* Book: Reprendre La Terre aux Machines. Manifeste pour une autonomie paysanne et alimentaire. L'Atelier Paysan. Seuil, 2021

URL = https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/reprendre-la-terre-aux-machines-l-atelier-paysan/9782021478174

   - Un panorama historique de l’industrialisation de l’agriculture
   - Identifier les facteurs qui assurent le maintien d’un modèle agricole intensif
   - Les technologies agricoles
   - Pourquoi le bouillonnement d’alternatives n’est pas en mesure d'ébranler le complexe agro-industriel
   - Nous appelons à une repolitisation en profondeur du mouvement pour l’agriculture paysanne.” (p. 20)

Summary

Reading Notes

From the reading notes from Michel Bauwens, 2021:

- The main thesis of the book is that changes in consumptive practices and patterns will never be successful for achieving structural change in our agri-food system.

Introduction

The intro starts with an atmospheric description of a machine-making workshop, organized by the AP movement itself:

- “Ca discute de .. reprendre la terre aux machines. Les machines comme engins de guerre agricole, mais aussi comme machine économique, industrielle, bureaucratique.” (p. 8)

- Cette industrie .. profite de chaque choc pour se propager, éliminant les savoirs faire, la communauté paysanne, la biodiversité . Les plus pauvres d’entre nous .. souffrent de pathologies chroniques (diabète, hypertension, obésité, cancer), liées à l’alimentation industrielle.” (p. 8)

- “Le bilan d’un siècle d’industrialisation de l’agriculture … est catastrophique.” (p. 9)

But why is there no efficient counter-movement ? The old model is not challenged by the new consumption and organic production.

The quantity of used pesticides has not diminished in the last 10 years, but actually augmented! (+ 22% sales from 2009 to 2018, see note 5, p. 10). A football field of arable land is lost every 5 minutes, i.e. a french department every decade (see note 6). The number of farm workers is reduced by 2% every year. (note 7)

So AP no longer believes in the consumptive alternatives, as they act merely as a complement to agro-industry, never endangering it. Technological accumulation and dispossession continues. But advising govt is equally fruitless: without a social movement, there will be no radical change.

- (Le changement) “n’aura jamais lieu sans un rapport de force assumé, un conflit compliqué, dont nous allons dans ce livre tenter de définir les terrains prioritaires.” (p. 11)

- “Ce manifeste se veut une contribution à l'émergence d’un large mouvement populaire pour l’autonomie paysanne et alimentaire.” (p 11)

What does that mean ?

Food and agriculture must always be thought together, we must refuse capitalistic dualism of separating consumption from production. The de-pauperisation of urbanites and the generalisation of peasant agriculture must go together. This means a rejection of the post-World-War-II consensus, to produce the cheapest food possible. Modern agriculture is the result of specific choices we must now reject.

(The part of food in the family budget was 23.6% in 1960, and 12.4% in 2013, p. 8) -

70% of farming income consists of national and EU public funding, while half of the farmers have negative revenues. The system is no working as we need a more socialized agriculture, more isolated from the world market. (p. 13)

Because in France, as elsewhere:

- “L’agriculture a été la ‘fonction support’ du développement industriel!”

It's modernisation was the precondition for other 'modernized' sectors, but cheap food was also necessary to liberate budgets for more consumption. Industrialized agriculture is therefore intricately interwoven in both the production and consumption side of the capitalist economy.

Why does AP talk about food autonomy rather than sovereignty ? This is because the latter concept still carries a competitive undertone:

- “ ‘Souverain’ vient étymologiquement de l’adjectif latin ‘superus’, c.a.d. 'Supérieur', ‘qui surpasse tout’. Le souverain est celui qui est au-dessus de tous les autres.”

So the very notion of popular sovereignty has somewhat of a contradictory meaning. It combines the idea of popular self-government, with the idea of a state which decides for its subjects. It also refers to the right of certain people to dominate other people's (“Elle évoque l'idée qu’un peuple particulier qui a trouvé le moyen de dominer les autres, de se maintenir au-dessus d’eux dans la course à la puissance.”, p. 5)

By contrast,

- “L’autonomie est étymologiquement le fait de se donner à soi-même sa loi. Parler d’autonomie paysanne et alimentaire, c’est affirmer l’exigence de la délibération politique et populaire dans la production de l’alimentation.”

These discussions must also invite to collective reflections about self-limitation! (regarding the accumulation of land, use of technology, growth, etc ..). Do we always need bigger and better ?

In their workshops, they invite participants to examine all their 'dependencies', and to analyse which of them enslave them, and which emancipate them.

