By Anuradha Mittal
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, Oct 18 2017 (IPS)

A woman shopkeeper is standing on a plastic chair to avoid knee high swirling rainwater mixed with sewage. “I work with a women’s cooperative selling products made by Palestinian women in my shop. The sewage water has gone into the electric wires, so I have no electricity. Everything in the shop is destroyed. The metal door [that was] installed to protect the settlers prevents the water from flowing out into the main drain. . . . This means we suffer every time it rains. They [the settlers] want us to move from here. This is why they make our life hard,” she cries.

UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France. Credit: UNESCO

This is the Old City of Hebron – the largest city in the West Bank and the only city in the Occupied Palestinian Territory apart from Jerusalem, with illegal settlements inside the city. As the sewage water in the market rises, Palestinian shopkeepers and residents point out the holes in the gate to allow for water to go through. However, cement blocks and sand placed by the settlers have closed the water drainage.

I am reminded of my time in Hebron, with last week’s announcement of US withdrawal from UNESCO, the Paris-based cultural, scientific, and educational organization of the United Nations, accusing it of “anti-Israel bias.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon followed, tweeting, “I welcome @realDonaldTrump’s decision … I have instructed the Foreign Ministry to prepare Israel’s withdrawal from Unesco in parallel with the United States.”

Under Obama administration, United States took similar action in 2012 after Palestine was accepted as a member state of UNESCO. A law from the 1990s apparently prohibits U.S. funding for any U.N. agency that recognizes Palestine as a state.

The recent U.S. pull out has to do with UNESCO’s designation of Hebron’s Old City as Palestinian World Heritage site in danger in July 2017. Condemning the decision, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced an annual $1 million cut in membership fees to the United Nations, diverting those funds to a Jewish People’s Heritage Museum in the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron.

Israel’s UNESCO ambassador, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, response was to disdainfully take out his mobile phone and share with the UN members, “It’s my plumber in my apartment in Paris. There is a huge problem in my toilet and it is much more important than the decision you just adopted.”

The UNESCO’s decision was a verdict against the occupation. Following the 1994 riots that erupted in Hebron after an American Jewish settler killed 29 Palestinians in a massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque, Palestinians in the Old City have been living a collective punishment – life in a cage.

Today over 100 physical obstacles, including 18 permanently-staffed checkpoints, 14 partial checkpoints, and various permanent blockades, cut the Old City off from the rest of Hebron. The former lively bustle of Shuhada Street, Hebron’s once main commercial strip and home to the wholesale, gold, and vegetable markets, has drowned behind the green shutters of the boarded up shops, abandoned homes, and empty sidewalks.

In 2015, a third of Palestinian homes in the restricted area (1,105 housing units) were abandoned and an estimated 1,600 businesses closed. Several streets, designated for the exclusive use of settlers, restrict Palestinian traffic and, in some streets, even Palestinian pedestrians are banned.

With innumerable security check points, watchtowers, barricades, soldiers with automatic weapons, revolving gates, deserted streets, and welded shut homes and shops, the Old City of Hebron is a city under siege.

Metal wire mesh and white plastic tarps—littered with garbage and used plastic bottles—form a canopy to prevent Israeli settlers, living in the buildings above, from throwing garbage, dirty dish water, and chemicals down onto Palestinians.

This is everyday life in the Old City of Hebron.

When it comes to Palestine, actions of President Obama and Trump based on a law from over two decades ago, are confusing for the residents of the Old City of Hebron. United States withdraws from the organization it helped establish after World War II to widen access to education and ensure the free flow of ideas, when UNESCO carries out its mandate.

*Anuradha Mittal is also the lead author of “Palestine: For Land & Life” (https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/palestine-for-land-life). And to learn more about Hebron, see “Hebron: City Under Siege” https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/hebron-life-under-siege

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal
OAKLAND, California, Jan 25 2016 (IPS)

With the African Union celebrating the African Year of Human Rights at its 26th summit, at its headquarters in Addis, Ethiopia, the venue raises serious concerns about commitment to human rights.

Anuradha Mittal

Ethiopia’s so called economic development policies have not only ignored but enabled and exacerbated civil and human rights abuses in the country. Case and point is the ongoing land grabbing affecting several regions of the country. Under the controversial “villagization” program, the Ethiopian government is forcibly relocating over 1.5 million people to make land available to investors for so called economic growth. Since last November, the country’s ruling party, EPRDF’s, “Master Plan” to expand the capital Addis has been the flashpoint for protests in Oromia which will impact some 2 million people. At least 140 protestors have been killed by security forces while many more have been injured and arrested, including political leaders like Bekele Gerba, Deputy Chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, Oromia’s largest legally registered political party. Arrested on December 23, 2015, his whereabouts remain unknown.

Political marginalization, arbitrary arrests, beatings, murders, intimidation, and rapes mark the experience of communities around Ethiopia defending their land rights. This violence in the name of delivering economic growth is built on the 2009 Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which has allowed the Ethiopian government secure complete hegemonic authority by suppressing any form of dissent.

A new report, Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Law: A Tool to Stifle Dissent, by the Oakland Institute and the Environmental Defender Law Center, authored by lawyers including representatives from leading international law firms, unravels the 2009 Proclamation. It confirms that the law is designed and used by the Ethiopian Government as a tool of repression to silence its critics. It criminalizes basic human rights, like the freedom of speech and assembly. Its definition of “terrorist act,” does not conform with international standards given the law defines terrorism in an extremely broad and vague way, providing the ruling party with an iron fist to punish words and acts that would be legal in a democracy.

The law’s staggering breadth and vagueness, makes it impossible for citizens to know or even predict what conduct may violate the law, subjecting them to grave criminal sanctions. This has resulted in a systematic withdrawal of free speech in the country as newspaper journalists and editors, indigenous leaders, land rights activists, bloggers, political opposition members, and students are charged as terrorists. In 2010, journalists and governmental critics were arrested and tortured in the lead-up to the national election. In 2014, six privately owned publications closed after government harassment; at least 22 journalists, bloggers, and publishers were criminally charged; and more than 30 journalists fled the country in fear of being arrested under repressive laws.

The law also gives the police and security services unprecedented new powers and shifts the burden of proof to the accused. Ethiopia has abducted individuals from foreign countries including the British national Andy Tsege and the Norwegian national, Okello Akway Ochalla, and brought them to Ethiopia to face charges of violating the anti-terrorism law. Such abductions violate the terms of extradition treaties between Ethiopia and other countries; violate the territorial sovereignty of the other countries; and violate the fundamental human rights of those charged under the law. Worse still, many of those charged report having been beaten or tortured, as in the case of Mr. Okello. The main evidence courts have against such individuals are their so-called confessions.

Some individuals charged under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law are being prosecuted for conduct that occurred before that law entered into force. These prosecutions violate the principles of legality and non-retroactivity, which Ethiopia is bound to uphold both under international law as well as the Charter 22 of its own constitution.

A few other key examples of those charged under the law, include the 9 bloggers; Pastor Omot Agwa, former translator for the World Bank Inspection Panel; and journalists Reeyot Alemu and Eskinder Nega; and hundreds more, all arrested under the Anti-Terrorism law.

It has been a fallacious tradition in development thought to equate economic underdevelopment with repressive forms of governance and economic modernity with democratic rule. Yet Ethiopia forces us to confront that its widely celebrated economic renaissance by its Western allies and donor countries is dependent on violent autocratic governance. The case of Ethiopia should compel the US and the UK to question their own complicity in supporting the Ethiopian regime, the west’s key ally in Africa.

Given the compelling analysis provided by the report, it is imperative that the international community demands that until such time as Ethiopian government revises its anti-terrorism law to bring it into conformity with international standards, it repeals the use of this repressive piece of legislation.

Case and point is the controversial resettlement program under which the Ethiopian government seeks to relocate 1.5 million people as part of an economic development plan. Research by groups including the Oakland Institute, International Rivers Network, Human Rights Watch, and Inclusive Development International, among others, as well as journalists.

Perhaps there is hesitation to confront this because it would implicate the global flows of development assistance that make possible rule by the EPRDF. Receiving a yearly average of 3.5 billion dollars in development aid, Ethiopia tops lists of development aid recipients of USAID, DfID, and the World Bank. Staggeringly, international assistance represents 50 to 60 per cent of the Ethiopian national budget. Evidently, foreign assistance is indispensible to the national governance. At the face of this dependency, the Ethiopian government exercises repressive hegemony over Ethiopian political and civil expression.

It is the responsibility of international donors to account for the political effects of development assistance with thorough and consistent investigations and substantive demand for political reform and democratic practices as a condition for sustained international aid. This will inevitably mean a new type of Ethiopian renaissance, one that seeks the simultaneous establishment of democratic governance and improving economic conditions.

(End)

Excerpt:

By Karine Jacquemart and Anuradha Mittal
PARIS/OAKLAND, California, May 11 2015 (IPS)

In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or “Northern NGOs who care more for the trees”, despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

Karine Jacquemart

This name calling, aimed at discrediting struggles for land, water, and other natural resources in the Third World countries, hides an ugly truth.  The land rush unleashed around the world to own and exploit Earth’s natural bounty is not only fierce and unfair, but increasingly fatal.

