Peasant lands” “

Few know that Europe lives by agriculture, with over half of the population of the 25 member states living in rural areas. The new EU member states have also brought as their dowry some 38 million hectares of arable land that have now been added to the 130 million of the old continent, and a growth of production of 10-20%. In Africa too 60% of the population is engaged in family farming. “But farmers are at risk due to mistaken political decisions, in Europe as in Africa”: that is the denunciation made by the new campaign “EuropAfrica – peasant lands”, promoted by farmers’ organizations in the northern and southern hemispheres (including Coldiretti and Reseaux des organisations paysannes et de producteurs agricoles de l’Afrique de l’Ouest), Italian NGOs (Terra Nuova and Crocevia) and organizations for fair and equable trade (Roba dell’altro mondo). The campaign, which will be presented to the press in Rome on 25 May, wishes “to highlight the potential for development that is represented by small and medium farms of family type, in Europe as in Africa, in large part undervalued by the market and also by public policies”. 1,300 MILLION PEASANTS IN THE WORLD. Some 1,300 million peasants are living in the world, but only 6% live in a situation of prosperity appropriate to the investments they have made at the financial level and in terms of human resources. In enlarged Europe over half the population live by farming, while in Africa 60% of the population is employed in family farming. According to the European Commission, profits will increase: estimates made on the basis of market projections for the period 2004-2011 have calculated that farm income will grow by 14.2 % between 2003 and 2011 in real terms and per labour unit. In the 15-member Europe it will grow by 5% while in the new member states it will grow by 126.4 % in the same period. BUT FARMERS ARE IN DIFFICULTY. The fact is, however, as the “EuropAfrica” Campaign denounces, “the predominant food and agriculture model tends to consider farming as a form of industrial production, thus relegating to a marginal role the peasant models of work, of the relation with the territory, and of the conservation of resources rather than their maximum exploitation”. Some examples? “In Italy – explain the promoters of the campaign – approximately 10% of families who live from farming are living below the poverty threshold, with a monthly income of 600 euros. If to these families we add those that have an annual income comprised between 7,500 and 12,500 euros, then the percentage of rural families that live with an income lower than 1000 euros per month rises to over 36%”. IN SENEGAL, the story of Ibrahima, who lives at Dagana, in the Vallée du Fleuve, is indicative. “There are ten of us in my family – he recounts -. The elderly in my home remember that, before the 1960s, families occupied the silt lands in the dry season, after the retreat of the floodwater of the river. Each family at that time cultivated 4 or 5 hectares of millet or sorghum, and in the rainy seasons they sowed souna and niébé as well as millet”. A series of unjust government decisions, drought, the obligations of the country to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the free market and the ruthless competition of other countries have increased the difficulties of those who have inherited the legacy of the elderly and now have to live by farming. “When I listen to the accounts of the elderly in my home – continues Ibrahima -, I have to admit: we live much better than we did when we could only count on 4 acres of sorghum and did not manage the rainfall pattern well. But in our village, today, there are people who are ruined, impoverished, who are unable to repay their debts and lose their land. That would never have happened in our communities in the past. If we had not got organized at the national level, we would not have been able to resist. But now the institutions must listen to us”. THE REQUESTS TO EUROPE. Farmers are therefore making some requests to the European and to the Italian institutions. They include “placing in question the unjust rules of international trade” and developing farm policies “favourable to family agriculture”. Citizens, in turn, are asked “to reward by their own consumption and daily expenditure quality farm produce, and local biological farm produce grown and marketed in a fair and equable way”.