Agrarian Ideas for Colombia's presidents?

Starting with the February Supreme Court decision that current president Alvaro Uribe will not be able to modify the constitution in order to run for a third term, this election season has been very eventful. We've seen candidates rise and fall, differentiate themselves from the crowd, debate, campaign, and even commit borderline legal infractions. But all the candidates, and most concerned commentators, are coming from an urban context, and haven't even touched agrarian issues. This is sad and silly given that Colombia's long-running civil war, its narcotraffic problems, its poverty, its inequality, all these are profoundly rooted in the country's rural reality. Honestly, only one candidate, Rafael Pardo, has in my opinion acted at all as if he has a clue of what's really going on in Colombia and its countryside. And he's stuck firmly with about 5% of the electorate, according to polls! The situation is so bad that the head of the farmer union of Colombia claimed in a recent article that "the candidates have no idea what to do with the farming sector".

So in this light I was very happy today to see an astute analysis of Colombia's rural issues and the candidate's total avoidance of them. It comes from Razon Publica, an excellent blog on Colombian politics (which has until now also been very urban-focused, in my experience). I summarize the article as follows:

• Colombia's agricultural sector accounts for 11% of the economy, while receiving only 0.4% of public resources. (I would personally dare to say that the agricultural sector is even more important than the 11% cited in the article. Many rural people consume their own produce, which means that the production of farms is usually undervalued in macroeconomic statistics. Aside from this, the illicit drug trade that is so important for Colombia's economy is entirely dependent on raw agricultural products)
• Due to this neglect for farming, Colombia has gone from food self-sufficiency to importing 50% of its food needs (luckily my geographic area is not subject to this trend, as we produce lots of food for ourselves and for other regions). What little support the government gives to agriculture has been in the form of promoting large plantation crops for export like oil palm, bananas, and cacao. This means that less of Colombia's production is actually food for Colombians, and the crops that get support don't feed anyone, they employ few people, and they strengthen the power of oligarchs. In fact, many large plantations are created or expanded when a wealthy landowner or a corporation hires paramilitary thugs to drive peasants off of their land.
• This all amounts to a self-perpetuating development model that impoverishes peasants, enriches elites, and hence allows those elites to strengthen their hold on government processes. Land becomes increasingly concentrated, and the country becomes less prosperous and less self-sufficient in food.
• Many academics and farmer groups (which are often controlled by large oligarch producers) have discounted the idea of agrarian reform as an antiquated notion, and no present candidate to the presidency will consider land redistribution. Despite some progressive proposals, no candidate is willing to acknowledge the relationship between land distribution and peace.
  
• All past efforts at agrarian reform in Colombia have more or less failed in the face of powerful ranchers and large landowners, who have a disproportionate representation in Congress. This situation will not change unless lawmakers and the general public are aware of the need for agrarian reform and active in the legislative process.
• Colombia has appalling numbers of people internally displaced by the war, almost 2.5 million between 2003 and 2009, according to some figures. From 1999 to 2007 about 5.5 million hectares (almost 14 million acres) were illegally taken from these displaced people by the armed groups that drove them off their land. There must be a program to return displaced people's stolen land to them.
• The article proposes a policy of rural planning based on equal distribution of land and promotion of small farmers who produce in an ecologically sustainable way in order to assure Colombia's food security and internal market (sound like anything I've written about in my blog?).
• Colombia's rural people are poor--64% are below the poverty line, and 29% live in extreme poverty. Almost 70% earn less than the legal minimum wage, and services like schools and clinics are lacking

In light of all this, the article's author poses five questions for the presidential candidates:

1--What would you do to halt the concentration and monopolistic control of land by legal and illegal entrepreneurs?

2--How would you assure a balanced diet for the population and a rational, productive use of land?

3--What do you propose to halt forced displacement, return land to those who have had their property taken, and allow the return of displaced people to their homes?

4--What measures would you adopt to ensure that rural employers pay the legal minimum wage, with benefits?

5--What do you propose to expand coverage of schooling, basic services, and healthcare in rural zones?


I am really thankful that someone in such a prominent Colombian publication is touching on these themes. I hope (though I doubt) that the candidates will think a little bit about the issues facing rural Colombia, which ultimately have repercussions on the country as a whole.