Friends of the Earth International has attacked plans to extend the WTO’s remit over agriculture. FOEI experts from Southern countries, present at the Seattle talks, warn that the plan would damage the interests of the developing world. FOEI has joined groups such as Via Campesina, and the IRDF and PKMM of the Philippines, in calling for agriculture to be taken out of the WTO altogether.
Southern coun tries’ need to preserve food sovereignty, their environment, and the subsistance of their people, requires controls on agricultural imports. The WTO’s support for unregulated free trade threatens their right to produce healthy, non-genetically modified food, protecting the environment and the cultural values of the campesino and indigenous communities. The WTO promotes export lead development which has seriously affected the access of small indigenous and campesino producers to land, water, seeds and the financial support. The WTO also allows the dumping of agricultural products in Third World economies, undermining local communities, and promoting flight to the cities where neither work or social services are available for the marginalised poor.
FOEI wants WTO delegations to:
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Cease any further negotiations on the Agreement on Agriculture
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Exclude patents on life, biological diversity and indigenous and traditional knowledge from the TRIPS agreement
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Recognise that food security is a legitimate right of all countries
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Ensure that third world governments have the right to support production which sustains their food security
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Recognise the precedence of the Biodiversity Treaty over and trade rules
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Resist trade specialisation and export lead growth
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Agree to search for alternative just and equitable methods of supporting sustainable agriculture, based on meeting national and local needs for employment and food security .
Commenting, Miguel Lovera of Sobrevivencia - FOE Paraguay said :
‘The WTO is all about unregulated free trade. It subordinates all environmental and social concerns to this principle. It is absolutely the wrong body to guarantee an agricultural system which is fair to all countries, and meets the needs of farmers and local communities in the Sout h’.’
Contact:
Emmanuel Agyapong
FOE Ghana
(206) 953-9433
Chowdhury M.F.
FOE Bangladesh
(206) 953-9287
Vice Yu
FOE Philippines
(206) 953-9178
Legal Rights and
Natural Resources Centre
Gerard Coffey
Accion Ecologica
FOE Ecuador
(206) 953-6184
Alberto Villareal
REDES
FOE Uruguay
(206) 953-9287
Miguel Lovera
Sobrevivencia
– FOE Paraguay
(206) 953-6854