The movements Agrarian in the European Union (UE)

(II)

Intensive and extensive agriculture, capitalist estates and semi -feudal estates. Commercial agriculture and subsistence and mixsta agriculture of small agrarian producers .

Is important to have A clear idea of what these concepts mean to differentiate character capitalist or semi -feudal of agriculture in the EU, both in the 14, especially southern Italy and Spain, as to these countries, with the 13 East of Europe. Thus, we can differentiate large agricultural companies capitalists of the big agro -export companies of agriculture semi -feudal.

About The terms used by bourgeois institutions and academics, we have to take into account these details :

- The expression "Based on family work" does not make any political-economic sense , and indirectly induced. It is completely meaningless, then Whatever the social system of economy, the small farmer "works", whether he lives in the era of slavery, and in that of feudalism or capitalism. which serves to cover up the confusion of social forms of organization of the economy totally different; A confusion that only It benefits the bourgeoisie.

- The expression "based on family work" induces error, cheats people, because it suggests that there is no job salaried.

- The conclusion more essential and fundamental to understand the process of development of capitalism In agriculture in general, it is therefore the intensification of agriculture and, parallel.

- The decrease in the average surface by farm (Farm), is not an accidental, local or episodic fact, but a common phenomenon All civilized countries.

- The infinity of mistakes that all economists make bourgeois without exception with respect to data on the evolution of the Agriculture is explained because this general phenomenon is not sufficiently known, understood, assimilated and thought. ”

- The growing job of salaried work is a general process that exceeds all peculiarities in capitalist countries developed (imperialists). But in the vast majority of them, statistics Agrícola is subordinated, intentionally or not, to conceptions and prejudices dominant bourgeois, and does not provide any systematic information About salaried work.

- North America's example shows us how reckless It would be to confuse estates with large -scale capitalist agriculture, And how often the landowner is a survival of relationships Precapitalists: slaves, feudal or patriarchal.

- It is not the total area, but only the amount of land cultivated what indicates, with some approximation and with some exceptions the Magnitude of the hacienda.

- Until the farms with less extension, they are true Most "large" sense (wage labor expenses, implements value of tillage and machines) than those of more extension. The increase in earth cultivated of pharms or farm of capitalist type marking belong to the Group of smaller dimensions.

- Lacks of foundation the widespread tendency to consider estates -without Special analysis of the specific data of each country and region separately As capitalist economy.

- Of the penetration of capitalism in agriculture is usually judged by data on the extension of pharms or the number and importance of large Pharms (large for the hectares they occupy). But we must warn that everyone They are indirect data, since the area occupied is far from indicating and directly if a farm or agricultural exploitation is really large as an economic company or if it is capitalist character.

- Data on salaried work are, in this sense, incomparably more demonstrative and convincing.

- Modern (capitalist) agriculture -and in particular in small exploitation agricultural- much more salaried work is used than what is believed habitually.

- In the capitalist countries of the world, a part of the farmers or farmers whose situation is worse they are forced to resort to the sale of their strength of job. These farmers for their main occupation, salaried workers. Is Of course, the bulk of these rural pawns and day laborers who have a little piece of land appears in the lower groups of agriculture.

- With the development of capitalist agriculture the proportion of farmers independent decreases and that of dependent rural workers increases.

- With the development of capitalism , the Intensification of agriculture , its technical progress, the improvement of Cultivation methods are developed there with extraordinary speed.

- Where the dimension of the pharms is greater than In any other region and is usually increased, it is taken as Model of capitalism in agriculture. This is incorrect. Is due to that The most rough and primitive form of extensive agriculture It is confused with the Intensive agriculture, based on technical progress .

The previous theoretical details come from the study of Lenin of the US agricultural census, published as “new data On the laws of development of capitalism in agriculture ” . Other theoretical details, no less Important, we will make them in the subsequent development of these notes.

Before continuing, we make a comment about Lenin's last theoretical presentation referred to the US case, and is the following:

We comment: Lenin's precision is very important for differentiate the two ways to develop capitalism in a country - one, the road Junker, Prussian or landowner of slow evolution of semi -feudality, of the Another route, the Farmer route of destruction of the landowner and fast system development of capitalism; as well as to differentiate countries developed (now imperialist) capitalists of the semi -feudal countries and semicolonial on whose base a bureaucratic capitalism develops. As It is seen in North America. In Lenin's study, capitalism in the agriculture is going imposing displacing extensive agriculture by intensive agriculture, small by the surface it occupies compared to the extensive, but "Great" for the amount of invested capital and the use of wage labor.

At the time of imperialism, in its last phase, in the moment of its greatest decomposition, when this is even more monopoly, more parasitarian and more rotten, it exports its capitals to our countries to monopolize the land, directly or through its economic agents the landowners and the great native bourgeois (great "modern" estates) And so with low capital investment compared to what they would need to produce in the imperialist countries themselves practice agriculture extensive, which strips the peasantry, ruins the land for production peasant, appropriate water, and drives bureaucratic capitalism to the Guide production not to the national market but to the world market (market Imperialist), deepening the condition of the country as a primary exporter.