A machine that we cannot repair and is controlled by a monopoly, definitely enslaves us. A machine that I can repair with other, creating a social relationship in the process, can be in fact emancipatory.

The approach is not individualist, it relies on others, and while not striving for autarky, it does aim for more autonomy, and for freedom of a division of labor that enslaves us or is dependent on others. Very concretely, AP wants to install one million of such farmers in ten years in France.

But why talk about farmers (paysan) and not agriculturists (fr: agriculteurs) ?

- "Pourquoi parlons-nous d’autonomie paysanne, plutôt qu’agricole ?"

- “ ‘Paysan’ désigne une condition, dont l’inscription dans une communauté villageoise .. et la production de ses moyens de subsistance étaient des traits essentiels.” (p. 18)

So AP rejects agricultural 'entrepreneurship', and wants to recreate connected farmers, adapted to the epoch.

The politisation we will propose is centered around 3 policy demands:

   - “La fixation de prix minimum d'entrée pour les produits importés
   - La socialisation de l’alimentation (avec le projet d’une Sécurité Sociale de l’Alimentation)
   - Un mouvement de lutte contre la robotique agricole et pour une désescalade technologique.”

Chapitre 1: L’agriculture industrielle: un monstre mécanique qui a confisqué les terres aux humains (p. 23)

- “En 1789, … la France … était une nation de paysans .. Deux cents trente ans plus tard, l'écrasante majorité vit en milieu urbain. Moins de 10% en dehors de l’aire d’attraction d’une ville” (p. 25)

- "L'activité agricole est devenu absolument minoritaire: en 2016: 2.8% de la population active (754,000, donc 400,000 à leur compte.)” (p. 24)

So a question emerges: why have the peasants be sacrificed ?

There has always been, to a certain degree, a disdain for work by the urban elite:

- “La culture et la liberté sont du côté de la ville, à l'écart des champs, de la boue, et des étables. Le ‘vilain’, etait l’antonyme du ‘noble’.”

Once capitalism emerges and industrialization sets in, it seems clear there is a deliberate attempt to 'free' societies, from the work on the land. This is part of our civilization's imaginary of a liberation from hard work and hardship, as well as for a comfortable abundance.

- “L’espoir de voir disparaître une grande partie du travail agricole, est un élément central de ce fantasme.” (p. 28)

Authors in this vein always insist on abolishing the servitude towards work, the animals, and nature, but never to the banks, to loans, etc ... Progress is what delivers us from natural 'necessity'! This party of modernity is found left and right, Lenin and the Bolcheviks were as intent on destroying the peasantry.

- “Les tenants de régime et d'idéologies .. divers, ont le plus souvent convergé vers ces partis pris fondamentaux.” (p. 32)

The authors then cite many intellectuals with their disparaging remarks on the peasantry, which they see as a break to wished for processes of modernisation. This progressive intelligentsia was the handmaiden of economic rationality.

Petite Histoire du Machinisme Agricole

Mechanisation, though not the only factor, has played a substantial role in reducing the numbers and the culture of the peasantry. The first period of mechanization was a slow one, due to the lack of interest of the farmers, but also because of social and cultural resistance, as the new tech often entailed new dependencies.

AP mentions the opposition of Corsican farmers to a new type of mill in the 18th cy.

- “L’innovation .. qui suscite .. le plus de conflits (au 19ème siècle), 'c'est la batteuse mécanique" (p. 36)

This led to the revolt of Captain Swing around 1830. As with the Luddites, it was severely repressed.

The big breakthrough for industrial machinism was the introduction in the Midwest of the USA, of the tractor, an ideal way not only to compensate for the lack of labor during WWI, but to eliminate horses and mules, which needed 28% of acreage for their own food! Farmers buying one could double their acreage in just 2 years.

Eventually, these machinic developments would lead to the advent of the technocracy, such as the New Deal. In France, the policy to have machine coops purchase bigger tractors failed, leading to smaller ones in the context of family farms.

This cultural evolution accelerated in France, after WWII, under the impulse of social-christian 'personalistic' movements, led by Dominicans, such as Economie et Humanisme; and by Jesuits, such as the Action Populaire and its Projet magazine. The Centre d'Etudes Techniques Agricoles, brought neighbours together, to discuss technological adaptation (CETA) (p. 42)

- “C’est le début d’une identification de l’exploitant a son engin de base .. “

Unfortunately, it is less understood that it brings indebtedness and the integration of agriculture with industry. Young farmers saw this positively as a sign of inclusion and recognition, an end to the isolation of the farm world.

