst thing is that the little that is actually produced would be lost when the FTA comes into effect, since it is openly proposed as a way to deepen the policies of the economic opening initiated by the government of César Gaviria 15 years ago. The results have been astonishing: for 1991, agricultural imports came to 377 million dollars and for 2001 they reached 1,635 million dollars, which is equal to an increase of 334%. At the same time, the planting areas of export crops such as banana and palm oil have been increasing.

For example, palm oil grew from 88,688 hectares of cultivation in 1990 to 169, 566 in 2005, and banana for export grew from cultivation on 30,350 hectares in 1990 to 43,380 hectares in 2005. The dynamic of productive development in the countryside since 1990 until now has been clear: the agricultural area of the country reduced at the same time that land use changed. Short-cycle cereals and oils were the crops that reduced the most in terms of area, with cereals reducing from 1,742.000 to 1,099.200 hectares of cultivation between 1990 and 1997, which represents a 37% reduction in seven years. 131 thousand hectares of rice stopped being cultivated, 263 thousand hectares of corn, and between sorghum, barley, and wheat, another 248 thousand hectares.

As you can see, the neoliberal policies implemented by the Colombian State since 1990 not only do not guarantee our country´s food sovereignty, it also takes us in the opposite direction of the approach that was proposed during the National Constituent Assembly, which despite not definitively embracing the concept of food sovereignty, did stipulate the necessity of reducing dependency on foreign production of food stuffs. To the contrary, the neoliberal model has intensified this dependency and threatens to take it to the extreme.

A sense of confrontation and the challenge of the communities

We cannot forget that this devastating picture is the result of policies that were proposed and imposed by the United States not only on Colombia but also all of South America since the period after the Second World War The perspective of North American governments is that they have a mission to guarantee the modus vivendi of their citizens and above all their capitalists, appropriating in every way the life and subsistence Latin American communities. To guarantee this, the United States has negotiated with or forced on Latin American governments certain policies. This has come about through a series of strategies that have been going on since the adoption of neoliberal constitutions, policies of economic stabilization, commercial and financial openings, through [former President] Gaviria´s economic opening up until the Free Trade Agreement, which has been proposed as a way to strengthen the constant flow of wealth from our countries to the north.

The signing of the Free Trade Agreement will bring about many consequences for our country, especially rural communities, which would continue into an accelerated decline, with respect to their possibilities of production, consumption, marketing, and guaranteeing their ability to stay on their lands.

It´s necessary, however, to analyze more deeply the implications that this would have, particularly for different rural communities, since its ultimate goal is the consolidation of a model of development that looks for production of capital, converting everything that is a right, such as health, education, and public services, into a business. Life itself has been turned into a business where human beings are capital that produces earnings, and those who don’t produce are discarded.

Today the interests that want to guarantee the continuation of this system have become more concentrated, particularly in the appropriation of natural resources such as water, oil, and biodiversity, which has translated into a constant struggle throughout the country.

In the final analysis, this demonstrates the battle between a model of development proposed by the United States and the multinationals for the continent with the goal of quickly appropriating its wealth, and a model of development that agrarian communities have been constructing in order to guarantee a minimum of food sovereignty and the sustainable use of economic resources in the middle of profound challenges.

Despite the seeming dominance of these strategies and our political class´ almost blind commitment to them, campesinos and in general all of the popular organizations throughout the country clearly all face challenges of this issue. The problem of food sovereignty cannot be reduced to a campesino problem, since this threatens all poor people’s capacity for subsistence. For the strategies of resistance to be effective, they need to advance alternatives that would facilitate the construction of new realities, even in the middle of a political climate as hostile as the current one. Some of these new proposals should be:

• Strengthen alternative productive proposals with an ecological focus, based on biodiversity management, in a way that permits the small producers to strengthen their food sovereignty and generate additional surpluses that support the local economy.

• Strengthen the process of recuperation, conservation, and defence of native seeds.
• Strengthen the organization of campesinos and their links with other popular organizations as a strategy to strengthen food sovereignty.
• Strengthen the social and community fabric that mobilizes campesino, afro-Colombian, and Indigenous sectors against multinationals and genetically modified foodstuffs.
• Campesino markets and storage centers
• The construction of networks of exchange: of products, seeds, and the exchange of knowledge.
• Perhaps the most immediate challenge and the one within greatest reach consists of reinvigorating the struggles for the recuperation of land on behalf of the direct producers, Indigenous, afro-Colombians, and campesinos. This should be done in a way that puts this struggle at the service of the life goals of these communities and undermines the international dynamic imposed by the market and its international division of labour.

In planting a bush
My hands went,
And returned with cuts.
…
In eating on a plate
My sons went,
And returned with hunger.

Carlos Castro Saavedra, “Bitter Song”