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Farmers, fishermen, unions up in arms over deal |
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| Activists representing farmers, fishermen and labour groups mobilised on Tuesday to oppose a global trade accord under discussion here by world trade ministers seeking a breakthrough in the long-delayed deal.
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Opponents argue that completion of the Doha round of trade liberalisation talks under the World Trade Organization (WTO) ambit will marginalise small farmers, worsen rising unemployment stemming from the financial downturn and exacerbate the food crisis in developing countries.
“How can we small farmers compete with corporations in developed nations, which control huge tracts of farm land and are backed by billions of dollars of government subsidies?” asked Yudhvir Singh from the Indian National Coordination Centre of Farmers Movement.
To press their case, Singh and other non-governmental organisations opposed to the Doha deal have set up a temporary tent about 100 metres outside the International Conference Centre in Geneva where ministers from 153 WTO states were meeting.
About 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide, according to official figures, between 1997 and 2009, Singh said, citing “cheap imports” and “dwindling incomes” as among causes.
The last push to break the eight-year Doha stalemate in July 2008 in Geneva ended in failure and was blamed largely on India’s disagreement with the United States over subsidy protection for poor farmers.
“There is emerging now a group of ‘grain capitalists’ and this has highlighted the need for the Doha Round to fight for what we call ‘agricultural sovereignty’,” said Pierre Duroc, a self proclaimed “radical ecologist” who heads the Swiss group Reseau Objection Croissance.
He called for a renewed campaign to set up cooperatives in developing nations for the “people to regain control” of the farm sector.
Deadlock over farm subsidies in rich nations and tariffs on industrial goods in developing ones has dashed repeated attempts to forge a new trade pact.
Japan’s family farmers movement Nouminren said the country was being forced to import rice under WTO negotiations even though it did not need it.
“A country that can produce enough of its own rice is being forced to become the third largest importer of rice globally,” the group said. “Such discussions are like those of the beings from another planet.”
Romain Benicchio of Oxfam International, an umbrella of 14 groups seeking global reforms, said developing countries in the Geneva talks had clearly “taken the lead in defending multilateralism in the face of disengagement from developed countries including the United States.”
Representatives of Our World is not for Sale, a loose coalition of groups, activists and social movements, said completion of the Doha Round would “further exacerbate, not resolve” the food and unemployment crises.
Trade unionists stressed in a statement that “little is on the table at the WTO currently for growth, development and creation of full, decent and productive employment.”
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