“Agriculture and Food” not “Agriculture and Trade”

To GMA: Do not trade away our Rights!

To the Filipino People: We deserve leaders who will fight for our Rights!

“Agriculture and Food” not “Agriculture and Trade”

Statement of the International Gender and Trade Network

Lamy is clearly applying political pressure on Indonesia and the Philippines to soften their stance on Special Products and Special Safeguard Measures. His visit is nothing more but a continuation of the pressure placed on G 33 countries in Davos last month, and before this by the World Bank that tried to discredit in a technical report the G 33’s proposals for SP and SSM.

Without doubt, the sortie of Lamy through these two countries is an attempt by the WTO Secretariat to apply direct pressure on national capitals of two countries whose trade negotiators have been at the leadership of the fight by 40 developing countries to put in place SP and SSM in any Doha agreement. The SPs and SSMs are defensive measures that the WTO allows countries to use to protect their small farmers from import surges arising, for instance, from influx of cheap products from heavily subsidized agricultural production in the US and the EU.

Behind the SP and SSM lie the interest of small farmers, the right of societies to grow process and distribute their own food, and the need to develop local economies and rural communities. The SP and the SSM, in particular, will give developing countries time and policy space to improve the productivity and incomes of their farmers so that they can secure their food security and become better prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of freer agricultural trade. My organization, the International Gender and Trade Network, believes that these are the drivers of real development that would allow small farmers incomes to rise, including women’s incomes and their livelihoods to flourish.

However, the motivation underlying Lamy’s visit is directly oppositional to these premises. By representing the interest of the EU and the US and pressuring countries to get a Doha deal inked soon, Lamy is promoting not farmers’ interests but the interests of agribusiness corporations in the US and EU that only wish to make all of our farmers contract growers for their global production networks. Rather than food sovereignty, Lamy clearly stands for immediate market access, no matter what the social costs are. And rather than sustainable agriculture and poverty reduction, Lamy is giving an undue advantage to verticalized industrial production and intensive agriculture.

A true leader of the Filipino people will act by defending the interests of the people, especially the poor Filipinos, and not be bullied by Lamy and his cohorts. A true leader is will not trade away the people’s rights! Once again, GMA’s worth as a leader is under test. We want to be optimistic, to give her the benefit of the doubt. But it is hard to be positive with GMA, given her track record of not listening to the people, of talking down to us, of publicly scolding even her most senior officials, of reprimanding the media for asking her honest but tough questions. So we are talking to the people instead and saying: “We deserve leaders who will not trade away our rights!” Make trade a public issue in this coming election. Choose leaders instead who will fight for our national economic development and sustainable future!