Recent reports, including a Global Witness report titled ‘How many more?’ released in April 2015, document the increase in the assassinations of land and environmental activists globally – a shocking average of over two a week in 2014.

As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments. This is what unites organisations like Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute.

Over the last decade, an estimated 200 million hectares – an area five times bigger than California – has been leased or purchased throughout the world, through completely opaque deals in most cases.

Natural resources in Africa are some of the most sought after, hence the fact that Africa experiences more than 70 percent of the reported land deals.

Anuradha Mittal

Multinational companies with assistance from powerful partners – the World Bank Group and G8 “donor” countries – are moving in, chanting their “development” formula: facilitate foreign investment through large-scale land acquisitions and mega-projects to ensure economic growth which will trickle down to translate into development for all.

Our work reveals a very different and worrying reality on the ground. Local communities and indigenous peoples report lack of consultation; their lands, homes and forests bulldozed and cleared for foreign investors; their livelihoods shattered.

As one villager in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said, “I want to remain a farmer on my land, not a daily worker depending on a foreign company”, or in the words of a Bodi chief in Ethiopia, “I don’t want to leave my land. If they try and force us, there will be war. So I will be here in my village either alive on the land or dead below it.”

They, and countless more, are victims of the theft of natural resources, made invisible and voiceless by those who define what development looks like.“As individuals and groups in the frontline of struggles face intimidation, arrests, disappearances, and even death, it is an ethical imperative to support the struggles of the grassroots land defenders against corporations and governments”

As if destruction of lives and livelihoods were not enough, those who resist are harassed, even face violence, by governments and private companies.

A planned palm oil plantation by the U.S.-based Herakles Farms in Cameroon threatens to evict thousands of people off their land and destroy part of the world’s second largest rain forest.

The company’s former CEO, responding to criticism of the project, said in an open letter: “My goal is to present HF for what it is – a modestly-sized commercial  oil  palm  project  designed  to  provide employment and  social  development and improve  the  level  of  food  security, while incorporating industry best practices.”

What he failed to mention is how a Cameroonian activist, Nasako Besingi, who heads a local NGO, The Struggle to Economize the Future Environment (SEFE), learnt first-hand the consequences of opposing the project. Arrested in 2012 for planning a peaceful demonstration in Mundemba, Nasako and two of his colleagues languished in a jail for several days.

Soon after his release, while touring the area with a French television crew, he was ambushed and assaulted by men he recognised as employees of Herakles Farms. Instead of protection from this violence, Nasako and SEFE face legal battles, including one of the favorite corporate tactics – a defamation lawsuit, intended to intimidate him and the others who oppose.

Privatisation of land and theft of natural resources will be irreversible and will put people, forest, ecosystems and the climate at risk, if it goes unchecked. The time is now to choose a development path that prioritises people and the planet over profits for the rich. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal
OAKLAND, United States, Aug 4 2014 (IPS)

The first years of the twenty-first century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale.

An estimated 500 million acres, an area eight times the size of Britain, was reported bought or leased across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security and land rights.

When the price of food spiked in 2008, pushing the number of hungry people in the world to over one billion, it spiked the interest of investors as well, and within a year foreign land deals in the developing world rose by a staggering 200 percent.

Anuradha Mittal

Today, enthusiasm for agriculture borders on speculative mania. Driven by everything from rising food prices to growing demand for biofuel, the financial sector is taking an interest in farmland as never before.

The Oakland Institute has reported since 2011 how a new generation of institutional investors – including hedge funds, private equity, pension funds, and university endowments – is eager to capitalise on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class.

But the thing most consistently missed about this global land rush is that it is precisely that – global. Although media coverage tends to focus on land grabs in low-income countries, the opposite side of the same coin is a new rush for U.S. farmland, manifesting itself in rising interest from investors and surging land prices, as giants like the pension fund TIAA-CREF commit billions to buy agricultural land.

One industry leader estimates that 10 billion dollars in institutional capital is looking for access to U.S. farmland, but that figure could easily rise as investors seek to ride out uncertain financial times by placing their money in the perceived safety of agriculture.

In the next 20 years, as the U.S. experiences an unprecedented crisis of retiring farmers, there will be ample opportunity for these actors to expand their holdings as an estimated 400 million acres changes generational hands. And yet, the domestic face of this still unfolding land rush remains largely unseen.

For all their size and ambition, virtually nothing is known about these new investors and their business practices. Who do they buy land from? What do they grow? How do they manage their properties? In an industry not known for its transparency, none of these questions have a satisfactory answer.

For more than six years the Oakland Institute has been at the forefront of exposing the murky nature of land deals in the developing world. The challenge today is to begin a more holistic discussion that places transfer of land in both the developed and developing worlds along the same continuous spectrum.

Driven by the same structural factors and perpetrated by many of the same investors, the corporate consolidation of agriculture is being felt just as strongly in Iowa and California as it is in the Philippines and Mozambique.

Down on the Farm, a new report from the Oakland Institute, aims to increase awareness of the overlapping global and national factors enabling the new American land rush, while at the same time introduces the motives and practices of some of the most powerful players involved in it: UBS Agrivest, a subsidiary of the biggest bank in Switzerland; the Hancock Agricultural Investment Group (HAIG), a subsidiary of the biggest insurance company in Canada; and the Teacher Annuity Insurance Association College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF), one of the largest pension funds in the world.

Only by studying the motives and practices of these actors today does it become possible to begin building policies and institutions that help ensure farmers, and not absentee investors, are the future of our food system.

Nothing is more crucial than beginning this discussion today. The issue may seem small for a variety of reasons – because institutional investors only own an apparently tiny one percent of all U.S. farmland, or because farmers are still the biggest buyers of farmland across the country.

But to take either of these views is to become dangerously blind to the long-term trends threatening our agricultural heritage.

Consider the fact that investors believe that there is roughly 1.8 trillion dollars’ worth of farmland across the United States. Of this, between 300 and 500 billion dollars is considered to be of “institutional quality,” a combination of factors relating to size, water access, soil quality, and location that determine the investment appeal of a property.

This makes domestic farmland a huge and largely untapped asset class. Some of the biggest actors in the financial sector have already sought to exploit this opportunity by making equity investments in farmland. Frequently, these buyers enter the market with so much capital that their funds are practically limitless compared with the resources of most farmers.

Although they have made an impressive foothold, this is the beginning, not the end, of a land rush that could literally change who owns the country and our food and agricultural systems. Not only is there space in the market for institutional investors to expand, but there are also major financial incentives for them to do so.

If action is not taken, then a perfect storm of global and national trends could converge to permanently shift farm ownership from family businesses to institutional investors and other consolidated corporate operations. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Excerpt:

On the evening of Apr. 24, following a daylong rally against large-scale land investment deals in poor nations, the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan became the venue for a 30-minute light show against land grabs in Africa.

Passersby stopped and watched, alongside members of the African diaspora, Occupy Wall Street affiliates and food and environmental justice groups, the illumination of the Park Avenue side of the hotel.

The crowd chanted:

“Wall Street Out of Africa.”

“Starvation is not an Investment Strategy.”

“1.5 million Ethiopians Being Forcibly Relocated.”

Protesters wielding these ‘agriculture 101’ slogans were outside the Waldorf to get the message to the fund managers and investors inside, at the Global AgInvestment (GAI) Conference, seeking strategies to grow their monies through ‘ag-investment’ in poor nations.

So why this protest against the Global AgInvestment Conference?

The GAI conference is the premier agriculture investment event in the world. The 3,000-dollar admission tickets in New York were not for the small landholders from Africa but for institutional and global end investors and fund managers –all mulling over the economic opportunities agricultural lands have to offer. This year several retirement and pension funds, including the Alaska Retirement Board and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, were in attendance. Philanthropic institutions such as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation were also present, along with the fund managers of endowments of several U.S. universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Tufts. And so was Lockheed Martin Investment Management Company.

GAI provides a platform from which fund managers connect with potential investors and make mouthwatering promises. For instance, at one such event, Susan Payne, current CEO of EmVest and ex-CEO of Emergent Asset Management, promised 20 to 40 percent returns, hailing the low cost of African land as “an arbitrage opportunity.” Lured by such promises, Harvard University and Vanderbilt University both invested in the fund in the past.

While billed as an ‘ag-conference’, ensuring food or water security are not GAI’s concerns. For instance, the first question the water session addressed was, “What are the real economic opportunities in water now?” Not surprising, then, that in 2009 alone, nearly 60 million hectares of land, over 75 percent of it in Africa, were leased or bought by foreign investors.

The conference organisers and attendees claim that while they seek to make profits, their investments will result in improved livelihoods, job creation and food security. However, an examination of over 50 land deals in several African nations, conducted by the Oakland Institute, revealed that land and agriculture investments, touted as development opportunities for host nations, actually come with high costs to local communities. Some of what our research uncovered includes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of small farmers, the diversion of water without environmental impact studies, the use of unsustainable farm practices, the failure to meet job creation and other promises, and special tax and other financial incentives so that the financial returns can be met.

As awareness around the impacts of such investments grows, people are taking action. Occupy Harvard and other student groups have called for Harvard to divest from Emergent. Vanderbilt’s Fair Food Coalition is asking for the same. Iowa State University has also buckled under media and student campaigns following the revelation of its involvement in a land deal in Tanzania, which would displace over 160,000 people.

