The Real Score on CARP’s Extension

Let us direct our attention, yet again, to the practical details of any extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Passage of any measure that will allow the Department of Agrarian Reform to complete the redistribution of agricultural land—with or without reforms in the landmark law—will depend not on lofty philosophical argument but on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s exercise of political will.

House defers vote on CARP extension bill

But resolution extending LAD until December OKd

The House of Representatives has deferred voting on the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and would instead pass a joint resolution that would extend until December the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component under the present CARP.

How to manufacture a global food crisis

By Walden Bello
INQUIRER.net

(An earlier version of this article appears in the June 2, 2008, edition of The Nation [New York]. It is being reprinted by the Inquirer with permission from The Nation.)

WHEN tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60-percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: How on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place?