The meeting will take place on Saturday, September 26. Proposals from grassroots organizations to the political system in terms of differentiated policies to defend the producers from the advance of agribusiness, are expected to be discussed there. Eucaliptus monoculture has already taken over a million hectares of land.

According to official surveys, family farming represents 80 per cent of the production. However, its political representation in the state policies is far from that proportion.

In fact, the annual exhibition of the Rural Association of Uruguay began these days. The association comprises large cattle growers, soy producers, forestry producers, with great machinery, services and other kinds of production, which is in the hands of agribusiness transnational corporations or their local representatives.

The contrast is significant.

Real World Radio interviewed Gustavo Cabrera, member of the National Commission for Rural Promotion, an organization comprising family farmers from all over Uruguay.

“What family farmers know is because they experience it, and not because someone told them about it”, said Gustavo.

Small-scale production includes almost all food products: meat (cattle), wool, dairy, vegetables, fruit, cereals. However, agribusiness has gained spaces in terms of control of the soil and throughout the years it has received aid from the Uruguayan state, contrary to the reality of small producers.

They will send a clear message the next administration, to be inagurated in 2010.