The role of agriculture in the new Keynesian and Fordist regulatory regime, was entirely subordinate: its own rationalisation and productivity gains had as primary objective to lower the price of food, so that consumers could spend the surplus in other sectors.

This new cycle may have been 'virtuous' for workers and consumers, but served to liquidate many farmers. This system was deployed between 1945 and 1962, with the tractor as its vehicle for change, due to an alliance between the government and farmer's unions, such as ENSEA and CNJA. Its immediate effect is the need and possibility to acreage. This requires money and investment, and therefore, debt, which in turn becomes a structural feature of agriculture life.

Regarding the effects of this on the previous diversity of polycultures ('modele classique de polyculture-elevage', p. 46): investing in all the machines necessary for this model is too costly. Hence: mono-culturalization became unavoidable:

- “Et l’engrais chimique remplace le fumier dans les régions de grande culture, au détriment de la vie des sols.” (p. 47)

This new type of agriculture, overturning millenia and centuries of practice, needed inputs from various industries, for seeds, pesticides, etc ... The commercial contracts often locked-in the farmers to the power of their suppliers. In many cases, they dictated the details of production to their clients, initiating new forms of servitude.

A first countermovement emerged against these trends in the 1970s: les "Paysans Travailleurs".

- “Ce nouveau syndicat .. dénoncent l'asymétrie absolue entre les firmes intégratrices et les exploitants intégrés." (p. 48)

This history, and actuality, is recounted in the book, "Le Paysan Impossible", by Yannick Ogor, in 2014.

Chapter 1 continued:

But not everyone went along and a variety of resistances and alternatives emerged. It created niches but could not stop the overall trend.

- from 1851, with 14.3m farmers making up 65% of the population, to 1946, 7.4m farmers remained representing 36% of the population only; this halving took about a century

- but from then on, it's a true collapse: by 2019, 400k farmers only represent 1.5% of the population

- “A cet effondrement des actifs correspondent un effondrement parallèle du nombre d’exploitations et une concentration impressionnante des terres.” (p. 52)

- there were 2.3m farms in 1955

- and 440k left in 2016

Modernity had a promise: work hard and you will get there, but it can't be kept, as there is no end to the process.

- "La course est sans fin .. ; la stabilisation ne vient jamais", p. 52

The rural world reflects, in more intense ways, the logic of atomisation of capitalist modernity.

Already in 197, the sociologist Michele Salmona, alerted, to no avail, about the high suicide rates among farmers. The first recent national study, of the Mutualite Sociale Agricole in 2010, notes a 28% excess of farmer suicides compared to other categories: 605 agri-workers committed suicide in 2015 alone. (p. 54)

This trend started about 50 years ago, coinciding with the industrialization process

- "la rage de ne pas pouvoir gagner sa vie correctement, alors qu'on travaille dur", p. 54

But this human toll is not the end of it:

- “La violence infligée aux humains a aussi été infligée à la nature.” (p. 54)

Between 1959 and 1973, external input ('consommation intermediaires'), augmented by 25%, while industrial needs diminished by 10%. 3 times more energy was needed to boost productivity per ha. by two. In fact, given the rising inputs, the real growth of added value in agriculture was only 11% in the same period. In the US, for 2,000 the was calculated that 7.3 calories of energy were needed to produce one calorie of food (Taux de Retour Energetique). Thus the TRE was 0.14% (p. 56).

Transportation and transformation are an integral part of this consumption system, as are the ecological damages that it causes. In this context, it may be a bit ironic to call such a system 'productivist'.

The part of industrial agriculture in carbon emissions is estimated at 19% in France, and at a quarter worldwide, comparable to the role of the transport sector.

Just as serious , our type of farming literally kills the soil:

- "L'ere extractiviste transforme litteralement le sol en substrat inerte" (p. 57)

Three quarters of insects have disappeared in Europe since the introduction of neocotinoids during 1990-2000 (synthesis from Stephane Foucart in Le Monde.) A Japanese study showed the effects on aquatic animals to be devastating.

- “Les dégâts des pesticides sur la santé humaine sont multiples, et dans l’opinion publique, emblématiques des dégâts de l’agriculture industrielle”. (p. 58)

- “La chimisation est indissociable de la mécanisation." (p. 58)

- 1) with such a low number of farmers, there is no alternative: only a new model could obviate this need, not a moral crusade

- 2) the farmers are the primary victims but research is almost inexistant. France has to rely on U.S. studies, showing how their neurotoxicity plays a role in Parkinson's and Alzheimer.

- 3) the toxicity of of pesticides is only one of the issues, and doesn't exhaust the narrative of damage. Food ingredients are now the major factor in chronic diseases in our epoch (cancer, obesity, heart disease).

