A-Infos (en) France, UCL Tract, Radical solutions for the agricultural world (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Since January, the agricultural world has been in turmoil. The fault is 
productivism, which has created a terribly fragile model: loneliness, 
debt, overconsumption of ever more expensive fuels, fertilizers and 
pesticides... As the depletion of resources and climate change cause 
prices to rise, the system is cracking. It's time to imagine another 
one. ---- Peasants feed society, therefore society owes them a fair and 
worthy retribution. There is nothing shocking about public money fueling 
a vital productive sector.
The problem is that subsidies from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 
are used to conform agriculture to a deadly model with no future: 
investing endlessly (and in vain) in mechanization, mega-basins, 
chemical inputs, pesticides. , the expansion of structures...

The largest farms are the most subsidized. Small and small farmers are 
left behind.

The current system is heading towards the wall
Ever larger farms, ever fewer workers, excessive working hours, ever 
lower pay (18% of farmers live below the poverty line), a 30.9% higher 
risk of suicide. to that of the rest of the population, a headlong rush 
into mechanization, chemical inputs, pesticides, the hoarding of seeds 
and water... Capitalism is exhausting the planet's resources. The rise 
in the price of gas, oil, electricity and the scarcity of water are 
structural and will continue. The price of chemical inputs will rise 
accordingly. Continuing to invest in fertilizers, pesticides, 
mega-basins, persisting in a system with no future, is condemning 
farmers to strangulation.

Demands that lead to an impasse
Demanding subsidies or tax breaks to be able to continue to buy fuel, 
fertilizers and pesticides is a survival solution, but in the medium 
term, it is heading into the wall. This is the logic pushed by the 
banks, the seed companies, the chemical industry, the FNSEA, the Rural 
Coordination and the far right, out of a thirst for profit, electoral 
demagoguery, or both at the same time.

The proposal of another trajectory
The Peasant Confederation offers alternatives: guaranteed agricultural 
prices; repeal of free trade, anti-social and anti-ecological treaties; 
substantial aid for the agroecological transition; priority for the 
installation of young farmers, rather than the expansion of structures; 
stopping the artificialization of land; creation of "social food security".

The need for an anti-capitalist transformation
But in the agricultural sector as elsewhere, the need is for an exit 
from capitalism.

like other vital economic sectors, agriculture should become a public 
service, based on health and ecological standards that respect the 
health of workers and consumers;
all voluntary farms and work collectives should be able to join this 
public service;
income would be guaranteed, encouraging the establishment of farmers, 
their growth, the expansion of collectives, the reduction of working hours;
democratic planning, according to coherent territorial levels, should 
avoid overproduction;
the importation of agricultural products should be limited to what 
cannot be produced locally.
It would therefore not be a question of creating kolkhozes with corporal 
labor, but of moving towards a free and voluntary socialization of 
agriculture, which corresponds both to peasant aspirations for autonomy, 
and to the needs of the population. .

Sources: Insee 2020, MSA 2023, Report no. 21040 from the Ministry of 
Agriculture, January 30, 2023.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Des-solutions-radicales-pour-le-monde-agricole
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