"Farmer Suicide in Cancun- Tragedy Linked Directly to World Trade Organization (WTO) Policies"
-No, the tragedy is linked to the way this guy chose to express himself.
"Subsidies Are Part of a Much Larger Problem"
-No kidding
"Cancun, Mexico-The tragic suicide of South Korean rice farmer Lee Kyung-hae to protest WTO policies that are destroying farmers around the world has highlighted for all of those in Cancun the multiple harms of World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules and processes, and the lack of information about them.
Mr. Lee, the 56-year-old president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation, had long argued that myriad WTO agriculture policies injured not only small farmers in South Korea, but farmers in every country and that the problem was not simply a matter of farm subsidies in the North (which go primarily to large, corporate-owned farms) or more market access for the southern countries, but that the WTO trade rules eliminated the ability of nations to have domestic food and farming policies that maintained livelihoods and food security."
-The last bit is just untrue. Nations clearly retain those abilities. If they don't want to be part of the WTO, they don't have to be. Also "food security" is a completely loaded term - loaded to the point of being deceptive. Ask the Ethiopians how secure their system of local farming is.
"Some of the specific WTO policies that dismantle national farm policies include the following:
Corporate Farm Subsidies: Today, the U.S. and European Union subsidize their agriculture to the combined tune of almost $1 billion a day; however, in the U.S. only around 8 percent of farms receive the vast majority (well over half) of U.S. farm subsidy payments which go mainly to huge agribusiness corporations. The real issue is that WTO trade policies (the WTO Agreement on Agriculture) allow for continuing subsidies of export crops, mainly controlled by large agribusiness corporations,"
-Right, we know that.
"and have made it WTO-illegal for nations to provide supports for their smaller farms that grow food for local populations."
-Right, we understand that the WTO allows Northern countries to oversubsidize. That's the premise of the discussion.
"Allowing northern countries to continue, and even increase, their subsidies for export crops mean that these commodities are dumped into other countries at artificially cheap prices, thus local farmers and rural communities cannot compete and are left destitute, and local populations go hungry."
-Right, nobody wants 1st world farm subsidies and now there is a consensus to that effect.
"Dumping: Selling products cheaper than the price of production (dumping)-is a direct result of WTO policies that allow an increase in export subsidies to richer countries. The U.S. is the primary practitioner of dumping. Over the past few years under WTO policies, levels of U.S. dumping were approximately 40 percent for wheat, 25-30 percent for corn, and nearly 30 percent for soybeans and rice. As a result millions of farmers and families in developing countries are the losers as artificially cheap food from industrial countries flood into their countries."
-Dumping is different from simply selling at a subsidized price. Dumping implies deliberately accepting a short-term economic loss to bankrupt a competitor. I'm not sure that American farmers can "dump" easily, given that they would create an arbitrage opportunity in the commodities markets.
"In Korea, self sufficient in rice production for centuries, imported rice has been wiping out Korean farmers and rural communities."
-What do Korean consumers owe Korean rice farmers if Indian rice farmers are willing to serve their needs at a better price? Who told Korean rural communities not to diversify their economic base? Did Korean consumers tell them not to do that?
"Minimum Market Access Requirements: To aid and abet the ability of northern countries to dump commodities in the South, the WTO's agriculture agreement requires poor nations to accept a minimum amount of imports of certain foods. For example, the Philippines is required to import rice-since the WTO, its rice imports have leaped tenfold. The result has been the displacement of thousands of farmers and their families."
-Minimum Market Access obviously has to be phased in, but unless the Philippines were required to increase their imports tenfold (which I doubt) it is clearly the Filipino consumer who is choosing cheaper imported rice.
