[E-rundbrief] Info 345 - V. Shiva: WTO Kills Farmers

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 345: Dr. Vandana Shiva: All Agricultural Products are 
Special Products : Bring Back Quantitative Restrictions. WTO Kills Farmers.

Bad Ischl, 19.1.2006

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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All Agricultural Products are Special Products : Bring Back QR's

Dr. Vandana Shiva

January 5, 2006


The W.T.O Ministerial in Cancun failed over agriculture. The WTO 
Ministerial in Hong Kong nearly failed over agriculture. It went through 
only because of a EU commitment to review export subsidies by 2013. 
However, this was not a specific WTO commitment made in Hong Kong. The 
review and reform of CAP beginning 2013 was part of the EU budget agreement 
arrived at in Brussels.

In any case export subsidies are a mere 3% of total subsidies given by rich 
countries. The remaining trade distorting subsidies will therefore 
continue. In the context of forced removal of import restrictions or 
Quantitative Restriction (QR's) and reduction of imports tariffs as part of 
market access commitments of the Uruguay Round of GATT lowering of prices 
through subsidies means dumping, and dumping means destruction of farmers 
livelihoods and even farmers lives.

WTO Kills Farmers

Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae became a martyr in Cancun and left behind him 
the rallying call "WTO Kills Farmers". Two more Korean farmers took their 
lives when the Korean Government allowed rice imports in 2005. Korean 
farmers were the most active in protests at the Hong Kong Ministerial. 14 
of them are still in Hong Kong jails. Their crime was raising the issue of 
crimes against farmers. Trade liberalization and WTO rules are literally 
killing farmers. Removal of import restrictions implies making small 
farmers and peasants vulnerable to artificially low prices due to a 
manipulated agricultural system driven by agribusiness. Indian farmers are 
loosing $ 26 billion annually due to falling prices of rice, wheat, corn, 
potatoes, cotton, tea, coffee and spices.  The Research Foundation for 
Science, Technology and Ecology has been monitoring farm suicides since 
they started in 1997. The combination of rising costs of production and 
falling prices due to deregulation of agricultural imports has pushed 
farmers into unpayable debt, and finally to suicide. We attach a short list 
of the nearly 40,000 Indian farmers who have died due to debt in the last 
decade since WTO rules came into force. A recent study by the Vidarbha Jan 
Andolan Samiti has shown that during the June  December period in 2005, 212 
farmers ended their lilves in one region of Maharashtra. Of these 182 were 
from the cotton heart land of India. 170 of the 182 suicides are of cotton 
growers who grew Monsanto's Bt. Cotton. Monsanto sells its GM cotton seed 
to Indian farmers at the same price as it sells in the U.S. The price of 
transgenic seed (Rs. 1600 for 450 gms) has a "royalty" component of Rs. 
1200, even though Monsanto does not have a patent for Bt. Cotton in India. 
In contrast, local seeds are sold for Rs. 550 a kg. Farmers suicides in 
Vidarbha overlap with regions where Monsanto sold its GM seeds. For the 
farmers of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra Bt. Cotton has emerged as a 
killer. The Andhra Pradesh Government has filed a case before the Monopoly 
and Trade Practices Commission in Delhi against Mahyco Monsanto Biotec 
(India) Ltd (MMBIL), challenging the "revenue model" adopted by the 
multinational for sourcing its transgenic Bollgard cotton seed technology 
to Indian Companies.

Terming the company's decision to collect Rs. 1250 as royalty on each 
packet of cotton seeds sold in the state as a fit case to punish it under 
the MRTP Act, the State Government argued that Andhra farmers were forced 
to pay through the nose.

The cotton initiative in WTO does address the removal of export subsidies 
for cotton by developed countries by 2006 (Para 11). However, no commitment 
has been made on removal of domestic support. The U.S gives $ 4 billion in 
terms of subsidy to its cotton producers, leading to a subsidy of $ \600 
tonne given to the current market price of cotton at $ 1,100 a tonne. The 
subsidy component is more then 50%. It is this subsidy and not. 
"efficiency" and "competitiveness that allows the U.S to grab cotton 
markets. The donor community has been called on to establish a mechanism to 
deal with income declines in the cotton sector (para 12). Income declines 
for cotton farmers are a result of high costs of seed due to seed 
monopolies in the hands of corporations like Monsanto, and falling 
prices  and dumping linked to subsidies.

