Contents Opinion • Family Farming: the “Third Way” Out Moussa Para Diallo 1. Twilight for farmers? • The last days of the fellahs Claude Guibal • A knife at the throat of half a billion farmers Michel Bessières, with Rolf Künnemann and Krishna Ghimire 2. Hot spots • Brazil: And the meek shall occupy the earth Kintto Lucas • Poverty amidst plenty: a Punjabi tale Kumkum Dasgupta • Bangladesh: the seeds of change Kamal Mostafa Majumder • “GMOs: the wrong answer to the wrong problem” Interview with Rafael Mariano • France: mad cows and studious farmers Michel Bessières • Rage against the exodus: the crisis in China’s land reform Anne Loussouarn • Biovillages: a blueprint for the future? M. S. Swaminathan Land, debt, seeds of wrath... The new peasants’ revolt Dossier concept and coordination by Ethirajan Anbarasan and Michel Bessières, UNESCO Courier journalists. © Yann Arthus-Bertrand/"La Terre vue du ciel"/UNESCO, Paris Some 1.3 billion people may be tilling their fields and tending livestock today, but in the near future, about 500 million of them might well see their way of life disappear. They simply cannot compete in the race towards greater yields spurred on by globalization (pp. 20-23). Agro-business is snuffing out family farms despite their potential for sustainable development so desperately needed to end hunger and environmental degradation. An aged but wizened Egyptian peasant, Iskandar Khalil, accepts the bitter truth that his son cannot succeed him by cultivating the land his family has tilled for generations (pp. 18-19). But many other farmers refuse to accept this fate and are joining forces to promote alternative modes of agriculture. In Brazil, the movement of landless workers has taken hold of agrarian reform to launch a new set of social and commercial relations (pp. 24-26). In South Asia, where the Green Revolution has shown its limits, Bangladeshis are benefiting from the success of organic farming (pp. 27-29). Meanwhile, small farmers in the Philippines are joining the ranks of the international movement against genetically-modified organisms to assert their independence from multinationals and defend the environment (pp. 30-31). With rising fears over pollution and food quality, livestock breeders and consumers in France have forged a new alliance to promote safe and environmentally respectful food (pp. 34-35). Even in China, the world’s largest peasant population is finding itself rocked by the liberalization wave (pp. 34-35). Finally, M.S. Swaminathan, one of the fathers of the Green Revolution and an ardent Indian environmentalist, makes the case for the “biovillages” surrounding Pondicherry because “jobless economic growth is joyless growth.”