Food sovereignty

An alternative to global industrial agriculture

Posted by Jon Rynn (Guest Contributor) at 11:01 AM on 18 May 2008

Read more about: agriculture | ag policy | food | industrial ag

At the conclusion to an article on the global food crisis, Walden Bello discusses an idea put forward by an international farmer's group, Via Campesina:

Food sovereignty means, first of all, the right of a country to determine its production and consumption of food and the exemption of agriculture from global trade regimes like that of the WTO. It also means consolidation of a smallholder-centered agriculture via protection of the domestic market from low-priced imports; remunerative prices for farmers and fisherfolk; abolition of all direct and indirect export subsidies; and the phasing out of domestic subsidies that promote unsustainable agriculture. Via's platform also calls for an end to the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights regime, or TRIPs, which allows corporations to patent plant seeds; opposes agro-technology based on genetic engineering; and demands land reform. In contrast to an integrated global monoculture, Via offers the vision of an international agricultural economy composed of diverse national agricultural economies trading with one another but focused primarily on domestic production.

Sounds like a good concept for the United States, too.

For story: Food sovereignty
3 Comments | Post a Comment

Policies will have to change as the world

population heads for 10 billion and pressure builds to put the last carbon sinks under the plow.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:51 PM on 18 May 2008

Slow learners?

Agreed BioD. Almost 10 years after the Seattle WTO protests, the World Bank is finally conceding the Washington Consensus was a failed policy!

"What we learned is not that things went crazily off base in the Washington Consensus, but that in some sense that set of propositions was not enough to get the job done," Mr Spence says. The old approach was too formulaic. "No one set of policies will work in all circumstances. An effective strategy as far as I can tell is context specific, country specific, time specific." Rather than offer a single blueprint for policy, Mr Spence aims to provide a strategic framework for thinking about the issues that go into development - like Mr Porter's corporate strategy guidelines

Of course, I don't know if a corporate makeover will do the trick.

Meanwhile, the Bush-appointed President of the World Bank still doesn't appeared to have seen the light:

Mr. Zoellick tied the new deal for agriculture with a passionate call for agreement on a world trade deal that would cut agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the developed world. "If not now, when?" he asked

by Colin Wright at 10:26 PM on 18 May 2008

Oops, where is that editor when you need it?

Strike that Zoellick quote above! Cutting agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the developed world could certainly be a good thing. There is no one-size-fits-all but in general I think the developing world would gain by more access to U.S. markets -- as long as this does not mean opening developing countries markets to multinational corporations in return.

And while subsidized U.S. corn decimated Mexican farmers, there can sometimes be benefits to the South from U.S. agricultural subsidies. For instance, the Center for Economic and Policy Research in a critique of trade liberalization give the example of subsidized wheat [p.11]:

A third way that countries could end up with net loss as a result of trade liberalization is that they may be large consumers of subsidized exports. If a country eliminated its subsidies on these exports, then in standard models the importing country could lead to a loss to the importing nation. For example, if a country is a major consumer of subsidized wheat exports from the United States, and the United States then removes these subsidies, the importing country would be in a situation where it now has to pay more for the wheat it purchases.

by Colin Wright at 11:12 PM on 18 May 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.