According to researcher Anthony Faidet, in 2010, 36% of deaths in France, were directly related to food intake! "Ultratransformed" (recombined) food is now at 50% (70% for packaged) of intake. They even still represent 26% of offerings in bio stores.

Farm work has been reduced to providing raw materials, at the lowest possible cost. The key method is to reduce the variety of produced raw materials, and to differentiate and recompose it into differentiated products through biological and chemical manipulation (“La production d’ersatz alimentaires a partir de matières premières calibrées" , p. 63)

The quality of food intake has a clear 'class' aspect: 26% of the population declares itself unable to purchase food of sufficient quality.

- “L’abondance a aggravé la fracture sociale autour de l’alimentation.” (Benedicte Bonzi, La part des autres, p. 64)

Chapter 2: Les ingrédients d’un verrouillage (p. 67)

Chapter 1 was focused on a critical-analytical effort, outlining the negative results of the system on multiple fronts:

- the feudality of productive relations

- the relations between ecologial and social food health and poverty

Chapter 2 will ask: if the situation is so bad, why is it so difficult to change it ?

How is it, that such a criticised system, known for its multitude of ill effects, is not budging ?

One of the reasons may be the interlocked nature of the subsystems.

First of all, the underlying thread, since at least WWII, is to keep the social cost of food production low. Every other facet of the syste proceeds from that basic feature.

- “Nous avons choisi de développer sept facteurs/marqueurs du verrouillage de la trajectoire agro-industrielle française." (“de la position singulière d’Atelier Paysan”); cinq d’entre eux font l’objet de ce chapitre.” (p.68)

Section 1: Le libre-échange et la Politique Agricole Commune

Free trade agreements were the first factor in bringing down the costs of production, initially (during the 50s), in the context of high productivity growth. But things got complicated in the 80s, with cheap labor countries entering the fray, such as, within the EU, countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal. Even more pressure occured in the 1990s, with GATT and WTO agreements, culminating in the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and the Lissabon Accords of 1997.

Since 30 years, the French production of fruit and vegetables has collapsed, with half of it needs now depending on imports. The Lisbon Treaty made market pricing the absolute criteria, which means that, following the rule of comparative advantage, production moved to the cheapest countries. For example, Spain, where the minimum legal wage is 30% lower than in France, which soon produced 5 times more fruits and vegetables 'per inhabitant'.

This inevitably leads to delocalisation, and the undermining of 'expensive' welfare provisions. Art. 153 of the Lisbon Treaty even formally forbids 'social harmonisation'!!

Inevitably as well, social conditions move downwards and farmer organisations such as FNSEA play their role by asking for lower social charges. The Liston Treaty was rejected by the EU 2005 reform referendum in France, but was introduced despite this opposition.

This has made the last 15 years of agricultural development fundamentally different.

Here are two examples of EU decisions made in this context:

- in 2015,the EU Commission opened an inquiry into the French Agriculture Ministry merely envisaging protecting the price of pork to avoid massive bankruptcies (p. 72)

- a year before, they had threatened the French agri-union FNSEA for challeinging underpriced Spanish fruit imports.

“Chercher … à faire valoir des préférences collectives … constitue toujours une distorsion selon le traité de Lisbonne.. Difficile dans un tel cadre de concevoir la relocalisation de la production, la sortie des pesticides.” (p. 73)

The original Common Agricultural Policy was meant to stabilize the market and contained measures such as minimum pricing and production, but the new post-Lisbon CAP has the contrary aim of 'liberating' the market even more.

The added value of the agricultural industry went up 70% between 1950 and 1974, while, at the same time, the value added of the total French economy went up by 350%. This means the place of agriculture is structurally diminishing, from 15% in 1950 to 6% in 1974. (p. 75)

The late economist Francois Partant noted this increased discrepancy in the terms of trade between agriculture and industry, which inevitably means an ongoing loss of revenue over time. (p. 75)

- “La détérioration des termes de l'échange interne explique que l’agriculture, dans un pays industriel, ne puisse survivre sans une aide financière des Etats.” (p. 75-6)

As of the 1990s, more and more of the previous regulations will be abandoned. The CAP becomes a subsidy to consumption as price wars rage. The part of the consumer budget dedicated to food will halve in 60 years. CAP subsidies are payed by the 'hectare', putting even more pressure to augment the size of farms, and lately, as of 2020, the EU has started to support robotic machinery. While the CAP is subject to discussion, the Lisbon Treaty seems set in stone.

The choice for being 'entrepreneurs' turned out to be a mistake.

