Rural Development

News, articles, research reports and analysis related to ongoing debates and struggles over the direction and benefits of rural development in particular and economic development in general.

Gateses' Approach to African Hunger is Bound to Fail
Peter Rosset, LRAN
December 18, 2006 - The teaming up of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the Rockefeller Foundation to bring a "new" Green Revolution to Africa sadly ignores the lessons of the failures of the first Green Revolution.

FINAL DECLARATION OF THE ASIA PACIFIC PEOPLE CONFERENCE ON RICE AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY - Jakarta - Indonesia, 14-18 May 2006
June 29, 2006 - We recognize that food and agriculture is fundamental for the people, especially when we consider the issue of rice in Asia Pacific. Many rice farmers in the region are now hungry or sinking into debt, and therefore their livelihood is threatened. This situation is also promoted by international institution such as the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. On the other hand, these institutions are also promoting export-oriented rice production, and monopoly control by transnational corporations. This has been endangering rice farmer’s life in Asia Pacific.

AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE CONTEXT OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, THE RIGHT TO FOOD AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY: LAND, TERRITORY AND DIGNITY
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AGRARIAN REFORM AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
April 19, 2006 - In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad-based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant-based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.

Land, Empowerment and the Rural Poor: Challenges to Civil Society and Development Agencies
Saturnino M. Borras Jr., IFAD
March 30, 2006 - Three-fourths of the world’s 1.2 billion poor are rural poor. Lack of access to and control over land and water resources is largely the cause of their economic poverty, social exclusion, political subordination and cultural marginalization. Recent global campaigns to end poverty, however laudable, have tended to avoid the issue of democratizing access to and control over productive resources. When such campaigns have addressed the issue of access to resources, they have tended to avoid public policies that explicitly confront the structural and institutional causes of rural poverty. But if poverty is to be ended worldwide, anti-poverty campaigns have to focus on the rural world. If rural poverty is to be eradicated, democratizing access to and control over land and water resources must become central.

Agrarian Reform in the Context of Food Sovereignty, the Right to Food and Cultural Diversity: “Land, Territory and Dignity”
Peter Rosset, Sofia Monsalve, Saúl Vicente Vázquez, Jill K. Carino,, LRAN, La Via Campesina, , FIAN International, International Indian Treaty Council, Cordillera Women’s Education and Resource Center (CWERC), West African Network of Peasant and Agricultural Producers' Organizations (ROP
February 13, 2006 - In this paper, which provides a civil society perspective on agrarian reform and rural development, we develop the concept of food sovereignty as an overarching framework or paradigm. Food sovereignty essentially defines the policy package that would be needed so that policies of agrarian reform and rural development might truly reduce poverty, protect the environment, and enhance broad-based, inclusive economic development. The most fundamental pillars of food sovereignty include the recognition and enforcement of the right to food and the right to land; the right of each nation or people to define their own agricultural and food policies, respecting the right of indigenous peoples to their territories, the rights of traditional fisherfolk to fishing areas, etc.; a retreat from free trade policies, with a concurrent greater prioritization of production of food for local and national markets, and an end to dumping; genuine agrarian reform; and peasant-based sustainable, or agroecological, agricultural practices.

Call to participate in the "Land, Territory and Dignity" Forum
ICCARD
February 13, 2006 - The Council of the FAO in its 128th session in June 2005 approved the proposal which called for an International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) to be held in 2006. This constitutes a critical element of the FAO program to fulfil commitments of the 1996 World Food Summit, the 2001 World Food Summit: five years later, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millenniums Development Goals (MDG). The FAO Council welcomed the proposal of the Government of Brazil to host the Conference that will take place in Porto Alegre from 7 - 10 March, 2006. The "International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - new challenges and options for revitalizing rural communities" (ICARRD), will be the 2nd international conference on this subject, following the World Conference held in 1979 (http://www.icarrd.org/).

The WTO and the Destructive Effects of the Sugarcane Industry in Brazil
Maria Luisa Mendonça
February 13, 2006 - The sugarcane industry is Brazil’s fastest-growing agribusiness of 2005. Its expansion has brought with it serious consequences for the country, such as environmental destruction, removal of agricultural workers from their land and frequent workers’ rights violations. Sugarcane plant supervisors demand that each worker cut, on average, twelve to fifteen tons of sugarcane per day. Between January 2004 and September 2005, the Migrants’ Pastoral registered eight workers’ deaths due to an excess of work in the cane fields of the Ribeirão Preto region alone.

