Womans work and womans skillAna Primavesi

Before the agro-business and hightech were introduced, from womensactivity on the farms depended welfare and health of the family., Agricuttural technologyexpulsed farmers oJ the land, being actually the strongest agent oi unúpoyment in the õócalled '. "developping counties.". Man are replaced by maihines and agóchemicals, butspecially the women are marginalized by the actual technology and biotechnology and not atleast by the "precision agriculture" working with satelite diiecteo tractors arid computer.dispensing humans.

ln USA only 2Yo of the population lives still on the country side.producing allfood forexportation and people.

ln Brazil rural population diminished in the last 50 years fram TSo/o ta Z0 o/o, Smallercities are dying, because they lived from rural activities. And since the Government obliges allchildren to frequent urban schools, closing the rural one, children do not only learn tõ readand write, they learn also the urban life stile which is easyer and they will not go back to thefarm. Families are dissolved and what is left is only consumism

Before the chemical-mechanical technology , women where the heart of the farml,J. ]!"V planted vegetables, flowers and medicinal herbs ,rose pigs and hens, helped onthe field , selected the seeds for the next crop and frequently milkeà iows or goats, cooked,baked , conserved ,cleaned the house, washed the wash, sewed, knit , and óften also soldthe production. They told stories to the children , chanted, played danced and prayed withthem .We say"fatherland'but "mothertongue" getting costumes, culture and traditións fromthe mother. ln Brazil untill 1806 , even beeing a poúuguese colony, people spoke guarani,the language of the indian wifes of the first colonisators

Sustainable family farms do not exist any more.in Brazil And when they speak of"family farms" they mean only the size of farm which can be worked by the family óng.. Man,woman and children work , but the income is only one minimo wage ( aboirt 7õ US$ /month),when they have luck. That means woman and children work gratuitously And whatthey call a' family farm "is only a modern type of slavery. . Even owing àfarm. inherited of thefather or received by the land reform, everyone plants exclusively sóme monoculture. OneVegetable, or tabacco, or one fruit species , or.coffee, or they breed beef catfle or milkcows.. And often rent some more land and plant soy , sometimes transgenic (RR) one . Theydo not plant anything for the family, no vegetable, no cassava root, no pumpkin, no beans oirice.or maize and depend completely on the market price and the buyer of their product.There does not existe any food safety. They buy on the super-market éverything they needor !g!t-elwhat_they are able to purchase and normally they are awfully indebted.. ln Europeand USA the Government subsidises agriculture with milliardes of euros or dollares ,But inSouth America does not exist any aid .

.Organic agriculture, which is a low imput agriculture could betterthe situation, but, it does notwork with monoculture only and is very laborious..And as the children will not stay on theland, when father and mother get old and cannot any more do all the work, they wili selltheland and go also to the city.There are woman farms which breed organic sugar cane, fertilizing the land with the filterresiduos, or banana plantations which compost the bagace returned by the jam industry .Butmonoculture is without biodiversity and microlife in the soil may be abundant, but also withoutdiversity, composed only by some few species., mobilizing little nutrients and allways with theprobability of new diseases.Biodíversity in the soil depends on biodiversity on the soil.

Even with all womans ló the actual chemical-mechanical agricultural technologydegraded the woman , ln most cases they are now temporary worker on a big farm of thãagro-business..harvesting suggar-cane or fruits or working in a packing house. Normallywoman is considered an "inefÍicient worked' with 30 o/o lower wages because, sometimes,she has a baby. which, legally permits 3 months of payed vacancies

And as nobody plants varieties but only hibrids or transgenic crops, the seed selection , asacred women activity of which depended the success or unsuccess of the next yield. andthe welfare of the family, does not exist any more. Hibrids are bred for the use of muchfertilizer.and irrigation ln the tropics a lot of plagues and diseases attack these crops andthey need a lot of defensives, toxic to everyone, to parasites and farmer And the resultingfood is of low biological value, full of toxic residues, unable to maintaine the health of people.

But women recover from degradation Always more women .turn , sometimes famous,scientist because of their intuition and holistic point of view, Or they become especialists forenvironmental problems, or adviser for organic or ecologic farming. Amidst a completelydestroyed nature by polluition ,diminishing water and desertifying soils , it is the mother whofights for a sustainable life for her offspring. lt is not money what she seeks and whichnobody can eat, but the warranted subsistence of the human race And subsistence meanswater and food Nutritive food for peopler be well nurrished and sane and not only overfeeded...and fat.

A funny thing may be observed: ln these profissions does not exist discriminationbetween men and woman. When woman is competent , she is considered as good andeven better as man.. Farmers do not look if ít is a man or a woman who teaches a betterway to plant , who discoveres a new way of disease controle, who shows how to make thesoil produce better, where to put the organic matter, how to examine plant roots, how toprotect the soil, how to increase yields by wind controle, who breeds a new variety adaptedto soil and climate. And even cattle breeder who are reputed to be very proud he-men acceptadvices from she-scientists when they are practical and make sense , when ranche life iswell known to them and they are able to do things as good or better as man. This means tobe only a good professional. And for scientists even a baby is not a discriminatory factor.