- “En cessant d'être paysans, les agriculteurs sont devenus des travailleurs de l’industrie. Ils ne sont pas salariés et c’est justement leur statut d'indépendant qui rend possible une rémunération indigne de leur travail.” (p. 79)

It has made farmers entirely dependent on industrial actors. For example, after the crisis of 2008, nearly the whole milk production sector was 'contractualized'. Farm work has been entirely de-communalized, every farmer is on his own.

The farmer faces a agro-industrial complex in which even the union leaders are the biggest owners.

Some stats (p. 84):

   - Five equipment makers dominate the world market: John Deere, CNH, Kubota, Agco, and Claas (60% of the market = $131 b in 2016)
   - Five groups dominate 2/3rd of the seed business: Chem China, Corteva, BASF, Vilmorin
   - Agrochemicals: Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, Corteva, FMC and BASV (2/3rd = $56.7 b in 2018)
   - Cargill has a foothold in every part of the supply-chain; in France, a similar role is played by Avril.

The chair of Avril was also the chair of the FNSEA:

- “Ce cumul de mandats venait couronner l’intense utilisation de ressources publiques pour constituer un empire privé." (p. 86)

The farm union FNSEA was originally created out of the Resistance under 'gaullist' and 'stalinist' leadership, with participation of salaried farm-workers but gradually opened up to the 'Petain-ist' local notables, deeply connected to the power structure.

- “La greffe moderniste sur le tronc ‘socialement conservateur’ sera l'œuvre du Centre national des jeunes agriculteurs, CNJA, a la fin des années 1950.” (p. 88)

These young catholic farm owners had seen model farms in the Netherlands and the US, and when the Gaulle returned in 1958, they were his interlocutors.

They were entirely co-responsible in the effort to reduce the number of farmers. They, more than the FNSEA, lead protests only to accept further compromises that eventually deepened the 'purge'. The organisation is overwhelmingly present in all facets of farm life ("pouvoir bureaucratique tentaculaire", p. 90) and has a huge ideological influence on farmers. Lots of state tolls end up in their coffers.

- "Le syndicat incarne la grande famille agricole .. (et) .. la defend contre toutes les calomnies." (p. 91)

- "La 'fede' orchestre la rupture entre agriculteurs incompris et les autres groupes sociaux: elle attise la crispation identitaire des agriculteurs."

The FNSEA campaigns against 'agribashing' and mobilizes its troops against ecological demands:

- "Elle (FNSEA) les pousse a un conflit de nature identaire." (p. 92)

This, instead of admitting that it is 'their' political choices that are driving the conflict. The police and state, supporting this ideological and identitarian version of the conflict, have mobilized specialize police units against 'agri-bashing'. However, it has to be recognized that some 'ecological' movements play in the hands of this identitarian feeling. By blaming the farmers and ignoring the precarious conditions, while themselves being from a privilieged urban elite.

- “Le discours typique des classes moyennes urbaines ou néorurales, qui dénoncent les conséquences du productivisme sans reconnaître ses racines socio-politiques, nourrit le sentiment de dévalorisation." (p. 94)

In some places, the FNSEA is losing control, sometimes to more radical movements such as the Coordination Rurale in Lot-et-Garonne, which won the Chamber of Agriculture elections in 2013, after leading a illegal movement to dig a irrigation lake.

In the 1950-70 decades, many social groups renounced political participation in exchange for the promise of prosperity. In fact, they retreated to their own, 'besieged', identity:

- “Ces agriculteurs-là ne comptent plus que sur eux-mêmes. Tout ce qui vient de l'extérieur, est suspect.” (p. 97). "Résister comme ils le peuvent à l'achèvement de leur élimination, qui pourrait bien dessiner l'arrivée de tous ces néo-paysans ‘ecologisants’ (p. 98).

With this, we have a moral and identitarian blockage of the first order.

- “Ce morcellement sociologique et culturel de l’agriculture est à l'image du morcellement de notre alimentation.” (p. 98)

Organic food is nothing but a new market segment, integrated in the overall market system, which has adapted to it, while offering security and income to at least a layer of farmers.

- “Ce qu’a permis l’agriculture biologique, (c’est)

       - Sauver des milliers d’agriculteurs de l'élimination
       - Libérer une partie des territoires de l'épandage des pesticides
       - Elle a permis en se passant des politiques publiques.” (p. 99)

This has led to the glorification of the consumer as final arbiter: "no need for structural change, it's up to you to be attractive to the consumers."

