LATIN AMERICA: REBIRTH OF THE AGRARIAN AGENDA

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ROME, Mar 12 2008 (IPS) - Repositioning the role of agrarian reform in regional development by examining the contribution it can make to social reconciliation, the economy, and the environment is one of the challenges facing FAO\’s 30th Regional Conference, which will bring together the 33 member nations in Brasil from April 14 to 18, writes Jose Graziano da Silva, Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). What distinguishes the current situation from previous cycles is that the imbalances of the past have been exacerbated by new social demands. In a way, these raise the agrarian issue to a new level of historical relevance and political legitimacy. And that changes everything. The steady growth of productive capacity in the 20th century -and the corresponding contamination and blight of the environment -has brought back together by a tortuous route that which was never really separated: human and natural history, the urban and the rural. Situated at the cusp of an historic and accelerated process of change in economic paradigms and cultural values, agrarian reform acquires a new and transformative sense in the eyes of society. In the 21st century, development can only be called development if it combines the old economic rationalism with social harmony and environmental balance.

It would be naive, however, to believe that the ground has been prepared for a sustained cycle of growth, or to fail to recognise certain persistent tendencies which time has failed to erase. Poverty and hunger mark the trail of inequities that links the past and present, making this region the foremost frontier of social inequality on the planet.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that in a population of more than 550 million, some 71 million people in the region live below the poverty line. Of these, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 52 million are trapped in a cycle of hunger and food insecurity. The worst hit of all are the indigenous populations. Demographically dominant in many economies and closely tied to the land in most, the indigenous communities have weak links to the dominant civil society and the centers of economic growth. Their incomes are generally 45 to 60 percent below the regional average.

What distinguishes the current situation from previous cycles is that the imbalances of the past have been exacerbated by new social demands. In a way, these raise the agrarian issue to a new level of historical relevance and political legitimacy. And that changes everything.

The preservation of the environment, the production of renewable energy, the sustainable management of natural resources, and the availability of healthier foods are themes which today touch on everyone. The truth is that the steady growth of productive capacity in the 20th century – and the corresponding contamination and blight of the environment – has brought back together by a tortuous route that which was never really separated: human and natural history, the urban and the rural. The result of this reconciliation translates into the search for tools to redeem the past and reinvent the future of development.

One element of this search involves the elaboration of a new agrarian agenda and pushing forward the debate reopened by FAO in Brazil in 2006, when the United Nations organisation promoted the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development. In the meantime, one must not relegate this tool to a watered-down version of poverty alleviation. Situated at the cusp of an historic and accelerated process of change in economic paradigms and cultural values, agrarian reform acquires a new and transformative sense in the eyes of society. In the 21st century, development can only be called development if it combines the old economic rationalism with social harmony and environmental balance.

Repositioning the role of agrarian reform in regional development by examining the contribution it can make to social reconciliation, the economy, and the environment in our time is one of the challenges facing FAO’s 30th Regional Conference, which will bring together the 33 member nations in Brasil from April 14 to 18 this year. Among other issues, the conferees will debate the collaboration between state and private actors in accelerating rural growth; agro-energy; the fight against hunger; and the sustainable management of agriculture and the safeguards needed in the face of Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs). Without a doubt, however, one of the most important responsibilities of the participants will be to consolidate a new consensus around the appropriate model of agricultural development for our time and our continent. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)