Canadian dairy farmers have begun talking about food sovereignty.
Wikipedia says the term was coined in 1996 by a group of Third World farm and environmental organizations claiming the "right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems." I don't dispute the claim for modern origins of the terminology, but the notion that sovereignty and food go together is a lot older than 1996.
Food security and supply concerns have marked the history of civilization. What's surprising is that in the late 20th and early 21st century, the western world has carried on without talking much about this in public.
The Biblical story of Joseph, better known for the colours of his coat, describes food supply management practices in ancient Egypt through periods of famine and plenty. Plato and Aristotle in their basic texts on political organization, "The Republic" and "Politics" both recognized the essential importance the security of food supply is to a sovereign state.
Canadian dairy farmers have begun to raise the subject now in the context of international markets and talks about the future of farm policy at the World Trade Organization. There's a little irony in this.
Some observers will complain about relatively wealthy farmers operating within the protected environment of Canada's supply-managed dairy system lining up with the peasant farmers and aboriginals behind recent talk of food sovereignty. However, this alliance makes sense.
In fact, Canada's supply management system for poultry and dairy commodities was conceived in the 1960s to do precisely what the food sovereignty movement seeks to do. It is a good example of food policy designed to meet domestic requirements.
It may not be perfect policy. There are limits on participation and innovation. And there's a well-recognized problem associated with the capitalization of participation quotas.
Supply management has practical value, however, because the system operates in sympathy with market forces in such a way that consumers of the commodities under management pay the cost of production. There is very little requirement for government financial support and almost no exports to distort international trade.
As a result, supply management provides dietary essentials while providing the financial environment in which food producers can flourish. The system can also guarantee that those involved deliver a variety of social benefits - including high standards for food safety, distribution efficiency and environmental protection - in return for the right to participate.
It's a cartel, of course, which employs socialistic, central-planning techniques which are no longer in vogue. In the ideological atmosphere that surrounded negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and earlier phases of world trade talks, free market concepts ruled.
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More recently, the presidency of the younger George Bush, the credit crisis of sub-prime mortgages and the scandals of greed-driven business leaders have demonstrated how markets can fail to deliver, or can even destroy, social benefits. In the March edition of the Dairy Farmers' of Ontario magazine, The Milk Producer, editor Bill Dimmick quotes Quebec milk board chairman Marcel Groleau to say that 90 per cent of all food produced is consumed within its country of origin.
It's a striking statistic. If true, it means that the recent policy struggle to open markets internationally and boost competition, often at the expense of primary food producers, applies to a relatively small fraction of the world's food supply. It's a lot of effort for little impact or recognized benefit.
Third World farmers are interested in food sovereignty because the concept can help them compete with often subsidized imports by limiting access to their own domestic markets. The argument in favour of unrestrained trade predicts that Third World farmers will benefit from export sales of their products.
Dimmick's cover story cites research from the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy that suggests something quite different: that the chief beneficiaries of WTO initiatives have been the world's large commodity trading corporations.
Institute data shows a tripling of profits for the big three traders between 1993 and 2000. Archer Daniels Midland went from $110 million to $301 million; ConAgra from $143 million to $413 million. Cargill profits rose from $468 million in 1998 to $1.2 billion in 2002.
Contenders for the presidential nomination of the U.S. Democratic Party agree that the North American Free Trade Agreement needs renegotiating. Canadian officials have been predictably horrified.
Late last summer, more than 40 farm and social groups signed a declaration calling on Quebec and federal governments to make food sovereignty a basic element of farm and food policy. This may be an inevitable backlash to a period of unrestrained, free market dogmatism. It may also be part of the search for some sensible middle ground.Sun Times
