Javiera Rulli’s posture quickly changes from a relaxed slouch to a straight back when asked if she is anti-science and opposed to agricultural technology.
“In agriculture, science shouldn’t be for market objectives, it should be for feeding the people,” says Rulli, a biologist with BASE-IS, a social research institute in Paraguay.
“The problem is the corporate interests behind the science. So what science are we defending? That is the debate.”
Rulli was in Winnipeg April 29 to attend a forum called Crops, Cars and Climate Crisis. She spoke about the impact of biofuel and technology on Paraguay’s farmers.
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The National Farmer’s Union, the Manitoba Council of International Co-operation and nongovernmental organizations organized the event at the University of Winnipeg. It was part of a series of forums, which also stopped in Saskatoon, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and Charlottetown.
Rulli was in Winnipeg to spread the message that the biofuel boom has exacerbated the rapid expansion of soybean acres in Paraguay. In the early 1970s, Paraguay’s farmers planted 135,000 acres of soybeans. This year it is estimated that soy, primarily genetically modified, will cover 5.9 million acres of farmland in the landlocked country between Argentina and Brazil.
The result, she said, is corporate agriculture, which is driving people to the cities and into urban poverty.
“It is farming without farmers,” said Rulli.
“We have 9,000 campesino (family farmers) migrating every year from the countryside.”
Joining Rulli in Winnipeg was Ditdit Pelegrina, executive director of SEARICE – a Philippines NGO with the goal of empowering rice farmers.
She agreed that mainstream agricultural science has become a vehicle for corporate promotion.
As well, she said she is frustrated that only certain kinds of science are recognized and accepted.
“Farmers have their own science. It’s the formal (institutions) that have yet to discover what this science is all about,” said Pelgrina, referring to traditional knowledge and experience gained through trial and error.
Rulli, who is from Argentina, is also frustrated by what agricultural students learn in her country.
Not long ago, she said, Argentina’s public universities had good agronomy programs, but today’s students do not get the same diverse education.
“Today, they learn to be Monsanto managers, to understand the GPS, to follow the satellite and computers, which tell how much glyphosate they have to use, how much no-till …. That’s not science.”
A recent United Nations and World Bank report shows how this position has become much closer to mainstream thought in agriculture.
The report, released April 15 by the International Assessment of Science and Technology Development project, condemns “industrial, energy-intensive and toxic agriculture” as a dead concept. It also said small-scale farmers have not benefited from improved yields and other technology.
Ryan Cardwell, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Manitoba, takes a contrary position.
The perception that science and technology helps only corporate sized farms is simply that, he said – a perception.
“Case studies and cost benefit studies demonstrate that in a lot of cases, some of the GM technologies can have as large, if not larger, benefits for small-scale farmers,” he said.
“Some results, for example in South America, small holders growing Roundup Ready soybeans…, the chemical cost savings are even larger for them (compared to large-scale farmers).”
