A BETTER AGRICULTURE IS POSSIBLE: LOCAL FOOD, GLOBAL SOLUTION
A REPORT FOR THE UN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION WORLD FOOD SUMMIT.
ROME, ITALY - JUNE 2002
BY COLIN HINES AND VANDANA SHIVA
A Discussion Paper Prepared by the International Forum on Globalization
&
Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology
INTRODUCTION
The United Nations (UN) Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Conference takes place in June 2002 in Rome and in August 2002 the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa. In both summits two paradigms will be presented. One based on industrial agriculture and globalization; the other is based on sustainable farming and localization.
The remit of the Food Summit in Rome is a noble one: "to alleviate poverty and hunger by supporting sustainable agricultural development." However countless such meetings have happened before, but they all tend to end up putting more trade in food at the heart of poverty alleviation. This report presents the alternatives that people are building worldwide. It calls for the replacement of economic globalization as the driving force in agricultural policy with a new emphasis of "localization."
Political leaders, especially in Europe, accept the concept of political subsidiarity - believing that most decisions should be made at the local level with only residual decision making then moving up to the next and more distant levels. Yet they are systematically dismantling economic subsidiarity without which political subsidiarity is empty. Economic subsidiarity, or localization, requires that the production of goods and services begin locally with only residual activities moving to regional, national, and global levels. Such an approach means that changes will need to be made in current trade rules which today support non sustainable agriculture, long distance transport, and have resulted in food insecurity and hunger. The proposed changes are set out in the appendices of this document. These changes emphasize protecting and rebuilding local economies, local trade, and sustainable producting as the route to tackle food insecurity and poverty.
At present there is a consensus amongst official bodies that agricultural exports have a crucial role in tackling poverty and that to maximize such a potential there needs to be a continued reduction in tariff barriers globally. This approach is shared by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and national governments' development and agricultural ministries. Many non governmental organizations (NGOs) have a similar emphasis on food exports, but tend to concentrate on calling for tariff reductions in the developed world.
Thus Oxfam calls for, "complete market access to rich country markets for low income countries." The organization asserts that "when rich countries lock poor people out of their markets, they close the door to an escape route from poverty." As a result,
Oxfam has launched a campaign to "unleash the potential of trade to reduce poverty." The statistic used to back this up is the oft quoted claim that northern barriers cost developing countries "$100 billion a year - twice as much as they receive in aid."1
Yet Chrisitan Aid, using official UN statistics has estimated that more open markets among rich nations would only be worth about £1.5 billion annually to the world's 49 least developed countries, 23 of which are in Africa.2
The exclusive focus on access to northern markets is a way of distracting attention away from the real poverty causing mechanisms such as: the dumping of subsidized commodities; the diversion of scarce land and water for export crops; the creation of monopolies through patents and genetic engineering. The new U.S. Farm Bill, which has increased subsidies to agribusiness and large-scale industrial farming up to $20 billion per year, threatens to increase poverty and hunger in the Third World while also threatening the survival of small farmers in the U.S. The U.S. Farm bill increases the distortions of trade to favor non sustainable industrial agriculture and undermines sustainable, local food systems.
This report presents an alternative. A Better Agriculture is Possible when the earth's natural capital is protected, the livelihood of farmers in rural communities is protected, and safe, healthy, and affordable food is available to all people.
This report recommends that we place priority on local production and local trade, and the protective measures needed to allow them to flourish. In short, a move away from more market reliance toward food sovereignty based on sustainable localization.
There is of course the need for rules based trade in goods between countries seeking materials they cannot themselves grow or produce, and those that can supply them. Such trade must have as an end goal the necessity to contribute to the protection and rebuilding of local, national and regional economies and so contribute to improving the conditions of the poor. It should be covered by the rules of "fair trade," not the WTO's deification of international competitiveness. To minimize contributions to climate change residual long distance trade should take place with the minimum of "food miles" between producer and consumer, or what movements have called "short food chains."
Finally to ensure a secure income for exporting farmers, "fair trade miles" must be linked to a guaranteed quantity of goods to be purchased by each buying country, within a guaranteed range of prices. This would allow the exporting nations to have as stable a level of earnings as is feasible with which to contribute to the overriding goal of re-diversifying local production
This report uses India, the largest democracy in the world (with one in four of the world's farmers), and Europe as examples of what is going wrong with today's trade-oriented food and agricultural policies. It then details what radical changes are needed both within these areas and internationally to improve food security worldwide.
The debate surrounding food security and agricultural policy tends to be more radical in India than in Europe. The high percentage of the population threatened by the effects of globalization on India's food supplies and prices is one explanation. There, academics, farmers and other activists has been calling for the re-introduction of import controls, thus challenging the very lynchpin of the globalization process, which depends upon ever lower trade barriers.
