Want to know what a sustainable climate-change-proof agricultural system might look like? Here’s an example from Cuba, in an academic paper written by my friend, comrade and former boss, Peter Rosset, together with folk from Cuba’s peasant agriculture movement. The article’s free to download (for now), but the key parts from the abstract are:
Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.
Latin America
Cuba: Australian Workers Union tips its hat to Washington
More than a million Cuban workers mobilise each year on May Day, organised by the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba trade union federation.
[See also "Cuban trade unionist: `Workers are key participants in the Cuban revolution'".]
By Tim Anderson
January 26, 2011 -- This January the Australian Workers Union (AWU) wrote an insulting letter to the new Cuban ambassador to Australia, Pedro Monzón. The union’s response shows the tight ideological hold that the US has over the weaker, more compliant sections of the trade union movement in Australia.
The following article was recommended by Raj Patel. Patel writes:
Bolivia: Fuel subsidy backdown reveals pressures on Morales
Protest against fuel subsidy cut, El Alto, December 30.
By Federico Fuentes
January 24, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- On December 31, the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales repealed a decree, passed five days earlier, to remove subsidies for fuel. The repeal came after protests and discontent at the resulting price increases from many of the government’s poor supporters.
“Why is the government making us suffer during these days … I don’t understand, I don’t understand”, Carla, a housewife in El Alto told Radio Atipiri on New Years Eve. An elderly woman expressed the shock of many supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president: “We are poor, we don’t have anything, what are we going to now, Evo has betrayed us, he must go.”
They were among the many that came out against the government’s decree, which sent petrol and diesel prices up by 73% and 83% respectively. It also caused spikes in the price of transport and food.
Camila Piñeiro Harnecker: `Cuba needs changes, to take us forward rather than backwards'
Cuban workers march on May Day 2009. Photo by Bill Hackwell/Havana Times.
Haiti: Diplomat delivers searing indictment of occupation regime
January 9, 2011 -- Socialist Voice -- Of all the commentaries and interviews coinciding with the anniversary of Haiti’s earthquake, none are likely to exceed in significance the interview granted by Organization of American States representative to Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus, to the Swiss daily Le Temps on December 20, 2010.
The critique he delivered to the newspaper is especially significant for Latin America and the Caribbean because Seitenfus is Brazilian. Sensitivity is running high in the region over the evident failure of the international relief effort led by the big powers – the United States, Canada and Europe – whose interventionist policies had already done so much harm to Haiti before this latest catastrophe.
Mexico: Opportunism and sectarianism hamper left’s resistance to neoliberalism
"The Zapatistas’ anarchist strategic outlook, with their anti-theory 'no political
Cuba: Economy of commands or earnings? Joaquin Infante on economic changes
Why does health care in Cuba cost 96% less than in the US?
Claudia Lopez, an intern, with outpatients at 5 de Septiembre Polyclinic, Havana.
What if the state of the world were measured by its majority?
What real democracy looks like: a communal council in Merida votes for its electoral commission in July 2010.
Συνέντευξη με τον Michael Lebowitz και την Marta Harnecker: "Να ξαναεφεύρουμε τον σοσιαλισμό"
[English: http://links.org.au/node/2072]
alterthess :: όλες οι ειδήσεις από την άλλη Θεσσαλονίκη (http://alterthess.gr) --
