The World is Not for Sale: Farmers Against Junk Food. (Globaloney for Anti-Capitalists).(Review)

The World is Not for Sale: Farmers Against Junk Food By Jose Bove and Francois Dufour Verso, 240 pages, $25

Jose Bove is a radical who became a farmer. His farming career began as a protest against a proposed expansion of a French military facility. He and his wife squatted on a farm recently purchased by the army and began raising sheep. The French army retreated (no surprise there) and the plans to expand the base were abandoned. Bove and his wife continued tending sheep and eventually began making cheese. The land was eventually turned into a sort of commune, with Bove and other trade unionists practicing what his book calls "survival farming." Survival required a little deceitful help from a neighboring farmer, who falsely testified that Bove was a hired hand of his, allowing Bove to qualify for welfare benefits. And publishing contracts also come in handy for people who become salts of the earth for political reasons, hence this book.

Bove didn't hit the big time in radical circles until he decided to attack a McDonalds restaurant. The cause of the demonstration was Mr. Bove's disgust at a U.S. decision to slap tariffs on imports of the Roquefort cheese he and his neighbors produced. The tariffs were in retaliation for the EU's refusal to allow the import of American beef for fear of veterinary hormones. The case was taken to the World Trade Organization, which found that there was no scientific reason to ban the use of hormones, and granted the U.S. the right to impose retaliatory tariffs. In response, Bove and his group, the radical Confederation Paysanne, dismantled a nearby McDonald's. Mr. Bove paints his "action" as a blow against globalism, though globalism only seems bad when it hurts a French paysanne; he is happy to trade internationally when it benefits French cheese makers.

Bove's attack landed him in jail. But jail is a necessary addition to the resume of any serious radical activist. His incarceration launched a career that has seen Bove and his confederates destroy a research plot of genetically modified plants in Brazil, run rampant in Seattle during a World Trade Organization protest, and travel to India, Turkey, and Wisconsin for other protests against modern farming. He leaves his wife at home to do the whole survivalist thing while he flits around the globe to protest globalization, being covered by Ted Koppel and others, and using extremely modern methods of agitation to demand a return to Middle Age methods of agriculture. According to a story in the June issue of Outside, Bove's wife is extremely unhappy with his new pursuits, accusing him of infidelity ...