Readings: Online seminar series

Here are the links for the seminar readings.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE VERSUS CORPORATE GREED SEMINAR

SEMINAR 1. PANDEMICS AND DESTRUCTIVE AGRIBUSINESS PRACTICES: THE SITUATION

READINGS [50 PAGES, 6 ARTICLES]
Readings online:
https://soilalliance.blogspot.com/2020/09/readings.html
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Dilley, Steve (2004), “Family farms: The next endangered species?”, Australian Nuffield Farmer Scholar Report, 2004, pp.1-12.

Broughton, Alan (2020) “Capitalist greed and biodiversity loss is spawning new deadly diseases”,Green Left

Broughton, Alan & Garcia, Elena (2017) Sustainable Agriculture Versus Corporate Greed: pp. 5-10; Appendix 2, pp.73-82

Lumb, Mick, “Land degradation”. The Australian Collaboration,.

Pascoe, Bruce (2014) Dark Emu: Black Seeds – Agriculture or Accident?, Introduction, Ch. 1, & Ch.7.

Yaak Pabst, Rob Wallace (2020) Agribusiness kills: Capitalist agriculture and Covid-19: A deadly combination, Climate and Capitalism

Qualman, Darrin (2017), “Looking into an abyss — with no water”

DISCUSSION POINTS

1. What were First Nation farming practises before British invasion? What form of property ownership were they based upon? (Pascoe)

2. What farming practices did colonial Britain impose upon Australia? What form of property ownership was it based upon? (Pascoe, Lumb, Broughton, Garcia,)

3. Are corporate agricultural practices to blame for the COVID19 crisis and HIV? (Broughton, Wallace) What are the root causes of pandemics such as MERS, SARS, COVID19?(Broughton, Wallace)

4. Why should farmer welfare matter to activists? (Dilley, Broughton, Garcia)

5. Who controls most Australian farm production? Small family farmers or big corporations? (Qualman, Broughton, Garcia)

6. What are the causes of high farm debt? Is there a way out? (Qualman, Broughton, Garcia)

7. What makes farming so risky? (Broughton, Garcia) and why don’t more farmers give up?(Qualman, Broughton, Garcia)?

8. What affects farming terms of trade? (Lumb, Dilley)

SEMINAR 2. THE DROUGHT CRISIS AND PRIVATISATION OF WATER IN AUSTRALIA



READINGS [5 ARTICLES]

Carpenter.Tracey (2019) “Looking into an abyss — with no water”, Green Left Weekly 

 

Garcia, Elena (2019), “Rivers in crisis: Amid drought, corporations are buying up Australia’s water,” Green Left Weekly

Garcia, Elena (2019) “Rivers in crisis: Killing rivers for mines and irrigators”Green Left Weekly

Mallen-Cooper, Martin (2018) “Murray Darling Basin drought myth disservice to environmental progress” The Land

Sheldon, Fran (2019) “The Darling River is simply not supposed to dry out, even in drought”,The Conversation

Wynter, Coral (2019) “WTO kills farmers: In memory of Lee Kyung Hae”Green Left Weekly

DISCUSSION POINTS

1. How do the natural systems of the Murray-Darling Basin work? (Sheldon, Carpenter)
2. Did the Murray-Darling run dry before irrigation started (historical and the state disputes over irrigation allocations background to Section 100 of the Constitution)?(Mallen-Cooper)
3. How important is protecting our artesian basins and what is the major threat? (Wynter, Garcia, Mallen-Cooper)
4. When were water rights separated from being tied to land, and why? Who benefits? (Garcia)
5. How is the Murray-Darling Plan supposed to work? Why isn't it working? (Carpenter)

SEMINAR 3. THE CAUSES OF THE LAND, FARMING AND PANDEMIC CRISES

READINGS [47 PAGES, 3 ARTICLES, 1 video]

Broughton, Alan & Garcia, Elena (2017) Sustainable Agriculture Versus Corporate Greed: pp.11-42; Appendix 1, pp.55-71.

