2.
Today we continue with our notes and commentaries, examining the specific, concrete situations in Peru (based on bureaucratic capitalism) that are leading to rampant dispossession of peasant property, the evolution of semi-feudalism, while maintaining the three characteristics expressed in land, servitude, and Gamonalismo (The central factor of the phenomenon is the hegemony of the semi-feudal landed estate in the policy and mechanism of the government), the social relations of production that are emerging, and the development of the class struggle.
According to the laws of social development of our country and of backward countries, "bureaucratic capitalism is nothing more than the path of imperialism in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country. Without a semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition, there would be no bureaucratic capitalism. Thus, to propose the existence of bureaucratic capitalism is to propose as a premise that the country is semi-feudal and semi-colonial..."
The outdated semi-feudal system continues to exist and defines the country from its deepest foundations to its most elaborate ideas, essentially maintaining the persistent land problem, the driving force of the class struggle of the peasantry, especially the poor, who constitute the vast majority.
The semi-feudal system defines or colors all other social relations of production that emerge in the country as a consequence of the development of bureaucratic capitalism and the country's superstructure.
Continuing with the citations from studies by bourgeois or petty-bourgeois authors, to further objectify the condition of our economy and the relationship between imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and semi-feudalism (the three mountains that oppress us), we quote:
“It is true that in most rural areas there was a certain type of resilience during the most chaotic year of the pandemic's effects (based on the productive nature of agricultural economies, in which a large part of production is destined for family consumption)…”
(Food and Agricultural Campaigns in the Current Situation, Miguel Pintado, CEPES, LA REVISTA AGRARIA / 196, January 2022)
Comment: The underlined portion of the quote indicates an agricultural economy primarily intended for consumption, with the remainder used for exchange to purchase what is not produced for the producer's own consumption, for agricultural inputs, etc. The above indicates a subsistence economy; there is no accumulation, that is, simple reproduction; it is therefore a pre-capitalist, semi-feudal economy.
Continuing with the same article, it says:
“On the one hand, the impact of the pandemic in 2020 led to a decrease in rural incomes and those of farming families, given that they not only engage in agricultural activities but also resort to temporary off-farm jobs (…)
The consequences, the article says, are loss of income and decapitalization, which, combined with rising prices for imported agricultural inputs, causes our food insecurity. Continuing:
“Despite the significant contribution of domestic production (such as rice, potatoes, and other products) to the domestic food supply, our food security is not fully guaranteed. The
current international price situation has demonstrated our food fragility not only in imported final products (oils, wheat, cereals, etc.), but also in agricultural inputs (fertilizers), which are becoming increasingly expensive, putting consumers and producers at risk.”
The above quotes refer to the process of developing peasant misery, which forces peasants to work off the land not only for their personal needs (reproduction of the labor force) but also to reproduce the means consumed in production; this is what he refers to when he speaks of decapitalization. Chairman Gonzalo, in the Second Plenary Session of the CC in 1991, commented on this situation as follows:
( Great landowner property - Small Peasant Property Relationship)
“On the plot, the entire family works until exhaustion, a large labor force is invested, but the net product progressively decreases as the gross product increases. This same thing applies to micro and small-scale production. This is optimal for imperialism because it buys at a lower cost, exploiting immensely.”
(Bureaucratic capitalism-semi-feudalism relationship)
“This phenomenon (which is at the semi-feudal basis of bureaucratic capitalism) in the countryside also has repercussions against the proletariat because the countryside has to consume less, production has to fall, workers' wages are reduced, and there is a lot of room for unemployment.”
In other words, what we already mentioned almost at the beginning occurs: The semi-feudal system marks or colors all the other social relations of production that emerge in the country as a consequence of the development of bureaucratic capitalism.
