European Agriculture - new translation
Susan K. Jarnagin (jarnagin@iastate.edu)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:20:12 -0500
>Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 15:52:24 -0500
>From: Derrick N Exner <dnexner@iastate.edu>
>Subject: French book
>
>This came in via an associate at the U of Kentucky. It descends into
>rhetoric at times, and it's evidently a literal translation, but it does
>articulate one vision of a European agriculture that is competitive without
>being carnivorous.
>-Rick Exner
>
>>From: Hal Hamilton <hhamilton@centerss.org>
>>To: "'IFFS'" <iffs@nal.usda.gov>
>>Subject: French book
>>Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:05:11 -0400
>>
Here's a summary of what I believe to be a
>>fascinating document. If you want the whole thing (about
>>50 pages) when we get it finished, let me know at
>>hhamilton@centerss.org
>>
>>Agriculture, A Necessary Turn, The Group of Bruges
>>Introduction and Summary, by Hal Hamilton
>>
>>This small book has been roughly translated from French and
>>is now being edited at the Center for Sustainable Systems.
>> It was written in 1996.
>>
>>The book originated with meetings in the French town of
>>Seillac, and was considerably elaborated by a group of
>>people from all over Europe, including the former French
>>Minister of Agriculture Edgard Pisani. It calls for a
>>"vast social mobilization around the agriculture question."
>>
>>The context of this document is the evolution of the Common
>>Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. The CAP
>>was established after the devastation of World War II, and
>>its primary objective was food self-sufficiency. Now, of
>>course, that goal has been vastly surpassed, with the EU
>>having become a major exporter (often "dumper") of
>>commodities on the world market. With the conclusion of
>>the Uruguay round of GATT, some of the foundation stones of
>>the CAP were removed, particularly production based subsidy
>>payments, and so EU farmers are no longer so "sheltered
>>from the harshness of the market."
>>
>>Although the CAP before the 1990s was successful at
>>stimulating production, it also contributed to
>>over-production, extremely intensive use of fertilizer and
>>pesticides, and environmental damage.
>>
>>This "western model of production and consumption,"
>>including intensive specialized production and the
>>separation of livestock from crop agriculture, is
>>frequently promoted as the model for the rest of the world
>>to emulate, and it is linked to the deregulation of
>>agriculture through trade policy.
>>
>>The Bruges group recommends instead the development of
>>models that contribute to a balance between humans and
>>nature. It is no longer desirable, for example, that
>>populations emigrate from rural to urban settings. In the
>>West, people have become so removed from agriculture that
>>"the earth stopped being considered as a patrimony to
>>become a tool in production." Agriculture, once "the art
>>of managing nature," has become governed by a
>>"technico-economic uni-dimensional rationality." These
>>processes have reached their limits "at a time when our
>>societies aspire to reground themselves." The crisis of
>>"Mad Cow Disease" is "a symbol of the resignation of
>>government to the market and forgetfulness of the
>>elementary rules of security."
>>
>>Agriculture and European Society
>>
>>The 1992 revision of the CAP was temporary because it was
>>not based on a true social contract between agriculture and
>>society.
>>
>>The major needs of European society of today are three:
>>employment and avoiding social breakdown, management of
>>land and the environment, and relationships with the world
>>market and world-wide food security. Agriculture will have
>>a role in all three needs, and a new social contract with
>>agriculture will no longer be limited to production of
>>food.
>>
>>Agriculture, Land and Nature
>>
>>As agriculture is integrated into the world market, it
>>loses its capacity to contribute to wise land management,
>>and it is furthermore subject to movements of production to
>>other countries. Some "chicken factories," for example,
>>have left Brittany for the Middle East. The concentration
>>of agriculture, particularly industrialized livestock
>>production, along the English Channel, has been fueled by
>>the importation of feed grains across the Atlantic.
>>
>>Without care and thought, agriculture has participated in
>>the rupture between the economy and land. In regions where
>>agriculture is decreasing, fallow lands grow, landscapes
>>become uniform, and even natural areas sometimes lose their
>>fertility. In regions of concentrated production,
>>pollution is serious.
>>
>>These processes appear when society shows an increasing
>>sensitivity toward the preservation of its natural and
>>cultural heritage, and when it is less willing to pay the
>>price of over-production. The social contract is breaking
>>down.
>>
>>Agriculture and the World
>>
>>One of the major paradoxes of our time is the divorce
>>between food production and human needs-the coexistence of
>>surpluses and hunger.
>>
>>Those who are hungry are poor. The solution is not
>>increased production from the wealthy countries. The
>>solution is increased income, through work, for the poor.
>> For the populations of the poorest countries to raise
>>their income, they must have work, and we rediscover
>>therefore the importance of agriculture. For a global
>>population of peasants, agriculture is the most likely work
>>to generate income the most quickly. Such a strategy is
>>also the most likely to stem overly rapid urbanization.