Ancestral Land, Food Sovereignty and the Right to Self-Determination: Indigenous Peoples' Perspectives on Agrarian Reform
Jill K. Carino, Cordillera Women's Education and Resource Center (CWERC) - Philippines
January 31, 2006 - The Outline of this Paper:
1. Worldview of indigenous peoples on land, territory and resources
2. Internationlly Recognized Rights of Indigenous Peoples to Land
3. Agrarian Reform and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

- Collective land rights, individual and communal ownership
- Right to self-determination and free prior informed consent
- Respect for Indigenous knowledge systems

4. Globalization and indigenous peoples' alternatives

Agriculture policies , support, subsidies, CAP, WTO, dumping, development, food sovereignty,…What are the conditions of legitimacy of public support in agriculture ?
European Farmers Coordination (CPE)
January 27, 2006 - During the last EU summit in June 2005, the negotiations on the EU financial perspectives for 2007-2013 failed. UK, the future EU presidency, explained that it was not possible to go on with a Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) that costs so much for so few farmers. On international level, the CAP is questioned in the trade negotiations because it is not recognized as a fair policy by many developing countries.

Surviving Crisis in Cuba: The Second Agrarian Reform and Sustainable Agriculture
Mavis Alvarez, , Martin Bourque, Fernando Funes, Lucy Martin. Armando Nova, and Peter Rosset
September 20, 2005 - When trade relations with the Soviet Bloc crumbled in late 1989 and 1990, and the US tightened the trade embargo, Cuba was plunged into economic crisis. In 1991 the government declared the “Special Period in Peacetime,” which basically put the country on a wartime economy-style austerity program. An immediate 53 percent reduction in oil imports not only affected fuel availability for the economy, but also reduced to zero the foreign exchange that Cuba had formerly obtained via the re-export of petroleum. Imports of wheat and other grains for human consumption dropped by more than 50 percent, while other foodstuffs declined even more. Cuban agriculture was faced with an initial drop of about 70 percent in the availability of fertilizers and pesticides, and more than 50 percent in fuel and other energy sources produced by petroleum.

The Underlying Assumptions, Theory, and Practice of Neoliberal Land Policies
Saturnino M. Borras Jr.
September 05, 2005 - In the early 1990s, neoliberal land policies emerged within, and became an important aspect of, mainstream thinking and development policy agendas. These policies have increased in prevalence since their inception at the end of the Cold War. Neoliberal land policies emerge from a pro-market critique of conventional (generally state-directed) land policies. Using various experiences from different countries, it is argued here that the pro-market critique of conventional land reforms is theoretically flawed and is unsupported by empirical evidence, and that initial outcomes of pro-market land policies show that they do not significantly reform pre-existing agrarian structures in favour of the rural poor.

The right to food
Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to food, United Nations Organization
August 26, 2005 - The right to food is a human right that is protected by international law. It is the right to have regular, permanent and unobstructed access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and ensuring a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free from anxiety. Governments have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food.

Interview with Peter Rosset of CECCAM and Land Research Action Network: Agrarian Reform, Land Reform, Food Sovereignty
Nic Paget-Clarke (In Motion Magazine) and Peter Rosset (LRAN, CECCAM), In Motion Magazine
July 20, 2005 - This interview for In Motion Magazine, April 15, 2005, was held in San Felipe, Yaracuy, Venezuela during a workshop on land reform held as part of a nationwide conference called “The 3rd International Gathering in Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution”. The Via Campesina delegation was doing a followup on an agreement (Chavez, Los Tapes y Las Semillas) that President Hugo Chavez signed at the MST settlement of Tapas in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil during the (2004) World Social Forum. This was a historic agreement between a government, the Chavez government, and a social movement, the Landless Social Movement, the MST, in Brazil, plus the Via Campesina, as the global alliance of peasant organizations, and a university and a state government in Brazil to create a Latin American School of Agroecology for peasant movements.

Transgenic crops – An Important Debate
Sérgio Antônio Görgen, State Congressman, Worker’s Party, Rio Grande do Sul
July 12, 2005 - What is in discussion here are two models of rural development. One of them is centered on large landholdings controlled by multinational groups and focused on chemical input-dependent monoculture production. The other is centered on small and medium sized agricultural production units organized in cooperative networks, local agro-industries, national companies, strategic public companies, and based in the diversification of production and in organic and agro-ecologic technologies.

Democracy and its Simulacra
Raj Patel, Centre for Civil Society
December 20, 2004 - Drawing on the experiences of peasant struggles and landless movements from three continents, Mr.Patel provides a sophisticated analysis of the democratization of an "agrarian revolution" emerging around the world. The author makes the case that democracy from below is the central vehicle in the struggle against World Bank rural development policy. In the words and actions of landless movement representatives and peasant organizations, who participated in the World Forum on Agrarian Reform this past December, he finds evidence that "democracy is powerful stuff".

