“Peasants dying. How the global agricultural industry is destroying our livelihoods"

   "Bartholomäus Grill writes an angry reckoning with the agro-industrial complex, but ignores some facets.

 

     Agriculture is generally viewed as a conservative, not particularly innovative industry. How absurd this judgment is becomes clear when one considers the economic, social and technological change that agriculture has undergone in Europe over the past sixty years - a change that began in the USA at the time of the First World War and has failed to materialize in many countries in the global south. The current disputes over subsidies, farmers' alleged unwillingness to reform or excessive consumer expectations are linked to the political instruments that drive this change and at the same time try to cushion its negative consequences.

 

     However, agriculture is not just an industry that should be judged by the standards of efficiency, but rather a form of culture that has grown over a long period of time. In his book, Bartholomäus Grill takes issue with the network of politicians, lobbyists, agricultural corporations and banks that he denounces, who destroyed rural lifestyles and the environment in the name of ever further increases in production. Grill's perspective is not limited to Europe, but - as a former correspondent for "Zeit" and "Spiegel" - he can draw on decades of experience in Africa, South and North America and Asia.

 

     He sees a similar pattern everywhere: the displacement of small farmers and their way of life, the expansion of the cultivation of internationally traded seeds, especially corn, the disappearance of traditional and nutritious crops, the purchase of cultivated land by large corporations and a degradation of the environment.

 

     Grill's book offers a furious reckoning with the agro-industrial complex without lapsing into nostalgia for traditional forms of agriculture. 

 

The presentation illustrates an important insight: A central problem that has accompanied farmers and agricultural policy in the USA and Europe for decades is not a lack of food, but overproduction. 

 

Massive progress in means of production - agricultural machinery, pesticides, fertilizers, breeding advances and cheap loans - as well as the development of new cultivation areas led to enormous increases in production in the USA, for example, during the First World War. But the decline in demand and falling prices drove many farmers to ruin in the 1920s. And the famous "dust bowl" of the 1930s was one of the consequences of these increases in production, which paid no attention to the environment.

 

     Little room for nuance

 

     Such recurring crises had little impact on pesticide, fertilizer and seed producers. These industries grew unhindered, agricultural productivity continued to rise, but many farmers saw little or no benefit, while taxpayers had to pay for expensive storage of the surplus, and the environment and biodiversity suffered irreversible damage.

 

     Unfortunately, in such an angry book there is little room for nuance. Grill condemns the widespread use of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate. Its use actually leads to the development of resistance in weeds - but only when used in combination with genetically modified, glyphosate-resistant crops. However, such plants are not grown in the EU, which is why resistance in weeds has so far only been found in a few isolated cases in Europe - no glyphosate-resistant weeds are known in Germany. Grill also hides one advantage of using glyphosate: the agent allows sowing without plowing or harrowing, and this avoidance of tillage has positive effects on soil quality. They are faced with uncertainties about possible effects on pollinators and aquatic organisms, for example, which make weighing up costs and benefits complicated.

 

     Judgment on new breeding methods

 

     Grill also makes it very easy to condemn plants that were developed using new breeding methods and which, for him, are nothing other than the well-known genetically modified plants, the development of which allows agricultural corporations to exercise control over farmers. 

 

Here too, Grill ignores some facets. These technologies are already being used outside the EU on numerous crop species - and not just on species such as corn, soy or cotton. The properties of the newly bred varieties are intended to reduce dependencies, for example enabling lower use of pesticides or fertilizers. However, the benefits of this new technology influenced by developments in the area of patent law that cannot yet be fully estimated.

 

     It is now undeniable that food resilience, climate change mitigation and adaptation and biodiversity conservation are inextricably linked objectives. The industrialization of agriculture, as it has proceeded so far, namely largely oriented towards increasing productivity - especially of wheat, corn, rice, soy and potatoes - cannot achieve these goals at the same time. There is considerable disagreement about how the necessary productivity and resilience of food production can be combined with the preservation of rural lifestyles and rural areas, including the protection of biological diversity.

 

     On the one hand, there is a lot of hope for new technologies such as genome editing and digitization, while on the other hand there is organic farming and the agroecological movement. Grill does not believe that organic farming will be able to solve the challenges of the future. He advocates using all options for climate-friendly and resource-saving food production - from "city farming" to "digital farming" - and broad-based agroecological approaches. The book ends in a somewhat more conciliatory and optimistic manner than the author's angry assessment would suggest. But Grill doesn't hide the fact that implementing such ideas will require a fundamental overhaul of the global food system, and he knows how difficult that will be to achieve.

 

     Bartholomäus Grill: “Peasants dying. How the global agricultural industry is destroying our livelihoods." Siedler Verlag, Munich 2023. 240 pages, illustrations, hardcover, 24 euros." [1]

 "Peasants dying". Because we, Lithuanians, are a nation of peasants, because we know nothing else, our nation and our culture are dying together with the peasants.

1. Welche Wege für die Landwirtschaft?: Bartholomäus Grill wütet gegen den agroindustriellen Komplex, blendet dabei aber einige Facetten aus. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Jan 23, 2024. Von Thomas Weber