(Two paths in the process of new land concentration - late 1980s - 2024: massive dispossession of the peasantry)
“To say that this process (of land division) has begun spontaneously is also to ignore the fact that what is being expressed is the peasant path that persists and is developing in opposition to the landowner path; and above all, that with land division today, what the reactionaries are seeking is to give property titles to peasants to tie them to the process of mortgages and usury, to dispossess them of their lands, so that they can be appropriated by bankers, the big bourgeoisie, and landowners. They want ample land so they can invest in the countryside and develop agro-industry; to seize the land; to benefit from the few irrigation systems that exist or to grab large concessions of uncultivated land through the PRIDIs.”
(Peasant Path: spontaneous - land seizure and distribution serves bureaucratic capitalism)
“The problem is that titling and exercising rights within this order only leads to adapting to the system, becoming a complement to it; But if the peasant path is not guided by the revolution, it serves bureaucratic capitalism."
(Relationship between imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism, and semi-feudalism)
"In short, reviewing the process of the land problem—a peasant problem, a centuries-old problem, but here, speaking from the 1990s to the present, we have the dispossession of peasants' land so that landowners and the big bourgeoisie can seize and develop the countryside according to imperialism's demands: producing for export, not to feed the people (but if a country doesn't produce its food, it begins to depend on others, and we mustn't forget that imperialism's policy is precisely to control food production)."
The above is a summary of what would be the process of new land concentration and dispossession of the peasantry initiated in the late 1980s by Chairman Gonzalo at the Second Plenary Session of the Central Committee (1991), which is being fulfilled and will continue to be maintained with its own cycles until it is finally swept away by the revolution. Democratic reform through people's war.
Two paths clash: the peasant path and the landowner path.
We have to confront two paths: the peasant path and the landowner path. Both paths develop throughout the entire process, from beginning to end, but the peasant path that develops spontaneously leads, through usury and mortgages, to the dispossession of peasant property and a resumption of its restitution only to lose it again. Meanwhile, the peasant path, led by the Communist Party through people's war, leads to the conquest of land in a process of reestablishment and counter-reestablishment until the culmination of the democratic revolution with the seizure of power throughout the country and a definitive solution to the peasant problem.
History and logic thus demonstrate the full validity of what was established by Chairman Gonzalo and the Base of Party Unity. This demonstrates that the ROL rats are miserable traitors, peddlers of rotten illusions and reactionary trinkets.
It is also necessary to reiterate, in relation to the quotes from the article we are discussing, that all of the above indicates the backwardness of our agriculture and dependence when referring to "imported inputs." However, as we will see later, the list covers the main capital goods, etc., which indicates the colonial condition of our economy (Lenin-Mariátegui).
Peruvian agriculture is oriented toward food production for the needs of imperialism, not for our population.
Now, after the preliminary or introductory quotes and comments, we quote from Revista Agraria/196, ROUND TABLE: Food: An Urgent and Complex Problem (edited for La Revista Agraria/196 by Fernando Eguren and Ricardo Marapi), due to its importance for what has already been stated:
But first, in parentheses, a general comment:
(As we are seeing throughout all these studies and those that follow, bourgeois or petty bourgeois scholars or academics do not start from the social relations of production or refer to them very superficially, so that after describing the facts in their criticism and recommendations on the agrarian problem, they focus on economic policy and fall into recommendations that may express the good intentions of wise benefactors, but by not starting from political economy, from the causes of the situation of backwardness and "food dependence," etc., that is, from the three mountains that oppress us, they cannot contribute more to the solution of the problems, because this corresponds to the proletariat and its Party through revolution).
So, after the long parenthesis, we quote:
Definition of food security:
“Fernando Eguren: Food security—following the FAO definition—includes four components: supply (sufficient food for all), access (affordable for all), use (safe and nutritious), and stability (prevention of disasters and economic crises). In addition, institutionality (adequate standards and governance) is essential (...).”
“Ana María Acevedo: (…) What is happening in Peru right now?
For the last twenty years, agricultural and food policy priorities have been oriented toward agricultural exports. This has grown and generated foreign currency, but it has not improved the population's food security. Policies have neglected food production and support for family farmers and artisanal fishermen, who generate 70% of the fresh food we consume.
