Vol. 72/No. 42      October 27, 2008

A highlight of the tour was a discussion in Muscoda, Wisconsin, with farmers Randy and Kevin Jasper and Joel Greeno. Randy Jasper raises corn and soybeans, Kevin Jasper and Joel Greeno are dairy farmers. Greeno is vice president of Family Farm Defenders.

Randy Jasper explained how working farmers are affected by the capitalist economic crisis. “I farm around 2,000 acres, but we have to rent most of the land,” he explained. “Land rent has doubled, from $100 to $200 per acre for the good land, and rent for the poorer farm land has tripled from $40 to $120 per acre.” The higher prices farmers get for corn are offset by rising costs in land rent, fuels, fertilizer, seed, and pesticides.

“The demand for ethanol is displacing food crops, and causing food prices to rise. This is a problem not only here, but even more so in countries in Africa and Latin America,” added Greeno. He explained that farmers in many parts of Africa are forced to produce cotton and other non-food crops strictly for export. As a result they have to import expensive food.

Randy Jasper pointed to Cuba as the one example where farm production is planned with the interests of the working classes as the main concern. “The Cuban government says, ‘We need x gallons of milk and x bushels of corn to feed the population. So what do you farmers need to produce more milk?’ And farmers will get it,” he said.

Cuba was also a major point of discussion at the Black Politics class at Chicago State University the next day.

“I agree 100 percent that it will take a revolution in the United States to change anything. But Cuba is a small country, could a revolutionary movement in the U.S. have a chance of winning?” asked one student.

“Some people didn’t believe that slavery or Jim Crow segregation could be ended,” Kennedy answered. “It took a massive struggle of workers and farmers in the Civil War and the civil rights movement. And we won those victories. It will take that kind of movement to overturn capitalism in the U.S. The fights that are beginning to develop today as workers face the devastation capitalism has in store for us are the beginnings of that kind of movement.”

Kennedy also spoke at Northeastern Illinois University on a panel discussing the life and work of Ernesto Che Guevara on the 41st anniversary of his death in Bolivia. Seventeen students and faculty attended. She shared the platform with Jorge Ortiz and Juan Flores, two student leaders of the Latin American Cultural Movement (MCLA), the organization that sponsored the meeting.

Laura Anderson and Betsy Farley contributed to this article.
 
 
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‘Workers need to take power in own hands’
SWP presidential candidate Calero speaks on worldwide capitalist crisis
SWP candidate Calero visits strikers in Montreal  
 
 
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