It is not disputed that the people and resources of Africa carry a centuries-long history of exploitation. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to be vigilant regarding claims that any particular foreign
profit-driven investment in Africa will benefit the African people.

Agreed renewed focus on agriculture is crucial and agriculture does need investment. However, the issue is not one of merely increasing budget allocations to agriculture, but rather one of promoting a model of agricultural development that honors and protects smallholder farmers and communities and their control and access to resources such as land and water. Also, all such investment must be fully transparent and mechanisms to hold investors accountable must be firmly in place. The high economic returns promised at conferences such as the GAI come at a cost to the poor. Africa has already given more than enough. (END/COYRIGHT IPS)

* Anuradha Mittal is the founder and executive director, and Jeff Furman is a member of the Board of Directors, of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org ).

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Mar 18 2009 (IPS)

The biotech industry is using the increase in global hunger as a tool to win support for GM crops. Its tactics of “poor washing” (we must accept genetic engineering to increase production and improve livelihoods of farmers) and “green washing” (biotech is environmentally friendly and will help counter climate change) have won favor with the misguided philanthropic community as well.

For instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-led Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is poised to become a key institutional vehicle for changing African agriculture. However, in its enthusiasm to help Africa feed itself with a technology package involving the use of chemical inputs and genetically-modified seeds, the Foundation has neglected to consult with the African farmers and communities they purport to help.

Though it claims to be an “African-led Initiative”, with former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan as its chairman, AGRA remains a “White Man’s Dream for Africa”. Recruits from the biotech industry who occupy key positions within the Gates Foundation are drawing up the vision for the agricultural revolution in Africa. Its external advisors are African political elites like Ruth Oniang’o, who can also be found on Monsanto’s web pages claiming that there is an urgent need for biotechnology in Africa.

To silence civil society’s criticisms, the foundation has been deliberately vague about its role in the promotion of genetically- engineered crops. Its grantees, however, are working to thwart widespread local resistance. St. Louis-based Donald Danforth Plant Science was recently awarded USD 5.4 million by the Gates Foundation to secure the approval of African governments to allow field-testing of genetically-modified crops.

Blinded by its ambition and deaf to the demands of the African farmers and environmental groups, the Foundation has chosen to disregard prominent studies that challenge the conventional wisdom of industrial and market-based agriculture agenda. The 2008 study by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP), clearly demonstrates that organic agriculture outperforms chemical-intensive farming and is thus more conducive to food security in Africa. An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries demonstrated that yields more than doubled where organic, or near-organic, practices had been used. The research also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water, and resistance to drought in these areas. But these findings do not make it into the Foundation’s agricultural plan.

The 2008-2011 Agricultural Development Strategy Report of the Gates Foundation makes it obvious how far removed it is from those it intends to help. According to its claims, the foundation invests in agricultural development because the growing majority of the world’s poor rely on agriculture. However, the executive summary of the confidential report proposes moving people out of the agricultural sector without specifying or addressing where or how this new “land mobile” population is to be rehabilitated or reemployed.

Promotional campaigns for technological solutions to hunger regularly feature a handful of African spokespeople that drown out the genuine voices of farmers, researchers, and civil society groups. There is, however, widespread opposition to genetic engineering and plans for a “New Green Revolution” for Africa. Africa has been largely united against GM crops, opting instead for comprehensive policy interventions supporting family farmers to produce and trade their crops in a sustainable manner. Even when faced with dire situations of hunger, African countries have chosen to protect biodiversity over accepting GM food aid, as was the case with Zambia in 2002. It is crucial, particularly in this time of poor washing amidst growing hunger, that their voices be heard to ensure food sovereignty for Africa and her people.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Anuradha Mittal is the Executive Director of the Oakland Institute and the editor of Voices from Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak out Against the New Green Revolution. www.oaklandinstitute.org

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Aug 12 2008 (IPS)

Blaming high food prices on rising demand in fast-developing countries like China and India deflects scrutiny from structural causes – like the liberalisation of agricultural markets – and suggests incorrectly that market-friendly reforms have uplifted the poor and underprivileged, writes Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank working to increase public participation and to promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues. In this analysis, the author writes that a closer examination of India disproves the latter assertion. In India the total number of the poor and vulnerable increased from 732 million to 836 million between 1993/1994 and 2004/2005. In an effort to move towards market-driven production of agricultural goods, India is shifting from coarse grains to high-value commodities for export and systematically pulling away from the long-respected post-Independence statute requiring self-reliance in agriculture. Consequently, there has been a considerable decline in the rate of growth of production, productivity, and the quantity of land planted and irrigated for the major crops. India\’s hunger and poverty amidst plenty is emblematic of hunger worldwide, which is the result of decades of neglect of agriculture in poor countries and ill-advised policies from the international financial institutions. Promoting agricultural development in poor nations would bolster their food self-sufficiency and help alleviate poverty.

However, presenting the crisis in terms of an imbalance between demand and supply, and hand picking the countries responsible for it, is a convenient oversimplification. On one hand, it deflects scrutiny from structural causes of the crisis, such as the liberalisation of agricultural markets which has wreaked havoc on the agricultural base of the developing countries. On the other, it helps generate the perception that market-friendly reforms have contributed positively to the uplifting of the poor and underprivileged. A closer examination of India reveals that this in not the case.

The World Food Programme estimates that about 350 million Indians are food insecure, making India home to nearly 50 percent of the world’s hungry. More than half of the children under five are moderately or severely malnourished, or suffer from stunting. Instead of increased consumption, the Economic Survey of India 2007- 2008, reports a decline in the consumption of cereals and pulses (the main source of protein for the poor) between 1990/91 and 2005/06.

The argument that the ”economic boom” has improved peoples’ diets also helps generate the perception that the market-friendly reforms initiated in India have contributed positively to the uplifting of the poor. Data proves the contrary. The gap between the rich and poor is widening. While thirty-six people reportedly are collectively worth USD191 billion dollars, a government report estimates that 77 percent of India’s working population lives on less than 50 cents a day and the total number of the poor and vulnerable increased from 732 million to 836 million between 1993/1994 and 2004/2005.

Even if the “increased demand” argument is taken seriously for a moment, it is important to ask whether it results from increased purchasing power of the population or from the erosion of the country’s agricultural base.

Though India’s economy is agricultural, the agricultural sector registered a paltry 2.7 percent growth in 2007 in comparison to the over 10 percent growth in the industrial sector. In a concerted effort to move towards market-driven production of agricultural goods vis-…-vis meeting domestic needs, India is shifting from coarse grains to high-value commodities for export and systematically pulling away from the long-respected post-Independence statute requiring self-reliance in agriculture. Consequently, there has been a considerable decline in the rate of growth of production, productivity, and the quantity of land planted and irrigated for the major crops.

This fascination with the export-driven economy is also visible in the fervour with which the creation of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) on agricultural lands is being pursued. The current government’s goal of establishing 500 SEZs will require the acquisition of 150,000 hectares of land, predominantly agricultural and typically multi-cropped. 114,000 farming households (each comprising on average five members) and an additional 82,000 farm workers families will also be displaced. Thus some 1,000,000 people who primarily depend on agriculture for their livelihood face eviction.

At the same time the new farm policy of the central government unashamedly emphasises moving people out of the agriculture sector in the name of reducing dependency on agriculture without specifying where and how 59 percent of the population is to be rehabilitated?

Global restructuring of agriculture and agricultural intensification has significantly altered the rural landscape in India. The net result is that farming is no longer sustainable. With little or no incentive for producing food for home consumption, farmers are increasingly being pushed to take their own lives. According to official figures, over 17,000 farmers committed suicide in the year 2006 alone. Nearly one farmer has committed suicide every 30 minutes since the year 2002.

Hunger and poverty in India amidst plenty is emblematic of hunger worldwide. This situation is the result of decades of neglect of agriculture in poor countries and ill-advised policies from the international financial institutions.

Promoting agricultural development in poor nations would bolster their food self-sufficiency and help alleviate poverty. According to a report by Oxfam International, ”there are also strong efficiency arguments for investing in the developing world’s 400 million smallholder farmers. Their smallholdings often show higher productivity per area than their larger counterparts. In addition, such farmers usually spend more on locally-manufactured goods and services. In countries that are economically dependent on agriculture, this is one factor that contributes to the potential for agriculture to ”kick-start” their economic development.” India is no exception to this.

Recommendations such as these are especially important for countries like India to achieve an equitable and sustainable food and farming system that fulfils the needs of its population. This will require not only a change in the amount of investment, but for the government to embrace a people-centred policy framework for agriculture. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal
NEW YORK, Jan 24 2008 (IPS)

Anuradha Mittal is an internationally renowned expert on trade, development, human rights and agriculture. In 2004, she founded the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank focused on social, economic and environmental issues.

Anuradha Mittal Credit:

IPS correspondent Rajiv Fernando recently spoke with Mittal about the significance of this weekend&#39s Eighth World Social Forum, and the connection between development and democracy.

IPS: You have been an eloquent advocate of the idea of "economic human rights", and recently wrote that the George W. Bush administration deserves a "failing grade" on this question. Are you hopeful that the situation for poor and working people in the United States can improve with the 2008 elections?