In Peru, since 2015, the decline in chronic malnutrition in children under three has stagnated. FS has been understood as a matter of food assistance for the poorest and not as a comprehensive state policy; evidence of this is the strong presence of social and food aid programs. Policies to promote food production have emerged, such as the Family Farming Promotion Law and the Zero Hunger Program, but they have low budgets, limited intersectoral coordination, and are focused only on the regions with the greatest hunger. Rural poverty. Targeting bias continues to prevail, and the comprehensiveness of the problem is not addressed. National strategies should be a summation of the various interventions carried out by sectors linked to food aid, production, and trade. But these interventions have not been the result of collaborative efforts. Ultimately, the country's FS has not improved.
National policies have not addressed the underlying causes of FS and hunger: poverty, low income, inequalities in society, and dependence on food imports."
The quote provides figures, percentages, and facts that demonstrate the problem of hunger ("food insecurity"), the misery rooted in production and employment. State programs, in Peru and other Third World countries, only serve to temporarily alleviate the situation, to try to legitimize the imperialist looting and contain the explosiveness of the masses , but are implemented or conducted on a foundation of misery and hunger. For us, our country's economic system does not produce enough to feed its population. It is an outdated economic system, based on semi-feudal backwardness (an outdated, sick system), imperialist domination (a sick father, an outdated system), and bureaucratic capitalism (born outdated, from two sick parents). "Social programs" fulfill the role that the Church's charitable aid to the poor played in the final stages of feudalism in Europe, when the system's outdated nature could not feed the population.
The quote and our comments provide the answer to the questions: Why is there not talk of chronic hunger in Peru, but rather of a food crisis, even when the outdated economic system itself cannot feed workers and their families? As we emphasized in the previous quote:
"National policies have not addressed the underlying causes of FS and hunger: poverty, low income, inequalities in society, and dependence on food imports."
Let's read some facts and figures regarding the issue:
"Peru has been experiencing a severe food crisis since the pandemic began.
The indicators are very worrying:
- The rate of chronic child malnutrition in children under 5 years of age—one of the most widely used indicators to assess a country's food situation—decreased significantly during the years of economic growth, later stagnating at around 12%.
- According to FAO et al. (2022, p. 144, Table A1.1), more than half of the Peruvian population suffers from moderate or severe food insecurity; this is the highest rate in South America.
- In 2022, the anemia rate (associated with lower physical and mental capacity) in children under 5 years of age stood at 33.6% nationally and 42.4% in rural areas (INEI, 2023, p. 215).
- A survey conducted by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) showed that the situation has worsened: in September 2023, 57% of respondents "had run out of food at home in the last 3 months" (in June 2022, it was 44%, a 13-point decrease) (IEP, 2023).
- On the other hand, the incidence of overweight and obesity, which contributes to the occurrence of chronic non-communicable diseases, continues to rise across all age groups and social classes.
(Regarding)- Difficulties in the food supply:
- In Peru, nearly 60% of the food consumed comes from family farming, which has been severely affected in recent years by multiple disruptions that occurred during the pandemic, which exposed the governments' inability to address them. Particularly shameful were the frustrated attempts to import urea and the ineptitude in the design and implementation of monetary aid to producers. Likewise, the prolonged drought in several regions and the high temperatures caused by the Coastal El Niño contributed to a decline in food production. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri), the gross value of agricultural production fell by -3.6% between January and November 2023 (-5.2% for agricultural production and -0.8% for livestock production) (Integrated Agricultural Statistics System – SIEA, 2023).
In summary:
Peru's food situation, which has never been satisfactory, has entered a critical period in terms of both supply and access to food, inputs, and other elements necessary for agricultural production."
Imperialist monopoly and parasitism are the main cause of rising hunger in Peru and around the world
From RA/196 magazine, we quote:
“Today, global food production is sufficient to meet the needs of the nearly 8 billion people who inhabit the planet. However, 811 million of them suffer from hunger, 41 million are on the brink of starvation, and 3 billion do not have access to a healthy diet (part of this number is made up of the overweight or obese population). After several years of improvement, hunger is on the rise again, and the pandemic has further aggravated the situation (...)
