Grain

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Malawi’s green revolution success story has been lauded around the world. While it is good to see a government investing in local food production, it is doubtful whether the achievements will be sustainable unless radical changes are implemented. Above all, land needs to be redistributed so that farmers have holdings that are big enough to produce surpluses, and the government needs to move away from its narrow focus on chemical fertlisers and hybrid maize seeds.

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Partout dans le monde on vante la réussite de la révolution verte au Malawi. Certes il est bon qu’un gouvernement investisse dans la production alimentaire locale, mais on peut craindre que ce genre de succès ne soit de courte durée sans l’application de changements radicaux. Il faut avant tout redistribuer la terre, de façon à ce que les agriculteurs disposent d’une surface suffisante pour pouvoir produire des excédents. Le gouvernement doit aussi élargir sa vision de l’agriculture et ne pas se limiter aux engrais chimiques et aux semences de maïs hybride.

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Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors, who will bring resources and up-to-date technology. None of the blueprints has worked, and African farmers have become increasingly impoverished. It is time for Africans to turn to their own histories, knowledge and resources.

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More than one billion people in the world are employed in agriculture, and most work in extremely precarious conditions. They cannot guarantee the food security of their families. Improvements will come only if these workers are better organised and better able to engage in collective bargaining. The IUF is working with its affiliates to make this happen.

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Over the last couple of decades there has been a huge swelling in the importance of the financial sector in the world economy. Investors now demand the same elevated returns in all economic sectors – including food and agriculture. As a result, even manufacturing and service corporations have been “financialised”. The dominant financial logic places little value on real production, productivity or jobs. This is extremely harmful to the vast majority of the world’s population, and it has enormous implications for the billions of people involved in food production.

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On 14 October 2009 an Indian governmental agency – the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), part of the Environment Ministry – gave its approval for the environmental release of Bt brinjal. [1] This means that the crop is considered safe for use in an open space, which includes planting on a commercial scale. Bt brinjal would be the first genetically engineered food crop to be approved for commercial cultivation in India, and the government sees it as the first of many. Update: On 9 February 2010, in response to the widespread concern expressed by the public and some scientists, Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment and Forests, announced an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt-brinjal.

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Le 14 octobre 2009, une agence gouvernementale indienne, le Comité d’autorisation du génie génétique (GEAC), qui fait partie du ministère de l’Environnement, a approuvé l’autorisation du brinjal Bt, une aubergine transgénique. En d’autres termes, on considère que la culture de cette plante en milieu ouvert est sans danger, même si cette culture se fait à une échelle commerciale. Cette décision a été prise suite au lobbying de Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd (Mahyco), l’entreprise partenaire de Monsanto en Inde, qui est responsable en grande partie du développement de cette aubergine Bt.

Mise à jour : Le 9 février 2010, en réponse aux nombreuses inquiétudes exprimées par le public et par certains scientifiques, Jairam Ramesh, ministre de l’Environnement et des Forêts, a annoncé un moratoire illimité sur le l’autorisation du brinjal Bt.

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In September 2009, farmers in Canada were shocked to learn that their flax (linseed) exports were contaminated with genetically modified (GM) flax. The timing could not have been worse: just as farmers began their harvest, companies in Europe began detecting GM flax contamination, and the European market was closed to Canadian flax. It is not unusual to have crops contaminated by their GM equivalents, but this particular contamination was wholly unexpected because it has been illegal to sell GM flax seed in Canada since 2001.

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En septembre 2009, les agriculteurs canadiens ont appris avec stupéfaction que leur exportations de graines de lin avaient été contaminées par des graines génétiquement modifiées (GM). Cela ne pouvait pas plus mal tomber : Juste au moment où la récolte débutait, certaines entreprises en Europe ont commencé à détecter une contamination par des graines de lin GM et le marché européen a été fermé aux graines de lin canadiennes. Il n’est pas rare que certaines plantes soient contaminées par leur équivalent GM, mais en l’occurrence, cette contamination était totalement imprévisible, puisque la vente de graines de lin GM est interdite au Canada depuis 2001.

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