AM: President Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt played a key role in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was President Roosevelt who declared that freedom from want is as important as freedom from fear. However, with the start of the Cold War, there was a systematic effort to get rid of the notion of economic, social and cultural rights in the U.S. The problem that we face today is not as simple as getting rid of Bush and his cronies and suddenly we will have a different kind of regime in this country. When we look at the policy positions, whether it is the Democrat or the Republican presidential candidates, one finds the concept and the framework of human rights missing. We cannot forget that it was President [Bill] Clinton who signed the so-called Personal Responsibility Act, the welfare reform – or what some of us would call the welfare deform – act. However, the fact that we&#39re heading into another election is a really good opportunity for advocates of social economic justice, for people involved in any struggle, whether it is for access to clean drinking water, or farm workers&#39 rights or immigrant rights, to bring back the framework of human rights to guide our policy discussions.

IPS: According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, an industry group, global biotech crop acreage expanded to 252 million acres in 2006 – 90 percent of it in developing countries. As a critic of biotech, how do you think civil society groups can be most effective in responding to this trend?

AM: ISAAA has been making unsupported claims, inflating its figures and ignoring the negative impacts of GM crops. Its report is nothing but bogus PR tactics. In 2007, it listed Iran as growing 50,000 hectares of commercial GM rice, which is not approved and is not being grown. Romania was listed as growing 100,000 hectares of GM soybean but this crop was banned and the country was being decontaminated to return it to GM-free. ISAAA claims commercial GM crops are a global industry but their own figures showed 99 percent grew in just eight countries in 2006 [the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India, China, Paraguay, and South Africa]. The range of GM crops also stalled in 1996 when four broad-acre commercial crops – soy, corn, cotton and canola – were first grown. Not one has been added since.

So we have to expose the lies behind ISAAA&#39s claims. This industry has been using the PR tactics of green-washing, poor-washing and hope-dashing – by which I mean, these crops are good for the environment, or we need these crops to feed the hungry, the poor, or we have to depend on this technology if you&#39re going to feed the people because there is no other alternative. So it is really upon us to be proactive and to pave the way forward for sustainable alternatives, which will be good for our lives, good for the earth, air and water and this planet itself. We have to expose the corporate control of our food system and question who owns this technology, who controls it and how it is used.

IPS: A report published by the Oakland Institute says that the problem of hunger in the world is due to the scarcity of democracy and the denial of human rights. Can you elaborate on this?

AM: According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, we have enough food today to provide over 2,400 kilo calories per person per day around the world. So the reason we continue to have hunger has nothing to with supernatural causes or with shortage of food production. After all, it is not the shortage of food production that in the U.S. over 36 million Americans are estimated to live in households which are food insecure. My own country, India, is home to nearly half of the world&#39s hungry population. At the same time India is the third largest producer of food in the world.

It is really the social and economic policies which have failed to respect and protect and fulfill our human rights that are behind the epidemic of hunger. It is the absence of living wage jobs which is forcing the working poor to make a choice between a roof over their heads or food on the table. More and more families who are lining up at food banks and soup kitchens already have two or more people employed. Or in countries like India or Brazil, hunger is caused by the failure to implement comprehensive agrarian reform where farmers have control and access over resources such as water, land, seeds. At the same time, the development paradigm based on &#39market will take care of it all&#39, as our report called "Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation?" showed, is dismantling state support systems, which ensured a fixed price to farmers, assuring them of a fixed income, which assured prices for consumers, ensuring that in times of shortages food was still available. All those safety systems have been dismantled, turning food into commodities for trade and commerce.

IPS: The recent Bali climate change conference was described by one Indian newspaper as "the mother of all no-deals". What&#39s your take on the outcome? Are there lessons to be learned there?

AM: The biggest lesson is that we all know that humanity is facing a very imminent threat of climate change. We also know that climate change has the worst impact on the poor and marginalised. At the same time we keep looking for false solutions to climate change, for example, agro-fuels, or what are called bio-fuels, which are diverting food and other valuable resources from the poor, again to cater to consumption patterns of the North.

As long we don&#39t deal with the root causes of the problem, until we are ready to say that the lifestyle in rich countries like the U.S. is negotiable, we will not really see change. Each one of us can compost as much as we want, each one of us can recycle as much as we want, however, until we see policy change at the larger level, until we see governments moving in the direction where there is real commitment to change consumption patterns, to change the way rich countries operate, siphoning off resources from the South, we will not see real change happen.

IPS: You have been a regular at the WSF meetings. How has the event evolved over the years? It seems that this year&#39s decentralised model offers fewer opportunities for activists to network and build a truly international movement.

AM: I have been to three World Social Forums, the last one being in India. I think it&#39s a very exciting opportunity for social movements and organisations from around the world to be in one place – a marketplace for ideas, to share experiences, network. I think this year&#39s idea, especially the day of action, is a very exciting one because it really provides an opportunity to move from a marketplace of ideas to a place of taking action.

There are calls to challenge industrial agriculture to other exciting calls that are being put out by social movements and the grassroots groups. So it is good to see how it has evolved into its decentralised form which offers an opportunity for communities to deal with the real crisis and to come up with solutions, to present alternatives, and to move beyond the call of &#39another world is possible&#39. It&#39s exciting to see what that other world can look like, what action would need to be taken to make that other world a reality.

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Jun 6 2007 (IPS)

Resentment against the international financial institutions is growing across the world, laying a foundation for an alternative economic vision in South America. The challenge is for it to be a true alternative, writes Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the California based Oakland Institute. This has laid the foundation for an alternative economic vision for the region with President Chávez’s idea of creating an alternative fund – Banco del Sur or the Bank of the South – to free the region from the IFIs coming to fruition. With Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador already on board, Brazil too joined the Bank in April – significantly increasing the available resources. The goal of this Latin American controlled multilateral lender is to fund social and economic development in the region without the political conditions that come with the IMF loans. The intention of this alternative institution is to adhere to local needs than to dictates of the Western nations and Latin America appears to have taken a turn in an overwhelmingly positive economic direction. However, while breaking free from the international financial institutions is essential for formulating national policies that would address the needs of the overall population, much deeper structural changes are required some questions remain to ensure the fulfillment of aspirations behind this institution.

The scandal that ended with World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation is just the tip of the iceberg. It does not end the larger crisis of credibility faced by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), with discontent brewing all over the world ­ most prominent being in Latin America.

At the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez officially pulled out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). President Chávez said: “We will no longer have to go to Washington, nor to the IMF, nor to the World Bank, not to anyone.” It was sentiment echoed by President Rafael Correa of Ecuador who said, “We will not stand for extortion by this international bureaucracy,” before kicking out the World Bank’s representative from his country. This was a response to the Bank withholding a previously approved $100 million loan in 2005, to forcefully redirect oil revenues for debt repayment instead of social spending. Argentina has openly defied the IMF by adopting a number of macro-economic policies opposed by the institution, which allowed its remarkable recovery from the financial crisis the country was mired in.

The IMF is feeling the squeeze, with its lending in the region falling to $50 million, or less than one percent of its global portfolio, compared with 80% in 2005. Instead, Venezuela, who just offered $500 million of financial cooperation to Ecuador and helped Argentina replenish its reserves after it repaid $9.5 billion of debt to the IMF in late 2005, is becoming what some call the “lender of the last resort”.

Widespread sentiment in the region is that neo liberal economic policies advocated by the IFIs resulting in cutbacks in social services, privatisation of public enterprises and services, and indiscriminate opening to free trade agreements, has caused economic failure and aggravated inequality among the rich and poor. Compared to 82% per capita GDP’s growth in 1960-1980, per capita GDP grew by a mere 9% between 1980-2000, dropping to 4% between 2000-2005, denying majority of Latin Americans of any chance to significantly improve their living standards. Not surprisingly then, resentment against the institutions has grown and they have come to be seen as agents in service of their largest shareholder, the U.S. treasury.

This has laid the foundation for an alternative economic vision for the region with President Chávez’s idea of creating an alternative fund – Banco del Sur or the Bank of the South – to free the region from the IFIs coming to fruition. With Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador already on board, Brazil too joined the Bank in April – significantly increasing the available resources. The goal of this Latin American controlled multilateral lender is to fund social and economic development in the region without the political conditions that come with the IMF loans. The intention of this alternative institution is to adhere to local needs than to dictates of the Western nations and Latin America appears to have taken a turn in an overwhelmingly positive economic direction. However some questions remain to ensure the fulfillment of aspirations behind this institution.

While breaking free from the IFIs is essential for formulating national policies that would address the needs of the overall population, much deeper structural changes are required. The Bank of the South would be a true alternative if its resources were used to finance people-centered development that prioritises the needs of people – land, employment, housing, education. It would need to invest in social programmes that would reduce poverty, and increase access to education and healthcare. Or else, the bank will promote the same capitalist model of development, working to promote region’s big economic groups in the international markets.

