Impact of FTAs on
Agriculture:
Issues in Food Security and
Livelihood
Sajin Prachason
Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand)
/ FTA Watch
Asian Regional Workshop on Free Trade Agreements:
Towards inclusive trade policies in post-crisis Asia”
9 December 2009
Agriculture is multifunctional.
(photo: Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (Thailand)
Source of livelihood (of the vast
majority in developing countries)
Source of food security
Social safety net
Linked to biodiversity, natural
resources, local knowledge and
cultures
How FTAs affect livelihood
and food security? :
Experiences from Thailand
Value, way of life, culture,
social relations, income, etc.
2.Investmen
t
liberalizatio
n
Smallscaled
agriculture
1. Tariff
reduction/
elimination
Agriculture
market
Food supply
Adjustment
Resource base
- seeds, water,
land, forest, etc.
Agriculture
production
Bargaining
power
Market entry
Adjustment
Food price
3.
IPR
Corporate
agriculture
Business,
profits, etc.
4.
SPS
1) Tariff reduction/ elimination
disrupts farmers’ domestic
markets and do not yield the
export promise.
(photo: Sustainable Agriculture
Foundation (Thailand)
2) Intellectual property
rights, investment
liberalization and
protection together
can intensify
monopoly of
natural resource
and discriminate
against small
farmers
3) Safeguard measures are
inefficient to protect farmers
-
-
To invoke the mechanism, they required
producer(s) with major proportion of the
production to write to the authority
Thailand as a member of the WTO has invoked
anti-dumping measures over 40 product items
but never used safeguard measures at all during
Farmers in 3 provinces called for 1. delay in
garlic import during Sep-Dec 2007.
(10 September 2007)
2. Stop garlic import from non-FTA countries.
The provincial authority asked the border to strictly monitored
garlic import and prevent illegal import.
(26 November 2007)
Related authorities will mitigate farmers’ problems
by providing assistance through cooperative channels.
(26 November 2007)
4) Food safety measures to protect
consumers are inadequate.
-
-
Focusing more on export side but inadequate
measures and capacity to protect domestic
consumers.
WTO’s Agreement on Applications of Sanitary
and Phytosanitary Measures increase risks of
GMO import
5) Adjustment to free trade does not
simply happen and farmers are
pushed to join contract farming.
-
adjustment means to continue growing the same
crops
adjustment means to join government programs
or companies in contract farming, of which
farmers are usually put in a disadvantageous
position.
-ENDThank you.