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W O R K S H O P O N S U S T A I N A B L E

A G R I C U L T U R E A N D F O O D S E C U R I T Y

D E V E L O P I N G A R E G I O N A L P E O P L E ' S A G E N D A F O R T H E U N W S S D

P R O C E E D I N G S

A workshop organized by the Integrated Rural Development Foundation of the Philippines [IRDF], in coordination with PAN Indonesia, Community IPM, FIELD, FSPI, CINDELARAS and

Bina Desa. The workshop was held on the occasion of the Fourth Preparatory Meeting of the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Bali, Indonesia, June 1-2, 2002.

G r a n d Hyatt, Bali, Indonesia June 1 & 2, 200

W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i a

W O R K S H O P O N S U S T A I N A B L E

A G R I C U L T U R E A N D F O O D S E C U R I T Y

D E V E L O P I N G A R E G I O N A L P E O P L E ' S A G E N D A F O R T H E U N W S S D

I N T R O D U C T I O N

All roads now lead to Johannesburg. After the Doha WTO Ministerial Meeting, where civil society's voice was forcefully drowned using the post-September 11 security scare as well as the tight mechanics imposed by the WTO secretariat itself to NGO representation, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002 offers civil society an opportunity to regain the momentum of its challenge to global issues that have continued to breed food insecurity, poverty and underdevelopment of nations. The WSSD is tasked by the UN General Assembly to review progress in the implementation of the agenda drawn up in the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The review is a global inter-governmental process that involves three official preparatory meetings as well as convening of independent regional roundtables of leaders from the private sector. The avowed intention is to draw up the main issues for the Summit from the preparatory meetings and thus encourage the participation of all segments of society and regions of the world. Official assessments by national governments including their mandated councils for sustainable development as well as by inter-governmental bodies at the regional level have already begun. However, the gap in terms of drawing up a broader perspective in the review process taking into account the varied viewpoints of civil society groups, sectoral organizations, peoples organizations and the social movements based on their practical experience still exist. Considering that these groups have campaigned strongly on global and national issues that have affected the lives and livelihoods of peoples around the world, there is a great need to have their voices included in the review process. While the WSSD indeed is an inter-governmental process, the success of the summit would be determined largely by how it is able to reflect fully the realities and emerging challenges in an era where globalization has increasingly undermined the goals of sustainable development. The challenge of charting new visions and strengthening commitments and partnerships at the end of this summit may well be achieved if governments and the international institutions would listen more to their people and constituents. Civil society must be empowered to influence and maybe co-direct these processes. Globalization And The Threat To Agriculture, Food Security And The EnvironmentA major concern in the review is the "land and agriculture" cluster of the Agenda 21, which embodies the goals of sustainable agriculture and rural development. The importance of this cluster is highlighted by the fact that agriculture remains to be the pillar of most developing economies. The agriculture sector represents a large share of these countries' Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs more than half of their labor force. More basically, agriculture in developing countries supplies the bulk of their staple food and provides

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subsistence and income for large rural populations. Finally, agriculture uses one third of the world's land surface and hence agricultural practices have a telling impact on the state of the world's natural resources and biodiversity. The rapid increases in global trade and investments in the past decade made possible by the integration of national economies into the international market under the economic governance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international financial institutions such as the IMF and WB, have had profound impacts on agriculture's capacity to create livelihood and employment for millions of poor people, produce food sufficiently at the global level and regenerate and conserve important ecosystems. Trade liberalization and global economic expansion are seen to have seriously undermined the sustainability of agriculture as the intertwined problems of food insecurity, poverty and land degradation have persisted and even intensified in the last decade.Under the GATT-WTO Agreement on Agriculture signed by more than a hundred nations in 1994, the agriculture and rural economies of developing countries were increasingly subjected to international rules that aim to eliminate "trade barriers," accelerate trade liberalization and thus achieve a “fairer” and market-oriented agricultural trading system. Stripped of these rhetorics, however, the AOA is nothing but a set of lopsided trading rules and disciplines aimed at opening markets for surplus agricultural products from the more developed and advanced economies of the world. It allows the developed world to maintain high levels of subsidies for its agriculture while preventing the developing world to establish its own effective program of support to agriculture and its small farmers. Through manipulations of the trade agreements and other unfair trade practices by developed countries such as the unnecessary imposition of strict health and safety regulations, WTO, in effect, only succeeded in increasing market access for heavily subsidized products of these countries while restricted access to markets of exports from developing countries.The AOA implementation experience of many developing countries in the past seven years showed that the projected benefits in terms of increased agricultural export earnings, improved agricultural growth and increased employment rates did not materialize. Instead, many developing countries have experienced surge in imports while their agricultural exports lagged behind transforming them in a short period of time from agricultural exporters to net food importers. The balance of payments situation of their economies evidently has worsened. The capacity of their agriculture and leading crop sectors to ensure food security, generate employment and reduce poverty has been seriously eroded by the influx of cheap and heavily subsidized imports that eroded the competitiveness of domestic crops. Far from being curbed, the practice of dumping of heavily subsidized products from the North has actually been legitimized. The unhampered flow of trade in agriculture in developing countries, far from alleviating poverty, pushed the poor subsistence peasants deeper into bankruptcy and penury. There has, in fact, been a general trend towards the concentration of farms, as lands were mortgaged, sold back or grabbed by landlords and agribusiness companies. The WTO's trade rules in effect have contributed to the rapid growth of transnational corporations (TNCs) whose operations and control of the global food system have expanded over the last ten years. This resulted to the increasing economic and political clout of TNCs at the global level underminining national governments' mandates to chart their own agricultural development based on national priorities and needs. The Asia-Pacific ContextMost countries in the Asia-Pacific followed the path of agricultural liberalization espoused by the WTO. East Asia and Pacific is actually one of the regions where the pace of market integration has been fastest. These countries readily opened up their markets to agricultural imports, tariffied all remaining quantitative import restrictions and offered significant reductions in their tariff rates. Among ASEAN countries, members bound themselves to reduce tariffs for inter-ASEAN trade down to 0%-5% by the year 2003 under the Common



Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT). Many have allowed the importation of previously banned food items including basic food stuff such as rice and corn, milk, and oil at volumes more than the minimum access opportunity stipulated in the WTO. They have also reduced or withdrawn their subsidies to agriculture as they’re not allowed within the WTO-AOA to further increase their subsidies, which have not even met the minimum of 10% of the total value of their agricultural production. While reducing their support to uncompetitive crops that are mainly their staple food crops, these countries poured incentives to the expansion of export crop or high value crop production, further intensifying land degradation and land concentration. Land and natural resources once devoted to basic food crops have been converted giving way to agribusiness plantations or industrial and commercial zones. Local agricultural producers have been forced to bankruptcy by the intense competition from cheaper imports that flooded the market. The case of the rice and corn farmers in the Philippines, the dairy and coconut farmers in India are but a few examples of those victimized by the onslaught of globalization in agriculture. As a result of increased trade liberalization, agriculture of many Asian countries actually stagnated. The rosy predictions of increased export revenues did not materialize. Instead, they saw their export crop sector declining as world commodity prices continue to plummet down. The share of agriculture's GDP in many Asian countries fell from 32% in 1980 to 24% in the 1990's. As this decline had not been translated into increases in industry and manufacturing shares, such trend has led to worsening food insecurity, unemployment and poverty in the rural areas. Trade liberalization and global market integration have likewise contributed to increased exploitation of the region's natural resources and the depletion of its biodiversity. Studies show that $10 billion are lost yearly due to land degradation in seven countries in South Asia. In the past 30 years, East Asia has lost 50% of its forest cover along with countless unique animal and plant species. Overfishing and the destruction of mangroves and marine ecosystems in East Asia and the Pacific have caused the rapid depletion of fish stock that has resulted in increasing poverty for artisan fishers and coastal communities and has increasingly compromised the recovery of such fish stocks. The disastrous impact of globalization on economies and agriculture in the region has never been more pronounced than in the financial collapse of Asia in 1997 and recently in the economic slowdown after Sept. 11. Those that are highly integrated in the world market contracted rapidly as in the case of the East Asian "tigers." The vulnerability of these economies to the ups and downs of the international market does not augur well with the achievement of a broad-based, balanced, equitable and sustainable development that would solve the persistent problem of poverty and hunger among millions of peasants, agricultural workers, artisanal fishers, rural women and indigenous peoples in the region.Hence, trade liberalization and globalization as they impact on agriculture and food security need to be addressed in the on-going debate and assessment of the sustainable development agenda for the Johannesburg Summit. The obstacles and challenges faced by the region in achieving food sovereignty, food security and sustainable development of its agriculture must be articulated in the process. The Asia-Pacific Workshop on Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture The Rio+10 preparatory meeting in Indonesia is considered as an opportunity by civil society organizations to step up their advocacy for food security, food sovereignty, sustainable livelihoods and ecological sustainability. Thus, a number of Asian organizations led by IRDF, CINDELARAS, FSPI and Bina Desa decided to organize a workshop whereby various participating groups and organizations particularly in the Fourth Preparatory Summit can come together and discuss key concerns and proposals of actions to strengthen the people’s positions and advocacy for food security and sustainable agriculture. Besides tackling the



advocacy positions of participating organizations, the workshop aims to provide the global context of the problems confronting the agriculture sector in the region (hunger, poverty and land degradation), identify key policy issues, priorities and follow-up actions at the regional and global level. The conference hopes to provide an important input to the Agenda 21 review process, by culling out the main constraints to the achievement of sustainable development objectives in the land and agriculture cluster and providing realistic and practical solutions from the perspectives and insights of social movements, farmer organizations, women's movements, NGOs and civil society groups.



Welcome RemarksBy Syaiful Buhari (Bina Desa, Indonesia)

(Partial translation from Bahasa.)

Good afternoon. We are sorry that you all had to work under pressure. There should be 200 to 300 farmers attending this meeting today. But because of problems we are having, many were not able to proceed to this gathering. This morning, two of those who are coming here were put under arrest. What make things worse is that the security is getting tighter for this group to participate.

Opening RemarksJayson Cainglet (IRDF, Philippines)

After the 2nd and 3rd Prep Com in Europe some organizations in the Asia Pacific felt that there was very little progress or discussions in the issues of sustainable agriculture and food security. In today’s 4th Prep Com of the UN WSSD, some of us are frustrated and have shown disgust in the way things are happening. Some of us also see that there is still that huge gap between the UN WSSD and the demands, position and issues of small peasants, small fisherfolks, indigenous people and rural communities. Within this process we from the Asia Pacific region should try to get together, analyze the situation and come up with a unified understanding of the issues in the Asia Pacific, and hopefully list down demands and come up with a plan of action with regards sustainable agriculture and food security.Sometime in March, we from the IRDF started to contact our colleagues here in Indonesia and see how we can achieve and work for an agenda of the rural people in the Asia Pacific . We are having this workshop entitled “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security – Developing a Regional People’s Agenda for the UN WSSD” maybe not just for Johannesburg but beyond. This is a two-half day workshop. By the end of the Panel discussions and Plenary, we hope to come up with a plan of action for Johannesburg and beyond.

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F o o d S e c u r i t y a n d S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e

There are three speakers for Panel 1, namely: Francisco Pascual who is a member of the International Coordinating Committee of the International South Group Network (ISGN), Bernward Geier who is Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM), and Francis Wahono who is the director of the Cindelaras Institute for Rural Empowerment and Global Studies (CINDELARAS) based in Indonesia. The panel is chaired by Arze Glipo, executive director of the Integrated Rural Development Foundation of the Philippines (IRDF).

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Globalization and the Crisis of Agriculture in the South

By Francisco G. PascualInternational South Group Network (ISGN)

Ten years after Rio what have we achieved?1. If we ask ourselves the question “Where do we stand 10 years after Rio?” “How far have

we progressed towards sustainable development?” Most probably many if not most of us would answer “insignificant progress.” There are those who would assert that we are worse off today than 10 years ago. Such assessment of the impact of Rio are not exaggerated, they do reflect accurately the present reality.

2. From a South perspective, we cannot talk of development much less a “sustainable” one. What we have is a crisis of the economy and the environment that has gone far worse. Consider for example a few indicators of this.

3. Even if we grant the UN’s narrow concept of development, poverty alleviation has not progressed significantly. Despite gains in a few countries, there is no progress or even an exacerbation of poverty in the overwhelming number of underdeveloped countries. 800 of million of the world’s poor are in the Asia-Pacific region. This is two-thirds of the world’s poor. (FAO)

4. And the prospects are not bright either that the target of halving the number of the world’s poor by 2015, that is still 12 years from now, is going to be achieved. Even before their economies have recovered from the Asian economic crisis in the late nineties, the countries of the region are again reeling under the impact of the world economic down turn. The current economic slow down will result in the displacement of more people and increase the world’s poor by tens of millions. (WB)

5. As for the environment, even those who praised the Rio Summit now concede that the Rio documents have remained as such - empty commitments that were not even worth the paper they were written on. The key indicators of environmental degradation – CO2 emissions, deforestation etc point to a worsening of the environmental crisis.

