Political Report # 1310 Slave Labor, Deforestation and Greed Create Crisis in Brazilian Countryside

By Gabriel Leao, Americas Program

Many believe agribusiness pulled Brazil out of the worst recession in its history. Estimates for 2017 register a scant 0.4% growth after four years of crisis, according to the Boletim Focus from the National Central Bank. Agribusiness represents almost 23% of Brazil’s GDP. Although renewed growth is good news for the world’s 9th economy, progressive sectors of society worry that the rise of agribusiness hides severe labor and environmental costs. In October the Brazilian Ministry of Labor narrowed the official definition of what qualifies as “slave-like work” to include only situations in which the worker is deprived of freedom, be it through submission under threat of punishment from armed security guards or retention of documents, or debts. The ruling caused an uproar because it eliminated important criteria that included workplaces where workers face degrading conditions, exhausting work hours, and forced labor. The Ministry also announced it would cease publishing its “dirty list” of employers who subject workers to abusive and humiliating conditions. The government of conservative president Michel Temer decided that those names will only be made public if and when the labor minister decides to do so. Since 2003 when the list began, the list comprised mostly names of wealthy farmers. After widespread protests and national and international headlines, the government rescinded the controversial reforms to the criteria for slave work. Later in the year, the minister of labor, Ronaldo Nogueira, left the government to run for congress. Still smarting from the controversy and with unemployment on the rise, the nation still awaits the nomination of a new minister

Political Report # 1308 Argentina's Law on Forests Is Good, But Lacks Enforcement

By Daniel Gutman Inter Press Service

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 18 2018 (IPS) - Never in the parliamentary history of Argentina had something similar happened: one and a half million people in 2007 signed a petition asking the Senate to pass a law to reduce deforestation. The law was quickly approved, and promulgated on Dec. 26 of that year. But 10 years later, it has left a bittersweet taste. Researchers and environmental organisations admit that the law had positive impacts and slowed down the destruction of the country's native forests, caused to a large extent by the expansion of the agricultural frontier. But they warn that deforestation continues in areas where it is banned, and that the national government has shown a strong lack of interest in enforcing the law, reflected in the lack of funds necessary to finance conservation policies.

Political Report # 1259 Honduran Melon Workers Push for Union Rights

By John Wash, LaborNotes

"Those melons are contaminated by exploitation." That's what one melon worker in Choluteca, Honduras, told me she would say to a US consumer thinking about buying the fruit grown, harvested, and distributed under the control of the multinational Sumitomo and marketed under the brands Fyffes and Sol. "They don't use that money to pay us well," she said. "What happens is they wind up with their pockets full, and we wind up with our bellies empty." Seeking to improve their wages and working conditions, melon workers in the politically marginalized southwestern corner of Honduras are fighting to win recognition and a contract for their young union, a local of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS, the Union of Agricultural and Related Workers). The vast majority of the four to five thousand melon workers in Choluteca are women paid less than the country's official monthly minimum for agricultural workers: 6,848 lempiras ($292.15). While the workers do get paid the daily minimum wage, 228 lempiras ($9.73), the boss, by limiting their number of days of work per week to maybe four, can get away with paying only about half the monthly figure. It's another example of how "flexibility" for management can translate into poverty for labor, especially in an area such as southern Honduras where employment opportunities are limited. Melons Are Big Business It's not that the melon sector is small. In 2016 Honduras exported some 268 million kilos (295,419 tons) of cantaloupes, honeydew, watermelons, and other melons with a value of $53.3 million, according to the statistics of the Central Bank of Honduras. Melons are the country's fourth-largest export, after coffee, electronics, and fish.

Political Report #1228 Chiquita Made a Killing From Colombia's Civil War. Will Their Victims Finally See Justice?

Workers wash bananas on a plantation in Magdalena, Colombia. (J. Stephen Conn / Flickr) Political Report # 1228 Chiquita Made a Killing From Colombia's Civil War. Will Their Victims Finally See Justice? By  Matt Kennard and Nick MacWilliam, In These Times

Getting an interview with Anabel (not her real name) is not easy. In Colombia, witnessing paramilitary violence against your family generally means you keep quiet about it-it's too dangerous to speak about what you've seen. Anabel tells us, after an extended period of negotiation, to meet her at her place of work near the trendy El Poblado district of downtown Medellín. We are told we cannot name her: What she saw and the powerful people who are implicated mean her own life is still not safe.

Political Report #1224 "Day of Terror": Munduruku Village Attacked by Brazil's Federal Police

Adenilson Krixi Mundurku's family watches in solemn grief as Mongabay journalists are told how he was killed by Brazil's Federal Police. Photo by Thais Borges  Political Report # 1224 "Day of Terror": Munduruku Village Attacked by Brazil's Federal Police By Sue Branford and Maurício Torres, Mongabay

The Tapajós River Basin lies at the heart of the Amazon, and at the heart of an exploding controversy: whether to build 40+ large dams, a railway, and highways, turning the Basin into a vast industrialized commodities export corridor; or to curb this development impulse and conserve one of the most biologically and culturally rich regions on the planet. Those struggling to shape the Basin's fate hold conflicting opinions, but because the Tapajós is an isolated region, few of these views get aired in the media. Journalist Sue Branford and social scientist Mauricio Torres travelled there for Mongabay, and over coming weeks hope to shed some light on the heated debate that will shape the future of the Amazon.

Political Report # 1159 International Financial Capital Targets Farmland in Brazil

Indigenous from various parts of Brazil watch the hoisting of a flag with an image of Indian leader Arnaldo Kaba of the village Mundurukoe, during a demonstration to defend the territorial rights of the Indigenous population against the government, agribusiness and large mining and energy companies. | Photo: Reuters by Maria Luisa Mendonça, TeleSur

Historically, Indigenous and peasant communities in Brazil have resisted against violence and displacement. Land concentration is a root cause of social and economic inequality, in a country where 1 percent of large landowners control over 90 percent of agricultural land. In the past 12 years, 390 Guarani Kaiowa Indigenous people were assassinated in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where agribusiness corporations and local large landowners have expanded monocropping of commodities. The BAMAPITO region, which combines the states of Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí and Tocantins, has also become a target for land speculation and the expansion of agribusiness. This savanna area, rich in biodiversity, has been the home of traditional peasant communities for hundreds of years. Recently, this so called "last agricultural frontier" is at risk of destruction by a wave of land speculation, deforestation and pollution of water sources. Land market speculation consists of the same logic as the stock market, by the "secret" purchase of "cheap" land and its negotiation at higher prices.

Abstract, "Development Models for the Brazilian Countryside: Paradigmatic and Territorial Disputes" by Bernardo Mançano Fernandes

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Development Models for the Brazilian Countryside: Paradigmatic and Territorial Disputes 
by Bernardo Mançano Fernandes

Problems of land use and ownership result from the inequalities caused by the hegemonic form of capitalism, agribusiness. A possible alternative model has yet to be worked out, and there is a fundamental need to reflect on the struggle against the hegemony of capitalism and how to safeguard the interests of the peasantry. From this perspective, the agrarian question should be considered as a conflict between those favoring the interests of the peasantry and family farming and those favoring agribusiness. A paradigmatic debate about the roles of the Brazilian state, agribusiness, and the peasant movements in formulating public policy shows that the potential for the peasantry to grow food is threatened by the concentration of power, landownership, capital, technology, and wealth. Unless there is a change in the development model, the prospect is increasing inequality. The experiment with having two government ministries for agriculture is an important step in the shaping of policies to support family farming.