- “Dans un tel contexte, l’agriculture biologique ne peut renverser l'ordre agricole.” (p. 99); (“elle est devenue .. le complément de gamme de l’agriculture industrielle.”, (p. 100)

- “Bernard Charbonnier … a identifié le caractère fonctionnel pour la société capitaliste industrielle, de l'éclosion d’une 'niche' a la périphérie de l’offre.” (p. 100). … Le temps de l’ersatz est (aussi) celui du produit ‘naturel’ (p. 101) .. car l'élite échappera à cette grande mue.” … Charbonneau montre combien l’existence d’un secteur produisant une alimentation de qualité.. Pour une minorité est consubstantielle d’une ordre .. inégalitaire." (p. 101)

The underlying motto of the current situation seems to be: "Les riches chez Naturalia, les pauvres chez Aldi" (p. 102)

One of the advantages of industrial food was to reduce the food budget of the middle classes and insure access to the poor, a sine qua non condition for social stability, yet it seems that even the 'hard discount' strategy is failing. 7 million people in France already depend on food aid, and the number is growing.

- “Elle est devenue un dispositif structurel qui a une fonction dans l'économie: écouler les surplus d’une production agricole.” (p. 103)

By contrast, in the US, in 2011, 15% of Americans receive foodstamps, i.e. 45 m recipients (p. 103)

- In France, the surplus of supermarkets goes, tax-free, to associations, which then distribute it. (“Non seulement les distributeurs ne paient plus pour la destruction de leurs invendus, mais ils beneficient d’une reduction fiscale”, p. 103).

The state takes care of the surplus, but the poor get problematic food which endangers their health. That is the perverse logic at work!

- “Que penser d’une industrie qui doit sa viabilité économique au développement de la pauvreté!" (p. 105)

- “La technicisation de la société moderne .. consiste aussi en une ‘sur-organisation’ de toute la vie sociale par des normes techniques.” (p. 105)

This particularly affects farming and there is resistance to it. For example, the "Faut pas pucer" movement in the Tarne region is a protest against obligatory chips for goats and sheep. For them this was one more sign for the reduction of their autonomy, the increasing inability to take decisions for and by themselves. The protesters were subjected to heavy sanctions and one activist was killed when found sleeping in his car, by the gendarmerie.

His death stimulated the creation of a new collective, "Hors-Norme", which aims to organize farmers against ultra-bureaucratization.

- “Hors-norme avance que les normes sanitaires et environnementales qui se multiplient .. ne visent pas à protéger la nature et la santé des humains mais à écrémer la population agricole.” (p. 109)

Yannick Ogor, a member and author of Le Paysan Impossible, sees this 'government by norms' as superimposing itself on the earlier 'management by crisis'. It serves the same purpose of scaling up the agricultural industry at the detriment of the farmers.

- “La prolifération normative s’ajoute au libre-échange, dans la purge agricole en cours.” (p. 110)

But for AP, things are not entirely as simple, since it is clear that agro-industry wants to dismantle the environmental norms. The new treaties confirm these dismantling of norms in the name of facilitating trade. It is therefore a multi-faceted battlefield, but on a terrain mastered by the enemy, so argues AP, different in its analysis than Hors-Norme.

Farmers must not choose one topic alone, but must target the whole integrated system:

- “Nous n’avons d’autre choix que de porter le projet d’une transformation democratique de l’agriculture et de l'alimentation dans tous leurs aspects … Il n’y a que des normes imposées … (Il nous faut) des normes issue de l’usage populaire ou de la délibération autonome.” (p. 112) … Tout comme “il y a une technologie issue d’un faire social.” (p. 113)

Chapter 3 - La machine agricole: verrou technologique

- “La machine agricole est un impensé politique.” (p. 115) … “Comment un facteur aussi structurant et aussi visible que le machinisme peut-il être quasiment ignoré ?”

The adhesion of the farming world to technological development is deep-seated. The role of technology in continuously bringing down the cost of production is vital. Every facet of practical knowledge has been subjugated to quantification. Livestock and insects are 'objectified'.

- “L’ancien paysan (est devenu) un technicien gestionnaire de ses ‘intrants’.” (p. 117)

It is all backed by an immense marketing machine, and has affected everyone and everything, including the machine-buying cooperatives and the Cuma movement.

- “Le mouvement des Cuma, fondé en 1945, aurait pu déboucher sur un autre imaginaire. Élément du vaste mouvement coopératif de l'époque, il propose l’acquisition et la mise en commun des outils de production . Les Cuma auraient pu constituer le creuset d’une action paysanne collective, contre la veine moderniste-individualiste”.