6. In agriculture, “the green revolution intensification process was accompanied by the degradation of land, water, biodiversity and other environmental features.” (FAO – Regional conference for Asia 2002). And so on.

Globalization and the Environmental Crisis1. Meantime the very same forces responsible for much of the destruction of the

environment have been made freer. Globalization, which in reality is the further incursion of transnational capital into the economies of the South, has gone at a faster rate since Rio. Two yeas after Rio the Uruguay round of the GATT was concluded, the WTO established. This new development further consolidated the rule of the corporate capital over the world economy and raised what has hitherto been bi-lateral arrangements under the IMF/WB structural adjustment program to the level of international law.

2. Giant transnational corporations are grabbing every aspect of the economy. From industry to agriculture to services. Beyond that nature is commodified in the search for bigger and bigger profits. Genetic engineering is the cutting edge of the corporate race for profitability. The anarchy and recklessness of tinkering with genetic materials even as the ecological impact of GMO has not been properly evaluated puts the world at risk. The monopolization of the world’s genetic resources through the TRIPS has become a distinct objective of transnational capital.

3. The faster pace of capitalist globalization and the deterioration of the environment make one thing clear. There is a fundamental relation between the environment/nature

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and the structure of the economy. To be more concrete, globalization has deepened the crises of the economies of the South and exacerbated the crisis of the environment.

Globalization and the Crisis of Agriculture of the South. 1. Agriculture in the countries has been in a perennial crisis since the days of colonialism.

It has stagnated fixed into a low level of development except for the section that has been taken over by transnational corporations where “modern” agriculture is employed. The situation prevails today.

2. Since the days of colonialism, agriculture has played two big roles in the economies of the South countries – domestic food production and production for exports to earn the foreign exchange necessary for the importation of industrial goods. This is still true today in spite of the fact that there have evolve other sources of foreign exchange such as labor export. This is the primary driving force for the policy of export-oriented agriculture. The important point to remember is that this twin policies may come at cross purposes with each other or with the objective of sustainable development.

3. In the mid-eighties the prices of agriculture commodities from the South collapse and has not recovered since then due to a glut fundamentally rooted in the fact that colonialism and neo-colonialism assigned the South agricultural economies to the production of a short list of products which all these countries were all growing at the same time. The continuing deterioration of prices of agricultural exports in the South impacts on the foreign exchange earnings of these countries which is compensated by increasing exports with dire impact on both the livelihood of poor peasants and the environment. Examples of this are many – logs, minerals, prawns etc.

4. In 1994, and for the first time since the GATT, the Uruguay round included Agriculture and subjected it to the same discipline that up to that time was applicable only to industry. Already in crisis, the AoA is even a worse disaster for Agriculture in the developing countries. The AoA favors the big transnational corporations but works against the small peasants of the South through the so-called rule based trading system – the tarrification of quantitative restrictions and the elimination of subsidies. Every one of us know that the US and the EU cheated on the level of tarrification and also circumvented if not openly violate the provisions on subsidies. But this is not only what is wrong with the AoA. More fundamentally the AoA exposes the peasants of the South to grossly unequal (and unfair) “competition” from huge transnational corporations. At the level of the national economy, it makes the crisis of agriculture worse.

5. Agriculture in the industrial economies is a world apart from agriculture in the South. In the former, agriculture is part of industry, large in scale, highly mechanized, and utilizes the most advance technologies. In the south, agriculture is barely out of the subsistence level, commodity production permeates the whole economy, the technical core of agricultural production is primitive, and moreover consist of small parcels of farm land. We are familiar with this gross disparity but just to demonstrate this let us look at the farm size. The average farm size in the US is over 300 hectares, in Australia – 3000, in the South East Asian countries 2 hectares except Thailand which is 27. Compare the capitalist farmer in Australia for example with the Philippines peasant. The former uses helicopters to herd their cattle. The latter manually feeds one or two steers for 3 months before selling it to the trader.

6. Moreover, the peasant is subjected to primitive forms of exploitation – land rent, usury and merchant abuse through control of the market which saps whatever meager margins they make out of agriculture leaving the peasant perennially in debt not to mention of having something left for developing his farm.

7. The disparities in the conditions of production results in the first instance, to disparities in productivity as well as cost of production. In corn for example, productivity in many

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developing countries is only a third of that in the industrial countries. It is cheaper to transport cheaper corn from the corn belt in the US to Manila than to transport it

8. The obvious fact is that the so-called playing field in the economy but especially in agriculture is a myth, which exists only in the minds of the apologist of neo-liberal economic doctrine. It is perpetrated by the very same monopolies, together with the trading classes who benefit from it.

9. Eight years after the conclusion of the Uruguay round, the impact is clear. Agricultural products of peasants are being displaced from while imports flood the domestic markets. The FAO admits that the trade deficit in agriculture of the developing countries have grown to 10 percent since the conclusion of the Uruguay round.

10. Peasant bankruptcy and displacement from the lands is the ultimate result. 11. The current trading regime is a further consolidation of the export-oriented agriculture

which imperialism imposed on the economies of the South a century ago. This certainly deepens the impact of export-oriented agriculture by bringing these not only to the traditional export crops but also to crops that are traditionally grown for the domestic market.

12. First it will intensify the concentration and re-concentration of land as agribusiness, the traditional landlords and transnational corporation bring more land under their control to satisfy the demands for exports. It is important to remember that the most important impetus for the clearing of land and deforestation and the concentration of it into vast landholdings by the landowning classes is export agriculture.

13. Second, it will also intensify the primitive forms of exploitation – such as usury and other forms that are attendant to the trading of peasant products in the international markets.

14. Finally, increases the pressure on the environment. It encourages agribusiness and together with it chemical base agricultural production. Export agriculture carries with it a farming system that is destructive of the environment.

Food security 1. At the level of the national economy food security is one of those desirable objectives

that are undermined by the present trading regimes. The increasing dependence of countries of the south on food imports is an immediate impact of the WTO.

2. Of course we are aware that the apologist of neo-liberalism has defined food security as the capacity to buy what a country cannot produce with the so-called comparative advantage thrown also into the justification. This is a case of juggling with words to create an illusion or conjure a false reality. Or labeling an opposite with the name of the real thing.

3. But peasants and other marginalized peoples know better when their livelihoods, and their capacity to produce their own food is undermined by the ravages of free trade. Or when the multinational corporations take over their land to expand exports.

Framework for advocacy 1. Reject the de-linking of the economy from the issue of the environment as it is being

done. The trading regime impacts on both the livelihood of peasants, which form a majority of the working people of the South as well as the environment. The agenda of “sustainable development” must not leave out “free trade” (external trading regime) and the necessary internal reforms such as a genuine agrarian reform. A trading regime that leaves peasants to the mercy of international capital exacerbates the un-sustainability of agriculture. Internal reforms such as land reform are crucial to building sustainable farming systems.

2. Expose the responsibility of corporations in the destruction of the environment. Corporate greed for profit is at the bottom of the crisis of the environment. The WSSD

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agenda as it is being formulated in the prep-coms not only overlooks the crucial links between the economy and sustainable development. It also attempts to institutionalize the bullying of transnational corporations and their governments by recognizing as “legitimate” stakeholders of the environment even as they are the biggest despoilers of it.

3. The call for legally binding rules is not likely to succeed though it can serve to expose the irresponsibility and the attempt by corporation to “green wash” their own responsibility. For the corporations abiding by the “voluntary commitments to sustainable development will be decided by profits not the peoples’ welfare. Let us not fool ourselves by believing and hoping that sharks can be conscientised.

4. Political mobilization and direct peoples action is necessary to build political strength, political pressure and do away with the farce that the WSSD process in its present form represents the crystallization of the interest of our people and preserve the environment. Empowerment of the people is crucial.

Just a note the war on terror and the threat of a nuclear war: The American policy of “nuclear first strike” and the use of nuclear weapons where conventional weapons do not suffice has broad implications that includes the environment.

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Prospects of Organic Agriculture Under Agenda 21Bernward Geier

International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)

(transcription)

1. I am by training an agronomist, I have been a farmer in a dairy farm for five years, so I do know practical things about farming and I still have my little farm and a bigger farm. The IFOAM office is in an organic farm and I’m proud that my family we grow the majority of the food we eat on the spot.

2. I would like to tell you first about my organization, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM) We are 30 years now. IFOAM network unites 750 member organizations and institutions in 140 countries all over the world from Albania to Zimbabwe. The rapid movement in the South, for me, is a big sign of hope. We do a lot of activities. We organize world congresses. The last one brought more than 2,000 people from a hundred countries. We publish a magazine Ecological Farming that goes into more than a hundred countries worldwide. If you want to learn more about us, we have a web page ifoam.org that contains a lot of information that can be of use to you.

3. Organic agriculture is nothing new, actually organic farming started in the 1920’s and it was not a movement against chemicals because in the 20s nobody uses pesticides and chemical fertilizers but they have realized that agriculture is shifting into a wrong direction. And when we discuss organic agriculture we must keep in mind that it is not a no-no way of agriculture, no chemicals no fertilizers, it has much more to offer and this is what I want to share with you.

4. Now, I have a couple of problems. One problem is, I have a very big problem with sustainability. What is it? If I hear rhetoric over there, I got some strange feeling. I have been in Rio 10 years ago. And I think it was the moment when the terminology of sustainability was hijacked. It was hijacked by politicians who ever since give no speech without reference to sustainability without telling us what they mean. It was hijacked by the industry, by big chemical companies. If you read today’s advertisement, the headline speaks about sustainable agriculture and when you start reading the text, you see that it promotes pesticides. We should not allow that the term sustainability to be hijacked and I see in this room that we all understand what sustainability is. And it makes me proud in a way that the first international congress that IFOAM organized, in 1977, the title was “Towards Sustainable Agriculture.” Nobody in the political arena and certainly not the chemical companies had any thought of sustainability back in the 70s. So now we rightly claim that organic agriculture is sustainability put into practice. Why do we make the claim? The sustainability indicates to us practical recommendations. Organic agriculture is real. Organic agriculture is practiced by millions and millions of farmers all over the world. In Italy, there are 55,000 certified organic farmers. The world market for certified organic products has reached a 25 billion US dollars market value this year. There is an enormous demand for organic food in the North and in the South. You find organic shops in Dili, in Cairo, you find it in many places around the world. In a matter of fact, Germany has to import 50% of the organic food consumed. England has to import 70% of organic food. So the people are much faster in asking for good quality-high quality food than we can convert a number of farms.

5. So I hope we can solve the problem of getting meaning to sustainability if we can underwrite, we can support the reality of organic farming as it is defined. We have organic standards since 25 years and everybody can read what we mean by sustainable agriculture. And we have our position, for instance on GMOs. If we talk to the industry how do they understand sustainable agriculture they make reference to Agenda 21 Chapter 14 and they see IPM on it. (They will say,) “We practice IPM” as



chemical companies but they include biotechnology and they call it genetically manipulated organisms.

6. The second problem I have is actually the title of my speech. I always try to deliver what I am expected to deliver when I am invited to speak. Now, I should give you prospects of organic agriculture under Agenda 21. I always like to ask who really read Agenda 21, who has read the 350 pages, I have not. But I have read Chapter 14 and looked into other chapters as well.

7. If we look at Chapter 14 in Agenda 21, we have a hard time finding organic agriculture. There’s a lot of IPM in it because this was the state of the art in the 90s. This is how far FAO and others could think. There is however one little sentence on organic agriculture here and it calls for international collaboration and network to coordinate organic farming, which is a stupid sentence because at this time it was already 23 years the organic movement organized in IFOAM. So they call for something that is already in existence for 20 years. So I can end my speech here and say sorry that is all I can share to you. This is the prospect of organic agriculture under Agenda 21.

