Fwd: FW: Only a Few in LATIN AMERICA Reap the Benefits of Growth in EXPORT Agriculture

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>

>

> Editor's Note: Agricultural growth in Latin America

> has been strong in recent years but a study by ECLAC

> (Economic Commission for Latin America and the

> Caribbean) shows how export-led agricultural growth

> occurs in just a few countries, for a few products

> and does little to advance social and food security.

> The dismantling of agricultural subsidies by wealthy

> nations, if it were to proceed, would serve only to

> deepen this model of agricultural development.

>

> http://www.ips.org/

> LATIN AMERICA:

> Only a Few Reap the Benefits of Growth in

> Agriculture

> Diego Cevallos

>

> MEXICO CITY, Nov 8 (IPS) - Latin America and the

> Caribbean are demanding that the world's rich

> countries dismantle their protectionist systems of

> farm subsidies as they seek to sustain and expand on

> the success enjoyed by farm exports in the region,

> which have, however, failed to provide significant

> benefits for the broader population.

>

> In recent years, the agricultural industry in the

> region has achieved growth levels that are " more

> than satisfactory, " mainly thanks to exports, says a

> new study by the Economic Commission for Latin

> America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

>

> But there is little reason to celebrate, because the

> upsurge was concentrated in just a few countries,

> products and markets, and did nothing to alleviate

> rural poverty, reported the regional United Nations

> agency.

>

> The study, " Panorama 2005, el nuevo patrón de

> desarrollo de la agricultura en América Latina y el

> Caribe " (Outlook 2005, the new pattern of

> development of agriculture in Latin America and the

> Caribbean), which was released in Spanish on Oct.

> 28, says the region is experiencing a wave of

> " modernising growth " that excludes large sectors of

> the population.

>

> " Concentrating agricultural development in exports

> has been a failure for the region from a social and

> food security point of view, and that could even

> worsen if the developed countries dismantle their

> much-criticised farm subsidies, " Uruguayan activist

> Silvia Ribeiro, representative of the Canada-based

> Action Group on Erosion, Technology and

> Concentration (ETC), told IPS.

>

> Since 2001, growth in agriculture has stood at a

> rate of three percent or higher, surpassing the

> average growth experienced in economic activity as a

> whole, says the ECLAC report.

>

> But most of the 43 million people directly employed

> in agriculture are poor. And in rural areas in the

> region, which are home to around 120 million people,

> a full half of all children live in extreme poverty.

>

>

> Of the estimated 96 million people in extreme

> poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, 45

> million live in rural areas, accounting for 37

> percent of the total population of those areas.

>

> And at the same time that the region's agricultural

> exports have increased, the rural population

> continues to shrink. The proportion of the

> population living in the countryside plunged from

> 42.6 percent in 1970 to 24.2 percent in 2001, and is

> expected to fall to 20.5 percent by 2010 and to 18.1

> percent by 2020.

>

> A relatively few products sold abroad, like fruit,

> soybeans, beef, chicken and pork, predominate in the

> region's productive structures, notes the ECLAC

> study.

>

> This new pattern of growth generates vulnerability

> because it is based on a small group of products,

> which are heavily concentrated in a few countries, a

> few producers and a few markets, the report adds.

>

> According to Ribeiro, countries in the region are

> harvesting more for export while producing less food

> for the domestic market, thus putting a higher

> priority on export revenues than on feeding the

> local population and improving social conditions.

>

> Agriculture represents around eight percent of the

> combined gross domestic product of Latin America and

> the Caribbean, where 80 percent of the nearly 800

> million hectares dedicated to agriculture are used

> for stockbreeding.

>

> According to ECLAC, the modernisation experienced by

> agriculture in the region has been concentrated in

> products with a low level of processing and a high

> technological content, like the transgenic soybeans

> that are so widely planted in Argentina and Brazil.

>

> Other products that saw an increase in yields are

> sugar cane, wheat, fruit and fresh produce. There

> have also been significant improvements in the

> livestock industry, especially beef production,

> followed by chicken, dairy products and pork.

>

> The ECLAC study outlines some of the problems posed

> by export-based models, said Ribeiro.

>

> The U.N. agency points out that the value of the

> region's exports of primary and processed

> agricultural products grew between 2000 and 2004 at

> a faster rate than the value of exports as a whole.

>

> That growth was due to sales outside of the region

> and to non-traditional partners, like China, with

> which the region generally has no free trade or

> preferential access agreements, says the report.

>

> Ribeiro predicted that " if the demands that the rich

> countries phase out their farm subsidies prosper,

> the region will produce even more agricultural

> export products. "

>

> That would strengthen the current model of

> agricultural production, which has limited social

> benefits, she argued.

>

> The developing nations in the Group of 20 (G20), led

> by Brazil, China and India, are demanding the

> dismantling of protectionist systems, which shell

> out a total of more than 250 billion dollars a year

> in farm subsidies, 80 percent of which are granted

> by the European Union, the United States and Japan.

>

> This is one of the touchiest issues in the World

> Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations and one of the

> barriers standing in the way of progress in the

> talks on the U.S.-promoted Free Trade Area of the

> Americas (FTAA), because the United States refuses

> to eliminate its domestic farm supports.

>

> ECLAC notes that rural migration continues,

> especially of the young, and that rural areas are

> losing enterprising human capital while witnessing

> an ageing of their population. (END/2005)

>

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