Report on Agriculture:MANY QUESTION MARKS ON WOLRD BANK’S THINKING

[nosmokes]

An excellent article on how the World Bank in conjunction w/ the Corporatocracy John Perkins exposes so well in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man conspires to keep the poor or poorer and the hungry hungry. And the Agbiotechs w/ their GMOs are right at the forefront of this battle
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original-mainstream

Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 45

World Development Report on Agriculture:

MANY QUESTION MARKS ON WOLRD BANK’S THINKING

Wednesday 31 October 2007, by Bharat Dogra

It is in the midst of serious and growing concerns about farmers’ suicides and threats to food-security that an important document like the latest (2008) World Development Report (WDR) on Agriculture (prepared by the World Bank) needs to be examined carefully. The World Bank’s influence on policy-making is widely acknowledged and the WDR provides a strong indicator of the overall direction and thrust of these policy-influences.

A claim that is repeatedly made in this report is that for hundreds of millions of rural poor employment in the ‘new agriculture’ of high value products can open pathways out of poverty. But quite often it is when the small farmers shift to the more expensive and untried crops and technologies that they become indebted due to their low ability to absorb risks. From the point of view of sustainability, the traditional, time-honoured cropping patterns are known to be in keeping with the soil, water and climate, and recommendations for any drastic change have to first answer what the new crops will mean for water and soil.

Another key recommendation repeated time and again is to help people move out of agriculture. But it is not clear where exactly these people will go and whether they’ll get ready access to better livelihood. It is even less clear which sections of the farmers the WDR wants to move, and to what extent these farmers have been consulted whether they want to leave farming or not. This kind of recommendations entirely ignore the reality that farming is much more than a source of income for many people, it is also a way of life and has strong socio-cultural connotations. Rather than speaking of moving people out of agriculture, a more humane approach would consider creating a more broadbased rural and small-town economy so that small farmers have more diverse opportunities without necessarily having to break their strong links with rural life and land, which have social and cultural dimensions in additions to economic ones. Besides, there is the danger in the WDR approach (based on necessarily moving out farmers) that it is specifically the smaller and more vulnerable peasants who will be the target, while actually they are the ones who deserve maximum help. The WDR recommendation of necessarily moving out farmers from agriculture (or as it says, helping them to do so) can be used to provide intellectual respectability to policies which displace a lot of people, while in countries like India there is growing realisation to protect peasants from policies which cause displacement. Industries including multinational companies increasingly opt for more capital-intensive, mechanised operations providing fewer jobs while urban policies are getting more hostile towards the newcomers from villages.

What is more, even the WDR says quite clearly that more than 80 per cent of the decline in rural poverty is attributable to better conditions in rural areas than to out-migration of the poor.

The WDR speaks repeatedly of strengthening property rights. However, the context of this recommendation needs to be more carefully established. True, the land rights of the small peasant should be properly recorded. But strengthening of property rights cannot be extended to the biggest landlords. In their case, actually, property rights have to be challenged so that land reforms can make available a part of their land to the landless and near landless peasants.



THE WDR says that land markets, particularly rental markets, can raise productivity, help households diversify their incomes and facilitate exit from agriculture. This report says that well-functioning land markets are needed to transfer land to the most productive users and to facilitate participation in the rural non-farm sector and migration out of agriculture. This recommendation about transferring land to the most productive user is highly objectionable as it can be used as a justification for displacement and eviction of many small peasants who function in difficult conditions and so may not be able to match the productivity of big landowners who are much more favourably placed in terms of access to irrigation and inputs.

In its analysis of agricultural policies to reduce poverty and hunger, the WDR emphasises policies linked to business and ‘high-value’ agriculture and technologies of the Green-Revolution kind while giving only meagre attention to land reforms and steps to increase the production of staple foods in self-reliant ways which improve nutrition.

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complete article here

[katty]

1. good refresher on WB - their name says it all: World BANK

more World Grab for their transnational puppetmasters.