8. But luckily, things have changed and I must tell you things have changed radically in the last three or four years. Out of Rio, we negotiated with FAO to get our work together and we got extremely frustrated. Extremely frustrated because we haven’t signed a memorandum of understanding of cooperation and nothing has happened. We went to Rome, nothing happened. And only three years ago, we were invited to give a workshop in FAO and it was the first time an NGO was invited to organize its own workshop in FAO and not just invited to a workshop. And they thought maybe 15 people will show up and FAO was quite surprised when 65 people showed up and stayed two days with us. And this result into a working group of FAO in organic agriculture, and it result into an action blend that was developed in its five year program which was approved by FAO. So we have a solid ground now to work with FAO and there’s a lot that can be done now, not in Agenda 21 but in the reality now. We have actually opened the first liaison office for IFOAM in the world which opened in January in Rome because there’s so much work we can do with FAO, and we have to do it. Now FAO comes here to the summit with a very interesting initiative, the SARD initiative. It’s the type 2 activity of partnership. We have to be careful with partnership, we know this. This is a chance and we should get involve and I appeal already for the support from the grassroots. Let’s make this Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development initiative our initiative because I think it’s within our movement, as wide as we are here, that we can bring the real meaning to sustainability, and to make clear, for example, that GMO has no place in such initiative.

9. I have a half an hour meeting with the Director General of the United Nations Environmental Programme. We have a very good entry and we discuss cooperations with UNEP, I think this is another possible partner. I don’t expect much from the big UN family, see what is happening here. This is not really a perfect ground, but this structure of FAO we can work very well, and certainly UNEP and United Nations Committee on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The three bodies of United Nations that we can do a lot and which have a common understanding, increasingly, about sustainable agriculture more towards what organic farming and other initiatives represents.

10. Now, when it comes to food security, I would like to highlight the 800 million figure of starving and hungry and dying people. But we also should not forget that this 800 million hungry people figure has on its other side about the same size/figure of people being over nourished, over fed and just simply too fat. And this has something to do with each other because this is related to consumption pattern. If we discuss now how we can achieve food security, we have to start tackling the consumption pattern. Because we can not feed the world on the same consumption level of the United States, or in Germany. I’m saying this, I’m not a vegetarian, my three daughters are vegatarian I’m not. But I certainly make sure that I am not competing with the meat consumption with grain-fed animals.



11. I could start having a critique on the system but the first speaker has given you so much and I’m in favor of not wasting your precious time to discuss or share on chemical agriculture, we know it. Why should we describe the catastrophe that is so obvious. We should spend our time to work together and share our solution potential and learn from each other on how we can solve the problem. We know enough of the bad already we know the number of people killed by pesticides. We know all the negative impacts of commercial and, especially, industrial farming has. So let’s focus on the solution.

12. But I do would like to pick-up one element that seems to be the burning element at this moment which is genetic engineering. With pesticides, we discuss how long does it take pesticides to break down, disappear and go away. With genetic engineering, we have a new level of risk because we only discuss how fast does it spread out. And if it spread out, if it is released, we never can call it back. And this is a new quality of risk. It is a risk level higher than atomic power plant. Genetic engineering with its capacity to spread out and cross-pollinate has a global impact. So its not a question whether there can be a coexistence of genetic engineering, which FAO still promotes, and the organic movement or the sustainable agriculture as we understand. There is no coexistence. And because of this, it is not enough that organic movements say no to genetic engineering in organic standards and in organic production. We made a declaration in our congress in 1998 and we are clear to say no to GMO in agriculture and in food production.

13. Organic agriculture contribute a lot to food security, I just want to highlight a few points:a) It can increase yield especially in low-input area especially in developing countries

where you have the traditional farming which is not high yielding. You can do a lot to improve this ecological measures, you have to improve the yield.

b) We do a lot to conserve biodiversity and nature resources on the farm and in the surrounding area.

c) Organic farming, especially if you tap the markets or the export markets, is value adding. Its not premium price, we should not talk about premium price or organic price, it is an opportunity to have a fair price. The price the farmer needs to produce. Especially if we combine organic farming with the fair trade movement, we have a lot to offer in this combination.

d) It’s reducing cost because it’s not relying on expensive chemical inputs which often farmers have to take through loans.

e) It produces safe and the right food. If you go organic you get 100% pesticide risk reduction because you don’t use that stuff.

f) It is sustainable in the long term because the challenge is not to feed today the world, the challenge is to feed it in sustainable terms in the long term. And if we use up all the world’s resources trying to feed today the world, we have not achieved much because then the world goes hungry tomorrow.

14. I have a flier, it is actually our position paper for the World Food Summit. We have concrete proposals and expectations to the World Food Summit. And I just want to share the following points we have summarized it. We want the Word Food Summit:a) to recognize the relevance of organic agriculture and its relation to food security

and food safety;b) to recognize the potential [of organic agriculture] to solve a lot of problems which

conventional agriculture has brought about;c) To direct governments and international agencies to put organic farming high in

their agenda;d) to support [initiative] to create a treaty for Genetic Commons. We need to defend

the Genetic Commons and there is an initiative going on that we support that we



get treaty to defend the Genetic Commons versus the GMO hijacking of the industry; and,

e) to make clear that GMO cannot be a part of any sustainable agriculture strategy.15. To summarize, the prominent question since I am in the organic movement and lobbying

internationally since Rio is always, “Who feeds the world?” And we have the chemical industry saying, “We will feed the world.” They said what will feed the world is green revolution. As a matter of fact, Kissinger, in the previous world food summit, I think it was 1980, he spoke in Rome and said “In ten years time, thanks to green revolution there will be nobody hungry anymore in the world.” And what have we? And now we have the companies coming out again and saying, “With genetic engineering, this time, we will feed the world.”

16. Let me share with you, this question “who will feed the world?” is a stupid question. And it’s a wrong question. And I tell you, the answer of the organic movement is, and it may surprise you, organic farming will not feed the world as much as genetic engineering will not feed the world and all the chemicals in the world will not feed the world. Our strategy has to be that we have to enable the people to feed themselves and as we all agree here. The reason for hunger is not the production of food. The cause of hunger is poverty and the lack of access to food. We produce enough food, but remember the consumption pattern. If this is the strategy, we need to have political changes and social changes. We need to tackle questions on land, access to land, and access to input and we need to have low input farming systems. And this is organic farming offering.

17. I’m, in a way, a disciple of Gandhi. I think it’s appropriate to share with you the very famous saying of Gandhi which is so correct, that, “There’s enough for everybody’s need but not enough for everybody’s greed.” And I am saying this as a person coming from the North. I don’t like divide of first and third world because you have a lot of first world in your countries, you have very rich peoples, you have very affluent societies in your countries, and we do have very poor people. I work in the United States and I saw people putting out food from trash cans near the White House in the richest nation of the world. So let’s not fall into the trap of dividing the world North and South, we have first and third world everywhere. But we have to tackle the question of consumption pattern. If we want to achieve food security, we have to re-orient ourselves on Asian diet, the traditional Asian diet which is so much vegetable and rice based rather than meat, or the vegetarian diet.

18. I try to promote organic agriculture, not just because it is my job, its my heart, its my life in the last 25 year. But I want to conclude, Vandana Shiva has a very nice quote on genetic engineering. “Genetically engineered plants are patented, farmers are not allowed to save or exchange seeds from their crops. Through patenting, traditions are turned into a criminal act. This can not work.”

19. I am convinced that organic farming is the only option for the North and for the South. And go around there are many very good examples in the South of good agricultural practice and when I look at good agricultural practice, I always see organic farms. So I hope this is a platform we can work together and we need a lot of support, we need to liaise with all the social movements. Organic farming offers a very concrete platform to get a lot of meaning to sustainable agriculture. And if we have the right meaning to sustainable agriculture and if we are successful in the political arena, we will have food security.

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FOOD ACQUIRING AND THE THREAT OF GLOBALIZATION:

Rectifying the Agenda-21 for A More Civilized HumanityFrancis Wahono

Cindelaras Institute for Rural Empowerment and Global Studies (CINDELARAS, Indonesia)

1. INTRODUCTIONAGENDA-21 is one of the most important documents adopted by more than 178 governments at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3 to 14 June 1992 (Earth Summit I). That document is a program of action for sustainable development worldwide. Besides Agenda-21, UNCED has issued the 27 principles of Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the statement of principles for the sustainable management of forests. With them, there have been two related documents: Convention on Biological Diversity (Cartagena), has been ratified and Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol), has been suspended due to the US's refusal to ratify it.Here, we are going to discuss the concepts and possible practices of food acquiring which would fit better the requirement of the Agenda-21, while in the same time we critically appraise the global tendency which has been undermining the Agenda-21. It has been pushing further and further to a stand and practice of more free trade, privatization, and less social and environmental responsibility, or what we call globalization. Instead of promoting more wealth and prosperity, with it food abundance - as generally promised, globalization has posed real threat to the traditional and local initiatives and the existing ecological life-support of most communities. To be fair, we start with clustering nineteen basic calls for action of the Agenda-21.

2. BASIC CALLS FOR ACTION OF AGENDA-21The basic calls for action of the Agenda-21 are free clustering made by the author, so the numbering is not necessarily that of the original document. These nineteen basic calls are:First Call: Integration of environment and development will guarantee the fulfillment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future.Second Call: The first call demands, for its implementation, global consensus and political commitment at the highest level (the UN), national governments, other international, regional and sub-regional organizations, "the broadest public participation and the active involvement of the non-government organizations and other groups should also be encouraged" (Preamble Agenda 21).Third Call: The first call requires a substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries, in order to cover the incremental costs for the actions they have to undertake to deal with global environmental problems and to accelerate sustainable development.Fourth Call: Some instances and incidents of economic, social and political transitions in most countries should be taken into consideration (different situations, capacities and priorities) in the implementation of the first call.Fifth Call: Supportive international economic climate: promoting sustainable development through trade liberalization, concomitant trade and environment, adequate financial support


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i afor developing countries including international debt, and macroeconomic policies conducive to the first call.Sixth Call: Acknowledging poverty as a complex multidimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains. Our major challenges: eradication of poverty and hunger, greater equity in income distribution and human resource development.Seventh Call: Conservation and protection of resources must take due account of those who depend on the resources for their livelihoods. "An effective strategy for tackling the problems of poverty, development and environment simultaneously should begin by focusing on resources, production and people and should cover demographic issues, enhanced health care and education, the rights of women, the role of youth and of indigenous people and local communities and a democratic participation process in association with improved governance". These efforts could take more concrete forms: eradicating poverty by strengthening employment and income-generating programs, increased local control of resources, local institutional strengthening and capacity-building and greater involvement of non-governmental organization and local levels of government as delivery mechanisms, developing all poverty-stricken areas, investment in human capitals including direct programs and policies at rural areas, urban poor, women and children.Eighth Call: Changes unsustainable consumption patterns, including those deal with energy, transportation and wastes. In principle, they are efforts to reduce environmental stress, while meeting basic human needs. This call is particularly for those living in the industrialized countries, while those in the poor countries, assistance in technology and others from the industrialized countries is required.Ninth Call: The life-supporting capacities of our planet is suffering severe stress due to the growth of world population and production combined with unsustainable consumption patterns; thus we have to incorporate demographic trends and factors in the global analysis of environment and development issues; better understanding of the relationships among demographic dynamics, technology, cultural behavior, natural resources and life support systems; to assess human vulnerability in ecologically sensitive areas and centers of population to determine the priorities for action at all levels, taking full account of community-defined needs.Tenth Call: Severe environmental health problems caused by poverty, wrong pattern of consumption and expansive world population call for the following actions: meeting primary health care particularly in local areas, control of communicable diseases, protecting vulnerable groups, meeting the urban health challenge, reducing health risks from environmental pollution and hazards.Eleventh Call: Call of action for promoting sustainable human settlement and environment, including sustainable land-use planning and management, water, sanitation, drainage and solid-waste management, energy and transport systems, management in disaster-prone areas, construction industry activities, terrestrial and marine resource development, combating desertification and drought, managing fragile ecosystems such as mountain environmental management for conserving water, biodiversities and other resources; land degradation through, for instance, intensified soil conservation, afforestation and reforestation; all could be by encouraging and promoting popular participation and environmental education.Twelfth Call: Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development through: integrated planning and programming, human resource development and people's participation, farm production and diversification of farm and non-farm employment and infrastructure development, information and education for land resource planning and management, land conservation and rehabilitation, water for sustainable food production, sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources for food and sustainable rural and agricultural development, integrated pest management, sustainable plant nutrition for food production, rural energy transition to enhance productivity, evaluation of the effect of ultraviolet radiation on plants and animals caused by the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer.


