This is the best summary I could come up with:
BOGOTA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Colombia’s leftist government will spend $4.25 billion to buy some 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of land for poor farmers or displaced people, as part of a bid to increase agricultural output and boost peace efforts, an official said.
The conflict, which has involved rebels groups, the government, paramilitary organizations and crime gangs, originally began as a fight for land rights.
“With the commercial cost of the land, about 18 trillion pesos has been budgeted over four years,” he said, adding that some 100,000 hectares have already been given away and that the purchasing process is set to accelerate.
Petro had originally said his government would buy 3 million hectares, but the official goal is now half that.
The new owners of the land, located all around Colombia’s diverse terrain, will be encouraged to grow rice, corn, fruit and other crops, Vega said, and the government plans to ensure them access to other services.
Purchasing efforts can be slow, Vega added, as the government works to ensure the properties do not have displaced claimants who were forced to leave by armed groups.
The original article contains 329 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Just legalize cocaine and your country will be rich af.
land for poor farmers or displaced people, as part of a bid to increase agricultural output and boost peace efforts
It seems Reuters decided that displaced peoples weren’t worthy of making the headline. I can make some guesses why.
Purchasing efforts can be slow … to ensure the properties do not have displaced claimants who were forced to leave by armed groups.
The conflict [that has killed up to 450k people]… originally began as a fight for land rights.
So the Colombian leader is claiming to be actively systemically compensating people who lost their land to war and crime and providing them with guaranteed work (or something to lease out if they’re not physically able to work it themselves). And he is claiming that this is being done with the goal of the new owners growing food to contribute to the economy and public welfare.
Colombia’s government also redistributes land confiscated from criminals and rebel groups and is making a push to formalize ownership for farmers who have worked land for generations without formal deeds.
And the government claims to be confiscating the proceeds of crime to fund it. Whether any of these claims are true or having the intended effects or compensatingvl deserving people, i have no idea. I don’t know anything about modern Colombia. But I do know Reuters decided on the headline “Colombia spends billions to buy land for poor farmers”.
This is one of the reasons I really don’t love “post title and article title must match” rules being the norm. Reuters provides the live content for a disproportionate share of the world’s media through its “Reuters Connect” platform, for both state and private media companies. In a world where people are reacting based on headlines because there are so many, having a large amount of news filtered through a single company is a pretty big risk. No matter their historical track record, or intentions, it’s relying on a single source for data collection, editing and dissemination. That’s like relying on a single unrepeated experiment in your home kitchen as the only evidence for a new scientific claim. Yeah, your interpretation of the experiment might be objectively right… but it is also possible you missed some weird shit that you didn’t know could affect the results. This is why we rely on repeat experiments with multiple witnesses, but in live event coverage that’s obviously much harder without endangering more people.
Perhaps Reuters could have instead chosen the headline : “Colombia provides civil war survivors and agricultural workers with repossessed land in bid for peace and productivity”… but they didn’t. I can make some guesses why.
Tl;dr we all have bias, and bias does not imply bad intent, it just means we all have perspectives and judgements shaped by our limited personal experiences. But filtering data through only a few pathways means that large parts of the system are impacted if a pipe breaks. And right now, Reuters looks to me like one of the bottlenecks in global live news.
