Posts in November 2005

Media Release | Focus On The Global South | 20 November 2005 In yet another deceitful move by rich industrialised […]

he body of Chung Yong-pum, a 38-year-old farmer in Damyang of South Cholla Province, about 350 kilometres south of Seoul, was found at his local town hall Saturday morning. Police said they found an empty bottle of herbicide near Chung's body, along with what appears to be a suicide note. "I wish this country will become a society where hard working people are respected," the note reads, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The government must come up with realistic policies for the rice market and the farming industry to allow farmers to live comfortably." Police suspect Chung committed suicide on Friday morning, Farmers' Day in South Korea and the eve of the opening of this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Pusan. Chung was a member of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation, a group of farming activists, and had actively participated in anti-liberalization campaigns, according to his neighbours and the police. They added he even entered a local college last year so as to learn more about agricultural trade problems.

1. Asia Partnership for Human Development (APHD) is an association of 22 Catholic development agencies from Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing inspiration and vision from scriptures and the Catholic Church’s social teachings, APHD works in solidarity with the poor, marginalized and oppressed peoples of Asia in their efforts for empowerment, development, and the promotion of their dignity and rights. The partnership commits itself to sharing, learning and capacity building in the context of the Asian realities of poverty, exploitation and exclusion, and the unfolding challenges of globalization. 2. In its regional advocacy work, APHD collaborates with Asia General (AG) partners ANGOC, AsiaDHRRA, SAWTEE and SEACON. At the global front, it strengthened its solidarity with Caritas Internationalis and its trade advocacy partner CIDSE. These collaborations are vital to APHD as it supports national advocacy work of partner agencies on sustainable agriculture, food security, and farmers’ rights, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and seed rights, and other trade-related issues centering on the WTO negotiations on TRIPs and agriculture (AoA).

Prince Albert, the monarch of Monaco, is not what you would call a farmer in need. But like Queen Elizabeth of Britain, he is among the elite farmers who benefit from billions of dollars in European agricultural subsidies. The royalty of Monaco, a small principality on the Mediterranean Sea, received more than 300,000 dollars last year in subsidies from the European Union to support cereal production on his land in northern France. Others get far higher subsidies. But the prince was on a list of 58 French farmers benefiting from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) released by the World Economy Group (GEM, after its French name), a research centre at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris.

Results of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Cambodia have consistently proven that small farmers can increase rice production while reducing fertilizer, seed and water inputs. SRI has led to significant yield increases with both traditional and international rice varieties.