Open Markets or Open Plunder?

By Anuradha Mittal *

Once upon a time, empires were built through direct conquest. Armies plundered their way across continents, claiming lands and resources for king and country, justifying their acts as ''bringing the light of civilisation to the savages of dark continents''. These days such invasion has lost its primary appeal, but the equivalent gains are routinely achieved through different, and more efficient, means, which those in power prefer to call not open theft but ''open markets''.

The question is, open for whom, and for what?

US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave the clearest possible answer: ''Our objective with FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) is to guarantee North American companies the control of a territory that goes from the Arctic Pole all the way to Antarctica, free access to the whole hemisphere without difficulties or obstacles for our products, services, technology, and capital.''

Resistance to such domination is strong and growing stronger. Since January 7, 2003, Mexican farm leaders have been on hunger strike as demonstrations have been held along the US Mexican border, on highways, at airports, and at the offices of transnational agri-business corporations.

The New Year in Mexico began with thousands of machete-wielding Zapatistas taking over the city of San Cristobal De Las Casas in Chiapas. Last December, Mexican farmers rode into the Congress building in Mexico City on horseback and blocked roads leading south from the capital.

These protests are in response to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provisions that eliminated Mexican tariffs on imports of nearly 80 US agricultural products on January 1, 2003. Since eighty-five per cent of Mexican trade is with the US, farmers fear that this will result in a flood of highly-subsidised food products into Mexico which will further ravage the Mexican agricultural sector.

Mexico was once self-sufficient in basic grains but now, largely as result of NAFTA, it imports 95 percent of soy, 58 percent of rice, 49 percent of wheat, and 40 percent of its meat. NAFTA is killing the Mexican countryside: over seventy-five per cent of rural Mexicans live in poverty and an estimated 600 peasant farmers are forced off their lands everyday.

It is not surprising that the protesters have joined forces behind a united
front called the ''Countryside Can't Take it Any More''.

Consider the case of India. In 2002, India was the third largest producer of food in the world. The per capita availability of food grains there has risen from 350 gm in 1951 to about 500 gm per day now, despite the increase in population from 350 million to 1 billion. It is, however, the logic of ''free trade'' which results in over 60 million tons of excess food grains rotting in the warehouses of the Food Corporation of India, while starvation deaths are reported around the country.

The Mexican farm protests are part of a worldwide opposition to free trade in agriculture present in Porto Alegre. It advocates alternatives to corporate agriculture, rallying around the battle cry,''Food sovereignty is a fundamental human right.''

The movement demands:

- Prioritisation of local, regional, and national needs based on agriculture that consists of small farmers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, and other local communities;

- Protection of local and national markets of basic food stuffs to give priority to the products of local farmers;

- Promotion and enforcement of farmers' rights, including access to land, water and seed;

- Promotion of sustainable peasant agriculture which is more productive and protects our biodiversity;

To make this vision a reality for farmers around the world, the corporate elites are being put on notice -- the World Trade Organisation, NAFTA, FTAA, and other trade agreements must get out of agriculture; there must be a complete moratorium on GE crops and no patents on living matter.

The WTO's Agreement on Agriculture is not about market access for Third World countries but rather market domination of them. The Third World refuses to be viewed as a fruit basket and a dumping ground for the rich countries of the West.

And for those who believe that this alternative is not realistic, we say, let's not forget the civil rights movement or the women's struggle for the right to vote. Let's not forget that it's the people's uprising in England that has led to the hardening of opinion against war on Iraq which is threatening Mr. Blair with repercussions from within his party if he goes to war.

The World Social Forum is not only a place to articulate an alternative vision for a corporate agriculture free world; it is the venue where change will start.

(*) Anuradha Mittal is the Co-Director of Food First (Institute for Food and Development Policy).