Transcript Slide 1

The Argentinean case: 17 years
of GM Soya plantations
About our actions as Organised Civil Society:
A balance and new directions to
break the vicious circle of devastation
Stella Semino
Grupo de Reflexión Rural Argentina
[email protected]
http://www.grr.org.ar
ACT 1: DEBT-Neoliberalism-GM SOYA
1990’s Less state protection,
credit lines for GM producers
Source: C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
One province example
2001-2003 CRISIS
Cultural introduction RR Soya to alleviate hunger
of the poor and poverty of middle classes
CÁRITAS (Catholic Church charity)
Transparency
Able to train people and
provide
grains to those in need
)
Foundations
Transparency
Able to train people and
provide
grains to those in need
AAPRESID
RR Soya Producers
Association
& partner business
OTHER INSTITUTIONS….
Transparency
Able to train people and
provide
grains to those in need
NGO’s
Transparency
Able to train people and
provide
grains to those in need
ACT 2
A successful market story with social inclusion
Expansion RR Soya monoculture
In 2004: 117,000 km2
In 2012: 187.000 km2
In 2014, the 2023 USDA
projects + 6.6 m tons
Exports,local added value
South-south cooperation
2012
Social Inclusion
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) US$475 billion (2012)
6% of the GDP is invested in education and culture,
and 9.5% of the GDP in health services. (WB2013)
The Dark side of the model
NEO-Extractivism
“Although government policies after the 2001 crisis differ
in many ways from those of the 1990s, current agrarian
policies are not significantly distinct from those followed
during the pre-crisis neoliberal period. Rather than ‘postneoliberal’, the new model could thus be better
described as ‘neo-extractivist’. With the connivance of
the state, agri-business is producing the largest-ever
transformation of natural capital into economic capital in
the history of the region. Moreover, the latest policy
developments suggest that Argentina is on the threshold
of a new and deeper stage of agrarian capital expansion
and wealth concen-tration, this time operating at a
much larger scale.” (Cáceres,D 2014)
Other Extractives Productions
ACT 3: GM SOYA environmental
impacts: LOSS OF SOIL NUTRIENTS
ADVICE FROM “EXPERTS”: TO COPE WITH DEMAND
FOR AGROFUELS, ARGENTINA HAS TO DOUBLE THE
USE OF FERTILIZERS FROM 3 to 6 MT p/y
Deforestation
1996-7: 0,7 M km2
2006-7: 1,7 M km2
Bad for the North, good enough for the South
ARGENTINA PARAGUAY: SOYA
FUMIGATION VICTIMS
HOW TO BREACK THE VICIOUS CIRCLE ?
OPTION 1: Certification for GM soya
in scale?
Coexistence of Few protected areas
and large scale plantations?
Currently, 7.7% of the territory is under
protected areas. There are 36 national parks
and 400 provincial natural reserves. In the last
7 years, national protected areas increased by
24% … In 2009, the National Administration
regulated the Forest Law, which aims to
preserve the conservation of native forests.
Option 2 : Collaboration with the
Institutional organisers of Food/ GM staple
Trade?
….(Rome, October 4, 2013) Today, during a meeting
between La Via Campesina and the director general
Jose Graziano da Silva FAO collaboration agreement
was formalized which recognized the essential role
of small holder food producers….MNCI 2013
Schizohprenia?
Why are FAO and EBRD promoting the destruction of peasant and
family farming?
LVC, GRAIN, ETC Group, FoEI, MMM, CLOC (Incl. MNCI), 14 Sept.
2012
“We are shocked and offended by an article co-signed by Jose
Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, and Suma
Chakrabarti, President of the EBRD, that was pusblished in the Wall
Street Journal on Sept. 6, 2012. In the article, they call on
governments and social organisations to embrace the private
sector as the main engine for global food production… the heads
of these two influential international agencies make a clear call
for a world wide increase in private sector investment and land
grabbing. They say that the private sector is efficient and
dynamic and call on companies to "double investment in the land
itself…”
MARCH 2014
Dialogue between AAPRESID, ACsoja (Soya RR producer Associations),
Government Officers, several NGOs, church leaders, and MNCI (Via
Campesina Argentina)
Do they/we share the same ideas about social and environmental
sustainability, food production, sovereignty ?
Safe coexistence of large plantations and few
family/organic producers?
How about the rest of the world? And the
sustainability of the planet?
OPTION 3: Many of us believe (as the others) that
an other world is possible BUT also...
That the dialogue/negociations with the ‘neoextractivists is not an option to break the vicious
circle of devastation. On the contrary those
exchanges serve only to perpetuate the model