Graduation speech to ALBA farm training graduates

English translation of a graduation address to the ALBA Graduates of the Education Program for Small Farmers -- Salinas, California, April 5, 2008

By Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director, Food First

Welcome, and good afternoon to you all; our friends in life, our colleagues in study, our companions in the struggle, and to our dear families who are here with us today. Today, we have come together to commemorate a graduation. I feel very honored to be here with you, because this isn’t just any graduation. This graduation is of the utmost importance, not just for the people who have now concluded the agriculture courses of ALBA, but rather all of us, for our communities and for our society.

After this kind of agroecological preparation—an intensive training in both theory and practice—we are here to accompany the farmers who soon will open for us the doors to a new agriculture, and so a new culture, and also, as such, a social transition.

Because from the time that women invented agriculture more than 8,000 years ago, agriculture—this primordial relationship between humans and nature—has been the base of great social changes. The great civilizations of the world—The Maya, The Inca, The Aztecs, were able to develop by cultivating corn, potatoes, beans, squash, and a great diversity of plants and animals…. It can be said that these civilizations and these plants co-evolved to such a point that, even though we say that the corn is ours, the truth is that, we are men and women of corn.

And it’s always been the farmers—these men and women of corn—the caretakers of the environment and of food, who have been the base of all the social changes in the world. The Industrial Revolution of the 18 century would never have been possible without the large subsidies that agriculture provided to industry. Not only did it free up cheap labor to textile factories, it also provided inexpensive food so that industry could pay low wages and still make enormous profits, converting itself into a capitalist enterprise.

Later, when industry decided to colonize agriculture, it was also rural people who fed themselves and in so doing, provide cheap labor to the large modern farms, allowing those large farmers to save their profits to modernize and expand further.

It has also been farmers who have supplied the seeds to scientists so they could invent the high-yield hybrids, that allowed seed companies to get rich, leading to the so-called “Green Revolution” which they claim has saved the world from hunger. And it is these same seeds, cultivated and cared for over millennia by peasant families that now form the base for the huge genetic engineering industry that also strives to seize possession of agriculture through genetically modified seeds.

Yes, in all the social transitions of importance in the world, the farmer has been present and indispensable.

But rarely has the farmer been recognized. To the contrary, farmers have been paid poorly for their product, their labor has been exploited, their wisdom has been ignored and their culture has been marginalized—so much so that in socialist and capitalist countries alike, the goal has been to eliminate the farmer, converting him into yet another cheap laborer. Even our educational systems have wanted to convince us that farmers have no value, that their seeds don’t belong to them, and that their knowledge is useless.

But here we are, and we see that after 8,000 years, farmers have not disappeared. Farmers defend their seeds. Farmers continue to improve and deepen their knowledge.

Why?

Because those farmers respect the land and each other, they extend a hand to others. The same innovative ways of solving problems, protect the environment and produce food continue.

Although many urban people don’t realize it, in today’s world, with computers, spaceships, and cell phones, farmers are still half of the world’s population.

So then, my brothers and sisters, I, today, in the humblest, sincerest, and most respectful way, want to recognize your effort, your tradition, your culture, your intelligence, and your blessed stubbornness in becoming innovative farmers.

Thank you for insisting to produce food in a moment of scarcity and inflation of prices, when there are 840 million hungry people in the world – 36 million of whom can be found in the United States.

Thank you for insisting on producing food in a way that improves the environment, while agroindustry seems only to look for ways to destroy it, contaminating our air, our soils, our rivers and oceans, and even poisoning our workers.

Thank you for producing healthy food in a time in which there are millions of obese people because of processed junk food, which we feel obliged to eat because it seems cheap, but it poisons us, giving us serious problems with blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.

Thank you for continuing in the most noble profession that exists in this world. Thank you for opening the doors to a new transition… A transition towards a healthy agriculture and a just, equitable, and sustainable food system… A transition on the road to food sovereignty.

I promise to walk this road with you.

I invite all of you here to walk this road together, on two feet: one is innovation and the other is solidarity.

I invite you to work together with two hands: one is to produce and the other is to protect.

I invite you to envision together a just farming future where nobody exploits us and in which we have democratic control and sovereignty over all of our food system—not only the production but rather the elaboration, the distribution, the sale, and the preparation of food.

I invite you to raise your voices for a world that is more just, more healthy, more democratic, in which sustainable agriculture and farming families—also sustainable—will form a fundamental part of a better future.

I invite you to construct, with sweat and joy, communities based on the farming values of respect, mutual assistance, and love, lots of love, my friends! Love for the land, love for nature, love of agriculture, love of the farming family and love for ourselves.

Let’s make that road and walk it!

For more information about ALBA, go to
http://www.albafarmers.org/