The opposite happened: the extra power of collective buying led to a choice for big machines and concentration. Each year, the 'Salon' of agricultural machinery in Villepin provides a propaganda event, as does their magazine "Entr'aid". There is no education to a critical approach to technology, and a lack of self-reflection on the topic in farming circles.

- “Le problème … est l’abandon de cette interrogation, [“sur les enjeux de la mécanisation et de la robotique”], dans le milieu de l’agriculture paysanne.”

Every organic farming association and more progressive farming organizations seem interested in what AP has to offer. But AP continues to evolve and has come to a number of conclusions:

- 1) Technology is not neutral. It can transform the world in different ways. Because it needs substantial means, it is both beholden to the state and to the profit motive.

- 2) For the last 2 centuries, technology has been crucial to capital accumulation.

“Dans ces conditions la, croire que l’on peut la maîtriser, la contrôler, l’orienter vers un hypothétique intérêt général, relève d’un acte de foi.” (p. 120)

Since the 19th cy, technics, the ability to use machinery, can no longer exist without an insertion in the technology system, which is interlined entirely with scientific knowledge. (“pas de telegraphe sans lois de l’electro-magnetisme”, p. 121-2)

Today the relationship is also partially reversed, there is n o science without advanced machinery .. Science has become techno-science." (p. 122)

Agricultural machinery, practically obligatory and in the hands of the very few multinationals, induces particular ways of organizing mono-cultural farming.

- “La monoculture entraîne d'absurdes conséquences phytopharmaceutiques et variétales.” … Pas assez de toute une vie paysanne pour rembourser un outil de travail.” (p. 125)

Every aspect of accepted technology leads to another: “le tracteur appelle le pétrole, .. a soif de GIS.”

AP develops its own low-tech machinery with the specific goal of creating technically autonomous peasant communities. The difference lies in the design process: which is communal and empirical: their adaptation is based on the sensible life of the peasant in touch with the soil.

- “Elle font l’objet d’une réflexion collective, d’une théorisation." (p. 126)

Here are five criteria that make this technology different from the industrial model (pages 126-9):

- 1) The user must be involved in every phase of the conception, making, and maintenance of the tools. This is the necessary step in regaining the mastery of knowledge ("amelioration continue")

- 2) Design is a bottom-up process which starts from the needs of the farmers ("innovation par l'usage")

- 3) Polyvalent machinery is adaptable at the level of the farm ("reproductibilité et polyvalence")

- "Plus les systèmes cultivés sont complexes, plus les machines doivent être simples.” (p.128)

- 4) Collective thinking and making ("réfléchir et faire ensemble")

- 5) Use open and free licenses that are available to everyone (use of CC licenses)

- “Ce que nous tentons d'amorcer c’est la désescalade de la puissance pour que les humains puissent à nouveau travailler la terre par eux-mêmes." (p. 129)

- There is a growing anguish that techno-science has escaped all human control. A technology-savvy democracy must counterbalance the loss of autonomy.

- “Il nous faudra littéralement reprendre la terre aux machines.” (p. 132)

The level of choice of agri-managers has been reduced to such a level that he can be replaced by an algorithm. The new digitization aims to halve the current numbers of farmers, to only 200k in the whole of France.

There is only one counter-move: to take back the land from the machines! This will require a vast social movement. What we are facing are not isolated machines, but a technical system that is itself part of a regulatory, fiscal, and bureaucratic systems. For example, buying new machines is entirely incentivized through tax exemptions.

- “La législation fiscale … induit une obsession fiscale (qui) contribue à faire de l’agriculture le support d’un marché surabondant de machinisme.” (La Loi ‘Maison’ de 2015, les a renforcé. ... Plus que jamais les pouvoirs publics orgasisent l'obllescence des machines. (p. 135) .. Le solutionisme oriente tous es developments. De suircroit de technology n'est pas toujours la solution." (p. 137)

In 2017, there was a new campaign against pesticides from inhabitants of rural colleges and , and which had led to a new comprise under Macron: it called for a 'decentralized' charter of co-existence: "les ZNT liberees des epandages de pesticides." (p. 140). It framed the issue as a conflict from below , between -

- “Il (le gouvernement) a fragmente un problème politique et systématique en une myriade de problematique locale de co-existence. (p. 140)

The message to farmers is devastating: "go poison yourself further away". This fake solution, merely diminishing the amount of pesticides, will not solve the problem, and was achieved in agreement with the environmental organizations.

Agriculture 4.0. is now on the horizon: biotech, robotics, agriculture without soil, artificial meat, etc .. The Internet of Things wants to interconnect all objects. All of this is often presented with a 'green sauce', regularly echoed by agro-ecological movements.

