Traduction article Terre de Liens FR>EN par Koudé
It miss a title...and an author. Just to explain this, I don't really like the idea to have anonymous text (even a pseudo would be better) because then it can be the same person writing 5 articles in the bulletin and we don't know that it's the same person. Looking at this text I could guess that Kister wrote it but I'm not sure. I hope the translation will be not too bed but seeing the quality of the text in French, I did my best to keep the langage critical tone, this special anarchist way of criticising(like blabla...)should you let it?
A rereading for some syntax mistakes or turn of sentences could be done if you have time...
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This article try to give some precisions on Terre de Liens and its limits, in order to complete the presentation made in bulletin n°2, which appeared a bit idyllic.

Terre de Liens links different people: farmers, people from social economy, urban alter-consumption trandy citizen, popular education people.

It is supported by local council which pay part of the salaries through grants, in the framework of sustainable development,yada yada yada .

Weakness of dependency 

Terre de Liens is an association which build links, search, and support agricultural projects, especially thanks to the employees.

The fondation « Foncière » ( ground rent) is the capitalist tool elaborated to buy land and to launch support campaign.

Today the association is going well, growing quickly, with a national network which is almost covering the whole territory.

Fund raising trough the fondation is working partly thanks to the Madelin law which give fiscal advantages (tax deduction) for investing in new enterprises for more than five years.

This mixture, support of local politics for salaries, diversity of people in the association, and importants gifts from people because of fiscal advantages, made a possible and fast development of the structure.

But is this structure strong?

To gather so many places, buy lands and have so much money in a single structure is a danger; it increases the risks of beeing an aim for the state, internal power conflicts, hijacking.

What would the people living on the places become if the association would collapse or change course?

In France, the lease right is on the favour of the tenant, until the end of activities, but the lease of Terre de Liens, as the Larzac one, don't mention the retirement period (the slogan: ground for the one who works on it), especially that agricultural retirements are miserable.

Terre de Liens' purchasing land strategy is depending on market prices. This strenghten speculation even if the association doesn't sell again afterwards.

Purchasing land with Terre de Liens remain a possibility for a small number of projects, presentable one, maybe with a collective agriculture but profitable one.

The small farmer agriculture that we want is wider and transcend this frame.
The power struggle through the purchase of land remain losing, meanwhile Terre de Liens buy a farm, multinationals get a lot more.

Bourgeois' ideal of property has to be attacked and a real collective property of the land has to be tryied.

Terre de Liens support atypical projects and enable collective/common farming projects to settle down since few years. This is a new phenomen, before most of the supported projects were familial organic farming.

The current  question is to see an evolution (this is already happening with few non organic certificated projects) towards projects without the required unit production number, or even towards non directly profitable projects (often the farms installation are operating progressively).

For me, Terre de Liens is one of the numerous possible Solution for the land access, but not miraculous one.

Terre de Liens can hold an interesting place in a global strategy with other groups (like Reclaim the Fields) through alternative practise. Terre de Liens is a solution coming from elder people (with a militant experience and a bit of money) with an « owner citizen » logic.

As we are a bit younger, we can dare to get into the action, and train on the places.

The aim is not to have an only strategy but plural and thought together.