Carlsen, Laura (2003), “WTO kills farmers: In memory of Lee Kyung Hae”, Countercurrents, September 16th 2003
Derrick, Jensen (2009) Forget Shorter Showers, Why personal change does not equal political change

Kolhatkar, Sonali (2015), “If trade is war, it’s time we fought back”, Truthdig, 21/5/2015
 

Nason, James (2020), “From claypan to green feed: carbon flows in action”, Beef Central October 19 2020

Smith, Jeffrey (2010), “Monsanto: The world’s poster child for corporate manipulation and deceit”,Natural News

Wallace, Rob (2020), 17 minutes Youtube presentation Rob Wallace, From agribusiness to agroecology: Escaping the market of Dr. Moreau

DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Is there a contradiction between ever increasing productivity and profitability? (Broughton, Garcia, Kolhatkar)
2. Why do governments prioritise high production?(Broughton, Garcia, Kolhatkar, Smith)
3. What does efficiency mean?(Broughton, Garcia, Carlsen, Kolhatkar)
4. Who gains from free trade agreements? (Broughton, Garcia, Kolhatkar)
5. How does the corporatisation of natural resources (land, water) dispossess people and small farmers? How does this exacerbate the spread of disease, hunger and a toxifying of our natural systems? Has this led to the emergence of pandemics? (Wallace)
6. How does foreign aid decrease food security? Why are people hungry in a world of agricultural overproduction? (Broughton, Garcia, Smith)
7. What are the invisible costs and impacts of industrial food production? (Broughton, Garcia, Kolhatkar, Smith, Nason)
8. How can research and development be put into the service of agro-ecology? (Broughton, Garcia, Kolhatkar, Smith)

Sustainable Agriculture versus Corporate Greed: A four-part Seminar Series

This four-part seminar series will address:

The cause of pandemics, droughts, soil erosion and land and river system degradation. The destructive practices of mining and agribusiness. The battles for First Nations custodianship of land, campaigns for food sovereignty, environmental flows for water management and sustainable and regenerative farming.

It will tackle these questions:

What are the causes of COVID19 and other deadly pandemics? Why is Australia and other countries suffering more debilitating droughts? Why have First Nations expertise in land management been ignored? What are the effects of coal and coal seam gas mining on our natural environment? Is combating world poverty aided by capitalist agribusiness practices? What solutions exist in regenerative agriculture for pandemics, droughts and the poisoning of our water supply? What role could First Nations traditional practises play in these solutions? This four-part seminar series will examine these burning queries.

The Locust Plague

Rebuilding resilient communities amid climate-induced drought and bushfires

The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into its attempts to deal with the worst impacts of a climate crisis it prefers to ignore. But this money will never achieve its stated aim nor reach those who need it most.

The federal Coalition government’s Drought Response, Resilience and Preparedness Plan, released in November last year, sets out its proposal for dealing with the most severe drought in living memory — one that has been made worse by the climate crisis.

The government is offering $50 million for an On-farm Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebate Scheme to improve on-farm water management and $36.9 million over five years “to improve water security and drought resilience in the Great Artesian Basin through increasing artesian pressure and reducing wastage”.

The plan also proposes to spend about $3.5 billion on a national water infrastructure plan that will take even more water out of river systems.

Meanwhile, after initially denying the recent East Coast bushfire catastrophe was anything out of the ordinary, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has set up a National Bushfire Recovery Agency.

The agency is set to receive $2 billion, which comes on top of the more than $100 million in disaster recovery payments and allowances that have already been disbursed.

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Eyewitness: East Gippsland burns

East Gippsland is one region among many affected by disastrous bushfires. Three quarters of it — stretching about 250 km from west to east and 150 km from south to north — has been burned as I write this: about 700,000 hectares.

The last two years have been dry with 2019 being the driest on record, with less than half average rainfall. Fires started by lightning strikes last November 21. Despite the efforts of professional fire crews, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and water bombers, the fires continued and expanded in bursts. Much of the terrain was inaccessible.

On December 30, at 44° Celsius, they raced out of the forests and devastated communities, including mine at Sarsfield, 12 km from Bairnsdale. They left our mud brick house but little else, including our grandsons’ cabin and most of their possessions. Dozens of houses were lost in Sarsfield and neighbouring Clifton Creek.

We had six weeks of warning and expected to be hit, so we evacuated in time with what we particularly did not want to lose. Many people had friends or relatives in Bairnsdale to go to. We used the Organic Centre. A relief centre was set up by the shire, then an additional one as evacuee numbers mounted.

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