- "La contradiction est totale, l'imposture est immense." (p. 145)

To the dependence on agri-industry is added the dependency on Big (digital) Tech. Farmers are told to rely on algorithms and no longer on their own senses and judgments.

- “Ils pourront confier à des automatismes la quasi-totalité de leurs analyses.” (p. 146)

- “L’agriculture ‘de précision' est un investissement durable dans la poursuite de la destruction des milieux de vie, partout sur terre. Sa prétention écologique est un mensonge monstrueux.” (p. 148)

What is forgotten is the cost of IT machinery, and its matter-energy consumption. IT is linked to mining, to terrible pollution, and we are extracting as much in a generation as in the previous totality of human history! (raw material processing alone represents 8-10% of global energy expenditure, p. 149)

IT equipment itself consumes 10-15% of global electricity in 2010 (p. 150). It doubles every year and could reach 50% by 2030. The western world is already saturated but the Global South is the real target of Industry 4.0

Chapter 4 - L'Agriculture paysanne, un ensemble d'alternatives indispensables, mais inoffensives

- (p. 153)

“Un demi-siècle de mise en œuvre d’alternatives n’a nullement freiner l'industrialisation de l'agriculture. Les choix .. du mouvement pour l’agriculture paysanne .. semblent être le renoncement à une transformation sociale d’ensemble.” (p. 153)

This limitation has to be confronted. At AP, we spend an enormous amount of energy and effort to train only 700 people a year.

- “Un résultat .. dérisoire au regard de la gravité de la situation.” (p. 154)

Even if we multiplied our results, it would not be enough. Other linked movements, such as Terre des Liens, face the same blockage. They save 223 farms in 20 years, but between 200-260 farms close every week! It saves one out of a thousand. It is largely the same story for the AMAPs. They have 250k purchasing members, even if multiplied by a household factor, it is a drop in the bucket of 70 million classic consumers.

Bio agriculture <is> flourishing :

- in 2019, 75% of French consumers regularly purchased its products, 14% of them daily, up to EUR 12b per year, which is 85% more than in 2015 (p. 157)

- 180K people work in the sector, including 10% of the farmers. And yet, the usage of pesticides continues to climb! All the problems, such as the diminishing number of farmers, higher indebtedness, etc.. simply continue to grow.

The govt uses bio-agriculture as an excuse not to reform industrial agriculture: it becomes a matter of consumer choice. The development of bio is useful for many reasons, but it is not 'winning': on the contrary: toxic commodification is winning.

Our own AP movement focused originally on increasing the supply of healthy food, but we have learned that this cannot succeed without chaning the logic of the demand side.

The economic logic of the organic producers is based on their temporary situation of operating in a scarce market, which carries a guarantee of surplus value. Whenever supply matches demand, this advantage disappears.

- “Il n’y a pas de viabilité économique intrinsèque à l’agriculture biologique ou paysanne.” (p. 161)

Thus, niche strategies are bound to fail eventually, without systemic social change. In fact, our movement trusted the market and developed niche market strategies. And the choices against pesticides made our products more expensive, and thus, only affordable to some.

- "Il n’y a pas d’alternative à coût égal. (p. 162)"

Publisher's Summary (in French):

"Le temps joue pour nous : les AMAP, la Bio et les circuits courts apparaissent de plus en plus dans les médias comme dans nos assiettes – l’opinion publique est acquise. Si chaque consommateur change ses habitudes alimentaires, si chaque agriculteur se forme à l’agroécologie, alors la victoire est au bout de la fourchette. Ceci est une fable.

L’appel à la responsabilité individuelle, ce « chacun doit faire sa part », ne mettra jamais fin au modèle alimentaire industriel et marchand. Celui-ci est une machine à produire artificiellement au moindre coût, une machine à confisquer les savoirs et savoir-faire, à enrichir les industries technologiques, à déshumaniser.

Il est temps d’échapper à notre enfermement dans les niches d’un marché alimentaire réservé aux classes aisées et de reprendre entièrement la terre aux machines. Ce manifeste propose de sérieuses pistes de rupture.

L’Atelier Paysan accompagne la conception et le colportage des technologies paysannes. Les auteurs, paysans, syndicalistes et militants, sociétaires de la coopérative, font le constat que les alternatives paysannes, aussi incroyablement riches soient-elles, s’avèrent totalement inoffensives face au complexe agro-industriel, plus prédateur que jamais."

(https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/reprendre-la-terre-aux-machines-l-atelier-paysan/9782021478174 ) -

Taking Back the Land from the Machines

Contents