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i aThirteenth Call: Improving the conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of biological resources, as well as supporting the Convention on Biological Diversity. This effort has been pressed on by the continuing loss of the world's biological diversity, mainly from habitat destruction, over-harvesting, pollution and the inappropriate introduction of foreign plants and animals. Thus “urgent and decisive action is needed to conserve and maintain genes, species and ecosystems, with a view to the sustainable management and use of biological resources . . . effective national action and international cooperation is required for the in situ protection of ecosystems, for the ex-situ conservation of biological and genetic resources . . . the participation and support of local communities are elements essential to the success of such an approach.”Fourteen Call: Furthermore, “Recent advances in biotechnology have pointed up the likely potential for agriculture, health and welfare and for the environmental purposes of the genetic material contained in plants, animals and micro-organisms. At the same time, it is particularly important in this context to stress that States have the sovereign right to exploit their own biological resources pursuant to their environmental policies, as well as the responsibility to conserve their biodiversity and use their biological resources sustainably, and to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the biological diversity of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction”. Thus, in fostering “'internationally agreed principles to be applied to ensure the environmentally sound management of biotechnology, to engender public trust and confidence, to promote the development of sustainable applications of biotechnology and to establish appropriate enabling mechanisms especially within developing counties, through the following activities: increasing the availability of food, feed and renewable raw materials, improving human health, enhancing protection of the environment, enhancing safety and developing international mechanism for cooperation, establishing enabling mechanisms for the development and the environmentally sound application of biotechnology”.Fifteenth Call: As marine environment is essential component of the global life-support system and positive asset for sustainable development, thus such following actions should be undertaken: integrated management and sustainable development of coastal areas, including exclusive economic zones, marine environmental protection, sustainable use and conservation of marine living resources under national jurisdiction, addressing marine environment and climate change, strengthening international, including regional, cooperation and coordination, and sustainable development of small islands.Sixteenth Call: Integrated management on freshwater resources is required. This could be done through water resources assessment, protection, and development, as well as through providing sustainable drinking-water and sanitation for urban and rural population, water for sustainable food production, while considering impacts of climate change on water resources.Seventeenth Call: Promotion of chemical safety and management of hazardous and solid and radioactive wastes includes international assessment of chemical risks, classification and labeling of chemicals, information exchange on toxic chemicals and chemical risks, risk reduction programs, environmentally sound management of chemicals and hazardous as well as solid and radioactive wastes, and prevention of illegal international traffic in toxic, hazardous and solid and radioactive wastes and dangerous products.Eighteenth Call: All of these above calls invite full participation and role of major groups: women, children and youth, indigenous people, NGOs, local authorities, workers, business and industrial communities, scientific and technological community, farmers; of the Indonesian initiative, they have been added with fishers and urban poor.Nineteenth Call: All of these above calls involve financial resources and mechanism, transfer of technology, cooperation and capacity-building, science for sustainable development, the promotion of education, public awareness and training, national and international cooperation for capacity-building in developing countries as well as international institutional arrangements and legal instruments and mechanisms, last but not least, information for decision-making.


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i aConcluding Remark: In brief, of food acquiring - as food issue concerned we are employing the term sovereignty while incorporating safety - we can conclude that the Agenda-21 's food policy is for fulfilling the basic human needs, including sufficient, healthy and safe food, of the whole world populace, through sustainable agriculture (ecologically managed land and environmentally sound technology including biodiversity, as well as strict control over transgenic product and hazardous waste) and just trade (free trade yet civilised and environmentally sound pattern of consumption), by full participation and democratic decision making of all stakeholders (major groups), especially of whose very local resources being affected and utilized most, farmers and fishers as well as farm and fisher workers, and whose position being ecologically and demographically marginalized, poor people, women, youth and children.Based on most of these 19 basic calls and their concluding remark, we can critically appraise food acquiring that has been implicitly recommended and pushed by many economically dominant nations - such as the JUSCANZ (Japan, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) in the Preparatory Committee Meeting IV in Bali, June 2002, for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002 - to be practiced by the whole world.What we have in the Agenda-21 document is food policy which is, more or less, humanly acceptable and environmentally sound, though with the inclusion of trade liberalization as the backbone of sustainable development, it is structurally weak in issue of social justice and people's livelihood. Even though, the Agenda-21, to a certain degree, is still doing the right thinking. It is still, to some an extant, pro the developing countries' and concern people.To be sharper, next we can contrast the stand of the Agenda-21 with that of, I would call, the globalization adherents. Their position on food policy, - rhetorical stand as seen from their practices - is the one of a false thinking. The reservation made on our critically reading the document of Agenda-21 (our "more or less", "though with... structurally weak", and "to some an extant") is itself already an indication of the existence of false thinking deliberately inserting and planting by the globalization adherents in it.

3. FALSE AND RIGHT THINKING ON FOOD ACQUIRING:Let us start with the running down of some rhetorical concepts which could be mislead or even meant to be mislead in the text of the Agenda-21 we have summarized above as the nineteenth calls: (i) integration of environment and development for the fulfillment of basic needs and improved living standards; (ii) better protected and managed ecosystems; (iii) global consensus and broadest public participation; (iv) substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries to cover the incremental costs to accelerate sustainable development; (v) taking into consideration different situations, capacities and priorities; (vi) promoting sustainable development through trade liberalization, concomitant trade and environment; (vii) acknowledging poverty as a complex multidimensional problem; (viii) should cover demographic issues; (ix) changes unsustainable consumption patterns; (x) growth of world population combined with unsustainable consumption patterns; (xi) sustainable human settlement and environment; (xii) sustainable agriculture and rural development; (xiii) conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of biological resources; (xiv) environmentally sound management of biotechnology; (xv) invite full participation and role of major groups; and (xvi) cooperation and capacity-building.As these rhetorical concepts interlink with each other, here we would like to critically appraise together. Some of the less urgent concepts would be left over for the other occasion. For short of time and space, we are going to limit to only five appraisals which have direct connection with food acquiring (food sovereignty within it food security): (1) sustainable development as it is linked to environment, economic and social matters such as eradication of poverty and demographic issues; (2) trade liberalization as it is linked to production, distribution and consumption patterns; (3) sustainable agriculture and rural


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i adevelopment as it is linked to improved living standards; (4) conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of biological resources including environmentally sound management of biotechnology; and (5) full participation and role of major groups related to cooperation and capacity-building.Appraisal 1: Sustainable development: environment and social matters (poverty and demography) the appendix of economic growth?False Thinking: Sustainable development for the globalization adherents is none other than sustained growth of capital. Its very word “sustained” reminds us of WW Rostow's “take-off for sustained growth”, that should be followed by “high mass consumption” society. As with most neo-classical adherents, or neo-liberal supporters, growth of capital, which is very often camouflaged as growth of income or GNP/GDP, in the tradition of "trickled down" mechanism, treats environment healing and social mending, such as eradication of poverty, as appendix of progress. Grow first and then distribute. By what kind of mechanism the distribution is done? By the invisible hands, the working of the market and equilibrium pricing is the "fair" distribution. But, what have been done by the JUSCANZ countries? In the case of food trade, even within the AOA that has been pushed forward by the JUSCANZ countries, they tacitly and cunningly introduce the non-tariff barriers in exchange of the giving up the tariff barrier. Briefly speaking, while the farmers of the developing works have to shallow the bitter drug of free trade (suffered from glut of staples food import: rice, corn, bean, sugar, etc.), the JUSCANZ governments have continually delivered non-tariff barriers and various form of subsidies to their farmers. Free trade for you (developing countries' peasants) but protected trade for us (developed countries' farmers). Peasants are small scale farmers which their daily work and living depend on their small plot of lands and casual works. Farmers are large scale farmers with large capital which daily life is only part of their profits. When the developing countries' peasants loose the food and other agricultural products trading, they could be help, or the imbalances being lightened by such program as the Social Safety Net program (JPS in Indonesia). As in the case of demographic control, the family planning - very often forced one to the detriment of the women - has to be applied. The way to do it is by cutting the number of mouth. Population growth caused the growth of mouth vis-a-vis shortage of food. We know that man and woman are born not only with mouth but also with brain and bodily strength, hands and feet. Population of the developing countries has been a problem for the globalization adherents, not as a capital. The population of the developed countries is a capital, with more brain and bodily strength and less mouth. Within free trade mechanism, those developed population will win. Free trade tends to marginalize the weak, but the suffering of the downtrodden can be lightened by an act of charity of the strong.Right Thinking: Environment and human being as social being are to be the foundation of economic life. They can not be sacrificed for growth of capital. Just distribution of the resource environment and free action and decision making of human being is prerequisite of sustainable development. The one that should be sustained is not growth of capital, but the distribution of resources and of the power of controlling it, development of capital would follow. You cannot go with conserving environment, when you are not in the equal position of access to the very environment and power of controlling it. The WTO's arrangement and tools of control such as TRIPs, TRIMs, GATs and AOA are the rule of the developed countries over the developing countries. It is an irony, the free trade needs the non-free tools (TRIPs and others), in the hands of the powerful.Appraisal 2: Trade liberalization: between production and distribution, there h trade?False Thinking: Ironically though promoting free trade for their own farmers and fishers, facing competing developing countries’ farmers and fishers, globalization adherents - most developed countries’ state bureaucrats, investors, scientists and their followers in developing countries - treat food acquiring as a mere business of production. They prefer to use the term “food security” that could depend on the supply of the world food trade as well as the domestic food production, whichever is more efficient (market price). For them, between production and distribution of food, there should play market. No need of


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i adistribution of resources as prerequisite for production. In so far there is trade, the allocation will be fair. So, the paradigm of food acquiring for them is: production plus trade, that is abundance.Right Thinking: We, especially local farmers, fishers and both farm and fisher workers from most developing countries, means small scale fanning and fishing, between production and distribution there is not necessary a trade, it could be nothing, just a pure sharing, it could be state or customary institution. Thus production is only meaningful where it is for the sake of distribution. The distribution of the means of production is at the very centre of the issue. A just distribution starts from the means of production. So, food sovereignty is more appropriate than the food security. The paradigm of food sovereignty is production for distribution as well as distribution for production.Appraised 3: Sustainable agriculture: improved living standards as a prerequisite for rural development!False Thinking: The improving of living standards has taken the form of Green Revolution, technological breakthrough, irrespective of rural structure including land and social relationship reform. As we can see, the technological approach related to free trade have profited the accumulation of capital of the big chemical and agricultural TNCs and created dependency on the part of developing countries' peasants. The basic human needs have been pushed aside and to give more emphasis on the living standards. Living standards is a relative concept, while basic human needs include treatment of absolute condition such as poverty and hunger. Those under nourished and poverty line are treated affirmatively. Speaking of the standards of living, people tend to take the average people, no affirmative action for those under normal conditions. So, the Americans can say “no dealing for our style of life”. But, the poor peasants of developing countries have to change their patterns of life to fit the need of technological products being offered as solution. Within this frame of thought and actions, what is called sustainable is not sustainable at all. It is dependency on market mechanism, trade which made to be free from any state and people's intervention.Right Thinking: Rural development, including just and pro-peasants land reform as well as other resources and eco-social relationships reform, should be the prerequisite of the fulfillment of the basic human needs. Only by doing so, agriculture would be sustainable. The goal is not only improving living standards, but fulfilling basic human needs. The World Bank backed individualistic property right based land certification is not land reform, it is land privatization for the incoming big national and transnational investors. It is a far cry for most of the minuscule peasants in the developing countries. Community and social based land and other agrarian resources reform should be enacted and established, so that the peasants can at least fulfill their basic human needs. The fulfillment of basic human needs is less dependent on the international and domestic free market, but on the revitalization of the state and community role. The concept of “common but differentiated responsibility” could not be left to the mechanism of the market, it should be left to the intervention of the state and community.Appraisal 4: Conservation of biological diversity for managed development of biotechnology?False Thinking: The spirit of the globalization adherents has been to blame the people from the developing countries, especially the peasants and fishers, for the degradation and pollution of the environment. Forest fire, land degradation, over-fishing, even green house effects are the wrong doing of the peasants and fishers. Since they are too poor to re-heal the earth caused by the externalities, they should be financially helped somehow. That is the case of GEF arrangement and other. There is almost no blaming on the part of the developed countries industrialists and traders. So that, their responsibility is not only to ease the burden of the developing counties peasants and indigenous people, but they are being fined. GEF should be a fine for the real and big polluters, not a charity arrangement. Conserving biological diversity, thus, is not fine for the developing countries peasants and indigenous people, it is a responsibility. And it is not meant to be of provider for biological stock for any future and contemplated trade orientated biotechnology.