>>
>>European agriculture, by putting products on the world
>>market at artificially low prices, has damaged the
>>agriculture of other countries. "European agriculture
>>cannot refuse to others what it claims for itself: the
>>right to provide decent income to farmers and to give them
>>the means to live worthily."
>>
>>Global cooperation could be facilitated by the emergence of
>>multiple exporting centers, and a new regime could be
>>negotiated in which everyone wins on the basis of mutual
>>survival.
>>
>>Towards a European Policy
>>
>>Markets are the best known regulators of supply and demand,
>>but they must be guided, otherwise "the development of
>>business stretches sometimes to become a goal in itself and
>>drives to forget the malfunctions that it provokes in the
>>ethical, social or ecological domains."
>>
>>The expansion of commerce does not automatically reduce
>>poverty. Poor countries can remain marginalized. Even
>>growth within poor countries does not necessarily reduce
>>poverty because much of the profits accrue to an elite of
>>contractors and agro-exporters. The market by itself does
>>not guarantee food security, nor does it guarantee "a
>>productive variety of land use for ecological and social
>>reasons." The market does not account for the waste of
>>water, air, land, wildlife or biodiversity unless this
>>waste induces an immediate cost for the responsible
>>enterprise. The market does not have a long-term time
>>horizon.
>>
>>"Of course, the requirement of competition can stimulate
>>innovation and improve general well-being; of course, the
>>opening of markets can give rise to new opportunities, but
>>it is necessary to negotiate the adaptations that are
>>necessary. The market is a powerful motor of the evolution
>>of societies, but it requires the imposition of safe
>>guards."
>>
>>"It is necessary to invent a new way of relating to global
>>markets: neither protectionist withdrawal nor opening
>>without conditions."
>>
>>"How to find a new combination between the market and
>>public intervention? Nobody has the answer to this
>>question." The globalization of economies does not
>>eliminate local strategies such as direct marketing from
>>producers to consumers, identification of the origin of
>>products, regionally distinct marketing, the insertion of
>>agriculture at the heart of local development, and rural
>>land planning to meet new demands of society. Challenges
>>for the EU will mean a renewed vision of the principle of
>>subsidiarity and negotiations about the link between the
>>world-wide level and the local level.
>>
>>The European stake
>>
>>The EU is in some ways a model of regional integration with
>>redistribution mechanisms between countries enabling a
>>"certain attenuation of diversity." The EU is small enough
>>to enable "negotiation on a human scale." Citizens are
>>"able to keep a certain hold on their destiny."
>>
>>Considerable challenges are "at its doors." The southern
>>countries suffer from poverty, unemployment, and
>>insufficient food production. At least 10 countries to the
>>east desire entrance into the EU. An enlargement of the EU
>>threatens a growth in economic disparity. The Union could
>>trend toward a simple free trade zone. The most "liberal"
>>national governments could block collective decisions and
>>therefore impose their choices on the others. "Competences
>>thus lost by the authorities and the citizens will be in
>>some way delegated by default to the market. Without
>>effective decision procedures, a widened European Union
>>could accelerate the disappearance of the authorities and
>>the deprivation of citizens."
>>
>>Agriculture has an important role in these conversations.
>> The challenge to our time is not to limit international
>>cooperation. On the contrary, it is to reinforce
>>cooperation by articulating the distinctions between
>>regional and global arenas. It is to widen cooperation by
>>including not only commercial or financial interests by
>>also all the dimensions of life : environmental, social and
>>cultural. It is to return the public interest to the
>>setting up of a new world order.
>>
>>Land and the environment
>>
>>Since the end of the sixties society has requested of
>>agriculture to reduce pollution and waste of resources,
>>manage land better, and ensure product quality. Large
>>changes in agricultural practices will result from these
>>requests. Farmers need local adaptability (subsidiarity)
>>in the process of meeting society's needs. Local
>>negotiations and support can help farmers be actors and
>>citizens rather than merely those who implement decisions
>>made elsewhere.
>>
>>The production of a more pleasant environment can bring new
>>sources of farm income. Former byproducts of agriculture
>>can become important products with "more precise
>>requirements:" harmonious landscapes, water quality, and a
>>living and diversified nature. These productions are of
>>collective wealth. They show "a desire of many Europeans
>>to come closer to farmers, to a rural culture not
>>folklorized but living and functional. These Europeans do
>>not want to see develop, on one side an agriculture
>>distanced from them and on the other side farm museums or
>>didactic window shops explaining to them the agriculture of
>>yesterday and today."
>>
>>"The requests for better product quality come from a
>>similar directions. They caries the desire not only for
>>lost tastes and health guarantees but also identity, social
>>links, and proximity with the soil and nature."