For a world without hunger: Agrarian reform now! Report on the World Forum on Agrarian Reform
Peter Rosset, Center for the Study of Change in the Mexican Countryside (CECCAM ) &
December 17, 2004 - The World Forum on Agrarian Reform www..fmra.org, was held from December 5-8, 2004, in Valencia, Spain. More than 500 delegates came together from 68 countries in five continents, including 13 European countries, 20 countries in Africa, 18 in Latin America, 2 in North America, 16 in Asia, and 1 in Oceania. The productivity and success of the conference "exceeded all expectations in terms of participation by grassroots social movements" and has helped to provide a clear direction for ongoing work in the struggle for "land reform from below".Read More. . .

Can Redistributive Reform be Achieved via Market-Based Voluntary Land Transfer Schemes? Evidence and Lessons from the Philippines
Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Rural Development, Environment and Population Studies (RDEPS) Group of the Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
November 12, 2004 - This article examines market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) and its variants in the form of voluntary land transfer schemes under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in the Philippines. Analysis of MLAR variants in the Philippines offers a preview of what is likely to happen when the MLAR model currently being pushed by the World Bank is implemented in the real world: Not only do MLAR and MLAR-like schemes fail to promote redistributive reform, they also undermine potentially redistributive state-led land reform policies. Download the article in (PDF, 230kb) here.

Lost in the Queue: Equality, Rights and Livelihoods
Jakir Hossain, Campaign For Good Governance & The Innovators
September 02, 2004 - Development in Bangladesh has been largely directed by multilateral lending institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The goal of these institutions has been to drive Bangladesh towards free market reforms and poverty reduction. However, the lives of the poor and landless have remained largely unchanged. This paper calls for a different emphasis within national development. By bringing a participatory approach to development models and research the author outlines an alternative path towards sustainable development, which directly addresses structural inequalities that impact the acces to land, resources and political power.

Selling Nature to Save It? Biodiversity and the Rise of Green Developmentalism
Kathleen McAfee, Food First
July 23, 2004 - The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the "green" World Bank, reflect attempts to regulate international flows of "natural capital" by means of ....green developmentalism. Green developmentalism, with its promise of market solutions to environmental problems, is blunting the North-South disputes that have embroiled international environmental institutions. By its logic, nature is constructed as a world currency and ecosystems become warehouses of genetic resources for the biotech industry.

Declaration of the Via Campesina's 4th International Conference
Via Campesina
July 19, 2004 - "We, members of Via Campesina, a world-wide organization of rural women, peasants, small farmers, rural workers, indigenous people and afro-descendants, from Asia, Europe, America and Africa, met in Itaici, Brazil, from 14-19 June 2004, for our 4th International Conference. We were welcomed warmly, fraternally and in a combative spirit by our hosts, the member organizations of Via Campesina in Brazil. We gathered to confirm our determination to defend our cultures and our right to continue living as peasants and peoples with our own identity. . . . . Read More

Agrarian Reform: The Promise and The Reality
Marissa de Guzman, Marco Garrido & Mary Ann Manahan
June 23, 2004 - An updated and revised background report on land reform in the Philippines. The authors have provided a comprehensive critical analysis of the history and reality of agrarian reform in the Philippines. This 59 page paper is also featured as a chapter in, Anti-development State: Political Economy of Permanent Crisis by Walden Bello

Tides Shift on Agrarian Reform: New Movements Show the Way
Peter Rosset, Co-Director, Food First
April 15, 2004 - Peasant organizations around the world have been pushing for land reform on their terms in new ways. In early 2000 the landless members of the Honduran Peasant Movement of Aguán decided to take matters into their own hands. Some 900 families occupied a 5000 hectare site of state owned land in Colón. The land was the former base of the Regional Center for Military Training (CREM) during the 1980's where the U.S. trained the contra forces against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

The Politics of Land Reform in Southern Africa
Edward Lehoff, Institute of Development Studies
January 27, 2004 - Across Southern Africa the legacy of settler colonialism lives on in a dualistic agricultural system that has been perpetuated first by deliberate state policies and, more recently, by the forces of free market capitalism. Small-scale farming, which provides a precarious living to million of poor rural households, remains severely neglected by policy makers in the region. Recent seizures of commercial farms and other land in Zimbabwe and increasing militancy among land activists in the region, suggests that a radical demand for land remains strong among much of the rural population. This paper explores the dynamics of land reform and land policy in Southern Africa with special consideration of the radical struggles for access to land and resources.

Two Models of Land Reform and Development
Jeffrey Frank, Z Magazine
November 27, 2002 - Guided by the slogan "Occupy, Resist and Produce," the MST initiated a direct action model of land reform
wherein landless peasants occupy an unproductive parcel
of land, petition the Brazilian government for land
rights, and operate the settlement as a collective
enterprise.