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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking (water)
  • Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 19:32:02 -0500


I have heard that besides running traditional farmers off from their land that the multinationals also received guarantees of 'impossible' quantities of water. Do you know anything about this?


Well, since my two inch blue layflat pipe coming down from the spring on top of the mountain froze this morning and I spent all day replacing it/ getting soaked, here are my thoughts on water.

This is a major issue everywhere, including here in the US. Recently a subsidiary of a French water company (I think it was Suez) tried to buy New Orleans water system. The reason why? They sure didn't think they could make a profit off of NO's crumbling water system, what they did want was control of the Mississippi for future private water sales.

This is happening throughout the world, mostly being led by French transnationals. As many of you know in your area where the aquifer is being pumped dry, this is happening in other counties too. China's big agriculture boom is being supplied with non renewable water. Did you know that China is about to become the largest producer of hogs in the world with an eye on major exports to the US? And they are putting their hog factories in land that is almost desert, pumping water from an ancient aquifer. Not very sustainable there. But then, a lot of US farming practices are just as guilty.

One view that I have heard about global trade and farming is that ultimately when we grow fruits and vegetables for overseas markets what we are really doing is exporting water.

People already pay more money for potable water than they pay for gas. And if we are about to spend billions of dollars on a war to control an oil field which contains 25% of the worlds known reserves, what will we be doing about water in the future? (one view of what is happening in Israel/Palestine is that it isn't a religious/ethnic fight at all but a fight for water. Israel is now getting almost 2/3 of its water from Palestinian land).

And Allan is right about the transnationals that moved to Mexico getting the rights to massive amounts of water. Water that peasants and family farmers were using. This is happening everywhere, all over South America and Africa.

Of course if you want more information on this you can go to my wife's website www.citizen.org and look under Critical Mass (the group she runs).




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