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Farmers’ Regional Trade Agenda: Farmers’ Collective Voice on Trade in the ASEAN Region, Vol. 2 No. 3, October 2009.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying hard to go into free trade agreements (FTAs) with different countries. It believes that this will increase trade and help members sell their export products to more markets in other countries. It also wants to make ASEAN the world’s center of agricultural production. But in opening up markets and increasing trade, more imported goods from other countries can also come in.

These FTAs were supposed to be good for farmers, but actually, farmers have not been benefitting from these opportunities. From the experience of some countries, farmers benefit from FTAs only if they can compete in the international market and if they own land and other resources for production so that they can have the power to decide on what to plant on the land and how to use the resources.

Policies like FTAs have big impacts on farmers and agriculture, so it is important that farmers are able to voice their concerns and suggest ways to protect their sector and make sure that agriculture is developing.

This issue paper presents a regional trade agenda agreed on by several farmers’ organizations from the ASEAN region. This trade agenda includes recommendations that will help make small farmers more competitive. It also suggests ways of ensuring that farmers and the agricultural sector are protected from the harmful effects of opening up markets to international trade.

The farmers proposed policies and programs that will make sure that poor families have food on their tables and have reliable sources of income. They also suggested ways of achieving rural development and helping solve poverty in their countries.

This paper also describes the situation of farmers and the agricultural sector in the region, focusing on five ASEAN countries — Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

The issue paper has been translated into the languages of AFA members in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Click here to download the issue paper

International Climate Change Negotiations: Ensuring Support for Adaptation and Mitigation Measures in Smallholder Agriculture, Vol. 2 No. 4, December 2009.

In December 2009, women in Sayphusi, a village in the province of Attapeu in Laos, were busy washing dried mud from their paddy grains. They had very little to eat, and the muddied paddy – the only remnant from their rice crops which were damaged by the storm that struck their village in October – was the only food available. The storm caught them unaware and swept away their homes, crops and livestock.

Laos is a landlocked country and is very rarely visited by typhoons. But lately, farmers have noticed a lot of changes in the season. Like many countries in Southeast Asia, they can no longer rely on the natural flow of the seasons to guide their planting. It rains when it is not supposed to rain, and many times, the dry period stays longer and is much warmer than expected.

These have resulted in damaged crops, and hunger for their families. Meanwhile, in another part of the globe, world leaders have gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to hold the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The conference was envisioned to be a crucial juncture in the drive to address climate change and its impact on the world, especially on developing countries.

This issue paper discusses international instruments and processes in climate change negotiations, analyzes the place of agriculture in the negotiations, and proposes actions by farmers at the community, national, regional and international levels to ensuring support for adaptation and mitigation measures in smallholder agriculture.

The issue paper has been translated into the languages of AFA members in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Click here to download the issue paper

Dear members and partners,

You can now download the Chinese version of our brochure. The translation was made by our intern from Beijing, China.

Click here to download: afa-brochure-2009-06-18-with-chinese-translation

By Tsai Shu Hui, AFA

PAKISAMA, together with AFA, organized national consultation – dialogue on ASEAN economic and trade issues that will tackle and analyze the rice crisis in the perspective of the ASEAN region. Multi-sectoral representatives were present in the forum. This included people from the NGO community, farmer groups, and so on. The forum was held on April 22-23, 2008 at the College of Social Work and Community Development, UP Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.

The National Consultation-Diealogue on ASEAN Economic and Trade Issues was a meaty two-day affair, tackling the implications and impacts of the ASEAN Charter, Climate Change, Biofuels, and the current Rice Crisis among the farmers and fisherfolk members of PAKISAMA. With this information, the organization was able to formulate an initial plan of action on how to tackle these issues in the light of everything else that is happening in the country.

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Farmers in ASEAN member-countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand, can now understand more about ASEAN issues related to farmers in the region through an issue paper that has been translated into local languages.

The issue paper entitled “Understanding the ASEAN Charter and the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint”, published by AFA and AsiaDHRRA, is now available in Khmer, Bahasa, Tagalog, Viertnamese, and Thai versions.

AFA members from ASEAN countries (FNN in Cambodia, API in Indonesia, PAKISAMA in the Philippines, VNFU in Vietnam, and SORKORPOR in Thailand) did the translation of the issue paper for distribution to farmers in their respective countries.

Through the local versions of the issue paper, it is expected that farmers belonging to AFA member organizations will understand more about ASEAN-related issues affecting them and appreciate the efforts of their national farmers’ organizations on regional advocacy through AFA.

As part of its advocacy effort in the Asian region, AFA conducts dialogues and consultations with ASEAN to understand more the issues concerning farmers and agriculture and put forward the farmers’ analysis and position on these issues, in the hope of affecting the regional inter-government body’s policies and activities.

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The 2007 AFA Annual Report is now available for download at the AFA website.

The report contains AFA’s activities, results, major challenges and recommendations, members’ activities, and financial report for the year that passed.

Click here to download the report in PDF format.

The issue of Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SP/SSM) is a key issue in the current Doha Round of negotiations. The SP/SSM seems to be one of few issues that developing countries are quite strong on, and that the US is strongly opposed to, meaning that if the developing countries (G33) stay strong in defense of SP/SSM, it could keep the Round deadlocked. If the Round goes through, then SP and SSM are measures to protect farmers from further damage from WTO rules.
This issue paper presents basic information on SP/SSM, reviews the G33 position, CSO position, and proposes advocacy points for farmers.
Written for AFA by Lany Rebagay of AsiaDHRRA.

Available download here:

Issue paper on sp/ssm

Using a free online software:

http://world.altavista.com/tr

The AFA website can now be viewed in Korean, Japanese, or Chinese.

Download the attached file and follow the instructions.

How to translate the AFA website

This monograph presents the highlights of the farmers’ exchange visits (FEVs) in Indonesia and Japan, conducted by AFA, in cooperation with AsiaDHRRA. It also contains the highlights of the field visits held during regional consultations in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. All of these FEVs and field visits occurred during the years 2006-2007.

The conduct of these farmers’ exchange and field visits is in line with AFA’s strategic plan for 2006-2010.

The publication of this monograph was made possible with the support of Agriterra.

To download a PDF copy of this monograph, click here.

To order hard copies of this monograph, get in touch with the AFA Secretariat.

AFA and AsiaDHRRA Issue Paper. Vol. 3, No. 1. Quezon City, Philippines, February 2008.

The ASEAN Charter and the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint are two important documents that the 40-year old ASEAN recently signed in order to advance it vision of a “sharing and caring community”. Because majority of the people of Southeast Asia are small-scale farmers who depend on agriculture for their existence, it is important to ask how the charter, the blueprint, as well as the various free trade agreements will impact on them.

This issue paper presents basic information on the ASEAN Charter and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint, including updates on ASEAN Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), as well as AFA’s analysis and position on these topics. It was written by Focus on the Global South Program Coordinator Joy Chavez, who has been one of AFA’s resource persons in its regional consultations on ASEAN-related matters.

To download a PDF copy of this issue paper, click here

To order hard copies of this issue paper, get in touch with the AFA Secretariat.