Global Cultural Studies 2013

The production of palm oil is a topic of great debate and dispute in Colombia. On the one side, it is an economically viable business that is bringing in a lot of international money and is boosting Colombia’s economy. On the other side, it is very destructive to the environment and has destroyed the lives of many people who have been pushed off their land to make room for palm plantations. Palm oil is one of Colombia’s biggest industries and President Uribe is behind it 100%. He wants to make Colombia the world’s biggest producer of palm oil and he plans do that by more than doubling the acreage of palm trees planted. Economically, this would be good for Colombia since it gives them a foothold in the global market, which helps to stimulate more business internally as well as externally. This would also politically benefit Colombia. If Colombia becomes the biggest producer of palm oil, many companies and countries will depend on Colombia and have to curry favor with the government.
Palm oil production isn’t really good for the Colombian environment or its people. Other trees have to be cut down in order to plant the palm trees and make room for factories as well as build roads to reach the trees and the factories. This decreases the diversity of plant and animal life in Colombia, which isn’t a good thing since diversity in the world is decreasing at an extremely fast pace already. The people in Colombia are also suffering from the expanding palm oil industry. Many of them are being pushed off their lands so that big companies can plant palm trees and get all the benefits from palm oil. More than 3.8 million people have been internally displaced as a result of huge palm plantations being established. Not only does it affect these people economically, but also culturally. They have to find a new way of life than the one they’ve lived for hundreds of years in a country that doesn’t want them around.
I found an article that talks about many of the negative effects the palm oil industry has had on Colombia. They name one company in particular as an example of one that has destroyed the lives of many people, as well as contributed to environmental degradation. The company is called the Daabon company and they sell palm oil to cosmetics companies like The Body Shop. The article talks about how the Daabon group convinced police and a judge to illegally evict campesinos from their land in order to plant palm trees. Obviously this company is up to no good and people it’s a shame that the wants of the global north are the driving force behind this kind of activity, according to the article.
While I was looking for videos to put in my presentation, I stumbled upon a video that talks about sustainable palm oil production in Colombia. Ironically enough, the star of the video was the Daabon group. The video talked about how the Daabon group worked towards sustainable agriculture by not cutting down many trees and leaving 9% of their land palm tree free. Also, according to the video, local farmers are included in the process and work for the company and/or sell their own palm to the company to be processed. The Daabon group seems like a great company since it’s trying its best to reduce the nasty side effects of being a big company while still making a relatively good profit.
I think the two opposing perspectives are interesting and it makes me take a step back and look at my notes a bit. It’s a good lesson at taking everything with a grain of salt. The article and video portray two completely opposite opinions so if I wanted to find out which one is closer to the truth, I’d have to do more research and gather a few more articles and/or videos to come to a conclusion.
Here are links to the article and the video:
http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2009/11/07/colombia-analysis-quotgreen-revolutionquot-turns-color-blood-and-fire-colombia

Whenever I’ve learned about the Green Revolution in school, I’ve mostly heard about India and a little bit about China. We learn about how great the Green Revolution was and how rice technology spread throughout India and China. India had been on the edge of a huge famine until high yielding varieties of rice and wheat were introduced. Even with India’s growing population, the country was able to fight its way back from a famine and grow so much food that it was eventually able to begin exporting food.
We learn about some of the negative effects the Green Revolution had as well, on India. With the new varieties, farmers were required to purchase seeds from big companies every year, they couldn’t save any seeds. Also, they had to buy very powerful fertilizers for the plants since they couldn’t survive without them. The seeds and fertilizer were very expensive and only the rich farmers could afford to buy them on a yearly basis. This caused many small farms to go under, benefitting big farms/agribusiness because then they were able to purchase the small farms for cheap. In India especially, there were reports of many farmers committing suicide because they couldn’t afford to provide for their families anymore and couldn’t face the disgrace.
Until I started researching for this paper, I had never really thought about the Green Revolution being anywhere else but Asia. I knew that it had benefitted other countries, including the US, but it wasn’t something I really thought about. During the course of my research though, I learned that the Green Revolution had started in Mexico and if it weren’t for experiments done there on wheat, rice, and corn, the Green Revolution probably wouldn’t have taken off. In the early 1940s, Mexico was in trouble because its population was growing and couldn’t afford to keep importing enough corn and wheat for everyone. The Mexican Ministry of Agriculture reached out to the Rockefeller Foundation for help and together the two organizations essentially started the Green Revolution. They developed a very sturdy, high-yield variety of Mexican dwarf wheat that could grow almost anywhere, with a lot of fertilizer. This wheat was grown all over Mexico as well as sold elsewhere in the world until 94% of the high yield variety wheat was planted in Asia, hence why people focus on Asia when talking about the Green Revolution.
I understand why Asia is the main focus of the Green Revolution since it had a very big impact on the people there. But what I don’t understand is why there’s almost no mention of Mexico and the fact that basically all the technology that made the green revolution possible was developed there. I wonder if the reason credit wasn’t given to Mexico was because the Rockefeller Foundation took the credit. Even if that was the case, I think Mexico’s role in the Green Revolution should be taught.