permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Relevant links:

[Unbelievable - LL]
Monsanto GMO seeds are the only ones legal for farmers to grow in Colombia
though they can grow a max of 5 hectares on non-monsanto-gmo but they
cannot sell any of the harvested crops.

And: "The detail that's particularly telling is that the penalties for
planting non-GMO food crops are considerably worse than the penalties for
planting coca or marijuana. It's obvious that illegal food crops are
considered the more serious threat.".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23903099
Comments at Reddit:

[–]vanheltsing 43 points 12 hours ago
I'm from Colombia. Let me comment some things.
1) This is bullshit. There are legitimate sources of protests and there are
leftists assholes backed by the guerrillas creating chaos – as the one
shown on the video of live leak without teethes, that some 2 seconds ago
was throwing rocks and little explosive devices to the police – and
rightist assholes, backed by our last president Alvaro Uribe, which are
also creating chaos to prove themselves the only worthy of running this
country.
2) The righteous side has rational demands. They want to make money from
growing shit in the fields. Between Monsanto seeds (now the only one legal
to use) prices, gas and transport prices, insecticides prices and other
production cost, combined with the highly subsidized products coming from
USA and other countries which we have free commerce treaties with, which
decrease the price of goods, our farmers are losing money.
3) As always the country is too polarized to understand the difference
between this demands and their frivolous convictions and parties.
4) The president has denied that there even is a protest. The police, poor
fuckers, are harrassing the farmers, poor people. This is the war between
the famished, runned by a little few with all the power which obviously
only see profit.
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[–]sushisection 0 points 11 hours ago
Monsanto is spending millions to keep it out of the media.
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parent
[–]Necronomiconomics 0 points 1 hour ago
Reporters Without Borders named Colombia the worst violators of press
freedom in the hemisphere, yet in the U.S. there is a drumbeat about press
freedom violations only regarding Venezuela & Ecuador.
Colombia was being savaged with state-connected right-wing Death Squads &
mass graves of its own citizens, while U.S. made enemies instead with (&
boogeymen of) Venezuela, Bolivia & Ecuador, who have no Death Squads or
mass graves.
In Colombia, assassinations are virtually routine in local elections.
Assassinations are pandemic against labor unions & union organizers.
Multiple U.S. companies are implicated in paying paramilitaries &
cooperating with violence against labor unions.
But Colombia hosts U.S. military bases and waits patiently for its shining
moment as base-of-operations for the upcoming U.S. attacks on South
America's "demons" who won't comply with Washington's demands and insist on
self-determination, the gravest sin.
Colombia has never gotten the media attention it deserves. Because Colombia
is happy to sacrifice self-determination for U.S. dollars.
[–]Herzhell 2 points 3 hours ago
Since 80's, Colombia lived a (another) tragic event. Those(among them three
presidential candidates) who tried to stop new 'economic agreements' were
killed by establishment because they didn't sell their social conscience.
Nowadays We (Colombians) are manipulated or misinformed thanks to media
owned by banksters, hence it's really difficult to talk about legit facts
like Monsanto seeds, World Bank issues or World Trade Organization policies.
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Why is it the same everywhere? People come to their government, thinking
they are a democracy, to give voice to legitimate complaints. And the
police kill a couple of them to keep the rest in their place. This is
something that just never changes, just like Egypt.

I notice they almost didn't say a thing about what the farmers' actual
complaints were. Then, in the last paragraph:

On Wednesday the government announced measures - including better prices
for agricultural products and more access to loans - to ease the pressure
on farmers.
The government also promised more protection from products imported at
lower prices from countries with free-trade agreements with Colombia.
But the small-scale farmers have so far rejected the government's offer.
They say that free trade agreements with the European Union and the US,
which have recently come into force, are flooding the market with
agricultural products at prices they are unable to match.
They also complain that rising fuel and production costs have turned
small-scale farming into a loss-making business.

What it amounts to is you can't make a living on the land any more. You
can't afford to grow crops no one will buy, just like Mexico back when
NAFTA came in. And there are no jobs waiting for you in the city. So it's a
life-and-death situation for these families.

When they abandon the land, where will all these people go?

************


It turns out that this really is in the law... sort of. It really hasn't
all gotten hashed out yet. Click and read this article:

http://mikesbogotablog.blogspot.com/2013/08/res-970-farmer-do-not-plant-your-own.html

Independent farmers will be forced to grow coca because that's the only
remaining cash crop where they don't face unfair competition from the Free
Trade Agreement with the US. It's nice to think they could compete through
offering healthier produce, etc. But the fact is, their customers are very
poor. If all they can afford to eat is Louisiana rice and McDonald's
hamburgers, that's what they're going to buy.

Unfortunately, the documentary on YouTube is only available in Spanish.
Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utY5o_JCjYc

Looking more closely at the law, it seems you can plant no more than five
hectares (12-1/2 acres) of non-GMO seed for your own use, but you can't
sell any of it.

The detail that's particularly telling is that the penalties for planting
non-GMO food crops are considerably worse than the penalties for planting
coca or marijuana. It's obvious that illegal food crops are considered the
more serious threat.

Welcome to the future. Another war yet to be fought and won.