The exploitation of countries oppressed by imperialism, It has its economic base in semi -feudality. The inequality of exchanges clearly exposed by Marx as the exchange of a greater amount work the country dominated by a lower amount of work in the country Dominant crystallized in the goods produced and exchanged. Lenin differentiation from developed capitalist countries and countries backward, law of unequal development. The opposite is to raise a homogeneous world economic space, without national economies and the absence of imperialist oppressors and countries oppressed

Development of Development of the Productive Forces, two PRODUCTION SYSTEMS: DEVELOPED-PAÍSES CAPITALIST COUNTRIES. These last are colonial or semicolonial and semi -feudal, on whose basis It develops bureaucratic capitalism. The precapitalist agriculture of small producer mostly of subsistence that constantly deteriorates is the basis of the rest of the economic activity of oppressed countries, the peasantry that produces by below the minimum of the maintenance and reproduction of your workforce cheap food is the basis of the growing inequality of wages between the workers of the oppressed countries and the workers of the imperialist countries in and of the export sector, in particular, of these countries with that of imperialist countries. That determines The transfer of surplus of the countries oppressed to the countries Imperialists

For example: in Latin America what they call „agriculture Familiar "They are poor peasants .

If the example, you can see the effect it has on the value of the workforce workers and in the maintenance of informal workers of the field and city (precapitalist economy). In the minifundio-Latin relationship.

„In all the countries studied, the subsistence segment It concentrates the largest number of family farms, with about 60% of the units under this category. 28% belong to the transition segment and a 12% to consolidated family agriculture (FAO/IDB, 2007). This analysis It allows to affirm that most of the family agriculture of ALC has Limited productive resources with important levels of poverty, variables that allow projecting the magnitude of the sector development challenge. ”

According to FAO/IDB (2007), three segments are distinguished to the Interior of family agriculture:

• Subsistence segment: self -consumption oriented, with productive resources and insufficient income to guarantee reproduction familiar, which induces it towards wrain, change of activities or migration, as long as your access to assets does not vary.

• Transition segment: sale and Self -consumption, with productive resources that satisfy family reproduction. Experience problems generating surpluses that allow you to develop The productive unit.

• Consolidated family agriculture: has resources from Land of greatest potential, has access to markets (technology, capital, products) and generates surpluses for the capitalization of the productive unit.

The information collected reveals that the participation of the family agriculture in the value of sector production does not exceed 50% in most of the countries that possess this information, a figure that manifests The existence of production and productivity problems in this segment, but that at the same time, it allows to account that the contribution of this segment (…) (FAO, 2014)

Another example of Latin America:

To understand the Imperialist strategic plan regarding the "reform" of the PAC and the MAE of the EU :

„ 16 April 2021 Economic Affairs

Latin America and the caribbean They contribute 14% of world food production. Your new regional mission is to promote the necessary transformation of agri -food systems for feed 10,000 million people in 2050. However, the pandemic of COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented setback in the fight against hunger and more than 20 million people could swell the ranks of poverty.

The Latin America region and The Caribbean represents " A pillar for the World Food Security " , said the general director Friday From the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization During a ministerial meeting dedicated to agriculture in the continent American.

When addressing more than thirty Ministers, what Dongyu praised the regional contribution that prevented the crisis Sanitary of COVID-19 HE It would also become a food crisis. "Now they must be the Architects of recovery, a recovery with transformation ", He urged “. ( UN news , Global Look Human Stories, Latin America And the Caribbean is key to feeding 10,000 million people in 2050)

Another example of Latin America in relation to semi -feudal landowners and great capitalist exploitation (extensive and intensive agriculture))

The landowner and minifundio binomial in LATIN AMERICA.

„ The prevalence of the estate

For this section, agricultural census data were collected Recent from six important Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. The type and amount of data collected In the census of each country they vary considerably and, therefore, the Depth of the analysis is limited by the availability of the data. By This reason, the attention will focus mainly on Brazil and Peru, who have The most detailed data, and will include only limited data from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico.

The first thing to highlight of the data is the continuum Predomination of great landowners in these countries. Despite the frequent statements over the years that great estates They would disappear due to their inefficiency and inability to compete with Small and medium more productive producers, this does not seem to be the case. As Table 1 shows, the large properties of 500 hectares or more occupy Most agricultural lands in all countries studied, note to Page 3 and the highest properties of more than 1,000 hectares occupy almost half of all agricultural lands in Brazil and Venezuela, more than two -Tercios in Peru and three quarters of all agricultural lands in Argentina and Colombia.

