This is a CTP of initiative: La Via Campesina/RMRU (Uruguay)
This Critical Turning Point began when one of the members of the network experienced a serious problem for the sale of its production. The cooperative of Calmañana produces aromatic herbs that are sold in stores and supermarkets throughout the country. Between 2004 and 2005, a number of analyzes of bromatology authorities found that the water used for irrigation was contaminated and unfit for use. For the interviewee this moment was a CTP because it forced the members of the network to coordinate tasks between all the groups together to solve the problem.
“Three groups decided to join and form a cooperative. They have been aligned in such a way and have been coordinated in such a way that they supply the entire national market through the supermarkets of herbs and medicinal herbs. They grow them, they dry them, they pack them and they sell them ... There was a time when the processing of those herbs was not authorized because they analyzed the water from the wells they used and those waters were contaminated. They had to move to other areas where the waters were enabled to make their productive work, which is also what they live, is the sustenance of all of them, not be interrupted (...) We work a lot with non-formal education And with everything from Paulo Freire that to a problem you look for an alternative. So the alternative was because our wells are contaminated, we do not stay stagnant and we do not take our families to a weakening from the economic-social point of view... Then that made them move to the Migues area where water was authorized. It was to think again what to do so that his productive enterprise did not stop."
Lo que sí sabemos es que los grupos hemos seguido juntos, unos junto a los otros para poder seguir adelante. O sea, ningún grupo ha quedado en el camino, sino que, cuando un grupo ha flaqueado, están los otros para decirle seguimos, avanzamos, vemos que te pasa.” This event forced the different groups of the network to generate new forms of organization and establish new relationships with other networks and institutions. The Critical Turning Point strengthened and allowed to consolidate a growth of the network.
The CTP was marked by the search for a solution to the environmental and productive problem suffered by the Calmañana cooperative. This problem was the result of a co-production process in which the regulation and productive practices of the cooperative were not compatible with the water available in the region in which they were located. Likewise, the interviewee points out that the CTP established strong partnerships with other actors such as local government, local milk producers, the Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture, legislators and university professors.
"The first thing that is there is like a prohibition, that water could not be used ... The City Hall prohibits because the water is contaminated, there was a study of the water (...) is a routine study that is done. Here there is a custom where all the wells of rural areas correspond to the municipalities, some will do more zeal with less enthusiasm (here for example Florida does them periodically) where the waters are studied, goes a team of management Of bromatology or of health and analyze the waters and there they authorize or not the use of them. Not authorizing the use of them was when we turned on a red light and here is an alert and here we must work ... "
"Here we are here, more Canelones, is called the milk basin. The area of the milk basin has resulted in formerly a long time ago, there has not been a specific control in the different establishments and these waters either of washing of dairy farm more of all the defecation of animals plus everything else has been A drag that is not unknown to anyone from the surface of this that we see through the different layers of the earth and those layers are the ones that lead to the different slopes that start to contaminate."
"There is also an involvement of what is the Ministry of Livestock, through its general direction of territorial development, rural development. And logically there are actors involved as lawmakers and science teachers who worked with us side by side to solve it."
"Well, yes, we had immediate answers from these colleagues in the Faculty of Sciences, two professors, they are both doctors. One in all that is the part of agronomy and the other with respect to geography where we began to work side by side doing workshops of awareness, training and training to be able to define accurately those who attacked, as we attacked And who we demanded was the most important thing. To whom we should confront ... "
The Critical Turning Point came at the same time that our network was invited to participate in training activities by other organizations in neighboring countries that allowed them to face the Critical Turning Point with another look. The interviewee acknowledges that the participation of some members of the network of the rural women's training cycle promoted and financed by the rural women's organization ANAMURI of Chile offered them new tools to meet the challenges posed by the Critical Turning Point.
"We were part of and we have to thank ANAMURI, a Chilean women's organization that has two training schools for three years. Within what ANAMURI called women's training schools in the Southern Cone and worked with women's organizations (ANAMURI, CONAMURI)."
