Tanzanian farmers are facing heavy prison sentences if they continue their traditional seed exchange!
In
order to receive development assistance, Tanzania has to give Western
agribusiness full freedom and give enclosed protection for patented
seeds. “Eighty percent of the seeds are being shared and sold in an
informal system between neighbors, friends and family. The new law
criminalizes the practice in Tanzania,” says Michael Farrelly of
TOAM, an organic farming movement in Tanzania.
Brutal
corporate onslaught against third world - Part 6 - Agro-ecological
alternative
Many farmer
organizations and FAO have more faith in ecological methods.
Particularly the smaller-scale farmers would benefit from it, because
they usually cannot afford the expensive inputs for conventional
agriculture.
Janet Maro,
on the other hand, works in challenging rural areas. Together with
SAT, she trains small-scale farmers in agro-ecological farming
methods. SAT teaches farmers to do farming with what is available in
their surroundings.
“Our
training center is located in the dry areas of Vianze, which most
people would claim to be impossible to farm,” says Janet Maro.
“If we can do it there, we can do it anywhere. We plant
additional trees that hold back the water when it rains, so that it
is incorporated into the soil, and we have an irrigation system with
water bottles, so we consume less water.”
“We
teach small-scale farmers how to make compost with the plants they
cut in their fields. We also teach them to do mixed cropping and to
make extracts from plants that grow in their surroundings in order to
control crop pests and diseases. The most common pest, for example,
is the aphid. You can make an extract of Lantana camara, a shrub that
grows in almost every village in Tanzania, to control the aphids,”
says Janet Maro.
“We
also trained farmers in a region where they were given government
subsidies to purchase fertilizer. After our training, there were many
farmers with good results who questioned why they should still go
into town to buy expensive synthetic fertilizer, as they can have a
good harvest and can fight pests with resources that are available in
their own fields. Those farmers returned their vouchers for
subsidized fertilizer to the government. The government has now also
come knocking on our door, asking us to train farmers.”
Source:
http://www.mo.be/en/analysis/tanzanian-farmers-are-facing-heavy-prison-sentences-if-they-continue-their-traditional-seed
Big corporations are grabbing huge
cultivable areas especially in the developing countries in order
to control food production.
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