In other words, the Bank of the South – in order to be a real alternative – ought to be the Bank that finances a socialist economy promoting socially and ecologically sustainable and equitable development in the region. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Nov 13 2006 (IPS)

Persistent hunger in countries like Niger reflects the failure of the international community to understand the root causes of hunger, write Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, and Frederic Mousseau, a food security consultant who works with international humanitarian agencies. In this article, the authors argue that the delayed response in providing aid and the insistence of donor countries like the US on providing in-kind food aid do little to strengthen national economies and tackle hunger. The dumping of cheap subsidised food aid only benefits large agribusinesses while destroying markets and livelihoods of small farmers in recipient countries. Development policies that promote economic liberalisation and encourage specialisation, commercialisation of agriculture, and withdrawal of the state from regulating the market, are eroding ability of nations to feed their populations. Niger\’s experience shows that relying on the market to solve food shortages leaves the poorest people hungrier and drives small farmers into further poverty while large food traders gain monopoly power. The fight against hunger needs to shift away from the free-market ideology. No industrialised country has been capable of developing its agriculture without protective barriers, yet the poorest farmers and consumers in the developing world have been deprived of such protection. It is time to implement an unconditional and non-paternalistic \’\’Marshall Plan for Africa\’\’, including 100 percent debt relief and a boost in Western assistance.

It is time to take stock of these noble sounding goals.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the number of hungry people in the world is currently increasing at the rate of four million a year. Chronic hunger plagues some 852 million people, 206 million of who are in Sub-Saharan Africa, up nearly 40 million from 1990-92. Some 300,000 children under the age of five face the risk of death from malnutrition every year in Sahel alone, which includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso.

In 2005, widespread hunger and poverty in Niger hit the world news. The food crisis was blamed on locust invasions and drought. However, it was not an isolated episode in Niger’s history. Hundreds of thousands of children require nutritional assistance every year in this country where the under-five mortality rate is the second highest in the world. Doctors Without Borders treated some 60,000 malnourished Nigerian children in their emergency programme this year.

Persistent hunger in countries like Niger reflects the failure of the international community to understand the root causes of hunger. The delayed response in providing aid and the insistence of donor countries like the US on providing in-kind food aid do little to strengthen national economies and tackle hunger. The dumping of cheap subsidised food aid only benefits large agribusinesses while destroying markets and livelihoods of small farmers in recipient countries. The ensuing poverty generates further hunger in countries like Niger where nearly 63 percent of the population already survives on less than a dollar a day.

A new study by the Oakland Institute, Sahel: A Prisoner of Starvation? shows that development policies that promote economic liberalisation and encourage specialisation, commercialisation of agriculture, and withdrawal of the state from regulating the market, are eroding the ability of nations to feed their populations. Niger’s experience shows that relying on the market to solve food shortages leaves the poorest people hungrier and drives small farmers into further poverty while large food traders gain monopoly power.

An international commitment to eradicate hunger would require several policy changes, which would include the following:

First, subsistence farmers, who constitute 75 percent of the world’s poor, should be at the centre of development policies. These policies should support national governments in promoting consumption and production of local crops raised by small, sustainable farms rather than encouraging the poor nations to specialise in cash crops for western markets. Seventy-eight percent of countries that report child malnutrition are food-exporting countries.

Second, the fight against hunger needs to shift away from the free- market ideology that has been driving development policies for the past three decades. No industrialised country has been capable of developing its agriculture without protective barriers, yet the poorest farmers and consumers in the developing world have been deprived of such protection.

Third, more, not less, aid for rural development is necessary. Policies that help affected countries develop their own agricultural sectors actually feed more people and decrease developing countries’ dependence on aid programmes in the long run. For instance, alternative agricultural development models such as agro-forestry projects in the Sahel have shown to yield lasting improvements in food security.

Foreign aid to Africa fell by 40 percent during the 1990s and now stands at approximately USD12 billion per annum. USD70 billion were collected by the coalition combatants in a matter of weeks to fight the war in Iraq. The US has spent over USD360 billion so far in Iraq. Niger’s annual budget is a mere USD320 million. It will take more than false promises of rich nations to ensure the right of all human beings to live in dignity and free from hunger. It is time to implement an unconditional and non-paternalistic ”Marshall Plan for Africa”, including 100 percent debt relief and a boost in Western assistance. A country like Niger would be an ideal first recipient of funding from such a plan. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Aug 1 2006 (IPS)

Evidence from the fields shows Monsanto\’s claims about its Bt cotton variety to be spurious, writes Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute (www.oaklandinstitute.org), a policy thinktank dedicated to creating a space for public participation and democratic debate on key social, economic, environmental and foreign policy issues. In this article, Mittal cites a new study by Cornell University researchers, the first to look at longer-term economic impact of Bt cotton. The study of 481 Chinese farmers in five major cotton-producing provinces found that after seven years of cultivation they had to spray up to 20 times in a growing season to deal with secondary insects, which resulted in a net average income of 8 percent less than conventional cotton farmers. Failure of Bt cotton crops in India resulted in the suicides of an estimated 700 farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, between June 1, 2005 and August 9, 2006, to escape debt incurred by buying the expensive GM seed. As Bt cotton continues to jostle for public acceptance, Bt crops have been attacked by \’\’Lalya\’\’ or \’\’reddening\’\’ as well, a disease unseen before which affected Bt more than the non-Bt cotton crop, resulting in 60 percent of farmers in Maharashtra failing to recover costs from their first GM harvest. Genetic engineering and Bt cotton will neither revolutionise the countryside in the developing countries nor improve food security, but a new farm economy based on the principle of food sovereignty and farmers\’ rights as the centrepiece of the country\’s economic development model will.

Monsanto’s website boasts that 2005 capped a decade in which the ”eager adoption” of technology resulted in the ”planting and harvesting of the billionth cumulative acre of biotech crops”. It goes on to hail the benefits that the technology allegedly provides to farmers: ”increased crop yields, the ability to reduce on-farm chemical use, the opportunity to transition to more environmentally-friendly farming practices, and savings in both time and money”.

This fits in well with the industry’s public relations exercise of preventing debate by creating a false sense of need. The key arguments used in this pro-industry publicity blitz are green washing –”biotech will create a world free of pesticides”- and poor washing –”We must accept genetic engineering to increase yields, reduce costs, and improve livelihoods of farmers.”

Evidence from the fields, however, shows these claims to be spurious. A new study by Cornell University researchers, the first to look at longer-term economic impact of Bt cotton, concluded that the Chinese cotton growers who were among the first farmers worldwide to plant Bt cotton –which is inserted with the Bacillus Thuringiensis gene to produce lethal toxins against bollworms– are seeing their profits disappear. A study of 481 Chinese farmers in five major cotton-producing provinces found that after seven years of cultivation they had to spray up to 20 times in a growing season to deal with secondary insects, which resulted in a net average income of 8 percent less than conventional cotton farmers because Bt seed is triple the cost of conventional seed. The researchers stressed that this could become a major threat in countries where Bt cotton has been widely planted.

One of the researchers of the study, Professor Per Pinstrup-Andersen, former director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, however, urged researchers and governments to come up with remedial actions before farmers stop using it. ”Bt cotton can help reduce poverty and undernourishment problems in developing countries if properly used,” he said.

Pinstrup-Anderson would do well to instead urge researchers to examine the harvest of farmer suicides in India. Between June 1, 2005 and August 9, 2006, an estimated 700 farmers in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, took their own lives to escape indebtedness.

Ramesh Rathod, from the village of Bondgavhan, Vidarbha, committed suicide in December 2005. He had purchased a variety of Bt cotton at four times the cost of non-Bt seeds. Ramesh’s hopes were dashed when his crop had a severe pest attack and the leaves of the plants turned red before drying up. With the yield destroyed, he was in no position to pay back the loans he had taken to buy the seed. He consumed pesticide and died. Left behind to pay back the debt and shoulder the responsibility of a young family, Ramesh’s widow used two costly pesticides, Endosulphane and Tracer, against the bollworm pest, but the three acres of land did not even yield three quintals of cotton.

Cotton farmer Chandrakant Gurenule (34) from Yavatmal committed suicide in April 2006. He too had bought the genetically-modified cotton seeds for his 15-acre (six-hectare) farm, only to watch his crops fail for two successive years. When there was no hope left — he had sold the pair of bullocks he used to plough the fields and pawned his wife’s wedding jewelry — he doused himself in kerosene and lit a match.

As Bt cotton continues to jostle for public acceptance, travails of Indian farmers continue. Devastated by bollworm pest, Bt crops have been attacked by ”Lalya” or ”reddening” as well, a disease unseen before which affected Bt more than the non-Bt cotton crop, resulting in 60 percent of farmers in Maharashtra failing to recover costs from their first GM harvest. Some studies show that farmers are spending USD 136.26 per acre compared to USD 11.60 on non-Bt cotton since GM cotton requires more supplemental insecticide sprays.

This failure of Bt cotton crops resulted in the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the Indian government banning Monsanto’s Mech 12, Mech 184, and Mech 162 varieties in Andhra Pradesh (AP) while Mech 12 was banned all over Southern India. The local government in AP’s Warangal district demanded compensation from Monsanto Biotech Ltd., for farmers who lost their crop. In addition, the AP government, backed by the central government, challenged Monsanto under the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission for hugely overcharging farmers for its seed.

In the face of the evidence that small farmers have borne the brunt of Bt cotton’s problems, the biotech industry and its researchers nonetheless continue to spin Bt cotton as the way to improve livelihoods of poor farmers and to ensure food security.