All this is happening while the development of scientific knowledge and the production of new technologies for agriculture are advancing at an unprecedented pace (...).”
(The Food Systems Summit, Fernando Eguren)
Global trade in food and inputs is dominated by a handful of large monopolists generated by financial capital, which, according to the article's data regarding Peru, states:
“The Peruvian agri-food system cannot be fully understood without taking into account the multiple relationships between our agricultural sector and the outside world. Peru is highly dependent on imported foods that are substantially important in shaping the population's diet. The most striking case is that of wheat, which is consumed in the form of flour, noodles, bread, and cookies. Demand for this cereal in Peru is around 2.2 million tons annually, but we only produce 200,000 tons, approximately 9% (Midagri, 2023).
International grain marketing is controlled by four large transnational corporations. Cargill is one of the suppliers to Peru of wheat, soybean meal, corn, and crude oils (Gestión, 2016).
- On the other hand, the poultry industry is highly dependent. In the country, the main source of animal protein comes from chickens, produced mostly by the industry, which in turn depends on the import of grandparent chickens from the United States, Brazil, or Europe, linked to Tyson Foods, Aviagen, and the Grimaud Group (Ponce de León-Sevilla and Seminario-Murgia, 2017).
- Furthermore, around three-quarters of the demand for durum yellow corn—the main feed for chickens—must be covered by imports (3.5 million tons imported in 2023 [Midagri, n.d.]). Like wheat, its marketing is oligopolized.
- We also depend on the import of basic elements for production, including urea, the main fertilizer used in commercial agriculture; quality seeds (Agraria, July 26, 2022), especially for export agriculture; pesticides; and almost all of the machinery used for production and transportation. Also, of course, on modern knowledge and technologies, given the almost nonexistent advanced research carried out in the country."
Bureaucratic Capitalism and Latifundia
The large agrarian companies of the comprador faction of the big bourgeoisie, based on large landed estates, dominate the food industry in Peru and agro-exports for the imperialist market, according to the study we are citing, where we read:
“The Peruvian food system, a good part of the supply of processed foods, is also oligopolized.
A study published by Ojo Público opens with the following statement:
“Two companies dominate the food industry in Peru, with revenues accounting for 52% of the 20 companies with the highest turnover in the sector. These are Alicorp and Gloria, subsidiaries of large economic groups…” (Salazar, 2019).
- The large economic groups referred to are Grupo Romero and Grupo Gloria. “The former has among its brands Primor, Capri, Alacena, Don Vittorio, Blanca Flor, Negrita, Glacitas, Casino, and others.” The latter, in addition to being the country's main sugar producer, "produces juices, jams, canned fish, panettone, among others, under different brands." Furthermore, according to the aforementioned study, it provides 80% of the milk for the Qali Warma school program. Both economic groups have expanded to several other countries in the region.
- Industrialized agriculture is associated with farm size. They generally control, in various forms, large tracts of land and have preferential access to water. One of the main arguments in favor of large-scale agribusiness is that it is more efficient because it has economies of scale.
- In many countries, the development of the large-scale agricultural sector is not an expression of the efficiency of large farms, but rather a legacy of past injustices.
Although very real economies of scale may exist for the individual producer, they are mostly "false" because they are generally the result of policies that favor larger farms over small ones. (Binswanger-Mkhize et al., 2009; he was an agricultural economist at the World Bank).”
Regarding the last quoted sections, Chairman Gonzalo would say: “Redondo!” Therefore, to clarify this, we ask: What is this legacy of the past? We answer: the semi-feudalism upon which bureaucratic capitalism develops in agriculture, here, in the quote, refers directly to large agrarian properties, to latifundia.
And what is the class character of this policy in favor of “larger farms,” or rather, of large semi-feudal latifundia, for bureaucratic capitalism in export agriculture?
The class character is that of the old society and the old llandlords-bureaucratic state at the service of imperialism, primarily Yankee imperialism.
To be continued…