W o r k s h o p o n S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y B a l i , I n d o n e s i aRight Thinking: Conserving biological diversity is basis for the peasants' production. An independent food production can only flow from peasants’ controlling of biological diversity. So also a biotechnology should only be used selectively, for instance for conserving the almost instinct biodiversity. Biotechnology, including transgenic or the GMO, cannot be mainly for trade, but for conserving biodiversity and nature.Appraisal 5: Full participation for cooperation and capacity-building?False Thinking: Full participation for cooperation and capacity-building by most globalization adherents is seen as a rubber stamp. Tell the world that certain decision has been taken with the consultation of the people. The participation tends to be mobilization. Thus the word “cooperation” means you have to compromise our (globalization adherents) double standards and self interests. This problem of environment is our (developing and developed countries) common responsibility, but the problem of trade is our (developed countries) interest. You (developing countries), in order to be in cooperation with us (developed countries) have to obey our common rules: TRIPs, TRIMs, GATs, AOA, etc. For this very purpose of “cooperation”, we can help you (developing countries), with our (developed countries) experts and technology in your capacity-building.Right Thinking: It is not participation however full it might be, not mobilization, but self-initiative, self-reliance, independent and organization. In the case of food acquiring, true cooperation is not based on a mere participation to the program set not by the developing countries’ peasants. It should be based on self-initiative, self-reliance and independent in decision making about the program that we (developing countries peasants) set for themselves. In order to enable to do that, they (developing countries peasants) have to be given chance, room, affirmative support, to organize themselves. Only by so doing, the food acquiring of them and other would be sustainable. Sustainable food acquiring and self-initiative, self-reliance, and independent food acquiring is the same.

4. FOOD ACQUIRING: RECTIFYING AGENDA-21 OR NOT AT ALL?In conclusion, the Agenda-21 insofar as it relates to food acquiring and sustainable agriculture has to be clear out, to be rectified from potential and possible false thinking. That false thinking has deliberately inserted, insinuated and manipulated by most globalization adherents. The real threat of globalization to food acquiring lies not only in practices, but from its inception in the form of a built in ideology, even within such noble text of Agenda-21.To free from it, we, especially the peasants and other major groups (women caucus, fishers, workers, urban poor, NGOs, children caucus), journalists, concern bureaucrats and academicians, and illuminated businesspersons:(1) should alter the paradigm as well as the false thinking within the Agenda-21 on

environment and development or sustainable development, for better and pro-people Johannesburg World Summit;

(2) or, if the globalization adherents within the representatives of the World Summit, as have been indicated throughout the series of Preparatory Committee Meetings (4 in all), have been deft and stubborn to cling on their manipulative and egoistic stand, then a total boycott is the only feasible, credible and responsible solution.

(3) And, along the 2nd stand, we can prepare for more people organization and participation World Summit on environment and development, not anymore under the auspices of the UN, but for instance within the spirit of the World Social Forum (the last one in Puerto Alegre).

(4) Then, if the UN feels obliged to go with the people, the UN should work closely with the World Social Forum rather than with the World Economic Forum and the WTO.

(5)Any food acquiring discussion would be futile within the existing Agenda-21, unless some of its false thinking be altered.



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OPEN FORUM: 1. Richard McCarthy (New Orleans, USA)

The question is specifically about organic certification and the organic movement. Just as you mentioned the concern that sustainable agriculture doesn’t have a workable certifiable definition, we’re also experiencing an issue of organic agriculture being co-opted whether no social values connected or social ethics with organic agriculture where large scale industrial agriculture uses the term “certified as organic.” How do we fight that side of the battle if sustainable is also the problem?

2. Eddie Putra (Indonesia)(translation from Bahasa:)If we assume that WTO, especially in the AOA agreements, and TRIMS protect the farmer specially in the developed countries and strongly support the multinational enterprises and traders. My question is for both speakers, besides Wahono. Do you have statistical data showing declining of welfare of the rural society and farmers, before WTO and after WTO? And the second question is, have you indicated the WTO articles and the other national policies and practices which impact or exacerbates to the farmer of likehood in the rural society? The next question is for Wahono. Is it possible that food security means access to food, accessibility to food, farmers’ reliance, and security to consumers?

3. Bernward GeierThe organic movement is a very holistic movement and I’ll just read you the first sentence of our information brochure, “Organic agriculture is an agricultural system that promotes environmentally, socially and economically sound production of food, timber, etc. So we have three elements. We have the economic element which is very important, our farmers have to survive in order to make a living. We have the ecological element and the social element. So how do we put this in practice? There is a big difference. Indeed, we have done a strategic mistake in the organic movement when we look for legal protection against fraud on the market being claimed to be organic cheating. We went to the government to look for protection and they came out with a regulation, that was okay. But in a way we have given away the right to define what organic farming is to bureaucrats and the same happened in the United States and they’ve been very bad because they didn’t work for us and they come up with a proposal that allowed very unacceptable practices, and they got 280,000 opposition because we oppose this. So it’s a very dangerous thing to give your domain away if you look for legal protection. Now the governments define what organic farming is. So there’s a problem. The big difference is we have in our standards we have to check on social aspects. We will not find it in the EU regulation, we will not find it in the US DA regulation, none in Australia, Argentina and in all other countries where there is organic regulation. So we need to do something about it and the way we work is we work closely with the fair trade movement organizations together, have a common platform, a common network, together with the forest stewarship council, marine stewarship council, and we work exactly on these issues. We just launched a major program and we got funding for the social agenda in organic agriculture. Our next congress, listen to the theme, is “Cultivating Communities.” And the major focus will be the social agenda. The next magazine coming out is looking in the social agenda of organic farming and you will be surprised how much there is already but it is also a lot to do. We have discussed this with our companies, we have discussed it with big companies – the Unilevers, the Nestlè, the champs now in the organic bandwagon. But we must make sure that there is the challenge of social agenda for organic farming because its an integrated part of our movement and our activities. So we have this project, also social verification. Organic cup of coffee tastes bitter if it exploited child



labor and unfair trade practices. So a good organic product has to have its social side, otherwise, it’s not digestible for me, and hopefully, for all the organic consumers.

4. Francisco PascualI would like to deal with the first part of the second question about WTO and AOA favoring transnational corporations and if we have any data proving that indeed it has worked against the peasants of the south. First of all, the AOA, specifically, was not about trading among nations. It originated as an agreement between the European Union and the United States in order to avert the already destructive competition in the agricultural world market. You must remember that the US was subsidizing a lot of overproduction, and also the European Union. But also remember that the United States, at that time, its market is also being eroded by the EU which had a very large subsidy. That was all that was into it, don’t mix in any other things such as social consideration into the start of the AOA. It is simply about world market.The second question is, “do we have anything to show for us that the farmers has been affected?” At the macro level, even the UN admits. For instance in the Philippines, up to signing of Uruguay Round or early 90s there was chronic deficits but it was too small and in fact there were years when there were small surplus and there were years when there were small deficits. But since 1994, there has been a big jump in food dependency and imports. And now it is already 10% of total agricultural imports. What’s worse is that when you look at agriculture, there is trade deficit not because the South are agricultural countries that they will benefit from agricultural trade. That is simply false. It is absurd. In the Philippines, there is more agricultural imports than agricultural exports and it is growing. So all the promise at the macro level, all the promise about trade liberalization benefitting the South we can simply dismiss.At the micro level at the level of the farmer, of course government does not have enough comprehensive data, but we who are working with people on the ground, we know of course that the garlic farmer in the Philippines does not have any chance against garlic being brought in from Taiwan. And we know of course that if rice from California will get into the Philippine market, Philippine rice does not have any chance – that is that simple. The point is, that this is generally accepted already, and even governments simply say what they call transitional pains of going into the free market. We don’t say that probably we have to pass through purgatory in order to get to heaven – this is exactly absurd.

5. Francis WahonoFood security and food sovereignty is all but a dream. But food acquiring is about the reality that people live. So what I say about acquiring is taken together within the frame of sovereignty. Access to the means of production is just important, the access to resources by which peasants produce food. But that is not only access but also guarantee. In Indonesia basic law/agrarian law in 1996, the state also guaranteed the minimum ownership of cultivation land enough to farm and to feed a family of five. That is actually guaranteed not only access or giving open opportunity but guarantees the State to be active. So the people of Indonesia should be given according to basic law agrarian law two hectares of cultivable land. So if the peasants in Indonesia never had a farm, a quarter hectare is still not the peasants according to the law. The law is still there. The problem is the government never really executed that law but they executed for the interest of the Suharto government and now also. Because many rules and decrees are made to make that law weaker and weaker for the purpose of investors. Because there is also a law in Indonesia and that’s just ruling out everything including basic agrarian law. Which means the law is not effective.

6. Wayo (a farmer from Java, Indonesia)(translation from Bahasa)The Agrarian Reform Law promulgated in 1960 is seen as a communist document. Who was responsible for that law? How can we fight for agrarian law and natural



resource management? What are the advocacy strategies in the farmer’s movement? How can we tackle the issue?Regarding land reform, up to now lot of lands are controlled by companies, multinational industries. How can we have a strategy to promote agrarian reform?Too many alliances already established but how can we fight with the UN or WTO is still very far from here.

7. Parwota (a farmer from Yogyakarta)(translation from Bahasa)We have too much debt, how can we implement organic farming? If there is no agrarian reform in Indonesia how can we ensure food security and sovereignty? The future is too grim for Indonesians.On organic farming, we have too much debt I love to implement organic farming but how?Talking about food security, food sovereignty, in Indonesia, the future is too grim if there is no genuine land reform. And up to now, the State does not protect the farmers.

8. Linda Elswick, (International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture or IPSA) I’m an American working in the US but our organization was formed by people who come together around Rio summit. That’s where we met and we have since worked many years going to the UN. At Rio, we worked on, I think, the basis of true people’s agenda which was the alternative treaties of Rio, the people’s treaties on sustainable agriculture and food security which I think we haven’t looked at them lately for many years. Many are saying that we need to pull them out and look at it again, revise where we would have come and see how we add because to get a people’s agenda, we had many things to build on at Rio. And we have to see where we have gotten lost. We know that many new issues have come since Rio that were not in the agenda: GMOs, globalization, corporate concentration. And I agree with many of the things said here. I’m also coordinating the sustainable agriculture and food systems caucus that meets after CSD at the UN. Has met here and has many people from around the world coming together to see how we work on changing the UN, changing the peoples participation, but also devising for those who do not want to be on the inside and I don’t think we all need to be. What is the inside, outside strategy? How do we connect so that our strategies are linked? You might think that those of us who are going to the UN are either very stupid or I prefer to think that we are very stubborn. You may remember that the UN motto is “with the peoples.” We are very stubborn to insist that “with the peoples” have a true participation in this process and there are points of view that are able to come through. I think that more than attacking the UN, one thing we have to turn and say, “where is the support, the money, and the political support for true people’s participation so that we can be prepared to be here. So that we could have stopped those peasants coming in to this meeting from being arrested. For having a better organization ourselves, I appreciate very much the representations of peasants here in Indonesia who came to our agriculture caucus meeting and I want to know if we can continue to work together on the inside-outside strategy, and how we can also work with the South Africans because they are preparing for a global forum and none of us wants to waste our time. We have lost many years time, we realize. We also say that we don’t just say no, we want to say what do we say yes to and my question is: Where do you see a place for this kind of cooperation if we are pushing for still being at the UN and working on such things as the SARD initiative which is a people-centered initiative that we are trying to get something out of it for us?

9. Wellington Thwala (National Land Committee, South Africa)



In South Africa, most of the lands are owned by large commercial farmers. As a National Land Committtee, we want poor people to have access to land. But the argument is, only people who can access land now are the people who are supposed to enter into commercial farming, so those farms can not be subdivided. According to experience, if we subdivide the farm into smaller plots is it economically viable and sustainable? Because government is saying that, “if you subdivide the land, it’s not viable.” The people could not produce less than the commercial farmers. Instead, what the commercial farmers are doing now, because the government has put a policy now if you change from commercial farming to tourism, put a name like wildlife and all those things, they can not tamper with your farm. So it can not be under land distribution. My next question is, the economy, as it is, the way it works is controlled somewhere. I’ve seen many African countries they go to these big guys who control the economy and say that, “we’re having economic problems then you come to us and help us.” So, it’s not them who come to us but us who go to them. So is it possible under these conditions that we can have sustainable agriculture?

10. Francis Wahono Agrarian reform in Indonesia that’s based on basic agrarian law of 1966 is not at all a communist product. Because like Mahammad Tomhit Isram Damansiswam, Professor Sutikna who wrote the book in 1996 was not a communist before. At that time, communist party in Indonesia is legal, communist party also participates in decision making. In 1983, Suharto actually declared that agrarian reform law of 1966 is still applicable. There is no reason to credit it as communist product only.About the advocacy, you come here and try to organize the people with a lot of awareness about peasant rights and the like is one way to do the advocacy. Because advocacy is not just dealing with organic farming but organic farming is placed within the context of broader political issues including access and guaranteeing resources for producing food.