Genetic engineering and Bt cotton will neither revolutionise the countryside in the developing countries nor improve food security, but a new farm economy based on the principle of food sovereignty and farmers’ rights as the centrepiece of the country’s economic development model will. It is time to renew the 1998 call of the African experts, who do not believe in the miracles of genetic engineering as the solution to food security: ”Let Nature’s Harvest Continue”. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Jul 1 2006 (IPS)

On June 6, 2006, the Canadian members of parliament from the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois met with their American and Mexican counterparts to declare that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a \’\’continental tragedy\’\’, writes Anuradha Mittal, the founder and director of the Oakland Institute. In this article, Mittal writes that the ongoing debate on the fate of some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US continues to ignore the structural issues that have forced millions to leave their homes. Free-trade agreements like NAFTA promised to bring more jobs, trade surpluses, and an increased standard of living to member countries, but the reality is altogether different. Far from providing a \’\’level playing field\’\’, NAFTA has been a death warrant for small farmers, placing small Mexican farmers at a sharp disadvantage with respect to the US. No fence will be able to take the pressure off of the US border. The country must therefore address a number of simple questions: should the undocumented immigrants be criminalised and our borders walled off, or should we get rid of or renegotiate free-trade agreements? Should we blame the victims of free trade-agreements, or should we ensure that as long as capital and goods can move freely across borders, so can the hungry, the destitute, and the dispossessed?

Recently, the Canadian members of parliament from the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois met with their American and Mexican counterparts to declare that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a ”continental tragedy”. The occasion was the second Tri-National Forum on NAFTA and on Deep Integration in North America.

”If it were [a success] there would be no need for the fence that the United States wants to build between the US and Mexican border and there would be no need to militarise it either,” said Mexican legislator Victor Suarez.

The ongoing debate on the fate of some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States continues to ignore the structural issues that have forced millions to leave their homes. Free-trade agreements like NAFTA promised to bring more jobs, trade surpluses, and an increased standard of living to member countries, but the reality is altogether different.

Mexico has been growing corn for 10,000 years. Under NAFTA, which was supposed to ”level playing fields”, Mexico opened its markets to imports from the US, including corn. Mexican farmers were unable to compete against US large corn producers, who are the largest single recipient of US government subsidies, receiving USD 10.1 billion per year, about ten times Mexico’s total agricultural budget for 2000. This giant infusion resulted in massive dumping of corn onto the Mexican market by the US in the amount of between USD 105 and USD 145 million annually.

It is therefore not surprising that US corn exports to Mexico have tripled since NAFTA went into effect and account for almost one third of the domestic market, which has caused an acute crisis for the Mexican corn sector. The increase in imports has reduced real prices for Mexican corn by more than 70 percent since 1994. For the 15 million Mexican farmers who depended on the crop, this price drop resulted in dramatic reductions in household income and ultimately caused a significant percentage to leave the land altogether. In 1997, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) figures, 47 percent of the population was engaged in agriculture. By 2010, FAO estimates that the number will have dropped to 18 percent.

Far from providing a ”level playing field”, NAFTA has been a death warrant for small farmers, placing small Mexican farmers at a sharp disadvantage with respect to the US.

Proponents of free-trade agreements often point to job creation in Mexico as evidence of NAFTA’s success. However, the US-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out that while the number of low-paying, low-productivity jobs (e.g., unpaid work in family enterprises) grew rapidly since the early 1990s, by 1998 the income of salaried workers had fallen by 25 percent, while the income of the self-employed had declined by 40 percent. The EPI noted that wages decreased by 27 percent between 1991 and 1998, while overall hourly income from labour dropped by 40 percent. In addition, the minimum wage lost almost 50 percent of its purchasing power in the last decade. Manufacturing wages also declined by almost 21 percent in this period. So while NAFTA benefited a few sectors of the economy –mostly maquiladora industries and the very wealthy– it increased inequality and reduced income and job quality for the vast majority of workers in Mexico.

The failure of NAFTA coupled with the failure of the US to remove its trade-distorting subsidies has forced millions of Mexicans to the border. The number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico has increased from 2.5 million in 1995 to 8 million at present. Hoping for better lives, they are willing to risk crossing the border, if only to find slavery in the fields of the US, incarceration at the border, xenophobic legislators, and sometimes even death. In 2005 an estimated 400 Mexicans died trying to cross the border.

However, no fence will be able to take the pressure off of the US border. The country must therefore face a number of simple questions: should the undocumented immigrants be criminalised and our borders walled off, or should we get rid of or renegotiate free-trade agreements? Should we blame the victims of free-trade agreements or should we ensure that as long as capital and goods can move freely across borders, so can the hungry, the destitute, and the dispossessed? (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Oct 18 2005 (IPS)

International food aid, initiated in 1954, is the most publicised instrument put forward to fight hunger, especially in southern countries, where millions of tons of food are shipped each year. However, geared towards the dumping of cereal surpluses in developing countries, the aid system has promoted the trade and foreign policy interests of the donor countries at the expense of the hungry over the last fifty years, writes Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, a research and educational institute. The opening up of markets, along with food aid in kind, has deluged developing countries with agricultural commodities dumped by developed nations at below the cost of production. This has deepened the agrarian crisis in the developing countries, whose one billion-dollar food trade surplus of the 1970s became an 11 billion-dollar deficit by 2001, converting developing countries into major importers of food while destroying livelihoods of small family farmers. What the hungry really need is an enforcement mechanism that ensures the human right to food. This would require support for national policies that protect the livelihoods of small farmers and increase national food availability. Examples from hunger crises around the world clearly prove that policies that help countries develop their own agricultural sector and strengthen their small-scale farmers actually help feed more people in the long run.

There is another form of hunger that is less visible: the chronic day-in and day-out hunger which affects an estimated 852 million people — and this number is growing at a rate of almost four million per year. This widespread hunger rarely makes the evening news but it is just as deadly. Each year it kills between 30 and 50 million people. Its victims include approximately 6.5 million children each year — one every five seconds. Small farmers, our food producers, make up nearly 50 percent of the world’s hungry population and are often hardest hit.

In November 1996, heads of state from 186 countries gathered in Rome for the World Food Summit and pledged to reduce by half the number of chronically undernourished people (815 million then) by the year 2015. But the current hunger statistics make it obvious that the fight against hunger has yet to show any gains.

International food aid, initiated in 1954, is the most publicized instrument put forward to fight hunger, especially in southern countries, where millions of tons of food are shipped each year. However, geared towards the dumping of cereal surpluses in developing countries, the aid system has promoted the trade and foreign policy interests of the donor countries at the expense of the hungry over the last fifty years.

Agricultural liberalisation, another tool recommended as a way to combat poverty and hunger in the developing world, has actually aggravated food insecurity. It has required the elimination of state intervention in agriculture, including mechanisms such as marketing boards which controlled prices and allowed governments to buy agricultural commodities from farmers and to maintain a rolling stock that could be released into the market in the event of a bad harvest.

The removal of price controls has lead to the volatility of food prices, which in turn negatively affects both consumers and producers. For example, the current famine in Niger is less the result of a bad harvest (the last harvest was only 12 percent below the bumper harvest of 2003) than a consequence of private traders hoarding food commodities to profit from high prices while making food unaffordable for the poorest.

The opening up of markets, along with food aid in kind, has deluged developing countries with agricultural commodities dumped by developed nations at below the cost of production. This has deepened the agrarian crisis in the developing countries, whose one- billion-dollar food trade surplus of the 1970s became an 11- billion-dollar deficit by 2001, converting developing countries into major importers of food while destroying livelihoods of small family farmers.

An attempt to avoid agricultural dumping, coupled with the fear of the displacement of commercial imports, has led to growing international pressure for the enforcement of food aid practices by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the international trade body that advocates agricultural liberalisation.

In a study conducted by the Oakland Institute this year (Food Aid or Food Sovereignty: Ending World Hunger in Our Time), we have concluded that this position overlooks two fundamental elements. First, food trade is largely dominated by developed countries and a few developing countries such as Brazil and South Africa, who are affected by the displacement of commercial imports. Second, increased food trade, controlled by international agribusinesses and large-scale farmers, will not provide market access and benefit the poorest countries and their small farmers.

World hunger will be again at stake at the December WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong. The WTO, as the agency to regulate food aid, will not address world hunger and will serve the interests of competing food-exporting countries. Furthermore, developed countries are putting pressure on developing countries to dismantle tariffs and open their markets to increased dumping of agricultural commodities by agribusiness cartels. Any additional cuts to the agricultural tariff in developing countries, the only instrument available for protecting farmers who have no subsidies to offset the effects of low commodity prices, would unleash more hunger and destitution. For example, India has reduced its tariff rate to almost 65 percent below the average applied rate in 1990-91, and is reeling from depressed global prices. Home to some 221.1 million food-insecure people, India is faced with rampant suicide rates among farmers, and the National Sample Survey Organisation reports that nearly 48.6 percent of the 90 million farm households are caught in a debt trap.

