|
PEOPLE’S FOOD SOVEREIGNTY THREATENED WITH RESUMPTION OF WTO DOHA NEGOTIATIONS: G33 MUST STAND FIRM AGAINST MAJOR POWERS’ CALL FOR ‘FLEXIBILITY’
PCFS Statement, 15 February 2007
The stalled DOHA Development Round, which will determine the course of the global agricultural trade, is set to resume this year. If the United States, the European Union and WTO head Pascal Lamy will have their way, millions of impoverished farmers and food consumers can expect the worst: an unfair trade system that will completely flood the markets with subsidized agricultural imports from developed countries and displacing local production in developing countries, all in the name of the so-called “free trade”.
The DOHA Round talks collapsed last year over disagreements on tariff cuts and farm subsidies. The US refused to accept the terms of the import-sensitive G33 countries to designate 20% of their agricultural imports as ‘special products” or SPs mandated by the Hong Kong Declaration. Special Products are subjected to very low or zero tariff cuts, based on three considerations: food security, livelihood security and rural development. In fact, as opposed to the proposal of the G33 to protect almost 300 tariff lines, the US would only allow for five (5) tariff lines.
In addition, the US wanted so many criteria for the proposed Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) so as to render it useless in protecting poor farmers. Likewise, the superpower remains inflexible and stubborn in cutting back its farm subsidies - the most distortive and illegitimate aspect of world trade because it artificially lowers prices of farm products.
Clearly, the DOHA Round is intended to pry open markets in poor countries for the surplus products of industrialized economies by breaking down trade barriers. If this pushes through, millions of poor farmers and food consumers are at the losing end. With the already rising cost of production, removal of import restrictions will furthermore subject peasants to unfair competition with artificially cheap subsidized imports. This will only increase poverty especially in predominantly agricultural Asia.
Alarmingly, the major powers are too keen on resuming the frozen DOHA Round talks. During the World Economic Forum in Davos, ministers of 24 key trading nations supported a resumption of the DOHA global trade talks this year. And most alarming is the fact that India’s Trade Minister Kamal Nath, who used to be one of the strongest proponents of SPs and SSM, has already expressed willingness to be flexible should US reduce its farm subsidies to US$15 billion.
It must be noted however, that the US need not concede to demands in multilateral talks because it has and is already getting what it needs bilaterally.
Poor farmers and food consumers don’t harbor any illusions that the DOHA Round will make the lives of the majority better. In fact, empirical data prove that food security in majority of developing countries was much higher prior to the liberalization of agricultural trade. The WTO is nothing but an instrument by the major powers to promote neoliberal policies on food and agriculture. The DOHA Round will only hamper the developing countries’ ability to improve local production and feed its own people.
However, it is important for the G33 countries to remain firm in their stand on the SP/SSM and farm subsidy issues despite mounting pressures from the major powers for them to be “flexible” as a critical step in asserting the people’s struggle for food sovereignty. Showing discontent over the demands of major powers in the DOHA Round will furthermore expose the double standards, loopholes and flaws in the global trading system in agriculture and will provide a venue for alternatives such as food sovereignty or the right of people to food and produce their own food.
Assert the people’s rights to land and food!
People’s Food Sovereignty over neoliberal trade policies!
Take WTO out of Agriculture!
Junk WTO!
# # #
Contact details:
Mr. Antonio Tujan, Jr.
Co-Chairperson
People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)
Email:
PCFS Secretariat
P.O. Box 1170, Penang 10850, Malaysia
Tel: 604-6570271 or 604-6560381
Fax: 604-6583960
E-mail:
|
