Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Literature I
Prof. Agustina Sosa Revol
An inconvenient proposal
Intensive agriculture has undoubtedly become detrimental to the interests of
the peoples all around the globe. In Argentina, particularly, the big food
industry only benefits the corporations and exploits the citizens in the
economic, political, social and cultural spheres. Monsanto, Danone, Las Maras
(a yerba mate business) are just very few examples of all the agricultural/food
companies which affect workers and consumers lives directly in terrible
ways.
The use of agrochemicals and GMOs has never been scientifically proven to
allow the production of quality food as a solution to stop hunger. It is a lie to
say that intensive agriculture, which employs agrochemicals, represents no
danger to humans and the environment. In the case of Barrio Ituzaing in
Crdoba, fumigators using glyphosate were trialled for having produced cancer
to people living near the fumigated lands and the responsible were convicted.
Although food and agrochemical companies spend millions on media
campaigns to convince producers and the common person that their products
are harmless and that, in fact, they only bring about economic and social
progress, they cause serious effects on peoples health and on the
environment. Some transgenic products may cause cancer and hormonal
diseases in people who eat them. Moreover, they are difficult to control and
real State regulations are scarce and very limited. That is why it is hard to
really know to what extent chemicals, for instance, pollute our lands, water and
air. However, it is easily observable how agrochemicals and single-crop farming
deforest and desertify lands by wearing out their nutrients and minerals,
rendering them unfit for further use. Apart from that, as intensive agriculture is
highly mechanised, it doesnt represent an important source of employment
and, when it provides for jobs for very few people in the communities, working
conditions are far from humane in some cases. In addition, powerful companies
are usually able to get the consent of governments to uproot natives from their
land in order to exploit it for their large businesses. For all these reasons, this
kind of farming has negative social, economic and political effects, by
contaminating the environment, causing health problems, and undermining the
sovereignty of peoples.
Despite this terrible panorama, there is already a tendency to revert this
system of production and consumption. All around the world, including
Crdoba, there are more and more producers who advocate a kind of
agriculture which re-values the economies and cultures of the communities:
agroecological farming. The ecological agriculture is a completely viable way to
produce healthy top-quality food by avoiding pollution and strengthening the