11. Bernward Geaier “What do we do about debts?” This is actually the course of farming – take loans, try to grow, have debts and the banks takeover your land. And that does not only happen here, happens in Europe, in my country where 3.5 million farmers since the second world war were going out of farming. I think to rely on bank loans to produce food is very bad. So the first thing is we get out as fast as possible and that is why organic farming has something to offer to you. Because we are not high input, expensive, chemical way of trying to produce food. But it’s local resources, composting, you integrate your farming system and you get all the elements in place, mixed agriculture. There’s so many good examples where we can learn from, where we can adapt to different situations. That’s why organic farming is so good it’s so flexible and it can be adopted. It allows you to produce food and increase yield. There’s one good literature, it’s called “The Real Green Revolution,” a Greenpeace study which looks at organic and agroecological farming methods with a lot of case studies, very good analyses. It’s free on the webpage greenpeaceuk.About the question of Linda, “what comes out for us?” Look, we are here, many people are here, the Indonesian people can liase with all the peoples of the world, that is already a good asset. We instrumentalise this big gathering, we get funding to get here, we get people here. We do our own agenda. We do our own work. And we still look how we can benefit and maybe make some use and get some sense to type 2 cooperational partnerships if we make sure that we have a control as people as we gave this example of the SARD initiative. I’m frustrated being over there when I seat at the plenary session but I’m not frustrated being over there to be at the lobby floor, to be at the SARD caucus, being at the biodiversity caucus, and all the activities that go on. There is a lot for us to gain and also I think this is also valid for Johannesburg.



On the smaller plots and about South Africa, there is a lot of evidence that large-scale production is not really very efficient. It may produce at lot of tons of monoculture but to produce a lot of tons of monoculture is not food security, it’s the opposite. If you put all your eggs in one basket, if the basket falls they’re all broken. Diversity is the answer. You have to put many things in a little farm, one- to two-hectare farm that produces 40 types of vegetables. If one crop fails, you still have 39 crops to harvest. You get good market because you sell directly. Money is not made in farming. Nowhere in the world is money really made by producing food. It’s made by selling food. Let’s take a bit back from the multinationals and try to slash the local market and try to sell direct as much as possible because that’s where farmers can increase their income. If they go organic, they have a diversified production and a safe production. Organic farming is not about scale. You can do organic farming on 2,000 hectares and you can do it in your balcony or in your back lot. Actually, your country has good example of food garden, they have very intensive systems. It should be intensive and productive.

12. Francisco PascualOn the question about land in South Africa, land is a political question and not simply an economic question. If, in fact the peasants of South Africa really want the land, that should be the consideration of the so-called economies of scale. Because after all, people motivated for development would definitely move the economy much faster forward than when they do not benefit from development. So it’s not a simple question whether you have economies of scale or not it is rather mixed with the political consideration. If it were economies of scale, then they would simply say damn with the small peasants in the Southeast Asian countries, they do not produce as “efficiently as the large transnational corporations in the form for instance of the United States.” But the point is that, in order for a country to grow it must have not only the correct economic formula and program but also the political support for its population.The next question I want to comment on is about organic farming in the context of the small farms. Actually, in practical terms there are specific and very practical obstacles to the kind of organic farming that we have been presenting to farmers in the Southeast Asian context. Because of specific economic conditions they are in. For example, even mulching and composting is very labor intensive under those conditions wherein part of the labor, and labor is something very precious to the farmer, the farmer sells it in a daily basis, when it is not used in his farm in order to make ends meet. In other words, there is not much free labor that can be afforded by the peasants in order to invest in organic and this is one of the drawback that has hampered some of our efforts because we have also been implementing organic agriculture programs in the Philippines. But I think organic farming by itself is something that is desirable. To me as an agriculturist, I would go for organic farming.On the last question of Linda, the starting point I think that we must recognize is (1) that the UN system because of the growing power of capital, the UN system has somewhat become obsolete in terms of regulating the power relations in the world. So what you have in the UN are talk shops and what you have in the WTO are enforceable rules. Somebody proposed that UNCTAD should be brought back, but UNCTAD certainly needs some ways in it where you can overturn decisions of the corporations because they already decided that the WTO is the right mechanism for them. (2) Working with the UN, nothing’s wrong with it and it gives us value, promotes our own vision of sustainable development provided that we are not fooled into believing that this is the strategy by itself. Because I think that until we have enough organization, political pressure, enough mass of people demanding what we want, what is the people’s agenda, the UN system is as irresponsive as any corrupt government in the South. It does not care about people’s agenda in the first place and that is I think the reality that we have to recognize. Right here it makes sense to lobby because we want to highlight what should be a people’s agenda. But if you think that we can convince them by simply lobbying that is the problem. They can be convinced if they do think and see that we have the political strength.



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P A N E L 2 : A g r i c u l t u r a l S u s t a i n a b i l i t y a n d F o o d S e c u r i t y i n t h e R e g i o n

Panel 2 has three speakers, namely: Achmad Ya’kub who is General Secretary of the South Sumatera Peasant Union (SPSS), Brenda Tohiana of the Development Alternatives with

Women for a New Era (DAWN), and Elenita Daño who is executive director of the Southeat Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE). The panel is chaired by

Mardi Widyadmono of CINDELARAS.

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AGRARIAN REFORM AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: AGENDA OF PEASANT STRUGGLE AGAINST LIBERALIZATION OF AGRICULTURE MARKET

Achmad Ya’cubSouth Sumatera Peasant Union (SPSS), FSPI (Indonesia)

Preface“If you are looking for a way to get people to lead on you to be dependent on you, in terms of their cooperation with you, it seems to me that food dependence would be terrific” (US Senator, Wall Street Journal, 1982). The declaration of a US Senator tens years ago, now with begin to indicate not just in Indonesian but also in many countries. In fact is most of people of the world are peasant, and from them food needs fulfilled by agricultural activities. This fenomena mean agricultural activity is a multidimensional sector, diffrent with other sectors, agriculture is not just relate with economy and trade problems but develop countries as South East Asia Countries, agriculture also relate with social, politic and cultural problems so that agricultural activities mean do what is life, where welfare of humans secured. Based on FAO in 1996, 300 million peoples from 5,67 billion people of the world have food deficiency, 200 million between them are children who have malnutrition especially energy and protein (Henry Saragih, 2001).Agriculture as it ought to be main sector to notice to guarantee food security for the people of the world in history always in conguered and eliminate. Peasant action often shattered by authority that always prejudiced for capitalist importance, TNCS/MNC, we can see and feel directly how south countries especially in South East Asia, fields change to plantation industries with export oriented.The condition of peasant is getting eliminated with the exists of international institutes "the three musketeers". World Bank, IMF, and the last WTO of GATTS, that together push market liberalization, which is part of globalization. At the development of this globalization has create dependence on peasant and modern cruelty, which quietly has develop imperialism practice that soft and more sistematic. Fortune of third world countries like someone castrated and sacrificed for the party of some people to acknowledge envoy for the development of the world civilization, for instance : in Indonesia, green revolution dcan not lay (swasembada) down permanently, it just stand for five years in 1985 - 1989. Green revolution also caused the difference of economy and social in countryside, local seed dissapeared, the utilization of chemical and biogos. After the green revolution change the basic arrangement proceed, world figure exchange and believe that biotechnology will able secure the human life. Biotechnology has created knowledge, power and profit collaboration more real. The progress of examination of GMO/ Genetical Modified helped with at leas 350 multinational companies and small biotech company. These companies united with seeding company which also produce manure and pesticide, this seeding will under control of MNC such as Dow, Du Pont, Eli Lilit, Exxon, Merck, Pfizer and UpJohn. And then allienation towards peasant continue after WTO born in 1995, special for agriculture has arranged, known agreement on agriculture, in fact is unadvantage for develop countries, for example Philpina, the wiping out of domestic subsidy threatening thousands of corn farmers, how can they complete with american farmers which have subsidy more thousand higher than their earning (Jhamtani and Hanim, 1999). This condition also happen at others development countries in South East Asia. All of that are fenomena that happens on peasant in the historyway always being marginal by policies that prejudiced for TNCS/MNC by their big program, neo liberalization.

P A N E L 3 : A d v o c a c y a n d G r a s s r o o t s I n i t i a t i v e s i n F o o d S e c u r i t y , F o o d

S o v e r e i g n t y a n d S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r e : I n t e n s i f y i n g t h e P e o p l e ’ sC h a l l e n g e t o G l o b a l i z a t i o n a n d A g r i c u l t u r e L i b e r a l i z a t i o n 3 1


Free Trade in South East AsiaSouth East Asia countries that united at ASEAN see that free trade as a gold bridge to reach for the prosperity for citizens, before trade for south east Asia countries occured or ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 2003 and in Asia Pacific 2010 and 2020. good step taken is ASEAN and RRC initiative on November 2001 to create trade block at overload region in world in 10 years later. Afterwards it happen so this block will wind two billion consument. Also with Japan travel around South East Asia actively, to took for market potency to consolidate economy bt free trade at this area, especially after change of international Geo-Politic after attack in America on September 11th 2001. at the other side ASEAN also learn from Europe Union Development preparation extend its membership to countries in middle and east Europe, beside Pakta of American Free Trade extend cooperation with Latin America. So that government of South East Asia countries realize that free trade is evaded part in social life and for the existence as country in the world. The question is do they realize the danger if this free competition being paralled with develop country that more ready in infrastructure and suprastructure. Especially in agriculture, we will see the causes in couple years because of international agreements that bind which motored by international" three musketeers", IMF, World Bank, and WTO.Agriculture Crisis and Food Endurance Free Trade PeriodPeasant in South East Asia face injustice and exploitation in realition with rich countries and in its ways also have to face monopoly from TNCS/MNC. Then came agreement on agriculture that legally bind every countries who member Including in South East Asia. In that agreement mentioned about a country may not do agricultural trade protection, wiping out price limitation and wiped out of export subsidy and agricultural production policy. Beside that also has arrange world agriculture policy, also other agreements under WTO, agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and agreement of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS). Some cases caused by agreements under WTO for peasant life, food agriculture and non people s food agriculture in South East Asia countries are:In Philipina concequence towards agricultural sector and peasant as mentioned below :

"The dependence on imported food, emphasis on export production and monopoly control by TNCs and landlords is putting the food sovereignty of the people in peril, since 1994, over a million jobs in agriculture have been lost and 690,000 more rural families thrown into poverty every year. By 2000, there were 3.7 million poor families in the countryside, and some 15.6 million Filipinos slowly dying of hunger and malnutrition, with women and children worst off. For example, from 1995 to 1999 the Philippines exported 8,25 million metric tons of banana, pineapple and mango. This is more than 42 percent of the total volume of the top 10 export products during the same period. In the same five years period, however, the Philippines had to import 4.74 million metric tons of rice and 1.18 metric tons or corn. (Rafael V. Mariano, 2001)

In Indonesia, budget for agicultural Development only 0,5 USD per capita/year. It means less than 2% from development budget that 100 trillion rupiahs, with budget as much as 1,4 trillion rupiahs. Goverment orientation settled to agrobusiness, Rp. 880,71 billion compare with food sovereignity sector that only Rp. 519,290 billion for 210 million people. Worst condition is the taking out of agricultural production subsidy, fuel subsidy, export subsidy, and others social subsidies, not just cause of WTO agreeement also being pushed by structural according program (SAP) has made by IMF, we can see how high cost of food agricultural production because there is no incentve for peasant, cost of agriculture production has devaluated beside others price including fuel, always getting higher. World Bank found accept countries also bind with others agreeement to do the programs that come from loan, however at one side countries like in America, European Union, Japan and others still give subsidy for peasant.

In past two years, direct government payment to farmers in amerika rose 86 percent to reach US$22.7 billion. America's so called emergency assistance, designed to shield farmer from




unexpected market fluctuations, rose from US$1.8 billion in 1998 to $7.6 billion in 2000. Last year, the average net income for commercial soybean grower in United State was $47.000 a hectare. The Federal Government paid $37.000 of this amount.

Indonesia bind strictly with WTO agreement, for example wheat import fee that 0 %, sugar import fee that ever 0% since 2000 become 25% also has influenced sugar import condition that proximate from demand as much as 3,01 % million tons, more than 50 % is import as much 1,7 million tons, in reality which come are unable consum (raw sugar) other cause, Indonesia being a greatest in the world for foood agricultural produc like rice.Those thing happens because agriculture market liberalization that cause Indonesia trap in food policy that monoculture, Indonesian peasant also in socially-structural changed. Prefer to plant export oriented plantation such as oil palm, coffee and rubber that replace food agriculture, land authority created that concentrated just for some people and capitalist TNC's/MNC, overload of agriculture products imported with lower price from local product such as rice, soyabean, wheat and sugar from Vietnam, Thailand, USA and other countries cause unfair competition, make food peasant getting poor and poor, while for those food products medically not guarantee because of technology utilization(GMO) that killing.