>>
>>"Contribute to the creation of collective wealth,
>>participate in rural development, develop new products,
>>create new employment. It is thus necessary to find the
>>way to a new contract between agriculture and European
>>society."
>>
>>This new contract is difficult to find, however. Farmers
>>in the north have become producers of "products like any
>>other." Agriculture is no longer the principle motor of
>>rural development. Farmers are more isolated "on their
>>tractors or in their buildings. Informal conversation
>>settings have become rare."
>>
>>For a modern agriculture
>>
>>Modernity of agriculture will be partly shaped by
>>environmental dimensions. "The excellence of the producer
>>will be redefined." Technical modernity will be "less
>>present in the sophistication of machines than in the
>>intelligence of procedures." "The management of natural
>>environments or the control of the production effects on
>>the environment require precise knowledge of biologic
>>processes as well as analysis and forecasting. Setting up
>>diversified production systems requires incontestable
>>manager capacities. The negotiation of new services or the
>>establishment of selling networks adapted to specific
>>products requires business knowledge. Training and
>>counseling organizations will be surprised. The variety of
>>models to come will constitute for them a particularly big
>>requirement."
>>
>>"The organic production of energy will become a basic
>>strategic need on the long term. Next to these productions
>>of energy will come the supply of basic molecules for
>>manufacturing, textile, and pharmacy industries."
>>
>>"These changes are not merely about reinventing the farmer,
>>but go well beyong the farmer. The response to this
>>formidable challenge can only be a dialog with other social
>>groups: the missions of the farmer must necessarily be
>>defined according to what Europe and the world want."
>>
>> What is expected for the job of farmer is a synthesis at
>>the intersection of production, management of nature, and
>>rural development. This reinvention of the job goes through
>>three inseparable requirements: the first one is redefine
>>the professional status of farmers; the second,
>>professional solidarity; the third one, the ethics of
>>agricultural activity.
>>
>>It is necessary to assure a better transparency of the
>>destination and distribution of supports offered to farmers
>>while defining clear objectives. It is necessary that, by
>>explicit taxes and contracts sometimes negotiated at the
>>local level, the collective usefulness of this job be
>>recognized and the services paid as much as the products.
>> It is only then that one will escape these controverses in
>>which the authorities treat farmers as assisted people, and
>>these ambiguous situations where farmers claim both a
>>status of entrepreneur and an exemption from market laws.
>> It is not about making regular bosses out of farmers: the
>>environmental and territorial mission begin with a certain
>>social contract."
>>
>>Principles for a renewed agriculture
>>
>>Solidarity, in the international arena, requires access to
>>markets for farmers who need access the most. In the
>>national arena it means responding to needs for equity,
>>employment and income. In the European arena, it means
>>compensating for inequalities between countries and
>>regions.
>>
>>Diversity is required both environmentally and socially.
>>
>>The necessity of planning for complex systems requires that
>>we avoid dividing agricultural policy into, on the one
>>hand, markets directed by international competition, on the
>>other hand, a system of taxes and incentives in favor of
>>the environment, and at last a policy of income coming from
>>social action. "Production should not be thought
>>independent of production methods. Income must not be
>>dissociated from the value of the given service. It is
>>necessary to strongly integrate economic, environmental,
>>and social considerations."
>>
>>The linkage between society and agriculture will require
>>multiple decentralized dialogues in order for farmers and
>>society to understand the contributions and the
>>responsibilities of agriculture.
>>
>>Conclusion
>>
>> "Europe needs its agriculture, but an agriculture that
>>masters its evolution and that relocates itself by
>>redefining its role and its function. Agriculture must
>>reply to the needs of an urbanized population that wants a
>>living territory.
>>
>> Europeans will benefit by preserving an effective
>>agriculture on world-wide markets. But European agriculture
>>must also direct itself towards the production of
>>environmental and tourist services.
>>
>> It is because of the creation of wealth, unique and
>>collective, that agriculture calls upon the budget of
>>society. It deserves budgetary consideration because of the
>>creation and the maintenance of a long term, living
>>patrimony and the European identity which is illustrated by
>>the landscapes.
>>
>> Thus, agriculture will rediscover its founding role in the
>>European construction. It will consecrate itself to the
>>realization of objectives important to Europeans. European
>>policy will again become one of the significant elements of
>>an union founded on civilization, set on a territory, and
>>linking an original society marked in time, tomorrow and
>>yesterday. "
>>
>>
>>Hal Hamilton
>>Center for Sustainable Systems
>>433 Chestnut St., Berea KY 40403
>>Phone: (606) 986-5336
>>Fax: (606) 986-1299
>>Hhamilton@centerss.org
>>
>Rick (Derrick N.) Exner
> PFI Farming Systems Coordinator
> ISU Extension
> Practical Farmers of Iowa
> 2104 Agronomy Hall, ISU, Ames, IA 50011
> (515) 294-1923, -9985 fax
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