The participation of this training experience allowed them to know the reality that other similar organizations lived and extended the agenda of topics to work. A significant development was the campaign carried out by Brazilian rural women against the transgenic seed law and the results they obtained.
"It was a women's school at the Southern Cone level of 5 countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile) that others had already lived it ... That to the network helped her to see that she was not alone, Other organizations that were in more difficult situations than ours, not less important, but more difficult situations and helped us to take safer steps. In that first school, for example, it was necessary to be in the network at the moment in the legislature of Brazil was to vote a law of transgenic seeds (...) As a social organization (showed us) that politically it was possible to influence And turn-on a voting ... "
The contestation in the CTP was guided by the relationships established by the members of the network with other groups of local actors such as the dairy farms and the authorities of the Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture.
“There was a constant listening from the institutional point of view, so the minister in charge at the time, Tabaré Aguerre (Minister of Livestock and Agriculture), who is the same one we have today, considered that we should establish 10 actions of control. Within these actions were how the dairy farms should act, that is, as it was demanded that a dairy farm should have its sinks of decanting and everything that surrounds or associates to a dairy production so that these productions would not be affected. Logically, there was a response regarding the milk producers, there is still a disregard or non-compliance with respect to those who still smoke. Because not only must we talk about dairy production but we were also permanently surrounded by soy farmers who know what soy has with them. Not only a seed that is transgenic by nature, we know that there are Creole soybeans, but most, the one that gives great results, or better said, but not only is transgenic but brings the impoverishment of nutrients on earth. And all this took with it that such measures with respect to the use of mosquito and all that that entails with all the fumigations, that was not carried out in the way that we would have considered, well, it was something great, excellent, We had an answer. But, I think we are part of a process, the times of institutions are different from those of social organizations."
Another aspect of contestation highlighted by the interviewee is the problem the constant migration from the countryside to the city and the quality of agricultural products and their effects on the quality of life.
"95% of the population are consuming and feeding on products not so good and something is happening with diseases ..."
The problem experienced by the Calmañana cooperative was not identified at the time as a Critical Turning Point. However, to the extent that they became involved in the efforts and activities to solve the problem, it was observed that the network was initiating a change of agenda and that it needed new strategies of action.
Water pollution in the area was known, but it was not believed that it could affect its activities as a network. The experience imposed a new agenda for the network associated with environmental issues. In addition, it had to establish new relations with the state (at national and local level) that allowed it to influence the implementation of public policies.
The interviewee identifies two main lessons learned by the network in this Critical Turning Point: 1) The incorporation of problem solving skills collectively. 2) new ways of interacting with different layers of government.
"The ability to influence and how to influence and before whom. I think that was important because we told the first one that was approaching us and we saw that there were no immediate answers. Then we understood that we had to think before whom we acted and how we acted. And that gave us as learning to go to the head, say, do not say reach the minister because sometimes it is difficult, but if you reach a director or a person who is in a decision-making position. And the other is to deliver written and signed documentation and counter signature that was received on that date and that the message was to be considered. Because before we were: "if we go" and we ran towards something without seeing that the results were optimal. Then there we also learned that from there it became necessary and essential to make a memo or a document of incidence that we deliver as rural women in the different electoral periods either national or departmental. We deliver a document where we not only show the must or the different challenges we face each day, but also manifest the achievements because we always say that each step has a rise or that every rise has its recoil. So nothing is easy to be solved but we understand that as a process we have to have a time to be considered. But yes, to this process we monitor and follow up those people who received our proposal to know in what stage or if that was left on the desk and no one studied it and had no progress. I think that of those key moments of being able to elaborate a plan of action, that was the greater learning and would synthesize all the previous thing. Because in that plan of action, we first of all set the objectives and there we work with general and immediate and sometimes the specific and sometimes we do in the short, medium and long term. And then we see how, in what way, or with whom."
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