Fuentes: INDEC (2002), IBGE (2012), DANE (2015), Inei (2012), GBV 2010.

Table 1: Land concentration in Latin American countries (percent of landholdings/percent of agricultural land).

In other words, although the concentration of the earth has decreased in some places in recent years, it is still extreme in the most of the main Latin American countries, and the countryside is still dominated by great landowners. However, it should be noted that there are Significant differences between countries and within them. In some Countries, like Chile, the great unproductive estates are practically non -existent (Bengoabengoa reference 2013), while in other countries, such as Colombia are omnipresent. There are also significant differences From one region from one country to another. The northeast of Brazil, for example, has a significantly different agrarian structure from that of the south or southeast of Brazil, and these differences should not be overlooked.

In addition, concentrated property and predominance of great properties do not necessarily mean that the earth is underutilized or that It operates under a logic of risk minimization. In some regions, large farms are used for mechanized intensive agriculture, and In many Latin American countries, agriculture areas have been developed highly productive. In fact, countries like Brazil and Argentina have experienced an important boom in soybean production in recent years, and much of this production is carried out in mechanized farms of large size.

​

Therefore, to have an idea of the relative weight of the large mechanized farms compared to other forms of production Less intensive, I look for data on the use of the specific land of Great farms. Figure 1 shows the use of land in large Properties in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the only countries for which had data on the use of the specific land of the size of the farms These properties are almost entirely dominated by extensive activities such as grazing and forests, and more than 80 percent of the land they occupy is dedicated to these two activities, while only A small portion is used for cultivation. This seems to be the case too For other countries, since the data on the general use of the land They reflect this same general pattern. AND n other words, although it is true that in Some regions large properties are used for intensive crops, The general trend is clearly the opposite: in the great farms of Latin America predominate extensive activities such as grazing and forests.

Figure 1: Land use on large holdings (>500ha) in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia.

Not only do extensive activities predominate, but Statistics on Earth use reveal low investment and low productivity of these types of production. In grazing lands, for example, if We divide the total number of animals into large farms by the total hectares of pastures, the large farms in Brazil have only 0.65 animals per hectare of grazing land, while in Peru it is incredibly low, 0.06 animals per hectare (IBGE 2012; INEI 2012). This means that these landowners averages much less than one animal for each hectare of land grazing, while small properties can have between 2 and 10 animals per hectare. In Peru, small farms of less than fifty hectares average 12 animals per hectare of grazing land, approximately two hundred times more than the great properties of the country (INEI 2012).

In addition, much of the land dedicated to grazing and forests is totally unrelated, which means that the owners have inverted little or nothing on earth and simply harvest it for their products natural and seminatural . In the big stays of Brazil, 33 percent of all grazing lands are not improved, while in Peru almost 95 percent is not improved (IBGE 2012; INEI 2012). This means no There has been no investment in things like planted or irrigated pastures, new varieties of pastures or fertilizers that can increase the productivity of the grazing lands. These data were not available for the big farms in other countries, but the situation is likely to be very similar. In Venezuela, 73 percent of all grazing lands do not They are improved (GBV 2010).

Additional data on agricultural methods and technologies further reveal the limited nature of the modernization of the great Properties of Latin America. As several scholars have pointed out, the big ones Operations often adopt some modern technologies and at the same time They maintain low intensity activities that underutilize the earth . Table 2 shows the percentage of large properties in Brazil and Peru that use various methods and technologies associated with modern agriculture. Just one minority of these farms invests in fertilizers, insecticides or irrigation, And very few use harvesters or other agricultural machinery. Although most Of the great agricultural farms in Brazil they have tractors, these are They often use as a means of transport and cleaning of land, not for crop . And while vaccines are widely used in both countries, very Few large livestock farms in both countries use insemination artificial . In Peru, almost 95 percent have not improved (Ibge 2012; INEI 2012). This means that there has been no investment in things like pastures planted or irrigated, new varieties of pastures or fertilizers that can Increase the productivity of grazing lands. These data were not available for large farms in other countries, but it is likely That the situation is very similar. In Venezuela, 73 percent of all grazing lands are not improved (GBV 2010).

Table 2: Percent of landholdings that employ various technologies.

Since Brazil has one of the most agricultural sectors dynamics in the region, the rest of the countries are likely to be even less modernized. The data of all farms in Mexico and Venezuela Dan An idea of how prevalent are the various technologies throughout the sector agricultural of these countries. In both cases, a minority of owners of land uses technologies associated with modernized agriculture, and We could probably expect similar or perhaps lower rates between great properties that occupy most of the earth.

