PANUPS: Farmers Resist WTO in Hong Kong

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Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:15:46 GMT

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PANUPS: Farmers Resist WTO in Hong Kong

 

 

 

Farmers Resist WTO in Hong Kong

December 20, 2005

 

" Down with the WTO, " intoned ranks of South Korean farmers, kneeling

every three steps as they marched in a Buddhist ritual down the

streets of Hong Kong last week. As government negotiators struggled

and jockeyed over the direction of the World Trade Organization (WTO),

farmers and farmworkers from around the world were also present,

asserting a positive vision for an agricultural system based on food

sovereignty and human rights.

 

" No other work in the world is remunerated with such low wages as that

of work done in agriculture, " noted P. Chennaiah of the Vyavasaya

Vruthidarula Union (APVVU), an agricultural laborer and small-scale

farmer organization in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Ironically,

over 50% of the world's hungry people are small-scale farmers,

struggling to sell their crops and make a living in the face of a long

global trend of falling prices for agricultural goods. This trend is

exacerbated by agricultural industrialization, corporate

concentration, and trade practices that undermine local markets.

Displaced small-scale farmers migrate to industrial farms or cities,

driving sweatshop conditions in the factories and in the fields.

 

" With the opening up of rice markets, people's livelihoods, people's

incomes from rice production are going to be devastated, " said

Jennifer Mourin of Pesticide Action Network Asia-Pacific. " That is why

among us are many groups who campaign to save rice, our indigenous

varieties, our local rice culture. "

 

Farmers fear a WTO agricultural agreement will lock in trade policies

that further undermine local markets, and make it impossible to

address the global rural crisis. In addition, WTO's TRIPS intellectual

property agreement allows corporations such as Monsanto to patent rice

and other crop seeds, endangering farmers' access to one of the most

fundamental elements of human heritage. During the previous WTO

ministerial meeting in Cancún in 2003, Korean farm leader Lee Kyung

Hae took his life in public on a police barricade, wearing the sign,

" WTO Kills Farmers " . This year, Hong Kong police responded to farmer

protests with pepper spray, tear gas, and violence, and arrested over

900 people.

 

" It is time for agricultural workers to rise up collectively all over

the world to show how we have been dehumanised and exploited, "

Chennaiah declared while launching the Coalition of Agricultural

Workers International (CAWI) on December 16th. CAWI already represents

agricultural workers' groups from Bangladesh, Indonesia, India,

Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and the U.S. The launch of

this new people's movement was just one of the many peaceful public

events organized in Hong Kong by the People's Coalition on Food

Sovereignty, associated with the global farmers' network Via

Campesina. Via Campesina defines food sovereignty as:

 

" ...peoples', countries' or state unions' right to define their

agricultural and food policy, without any dumping vis-à-vis third

countries. Food sovereignty includes prioritizing local agricultural

production in order to feed the people... Food sovereignty is not

contrary to trade but to the priority given to exports. "

 

The Via Campesina network calls for a new trade framework under the

United Nations to prioritize local and regional production over

exports, allow countries to protect themselves from " dumping " , permit

certain kinds of government support for farmers, and guarantee stable

agricultural prices globally through international agreements on

supply management.

 

The clashes of farmers and police in Hong Kong represented

dramatically differing worldviews around the decision-making processes

and values on which the world economy should be built. Via Campesina

insists that the WTO should not make decisions on behalf of global

farmers through undemocratic processes dominated by rich countries,

and that trade systems should serve local values of food production

and distribution. According to Walden Bello of the Bangkok research

group Focus on the Global South, " Free trade should be subordinated to

development, and development should be in fact the central mechanism. "

 

Meanwhile, inside the luxurious hotels hosting the negotiations,

developing countries constructed large coalitions such as the G90 to

represent their interests in the face of pressure from the U.S. and

the European Union to reduce their economic protections in exchange

for concessions on agriculture. The resulting agreement underscores

the WTO's intent to dismantle agricultural and industrial protections,

while establishing a phase-out of agricultural export subsidies by

2013, with Europe making the deepest cuts.

 

According to Focus on the Global South, the E.U. is extracting a high

price in return for doing very little. Although a large proportion of

E.U. supports go into subsidizing exports, only a small part is

classified as export subsidies. " There are no real cuts in domestic

supports and export subsidies by the E.U. or U.S. with this [agreed

upon] text...E.U. export subsidies will simply still take place in

another form to the tune of 55 billion Euros per year, " noted analyst

Aileen Kwa.

 

Negotiators were unable to agree on details on most of the topics on

their agenda, and have set new deadlines in 2006 to develop more

specific proposals. Meanwhile, Via Campesina and its supporters plan

to continue organizing a more democratic global food system in order

to revitalize rural economies.

 

Sources:

Via Campesina. 2005: " What is Food Sovereignty? " ; Pesticide Action

Network Asia-Pacific; Focus on the Global South;Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO). 2004. The State of Food Insecurity in the World

2004; Beitel, Karl. 2005. US Farm Subsidies and the Farm Economy:

Myths, Realities, Alternatives. Food First Backgrounder, Summer/Fall 2005.

 

Contact: PAN North America

 

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