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The
ineffectiveness of Modern agriculture
The deafening silence shown by politics towards
agriculture is perhaps the most evident example of how falsehoods,
even technical ones, can be made to pass as widely acclaimed truths.
The agricultural model from which all of modern innovation was
born is the American one and, looking at the statistics, no one
could doubt that we are reading incontestable data. Instead, behind
this apparent absolute truth are hidden tremendous lies manipulated
by the great multinationals (and by the absence of governments).
Energetically speaking, "a farmer with an ox and a plough obtains a
better return, in terms of energy employed, than the gigantic
mechanized farms of America of our times"… (from Entropy by Jeremy
Rifkin). The knowledge of our farmers has been replaced by plant
protection products that constantly alter the equilibrium of the
ecosystem, with an enormous waste of the system itself to restore
it. The final result is that we no longer succeed in "training"
young farmers who are able to understand how to behave with regard
to the ecological equilibriums of their own business and for this
reason the irrational use of synthetic products increasingly
destroys the rural ecosystem. … "Between 1960 and 1978, the
employment of nitrogenous fertilizers more than tripled,
nevertheless the annual harvest of wheat in 1986 was smaller than in
1974"… (from Entropy by Jeremy Rifkin). In Sicily, with the
introduction of modern wheat obtained by genetic manipulation to get
varieties that are more productive and more resistant to some
"defects" such as lodging, the total production of wheat has not
increased from 1960 to today; on the contrary, it is decreasing
gradually as the increase in production per hectare is exceedingly
offset by the decrease in the surface that is cultivated or no
longer used due to landslides, urbanization, desertification, etc...
Let us also mention the rise in the cases of celiac disease,
hitherto almost unknown. The advent of modern education, based
on the obligation to attend "Modern Schools", has in fact taken
young people away from the rural districts. The result is that young
people do not have any experience in the sector anymore (which is
paid at a high price) and the inhabited centres of the rural areas
are becoming increasingly depopulated with an environmental and
territorial cost (for the social and territorial disorder) that will
become unbearable in future years. In addition, the introduction
of the concept of the liberalization of markets is the most absurd
issue that has ever been conceived given that the thermodynamic
systems of our planet are structured on "models of organized
complexity", which means that it is necessary to have protected
forms that guarantee more complex systems. I would like to explain
this through an example: if we decided that cell membranes are an
obstacle to the "free circulation" of cell nutrients we could
eliminate them but we would realize then that by eliminating the
cell membranes we would die within seconds. This is what is
happening in our complex world where we are exchanging and
misinterpreting the concept of globalization with that of
liberalization. When we liberalize without membranes we destroy the
social and territorial fabric and therefore, in the end, also the
economic fabric. I am not even going to talk about the question
of GMOs, it does not even deserve a serious analysis, given that
even the official science finds evaluating their real necessity
embarrassing. According to the American Council for Agricultural
Science, (given that at a European level a blind eye is being
taken), "a third of all U.S cropland is suffering soil losses too
great to be contained without a gradual but ultimately disastrous
decline in productivity (because of modern technologies and the
advent of GMOs)” Instead governments, especially those of the
European Union, have built a system of rural Development that is
aberrant and destined to an unprecedented socioeconomic failure.
We are replacing a millennia-old culture with a technology that can
be considered deviated because it is not produced by wisdom but by
economic interests. We are driving man from his territory,
depopulating it and instead foolishly populating urban centres on
the verge of collapse (both socially and energetically). Many of
us are tired of listening to the "wise" lectures of professors and
economists who, with their deplorable analyses, are demolishing the
world of Wisdom. A world built by the patient contribution of
tradition. I forgot to point out that it was the culture of the
enlightenment that demonized tradition, considering it a "source of
error and prejudices." I hope that future generations will
realize that Wisdom is already present in the world and must not be
looked for in directions dictated by economic powers.
Guido Bissanti
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