Brazilian census data on production and investment They provide another indication of the low productivity logic of the great properties . Although the large farms of five hundred hectares or more occupy the 56 percent of all agricultural lands in Brazil, represent only 36 percent of the total production value and represent only 43 percent of total investment (IBGE 2012). This contrasts markedly with small farms of less than fifty hectares, which occupy only 13 percent of the Earth but represent 35 percent of the total value of production and 28 percent of the total investment. In other words, great farms They occupy more than four times more land than the little ones, but they have only a 1 percent more total production value and only 15 percent more than total inversion. These findings are also supported by information from the Brazil Agrarian Reform Agency, which reported in 2010 that more than 50 for one hundred of all great properties and 72 percent of all lands occupied by large properties were considered “unproductive” according to Agency parameters (Incra 2011). Footnote5

Thus, despite the limitations of census data agricultural, we can confirm that agricultural structures in these countries They continue to be characterized by an extreme concentration of the earth and are dominated by large properties that use low production strategies investment and low productivity. What gives rise to this situation, I maintain, is The prevalence of land appropriation based on portfolio and relationships of the resulting property, which exempt the great owners of the market pressures to maximize the productivity of its properties. Without However, detailed information about appropriation can rarely be found of land in the data of the agricultural census, so I turn to the Secondary literature in search of evidence of this. ”

The long interpolation that belongs to : Agrarian Structure and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Bringing the Latifundio “Back In”, Chris Carlson , Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2022

2. Importance of the subject and some news of agricultural movements in the related EU

It was already said at the end of the 19th century, and retains its News, that:

It is a phenomenon curious the fact that agriculture gains political importance in the same extent to which it loses economic importance in relation to the industry.

It is apparent contradiction between economic importance and political importance, Explain if we remember that, everywhere, the private property of the Earth has entered into contradiction with the

existing mode of production long before property deprived of the other means of production and engendra much faster An unsustainable and unbearable situation.

It is not surprising that agricultural issues occupy so vividly in civilized states to men who direct political life. But when dealing with these issues, These do not direct their intention to the salvation of agriculture but to that of «Classes support of the State», whose conditions of existence have reached become incompatible with the modern conditions of production.

In the presence of all these facts, there is no place to astonish that the agrarian movement, to the extent that it develops, origin to the most foolish charlatanería, that the leading classes take each even more seriously. The one who wants to go effectively to the help of the population Agrícola needs a lot of clarity and a great force of persuasion.

What precedes of "the agrarian question", Karl Kausky, when the author was not yet the Renegado Kautsky, and his work was reviewed by Lenin as the most important Marxist economy publication after the publication of the III volume of El Capital.

News:

2.1 Ecological transition. The European Commission (CE), EU executive arm, wants reduce by 2040 by 90% emissions With respect to 2015 levels.

Farmer protests have managed to do Go back some EU plans : CE ha Withdrawn a proposal to reduce the use of pesticides.

Laura Demurts of the Demeter Club, a think tank on food security based in Paris, which also represents companies in the food industry.

"The European Union wants to be the Leader of the Ecological transition ", explains to the BBC, adding that the block currently treats farmers such as "principal problem".

.

2.2 Import control

The Polish farmers protest the low import prices of Ukraine.

"The price of products always It is set by the businessman who buys them, and can buy them from other countries that They do not follow the same Restrictions that us, "he said to Reuters Spanish farmer Joan Mata, 22, in a recent protest near Barcelona.

The farmers of Poland and Hungary They also complain that the EU does not do enough to stop the Imports of cheap food from Ukraine.

In the city of Poznan, in western Poland, farmers demonstrated in large numbers, driving tractors For the city, earlier this month.

Szymon Kosmalski, a 39 -year -old farmer, blamed the Products imported from reducing prices still level that does not allow you to cover production costs.

Ukraine was the fourth world producer of cereals before the Russian invasion of 2022. To support the country, the EU reduced import tariffs, for large local alarm.

" Goods enter without control. We are absolutely against this and advocate to return immediately to the tariffs that existed before the war and control the that enters, "Kosmalski said Reuters .

Resentment is also due to the Free trade agreements With countries not belonging to the EU, in particular an upcoming agreement with the Mercosur block, formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

EU farmers claim that These countries use growth hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, all They prohibited in the EU.

23. Minimum prices

Siege to Paris: why they are extending Farmers' protests in Europe

On Friday, farmers of France blocked several highways while intensified their challenge to New Prime Minister.

Article information

· Author, Redacción*

· Role, BBC News World

· January 29, 2024

"The Parisians are going to starve".

Thousands of French farmers took their tractors on Monday and made them towards The capital gala with the purpose of besieging it, as part of a mass protest which develops in different parts of Europe.

The farmers French, as well as his colleagues from much of the European Union (EU), demand to the authorities measures that allow them to overcome inflation and effects of the war in Ukraine, but also that some of the policies are reviewed environmental imposed in recent years.

Several sections of Eight highways in France were cut. The situation created one crisis For the new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who traveled to a Farm in the southwest of the country to offer a series of measures in an attempt for calming frustration.

Peninará