What the hungry really need is an enforcement mechanism that ensures the human right to food. This would require support for national policies that protect and restore the livelihoods of small farmers and increase national food availability. After all, examples from hunger crises around the world clearly prove that policies that help countries develop their own agricultural sector and strengthen their small-scale farmers, actually help feed more people in the long run. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Jan 3 2005 (IPS)

A new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) concludes that the last 40 years of international trade in agriculture have not benefited the developing countries, above all the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), write Frederic Mousseau, Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute and internationally-renowned food security consultant, and Anuradha Mittal, the founder and director of the Oakland Institute. In this analysis, the authors write that according to the report, trade actually marginalises the poorest countries and their small farmers and mainly benefits large-scale producers and corporations from developed countries. In the last few decades, transnational corporations have increased control over production and trade in developing countries. While it denounces market distortions caused by developed countries, the report does not question the policies that harm agriculture in the developing countries and undermine the livelihoods of their farmers. Instead it recommends measures to make developing countries and their farmers more competitive in an open global economy, suggesting that the trade and market liberalisation are the only chances that poorest nations have to get out of poverty. The authors argue for the adoption of food sovereignty as a national policy for developing countries, including the right to protect their production and markets from an inequitable system.

A new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets, concludes that the last forty years of international trade in agriculture have not benefited the developing countries, above all the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

In fact, developing countries, and LDCs in particular, are dramatically losing ground in international trade. Most are dependent for their foreign exchange earnings on exports of a small number of agricultural products, the real prices of which are volatile and declining in the long run. The direct consequence is erratic income for these countries and their small producers.

This specialisation in few commodities has increased LDCs’ dependence on food imports from developed countries. While developing countries have increasingly specialised in non-food products such as coffee or cocoa, the subsidised exports from developed countries have made imported food cheaper than local products. This resulted in the transformation of what was a one-billion-dollar food trade surplus for developing countries in the 1970s into a deficit of USD11 billion in 2001.

While their export earnings are volatile and in the long term declining, developing countries also have to finance growing imports of food and manufactured goods from developed countries. This explains the disastrous deterioration of the terms of trade for the least developed countries and the “consequent transfer of income from developing to developed countries”. This has threatened food security and economic sustainability of many LDCs and increased their debt burden.

Clearly this trend is not due only to weak competitiveness or inadequate policy choices on the part of the developing countries. Rather, tariffs, subsidies, and other trade-distorting policies in developed countries have eroded developing countries’ market share and export revenues. Structural Adjustment Programmes, encouraged by developed countries, have also weakened developing countries. Indeed, the following elements make very clear the role played by developed countries in this regard:

– Subsidies to farmers in developed countries have depressed commodity prices on world markets. For instance, European sugar is exported at 75 percent below the cost of production. A direct consequence of this is the erosion of both the income and market share of producers in non-subsidising developing countries who cannot compete against cheap subsidised foods. This practice also drains the foreign exchange reserves of many countries that depend heavily on commodity exports.

– The average tariff for imported agricultural products in developed countries is 60 percent, compared with an average of 5 percent for industrial goods. These tariffs are unfair to developing countries, which are highly dependent on exports of agricultural commodities. Furthermore, by imposing tariff escalation regimes –the more processed a given product is, the higher the tariff– developed countries are discouraging developing countries from investing in agricultural processing. Yet, diversification into higher value-products would reduce developing countries’ dependence on primary export commodities, which produce less income to begin with and whose prices are falling.

– Structural Adjustments Programmes have resulted in the opening of local markets and elimination of state support for farmers and production. In the past, producers were protected from price volatility for key agricultural products by state institutions, which would stabilise prices and support farmers’ incomes. Whereas developed countries have maintained high levels of agricultural subsidies at home, in developing countries structural adjustments have shrunk public expenditures on agriculture. This has decreased their ability to support their producers and to adapt their agriculture through production support, training, and necessary investments.

While developed countries promote a vision of development through trade, the FAO report shows that trade actually marginalises the poorest countries and their small farmers and mainly benefits large-scale producers and corporations from developed countries. In the last few decades, transnational corporations have increased control over production and trade in developing countries. For instance, 40 percent of the world’s coffee is traded by just four companies, and 45 percent is processed by just three coffee roasting firms. A similar trend exists at the retail level, with supermarkets increasing their share of food retailing. “Worldwide, the top 30 supermarket chains now control almost one-third of grocery sales.” This concentration gives these large companies a dominant position in the market and significant leverage over production and prices; it also greatly favours large-scale producers, often under the control of these firms, and marginalises small farmers.

Apart from denouncing the market distortion caused by developed countries, the FAO report unfortunately does not question the policies that harm agriculture in the developing countries and undermine the livelihoods of their farmers. Instead it recommends measures to make developing countries and their farmers more competitive in an open global economy. Though it presents evidence of failed trade agreements, FAO does not question market liberalisation and instead recommends more liberalisation, advocating for removal of tariffs in developing countries in order to boost trade among them.

Overall FAO has failed to provide the right remedy to an ongoing disaster.It suggests that trade and market liberalisation are the only chances that the poorest nations have to get out of poverty. Yet, it is obvious from the findings of this report that the only way forward for the developing countries is the adoption of food sovereignty as a national policy, including the right to protect their production and markets against an inequitable system. This development model would seek well-being and food security for all people and farmers in developing countries, rather than profits for business interests in developed countries. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Jul 1 2004 (IPS)

The WTO talks underway in Geneva, aimed at reviving negotiations on lowering global trade barriers, are yet another demonstration of the crisis of inequity and hypocrisy that has afflicted the organisation from the very beginning, writes Anuradha Mittal, founder and director of the Oakland Institute, a non-partisan research, analysis, and advocacy group. In this article, the author writes that the draft agreement set before the 147 members on July 16 openly discriminates against developing nations by adopting a non-committal approach to the Special and Differential treatment needs, sensitive products, and special safe guard mechanisms, all of which it leaves to a \’\’post- framework stage\’\’. At the same time, the draft overlooks African countries\’ demands that the Cotton Initiative be treated on a stand-alone, fast-track basis, instead adopting the US demand to consider this issue under the broader agriculture negotiations. The truth is that in the draft July package, the organisation is acting like a Robin Hood in reverse: trying to rob the world\’s poor to enrich American and European corporations. The WTO will remain deadlocked as long as it continues to fail the development needs of the poor.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks underway in Geneva, aimed at reviving negotiations on lowering global trade barriers, are yet another demonstration of the crisis of inequity and hypocrisy that has afflicted the organisation since its inception. Such talks have floundered since the collapse of the fifth WTO ministerial in Cancun in September 2003.

The draft agreement set before the 147 members on July 16 endorses the reprehensible treatment of development issues in the WTO. For example, the draft callously disregards the concerns of the developing countries in agriculture, an area where developing countries might compete head-on with the industrialised nations. The draft panders to the interests of the politically-influential corporate agriculture in rich countries like the US at the expense of millions of poor farmers across the Third World. It enables rich countries to protect their markets in ‘sensitive’ products from import competition from developing countries while encouraging export dumping at artificially low prices by proposing a framework for new ”blue box” subsidies –tied to programmes that limit production– to accommodate its richest members.

In addition, the draft openly discriminates by adopting a non-committal approach to the Special and Differential treatment needs, sensitive products, and special safe guard mechanisms, all of which it defers to a ”post-framework stage”. At the same time, the draft overlooks African countries’ demands that the Cotton Initiative be treated on a stand-alone, fast-track basis, instead adopting the US demand to consider this issue as part of broader agriculture negotiations.

Using its powerful influence over the World Bank, IMF, and international trade agreements, the US has already pressured poor countries into removing subsidies that favour local producers and lowering tariff charges on foreign imports. With its own subsidies intact, the US dumps cheap subsidised food into developing nations, ravaging the livelihoods of small farmers. The numbers are alarming. For example, the US exports corn at prices 20 percent below the cost of production, and wheat at 46 percent below cost. The result is that the US farm subsidies cost poor countries about USD 50 billion a year in lost agricultural exports — a figure equal to the total aid of rich to poor countries.

The draft fails on several other accounts. It does not mention the review mandated by the 2001 Doha Ministerial of TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) in order to prevent monopolies in agriculture and pharmaceuticals. TRIPS have denied farmers and citizens access to affordable seeds and medicine and promoted the piracy of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. In other areas, such as Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA), it reproduces the same text that was rejected by the developing countries in Cancun on grounds that it would deepen their crisis of deindustrialisation and unemployment. In services, the text advocates swift movement forward with market access negotiations instead of respecting the right of developing countries to regulate trade in services.

WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi is keen to have country members reach agreement on the broad principles for cutting subsidies and import tariffs by July 31, ahead of the US presidential election and changes in the European Commission, which will put trade negotiations on hold for months. With the rejection of the draft by the Indonesian government, which represents the G33 group of developing countries, and with growing discontent among other member countries, the WTO General Council Chair Shotaro Oshima has announced that the formal meeting of the General Council would be suspended on July 27, before the agenda item on the July package is discussed, ensuring that most of the negotiations will take place in an ”informal mode”.