Change of Rice Import Amount For Great Importir Country (in ton)

Country 2001 2002 Difference 2001-2002

Nigeria 1.800.000 1.200.000 -600.000Indonesia 1.500.000 2.500.000 1.000.000Philipina 1.175.000 600.000 -575.000Irak 1.000.000 1,000.000 0Iran 1.000.000 1.250.000 250.000

According those things, there is strong battle that with many reasons, develop countries being depent for food to big countries product as strategy of neo- imperialism like USA wich is greatest rice exporter, about 50% from total of Rice export in the world with those numbers, USA conquere Thailand (36%) and Vietnam (20%). They can produce 10 million tons. This rice will be launched to develop countries by bilateral trade or World Food Program (WFP) .Beside that, after green revolution failed then continue with agriculture free trade by its partners FAO and big companies (TNC's/MNC) in the world food fulfilled have launched GMO technology or genetic modified/biotechnology on the name of food endurance. GMO only as a strategy change of failed green revolution, so that commercialization grow and seed politization. Agriculture seed develope become commercial things and private, that supported by international patent system under WTO agreement, TRIPS. Various of biodiversity then become "green gold" field that see gene or DNA molecule just a potential thing to make money. So next happening is nuftah plasm that seldom and useful almost disappear bloked by technology and peasant patent right by company/ Rich countries at north, mso to develope seed (before is belong to communal). Peasant has to pay license fee/cost of production increased, peasant dependence of genetic modified products/ seed supplier company. Production's equipment, either management and disapperance of various of biodiversity. Adagium safes people from hunger and deficiency being way to smash and dependence. Biotechnology then become nee-colonialism politics ways to manage people including life and culture.Unfortunately lands in Indonesia also being a place for combination of experiments from some GMO products, that extend to ecosystem out of laboratorium and cool zone (zone of advance countries) to know the security and successful wich use tropic lands are example is transgenic cotton plantation, product of monsanto (one of TNCs), in the South Sulawesi and Bt corn agriculture packet in Java.




Agenda of Peasant Strugle againts Liberalization of Agriculture MarketAgriculture free trade is more increasing poor people in country side, increasing of peasant who has no land, agiculture pattern that (subsisten) become profit oriented, food depence with big countries and hunger caused by unbalanced distribution and concentrated food authority, trap in cheaper food import, disapperance of local biodiversity wich managed by big companies and there is no market acces for agricultural products of develope countries because rules made by WTO (example : SPS, where rich countries decide consumption standart)This reality, become our think to bring peasant actions that more considering development of next strategy for aim that will guarantee sense of justice and food sovereignty either agriculture structure authorithy.Because of that we decide food sovereignty is RIGHT, People's right to decide agriculture and food policy, not by trade institution like WTO. For Via Campesina, food sovereignty after agrarian reform proceed need:Priority towards health food production, good quality and accorded with culture, especially for domestic market. Where food production maintained by peasant membered production to guarantee independence and food sovereignty for people. To supply advantage price for peasant (man and woman), protect internal market from

lower price import attack. To manage production in internal market to avoid surplus. To stop industrialization of production methode anf development of family agriculture

according production that able survive will survive. To stop supports towards agricultural activities directly or indirectly for export oriented. To stop peasant work who has no continuation, injustice for hirer and peasant, and to

support activities that support concentration of agraian reform and continuity agriculture.

Production and Consumption Protect peasant towards various. Bio treasures that belong to peasant and peasant

freedom to do tradition seed barter Prohibit patent on life by regime of intellectual property patent Develope local food economy according to production processing and local food

marketingGenetical Modified (GMO's)Prohibit the production of f and trade in genetically modified seed, food, animal feed and related productsPeasant RightsRealization of peasant rights is pre-condition to do reform of agrarian1. Peasant rights on life2. Right of authority and management of agrarian resources3. Peasant rights of production4. Peasant rights of consumption5. Peasant Rights of product marketing, dupplies and right of intellectual property of

products6. Peasant rights of posterity existence and other creatures that guarantee existence




7. Peasant rights of explanationAgrarian Reform as Fundament of Food SovereigntyWhat agrarian source are earth, water, air, land, space and all treasure of nature content. Now days, authority and agrarian property mentioned especially in Indonesia just concentrate for some people so that in free trade condition will cause misery for peasants, a good step has to take is agrarian reform. Because agrarian reform means do re-system towards authority and possession of agrarian sources.So that agrarian reform specifically in agriculture land supplied for landless and all people that mean land reform accured (land distribution) that followed by demolishion programs of agricultural production like technology, agricultural equipment, seed authority and other things that also protect environment.Then agrarian reform should combined in food sovereignty policy, so right for all people to manage agricultural to be able to get much products all of the years. With priority to all of people of the world to get their own food with cheap price and good quality.Each agrarian reform should include: Policy of infrastructure, irrigation, countyside roads, electricity etc. Policy to manage land utilization that describe agriculture region, countryside region,

residence region Catalogue of occupant activities to avoid seat of countryside by some people management of agricultural products to avoid formation of agricultural products that

aren't tradition or not match for some countries in the world Prevent commercialization of production right and realization of production control that

controlling production, especially for export and guarantee food sovereignty for people of each region.

Globalize The Struggle, Globalize The Hope




TRADE LIBERALISATION IMPACT ON FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS

Brenda TohianaDevelopment Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)

Access to adequate, safe and nutritious food is a fundamental human right but nearly a billion people are living in hunger. Our most immediate task is to promote international solidarity and a common agenda for a world food system that guarantees the right of all humankind to adequate, safe and nutritious food while at the same time protecting the rights of workers engaged on food production. Often agricultural workers who help feed the world are often unable to feed them selves nor do they have access to systems of legal protection for their right, health and welfare. All too often we do not think of the hard ships which impact on the livelihood of workers engaged in food production when we sit down to a meal of rice or wheat.The proponents of trade liberalization are performing a huge experiment in humankind and all life on earth by pushing one kind of economics around the world. Under the existing set up, the global economy has no balance and no input from all stockholders, the different sectors of society. We are increasingly becoming aware of the growing power of corporations in the food sector is changing the way we produce and eat as a handful of companies extend control over our seeds, water, chemical inputs processing and even genetic foundations of the world food system. WTO rules strengthen corporate influence. It is imperative to promote international solidarity and a common agenda for a world food system that guarantees the right to all adequate, safe and nutritious food while protecting the rights of workers who produce the food.Today we are expected to welcome “free trade”, to see it as a means to achieving economic growth and development as an honorable or self respecting way of earning ones own keep, living by one's own means and slowly move away from aid dependency. Not owning a television set, a car or telephone makes one poor in the perspective of the developed world, therefore free trade will equip the poor with the means of reaching that state of affluence. This would be the interpretation by the simple village people from my own background. They would be satisfied with just simple appropriate village technology that would enable them to improve and manage sustainability their own resources for their own use, and not elaborate technology which are often destructive to the environment and in the end minimize their livelihoods.The theory of economic dreamers about a fair and equal level playing field of “free trade” creates a situation where small competitors are set one against the other; the powerful corporate agro-business in the developed world against small farmers in the developing world etc. Open access to national markets, business opportunities and contracts, national resources and services through the WTO means opening competition in all nation states to stronger players with the means and tools to use new trade rules to their advantage. One area in which impacts are very noticeable is food trade. In the developing countries it is common knowledge that the impact of trade liberalizations has resulted in increased food imports by developing countries but have not been accompanied by increased food exports to developed countries. The reality has been that trade imbalances between the north and the south have widened under the global regime of free trade. What is becoming very clear is that free trade is having severely negative effects on the economies of developing countries. The smaller / poorer producers who are losing their livelihoods to larger, more efficient producers either elsewhere or within their own natural borders are feeling the worst impacts. National Industries in some countries are taken over by bigger often foreign competitors who drive smaller local producers out of business. So the inevitable happens with prices of basic goods and services increasing beyond the economic ability of simple




people to pay for. It is often a heartbreaking experience to see families sharing perhaps two towels between them or use the same piece of material (sarong) they wear at daytime as a bed sheet in the night. It is further heartbreaking to witness mothers with sick children turned back from the local clinic because there are no drugs to treat their malaria. The reason: there is no government supply of medicines available. Why? Because our governments are burdened with World Bank debts; burdened with meeting interest payments on loans that were drawn down at the advise of economists from the world bank on the precepts of improving the situation. Instead it has been regressive development all along.For small nation states such as ours in the South Pacific huge increases in food imports into our countries are damaging the livelihoods of small scale farmers and not helping to achieve food security. In addition to this our countries have been facing difficulties in coping with import surges in particular products, (especially meat products) with detrimental effects on competing domestic sectors. There is a fear that without adequate market protection, accompanied by agricultural development programs, many products which have been traditionally produced domestically will be imported, with an increasing dependence on imported foods. Is this the kind of climate we require for sustainable development to ensure continuous livelihoods within our communities. The picture painted has not been a bright let alone a colorful one.Trade liberalization has a built in bias towards large food producers. The concept of trade liberalization to developing nations comes hand in hand with the structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and IMF. The SAP effect has been an erosion of the role of the state and erodes the support provided to farmers, while it creates a favorable and healthy economic environment to TNC's. Further observations has been that trade liberalization has been encouraging the dumping of world food surpluses of the north to the south. TNCs are more interested in export crops than in food crops, they are also more interested in the more lucrative foreign markets supplying high-income food buyers than in meeting local food needs. The effect on smaller producers is that they cannot obtain economics prices for the goods they produce, even in their domestic markets. This has often meant their produce cannot compete with imported food products. There have been many studies conducted to track impacts of trade liberalization on food security and livelihoods. Our own experiences with realities in our own communities and countries may not have been documented but a common factor remains: small holder incomes have fallen and malnutrition among the rural poor has risen.In the Pacific, trade liberalization is being realized among other things, through free trade by agreements which have for reaching consequences for Pacific Island people. The European Union secured its deal with Pacific States. Australia alarmed by the prospect, threatened to cut off aid if Australia lost its trade advantage through free trade access given to EU. Another agreement was then reached to accommodate Australia and New Zealand to mollify their anxieties about EU securing access of its products to Pacific Island markets at lower tariffs or duty free in return for the renewal of trade preferences and development assistance under the Cotonou Agreement. The bottom line is, if you don't sign the agreements, you will be barred as a trading partner and so the bully continues with barriers all around until you choke to death.Australia’s trade with the Pacific Islands has always been to its favor. Pacific Island countries combined buy much more then they sell to Australia. In this context, it is therefore safe to assume that a free trade agreement with Australia will see an even greater flood of Australian goods and services into Pacific Island countries without necessarily any corresponding rise in the flow of Pacific Island goods to Australia. Australia and EU through their businesses based in Australia and the EU, stand poised and ready to take advantage of the market access that free trade agreement would provide to them. Pacific Island investors




and entrepreneurs will likely have a much harder time establishing their markets for their products in Australia and the EU.Narrowing the discussion to my Pacific country, Papua New Guinea, the scenario is very much what was stated in the above statement. My country became a developing Australian economy over the last ten years and continues to do so. Formerly administered by Australia under a UN mandate, Papua New Guinea even after independence has continued to be influenced by its former master. Massive Australian aid is poured into the country linked to projects. Who are the biggest beneficiaries? The big businesses who are often foreign owned. This aid often boomerangs back to the donor country through consultancy services awarded on contract basis designed as many assert to ensure that money flows back to the donor. It does not stay in the country to contribute to economic growth.In terms of imported goods and services, these have increasingly dwarfed locally produced goods and with a weak currency goods and services are becoming more expensive. The flow on effect has been high prices for urban dwellers, a majority of whom are minimum income earners who desperately try to make ends meet everyday. With high prices on foods and services, more and more people are becoming hungry. They do not have the security in the money they earn to maintain their families and this affects all other areas of basic existence for them. In a span of ten years, their livelihoods were curtailed to a level of constantly trying to survive each day. Our governments too, from the perspective of ordinary citizens have become victims through austerity measures imposed by the IMF and the World Bank which have forced our governments to comply through the process of transferring public assets to the private sector. This has been another erosion of peoples abilities to pay for basic services. We are now becoming more and more aware that the corporate system not only encourages greed but also demands it: it therefore affects our abilities to govern ourselves and the chain reaction is never ending.The socio economic crises we face more and more through increased poverty, unemployment, upsurge in crime, violence against women is directly attributed to and linked to austerity measures imposed by these structural adjustment programs. Sadly our governments dependency on dominant players in the global economy have created a situation where our governments are seen to have lost their rights to determining the direction of their own societies; the rights to protect their country's industries, their lands and their traditional ways of life. We have literally been asked to open our doors further to overseas products, to overseas investments and overseas service producers. Our national assets are being opened to outside interests; the labor of our workers are being made available at the lowest cost. In reality, we are being forced to surrender our control to outside forces, there by diminishing our rights and freedom at a huge cost. This freedom is the basis of our very livelihoods. In the name of development through rapid economic growth through free trade on a level playing field, our governments are advancing the subordination of our livelihoods, our food security, our human rights, consumer and environmental rights, indigenous rights and democratic rights to the imperatives of global trade and investment.

