The documentary 9.70 shows countless powerful images of the ESMAD operators (Mobile Anti-riot Troop of Colombia) destroying seventy tons of rice produced by rural farmers in the Campoalegre countryside, also called “The Rice Capital”. This documentary also explains how the process of separating part of the harvest, like the seed for the next production, something that has been performed for centuries, has become a crime in Colombia.
The result of this isn’t any less violent that the circumstances it originated from. In 2010, the 970 resolution was signed at ICA (Colombian Agricultural Institute) where the Colombian government decides to protect seeds “with copyrights”, in favor of multinationals like Monsanto, Syngenta, or Du Pont, with visions of becoming elibilge to sign a Free Trade agreement between Colombia and the US.
Campoalegre Farmers protesting agricultural arrest
In this manner farmers became delinquents, by doing what they had always done and what farmers around the world do naturally to renew their harvest. Now, every time they want to plant rice they’ll have to purchase genetically modified seeds sold by multinationals.
This documentary is directed by Victoria Solano, the young colombian filmmaker recounts how the rural areas handed over to multinationals face one of the worst crisis, and it’s only just beginning. According to Victoria Solano “When you look at other countries with TLC, not a single one has improved. If that’s how it worked, Mexico would be hugely powerful, but 60% of Mexican companies are from the USA and 70% of farmers went bankrupt. Overall what we see if a country in crisis and facing violence”.
The World Conscious Pact presents this documentary as a call to take a closer look at the desperate faces of the farmers of Campoalegre, Colombia, hidden behind the numbers presented by economists and lawyers when they evaluate the benefits of TLC.