Whenever Third World governments have balked at US- and EU- dictated WTO proposals, they have been threatened with the suspension of aid, elimination of preferential market access, and subjected to other forms of arm-twisting. The experience at Cancun, however, showed that this tactic does not work. The crisis of Cancun has been deepened by the maintenance of blatant double standards by the WTO. The truth is that with the July draft package, the organisation is acting like a Robin Hood in reverse: trying to rob the world’s poor to enrich American and European corporations. The WTO will remain deadlocked as long as it continues to fail the development needs of the poor. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Oct 1 2003 (IPS)

Eruptions of armed aggression by the US should not distract us from the underlying logic of economic imperialism. America\’s \’\’war for freedom\’\’ or \’\’war on terrorism\’\’ is at one with its expansionary goals for the market: open invasion in some places, and open markets everywhere. In this article for IPS, the author writes that the plans for Iraq go beyond reconstruction. The intention is to create a dream economy — completely privatised and foreign-owned. The war on Iraq was shadowed by a battle among American corporations to win reconstruction contracts. Resistance to the unilateral US strategy does not go over well. In March 2003, President Bush alluded to the possibility of reprisals if Mexico didn\’t vote America\’s way in the UN Security Council on the question of Iraq. In July 2003, the administration cut off military aid to 35 friendly countries in retaliation for their support of the International Criminal Court (ICC). And following the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, the US is threatening \’\’to take note\’\’ of those countries that \’\’torpedoed\’\’ the negotiations in Cancun. However, the US position as a solo superpower could be short-lived. Washington\’s desire to dominate affairs around the world has created a global resistance stoked by a combination of developing country resentments inflamed by US arrogance, a crippled economy, an expensive invasion and occupation of Iraq that has not gone well for the US, and reinvigorated civil society resistance to corporate driven globalisation.

Eruptions of armed aggression by the US should not distract us from the underlying logic of economic imperialism. America’s ”war for freedom” or ”war on terrorism” is at one with its expansionary goals for the market: open invasion in some places, and open markets everywhere.

The recolonisation of the South by the US is a carefully crafted strategy. First it cut its UN contributions. Then it shrank aid to the Third World, using its trade agenda as a justification. It uses both carrots –trade agreements for acquiescent states like Israel and Jordan, military aid and graft for once-”friendly” Iraq and Afghanistan– and sticks –embargoes and bombs for non-compliant nations such as Cuba and out-of-favour Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today there is an escalation of both these techniques. For example, the plans for Iraq go well beyond reconstruction. The intention is to create a dream economy, completely privatised and foreign-owned. Heralding privatisation as ”the right direction for twenty-first century Iraq”, the US initiated privatisation as soon as an interim administration, headed by an American, was in place. The war on Iraq was shadowed by a battle among American corporations to win reconstruction contracts.

But the opportunities are not open to all. Before the war, in early March, USAID secretly asked six US companies to submit bids for USD 900 million in government contracts to repair and reconstruct water systems, roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals. Coincidentally, the six companies –Bechtel Group Inc., Fluor Corp., Halliburton Co., Louis Berger Group Inc., Parsons Corp., and Washington Group International Inc. — are all close to the Bush administration.

In late March, the first contract was awarded, without competition or detailed explanations of total cost, to Vice President Dick Cheney’s old employer, the Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) unit of Halliburton Co. Bechtel landed the largest USAID contract: an initial award of USD 34.6 million, with funding of up to USD 680 million over 18 months subject to congressional approval.

The most hotly contested contracts will be to rebuild Iraq’s oil industry. The empire has left the selling of Iraq’s oil resources –the world’s second-largest– to Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi and former Iraqi petroleum ministry officials. Last year, Chalabi, whose close ties with Richard Perle, Rumsfeld, and Cheney predate the current Bush administration, met with US oil executives. Afterward, Chalabi made it clear he would give preference to an American-led oil consortium, and suggested that previous deals with Russia and France totalling billions of dollars could be voided.

But remaking the global oil market is not necessarily the endgame: rebuilding Iraq the way corporations want to is. Transfer of public goods to private hands in Iraq is intended as an initial step in widespread privatisation in the region.

Mr. Bush linked war and trade in his commencement speech at the University of South Carolina on May 9, unveiling his plans to create a US-Middle East Free Trade Area (MEFTA). The region includes many of the most closed and protected economies in the world. Half of the 22 members of the Arab League, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Algeria, remain outside the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Furthermore, the region’s import tariffs are among the highest in the world, with strict restrictions on foreign investment.

Resistance to the unilateral US strategy does not go over well. In March 2003, President Bush alluded to the possibility of reprisals if Mexico didn’t vote America’s way in the UN Security Council on the question of Iraq. In July 2003, the administration cut off military aid to 35 friendly countries in retaliation for their support of the International Criminal Court (ICC). And following the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, the US is threatening ”to take note” of those countries that ”torpedoed” the negotiations in Cancun. And the empire makes no bones about its desire to attack and ”regime-change” Syria, Iran, Libya, North Korea, possibly Saudi Arabia, and even Cuba.

However, the US position as a solo superpower could be short- lived. Washington’s desire to dominate affairs around the world has created a global resistance against the ”Imperial Empire”. Iraqis continue to take to the streets to protest the US occupation. The Third World country delegates, along with the international civil society, rejected US hegemony in Cancun at the 5th WTO Ministerial. The combination of developing country resentments inflamed by US arrogance, a crippled economy, an expensive invasion and occupation of Iraq that has not gone well for the US, and reinvigorated civil society resistance to corporate driven globalisation, cannot but erode the unilateral policies of the US. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Anuradha Mittal and - -
OAKLAND, Sep 1 2003 (IPS)

The failure of the WTO Fifth Ministerial in Cancun is a severe blow not just for the WTO but also for regional agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, writes Anuradha Mittal, Co-Director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. In this analysis for IPS, Mittal writes that the lack of attention to the legitimate concerns of the developing countries, the hunger of the US and the EU to capture world markets, and the mounting evidence that the free trade agreements have failed the poorest and the most vulnerable in our society, have alienated both the poor countries and civil society. Cancun offers an important lesson: strong arm tactics, which might have worked in the past for the US and the EU, will not work any more. There is clear agreement on one principle: No agreement is better than a bad agreement.

The failure of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Fifth Ministerial in Cancun is a severe blow not just for the WTO but also for regional agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The lack of consensus on Singapore issues at the Ministerial, plagued by even deeper divisions over agriculture, may have been the immediate cause of collapse of talks, but the meeting’s collapse has broader and deeper roots.

The first cause is a major shift in the balance of power within the world. G-20+, the new alliance of developing countries with Brazil, India, and China at its heart, represents more than half the world’s population and some two-thirds of its farmers. The arrogant rhetoric of US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who dismissed the G-20+ as the ”grouping of the paralysed” and ”a group with no ability to negotiate”, backfired as the alliance united in its demand for the US and EU to eliminate agricultural subsidies.

Second, transparency and accountability are essential to any democratic decision-making process. The so called “Development” trade round launched in Doha in 2001 was supposed to address above all weaknesses in agricultural trade in order to ”foster development and poverty alleviation”. For the first three days, the Cancun Ministerial focused mainly on agriculture with alternative proposals put forward by the poor nations in response to the Ministerial draft that endorsed the US-EU agricultural position. The revised text, however, completely ignored their demands, further intensifying polarisation between the poor and rich nations. In addition, Europe’s insistence on inclusion of the Singapore issues -trade rules on investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation — without an explicit consensus from the member countries to start negotiations, added fuel to the fire. The question asked by all was, “what part of ‘no’ did the US and the EU not understand?

With Zoellick blaming the poor nations for the collapse, it is obvious that the US and the EU have not learnt from their failure in Cancun. In a press conference following the collapse of talks, Robert Zoellick sounded the US intention of bypassing the WTO entirely and instead forging ahead with regional and bilateral agreements. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, declared that the US will ”take note of those nations that played a constructive role in Cancun, and those nations that didn’t” — punishing and rewarding as necessary. This arrogance is bound to further aggravate the developing countries resistance against the ”Empire”.

Pascal Lamy, the European Trade Commissioner, responded by branding the WTO as ”a medieval organisation” and called for its fundamental reform. He conveniently forgot that following the Doha ministerial, proposals were put forward by the developing countries for establishing procedures and participatory processes for ministerials. It was the EU with other developed nations that blocked the decision based on these proposals!

And just before the Cancun ministerial, developing countries again tried to raise the issue. However, any attempts to make the WTO democratic or accountable have been consistently swept aside by the rich countries, which opt instead for the ”flexibility” of ”Green Rooms” that allow them to control trade negotiations.

Lack of attention to the legitimate concerns of the developing countries, the greed of the US and the EU to capture world markets, and the mounting evidence that the free trade agreements have failed the poorest and the most vulnerable in our society, have alienated both the poor countries and civil society.

Cancun offers a lesson: strong arm tactics, which might have worked in the past for the US and the EU, will not work any more. The walk out demonstrates that poor nations agree on one principle: No agreement is better than a bad agreement! (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

The Agreement on Agriculture signed under the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks has not produced the predicted results, but rather is the first step in making food production into a business monopolized by a few and driving small farmers off the land.

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In this article for IPS, Mittal writes that the 1996 Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), made under the WTO's predecessor, has become the first step in making food production into a business monopolized by a few. The AOA both proved a threat to the stability of Third World farmers lacking competitive advantages and engendered a US domestic agricultural policy that favors agribusiness over family farmers.

The model that causes overproduction in the United States and drives U.S. farmers off the land is the same model that drives peasants off the land in the Third World. For a fraction of the amount U.S. taxpayers currently pay, it should be possible to design a system that preserves family farming and builds a healthy rural United States without damaging the ability of farmers in other countries to make a living.

Editors interested in acquiring the complete article, please contact: romacol@ips.org

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