There are only two mechanisms to stop the rising costs and falling prices. 
Firstly we need to stop seed monopolies and end seed patents by enforcing 
the mandatory review of Act 27.3(b) of TRIPS which opened the flood gate of 
patenting life forms. This agenda of the Doha round was dropped in the Hong 
Kong Ministerial and needs to be brought back on the agenda. Secondly, in 
the face of non-withdrawal of trade distorting domestic subsidies, the only 
mechanism to protect farmers incomes, livelihoods and lives is to bring 
back QR's.

Para 12 of the cotton initiative also talks of achieving enhanced 
efficiency and productivity for African Cotton producers through transfer 
of technology.  Commentators often associate the U.S market expansion in 
cotton to technology (GM seeds) instead of to subsidies. However, if the 
technology transferred using "Aid for trade" is  Monsanto's Bt Cotton, 
African cotton farmers crisis will deepen, and African farmers will go the 
way of India's cotton farmers. The transfer of technology should reduce 
costs of pesticides and seeds. This means going the organic way, thus 
increasing farmers incomes both by reducing imput costs and by increasing 
cotton prices for farmers. Organic farming in India has tripled farmers 
incomes.. The formation of the G110 needs to create alternatives to the 
farming and trade model being pushed by the Monsanto's and the Cargills. We 
need more South-South exchange to spread small farmer centred sustainable 
systems of production and fair and just systems of trade. And above all we 
need to be able to protect our farmers from dumping through bringing back 
QR's.

All Agricultural Products are Special Products

As a result of the failure of the Cancun Ministerial, developing countries 
raised the issue of designating certain products as "special products". 
Para 7 of the Hong Kong declaration states "we also note that there have 
been some recent movements on the designation and treatment of special 
products and elements of the special safeguard mechanism. Developing 
countries will have the flexibility to self-designate an appropriate number 
of tariff lines as special products guided by indicators based on the 
criteria of food security, livelihood security and rural development".

On these criteria, no product in agriculture is not "special". All 
agricultural products are special products because every farmer has a 
fundamental human right to life and the Government has a duty to protect 
every Indian lives. Flexibility of self  designation is meaningless if WTO 
restricts special products to a small percentage of the thousands of crops 
our farmers grow.

The diversity of crops that Indian farmers grow are not merely "tariff 
lines". They are the basis of farmers lives. They are our biological and 
cultural heritage. They are the source of livelihood of millions. From the 
pepper, cardamon and coconut in the gardens of Karnataka and Kerala, to the 
saffron and apples of Kashmir, from the rices of Orissa and Bengal, to the 
wheats of Punjab, Haryana and U.P, from the jowar and bajra of Rajasthan, 
to the Mandua and Jhangora of Uttaranchal, every farmer and every species 
is necessary for India's ecological and food security. Let the government 
face the farmers wrath in coming forth to say which crop is not special and 
hence which farmers can be sacrificed for WTO's distorted rules and MNC 
greed. Whatever crop farmers grow is a source of their livelihood. For 
livelihood security what they need is fair and just prices. When farmers 
earn a fair price for what they produce, rural development follows. When 
farmers earn a negative price due to costs of production being higher than 
prices earned, rural underdevelopment follows. The corporations grow, the 
farmers die.

Bring Back QR's

The agrarian crisis is a result of pro-corporate, anti farmers and 
non-sustainable model of production and an unjust model of trade. To 
correct these distortions we first need to recover our domestic policy 
space to protect our farmers and then rejuvenate the livelihoods of our 
farmers.  Bringing back QR's is the only secure mechanism to start building 
food sovereignty and food democracy to protect the livelihoods and lives of 
our rural community.

Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, the Chair of National Farmers Commission of India 
said at a speech at the National Science Congress on January 4, 2006 that 
India needs to bring back QR's in agriculture. Self-designation of special 
products and special safeguard measures will protect small farmers only 
when all products are declared special products, and safeguard measures are 
translated into bringing back border protections in the form of QR's. No 
crop, no farmer can be sacrificed any longer. WTO has already snatched the 
lives of thousands of farmers and livelihoods of millions. 2006 needs to be 
the year of turnaround in trade liberalization policies for agriculture. It 
needs to become the year of renewal of small farmers and sustainable 
farming.  This is the renewal Indian agriculture and farmers are waiting for.

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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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