Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 21 DENNIE EAGLESON Participants in the 2022 Regenerative Farming Fellowship (RFF) Program at the end-of-year celebration. Shown from left with RFF Coordinator Tia Stuart (standing) are Sharifa Tomlinson, Rhonda Allen, Anita Armstead, Jordan Mapel, and Brie Jeffrey. Not shown are Sierra Hayden, Amari Spears, Gregory Muhammad, Alicia Chereton, and Isabel Matos. others. Farmers claim that nitrogen pollution is being used as an excuse to restructure land ownership and use. The fray has migrated to social media, with at least one tweet declaring We are all Dutch farmers now. Farmers in tractors clogging the roadways in a country that is the second largest global agricultural exporter are reminiscent of the two-year strike by thousands of Indian farmers against the Modi government, spurred in 2020 by policies that would have incentivized the hoarding of rice, wheat, and pulses like lentils and beans, that could then be sold at higher prices by private traders. The anger of the farmers in both countries was spurred by a system that privileges global decision-making over local agricultural systems and connections. The same internationally sanctioned policies sparked a collapse of the production of rice and tea in Sri Lanka recently. Closer to home, Canada could lose production of millions of tons of canola, corn, and spring wheat in the coming years, also due to climate policies. And Mexico, whose traditional farms were destroyed by NAFTA, is being pressured to continue to import GMO corn from the United States. Compounding all these challenges to growing food locally are floods, fires, droughts and spikes in fertilizer and other inputs, leading to record low harvests of staple foods across the planet. Food that is already grown is also literally stuck by low water in the Mississippi, high transportation costs, challenged processing plants, and labor shortages. The conflict in the Ukraine and various blockades have led to price increases that strain household budgets and to rampant hunger everywhere. DEGENERATIVE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION Arthur Morgan founded Community Service, the predecessor organization to Agraria, in 1940, on the eve of America’s entrance into WWII. While not an isolationist, he was prescient about the challenges of globalization and urbanization and what they would mean for community resilience and democracy. Decades later, David Korten, former Harvard business professor and World Bank Development Specialist, in his book When Corporations Rule the World, wrote about the impact of global corporations like the IMF on community systems across the planet: What we call economic development is a process of monetizing relationships to alienate people from the bonds of caring for one another, and the living lands and waters that were previously the source of their means of living. Thus alienated, they become dependent on money to obtain essentials like food, water, shelter, energy, and other basics they once provided for themselves in cooperative, nonmonetary engagement with one another and nature. They became dependent, instead, on the global corporations that now control the jobs, and on credit, on which they now depend for their access to money…Our dependence on money replaces our direct relationships with one another and nature. The commodification and globalization of food production and sharing have devastated agrarian communities across the planet. The degenerative harvests MEGAN BACHMAN Fellows in the RFF program sold the food they produced during the 25-week program at the farmers market they organized for the annual Black Farming Conference in September.