In Europe and the U.S. the discussion of changes in agricultural policy has tended to be piecemeal, with even proponents of an eventual wholesale switch to more sustainable organic farming rarely challenging the basic tenets of globalization. However, the potential for a much more radical debate to quickly develop is inherent in the fundamental shake up of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy being envisaged, particularly to allow for the eastward enlargement of the European Union.
Finally, the report considers what kind of sustainable fair trade rules should govern the residual food trade in surpluses between the North and South, such that food security internationally is fostered. The comprehensive changes to the WTO trade rules and the European Union's Treaty of Rome needed to replace globalization with localization are detailed in the Appendices.
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Export drive is sending poor on wrong route
Colin Hines
Guardian June 10th 2002
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) World Food Summit takes place this week in Rome with an agenda to increase global trade in food. This will be backed up with ceaseless assurances that this is the route to hunger and poverty alleviation. Many Non Governmental Organisations (NGO's) have a similar emphasis on third world food exports, but tend to concentrate on calling for a 'one sided protectionism' of tariff reductions in the developed world, but their retention in developing countries to allow them to protect themselves.
Thus Oxfam calls for: 'complete market access to rich country markets for low income countries' and has dashingly launched a campaign to 'unleash the potential of trade to reduce poverty'.
The statistic used to back this up is the oft quoted claim that Northern barriers cost developing countries '$100bn a year- twice as much as they receive in aid'. Yet such mammoth figures assume a best case scenario of all developing countries having the investment and infrastructure ready to leap upon any trade opportunities that hove into view. Christian Aid on the other hand has looked at what potential there would be for the 49 poorest countries if they had to ply their trade in open markets, given the domestic situation they have now. Their figure by contrast is £1.5 billion. If that were shared out, it would come to around the less than princely sum of £30 million each country.
In return for this, developing countries would experience the serious downsides of export dependence. In our report 'Another Agriculture is Possible' we have catalogued these for India, the largest democracy in the world with one in four of the world's farmers.
Since India was forced by a WTO ruling to accelerate the opening of its markets, food imports have quadrupled. It has been flooded with cheap subsidised imports not just from rich countries like the US, but also from Asian competitors such as Malaysia and
Thailand. Prices and rural incomes have plummeted with the price paid for coconuts falling 80%, coffee 60% and pepper 45%. The most dramatic effect has been on edible oil. India's domestic production has been effectively wiped out due to lack of adequate import controls. Highly subsidised soya from the US and palm oil from Malaysia have flooded the market. Imports now account for 70% of the domestic consumption of edible oil.
The dash for exports is also threatening rural livelihoods.
Andhra Pradesh in Southern India is making exports a priority using World Bank money and £65 million in UK aid finance this year. The plan proposes to consolidate small farms and rapidly increase mechanisation and modernisation. The expected result is to reduce the number of people on the land from 70% to 40% by 2020, ie around 20 million people will have to leave the countryside over the next 20 years.
Not surprisingly widespread opposition to these events is burgeoning. Indian farmers organisations, trades unionists and activists have joined with academics and two former Prime Ministers to call for the reintroduction of import controls, thus challenging the very lynchpin of the globalisation process-ever lower trade barriers. Third world activists as a whole are agreed that the other key priority must be to take agriculture out of the WTO.
So what new direction should the FAO take this week to finally begin to tackle global poverty and hunger. In essence it should embrace the concept of 'local food, global solution'. There is of course the need for rules based trade in goods between countries seeking materials they cannot themselves grow or produce, and those that can supply them. Such trade must have as an end goal the necessity to contribute to the protection and rebuilding of local, national and regional economies and so contribute to improving the conditions of the poor. Such trade should be covered by the rules of 'fair trade' not the WTO's deification of international competitiveness. To minimise contributions to climate change residual long distance trade should take place with the minimum of 'food miles' between producer and consumer.
Finally to ensure a secure income for exporting farmers from what we have called 'Fair Trade Miles' they must be linked to a guaranteed quantity of goods to be purchased by each buying country, within a guaranteed range of prices. This would allow the exporting nations to have as stable a level of earnings as is feasible with which to contribute to the overriding goal of re-diversifying local production. In short a move from more market reliance to more self reliance
(757 words)
Colin Hines and Vandana Shiva co authors of 'A Better Agriculture is Possible: Local Food, Global Solutions'
Colin Hines is the UK author of the book 'Localization- a global manifesto'. Vandana Shiva, an Indian pro-localist, anti-globalisation activist and academic, who was recently named by 'Asia Week' as the fifth most powerful person in Asia.
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