René Dumont (agricultural scientist)

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René Dumont (born March 13, 1904 in Cambrai , † June 18, 2001 in Fontenay-sous-Bois ) was a French agricultural engineer , sociologist and politician who campaigned for environmental protection .

Life

Dumont was born in Cambrai in northern France in 1904. His father was a professor of agricultural science and his grandfather was a farmer. He graduated from the Institut National de la Recherche en Agronomie Versailles-Grignon as an agricultural engineer. After completing his studies, he was sent to Vietnam in 1929 . Disgusted by colonialism , he returned to Paris , where he spent most of his life from 1933 to 1974 as a professor of agricultural science.

At the beginning of his career, René Dumont advocated chemical fertilizers and the mechanization of agriculture. He wrote articles for the pétainist weekly La Terre Française, in which he promoted agricultural corporatism . He later criticized the Green Revolution .

Dumont wrote over 30 books, traveled extensively and studied the agricultural situation in developing countries . His book "L'Afrique noire est mal partie" (1962) became a bestseller.

In particular, he advocated the following points:

  • demographic control
  • Save energy
  • international cooperation to help poor countries
  • Protection and restoration of soil quality

Dumont believed that development was not primarily a question of money , fertilizer, or seed , but the result of a careful balance between these factors. In his view, the relationships between people and their fields are based on relationships between people, and social relationships are the basis for agricultural and industrial development. After all, he believed that the basis for good relationships between people lay in relationships between men and women, demographic control was therefore based on the emancipation of women .

Ahead of his time, the best-known French agronomist astonished his compatriots when he showed them an apple and a glass of water on television, explaining to them how valuable these natural resources are. Dumont was also one of the first to explain the consequences of what later came to be called globalization , population growth , productivism , pollution, slums , hunger and malnutrition, and the gap between the north and south. He used the expression "développement durable" ( sustainable development ) very early on .

In 1974 he ran as the first green candidate for the office of French President and won 1.32% of the vote. Its campaign director was Brice Lalonde . This choice became a breakthrough for political ecology in France. French political ecology was founded by Dumont.

Dumont is considered the "father" of the French green party Les Verts and was one of the founding members of the Attac organization in 1998 .

Fonts (selection)

  • Voyages en France d'un agronome , Nouv. éd. rev. et augm., Paris: Génin, 1956
  • Révolution dans les campagnes chinoises , Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 1957
  • Terres vivantes , Paris: Plon, 1961 ( Terre humaine ), engl. Lands Alive , Merlin Press, 1964
  • L'Afrique noire est mal partie , 1962, engl. False start in Africa , New York, Praeger 1966
  • Nous allons à la famine , engl. The hungry future , New York, NY [etc.]: Praeger, 1969
  • Types of Rural Economy: Studies in World Agriculture , London: Methuen, 1970
  • Notes on the implications sociales de la "révolution verte" dans quelques pays d'Afrique , Genève, 1971
  • La campagne de René Dumont et du mouvement écologique: naissance de l'écologie politique; Declarations, interviews, tracts, manifestes, articles, rapports, sondages, récits et nombreux autres textes , Paris: Pauvert, 1974
  • l'Utopie ou la Mort , 1973, engl. Utopia or Else ... , Universe Pub, 1975
  • Agronome de la faim , Paris: Laffont, 1974
  • Chine, la révolution culturale , Paris: Seuil, 1976
  • L'Afrique étranglée , 1980, Nouv. éd., rev., corr. et mis à jour: Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 1982, engl. Stranglehold on Africa , London: German, 1983
  • (with Nicholas Cohen), The growth of hunger: a new politics of agriculture , London [etc.]: Boyars, 1980 - This book is based on René Dumont's ideas as contained in the 1975 publ. La croissance de la famine .
  • Finis Les Lendemains Qui Chantent
    • T.1: Albanie, Pologne, Nicaragua, Paris: Seuil, 1983
    • T.2: Surpeuplée, Totalitaire, La Cnine Decollectivise, Paris: Seuil, 1984
    • T.3: Bangladesh-Nepal, "L'Aide" Contre Le developpement, Paris: Seuil, 1985
  • Pour l'Afrique, j'accuse: le journal d'un agronome au Sahel en voie de destruction , Paris: Plon, 1986
  • Un monde intolérable: le libéralisme en question , Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 1988
  • Démocratie pour l'Afrique: la longue marche de l'Afrique noire vers la liberté , Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 1991
  • La culture du riz dans le delta du tonkin , Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme , 1995

Secondary literature

  • J.-P. Besset, René Dumont, une vie saisie par l'écologie , Paris: Stock, 1992
  • Marc Dufumier (dir.), Un agronome dans son siècle. Actualité de René Dumont , Association pour la création de la Fondation René Dumont / Éditions Karthala / INA PG, coll. “Hommes et Sociétés”, Paris, 2002
  • "René Dumont, un agronome d'exception" in: Ingénieurs de la vie: la revue des ingénieurs de l'INA PG , Mazarine, Paris, 2005
  • René Dumont, citoyen de la planète Terre , a documentary by Bernard Baissat, co-production La Lanterne / France 3, 105 minutes, 1992 more information

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Collège des fondateurs , Attac France
personal data
SURNAME Dumont, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French agricultural engineer and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambrai
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 2001
Place of death Fontenay-sous-Bois