Rural agriculture
Peasant agriculture is a tautology ( agriculture is by definition done by farmers ). It is a political slogan or model and describes an ideal of agriculture, which is described as a contrast to industrial agriculture that is purely geared to economic profit and productivity . Due to the different interest groups who use the term “peasant”, a clear definition and demarcation of industrial and peasant agriculture is difficult. An analogous catchphrase is rural family business . The political catchphrase of the agricultural factory is often described as a counter-model. A number of positive properties, including above all environmental compatibility, are ascribed to such “rural agriculture”. However, it cannot automatically be assumed that “rural agriculture” achieves these goals better than other forms of agricultural organization.
Counter model to industrial agriculture
The family farm is often described as a counter-model to industrial agriculture . Only a farmer who cultivates his own land is therefore a farmer.
Such “rural agriculture” (see farm ) tends to be more sustainable compared to “ agricultural factories ” due to long-term management . In contrast, the agricultural industry, which values land primarily as a financial and speculative object, is ascribed an intensive agriculture geared to short-term capital maximization . The non-scale agriculture is of factory farming and farming in monocultures with serious consequences for the environment and animal welfare , extreme division of labor , job reduction and capital-intensive rationalization coined. It is not disputed that the industrialization of agriculture has achieved strong productivity gains and that global agricultural production has increased significantly. The ecological and social costs for this are too high.
Critics of this point of view, on the other hand, emphasize that it cannot automatically be assumed that “peasant agriculture” is ecologically or socially more sustainable than other forms of agricultural organization.
Significance of small-scale agriculture for developing and emerging countries
Peasant agriculture, especially smallholder agriculture, plays a decisive role in development policy . A third of all working people worldwide are employed in agriculture. The consequences of land grabbing , for example , as a result of which many farmers in developing and emerging countries lose their land and become landless agricultural workers, are correspondingly serious . Low self-sufficiency is also seen as a risk to food security .
Rural agriculture in agricultural policy debates
In the working group for peasant agriculture e. V. (AbL) are mostly small and medium-sized farms. The AbL sees itself as an opposition to the German Farmers' Association , which it accuses of representing the interests of large farms and the agricultural industry too one-sidedly. Against this criticism, the German Farmers' Association itself invokes the model of rural agriculture, which is characterized by active farmers and family business owners who think and act sustainably across generations. Small-scale agriculture must take precedence over investors who only view the acquisition of agricultural and forestry land as a safe investment opportunity.
Parties with different programmatic orientations use the term, often in the form of “sustainable rural agriculture”. It can be found in the election manifestos for the 2013 federal election of the CDU / CSU , SPD and Alliance 90 / The Greens . The term aims partly more at economic and social, partly more at ecological aspects. It has a special meaning in the concept of the agricultural transition of the Greens. In contrast, the term does not appear in the election manifestos of the FDP and the Left for the 2013 federal election.
At the international level or in individual countries, the peasant movements La Via Campesina or the Brazilian movement of agricultural workers without land are campaigning for (small) peasant agriculture and for land reforms that are intended to strengthen them.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frank Uekötter: The truth is in the field: A history of knowledge of German agriculture, 3rd edition, 2012, ISBN 9783647317052 , p. 58 online
- ↑ For example in the World Agricultural Report ( online )
- ↑ For example, as a model of the German Farmers' Union : "Farms instead of agricultural factories"
- ↑ Konrad Hagedorn: The Institutional Problem in Agricultural Economic Policy Research, Volume 72 of Writings on Applied Economic Research, ISSN 0582-0286 , 1996, ISBN 9783161464553 , p. 322, online
- ↑ a b Reinhard Jung: The farmers' union - not a comfortable partner for the alliance greens. in: Upheavals on the sands of Brandenburg - Brandenburg's agriculture through the ages - developments, risks, perspectives , oekom verlag, pp. 125–126
- ↑ Working group peasant agriculture eV: Peasant agriculture is our future agriculture , p. 1, February 2015
- ↑ Alfons Deter, Heubuch: Agricultural land concentration threatens rural agriculture , November 30, 2015
- ↑ Model of rural agriculture! , Position paper of the Agricultural Alliance
- ↑ Ways out of the hunger crisis. The findings and consequences of the World Agriculture Report: Proposals for tomorrow's agriculture , p. 22.
- ↑ Konrad Hagedorn: The Institutional Problem in Agricultural Economic Policy Research, Volume 72 of Writings on Applied Economic Research, ISSN 0582-0286 , 1996, ISBN 9783161464553 , p. 322, online
- ↑ Ways out of the hunger crisis. The findings and consequences of the World Agriculture Report: Proposals for tomorrow's agriculture , p. 21 ff.
- ↑ Hans-Heinrich Bass, World Food in the Crisis , Hamburg: GIGA 2012, p. 3
- ↑ State tutelage and bureaucracy endanger rural agriculture. Keynote speech by Farmer President Rukwied at the German Farmers' Day 2015
- ^ Rural agriculture on site. Vice President Schwarz at the Berlin Forum 2015
- ↑ Successful together for Germany. Government program 2013 - 2017 , p. 59
- ↑ The we decide. The government program 2013-2017 , p. 86
- ↑ Time for green change ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Pp. 160, 167, etc.