"Elimination of Quantitative Restrictions (QRs) and Import Tariffs:
At the same time that the WTO allows industrial countries to maintain and increase subsidies for its exports, it has restricted or eliminated the rights of developing countries to have any domestic policies or rules to protect themselves from the highly subsidized, artificially cheap imports coming from industrialized nations (and their large corporate agribusinesses). Prior to the WTO, nations used Quantitative Restrictions (QRs)-placing a limit on the amount of a specific commodity allowed into their countries-to safeguard their farm economies and protect local food systems."
-Safeguarding WHOSE farm economies? Local peasants or local elites? If Japan, Korea, the U.S. and Europe are any model, the farm economies that are being protected are those of traditional landholding classes. "Local food systems" is just another nonsense term. It implies that if the "system" is disrupted, locals will not get any food. We know this is nonsense since what the writers are objecting to is TOO MUCH food coming into the local system.
"The WTO also requires nations to reduce import tariffs, or border taxes, on many agricultural commodities, thus eliminating another tool that has been used by nations for centuries to protect their local and national economies and infrastructures."
-At one time the words "for centuries" would have indicated to progressives that something was antiquated and almost certainly associated with feudalism and patriarchy. Why are we so charmed by these words now?
"The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) deplores the cruel corporate driven policies of the WTO that driven farmers off their lands all over the world and to desperation and suicide. We strongly advocate that nations be allowed to set domestic farm policies that encourage small farmers and rural communities to survive and that ensure food security on a local level and that do not force local populations to be dependent on food supplied from nations thousands of miles away. The IFG and many civil society movements insist that the WTO immediately reverse its current trade rules to allow for the following:"
-Come to the West. You will see that "small farmers" and "rural communities" are a bunch of subsidy-swilling, right-wing hypocrites who think of nobody but themselves. Farmers don't care a damn about "food security". They care about making a living. On the subject of actual, poor subsistence farmers - they need a better way of life, not just slightly less poor subsistence farming. Can we really think of nothing better for these many millions of people to do than to scratch at the earth with hoes and rakes?
"1) Permit the use of Quantitative Restrictions and Tariff Quotas:
Current rules do not allow national governments to fulfill their function to protect what deserves to be protected-livelihoods, jobs, natural resources, public health, and the well being of their citizens. Current agriculture rules favor export production for rich countries and the global corporations that gain from these rules.
Quantitative Restrictions and Tariff Quotas allow nations to regulate imports of foods that are produced locally. WTO rules must first support food production for local populations-this is the first principle of ensuring real food security."
-The logic behind quantitative restrictions is that the third world should have less access to cheap food. That is fundamentally idiotic.
"2) Disallow Subsidies for Food Crops Produced for Export: No country should be able to claim its right to violate food security of other nations by systematically destabilizing world markets through exports that are highly subsidized."
-This is the key. Subsidies for rich countries are an abomination and they have to go. Better to subsidize poor countries' transition from subsistence farming to real development. Subsidies for mature industries waste money and subsidies for development make money.
"3) Eliminate Export Subsidies and Payments for Corporations:
Exports subsidies for large corporations should be disallowed under the WTO. Instead programs that permit and encourage low interest loans to small farmers, creation of domestic seed banks, and emergency food supply systems (all currently being eliminated by WTO rules) should be allowed."
-Low interest loans for small farmers are intended to do what? To make them bigger farmers, obviously. Do the writers of the above want bigger farms or don't they?
By the way, if you are using seed banks at all it means you are growing hybrids. Non-hybrids self-seed. If you are using hybrids it means you are trying to use the most agriculturally effective hybrids, "domestic" or not, which is a good thing because we would all starve to death without them. Seed companies are not trying to destroy the world, okay? Seed companies are the least of these peoples' problems. Yes, seed companies will overcharge if they get a local monopoly. They've only been doing it since the 1800's.
"4) Best of All: Agriculture Should be Removed from the WTO."
-Fine if the overall effect would actually be to undermine 1st world agricultural subsidies. I don't care a damn for the WTO, but come up with a better organ for coordinating trade policy. If not the WTO, who is going to outlaw subsidies and how will that policy be enforced?