Henk Hobbelink, Agricultural Engineer and Alternative Nobel Prize in Agroecology.
I am 57 years old. I was born in Holland and I live in Vallvidrera. I am an agricultural engineer. I am married and we have a son, Erik (20). I fight a system that ruins us socially, economically and ecologically. Fund Grain, an NGO dedicated to food sovereignty and agroecology
Victor-M Amela, Ima Sanch s, Llu s Amiguet
The small farmers will refresh the planet.
Photo: Pedro Madue o
Right livelihood
There have always been famines, it is true, but the current ones are not due to transient causes: they are systemic. I learn from Henk Hobbelink, who has just received the Right Livelihood award, considered the alternative Nobel Prize in Agroecology, for the contribution of his NGO, Grain (www.grain.org/en), to food sovereignty, in contact and cooperation with peasant leaders from various corners of the planet, such as those of Vía Campesina. He maintains that his agrifood model, based on the small classical farm, would provide us with fresh and tasty local products, at a good price, would foster the rural economy and solve the food crisis.
Is there food for everyone in the world?
Ample! But it does not reach everyone.
Who does not reach?
There are a billion people without the minimum amount of food to be well fed. And let's get worse ...!
And because?
Because food has become merchandise, business.
For whom?
For the financial industry and large multinational corporations.
What do they do?
They monopolize more and more lands!
How many?
In the last five years, large international investors have acquired some 70 million hectares of agricultural land.
For what?
To produce large crops, speculate on their prices, export them ... and line up.
And why is that bad?
Because they apply an agroindustrial model for the export business, not to consume as food. A model of dire consequences.
Explain them to me.
One, the local peasant populations are dispossessed ... and end up begging in the outskirts of the cities.
Two.
Traditional local agricultural varieties are lost forever, replaced by seeds designed in the laboratory, today 80%.
Three?
Huge crops of soybeans or corn are grown to make feed and agrofuels: 90% of soybeans and 40% of corn is not converted into food: it does not go to people's stomachs, it goes to car depots.
Four.
They are crops based on oil: fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, fuel for tractors and water pumps and for transporting crops to the other side of the world ... And one fact: 20% of traffic filmed in the United States transports food. And all that seriously pollutes!
Up to what point?
Our oenegé has calculated it: agribusiness generates half of the current CO2 emissions.
Half? Its alot!
Yes. Recovering the local agriculture model would end the greenhouse effect. If the lands returned to the traditional peasants, climate change is over!
The countrymen, saviors of the planet?
That's right: the return of the peasants would refresh the planet! And organic fertilizers fix carbon in the soil.
Where are the countrymen?
Being expelled from the field: large corporations, extensive plantations, Almeria plastics are imposed ...
Ah, those flavored fruits ...
Agribusiness only cares that they look good, pack well and withstand long transport, not their taste!
Some example?
A crooked carrot, however rich, is intercepted and does not enter a large area. It is thrown! And the same with more products. Between that and that we buy of more…, 40% of the foods never arrives at the table!
But agribusiness is more efficient.
False! 30% of the world's fertile land, that of small farmers, produces 65% of the food. And it is more diverse, nutritious and healthy.
Suggest alternatives.
Food sovereignty and agroecology.
What is that about?
In respecting the wisdom of traditional countrymen: they know what is best for their land to support them!
We are on time?
Thanks to the internet, happily, small farmers are connecting directly with consumers: they offer them fresh and healthy food, and they can survive.
He will be happy.
It is a hope. I do it like this: in Vallvidrera, thirty families provide ourselves with an organic farmer from Collserola.
Worth?
Sure! Good price ... and always fresh and seasonal fruits and vegetables.
What would you decree if I commanded?
Social assistance to small farmers, so they stay in the countryside.
What else?
It is aberrant that synthetic pesticides that kill everything (including smallholder crops), except the transgenic plant, be sprayed with airplanes from the air. And everything to grow exporting ...: it's bread for today and hunger for tomorrow!
Illustrate it, to finish ...
The Indian investor Karaturi has bought 300, 000 hectares in Ethiopia: breakage of large plantations for export with bulldozers ... Detracts water from the Nile, and thus a river from which millions of Egyptians live!
So good business is it?
If you have money in a bank, do not doubt that you are financing business like this: it is the agrifood bubble ... It will explode and there will be famines. We are playing the future!
Read more: http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20130123/54362244076/la-contra-henk-hobbelink.html#ixzz2Is8EeaB5
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