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GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOs) IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: FOOD SECURITY MYTHS

AND ALARMING REALITIES Elenita Daño

Executive Director, Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE)

Lessons from History: The Green Revolution Mystery The UNDP's Human Development Report in 2001 explicitly pointed out that “throughout history, technology has been a powerful tool for human development and poverty reduction”. True. But, it failed to account that throughout history too, the introduction of technology has aggravated the inequitable distribution of wealth and has resulted to further marginalization of impoverished groups.The case of the Green Revolution clearly illustrates this. While the introduction of modem seeds coupled with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation has doubled the yield of cereals in some countries in Asia, it has failed to improve the rural poverty situation. Even statistics from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) point out that despite the phenomenal increases in yield and production from the thirty years of the Green Revolution reaching as high 114 percent, there was an increase on the number of hungry people worldwide by 11 percent in the same period. Scientists admit that there is indeed “a mysterious correlation” between production and hunger. If these scientists only bothered to look at the socio-political relations within and among countries, they would have solved this “mystery”. The world currently produces more than enough food to feed its present population, based on the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Ironically, hundreds of millions of people go hungry everyday, and more than two-third of them live in countries that produce food surplus.GMOs and Food SecurityThe current trends in research, development and commercialization of genetic engineering in food and agriculture tend to disprove the assertion that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) contribute to food security nor do the trends show that it could be a powerful tool for food security.Statistics show that more than 98 percent of the transgenic crops planted in 2000 are found in only three countries: United States, Canada and Argentina. Of the crop types planted, all are key agricultural exports of developed countries, namely corn, soybeans and canola.It is interesting to note that despite the hype on genetic engineering as a solution to world hunger, the crops currently targeted for genetic engineering are not even staple crops of the hungry people of the world. Statistics show that about two-thirds of the corn produced in the US in 1997 ended up as animal feeds and a negligible part was allocated as food aid to the hungry in the world's poorest countries.In considering the potentials of GMOs in giving the hungry mouths of this world nutritious food, it is worth looking into more statistics on transgenic crop cultivation in 2000. Of the total transgenic crops commercialized in that year, majority were engineered to express insecticidal traits, such as the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin to ward off corn borer and those that were manipulated to express herbicide resistant traits aimed at selling the herbicides produced by the same companies that sell the engineered seeds. A negligible percentage of the total GM crops in the market were engineered to improve nutritional value.




GMOs: Who Calls the Shot?In looking at GMOs as a tool in ensuring world food security, it would be very instructive to look into the landscape of the gene industry. It is only realistic to look into the forces that determine the agenda and direction of research in GMOs. Statistics undoubtedly indicates the corporate concentration that characterizes the genetic engineering industry. More notable are the trends showing the corporate consolidation and merging in the agriculture, chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. This phenomenal merging resulted to the development of the "Life Industry" comprised of a handful of giant corporations that virtually control the production and marketing of seeds, chemical inputs and pharmaceuticals.More than a science, genetic engineering means business to a few giant transnational corporations that monopolize the production and distribution of hybrid seeds and chemical inputs. The largest ten of these corporations control the world production of more than 30 percent of seeds and more than 90 percent of chemical inputs. Not incidentally, these corporations are the ones that also dominate the biotechnology industry in the world. To these corporations, farmers are mere consumers of products that corporate scientists develop. Farmers are end-users of products developed by companies that dictate the price, monopolize the production and control the supply.Intellectual property rights (IPRs) and plant variety protection (PVP) have become tools for corporations to further assert their control over genetically engineered products, which are ironically often based on the knowledge and resources nurtured by farmers in the South. Monsanto's Gene Licensing Agreement of 1996 resulted to 555 farmers from across the US and Canada who dared exercise their inherent right to exchange and re-plant seeds, ended up being sued by the company for violating its rights over patented seeds. This example sets the direction to which farmers in countries that adopt genetic engineering as an agricultural strategy will lead. Corporations will reap profit at the expense of poor farmers who will be made to believe in another silver bullet to solve agricultural woes, like the way it was in the Green Revolution. Choice is not an issue in such a situation. History tells us that option is an illusion for most farmers when government policies and programs are put in motion to support a particular agenda. The Green Revolution experience unfolded the reality that farmers were left with no choice but to use modern seeds and chemical inputs in situations where agricultural loans and crop insurance are tied to the use of a prescribed technology package.Alarming Realities: Threats Posed by GMOsDespite the aura of sophistication put unto it by proponents, genetic engineering is a highly imprecise science. Honest scientists admit that they know so little about the dynamic interaction among and between genes that comprise an organism, despite the current excitement on the mapping of the rice and human genomes. Molecular biologists may know what a particular gene is for, but they are often not definite on how it functions and interacts with other genes. The world has seen how the genetic engineering industry was humbled by the admission on unexpected consequences such as Pioneer Hi-Bred's genetically modified soybeans that expressed the allergenic trait of Brazilian nut and the monstrous salmon that resulted from a genetic engineering experiment in Canada.The imprecision of genetic engineering as a science is further demonstrated by the risks and uncertainties surrounding this technology over the past few years when commercialization is already in full swing. There is virtually no independent study conducted on the health impacts of genetically engineered food, until the controversial study of Dr. Arpad Puztai on genetically modified potatoes fed on rodents was publicized in 1999. Puztai’s study showed that experimental rats suffered from damages in their major internal organs. No feeding study on primates exist, neither is there a single population study on the health effects of genetically engineered food. Biotech corporations have consistently, persistently and systematically suppressed any information that casts doubts on the safety of genetic




engineering. The testimonies of Canadian regulatory agencies on how Monsanto has attempted to suppress information on the breast cancer risks posed by recombinant bovine growth hormones (rBgH) would attest this. The US government has suppressed a memorandum dating in 1993 that revealed an experiment in which 4 of 20 female rodents fed with FlavrSavr tomato suffered gross stomach lesions. The British Medical Association issued a call in 1999 for a halt on the use of antibiotic resistance markers in genetic engineering research because of grave threat to human health.The evidences on the environmental hazards posed by genetically engineered crops are mounting. Scientists from Comell University and Iowa proved that pollen from genetically engineered Bt corn is damaging for monarch butterflies. Studies in Switzerland and the UK also showed adverse and unexpected effects of various genetically modified crops on non-target beneficial insects such as lady bugs. Researchers from the US and Venezuela have recently confirmed earlier studies that the toxin from Bt crops escape into the soil killing larvae up to 25 days after the break-out.Genetic engineering has also failed to deliver its promise of bountiful and healthy crops in many cases. The development of weeds which are more resistant to herbicides and development of weed resistance to a second herbicide have been documented across North America and Germany. Contrary to industry claim, independent studies conclude that farmers use more herbicides than before to control weeds in fields of herbicide-tolerant crops. Herbicide-tolerant cotton planted in the mid-west of the US in 1996 failed to flower since companies did not anticipate the effect of the weather fluctuations on the crop.All of these risks and uncertainties contributed to the very grim market potentials of genetically modified crops and food worldwide at present. North America's biggest agricultural trading partner, the European Union, has a standing ban on the commercial production and importation of genetically modified corn and soybeans since 1999. The same is true with Japan and South Korea, both major players in the world market.Most countries that have refused the entry of genetically modified crops into their territories have adopted stringent regulations on mandatory labeling of genetically modified crops and food. But this did not stop the controversial Starlink corn from illegally entering their borders. Aventis, the company that produces and sells Starlink, has admitted that it has already lost $1 billion, with the withdrawal of this product from the market. Starlink corn, permitted in the US only as livestock feed, showed up in taco shells, breakfast cereals and other corn-based processed foods in September 2000. This Bt corn variety, which contains a gene (cry 9c) that causes allergic reactions to humans, later showed up in processed foods in Europe and Japan.From these trends and developments, consumers and producers have all the reasons to doubt the claims of proponents of genetic engineering that GMOs is an important tool to attain food security. The risks and dangers in biodiversity and human health that this technology pose cannot be simply ignored. The Precautionary Principle espoused in Agenda 21 should therefore be adopted by governments when deciding on this issue.

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OPEN FORUM

1. Gigi Francisco (Philippines)The Official delegation from PCSD, they said that there were 2 issues that the government did not agree with. Enlighten us some more on what were the political dynamics that happened between the PCSD and the government? This is a question for Net. In the last few days there are two participants of the official Philippine delegation representing the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) which is supposed to be the coalition of NGOs recognized by the Philippine government. According to two of our friends inside, there were two issues that the Philippine government did not agree with, that were demanded by the PCSD. One is, no to GMO. And the other one is, rethink the position of the Phiilppines in the CAIRNS group within the WTO. My question or request is if you can enlighten us more on what were the political dynamic that took place in the negotiation between the PCSD, the no to GMO campaign, and what is now the tension that we need to address in this current negotiation.

2. Ibang Lukman (a farmer from Indonesia)(translation from Bahasa)I would like to know, how you oppose or reject the technologies proposed by the academe? How can we sue them? And, how we can overcome the military and people who have investment and who come to monopolize our capital?There is a development in Indonesia and I would like to know how we can make new contacts about the development.

3. Imam Suharto (Indonesia)My question is for Ms. Brenda, I think what you are saying in your paper is at least the same with situation in Indonesia. My question is what the women communities of your organization do to deal with the government policies in your country Papua New Guinea?

4. Elenita Daño There was a very bitter debate within the delegation just before we left, I also seat in the delegation as part of the PCSD and we had very bitter debate, between the civil society counterpart and the Philippine government because we were suggesting that we, here, as a maximum position should push for (1) a moratorium on field releases and commercialization of GMOs, (2) push for mandatory labelling and (3) push strongly and urge countries for the immediate ratification of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The 3rd one was accepted by the Philippine government because that’s quite tamed. The question that they asked before accepting this is, “how do you think the US will react?” We said, “the US will not like it of course because they do not have any intention to ratify in the first place.” But they said, ok, if the ASEAN will push for it and we said Malaysia will definitely push for it and even Indonesia. And they said if they get support from ASEAN they will push for it. But the mandatory labelling and the moratorium, they said they can not support it. And we understand why, because it will be very embarassing to push for that in an international negotiation when all the world




knows that the Philippines has already legalized the importation and commercialization of GMOs. They will look funny. So the compromise was just to push for the ratification.On the question, “how do you oppose technologoies being proposed by the academe, we’re having difficulty in this because we were counting on the science and technology community to support the calls for alternatives to genetic engineering but the problem is they’re so very much in need of funds that they grab all the research collaboration being offered by transnational corporations. And that’s the reason why they are very much into genetic engineering because most of their funds come from companies who are pushing for genetic engineering now. The challenge really is how do we win over the public research institutions to our side to support alternatives to genetic engineering particularly sustainable agriculture and organic agriculture.The last question is how do we sue them. We have experiences in the Philippines, in fact they have called us “sue”rice instead of searice because we have sued this company three times even up to the Supreme Court and we did not win any of them. We’re actually having second thoughts now on whether the legal system could help us in fighting for this campaign. Maybe it would take some time before we could condition to make the factors favorable for us for any legal case.

5. Brenda TohianaOn the question what do women do, having come out of a conflict situation we the women push for the peace process to be initiated. We demanded that peace is a right for the women and children of the island. We continue to do so in getting the government to allocate funds to our sisters with our work to deal with violence in the communities. We go to agencies like the police and ensure that they shift their position on the issues of violence against women because w e had cases where police being indifferent to the problems that affected our women that were brought to their attention. What we have done practically in that area was to obtain funds to conduct workshop for the police personnel on issues that related to gender and violence with women. So through that mechanism we have synthesized them to the issues that affect women.

6. Achmad Ya’kub(translation from Bahasa)I would like to say in brief, how to refuse the GMO sponsored by sceintists? I think GMO promotion is not only scientists but 350 corporations that invested in it. And they are all enemies of the peasants. What we can do is to boycott in every levels especially at the level of the religious. On how we can bring it to the court, I think now we believe that the courts can’t do it. From the experience of Kopalindo, an environmental organization in Indonesia, we tried to bring it to the court but it failed. I think that experience, well leave it to Kopalindo to do it. But the rest of us have to be in the people’s movement against GMO. The strategy at the village against military oppression, I think, has been done by most of our friends here in Indonesia especially through the guerilla movement in the villages. We believe that the military will take on our side if we control all the means of production of the village. The conscientization is among the peasants that they are aware and we are challenged by participatory education and also advocacy.



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